3040. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 117–122.
138 Avenue des Ch. Elysées.
May 9th [1852] [1]
I began a long letter to you in the impulse left by yours upon me, & then destroyed it by an accident. That hindered me from writing as soon as I should have done .. for indeed I am anxious to have other news of you my dearest dear Miss Mitford, & to know, if possible, that you are a little better– Are you quite, quite sure of your Mr May this time? Men are wise, but not all-wise; and is’nt it worth your while to take a new opinion & try a new remedy? I was told the other day, that the fashionable remedy for phthisis, cod liver oil, was good in every state of body almost, .. that it had a renewing & strengthening power quite marvellous, & that in cases of chronic rheumatism it had been found efficacious. Do ask Mr May at least, if it would not avail you, by enabling you to throw off your complaint in an access of strength? There’s no harm asking. I am not easy at your continual suffering, and although we may reasonably hope in the summer, still I should like the evil to be rooted out of the system by energetic means– You see it cant be common rheumatism– I cant help fancying that it all comes of debility in some way or other, & that if you could once be set up you would’nt necessarily be knocked down again very quickly. Tell me everything. Why you looked really well last summer—& I want to see you looking well this summer—for we shall probably be in London in June .. more’s the pity, perhaps!– The gladness I have in England is so leavened through & through with sadness, that I incline to do with it as one does with the black bread of the monks of Vallombrosa, only pretend to eat it & drop it slyly under the table. If it were not for some ties I would say “Farewell, England” [2] & never set foot on it again. There’s always an east wind for me in England, whether the sun shines or not, .. the moral east wind which is colder than any other– But how dull to go on talking of the weather! Sia come vuole, [3] as we say in Italy.
Tomorrow is the great fête of your Louis Napoleon .. the distribution of the eagles. We have done our possible & impossible to get tickets .. because I had taken strongly into my head to want to go, & because Robert who did’nt care for it himself, cared for it for me .. but here’s the eleventh hour & our prospects remain gloomy. We did not apply sufficiently soon, I am afraid—and the name of the applicants have been Legion. It will be a grand sight .. & full of significances—nevertheless the empire wont come so—you will have to wait a little for the empire– Who were your financial authorities who praised Louis Napoleon? & do the same approve of the later measure about the three per cents? [4] I am so absolutely bête [5] upon such subjects, that I dont even pretend to be intelligent—but I heard yesterday from a direct source, that Roth[s]child [6] expressed a high admiration of the president’s financial ability. A friend [7] of that master in Israel, [8] said it to our friend Lady Elgin. Commerce is reviving, money is pouring in, confidence is being restored on all sides. Even the press palpitates again——ah, but I wish it were a little freer of the corset. This government is not after my heart after all. I only tolerate what appear to me the necessities of an exceptional situation. The masses are satisfied & hopeful, & the president stronger & stronger .. not by the sword, may it please the English press, but by the democracy.
I am delighted to see that the French government has protested against the reactionary iniquities of the Tuscan Grand Duke, [9] and every day I expect eagerly some helping hand to be stretched out to <Ro>me. I have looked for this from the very first, .. & certainly it is significant that the prince of Canino, the late president of the Roman republic, [10] should be in favour at the Elysée. Pio nono’s time is but short, I fancy—that is, reforms will be forced upon him.
When George Sand had audience with the president, he was very kind—did I tell you that? At the last, he said .. “Vous verrez—vous serez contente de moi.” [11] To which she answered .. “Et vous, vous serez content de moi.” [12] It was repeated to me as to the great dishonor of Madame Sand, and as a proof that she could not resist the influence of power & was a bad republican– I, on the contrary, thought the story quite honorable to both parties– It was for the sake of her rouge friends that she approached the president at all, & she has used the hand he stretched out to her only on behalf of persons in prison & distress. The same, being delivered, call her gratefully a recreant.
Victor Cousin and Villemain refuse to take the oath, & lose their situations in the Academy accordingly, but they retire on pensions, & it’s their own fault of course. [13] Michelet & Quinet should have an equivalent I think for what they have lost,—they are worthy, as poets, orators, dreamers, speculative thinkers, as anything in fact but instructors of youth. [14]
No—there is a brochure, or a little book somewhere, pretending to be a memoir of Balzac, but I have not seen it. [15] Some time before his death he had bought a country place, and there was a fruit tree in the garden .. I think a walnut tree—about which he delighted himself in making various financial calculations, after the manner of Cæsar Birotteau. [16] He built the house himself, & when it was finished, there was just one defect—it wanted a staircase. They had to put in the staircase afterwards. [17] The picture gallery however had been seen to from the first, & the great writer had chalked on the walls .. “Mon Raffaelle” .. “mon Corré<ge>” [18] .. “mon Titian” .. “mon Leonardo da Vinci” … the pictures being <yet> unattained. He is said to have been a little loth to spend money, <&> to have liked to dine magnificently at the restaurant, at the expence of his friends … forgetting to pay his own share of the entertainment. For the rest the ‘idée fixe’ of the man was to be rich one day [19] —& he threw his subtle imagination & vital poetry into pounds, shillings, & pence, with such force, that he worked the base element into spiritual splendours– Oh—to think of our having missed seeing that man. It is painful. A little book is published of his “thoughts & maxims” [20] .. the sweepings of his desk, I suppose .. broken notes probably, which would have been wrought up into some noble works, if he had lived– Some of these are very striking.
Lamartine has not yet paid us the promised visit. Just as we were beginning to feel vexed, we heard that the intermediate friend who was to have brought him, had been caught up by the government, & sent off to St Germain to “faire le mort,” [21] on pain of being sent farther. I mean Eugene Pelletan. If he talked in many places as he talked in this room, I cant be very much surprised [22] —but I am really very sorry. He is one of those amiable domestic men who delight in talking “battle, murder, & sudden death.” [23]
The other day we had a sudden vision of your friend Mr Fields. We were on the point of going out, & he promised to come again,—but we have not seen him since. I think however he must be in Paris—he would never go away before the fêtes. He was looking very well, & I cant think that, this time at least, you are likely to miss any “bloom”.– [24]
Mrs Jameson is in Paris, & has taken a<n> apartment in this house, so that we have the advantage of seeing a great deal of her. Ah—I wish you were here. And yet I have not ventured to press such a matter on you—you do not seem strong enough, you who are not used to travelling, & the change of diet & life altogether, implied by it. Also, we too have had east winds—though certainly not such weather as you have had in England. [25] Chesnuts & lilac trees & laburnums are in full blossom—it is very bright & lovely– Only nearly everybody has had, is having, or will have the grippe, (influenza) & Robert and our child have been seriously unwell with it– Poor little Wiedeman is as pale as this paper, & only beginning to rally. I never saw him so unwell,—& I have been sympathizing with him the last few days & not feeling as brisk as usual. We had a cold damp half week at the commencement of May, which did me harm I think—but here is summer, & we must all be well & go to see Rachel, & derogate at the Palais Royal [26] & Franconi’s if we can, anyhow– [27]
We hear nothing at all of Mr Chorley, and of your book simply that Galignani is on the point of bringing out a Paris edition– [28] You have had a great success—that is plain—and deserve all the laurels. <“Viva Peone” (Napoleone) as my baby says. Viva lei—!!> [29]
Did I tell you that Guer[r]azzi the ex minister of the Tuscan Grand Duke has sent me a manuscript chapter of an unfinished novel, [30] in token of his goodwill to me for my sympathy with Italy from ‘Casa Guidi Windows’. He somehow got the poem in his prison where he has been shut up these two years, & contrived to get out his own m∙s. I was the more touched, as my references to himself had been made in no admiring spirit, you remember.
We talk of going back to Italy towards next winter—to Florence & Rome—but our ultimate settlement, if we ever attain to it, is still talked of as in Paris.
The other day, I met M. de Tocqueville. Black hair & eyes, brow anything but capacious .. small, slight, full of talk & vivacity. I have not yet attained to Berenger. George Sand is in the country. Her last play failed on the whole & was withdrawn<.> Another is at hand, says report—and so is a romance, in which I am more interested. [31] We had Jadin to tea some evenings since, & the great Alexandre is coming to Paris, he told us. I must get to see Dumas when the possibility presents itself.
Ah—here’s the post hour—I wanted to write to the end of the page—but the rest must go to another letter.
Do take care of yourself, .. & also take care of me, at least so far as to let me know how you are. God bless you, my loved friend. Robert’s love–
Think of your ever affectionate
Ba–
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 356–361.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by reference to the return address; the only May in which the Brownings resided at 138 Avenue des Champs Élysées occurred in 1852.
2. Cf. Richard II, I, 3, 306.
3. “Let it be as it will.”
4. The Daily News of 29 April 1852 reported from Paris the previous day that the “Finance Minister is authorised by decree to create Three per Cent. stock to the amount of four-and-a-half million francs, to replace Four-and-a-Half per Cents., annulled” (p. 4).
5. “Stupid.”
6. Presumably, James (Jakob) de Rothschild (1792–1868), founder and head of the Rothschild Bank in France. He assisted in financing railroad construction and the mining and steel industries which were being developed under Louis Napoleon’s direction.
7. Unidentified.
8. Cf. John 3:10.
9. With encouragement from the Church of Rome, Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, was planning the repeal of the “Leopoldine laws,” which had been promulgated during the reign of his liberal grandfather, Leopold I (1747–92). Among other provisions, these laws had greatly reduced the influence and privileges of the church, while increasing personal freedoms, including freedom of religion, which extended to Jews. The Times of 30 April 1852 suggested that the Grand Duke hestitated to proceed with the repeal because all but one of his ministers had submitted their resignations in protest and the French chargé d’affaires was “reported to have declared that his Government would see with dissatisfaction any change in a reactionary sense” (p. 6).
10. Charles Lucien Bonaparte (1803–57), Prince of Canino and Musignano, was Napoleon I’s nephew and Louis Napoleon’s first cousin. He lived in Italy from 1828 to 1849 and grew to support Italian unity and independence. During the days of the Roman Republic he was elected vice-president of the Constituent Assembly. He fled Italy at the fall of the Republic in July 1849 and reached France but was shortly thereafter exiled on the orders of his first cousin. He was allowed to return in late 1850. Better known for his scientific research than for his politics, he published numerous works in zoology, including American Ornithology (4 vols., Philadelphia, 1825–33).
11. “You will see—you will be pleased with me.”
12. “And you, you will be pleased with me.”
13. Abel-François Villemain (1790–1870), literary historian, and Victor Cousin (1792–1867), philosopher, were professors, respectively, of French eloquence and ancient philosophy at the Sorbonne. They were elected members of the Académie Française in the 1830’s, and each had held the office of minister of public instruction during the reign of Louis Philippe. The Daily News of 8 May 1852 carried a report from Paris dated 6 May concerning the professors’ forced retirement: “The Moniteur announces to-day that by a decree of the 3rd instant … M. Villemain … and M. Cousin … have been admitted, upon their demand, to justify their rights to a retiring pension. This is merely an official form of announcing that those celebrated professors have been deprived of their chairs because they decline to take the oaths of fidelity to Louis Napoleon” (p. 5).
14. Leftist historians Jules Michelet (1798–1874) and Edgar Quinet (1803–75) were officially dismissed from their posts at the Collège de France on 12 April 1852, though both men had been barred from lecturing for several years. Michelet had held the chair of history since 1838; Quinet, the chair of language and literature of Southern Europe since 1842. The Daily News for 16 April 1852 ran a letter from a Paris correspondent on their dismissal: “This step has been taken by virtue of the powers usurped by the executive in the decree of March 9, which destroyed the privileges and independence of the university, and made the government sole arbiter in all questions touching the administration of this great teaching corps” (p. 5). The letter went on to strongly suggest that Michelet and Quinet, who had lectured—and had jointly published works—against Jesuitism and ultramontanism, were the victims of conservative Roman Catholic elements in the government. In June 1852, Michelet was forced to resign as Keeper of the National Archives when he refused to swear allegiance to Louis Napoleon.
15. M. de Balzac by Gustave Desnoiresterres (1817–92).
16. The title character of Balzac’s César Birotteau (1837).
17. M. de Balzac, p. 127.
18. i.e., “my Correggio.” This passage does not occur in M. de Balzac.
19. M. de Balzac, p. 129.
20. Maximes et Pensées de H. de Balzac (1852).
21. “Play dead.”
22. EBB had reported that Eugène Pelletan, strongly republican, was “furious against the coup d’etat” and denounced Napoleon I as “le plus grand scelerat du monde” (“the world’s greatest villain”); see letter 2988.
23. Cf. the Litany in The Book of Common Prayer.
24. During a visit from James T. Fields the previous autumn, Miss Mitford had evidently thought that he lacked a “bloom,” owing to the death of his first wife in July 1851. After Fields called on the Brownings at Paris in November, EBB wrote in letter 2987: “I do think he must have recovered his ‘bloom’ in passing the channel.” Fields visited Miss Mitford again around the beginning of June 1852.
25. In a letter to Charles Boner, dated 20 May 1852, Miss Mitford reported that “the east wind after staying with us for ten weeks has at last changed” (Memoirs and Letters of Charles Boner, ed. R.M. Kettle, 1871, I, 229).
26. Built for Cardinal Richelieu, it was completed in 1636 and named Palais Cardinal. Shortly before his death six years later, he gave it to Louis XIII, who renamed it Palais Royal. Located on Rue Saint Honoré facing the Louvre, the palace became a popular attraction in the late eighteenth century, with its gardens, shops, restaurants, and cafés. According to Galignani’s New Paris Guide (1852), one of these cafés, the Café des Aveugles, is “a place of amusement worthy of a visit by the curious traveller, as being a favourite resort of the lower classes. It takes its name from a band of blind musicians, who accompany singers in little vaudevilles” (p. 225). Situated at the southwest corner of the Palais Royal garden is the Comédie-Français (or Théâtre Français), where the actress Rachel was the star attraction.
27. Doubtless, EBB has in mind the Hippodrome, just beyond the Barrière de l’Étoile. Built and managed by Victor Franconi (1810–97), who was also one of its star performers, the Hippodrome opened in 1846. It was an open air arena that specialized in equestrian displays, including roman chariot races. Franconi was the grandson of Antonio Franconi who, with Philip Astley, operated what is considered the first circus in Paris. In 1852, Victor Franconi opened the Cirque Napoléon, later renamed the Cirque d’Hiver, which remains an attraction in Paris to this day.
28. Published in 1852 by A. and W. Galignani and Co., at 18 Rue de Varennes.
29. “Long live Peone … Long live you.” The passage in angle brackets was interpolated as an afterthought.
30. See letter 3003, note 20.
31. Sand’s novel Mont Revêche was issued in December 1852 with an 1853 publication date. Les Vacances de Pandolphe was the failed play; Le Démon du foyer, the play “at hand.”
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