919. Mary Russell Mitford to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 251–252.
Three Mile Cross,
March 2, 1842.
Since writing to you yesterday, my beloved friend, I have read in H.F. C[horley]’s “Music and Manners” the account of a visit which he made to Madame d’Abrantes, I think in ’39. He speaks of the thing among Parisian contrasts. He went to see her, he says, in her two small rooms, humbly furnished; describes her as clumsy of figure, with dim eyes, a hoarse voice, and feverish spirits, and adds that the three last evils were caused by the excess of opiates in which she indulged. He says that the room rung with anecdote and repartee; that she took her full part of the noise; and that, in particular, she cajoled two or three black-bearded men, who wore “Journalist” imprinted in visible letters on every hair of their mustachios. He adds that a few months afterwards she died in a hospital; that almost at the last a party of visitors going through the wards, one of the nurses pointed her out to their notice, on which the dying woman exclaimed, “Are you making a show of me?” [1] Think of the ambassadress, the governess of Paris, the vice-queen of Portugal, labouring as a bookseller’s drudge; fancy the wife of Napoleon’s first aide-de-camp and friend, [2] the companion of Josephine, of Hortense, of Duroc, of Madame Mère, [3] forced to court such creatures as Balzac has painted in the “Journalists of Paris!” [4]
Is poor King Louis still alive? [5] Hortense is dead, I know. And is the captive of Ham the single or the married brother? [6] One of the two remaining sons of Louis died, I think; but, of these two, one was the husband of a daughter of his uncle Joseph, [7] so that he would unite hereafter every right to the Crown that the settlement under the Empire could give. This, I suppose, is Louis Philippe’s excuse.
Now, good-night! It has just occurred to me that when a young girl, some eleven years old or less, I went with my father to the pit of one of the theatres—Drury Lane, I believe; yes, Drury Lane—to see a tragedy from “The Monk.” Kemble played the hero, and Mrs. Siddons the heroine. She had to go into a dungeon where a frail nun had produced an infant, or rather she had to come out of a small door on to the stage, with the supposed baby in her arms. The door was what is technically called “practicable,” that is to say, a real door, frame and all, made to open in the scene, and to sustain the illusion of a dungeon, as well as in that huge stage such an illusion can be sustained—for, paradoxical as it sounds, so many are the discrepancies in the present ambitious state of scenery, that I am quite convinced that in the days of Shakspeare, when all was trusted to the imagination of the spectator, the fitting state of willing illusion was much more frequently obtained than now—however, to make the scene as dungeon-like as possible, the door was deeply arched, hollow and low; and Mrs. Siddons, miscalculating the width, knocked the head of the huge wax doll she carried so violently against the wooden framework that the unlucky figure broke its neck with the force of the blow, and the waxen head came rolling along the front of the stage. Lear could not have survived such a contretemps. The theatre echoed and re-echoed with shouts of laughter, and the tragedy being comfortably full of bombast, not only that act, but the whole piece, finished amidst peals of merriment unrivalled since the production of “Tom Thumb.” [8] I remember it as if it were yesterday.
Ever most affectionately yours,
M.R.M.
Text: L’Estrange (2), III, 138–140.
1. Laure Junot (née Permon, 1783–1838), Duchess d’Abrantès, was nicknamed “petite peste” by Napoleon. After her husband’s death in 1813, she participated in intrigues to restore the Bourbons. Her Mémoires (18 vols., 1831–34) were somewhat sarcastic and spiteful, especially with regard to Napoleon. The events mentioned by Miss Mitford were recounted by Chorley in vol. III, pp. 259–261.
2. Jean Andoche Junot (1771–1813), one of Napoleon’s generals, was created Duke d’Abrantès in 1807 and made Governor of Portugal. He was defeated at Vimiera by Wellington in 1808 and committed suicide on 29 July 1813 after becoming insane.
3. Joséphine (née de La Pagerie, 1763–1814), widow of Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais (1760–94), married Napoleon in 1796. Her daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais (1783–1837) married Napoleon’s brother Louis and was the mother of Napoleon III. Géraud Christophe Michel Duroc (1772–1813), aide-de-camp to Napoleon, was created Duke de Frioul in 1808. As Grand Marshal of the Tuileries, he was responsible for Napoleon’s safety; he was mortally wounded while with Napoleon at the Battle of Bautzen in 1813. Madame Mère was Napoleon’s mother, Maria Letizia Bonaparte (née Ramolino, 1750–1836).
4. Balzac despised the daily press, revenging himself for adverse criticism of his works by pillorying journalists and their profession in his novels.
5. Louis Bonaparte (1778–1846) was King of Holland from 1806 to 1810.
6. Charles Louis Bonaparte (1808–73), the youngest son of Louis Bonaparte, attempted to overthrow Louis Philippe in 1840. The attempt failed, and he was condemned to life imprisonment in the fortress of Ham, 90 miles N.E. of Paris, but escaped after six years. In 1848 he was elected President of France, and in 1852 proclaimed the Second Empire and himself Napoleon III. At the time of Miss Mitford’s enquiry, he was still unmarried.
7. Louis Bonaparte’s first son, Napoléon Charles, had died in 1807. The second son, Napoléon Louis (1804–31), had married his cousin, Charlotte Bonaparte (1802–39), daughter of Napoleon’s elder brother Joseph (1768–1844), King of Naples (1806–08) and King of Spain (1808–13).
8. The play, based on Lewis’s Ambrosio, or the Monk, was Aurelio and Miranda by James Boaden (1762–1839), the biographer of Kemble, Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Jordan. It was first performed at Drury Lane on 29 December 1798 (shortly after Miss Mitford’s 11th birthday) and was repeated four times in the following week. The Times of 31 December 1798, in its review of the first performance, made no mention of the mishap recounted by Miss Mitford, so presumably it occurred in a subsequent performance. The principal roles were played by John Philip Kemble (1757–1823) and his sister, Sarah Siddons (1755–1831).
Tom Thumb, a Tragedy, by Henry Fielding (1707–54), was given its first performance in 1730.
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