3002. RB to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 6–8.
Avenue des Champs Elysées 138.
Feb. 4. ’52.
My dear George–
I consider that the very kind letter you wrote to Ba (too long ago!) was, after all, rather mine than hers—for beside my natural claim to the whole of it, there was so much addressed to me in particular that you have no right to complain of getting two answers: let this of mine thank you most heartily for all the pleasure you gave her—she will take the like care of me, I am certain. I dare say you fancy us in the middle of noise & bustle, as indeed we are—but our little nest hangs at the far-end of a twig in this wind-shaken tree of Paris, and the chirpings inside are louder to our ears than the bluster without. The weather has helped to shut us in—that is, to shut Ba in—she suffered much more than I had expected,—coughed far too often & deeply, and for a long time lost her voice all but completely. With better weather came better things—the cough may be considered gone, except when changes from hot rooms to colder provoke it—& the voice is restored. Let us but once get fresh air & a little exercise and all will go well as ever, we may hope. Our babe—boy, he is now indeed—is thriving & like to thrive. Ba will tell you, however.
Is it not strange that Ba cannot take your view, not to say mine & most people’s, of the President’s proceedings? I cannot understand it—we differ in our appreciation of facts, too—things that admit of proof. I suppose that the split happens in something like this way—we are both found agreeing on the difficulty of the position with the stupid, selfish & suicidal Assembly—when Louis Napoléon is found to cut the knot instead of untying it: Ba approves. I demur—still, one must not be pedantic and overexacting, and if the end justifies the beginning, the illegality of the step may be forgotten in the prompt restoration of the law—the man may stop the clock to set it right. But his next procedure is to put all the wheelwork in his pocket, and promise to cry the hour instead—which won’t do at all. Ba says, good arrangement or bad, the parishioners, seven millions strong, empowered him to get into the steeple & act as he pleased: while I don’t allow that they were in a condition to judge of the case, at liberty to speak their judgment, or (in the instance of the very few who may have been able to form & free to speak it) of any authority whatever on the previous part of the business—for I or you might join with the rest as to the after-expediency of keeping a bad servant rather than going altogether without one—we might say, “Now that you have stolen our clock, do stay & cry according to your promise—for certainly nobody else will.” And he does not keep his promise, as you see by the decrees from first to last; on that point Ba agrees with us again—but she will have it still that “they chose him”—and you return to my answer above, that denies the fact. And so end our debates, till the arrival of the next newspaper. You are infinitely better able to see how affairs go, you in England, than we here—for all our information is reflected from your newspapers—every other voice is mute—& “voice” means the speech of a man to his neighbour in the street, or of a lady to her guest in the drawing-room. Just to instance the oblique line by which opinion must travel to be harmless—people are waiting curiously for the sort of reception Montalembert will have to-morrow at the Institute, where he “reads himself in” [1] —those who, as liberals, hate him most (for his ultramontane bigotry, “legitimate” opinions & so forth) will see it their duty to applaud him to the echo, on the ground of his having broken with the government on its promulgation of the spoliation-measures [2] —just as if he had not done his utmost to help that government when it most needed help—and now that, in consequence, it can act as it pleases, Montalembert cries out on it & expects sympathy! None of mine shall he have when I hear him tomorrow, as I hope to do. [3]
Meantime one must make one’s little, satisfying world out of & inside the great one—& be happy there. Your sympathy, my dear George, is a great element in the happiness of ours—& I am grateful for such evidences of it as your letter. Will you remember me with all cordiality & affection to your Brothers & to Arabel? I don’t consider that a visit to London is so chimerical an adventure as she fancies—but we must wait & see. We have heard good news from Florence—our rooms are let, and not so badly—there being few visitors this season. At all events we lose nothing by that speculation. There is just room to re-affirm myself, my dear George,
Yours most faithfully ever,
RB.
Publication: B-GB, pp. 168–170.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. It is traditional that a newly elected member of the Académie Française read his reception speech, which is always a eulogy to the member being replaced, in this case, François-Xavier Droz (1773–1850), philosopher and political scientist. An English translation of Montalembert’s address was published in The Times of 6 February 1852, p. 6.
2. i.e., the Orleans decree; see letter 3001, note 12.
3. As RB indicated years later in a letter to Elizabeth Purefoy FitzGerald (19 September 1880, ms at Pforzheimer), he did attend the reception. His poem “Respectability” (1855) refers to Guizot’s receiving Charles de Montalembert at the Institute (lines 21–22). Montalembert had been elected to the Academie Française on 9 January 1851, but the reception was postponed more than once (see letter 2978, note 3).
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