3575. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 200–201.
Paris.
Tuesday morning. [Postmark: 10 July 1855]
What will you say of us? That we betray you once again? Lay it to the charge of the R Catholic hierarchy, & set us down as martyrs, my dearest, dearest Arabel—but the fact remains that we ca’nt leave Paris before wednesday, tomorrow—so that, the tides being inconvenient, we shant reach London till past one in the morning, nor Dorset Street, of course, till two at earliest. The people need only have our beds ready for us, & a little hot water, as we shall have eaten & drunken on the road– We go by Boulogne & Folkestone, I think I told you.
So on thursday morning, it must be a little past ten before you come. Dearest dear Arabel .. what a heartful (& running over) of joy & love, to look in your face!—in your faces, all of you!
Robert has gone with Ferdinando & Lily to the archevechè [1] .. in order to have an hour named for the ceremony. I hope the other difficulties are turned– She has agreed to submit to her husband’s wishes on the point of the children—and if they dont exact an oath from him, all will be safe: but I confess I feel no confidence in these priestly authorities. I have just had a note from Mdme Mohl who has been kindly active in our behalf, to the effect that the emperor himself could not wring from the church better terms. You see, here, a legal marriage is just the civil ceremony .. so that a frenchman need not apply to the church at all, if in conscience he does not prefer it—— But with an Italian .. a Tuscan .. (in Piedmont, they order it better) there is no legal marriage, except by the act ecclesiastical– We were in agonies about it the greater part of yesterday—& Ferdinando being desperate, had resolved to profess protestantism, renounce his country, and set up a fiacre (of all vocations adopted through melancholy!) in Lyons!—— Now we breathe again.
But it was necessary to wait another day. Of course we are horribly vexed. It’s expensive .. to say the best of it!– But the duty to poor Wilson was obvious. To have gone to London, & have had the same fight to fight .. & probably with worse results .. & her family standing by—would have been too sad for her, poor thing. She has shed tears enough, as it is–
Take our eggs off our hands, (if you can in all household economy) and order us fresh. I think we shall be true to you this time, dearest. Darling Arabel, my heart is with you—was, on the 4th of July, [2] .. will be till I see you. God bless you all–
Your Ba.
She is married. I will tell you all. [3]
Address: Angleterre. / Miss Barrett / 50. Wimpole Street / London.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 164–165.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. “Archbishop’s palace.” On the verso of Ferdinando’s Declaration of Marital Status, RB wrote the following memorandum: “Ferdinando Romagnoli a epousé Elizabeth Wilson, avec dispense de l’archevêque de Paris, à l’Eglise de Chaillôt, Paris, 10 Juillet, 1855, par le Vicaire Berlin, devant le temoin soussigné—Robert Browning. July 11. 1855” (ms at Huntington).
2. Arabella’s 42nd birthday.
3. EBB may have just learned or surmised that Wilson was pregnant; the Romagnoli’s first child, Orestes Wilson Romagnoli, was born on 13 October 1855. EBB later indicates in a letter to Henrietta that she was unaware of Wilson’s condition at the time of the departure from Florence (6 December [1855], ms at Camellia).
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