3664. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 316–319.
102 Rue de Grenelle
Faubourg St Germain[,] Paris
Tuesday. [Postmark: 23 October 1855]
My ever beloved Arabel you will have imagined us to be sucked down by a maelstrom out of this living & letter-writing world. The fact is, we are in purgatory—‘priez pour nous’. [1] I had not the heart to write, nor should have now—only that you will be putting on mourning for us if I wait any more, besides being really unhappy which is worse than being even as uncomfortable as we are.
I think I told you in my letter from London that we were in a sort of scrape about an apartment—& that Sarianna went on before in order to get us out of it. The Corkrans had been looking out for rooms for us. They wrote to describe a house at fifty francs a month more than we wished to give, & having a room less than we required to occupy. Sarianna had written to specify both objections. Well—they persuaded the proprietaire to take off the fifty francs, and then, as if affairs of space were quite below their notice, signed in our name an agreement for six months, in the face of our injunctions to the contrary. Sarianna on coming to Paris found the thing in this state,—Baron & baroness (the proprietors) holding us by the bond like jews. [2] She besought that we might be allowed to see for ourselves, & (if the apartment could’nt be made to suit,) to be allowed to resign it. Not at all. They hold us like bloodhounds. It cant be made to suit. Peni has to sleep on the floor in our room. Robert has to dress in the salon. The front door opens into the dining-room. There’s only a roof above us, & under us nothing at all—therefore the cold is a sure thing. On the other hand the rooms are rather pretty .. prettily furnished, that is—though without carpets. Altogether we are utterly wretched, & Robert has been frantically wishing himself back at Mrs Green’s. [3] We pay two pounds, English, a week. Now the atrocious thing is that our Baron wont allow us to sublet, except on the condition of getting a tenant at two pound, ten shillings a week—which of course makes it more difficult. If we sublet at the sum we pay ourselves we are to identify [sic, for indemnify] our Baron, by presenting him with two hundred francs down .. the sum of eight pounds English–
Now observe the injustice of the world. Because our friends the Corkrans have made a mistake by disobeying our injunction & fixing us in this miserable trap, they follow it up by never coming near us!– And yet we have sent them a kind message & no reproach. But people in the wrong must get wronger by plunging. If a man wrongs another, the injurer is pretty sure never to forgive the victim.
Fancy us in this trap. Not a box unpacked. I have’nt even my own pen to write with, and have just snatched up the poker as you may observe by the character of the writing. [4] The aggravating point is that we have seen an apartment opposite, which, although the rooms are somewhat tiney, would exactly suit us by its arrangement.
We like this quarter of the town. The English are never seen here scarcely—it is much more characteristic & national. I can walk to the Tuileries—which I couldnt do from the house we occupied in the Champs Elysées—& the markets are more reasonable, not being unnaturally inflated by English & American influences. Ferdinando finds everything much cheaper than in London. Butter, milk & bread are perfect, and poultry excellent & cheap. For instance, a fine goose at 3s– 4d—a fowl of large size, sufficient for our whole dinner at two shillings & a penny. We shall do excellently if we can but get out of this detestable house. Meanwhile the comforts are that Penini looks like a rose & eats like a little wolf,—& that the weather is perfectly beautiful—warm & bright together. Also Harriet is very good-natured, & though she has a very reasonable opinion on the conveniences of the house, she makes the best of everything & is generous enough to admire Paris as if we were more prosperous. Penini treats her rather de haut en bas, [5] but allows she is kind—& indulges himself in calling on her for so much admiration of sights Parisian, that she must find his cicerone-ship somewhat fatiguing. I heard him begin at Boulogne—“Do you see these houses? all white! Sint of the dirty walls in London. Now I sint you dont want to go bat never. Oh yes—you will go and see your flends, of tourse!”
By the way we were prosperous in our journey—only poor Robert horribly ill on the sea—Penini a little, too. We arrived at one in the morning. At the custom-house they opened two boxes of our twelve, & simply glanced at those. Paris is beyond description beautiful. How they can keep the streets so clean, is a problem to me. [6] The new buildings harmonize wonderfully with the old, and the unity of beauty everywhere is most striking. [7]
Dearest darling Arabel, remember your promise to me—remember. To have you here will transport me with joy, & you must be true to me & try every possible means of getting here. Remember we will take charge of you. We shall be out of this net I do hope & trust in a few days–
Of course we have let nobody know we are here—we lie perdus till we emerge from our misfortunes. Robert ran into Mr Lytton & finding him out from home, left no address. [8] We have not looked into the exhibition [9] yet. But that I have not written to you, proves more than all the rest.
My dearest Arabel, Robert & I have a bed to sleep in .. meant for one– For my part I wake fifty times in the night when I sleep best.
But courage. Dont let me send you a letter full of groans from end to end. Last sunday we went to the protestant church close by, & heard M. Coquerel the famous minister, & member of the House of Assembly. [10] The church has an echo, & we had bad places so, that we scarcely heard one sentence in twenty—but he seemed to have great eloquence, & the discourse as far as I could guess at it, seemed good. For the rest he is accused of unsoundness of doctrine on certain points– The church is supplied by different ministers, week after week.
Also Robert & I have roamed about looking into shop-windows—which is a favorite amusement of mine just now—and the Parisian shops are particularly amusing. Then I have read “Female life among the Mormons,” [11] which we bought in the steamer.
You would like Paris if you came. Nobody can help liking Paris .. even when they are cooped up with a trunk on each side, as we unhappy creatures are just now.
Sarianna has taken a very nice unfurnished apartment [12] for her father & herself, at the annual rent of seven hundred francs—that is twenty eight pounds English—salon, diningroom, two bedrooms, kitchen &c—southern exposition & pretty gardens to look out on. She is busy buying beds, & other furniture.
Dearest darling Arabel, write directly & put a little joy into me—I want it very much. Oh—one should’nt take mere discomforts too seriously, I am aware—and then I hope steadily to see the end of them on a day not far off. Say how you are. Peni talks of you. My best love to all. Tell Henrietta of me.
Your own Ba–
Enquire at Mrs Green’s for five spoons (one large) left in the house–
Address: Angleterre. Affranche / Miss Barrett / 12. Cornfield Terrace / Eastbourne.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 180–183.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. “Pray for us.”
2. An allusion to Shylock’s insistence on having his bond in The Merchant of Venice, III, 3, 4–17. In letter 3666 EBB refers to a “Baroness du Casse,” probably Augustine-Eugénie-Alfrède du Casse (née Girard, 1815–79), daughter of Jean-Baptiste Girard (1775–1815), French general who died from wounds received at the battle of Ligny. She married in 1841 Pierre-Emmanuel-Albert du Casse, Baron du Casse (1813–93), French army officer and military historian.
3. i.e., at 13 Dorset Street where Mary Green and her husband George let rooms.
4. Although EBB’s handwriting is perfectly legible up to this point, there are two or three false starts, and the density of the ink varies considerably.
5. “Condescendingly.”
6. According to Galignani’s New Paris Guide (1855), “the gutters, formerly in the middle of the streets, are now mostly placed by the sides of the trottoirs, and a general system of large and well-arched drains is to be found under nearly every street. Closely connected with the drainage of the town, is the system adopted for removing the night-soil of each individual house. For this purpose an ingenious method has lately been put into practice” (p. 47).
7. Paris was being transformed into a spacious modern city by Napoleon III and his architect George Eugène Haussmann (see letter 3204, note 5).
8. Robert Bulwer Lytton had been attached to the British Embassy in Paris since August 1854.
10. Athanase Laurent Charles Coquerel (1795–1868), French Reformed Church minister, author, and politician. After the revolution in 1848 he sat as a moderate republican in the National Assembly, but, following the coup d’état in 1851, he focused on his ministry. In the preface to Protestantism in Paris: A Series of Discourses, Translated from the French of A. Coquerel (1854), he is described as “the exponent of Protestantism in Paris” (p. iii). Le Pentémot, at 106 Rue de Grenelle, was one of seven Reformed churches in Paris, and Coquerel is the only Reformed minister named in Galignani’s New Paris Guide (1856, p. 119).
11. Female Life Among the Mormons: A Narrative of Many Years’ Personal Experience by the Wife of a Mormon Elder [Maria N. Ward] (1855). There were two English editions of this popular work published in 1855 in addition to an American and a French edition. In her introduction, Maria Ward wrote: “Knowing, as I do know, the evils and horrors and abominations of the Mormon system, the degradation it imposes on females, and the consequent vices which extend through all the ramifications of the society, a sense of duty to the world has induced me to prepare the following narrative for the public eye” (p. v).
12. At 151 Rue de Grenelle.
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