3772. EBB to Julia Martin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 197–199.
3 Rue du Colysée.
Tuesday. [29 April 1856] [1]
My dearest Mrs Martin
I shall be delighted to welcome you to Paris! how strangely short the winter looks now, looked back upon!– The first two months were to me the great drag, when we had cold weather & a wretched house– Since then I have been so hard at work, that place & time have vanished for me– The pleasures of Paris have been nought—only one gets mesmeric influences somehow through the windows & doors– Robert too has been unwell, .. so that he went out very little– He had an attack of ulcerated sore throat, which, being complicated with disorder of the biliary functions, he was not himself for six weeks or two months, .. feeling ill at ease & indisposed to any manner of dissipation– Still he has seen the Ristori twice, & George Sand’s attempt upon Shakespeare in ‘Comme il vous plaira’ (a merited failure) & dined in company with her at Monckton Milnes’s, & vowed that she looked magnificent with a wreath of ivy round her fine head. She did’nt come to see me however .. which was no fault in her—only a misfortune for me. Lady Monson is more fortunate—has made quite a friendship with her, & showed me a note ending “à vous bien tendrement.” [2] Never was such a woman, says Lady Monson .. speaking of her personally .. “so noble, so uniformly true!” I like to hear such praise. At Monckton Milnes’s dinner, there was Mignet .. and an empty chair for Lamartine, who was expected but did’nt come–
Robert is quite well now—so is little Penini, who caught the sore throat from him, & was so feverish for two & three days that we had advice for him, & there was apprehension of croup .. but it passed quickly—& he is radiant just now– Four months ago I began to teach him French by his own wish, & this morning he read & translated nearly two pages of Berquin quite astonishingly. Certainly he is a very clever child. And so delightfully idle & full of play!–
Beranger did’nt write the verses that have run round the English papers in his name– [3] The opposition here is carried on in the most unworthy & mendacious ways possible. If it has not a bad cause, it acts as if it had. I am so sick with the St Germain gossiping, [4] that the excess of it ties my tongue before the gossips. The Academy carries on the war academically, & that is without largeness or nobleness. My husband who was, as you know, much against the government, is just as disgusted with the enemies of it as I am, & is as inclined to admit the great good, the great & extraordinary good, patent on all sides! It is a most peculiar government—& you will not fit it with any of the old names—neither despotism is it, nor any form of constitutional government nor of republican. It’s a democracy with an absolute Head—socialism under a monarchy—a great experiment in the fortunes of the world– We shall see how it ends– The emperor has just bought ten miles of the new boulevard Mazas, to build on for the labouring classes .. leasing out the houses to proprietors on conditions of subletting at the smallest rate of gain– [5] You are to remember that in everything of this kind done everyday, he simply carries out the theories of his youth at Ham & in exile—it is an attempt everywhere to strike a balance between the exactions of commerce & the necessities of the suffering people, .. the great modern problem we have been all breaking our hearts & heads against—& I say it is worth trying, & that he who tries it, is worth the gratitude & sympathy of all thinking & feeling men–
You dont tell me half enough of yourselves, but I gather that you are tolerably well. Yes—what happy news from Taunton! Henrietta is delighted with her new boy—just what she & Surtees wanted. Dear Bummy is or was lately in Wimpole Street—& I do hope she will sweep Arabel away with her somewhere, for Arabel wants change of air & scene, it is apparent to me– We dont go to London till the sixteenth of June, & I have work for everyday .. calculating day by day .. so that if I miss three, woe to me. It’s too close, for human casualties! I am tolerably well however .. & have quite got over the disagreeable symptom on the chest, which hung about me some time,—& I have no cough to mention. Also I have been out, twice on my feet, & twice in a carriage .. but I am weak, weak,—& in spite of cod-liver oil, shall take a great deal of open air, before the rifacciamento [6] of me be complete.
Dearest friends, may God bless you both of you—<your ever affectionate Ba.> [7]
Robert’s affectionate regards—love, let me say,—yes, ‘there shall be neither male nor female.’ [8]
We talk of Rome for next winter– I am uneasy just now .. we both are,—about our dear friend Mr Kenyon, who [is] very unwell I fear.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to Napoleon III’s housing scheme (see note 5 below) and by EBB’s welcoming Mrs. Martin to Paris. In letter 3776 EBB writes that the Martins will “leave Pau on the sixth of may” and stop in Paris on their way to England.
2. “To you very tenderly.”
4. EBB refers to the Faubourg St. Germain, in the 7th Arrondissement, where Lady Elgin and Mme. Mohl resided, as did many members of the French aristocracy.
5. The Boulevard Mazas (now Boulevard Diderot), one of the new thoroughfares designed by Georges Eugène Haussmann (1809–91), is situated in the 12th Arrondissement and runs east from the Pont d’Austerlitz. Napoleon III’s housing scheme was announced in Le Moniteur (the government’s organ) on 26 April 1856. The Morning Chronicle carried a translation of the announcement: “The rise in the rate of rent—the inevitable consequence of public prosperity—is, nevertheless, to be regretted. … Different attempts have already been made, under the inspiration or patronage of his Majesty, to remedy the evils that we point out, particularly the credit of ten millions of francs, intended to encourage the construction of houses for workmen. Unfortunately, these attempts have not produced all the benefit that was expected from them. The Emperor now intends to make a fresh attempt. … By his order, 18,000 metres of ground have been purchased on the Boulevard Mazas for the account of his private domain. This ground is to be divided into lots, on which houses will be built at his Majesty’s expense. … To arrive at the simultaneous construction of the greatest possible number of these houses, as soon as the ground is lotted out, portions will be ceded at the cost price to such persons as will engage to build on them within a fixed delay and on a plan determined on” (28 April 1856, [p. 6]).
6. Sic, for “rifacimento”; “restoration.”
7. The text in angle brackets supplied by RB. Presumably, he excised the closing and signature (to give away as an autograph) sometime after receiving EBB’s letters to the Martins, by way of James Martin, probably in 1867 (see RB to James Martin, 18 July 1867, ms at Wellesley).
8. Cf. Galatians 3:28.
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