4294. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 309–311.
[Rome]
[Postmark: 17 December 1858]
My dearest Sarianna, As all the pleasure of the restoration of the napoleons [1] (which we had given up, & resigned ourselves to the loss of) was simply the sense of the probity of the restoration, we, both of us much wish that dear M. Milsand would spend the whole money for the finder, in the way of most usefulness, .. pencil-case, books, or what best may please him. It will always be pleasant to me to remember how I found my napoleons!——and Robert has just the same feeling. Thank M. Milsand a hundred times for the trouble he has taken to atone for my carelessness. A happy piece of carelessness after all!–
Tell the dearest nonno that Penini himself is quite aware of the honor of being the subject of a bust. The child was as flattered as possible, & talked of “my bust” with an air of dignity extremely amusing. “Have you seen my bust?” It is very beautiful certainly, & strikingly like. We were promised a photograph from the cast in a few weeks—& you shall have one too, when it becomes possible.
We are all quite well. Robert especially so, because he has taken to walk an hour before breakfast, which gives him .. what he calls “a vulpine appetite”. You know we are acclimated people, true Italians—and the Roman climate is only an exaggeration of the Italian climate generally. Then we are very careful. I dont allow Pen to be out of doors after four. He frightened me horribly once by forcing Anunciata to stay out till five playing with a little friend at the Coliseum & Anunciata had in consequence a sort of cholera fit which “might have been a fever,” our padrona told her. But the children did not suffer, and I became imperative for the future, so that it wont happen again. Mr Hawthorne’s daughter is very ill with fever,—though the season generally seems healthy. Peni’s cheeks are full of roses, & except a slight cold he has been perfectly well. Our rooms are some of the most traditionally healthy in Rome, bathed clean in sunshine from malaria. I wish they were as clean from fleas—but this must count among unreasonable aspirations in Rome, even at the present time of year–
I am able on most days to go out, & am the better for it of course.
Arabel goes down to Bryngwyn at Christmas. There is no marriage [2] nor any birth [3] that I hear of, yet! Miss Haworth & Miss Heaton are holding back at Florence, frightened a little by the Roman prices: but they will come in time, I believe.
I am very sorry that you & the dear Nonno should have had colds, particularly as I fear it happened through your good nature in escorting Mary Hunter to Versailles. She wrote of it with a good deal of pleasure.
How did M. Milsand consider the Montalembert case?– [4] As I know something of him, & how he went to bed for two days because he could’nt persuade Louis Napoleon into ultramontanism. [5] I wont help the Times to exalt him into Martyrdom for his “liberal opinions.” Best love from Peni (who will write to his nonno) to both of you, dearest Sarianna and also from
your affectionate Ba.
Address, in RB’s hand: France / Mademoiselle Browning, / 151. Rue de Grenelle / Faubourg St Germain, / Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. On her way to a Parisian milliner, EBB lost her purse containing two napoleons (see the eighth paragraph in letter 4258).
2. Probably a reference to EBB’s brother Octavius, who married Charlotte McIntosh (1829–61) on 19 March 1859.
3. i.e., of Alfred and Lizzie’s first child; see letter 4215, note 15.
4. Charles Forbes René de Montalembert (1810–70), journalist and politician, had published an article praising the English system of government, “Un débat sur l’Inde au Parlement Anglais,” in Le correspondant of 25 October 1858. The French government read the article as an attack upon itself and charged the author with the following four counts: “1st, attacks on the principle of universal suffrage; 2d, attacks upon the respect due to the laws; 3d, excitement to hatred and contempt of the Government of the Emperor; and, 4th, an attempt to disturb the public peace by exciting the contempt and hatred of citizens against each other” (The Times, 10 November 1858, p. 10). On 24 November Montalembert was tried, convicted, and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and a fine of 3,000 francs. Napoleon III offered a pardon on 2 December, but Montalembert rejected it, hoping that an appeal would overturn the verdict. The verdict was upheld, though with a reduced sentence, on 21 December, and a week later the Emperor offered a second pardon, which was accepted. The Times ran a translation of the offending article in four parts on 11, 12, 13, and 17 November. Montalembert was widely praised in the British press for his courage and liberal thinking, while Napoleon III was just as widely condemned.
5. Montalembert had once been strongly aligned with the Ultramontanist party, but his liberal Roman Catholicism proved to be incompatible with the party line. In 1855 he revived Le correspondant, where “he set himself to fight both against the fanatical party of Pius IX [the Ultramontanists] … and the more or less free-thinking Liberals of the Revue des deux mondes” (EB). He was an advocate for Roman Catholicism and an opponent of Napoleon III, two positions that were unacceptable to EBB.
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