5954. RB to Lady Lothian
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 243–247.
Le Croisic, Loire Inférieure,
Sept. 16. ’67.
Dear Lady Lothian,
I was glad indeed to get your letter two weeks ago,—I would not answer it sooner, for economical reasons; the light has kept burning all the while. You must know I let all my correspondence lie at London, and content myself with general belief in the well-being of my friends, and so much news about a few of them as reaches me by the “Times.” It would be useless to tell you what you cannot but know. I shall just say, I also thought of you, for a moment, in connection with the “Zouave”: [1] but his poor house of cards came tumbling down with a touch: I expect however an account of him from the most intimate friend I have, a Frenchman, [2] whose judgment is nearly unerring: you shall have it, such as it may be. I don’t know whether it is worth while referring you to a passage in the Autobiographical fragment to be found in the first Volume of Southey’s life by his Son in Law: he mentions a sudden cure by simple exposure to the sun, and goes on to reason about it, [3] —citing other instances in point, I think: I was struck by the passage many years ago: do please find and read it.
So, you like the “Chartreuse”: [4] yes, it is “full,” as you say,—the man, Beyle, was always most interesting to me: that admirable account of Waterloo is from his own experience,—he was also along with the army in the Retreat from Moscow: [5] in the worst of it, and when everybody was demoralised, he waited on his superior Officer one morning en tenue [6] shaved and self-respecting,—“Vous étes un homme de cœur,” [7] said the Officer. He quelled a mutiny once with capital sang froid. He was singularly in advance of people in most great questions. Do they give, with the Chartreuse, as with some editions, Balzac’s hearty and adequate criticism on it, [8] together with Beyle’s reply? A horrible friend, one Colomb, wrote a libel on him, “a life” [9] —but don’t mind that! How I remember hearing of Beyle’s sudden death,—in the street at Paris, before the Hôtel des Affaires Etrangères,—when I was just arrived in Italy. [10]
What I said about Henry VIII, was probably that so much of the Play may be traced to Heywood [11] as to give him a right to be named along with Shakespeare in the matter of authorship: this was shown conclusively by somebody, I think Mr Hunter, [12] in a book published some years ago: I read a criticism of this, only,—but with an abstract of the argument, citations &c, enough to convince me: I daresay Dyce has said what is the case in his Edition. [13] The corroboration from the prevailing style of the versification struck me: of course, you are quite in the right about Shakespeare’s use of the concluding trochee, and indeed its recurrence,—but if you compare the systems of, say, Hamlets soliloquy, [14] with all the concluding trochees, and Wolsey’s “So, farewell to the little good you bear me!” [15] —you will detect the difference. Of course also, Shakespeare could write any sort of verse,—though he had a decided will about it: one would know that a page of Pope was alien in a play of his: yet—a thing Leigh Hunt used to point out—Iago’s dozen of mocking verses “She that was ever fair and never proud” [16] —intended to look like poetry amid the general poetry—are absolutely “correct”, and Pope-like. On the same principle, the actor’s speech about Priam in Hamlet [17] is a sort of curdled cream of diction floating amid the ordinary milkiness of the scene,—just as that, again, is thicker than watery everyday speech: such is artistry. Lost “Peter Martyr” [18] is a glory of our race the less: I was always longing to take one more great look at it. It is very present to my mind, however. When I first studied pictures I only cared for design, not colour: this grows on me now: and, inasmuch as my second visit to Venice brought out much in that picture which escaped me some years before, [19] I wanted especially to use on it the eyes I have now: but gone it is, with other good things. I heartily approve of taking such pictures out of churches. They get all possible ill-usage there, and, after awhile, fail to answer the priest’s ends: for when does one ever see a dark great old painting over an altar, without finding a smart bright little gilt-framed piece of rubbish stuck before it, as the veritable altar-piece? In the Sistine, they can’t get on with Michael Angelo only—there is a distracting daub always between you and the Last Judgment.
I shall leave this wild loveable place in a fortnight. The country is utterly barren, strange, yet cheerful in its way. It is mentioned by Strabo as the abode of the Samnite women, worshippers of Bacchus,—and he describes their wild ways. [20] This little spit of land produced two odd poetasters with the appropriate twist in their natures,—judge! [21] The first was René Gentilhomme, “Royal Poet”: for why? He was page to the Prince of Condé, [22] then heir to the throne,—after Louis 13 and Gaston d’Orléans: and, being at a pleasure-house of the Princes, he saw a thunderbolt strike the pillar of the flight of stairs from the garden to that house, and dash there from a ducal coronet: [23] whereupon he poured forth some forty inspired verses prophesying that this accident augured nothing short of the birth of a Dauphin: this piece of news, not of a kind to particularly commend its bearer to the Prince, was made more acceptable by the poet’s assurance “that he needs not feed himself any longer with hopes of the succession, “et qu’ il doit se contenter d’ être toute sa vie M. le Duc, tout court”[”] [24] —(since they called the Prince, Duke.) Next year, the prophecy was fulfilled by the birth of Louis XIV: [25] and so notorious was the fact of this Rene’s lucky guess or divination, that more than twenty distinguished ecclesiastics and officers of Nantes and Tours, “frappés d’admiration en firent des compliments à l’auteur,” [26] in tributary verse which he printed along with his own impromptu. And thereupon was he authorized to be called, Poete Royal. The other man was Desforges Maillard,—who in revenge for a slight from Delaroque, [27] then the Editor of the famous “Mercure” (who had burnt a poem of Desforge’s and declared no line of his should ever appear in the journal) passed himself off for “Mademoiselle Malcrais de la Vigne de Croisic,” and sent heaps of execrable verse, which he got his sister to transcribe, to the nothing-doubting De la roque, who not only printed them greedily [28] and praised them extravagantly but, old one-legged fool as he was, made a passionate declaration of love to the Lady-author. All Paris was in ecstacy at “la Sappho moderne, la dixième Muse, la divine Malcrais”—et “l’on formerait un volume des vers adressés à Madlle Malcrais ou publiés à sa louange.” “Les poètes les plus distingués de cette époque se firent gloire de se ranger parmi ses adorateurs.” [29] Destouches, [30] La Motte, [31] —but what are these to Voltaire himself writing an epistle in verse all ablaze with such fireworks as this.
J’ose envoyer aux pieds de ta Muse divine
Quelques faibles écrits, enfan[t]s de mon repos:
Charles fut seulement l’objet de mes travaux,
Henri Quatre fut mon héros,
Et tu seras mon héroïne! [32]
Well, one fine day the divine Malcrais comes to Paris, announces herself, in the particularly ugly person of a little man, to De la roque, as “he whose verses you were never to print a line of!”– De la roque happened to owe Voltaire a grudge just then,—he laughed a little sourly, said “Never mind: let us go and call on Voltaire[”] so said, so done: he sends up the great name “Mademoiselle Malcrais” to Voltaire, then busy at his toilette,—which, it is recorded, had to begin all over again: at last, down trips the bewigged and bewaiscoated Voltaire and falls into the arms of—little ugly Desforges aforesaid: to the right about which, and exit Voltaire “furieusement.” “Il sortît brusquement pour ne plus reparaitre. Jamais il ne pardonne à La Roque cette mystification.” [33] Then everybody, (except J.B. Rousseau, [34] who continued to admire) made up for the past folly by abusing poor Desforges, found his poems had always been abominable, and so on: and Desforges went back to Croisic and died there: giving Piron the subject of his renowned “Metromanie,” [35] in which Voltaire is called Damis, Desforges Francalese, and Mademoiselle Malcrais becomes Madlle Mériadec de Kersic de Quimper-Corentin.
Have I wearied you too much with all this lore got out of some old books here? Perhaps you are not wearied, never having reached this apologetic paragraph. As I said, I go to London in a fortnight: can it be that “you may not go back to London at all”? Well, in London or otherwise, you must always remember me as deeply interested in whatever is happening to you and Lord Lothian, and that I have little means of getting news except by some piece of generosity on your part. With all regard to Lord Lothian,
Ever yours most truly
Robert Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Auguste Henri Jacob (1828–1913), often called Zouave Jacob, was a trombonist in the band of a Zouave regiment, who for the past year had supposedly been performing miracles. An article in The Times of 29 August 1867 reported that “the most astonishing tales are current concerning him” and that he was “said to cure and restore sick and infirm people by the mere force of his will, or by a magnetic fluid” (p. 8). A little over a week later, The Times carried the following item: “The miraculous Zouave Jacob, who for some days occupied a very large space in the Paris press, has been found, as was to be expected, a humbug” (7 September 1867, p. 10).
2. Joseph Milsand.
3. Southey writes of his mother: “While she was a mere child, she had a paralytic affection, which deadened one side from the hip downward, and crippled her for about twelvemonths. Some person advised that she should be placed out of doors in the sunshine as much as possible; and one day, when she had been carried out as usual … in her little armchair … she rose from her seat … and walked into the house. The recovery from that time was complete” (The Life and Correspondence of the late Robert Southey, ed. Charles Cuthbert Southey, 6 vols., 1849–50, I, 19).
4. La Chartreuse de Parme (1839) by Stendhal, pseudonym of Marie Henri Beyle (1783–1842).
5. Stendhal served as a commissioned officer in the French army from 1800 to 1802 and then in the commissariat from 1806 to 1814. During the retreat from Moscow, “he discharged his duties with efficiency” (EB).
6. “In uniform.”
7. “You are a man of heart.”
8. Balzac reviewed La Chartreuse in the Revue Parisienne of 25 September 1840 (pp. 273–342) under the heading “Études sur M. Beyle.” The review was reprinted at the front of the 1846 edition of La Chartreuse, followed by a letter from Stendhal in response.
9. Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M Beyle(Stendhal) (1845) by Romain Colomb (1784–1858).
10. Boyle died on 23 March 1842, a few hours after collapsing on the streets of Paris. RB misremembers the years of his visits to Italy, the first in 1838 and the second in 1844.
11. Thomas Heywood (ca. 1573–1641), playwright and poet.
12. Presumably, RB has in mind Joseph Hunter (1783–1861)—see letter 893, note 8—and his New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare (2 vols., 1845). However, in Hunter’s treatment of Henry VIII, he makes no mention of Thomas Heywood (see pp. 95–109).
13. The Works of William Shakespeare (6 vols., 1857), ed. Alexander Dyce (1798–1869). In the front matter of volume one, Dyce writes of the authorship of Henry VIII: “The Prologue and Epilogue, whoever wrote them, are manifestly not by Shakespeare. … Recently attempts have been made to prove that portions of it [the play] were composed by Fletcher” (I, clxxvi). A second edition was nearing completion (see letter 5972, note 1).
14. Hamlet, III, 1, 55–87.
15. Henry VIII, III, 2, 350.
16. Othello, II, 1, 148.
17. Hamlet, II, 2, 468–497.
18. “St. Peter Martyr” (1527–29) by Titian was the alterpiece in the Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. While temporarily placed next door in the chapel of the Madonna del Rosario, the painting was destroyed when the chapel caught fire on the night of 15 August 1867. At that time it was considered one of the great paintings of the world. St. Peter Martyr (d. 1252), a Dominican priest of the Inquisition, was assassinated by members of a Catharist sect.
19. RB first visited Venice in June 1838; the second visit took place May–June 1851 with EBB and the two-year-old Pen.
20. Discussing the west of France, in a section of his Geography, Strabo writes: “In the ocean … there is a small island, not very far out to sea, situated off the outlet of the Liger [Loire] River; and the island is inhabited by the women of the Samnitae, and they are possessed by Dionysus and make this god propitious by appeasing him with mystic initiations as well as other sacred performances; and no man sets foot on the island, although the women themselves, sailing from it, have intercourse with the men and then return again” (Geography, IV, 4, 6, trans. Horace Leonard Jones).
21. RB proceeds to describe the title characters of his later work The Two Poets of Croisic (1878): René Gentilhomme (1610–71) and Paul Desforges-Maillard (1699–1772).
22. Henri de Bourbon (1588–1646), Prince of Condé. As the editors of the Ohio-Baylor edition of RB’s works point out, “the stories of the two poets come from volume 3 of Promenade au Croisic (1828) by Gustave Grandpré, the pen name of Auguste Julien Marie Lorieux (1797–1842)” (The Complete Works of Robert Browning, Vol. XIV, ed. John C. Berkey et al., Waco, Texas, and Athens, Ohio, 2003, pp. 409–410). But RB does not follow Grandpré in this case and is incorrect. Gentilhomme was page to Jean Baptiste Gaston, Duc de Orléans (1608–60), third son of Henri IV (1553–1610) and younger brother of Louis XIII (1601–43).
23. The lightning incident “occurred at Gaston’s chateau at Blois and not, as Grandpré said, at Conde’s pleasure house” (Berkey, p. 410).
24. “And that he would have to be satisfied with being all his life just a Duke.” This and the following French quotations are from Promenade, 3, 45–87. At some point, Sarianna copied these pages for RB. They sold as part of lot 198 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, L61; now at ABL).
25. Louis XIV (1638–1715), King of France from 1643 until his death.
26. “Struck with admiration complimented the author.”
27. Antoine de La Roque (1672–1744), journalist and editor of the Mercure de France.
28. In the Mercure de France from 1730 to 1732.
29. “The modern Sappho, the tenth Muse, the divine Malcrais”—and “compiled a volume of poems addressed to Miss Malcrais or published in her honor.” “The most distinguished poets of the period were proud to place themselves among her adorers.”
30. Philippe Néricault (1680–1754), known by his stage name Destouches, was a French playwright, mainly of comedies.
31. Antoine Houdar de la Motte (1672–1731), French poet and critic.
“I dare send to the feet of the Muse divine
Some weak writings, children of my leisure:
Charles was only the object of my labors,
Henry IV was my hero,
And you will be my heroine!”
In an edition of Voltaire’s collected works, these lines appear as part of an alternate beginning for “A une dame, ou soi-disant telle,” which was first published (unsigned) as “A Mlle de Malcrais de la Vigne” in the Mercure de France, December 1732, pp. 2814–17 (see Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, 35 vols., 1859–62, 16, 214–215).
33. “Furiously.” “He left abruptly not to reappear. He never pardons La Roque for this practical joke.”
34. Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (1671–1741), French poet.
35. La Métromanie (1738), a verse comedy by Alexis Piron (1689–1773), poet and playwright, inspired by Voltaire’s dealings with Mademoiselle Malcrais de la Vigne.
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