5957. RB to Lady Lothian
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 252.
Le Croisic, Loire Infre
Sept. 27. ’67.
Dear Lady Lothian,
My friend [1] writes at last,—“Je regrette de ne pas être à Paris pour m’ informer du Zouave Jacob. J’ai seulement lu quelques recits de journaux et, en dernier lieu, la lettre de l’aide-de-camp du genéral Forey, [2] avec le commentaire de je ne sais plus quel medecin. Pour ma part je n’avais jamais cru à rien de bien extraordinaire, sauf peut être à une influence qu’ il exerçait sur l’imagination des malades. C’est là en effet ce qui semblait ressortir du commentaire dont je vous parlais. Jacob ne prétend pas avoir une puissance surnaturelle: il ordonne aux perclus de marcher; et comme les croyants essayent au moins de le faire il y a, pour ceux qui regardent, un certain nombre de résultats apparents, qui sufficent pour donner de l’esperance à ceux qui sont résolus à en avoir à tout prix Voilà, non pas seulement ma propre interpretation, mais celle du Medecin, ou en tout cas du dernier appréciateur dont j’ai lu le compte rendu.” [3]
Here is nothing that you do not know already. Jacob has re-entered the cloud,—one hears no more of him: I fear there’s an end of his pretentions. But when I am at Paris next week I will catch at any floating straw,—or fiche de consolation, [4] I may find, and transmit it if worth attending to. I am supposing that you received a letter of mine written a week ago: at the end of next week,—by the sixth of October, say,—I shall be in London again. Perhaps in some good time you will remember how I should receive a word of your news. With all regard to Lord Lothian, pray believe me ever, Dear Lady Lothian,
Most truly yours
Robert Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Joseph Milsand.
2. Élie Frédéric Forey (1804–72), Marshal of France, aided Louis Napoleon in the coup d’etat of 1851, commanded French forces in the Crimea (1854–55), in Italy (1859), and Mexico (1863).
3. “I am sorry not to be in Paris to find out about Zouave Jacob. I have only read a few newspaper accounts and, finally, the letter of General Forey’s aide-de-camp, with the comments of I don’t recall what doctor. For my part I had never believed in anything very extraordinary, except perhaps an influence he had on the imagination of the sick. That is indeed what seemed to emerge from the comments I mentioned to you. Jacob does not claim to have a supernatural power: he orders the crippled to walk; and since the believers at least try to do so, there are, for those who are watching, a certain number of visible results, which suffice to give hope to those who are determined to have some at all costs. There it is, not just my own interpretation, but that of the doctor, or in any case of the last evaluator whose report I have read.”
4. “Consolation prize.”
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