CHAPITRE VINGTIÈME
Voyages d'Hortense à Rome. — Elle fixe son habitation sur les bords du Lac de Constance. — Visites d'Eugène à Hortense.— La Princesse de Leuchtemberg vient passer près d'elle le tems que l'Empereur d'Autriche passe à la cour de Bavière.— Mort d'Eugène. — Chagrin d'Hortense. — Tableau de la situation actuelle de la Duchesse de St.-Leu par une dame Anglaise.
Depuis que les orages politiques sont tout-à-fait calmés, Hortense a pu aller souvent à Rome et revoir la famille de Napoléon ; elle a aussi quitté Augsbourg comme résidence habituelle: elle lui a préféré un château de plaisance situé au bord du Lac de Constance ; c"'est dire combien ses environs sont enchanteurs ; combien est admirable la vue dont on y jouit ; il s'appelle Lindau.
C'est là maintenant qu'Hortense passe toute la belle saison.
Son frère Eugène venait Fy voir quelquefois avec la vice-reine d'Italie ; mais une fois entr'autres Hortense eut le plaisir de les garder plus long-tems que de coutume : voici à quelle occasion. L'Empereur d'Autriche avait épousé en troisième noce une princesse de Bavière fille de Maximilien Joseph ; étant venu avec l'impératrice faire une visite à son beau-père, l'étiquette Germanique, qui l'accompagnait partout, dut régler le cérémonial d'après lequel seraient traités tous ses parens : quand vint le tour de sa belle sœur, l'épouse du prince Eugène, il hésita à lui rendre les mêmes honneurs qu'à ses sœurs ; sans doute l'inflexible étiquette a fait changer de la même manière les préséances relatives au rang de sa fille Marie Louise. Depuis qu'elle a été impératrice des Français et reine d'Italie, elle ne doit prendre rang à la cour impériale qu'après la dernière des archiduchesses.
Sitôt que la vice-reine d'Italie eut connaissance des scrupules de son beau-frère François, elle avisa un moyen très simple de le mettre entièrement à son aise, et de s'épargner à elle-même des affronts non mérités. Elle quitta Munich avec son mari, et alla demeurer à Lindau chez sa belle sœur jusqu'au départ de l'Empereur.
L'attachement et l'estime que cette excellente princesse professa toujours pour son mari reçurent quelque tems après une éclatante et dernière preuve dans la douleur qu'elle éprouva en le perdant. Le prince Eugène fut emporté presque
subitement par une attaque cVapoplexie. Cette perte rappela au cœur sensible d'Hortense toutes celles qu'elle avait essuyées déjà. Eugène était si bon, si aimant, si aimé ! accoutumée à le voir toujours près d'elle dans les hivers qu'elle passait à Munich ou à Augsbourg, il eut été trop })énible de ne plus le retrouver: elle songea dès-lors à passer ses hivers ailleurs ; elle alterna entre Rome et Florence, revenant toujours passer la belle saison sur les bords de son lac favori. Ce fut à Rome et à Arrenenberg, ses maisons de campagne, qu'elle reçut une dame Anglaise d'un esprit fort distingué, et qui à notre prière a rassemblé dans les lignes suivantes une partie des impressions recueillies pendant ses visites.
Ce fut sur les bords du lac de Constance que la duchesse de St.-Leu vint former son principal établissement. Là dumoins elle cessait d'être exposée au plus injurieux système d'espionage; loin du tumulte d'un monde où elle avait régné elle sut se créer une éxistence délicieuse ; elle y passait huit mois de Tannée, et Jes autres à Munich ou Augsbourg. Après la mort du prince Eugène, sa sœur cessa de visiter des lieux qui lui retraçaient de déchirans souvenirs, et ce fut à Rome ou à Florence que dès-lors elle se rendit Thiver. La belle saison la ramenait à Arrenenberg où plusieurs des objets de son affection s'entendaient pour embellir sa vie, entr'autres la Grande Duchesse de Bade Stéphanie Beauharnais, et Madame Pasquier, autrefois attachée à la cour de Hollande. La duchesse de St.-Leu tient un riche état de maison sans mélange aucun de cette étiquette glaciale entourage ordinaire des grands. Ceux qui demeurent avec elle l'appèlent encore la reine, et ses fils prince Napoléon ou Louis, mais on voit que c'est une habitude que le respect conserve, que l'amitié accepte. Deux dames d'honneur, un écuyer et le gouverneur du plus jeune des pi'inces, composaient la suite de la duchesse. Son domestique est nombreux, et ce n'est que là qu'on retrouve la trace obstinée des prétentions d'un autre tems, rejetées par leur noble maîtresse. Celle qui fut reine, qui fut la fille de Napoléon, la mère de l'héritier de la couronne impériale, l'alliée de vingt rois, a su rentrer dans l'existence commune avec la bonne grâce d'un entier sacrifice.
Une bonté inexprimable préside à l'accueil que les étrangers reçoivent de la Duchesse de St.-Leu, toujours aimable et obligeante, elle est de plus tellement simple qu'elle inspire tout d'abord une confiance qui semblerait n'appartenir qu'aux affections intimes.
Elle sait écouter, elle sait se souvenir, et chaque fois qu'on l'approche il est facile de sentir qu'on a fait un pas plus près de son cœur, un mot sensible prouve qu'elle n'a point oublié ce qui s'est déjà dit, des questions pleines d'intérêt
MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE St.-LEU.
engagent a en dire davantage ; elle parle volontiers des jours brillants de sa prospérité, et alors l'histoire se place si naturellement sur ses lèvres qu'on s'instruit en l'écoutant bien mieux que par la lecture de tant d'ouvrages faux ou exagérés. L'indulgence, l'abnégation de soi-même président à tous ses discours. La reine détrônée sait faire la part des circonstances et voir les choses d'assez haut pour que rien ne se place entr'elle et le vrai. De cette impartialité nait une grandeur réelle, préférable mille fois à celle dont elle fut dépouillée à la fleur de son âge.
J'ai été admise dans l'intérieur de la Duchesse de St.-Leu et à la campagne et à Rome. Je l'ai vue s'exaltant en présence des beautés de la nature, ou entourée du faste de la représentation, et jamais je ne l'ai trouvée au dessous d'ellemême, jamais une parole moins élevée, une réflexion moins désintéressée ne sont venues affaiblir l'enthousiasme que m'avait d'abord inspiré son caractère.
Il est impossible de plus et de mieux aimer les arts que la Duchesse de St.-Leu ; chacun connaît les romances charmantes qu'elle a composées, et que sa voix tendre et pénétrante rend plus touchantes encore ; presque toujours elle chante debout accompagnée par une de ses dames, bien qu'elle même sache jouer de la harpe et du piano. La peinture occupe aussi ses loi.sirs, la miniature, le paysage et les fleurs lui sont également familiers. Elle déclame et joue la comédie à ravir, improvise des rôles de proverbe avec une rare perfection, et je ne connais aucune femme qui fasse mieux tous les ouvrages d'aiguille.
Sans avoir jamais été régulièrement belle, la Duchesse de St.-Leu est très agréable : ses yeux d'un bleu d'azur, sont doux et les plus expressifs du monde ; ses cheveux d'un blond clair contrastent avec ses longs cils et ses sourcils d'une couleur foncée, elle a le teint frais et très uni ; la taille d'une extrême élégance ; ses pieds et ses mains sont parfaits ; enfin, tout son ensemble est gracieux, elle a la parole brève, les gestes rapides, les mouvemens souples et balancés, ses habillemens sont riches, elle s'est cependant défait de la plus grande partie de ses pierreries et bijoux ; parmi ceux qui lui restent j'ai eu entre les mains l'énorme quantité de chaînons de Venise qui ceignait les drapeaux de cette fière république lorsque Napoléon les envoya à Paris, destinant ce beau présent à la jeune Hortense.
[The foUowing little Sketch, by awriter of eminence, présents a mémorial so exact, and at the same time so graceful and touching, of thc demeanour and habits maintained in privacy by the distinguished lady it seeks to pourlray, that its introduction here (from the New Monthly Magazine) will doubtless be welcomed by the reader. It will be found most pleasingly confirmatory of the impression which the preccding Memoir is calculated to convey.]
In the early part of last sumtner, I chanced to find at Paris the advertisement of a Swiss retreat, wliich, for vagrants hke myself in search of a few months' repose, struck me as being ail in ail. There was something picturesque even in the name of it, the Château de Wolfsberg ; and then it was situated by the comparatively untravelled Lake of Constance, and was the pi'operty of an old soldier, who had been chosen from his bravery to command the body-guard of Napoléon, and Avas married to a ci-devant dame dlioimeur of the expatriated Hortense. It was just the place, I fancied, to roll upon the grass and hear strange stories till the hot weather was over ; in a few days, therefore, I had glided through the green vineyards of France, toiled through the beautiful gloom of the Black Forest, and was standing upon the mountain-top which looked down upon my journey's end. The prospect had none of the abrupt outline and surprising effect which is the gênerai character of Switzerland. It looked like the native land of repose, and its blue undulations, intersected by the distant Lake, and melting into the sun-lighted snow-peaks of the Tyrol, seemed to melt into the heart likewise with a home-giving welcome. The prospect inspired no expectation wliich was not amply fulfilled. The château was not unlike one of our élégant country-houses in England, and looked down upon a slope of a quarter of a mile, which varied from wood to vineyard till it stole into the calm waters, and left the eye to wander with white sails and hunt out little steeples on the opposite coast of Germany. To the right and the left, it was but a momenf s walk to be lost amongst nut-grown dells and mazy rivulets ; and if you made an adventurous ride of a few hours, you might hear the Tyrolean song of liberty chanted above the clouds.
The lady of the house had lived ail her life in courts, and her husband had never before been out of a camp ; so that neitlier the one nor the other had been exposed to the contaminating plagvie of ordinary English and French society :
MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE St.-LEU.
they could think other nations nearly as good as their own, could form an opinion without adopting a préjudice, and know how to be polite and attentive without being unnatural and ofRcious. Ramble where I niay, I shall never find more interesting amusement than I did in the conversation of this well-sorted pair. The vicissitudes of their lives, keeping pace with those of their patrons, had brought them, it seemed, into contact with ail the interesting people in the world, and I contrived to pick up in my idleness a fund of biographical knowledge, which it is odds if I could have coUected from books by hard study. The cause for such unlikely persons for a life of seclusion being in this rctired situation was a praiseworthy fidelity to Hortense, the Duchess of St.-Leu, who had a house not far distant, and their reason for establishing a home for stray travellers was that of having overlooked, in their zeal, the inconveniences of one some twenty times too big for themselves.
There were, in addition to this society, two or three young French women, who had been brought up in the same school with Madame, and were making a temporary résidence at the château from the same motive. I shall never forget the romantic pleasure which I used to dérive from scrambling about the woods with this light-hearted company, 'i — the mirthful screams with which they surmounted their petty périls, and the horror with which one slipped into the
rivulet, or another was caught in a bramble. Then we had a stud of docile ponies, belonging to the establishment, which we used to canter to a stand-still, and then we used to finish the day by gliding over the placid lake, and singing and sentimentalizing by the light of the stars.
In thèse little voyages we used frequently to pass beneath the calm and unpretending abode of the Ex-queen of Holland. It was situated half-way up a green hill, well wooded with ornamental timber, through which it afForded a partial peep, just sufficient to remind my companions of their favourite thème of conversation. The afFectionate vénération with which they described their former patroness as living a life of content and simple enjoyment, under banishment from her native country, and the calumny of a world with which she had reason to be tired, inspired me with a wish to be presented to her. It was, however, rather difficult of accomplishment. There was no pride in her, it was said, beyond the dignity of a superior mind, but this had obtained such an influence over those about her, that she was no less a queen in her retirement than when she had really possessed the power. AU, therefore, that my friends could promise me was to Ict it drop that there was a stranger in the neighbourhood, leaving it to Hortense's knowledge of the interest attachcd to her to suggest the meaning of such information.
Meantime I was taught every day something more interesting respecting her. The fortune which she had been enabled to save f rom the wreck of her family, was devoted mainly to the service of those of its followers who had been less successful ; her house was the rendez-vous of talent, whatever might be its description ; and her powers of rivalling it were not inferior to her taste and generosity in its patronage.
She had staying with her at the time, besides her two dames de compagnie, with her younger son and his tutor, the poet Casimir Delavigne, his brother, who is also a distinguished dramatist, and other friends whose tastes lay in the same way. Amongst other amusements, therefore, it was determined to get up a théâtre, with a variety of little Vaudeville pièces, that ail in turns might have characters to their liking. One of niy rambling companions, a black-eyed pièce of witchcraft, whom Nature had made for nothing but sportive idleness, was to play a part, and consequently the affairs of the green-room possessed a double interest for me. I used to walk with her through the vineyards to her rehearsals, and approaeh as near the house as I could, in the hope of being asked in. I could never contrive to be seen, however, and was obliged to lie down under a tree, or catch fish in the lake, till my little friend was ready to return. At last, in spite of having been described as très distingue, in my own country, for something or other which could not exactly be remembered, I began to give up ail hope of an introduction, when, one fine evening, as we were ail distributed about the lawn in little groups (for our party had been increased by several errant English), there was an alarm that Hortense was coming to visit Madame. As I saw her winding slowly up the hill, with ail her company in three little summer-carriages, the élégance of the cavalcade, in scènes where élégance was so rare, was exceedingly striking ; and I could not help thinking that she meditated a call of ceremony upon the stranger part of our community. 1 was well pleased to find my surmise correct.
The appearance of Hortense was such as could not fail of exciting admiration and kind feeling. Her countenance was fuU of talent, blended with the mild expression of a perfect gentlewoman ; and her figure, though not beyond the middle height, was of a mould altogether majestic. She lamented that she had not sooner known the purposed length of our stay in that part of Switzerland, as, having conceived that we were merely passing a few days, she had been unwilling to occupy our time ; she then spoke of her regret at not being able to entertain us according to her wishes ; and finally told us that she had in agitation some little theatricals, which, if we could bear with such trifles, we should do her pleasure in attending. AU this was said with a simple and winning élégance, which made one' s heart ache, not
MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE St-LEU.
so much for her banishment, as for the taste of the epicurean old gentleman who banished her. And yet, if he had reallv surmised that she was guilty of plotting the return of his great rival, he was not altogether without excuse. The séductions of such a traitress might possibly have unloyalized his whole court.
At last the evening of the play arrived, and I really got beyond the gâte of Hortense's abode. It was a favourite bijou, upon which no taste had been spared. AU that terraces and trellice-work and woodbines and exotics could do was seen in perfection. And then the views which were in some places aftbrded through the woods, and in others, by their rapid descent, carried over them, were broken in a manner which rendered them doubly beautiful. From one peep you caught the small vine-clad island of Reichnau, with its cottage gleams trembling upon the twilighted lake. From another you had a noble reach of the blue Rhine going forth from its brief resting.place to battle its way down the falls of Schaffhausen, and beyond it the eye reposed upon the tender outline of the Black Forest melting warmly in the West. In a third direction you saw the vapoury steeples of Constance apparently sinking in the waters which almost surrounded them, and far away you distinguished the little coast villages, like fading constellations, glimmering fainter and fainter, till land and lake and sky were blended together in obscurity.
When I entered, I found the suite of three or four small rooms filled with company, but Hortense was engaged in her théâtre. The walls of the principal apartment were ornamented with pictures, amongst which I was shown an exceedingly interesting fuU-length portrait of Joséphine. She was a pale, graceful woman, full of melancholy expression, and reclining in a corresponding attitude upon a bank overshadowed by a sombre shrubbery. I should imagine (for I forgot to inquire) from the sadness which pervaded the picture, that it raust have been painted after its hardlyused original had ceded her honours to her hushand^s unfeeling views of policy, and had been taught by solitude and sorrow the true value of human greatness. The sentiment of résignation was so well expressed, so tender and so touching, with such a delicious absence of the usual melodraniatic style of the French school, that the sight of it was quite a lesson in philosophy. In the next room I found more pictures and a few busts, amongst the latter of which was one of Lord Byron, with whose works I afterwards found the Duchess to be perfectly familiar, for, though I never heard her attempt to speak English, she was able to read it with facility. Upon a pedestal in the midst of a saloon beyond, two sides of which were open to the précipitons landscape, was Joséphine again — a pièce ofbreathing marble which seemed to advance through the dim twilight like a spirit. There was an increased interest in this duplicate proof of Hortense's
attachment to lier unfortunate mother, for it afforded an opportunity of ascertaining the strength of the resemblance in each by comparing them together. They were much alike, and both proved the original to have been an admirable subject for the artist; as good a subject, indeed, as her history, which présents situations of simple dignity, more afFecting, perhaps, than any thing of their class in modem days. I thought of Joséphine, when Napoléon placed the crown upon her head in the présence of countless myriads, who were content to be her slaves — the humility with which she is said to have knelt before him to receive her honours — the pride of heart which he confessed himself to have felt when he hailed her as an empress : — then what a contrast to behold the pair in their domestic privacy ; the husband confusedly seeking to unveil his purpose in words which might wound the least, and the meek wife fainting under the intelligence that her days were to be ended in unmerited mortification and divorce. Was it, I thought, to be attributed to an unexpressed resentment of this treatment of her mother, that the house of Hortense exhibited not a vestige of Napoléon, nor, with the exception of her children, of any one of his race ? The fact was singular, and considering her love for the fine arts, and particularly for the portraits of those whom she valued, could not have been without a reason. The one which struck me might not have been correct, but, if it was so, it Avas surely neither devoid of greatness nor of tenderness.
In turning my eyes from the statue, the first thing that caught them was the house of Prince Eugène, built by him at a short distance, that he might share the solitude of his exiled sister, but which he never lived to inhabit. Here was another powerful claim to sympathy. She retires from a capricious world to make the best of it in the society of an afFectionate brother ; and Fate, as though it took the part of her enemies, dries up this source of consolation likewise. Surely, I thought, there must be something extraordinary in this woman, who can retaliate the crosses of Fortune, and make herself happy in spite of them. Was it incapability of feeling ? Her attachment to those Avho had sufFered in common with her, was a proof that she possessed feeling in no ordinary degree. Was it a dignity of endurance which the mass of human kind were not able to understand, because it was so far above them .'' If so, how pitiful was the triumph of those who outraged the memory she had left behind her, like the mantle on the horns of the beast, to be buffcted by blind and impotent malice !
I was drawn from my rêverie by perceiving that the company in the other rooms was making a movement towards
MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE St.-LEU.
the théâtre, which was formed in a building at a short distance from the house. It did infinité crédit to the amateur artists, and was fiUed according to its déserts ; for, to use the orthodox phrase, there was not even standing rooni. There must have been a gathering of the clans for leagues around, to produce so many pair of baronial whiskers ; for the town of Constance, like ail towns which have fallen under the Austrian dominion, was ruined and depopulated, as if the plague had been in it, and had scarcely a grandee to boast of.
The first pièce represented was a scrap of sentimentality called " L'Epreuve d'Amour in which the hero recommends to his niistress a variety of lovers by way of trying her attachment to him, and eventually, being satisfied by the ordeal, proposes himself. The heroine was played by the duchess, and in a manner which made me speedily forget that it was the duchess, and not the actress, that I came to see. She had, indeed, a natural cast of melancholy, and a natural grâce which rendered her little task no difficulty. Even when she was not speaking, one would have said that the stage had been her exclusive study ; and the silent tremour with which she returned her hard-hearted lover's picture, is associated with some of my choicest theatrical recollections. I regret that I have not the means of giving a few extracts from this dramaticle, for, whether from the habit which we have of thinking things good which have only been well said, or whether it really possessed intriusic merit, I am inclined to think that it had something in it which would iraprove the breed of English farces amazingly. It certainly is a matter of congratulation that we have emerged from the whining days of Cumberland and his imitators : but still there is a field of simple and ever interesting Nature, which might spring up most becomingly between the territories of broad grins and bloody daggers. It would give a charâcter of literature to what is now considered an achievement only fit for those who can do nothmg else, and might, perhaps, be a stepping-stone towards Comedy herself, in ail the pride of her five acts.
The next représentation was of a brilliant bagatelle, entitled " Le Coiffeur." Before the curtain was drawn up I could not help feeling nervous for my little friend, who was to exhibit the resuit of three weeks' palpitating anxiety, and some thirty miles travelling to rehearsals, in the principal female charâcter. She was cruelly afraid at first, and looked as if she had not quite made up her mind whether she was most ashamed to act her part or to run away. She, however, soon became aware that she was thought bewitching, and played with a spirit, which not only won the heart of the young barber, but sundry others with which she had no business. For my own part, having had a bittcr quarrel
witli lier, in conséquence of her insisting that Sir Hudson Lowe had poisoned Buonaparte, I found it absolutely necessary to humble myself and beg pardon.
After the play, we returned to the house, and found préparations made for dancing, which began with a waltz. I was told that some of the Germans performed their évolutions to perfection, but I cannot say that I admired this accomplishment so much in its native land, even as I did in England. It seemed that, to excel, it was necessary, in lieu of the swimming, and now and then not ungraceful motion of my esteemed countrywomen, to spin round like a tee-totum, with a wriggling sort of a hop, as if one leg were shorter than the other. I made a few unsuccessful attempts to distinguish myself, but was at last obliged to give in, for fear I should tear my partner to rags in the vain endeavour to keep step. By degi-ees, the folks grew giddy and made way for a quadrille, of which my previous failure rendered me rather shy. The otium cum dignitate which I had promised myself, was not, however, to be enjoyed, for I was presently brought out of my corner by a highly flattering but somewhat appalling invitation to stand up with the Duchess. I was in fact the only Englishman of our party who had ventured to contend for honour upon the fantastic toe, and was invited, I imagine, partly in sport, and partly from complaisance to my nation. As luck would have it, I represented my tribe without causing any particular accident, and, indeed, with considérable success, for a young Frenchman assured me that I really danced very well — that was to say, not very well — not so well as a Frenchman, but quite well enoiigh to please myself. I was not, however, inclined to break a lance with him, for he allowed the dancing of the Duchess to be quite good enough to please other people. There was an absence of every thing French from it. It was a pastime and not a study with her ; and she moved with the freedom of youth, tempered with the dignity that became the matron. This unpretending and spontaneous grâce of nature bas always struck me as being the only beauty of dancing in private society, and certainly it is a beauty irrésistible. It is, in fact, a pantomimic display of the mind, and as such is as decidedly above the doctrine of professors as it is in opposition to it.
In the intervais between the dances there was some singing, to the accompaniment of the piano. Here again Hortense was perfectly at home. She sang several songs, of which I afterwards found her to be the unacknowledged composer, and to which the reader has often listened with delight, with a feeling which, like her dancing, could never have been taught. Amongst thèse was the beautiful air of " Partant pour la Syrie," which vvill be a fair guarantee
MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE St.-LEU.
that I do not say too much for the rest. There were afterwards some well-bred endeavours to find a few Englisli songs, which I am happy to say were unsuccessful. The French cannot understand our music, for it is altogether the note of another species of bird. Moore and our otlier distingiiished composers have made no progress in proportion to their morits, and, in a hap-hazard meeting with one of our national performances, it is odds but we have reason to be ashamed of it.
By this time the hour was getting late, and, as the company began to thin, the remainder were dispersed in little parties round the various tables of drawing-books and works of belles-lettres- . I chancad to place my hand upon a splendid album, and had the farther good fortune to seat myself beside a beautiful young dame de compagnie of the Duchess, who gave me the history of ail the treasures I found therein. Whatever I found most remarkable, was still the work of Hortense. Of a séries of small portraits, sketched by her in colour, the likeness of those of which I had seen the subjects, would have struck me, though turned upside down. She had the same power and the same afFectionate feeling for fîxing the remembrance of places likewise. The landscapes which she had loved in forbidden France, even the apartments which she had inhabited, were executed in a manner that put to shame the best amateur performances I had ever seen. There was a minute attention to fîdelity in them too, which a recollection of her présent circumstances could not fail to bring home to the spectator's heart. There were, besides the labours of the Duchess, numerous admirable sketches by some of the best artists in France. I recollect one in particular of a scène in which her taste for the picturesque and the melancholy must have been completely gratified. She was sitting amongst the ruins of Rome by moonlight; a party of friends reclining gracefully around her, and the poet Delavigne in front reciting a tragedy. In most people this situation would have been smiled at as somewhat romantic, but in Hortense it was perfectly in keeping. Ruin and tragedy had been too busy with her to let her seem ont of place amongst them.
I know not when my interest would have cooled in this mansion of taste and talent. Towards morning I was obliged to take my leave, and I doubt if there was an individual who returned home by that bright moonlight without feeling that Hortense had been bom some century and a lialf too late. For an âge of bigots and turn-coats, she indeed seemed unsuited ; in that of true poesy and trusty cavaliers, she would have been the subject of the best rhymes and rencontres in romantic France.
After this I saw her frequently both at her own house and at Wolfsberg, and I never found any thing to destroy tlie impression which I received on niy introduction. Independently of the interest attached to herself, she had always in her Company some person who had made a noise in the world, and had become an object of curiosity — one while a distinguished painter or poet, and one while a battered soldier, who preferred resting in retirement, to the imputation of changing his politics for advancement ; then a grand duke or duchess, who had undergone, perhaps, as many vicissitudes as herself ; and finally, the widow of the unfortunate Marshal Ney. There was something in the last of thèse characters, particularly when associated with Hortense, more interesting than ail the others. She was a handsome, but grave and silent woman, and still clad in mourning for her husband, whose death, so connected with the banishment of the Duchess, could not fail to render them deeply sympathetic in each other's fortunes. What a melancholy comparison of retrospections, I used to think, must thèse two have made when none were by to listen to them î What late discoveries of the imperfection of plots (if indeed they were ever consulted in any) which could only succeed enough to render the situations of those who formed them worse than before ! What anxious casuistry upon the justice of history as to events which are mysterious even to the âge existing !
The amusements provided for ail this company consisted of such as I have mentioned, expéditions to varions beautiful spots in the neighbourhood, and music-parties on the wator. The last of thèse used sometimes to have a peculiarly romantic efFect; for, on fête-days, the young peasant-girls, ail glittering in their golden-tinsel bonnets, would push off with their sweethearts, like mad things, in whatever boats they could find upon the beach. I have seen them paddling their little fleet round the Duchess's boat with ail the curiosity of savages about a man-of-war, and fiUing up the intervais of softer music with a yell, which, provided you heard it a mile ofF, was harmonious in the extrême !
For the gentlemen there was likewise the chasse, at which they kiUed their time pleasantly enough, if they killed nothing else ; for, to confess the truth, I am grievously of opinion that the French are but cockney sportsmen, and the Germans no better. I witnessed a chasse in the neighbourhood, which had well nigh put an end to my dancing even well enough to please myself. Our party, as was usual there, consisted of somewhere between twenty and thirty shooters, who, with their prodigious game-bags strapped behind and before, looked exactly like old clothesmen. There was likewise a régiment of little hideous boys, dressed in cocked hats, and looking as grotesque as the devils in
MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE St.-LEU.
Der Freischutz. This corps of flibbertigibbits was marshalled into the farther end of a wood, to howl German and tinkle bells through it, till the game was frightened into fîts. In the mean time, the gunners had stationed themselves at intervais along the other three sides, each commanding a little narrow path-way, so that, when an unfortunate roebuck came skeltering down, he might fire in his face and send him back to be terrified by somebody else. There happened to be plenty of game, so that, when the howling began, the guns went as merrily as crackers on the 5th of November. In the midst of the bustle a poor hare was making the best of her way close by me, and, my next neighbour providing against the possibility of being too late by banging off both barrels before he saw her, I had the satisfaction of perceiving that she got clear ofF. My fellow-sportsman, however, who was an old soldier, and thought no more of a fowling-piece than he did of a pop-gun, was determined to lose no crédit for his dexterity — " Voilà, Monsieur,"^ he shouted, " voilà un joli coup! fai tiré entre vos jambes sans vous toucher!""
When the mêlée was over, we made search for the kiUed and wounded, the sum-total of which was one of our chasseurs, who was indeed piteously peppered.
At length the time arrived for me to bid adieu to Switzerland. It was arranged that I should set out for Italy with a small party of my Wolfsberg friends ; and, an evening or two before we departed, we paid a leave-taking visit to the Duchess. She expressed much polite regret at our intention, and gave us a cordial invitation to renew our acquaintance with her, in the winter, at Rome. Her care indeed to leave a good impression of her friendly disposition upon our minds was exceedingly gratifying. She professed to take an interest in the plans which each of us had formed, and, where her expérience qualifîed her, gave us instructions for our travels. Her descriptions of the places and circumstances of her own, were given in a manner which convinced me that I had only seen the surface of a mind, which, with more intimate knowledge, grew more and more rich. She spoke of the beauties of nature with a quiet enthusiasm, which was pure poetry, and touched upon character and literature with ail the power, but without the venom of the accomplished critic. If Hortense should ever occupy her leisure hours by writing her memoirs, they would form one of the most interesting works of the âge.
When we rose to départ, the night being fine, she volunteered to walk part of the way home with us. She came about a quarter of a mile, to where she could command an uninterrupted view of the lakc, above which the
moon was just then rising — a huge red orb, which shot a burning column to her feet, — " I will now bid you adieu," she said ; and we left her to the calm contemplation of grandeur which could not fade, and enjoyments which could not betray.
This was the last I saw, and perhaps shall ever see, of the accomplished Hortense ; but I shall always remember niy brief acquaintance with her as a dip into days which gave her country the character of being the most polished of nations.
