MADAME DE GONTAUTA
Wu wonder if Mr. Marks, upon whose book we were so recently commenting, was the unconscious inspirer of Madame de Gontaut's work. At least we could not help thinking of his assurance that his book was not produced at the solicitation of enthusiastic friends, when we read how her grandson by marriage, the Count George Esterhazy, begged her to write down some of the details of her past life, and all her friends surrounded her and threw themselves upon their knees to second his request. Not having the courage to refuse their touching entreaties, the lady gave her promise and wrote her book, the translation of which, very well and simply executed by Mr. Davis, is now before us. As the Duchess is described on the title-page as " Gouvernante to the Children of France during the Restoration, 1773-1836," it is easy to surmise something of all that she saw and suffered and lived through before, at the age of eighty—in 1853—she sat down to recall on paper some of her revolutionary memories. At that age, she says, "one can hardly be expected to write well, but has a right to expect the indulgence of devoted friends." It is only fair in return to say that the lady * Memoirs of tho Duchosse do Gontaut, Gousernante to tho Children of Franco iurieng the Restoration, 1773.1836. Trassated horn the French by Mr. J. W. Davis. London : Matto and Windus. 1894. nevertheless did write both well and graphically, though we should have liked something in the shape of a trans- lator's preface to tell us of the circumstances under which the book was issued. There is a melancholy ring about it somehow, and a feeling that the time has almost arrived for the old to give more definite place to the new, and for a kind of statute of literary limitations to be passed against an ac- count of a friend of the Marquis de Gontaut (brother.in.jaw of the authoress) who was condemned to the guillotine, warn- ing him by the concerted signal of a placard from a dormer. windowthat "Robespierre was dead." Told and retold as the dread tale of the Terror has been, the fall of that famous triumvir has about it, at last, in spite of ourselves, something of the flavour of a chapter closed, once and for all. One of the lessons that the Terror taught, how completely a resolute handful of fanatics may control and paralyse the will and resources and the motive power of nine-tenths of a nation, has been repeated since in divers fashions, and looks as if it were being repeated on a smaller and more innocent scale before our eyes at home at this very moment. And, dramatic and picturesque as the episodes and twice-told tales of the Revolution always are, they seem somehow to have ex- hausted, and been exhausted by, the countless pens which have been employed in their behalf. Philosophy and History and Fiction have all preached them and taught them and moralised upon them, till, whatever the family tempta- tions of our worthy octogenarian lady may have been, we feel that she might have risen superior to them with- out doing much harm, and that, to quote Mr. Marks again, the book before us does not exactly supply a long. recognised want. The minds of men are full just now more of the future of history than of its past. Social and democratic developments have taken, and are taking every day, turns so new and so surprising, and so suggestive of solutions and resolutions unborn and beyond the ken of man, that the results of the great social upheaval connected with the names of Danton and of Robespierre seem to us more full of sound and fury than of new significance, and only examples of the twice-told tale. There are, however, a large number of readers in the world who still delight in biographical details of any kind, and may join hands with Madame de Gontaut's personal descendants in appreciating her recollections. In parts, they have all the character of a novel, and we are almost sorry that they were not intrusted to some skilled romancer to use them in that way. For the great mass of readers who love to hear of Royalty in slippers and dressing-gowns, even though of a fashion past and. dead, there will be plenty of information in the pages of Mane. de Montaut NavaiLles, whose father, a Gascon Count of that name, was at fifty-nine years of age married to Mcllle. de Coulommiers, a Burgundian heiress of good family who was but sixteen when her daughter was born. The Count had superintended the education of the children of France—who all reigned in their time as Louis XVI., Louis XVIII., and Charles X.—and the second of these, then Count of Provence, presented her for baptism in the chapel at Versailles, together with the Countess of Provence, his wife. After the ceremony, the baby was presented to Marie Antoinette in her own apartments, in a state of infantile delight in her christening-dress. In the same gracious presence she made her Mut as an actress as soon as age would permit of it, and made such a success in the comic line that couplets were com- posed for her, and she was christened the Queen's "little white mouse." It is perhaps not wonderful that the tragedy of Iphigenia in Alas, being chosen for the main piece, her part in that play was found not so "exactly suited to her capacity." She was then seven. But throughout the book the same amusing personal naiveté is pleasantly manifest, and it attracts us considerably to the dear old garrulous lady who lived through such a whirl of adventure, and such a shifting scene of escapes, of exile, of adventures, and murders and death, as to give to her style of narrating it quite r curious sense of inappropriate contrast. To be despatched anywhere in the middle of the night, to be content with part of a straw pallet in a barn, to be forbidden entrance as an &agree into the most unpromising refuges,—all these things are the least of the experiences of the fair aristocrat. Throughout it all she managed to instruct her royal pupils, and to bring up her own children, with an unvarying care and an especial watchfulness little short of marvellous. And not the least agreeable part of the reading to ourselves will be her tribute to England, the general refuge throughout of our persecuted and ostracised neighbours of all classes, royal and republican, bond and free. "What a difference to this noble re- ception and that to which we had become so cruelly accustomed since our change of fortune ! Is it strange that I should have formed that strong attachment to England which, compared with the countries where we had suffered so much, seemed to us like a haven of refuge after the storm ? " In London, she and her husband inhabited for a time a small house in St. Pancras ; but finding the outlook upon a cemetery too dreary, they migrated to a pleasant meadow in Pimlico, where, when the sun shone and the day was bright, she wandered abroad with her twins. In London she mixed, of course, with the best society, and has plenty to tell us about our great families, which will interest their representatives of the present day. From a child she was brought into contact with all the chief figures of the time, and we are presented with two little dramatic pistures which form a curious study. "At length, my dear child," said her grandmother to her one day, "I can see some hope of a new era." This was after the Jacobin and Vendean episodes, and the worship of the Goddess of Reason :— "France is beginning to weary of faction, and to feel the need of a law and a ruler. I have received letters from a friend of your mother's, who speaks of a young soldier who has gained a wonderful ascendency over the army by his talents and energy, and has wrought miracles in Italy. She speaks as if I ought to know him. Help me with your youthful memory, and tell me, my dear child, whether you remember a young officer who was a foreigner, and was sent to your father while he was at the military school P Oh, I remember very well,' I said, 'and I can tell you his history. . . . A friend of my father asked him to obtain permission for the son of one of his friends to be trans- ferred as soon OA possible from Drienne to the Military School of Paris. My father had some difficulty, but as soon as he had obtained the promise, he sent for the young man to come and see my mother. I remember the first day he wore his uniform. My mother liked him very much, and had him to dinner every Sunday. They permitted me to come to dessert, and I slipped in between him and my mother. One day I tried to draw his sword, whereupon he gave me a tap on the knuckles, saying, "That is not to be touched." Do you remember his name P' inquired my grandmother.—' Oh yea, very well. It was Napoleon Bonaparte.' ' In the Cheltenham pump-room, at a later date, our heroine met with another young officer, who charmed her with his stories about India, where he had achieved successes much spoken of ; and one day he confided to her a love- trouble which was disturbing him greatly, and was to decide his future life. His lady-love had warned him that she bad lost her beauty through small-pox, and he was starting for Ireland to see her. "He went, and they returned together, she in the carriage alone, and he on the box. My protrigei of Cheltenham became the Dake of Wellington! My father's protegg at the Ecole Militaire was the Emperor Napoleon 1" The following is, we believe, entirely new. Madame de Gontaut is writing of the wild enthusiasm in London which followed Waterloo :— " What has perhaps been never known is the sincere modesty of the conqueror who was the object of all this adulation [a cofopliment which she extends to Blacher]. A friend and admirer of Wellington happened to find himself at Waterloo, in the maga of that memorable day. He took notes, drew up plans and wrote a description, which he sent to the Duke, expecting to receive warm thanks and gratitude for this arduous toil. This is the Duke's reply : You must allow me, my friend, to discourage you In this undertaking, for, believe me, at such a moment one may recall small isolated details (even all, let us say, if that is possible), the consequence of which is victory or defeat. But the precise order, the proper succession of events,--in a word, all that would give them any real value, no one can possibly put together ; and, moreover, the faults and mistakes of some officers may perhaps have given to others an opportunity of distinguishing themselves. You cannot praise one without showing severity towards others. It is better, perhsps, to keep silence than to tell everything. That convulsive anxiety, that theatrical melancholy which you describe with such eloquence, would simply have led our heroes to a madhouse, instead of conducting them to glory. Believe me, my friend, this victory is fine enough in itself to console us for any checks already received ; let us then be content, and leave to history the task of awarding the credit of it.'" The book is full of curious illustrations and 'byways of character such as these, which we extract because of its interest for Englishmen. The Duke's entire absence of tall- talk is as a rule curiously characteristic of the great con- querors, as contrasted with the amateur commanders, usually of the Imperial stamp, who wield such terrific swords at banquets and reviews. The test of the real is very apt to sober them.
As for the terrible stories of the guillotine and the Revolution, with which Madame de Gontaut's memoirs abound, we have said enough to recall the melancholy episodes to which they refer. The story of the Duo de Bern's assassination at the theatre is told with simple but vivid effect, and the bearing and the history of his unhappy wife afterwards are made the subject of faithful and loving portraiture. It was in 1830 that the Duchesse de Gonta.ut came to England in charge of the Children of France, and in 1834 that she resigned her post and retired into private life with the affectionate good wishes of the royal family. Her connection with the children of the Duo and Duchesse de Bern gives the main interest to her narrative. The son was afterwards, it will be remembered, heir to the throne, as Duo de Bordeaux and Comte de Charalsord, and the daughter was the Duchess of Parma, who, like her mother, lost her husband through the stroke of the assassin. There is something infinitely saddening in the oft-told tale of these royal murders,—full just now of an unusually deep and sympathetic interest for those whose thoughts are so much attracted to the young Russian couple who are starting upon so perilous a voyage of married life together. It is but a sad heritage from history that the Princess Alm has to take up ; and the freedom of our own race from this painful shadow of fatality is at least a consoling comment upon Madame de Gontaut's kindly expressed gratitude to England.
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