Capital letter T
THE last of the four French heroines whose histories are here to be related, differed in her early surroundings and circumstances from the three preceding ones. She was neither the daughter of a powerful noble like the Marquise de Montagu, nor did she belong to the finance or the bourgeoisie like Mme. Le Brun and Mme. Tallien. Her father was noble but poor, her childhood was spent, not in a great capital but in the country, and as she was born nearly ten years before the first and six-and-twenty years before the last of the other three, she saw much more than they did of the old France before it was swept away by the Revolution.
Félicité Stéphanie Ducrest de Saint-Aubin was born January 25, 1746, at Champcéry, a small estate in Burgundy which belonged to her father, but which two years afterwards he sold, and bought the estate and marquisat [111] of Saint-Aubin on the Loire.
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The chateau, built close to the river, was large, picturesque2, and dilapidated, with immense court-yards and crumbling3 towers; on the opposite bank was the Abbaye de Sept-Fonts, where Félicité and her brother were often taken for a treat, crossing the Loire in a boat and dining in the guest-room of the abbey.
These children, of whom she was the elder by a year, were the only ones who survived of the four born to their parents, and were devotedly4 fond of each other; the remembrance of their happy childhood together in the rambling5 old chateau and the great garden with its terrace over the Loire always remained vividly6 impressed upon the mind of Félicité.
They were in the habit of spending part of every summer at étioles, with M. le Normand, fermier général des postes, husband of Mme. de Pompadour, then the mistress of Louis XV. After one of these visits, when Félicité was about six years old, it having been decided7 to obtain for her and for one of her little cousins admission into the order of chanoinesses of the Noble Chapter of Alix; the two children with their mothers travelled in an immense travelling-carriage called a berline, to Lyon, where they were detained for a fortnight, during which the Comtes de Lyon examined the genealogical proofs of their noble descent. Finding them correct and sufficient for their admission into the order, they proceeded to Alix, at some distance from Lyon; where, with the huge abbey and church in the centre were, grouped, in the form of a semi-circle, the tiny houses, each with its [353] little garden, which were the dwellings8 of the chanoinesses.
Boucher
LA MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR
On the day of the ceremony the children, dressed in white, were brought into the church, where the grand prior, after making them say the creed9 and answer certain questions, cut off a lock of their hair, tied a piece of black and white material on their heads, put a black silk girdle round their waists, and hung round their necks the red cordon10 and enamelled cross of the order. After a short exhortation11, followed by high mass, the children were embraced by the chanoinesses, and the day ended with suitable festivities.
The chanoinesses all bore the title of Countess; that chosen for Félicité was Comtesse de Lancy, her father being Seigneur of Bourbon-Lancy.
The chanoinesses were free to take vows12 or not, either at the prescribed age or later. If they did not, they had only the honour of the title of Countess and the decorations of the order. If they did, they got one of the dwellings and a good pension, but they could not marry, and must spend two out of every three years there; with the other year they could do as they liked. They might also adopt as a niece a young chanoinesse on condition she always stayed with them and took the vows when she was the proper age. Her adopted aunt might leave her all her jewels, furniture, &c., as well as her little house and pension. One of them wished to adopt Félicité, but her mother would not consent. They stayed there six weeks and then went home, Félicité in despair at leaving the nuns13, [354] who petted and loaded her with bonbons14, but much consoled by being called “Madame.”
They then returned to Lyon, where they parted company; Félicité’s aunt and cousin returning to Paris, while she and her mother went back to Burgundy.
After a time a governess was engaged for her, a certain Mlle. de Mars, a young girl of sixteen, whose chief instruction was in music, in which she excelled, but beyond the catechism and a few elementary subjects, knew little or nothing. She was a gentle, devout15, sweet-tempered girl, and Félicité soon became passionately16 attached to her, and as her mother, occupied with her own pursuits and paying and receiving visits, troubled herself very little about the studies of her daughter, the child was left almost entirely17 to Mlle. Mars and the maids, who, however, were trustworthy women and did her no harm, beyond filling her head with stories of ghosts with which the old chateau might well have been supposed to be haunted. M. de Saint-Aubin kept a pack of hounds, hunted or fished all day, and played the violin in the evening. He had been in the army, but had resigned his commission early in consequence of some foolish scrape.
Félicité’s mother was the daughter of a most odious18 woman.
She had first married M. de Mézières, a man of talent and learning, who possessed19 an estate in Burgundy, and was early left a widow.
After a very few months she married the Marquis de la Haie, who had been the page and then the [355] lover of the infamous20 Duchesse de Berri, eldest21 daughter of the Regent d’Orléans.
The Marquis was celebrated22 for his good looks, and was very rich; but her marriage with him was disastrous23 for the son and daughter of her first husband, to whom she took a violent and unnatural24 dislike. She sent her son to America to get rid of him when he was thirteen, and when he arrived there he escaped to Canada, took refuge with the Indians, and made them understand that he had been abandoned by his mother and wanted to live with them, to which they consented on condition of his being tattooed25 all over.
The courage, strength, and vigour26 of the boy delighted the Indians, whose language he soon learned and in whose sports and warlike feats27 he excelled. But, unlike most Europeans who have identified themselves with savages28, he did not forget his own language or the education he had received. Every day he traced upon pieces of bark verses or prose in French and Latin, or geometrical problems; and so great was the consideration he obtained among the Indians that when he was twenty he was made chief of the tribe, then at war with the Spaniards. Much astonished at the way in which the savages were commanded by their young leader, the Spaniards were still more surprised when, on discussing terms of peace, he conversed29 with them entirely in Latin. Struck with admiration30 after hearing his history, they invited him to enter the Spanish service, which, when he had arranged a satisfactory treaty for his Indian friends, he did; made a rich marriage, and being one of those men [356] who are born to lead, rose as rapidly to power among the Spaniards as among the Indians, and at the end of ten or twelve years was governor of Louisiana. There he lived in prosperity and happiness on his estates in a splendid house in which he formed a magnificent library; and did not visit France until the death of his cruel mother, after which he spent some time in Paris to the great satisfaction of his sister and niece. The latter, who was then at the Palais Royal, describes him as a grave, rather reserved man, of vast information and capacity. His conversation was intensely interesting owing to the extent of his reading in French, Spanish, and Latin, and the extraordinary experiences of his life. He used to dine with her nearly every day, and through his silk stockings she could see the tattooed serpents of his Indian tribe. He was an excellent man, for whom she had the greatest respect and affection.
Mme. de la Haie treated her daughter as badly as her son. She placed her at six years old in a convent, seldom went to see her, when she did showed her no sign of affection, and at fourteen insisted upon her taking the veil. But the irrevocable vows were not to be pronounced for another year, by which time the young girl declared that they might carry her to the church but that before the altar she would say no instead of yes. The Abbess declared that so great a scandal could not be permitted, the enraged32 mother had to give way, and the young girl joyfully33 resumed the secular34 clothes now much too small for her.
But she was left to live in the convent without [357] ever leaving it, and her lot would have been deplorable indeed but for the affection and sympathy she met with from every one, above all, from the good abbess, Mme. de Rossgnol, who had taken care of her education, and with whom she dined and spent the whole day.
Thus time passed on till she was six-and-twenty, when she formed an intimate friendship with the Marquise de Fontenille, a widow who had come to live in the convent. M. Ducrest, then de Champcéry, a good-looking man of thirty-seven, who had lately left the army, was a relation of Mme. de Fontenille, and often came to the parloir to see her. He also saw Mlle. de Mézières, with whom he fell in love, and whom he proposed to marry. He had a few hundreds a year, the small castle of Champcéry, and a little property besides; while Mlle. de Mézières had less than two thousand pounds, her mother having seized all the rest of the fortune of her father. But such was her unnatural spite against her daughter that she refused her consent for three months, and although she was at last obliged to give it, she would give neither dot, trousseau, nor presents, all of which were provided by the good Abbess.
She came to the wedding with the son and daughter of her second marriage; the latter was afterwards the celebrated Mme. de Montesson. But she managed permanently35 to cheat her elder daughter out of nearly the whole of the property of her father, and always behaved to her and to her children with the most heartless cruelty.
The mania36 for education which characterised [358] Félicité through life began at an early age. While still a child she had a fancy to give instruction to the little boys who came to cut reeds growing by the pond or moat at the foot of the terrace of the chateau.
As the window of her room looked upon the terrace, and was only five feet from the ground, she let herself down by a cord, taking care to choose the days when there was a post, Mlle. de Mars was busy writing to her friends, and her mother out of the way. Leaning upon the low wall of the terrace she instructed the little boys who stood below in what she happened to know herself, i.e., the catechism, the beginning of the principles of music, and certain tragedies which she and they declaimed, and as these instructions were mingled37 with cakes, fruit, and toys which she threw over the wall to them, they were very well attended, until Mlle. de Mars one day surprised them, and laughed so heartily38 at the verses recited in patois39 by the little boys that the class came to an end.
From her earliest childhood Félicité had shown a remarkable40 talent for music and acting41, of which her mother was so proud that she did her best to spoil the child by bringing her forward on every occasion to display her talents. She learned to sing, to play the harp42, to recite verses; she was dressed up as an Amour or a Hebe, she acted Iphigenia and Hector and Zaire, and the constant flattery and notice she received evidently and naturally turned her head and laid the foundation of that vanity and self-satisfaction which appears so conspicuously43 in the records of her life.
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When she was about twelve years old she left Burgundy with her mother and Mlle. de Mars. They travelled partly by boat on the Loire, partly with their own carriage and horses, to Paris, where they established themselves, and where Félicité pursued her musical studies with increased ardour. She must have been a precocious45 young person, for when she was eleven years old the son of the neighbouring doctor fell in love with her, managed to give her a note, which she showed to Mlle. Mars, and meeting with indignant discouragement, he ran away for three years, after which he came home and married somebody else.
M. de Saint-Aubin, meanwhile, whose affairs, which grew worse and worse, were probably not improved by his mismanagement nor by the residence of his wife and daughter in Paris, stayed in Burgundy, coming every now and then to see them. Mlle. de Mars had left them, to the great grief of Félicité, who was now fourteen, and whom the Baron46 de Zurlauben, Colonel of the Swiss Guards, was most anxious to marry; but, as he was eighty years old, she declined his offer, and also another of a young widower47 who was only six-and-twenty, extremely handsome and agreeable, and had a large fortune.
By this time, however, she had made up her mind to marry an homme de qualité, who belonged to the court. What she then wished was to marry a certain M. de la Popelinière, whom she thought combined the advantages she desired, though he was nothing more illustrious than a fermier général, besides being an old man. However, her admiration [360] was not sufficiently48 returned for him to be of the same opinion.
Since the departure of Mlle. de Mars the vanity and thirst for admiration fostered by her mother’s foolish education had greatly increased, but between Mme. de Saint-Aubin and her daughter, though there was affection, there was neither ease nor confidence; the young girl was afraid of her mother, but adored her father. The society into which she was thrown formed her character at an early age, and the artificial, partly affected49, partly priggish tone which is apparent in all her voluminous writings detracted from the charm of her undoubtedly50 brilliant talents.
She already played the harp so remarkably51 as to excite general admiration, and amongst those who were anxious to be introduced to and to hear her was the philosopher d’Alembert.
Félicité was very much flattered when she heard this, and very much disgusted when she saw him, for he was ugly, common-looking, had a shrill52 voice, and told stories that displeased53 her.
D’Alembert was one of the most constant and intimate habitués of the salon54 of Mme. Geoffrin, then the stronghold of the philosophers and encyclop?dists, as that of the Duchesse de Luxembourg was of the aristocratic beau monde.
There was also the salon of Mme. du Deffand, who, while more decidedly irreligious and atheistical55 than Mme. Geoffrin, was her superior in talent, birth, and education, and always spoke56 of her with the utmost disdain57, as a bourgeoise without manners or instruction, who did not know [361] how to write, pronounce, or spell correctly, and saw no reason why people should not talk of des z’haricots.
D’Alembert, one of the leading encyclop?dists, like most of them, intensely vain, and about whose origin nothing was known, claimed to be the illegitimate son of the Marquise de Tencin, of scandalous reputation. Mme. de Créquy, in her “Souvenirs,” scorns the idea, saying also that much of the evil spoken of Mme. de Tencin was untrue; but it is certain that many dark and mysterious rumours58 clung to the h?tel Tencin, the garden of which extended over what is now the rue31 de la Paix. Originally intended for the cloister59, Mlle. de Tencin refused to take the vows at Grenoble, and was a conspicuous44 figure in the wild orgies of the Regency. An intimate friend of the notorious John Law, then controller-general of finance, she succeeded, partly by his influence, in getting her brother made Cardinal60 and Archbishop of Embrun, and during his lifetime did the honours of his h?tel, where, during the days of his power, John Law was a leading spirit. Fortunes were lost and won there in a night, but darker secrets than those of the gambling61 table were whispered concerning the h?tel Tencin, its inhabitants and guests. More than ordinary scandals, even in the days of the Regent Orléans and his shameless daughters, were circulated, and even the murder of one of her lovers was so far believed that Mme. de Tencin was arrested, though shortly afterwards acquitted62.
After her brother’s death she lost much of her prestige, and held her salon in the rue St. Honoré, most of her habitués, after her death, transferring themselves to the house of Mme. Geoffrin.
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1
chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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devotedly
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| 专心地； 恩爱地； 忠实地； 一心一意地 | |
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rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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cordon
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| n.警戒线，哨兵线 | |
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exhortation
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| n.劝告，规劝 | |
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12
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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13
nuns
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| n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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14
bonbons
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| n.小糖果( bonbon的名词复数 ) | |
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15
devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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16
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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17
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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18
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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19
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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21
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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23
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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tattooed
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| v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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feats
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| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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29
conversed
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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30
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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patois
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| n.方言；混合语 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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41
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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42
harp
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| n.竖琴；天琴座 | |
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conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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45
precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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46
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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47
widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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48
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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50
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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51
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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52
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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53
displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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54
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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55
atheistical
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| adj.无神论（者）的 | |
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56
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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57
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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59
cloister
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| n.修道院；v.隐退，使与世隔绝 | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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acquitted
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| 宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现 | |
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