Lives of Celebrated Women

MADAME DE GENLIS

This celebrated writer, whose maiden name was Stephanie Felicité Ducrest de St. Aubin, has left a voluminous memoir of her life and times, written at the age of eighty, which is interesting for the portraits of celebrated characters, in which it abounds, as well as the delineations it affords of her education, her feelings, and her experience. Of this we have made the following abstract, generally in her own words, which will present the leading incidents of her eventful career: —

“I was born,” says she, “on the 25th of January, 1746, on a little estate in Burgundy, near Autun, called Champcéri. I was born so small and so weakly that they would not venture to put me in clothes; and, a few moments after my birth, I was on the point of losing my life. I had been placed in a down pillow, of which, to keep me warm, the two sides were folded over me and fastened with a pin; and, thus wrapped up, I was laid upon an arm-chair in the room. The judge of the district, who was almost blind, came to pay his visit of compliment to my father; and as, in his country fashion, he separated his huge flaps to sit down, some one saw that he was going to place himself in the arm-chair where I was. Luckily, he was prevented from sitting down, and I escaped being crushed to death.

“I experienced in my childhood a series of unfortunate accidents. At eighteen months old, I fell into a pond, out of which I was extricated with great difficulty: at the age of five, I had a fall, and received a severe wound on the head: as a great deal of blood flowed from it, it was thought unnecessary to bleed me; but a deposit, formed in the head, burst at the ear after forty days, and, contrary to expectation, I was saved. A short time afterwards, I fell into the kitchen fire: this accident did not injure my face, but there are to this day two marks of it on my body. Thus often was endangered, in its earliest years, that life which was afterwards to prove so checkered.

“My father sold the estate of Champcéri when I was two years old. He had a house at Cosne, to which he removed, and passed three years there. The recollection of that house, of its superb garden, and beautiful terrace, upon the Loire, and of the chateau of Mienne, a league from Cosne, where we went so often, remains indelibly engraved on my memory. Passing by that road, thirty-five years after, I instantly recognized the chateau, though I was but five years old when we quitted Cosne. My father purchased the marquisate of St. Aubin, an estate most desirable from its situation, its extent, and its titular and seigniorial rights. I have never thought, without a feeling of tenderness, of this spot, once so dear to me, in which six years of innocence and happiness glided away.

“When we were once fixed at St. Aubin, my education began to be attended to. Mademoiselle Urgon, the village schoolmistress, taught me to read. Having an excellent memory, I learnt with great facility; and at the end of six or seven months, I read with ease. I was brought up with a brother fifteen months younger than myself, of whom I was exceedingly fond; with the exception of the hour set apart for reading, we were allowed to play together all day long. We passed part of the day in the court-yard, or in the garden; and in the evening we played in the drawing-room.

“I was six years old when my brother was sent to Paris, to the famous academy of M. Bertrand, the most virtuous and best instructor of his time. It was he who invented the method of learning to spell in six weeks, by means of boxes full of counters. Two or three months after the departure of my brother, my mother made a journey to Paris, and took me with her.

“I was not much pleased with Paris, and, for the first few days of my stay there, I regretted St. Aubin bitterly. I had two teeth pulled out; my clothes pinched me terribly; my feet were imprisoned in tight shoes, with which it was impossible for me to walk; I had a multitude of curl papers put on my head; and I wore a hoop, for the first time in my life. In order to get rid of my country attitudes, I had an iron collar put on my neck, and, as I squinted a little at times, I was obliged to put on goggles as soon as I woke in the morning; and these I wore four hours. I was, moreover, not a little surprised when they talked of giving me a master to teach me what I thought I knew well enough already – to walk. Beside all this, I was forbidden to run, to leap, or ask questions.

“All these painful constraints made such an impression on me, that I have never forgotten them. I have since faithfully depicted them in a little comedy called ‘The Dove.’ But a great ceremony, and the fine entertainments which followed it, soon made me forget my little griefs. I had only been privately christened; I was now baptized in public; my aunt, Madame de Bellevau, was my godmother, and M. Bouret, the farmer-general, my godfather. I received some splendid presents; and I had, besides, plenty of sweetmeats and playthings, and I soon recovered my good-humor. I was taken also to the opera, which delighted me beyond measure.

“My father had the utmost affection for me, but he did not interfere with my education in any point but one; he wished to make me a woman of firm mind, and I was born with numberless little antipathies. I had a horror of all insects, particularly of spiders and toads. I was also afraid of mice, and he made me feed and bring up one. I loved my father to excess, and he had such an influence over me, that I never dared to disobey him. He would frequently oblige me to catch spiders with my fingers, and to hold toads in my hands, and, at such times, though I felt as if the blood had forsaken my veins, I was forced to obey. These trials proved clearly to me that toads are not venomous; but they powerfully contributed to weaken my nerves, and have only augmented the antipathies which they were intended to remove. They have, however, served to give me a habit of self-command, which of itself is a great benefit.

“So passed several years. Mademoiselle de Mars, a young woman from Brittany, had now the sole direction of my studies, and she gave me also lessons in singing, and on the harpsichord. I became attached to her from the first, and passed nearly all my time with her. I made great progress in my music, and we rehearsed a great many little plays for our amusement. Much applause was bestowed upon my performances, except by Mademoiselle de Mars, who generally only praised me for what belonged to my heart or character. I led a charming life: in the morning I played on the harpsichord; afterwards I studied my parts; then I took my lesson in dancing and fencing, and then read till dinner. After dinner, we read pious books, and afterwards spent our time in amusements and walking.

“I will here give the history of what a woman never forgets – the first passion she inspires. I was but a child of eleven years and nine months, and very small of my age; besides, I had a face and features so delicate, that those who saw me for the first time never supposed me older than eight or nine, at furthest; yet a young man of eighteen became desperately in love with me – the son of Dr. Pinot, one of the first physicians at the baths of Bourbon-Lancey. He had performed parts in our plays for two years.

“None of us suspected his folly, and certainly I had not the slightest idea of it; when, one morning, after a rehearsal, the young man came up to me, and, seizing the moment when I was standing separate from the other actors in the side scene, and with an air of wildness in his looks, gave me a note, begging me, in a low tone, to read it, and let no one see it. I took the note, though much surprised, and he left me. Mademoiselle de Mars soon after joined me. I put the note in my pocket, and we went up stairs to our room. I hesitated about showing her my note, as I had been charged so strongly to show it to no one; but to keep a secret with the friend I loved so dearly weighed heavily upon my conscience; at the same time, my curiosity was extreme.

“At last, Mademoiselle de Mars left me. I ran into my cabinet, locked the door, and read the note, which contained a serious declaration of love. My first movement was to be excessively shocked that the son of a physician – a person of no rank – should presume to talk of love to me. I went immediately and showed the note to my friend, who desired me to carry it to my mother, which I did. The young man was reprimanded by his father, as he deserved to be; and he felt so much chagrin on the occasion, that he enlisted in the army, and left the place. I afterwards heard of him as having obtained his discharge, and that he was married and happy, and an excellent young man.

“Two months after this romantic flight, we went to Paris. I confess, to my shame, that I quitted Burgundy without regret; for childhood loves and requires change. At Paris we found my aunt, the Countess de Bellevau, and after a short time we took up our abode with her. At her house I saw the celebrated author M. Marmontel. He came to read her his ‘Tales.’ I was present at the reading of one, called, I think, ‘The Self-styled Philosopher,’ in which a fat president’s wife, begrimmed with snuff, leads about in triumph this pretended sage, with a rose-colored ribbon. Though but twelve years old, I thought this story dull and absurd, and I thought rightly. The author was far from supposing that the little girl then before him would one day write a critique on these tales, which should throw him into transports of rage.

“At the close of the winter, we went to a country-house of my aunt’s, which had a delightful garden close to the forest of Vincennes. My brother, my two cousins, and myself, performed little pieces, and we had many little fêtes at which my brother and myself sung duets. He was by no means as remarkable a child as I was: he was shy, awkward, and of an inconceivable simplicity: he had requested my father in vain to let him use a gun; he was always told that he must first acquire a knowledge of fencing, for which he had not the slightest taste: he therefore adopted the following expedient: he loaded a gun, shut himself up in his room, and, in order to fire without making a noise, he bethought him of thrusting the barrel of the gun under the mattress of the bed. He then fired in this prudent manner, set fire to the bed, and was himself knocked down by the rebound. The family hastily assembled, and discovered with surprise this singular invention. The next summer we spent at Passy, and in October returned to Paris.

“When I was fourteen years old, my father left us for St. Domingo. On his return, he was taken prisoner by the English, with all he possessed. He was conducted to Lanceston, a seaport town in England, where he found many French prisoners of war, and, among others, a young man, whose handsome face, talents, and accomplishments, inspired him with the most lively interest: this was the Comte de Genlis, who, in returning from Pondicherry, where he had commanded a regiment during five years, had been carried to Canton, in China. Here he passed five months, and was thence taken to Lanceston.

“The Comte de Genlis had served in the navy from the age of fourteen; he had covered himself with glory in the famous action of M. d’Aché; he was then a lieutenant, and scarcely twenty. Out of twenty-two officers, he was the only one who survived: all the others were killed. M. de Genlis was covered with wounds, of which one remained open for eight years and a half. This combat gained him the rank of captain, and the cross of St. Louis. M. d’Aché took off his own to give it to him, on board of the vessel, the very day of the action, saying that he was sure the court would not disavow what he had done. The Comte de Genlis conducted himself with equal valor at Pondicherry. As soon as he returned to France, his uncle, M. de Puisieux, made him quit the navy, and enter into the land service, with the rank of colonel of grenadiers.

“While he was at Lanceston, he became very intimate with my father, who always carried a box, on which was my portrait in the act of playing the harp: this picture struck M. de Genlis, who made many inquiries about me, and believed all that was said by my father, who thought me faultless.

“The English had left my father my portrait, my letters, and those of my mother, which spoke of nothing but my successes and my talents. The count read these, and they made a profound impression upon him. His uncle, who was then minister for foreign affairs, soon obtained his liberty, and he promised to do all in his power to obtain that of my father. As soon as he arrived in Paris, he waited on my mother, to deliver some letters from my father; at the same time, he earnestly solicited his exchange, and in three weeks my father arrived in Paris. Not long after, being seized with a malignant fever, he died in the flower of his age. I experienced at his loss the most profound grief I had ever felt.

“I will now speak of an old friend of my father’s – the Baron d’Andlau. He came often to visit us; he was more than sixty, generous and kind. He discovered the greatest friendship for me, and I was so much the more touched with these marks of his affection, that I attributed them to the remembrance he had preserved of my father. But, at last, he made me understand his real sentiments by the most singular declaration of love that was ever made. He sent me, by his valet, a huge packet, containing his genealogy at full length, which he entreated me to examine with attention; but all my application in this way rendered me by no means favorable to his hopes. The same day, he came solemnly to demand my heart and hand, and was extremely surprised to find that his superb parchments had produced so little effect upon my mind. My mother, however, desired me to reflect upon his proposal, stating that he was rich and of high birth; but I firmly persisted in my refusal, and there was no more said upon the subject. He did not discontinue his visits, but paid attention only to my mother, and to such good purpose, that, eighteen months after, he married her; and I was much better pleased to have him for a father-in-law than a husband.