Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli Volume II Part 17

TO E.H.

_Paris, Jan. 18, 1847,_ and _Naples, March 17, 1847._--You wished to hear of George Sand, or, as they say in Paris, "Madame Sand." I find that all we had heard of her was true in the outline; I had supposed it might be exaggerated. She had every reason to leave her husband,--a stupid, brutal man, who insulted and neglected her. He afterwards gave up their child to her for a sum of money. But the love for which she left him lasted not well, and she has had a series of lovers, and I am told has one now, with whom she lives on the footing of combined means, independent friends.h.i.+p! But she takes rank in society like a man, for the weight of her thoughts, and has just given her daughter in marriage. Her son is a grown-up young man, an artist. Many women visit her, and esteem it an honor. Even an American here, and with the feelings of our country on such subjects, Mrs. ----, thinks of her with high esteem. She has broken with La Mennais, of whom she was once a disciple.

I observed to Dr. Francois, who is an intimate of hers, and loves and admires her, that it did not seem a good sign that she breaks with her friends. He said it was not so with her early friends; that she has chosen to buy a chateau in the region where she pa.s.sed her childhood, and that the people there love and have always loved her dearly. She is now at the chateau, and, I begin to fear, will not come to town before I go. Since I came, I have read two charming stories recently written by her. Another longer one she has just sold to _La Presse_ for fifteen thousand francs. She does not receive nearly as much for her writings as Balzac, Dumas, or Sue. She has a much greater influence than they, but a less circulation.

She stays at the chateau, because the poor people there were suffering so much, and she could help them. She has subscribed _twenty thousand francs_ for their relief, in the scarcity of the winter. It is a great deal to earn by one's pen: a novel of several volumes sold for only fifteen thousand francs, as I mentioned before. * * *

At last, however, she came; and I went to see her at her house, Place d'Orleans. I found it a handsome modern residence. She had not answered my letter, written about a week before, and I felt a little anxious lest she should not receive me; for she is too much the mark of impertinent curiosity, as well as too busy, to be easily accessible to strangers. I am by no means timid, but I have suffered, for the first time in France, some of the torments of _mauvaise honte_, enough to see what they must be to many.

It is the custom to go and call on those to whom you bring letters, and push yourself upon their notice; thus you must go quite ignorant whether they are disposed to be cordial. My name is always murdered by the foreign servants who announce me. I speak very bad French; only lately have I had sufficient command of it to infuse some of my natural spirit in my discourse. This has been a great trial to me, who am eloquent and free in my own tongue, to be forced to feel my thoughts struggling in vain for utterance.

The servant who admitted me was in the picturesque costume of a peasant, and, as Madame Sand afterward told me, her G.o.d-daughter, whom she had brought from her province. She announced me as "_Madame Salere,_" and returned into the ante-room to tell me. "_Madame says she does not know you_" I began to think I was doomed to a rebuff, among the crowd who deserve it. However, to make a.s.surance sure, I said, "Ask if she has not received a letter from me." As I spoke, Madame S. opened the door, and stood looking at me an instant. Our eyes met. I never shall forget her look at that moment. The doorway made a frame for her figure; she is large, but well-formed. She was dressed in a robe of dark violet silk, with a black mantle on her shoulders, her beautiful hair dressed with the greatest taste, her whole appearance and att.i.tude, in its simple and lady-like dignity, presenting an almost ludicrous contrast to the vulgar caricature idea of George Sand. Her face is a very little like the portraits, but much finer; the upper part of the forehead and eyes are beautiful, the lower, strong and masculine, expressive of a hardy temperament and strong pa.s.sions, but not in the least coa.r.s.e; the complexion olive, and the air of the whole head Spanish, (as, indeed, she was born at Madrid, and is only on one side of French blood.) All these details I saw at a glance; but what fixed my attention was the expression of _goodness_, n.o.bleness, and power, that pervaded the whole,--the truly human heart and nature that shone in the eyes. As our eyes met, she said, "_C'est vous_" and held out her hand. I took it, and went into her little study; we sat down a moment, then I said, "_Il me fait de bien de vous voir_" and I am sure I said it with my whole heart, for it made me very happy to see such a woman, so large and so developed a character, and everything that _is_ good in it so _really_ good. I loved, shall always love her.

She looked away, and said, "_Ah! vous m'avez ecrit une lettre charmante_" This was all the preliminary of our talk, which then went on as if we had always known one another. She told me, before I went away, that she was going that very day to write to me; that when the servant announced me she did not recognize the name, but after a minute it struck her that it might be _La dame Americaine,_ as the foreigners very commonly call me, for they find my name hard to remember. She was very much pressed for time, as she was then preparing copy for the printer, and, having just returned, there were many applications to see her, but she wanted me to stay then, saying, "It is better to throw things aside, and seize the present moment." I staid a good part of the day, and was very glad afterwards, for I did not see her again uninterrupted. Another day I was there, and saw her in her circle. Her daughter and another lady were present, and a number of gentlemen. Her position there was of an intellectual woman and good friend,--the same as my own in the circle of my acquaintance as distinguished from my intimates. Her daughter is just about to be married. It is said, there is no congeniality between her and her mother; but for her son she seems to have much love, and he loves and admires her extremely. I understand he has a good and free character, without conspicuous talent.

Her way of talking is just like her writing,--lively, picturesque, with an undertone of deep feeling, and the same skill in striking the nail on the head every now and then with a blow.

We did not talk at all of personal or private matters. I saw, as one sees in her writings, the want of an independent, interior life, but I did not feel it as a fault, there is so much in her of her kind.

I heartily enjoyed the sense of so rich, so prolific, so ardent a genius. I liked the woman in her, too, very much; I never liked a woman better.

For the rest I do not care to write about it much, for I cannot, in the room and time I have to spend, express my thoughts as I would; but as near as I can express the sum total, it is this. S---- and others who admire her, are anxious to make a fancy picture of her, and represent her as a Helena (in the Seven Chords of the Lyre); all whose mistakes are the fault of the present state of society. But to me the truth seems to be this. She has that purity in her soul, for she knows well how to love and prize its beauty; but she herself is quite another sort of person. She needs no defence, but only to be understood, for she has bravely acted out her nature, and always with good intentions. She might have loved one man permanently, if she could have found one contemporary with her who could interest and command her throughout her range; but there was hardly a possibility of that, for such a person. Thus she has naturally changed the objects of her affection, and several times. Also, there may have been something of the Bacchante in her life, and of the love of night and storm, and the free raptures amid which roamed on the mountain-tops the followers of Cybele, the great G.o.ddess, the great mother. But she was never coa.r.s.e, never gross, and I am sure her generous heart has not failed to draw some rich drops from every kind of wine-press. When she has done with an intimacy, she likes to break it off suddenly, and this has happened often, both with men and women. Many calumnies upon her are traceable to this cause.

I forgot to mention, that, while talking, she _does_ smoke all the time her little cigarette. This is now a common practice among ladies abroad, but I believe originated with her.

For the rest, she holds her place in the literary and social world of France like a man, and seems full of energy and courage in it. I suppose she has suffered much, but she has also enjoyed and done much, and her expression is one of calmness and happiness. I was sorry to see her _exploitant_ her talent so carelessly. She does too much, and this cannot last forever; but "Teverino" and the "Mare au Diable,"

which she has lately published, are as original, as masterly in truth, and as free in invention, as anything she has done.

Afterwards I saw Chopin, not with her, although he lives with her, and has for the last twelve years. I went to see him in his room with one of his friends. He is always ill, and as frail as a snow-drop, but an exquisite genius. He played to me, and I liked his talking scarcely less. Madame S. loved Liszt before him; she has thus been intimate with the two opposite sides of the musical world. Mickiewicz says, "Chopin talks with spirit, and gives us the Ariel view of the universe. Liszt is the eloquent _tribune_ to the world of men, a little vulgar and showy certainly, but I like the tribune best." It is said here, that Madame S. has long had only a friends.h.i.+p for Chopin, who, perhaps, on his side prefers to be a lover, and a jealous lover; but she does not leave him, because he needs her care so much, when sick and suffering. About all this, I do not know; you cannot know much about anything in France, except what you see with your two eyes.

Lying is ingrained in "_la grande nation_" as they so plainly show no less in literature than life.

RACHEL.

In France the theatre is living; you see something really good, and good throughout. Not one touch of that stage-strut and vulgar bombast of tone, which the English actor fancies indispensable to scenic illusion, is tolerated here. For the first time in my life, I saw something represented in a style uniformly good, and should have found sufficient proof, if I had needed any, that all men will prefer what is good to what is bad, if only a fair opportunity for choice be allowed. When I came here, my first thought was to go and see Mademoiselle Rachel. I was sure that in her I should find a true genius. I went to see her seven or eight times, always in parts that required great force of soul, and purity of taste, even to conceive them, and only once had reason to find fault with her. On one single occasion, I saw her violate the harmony of the character, to produce effect at a particular moment; but, almost invariably, I found her a true artist, worthy Greece, and worthy at many moments to have her conceptions immortalized in marble.

Her range even in high tragedy is limited. She can only express the darker pa.s.sions, and grief in its most desolate aspects. Nature has not gifted her with those softer and more flowery attributes, that lend to pathos its utmost tenderness. She does not melt to tears, or calm or elevate the heart by the presence of that tragic beauty that needs all the a.s.saults of fate to make it show its immortal sweetness.

Her n.o.blest aspect is when sometimes she expresses truth in some severe shape, and rises, simple and austere, above the mixed elements around her. On the dark side, she is very great in hatred and revenge.

I admired her more in Phedre than in any other part in which I saw her; the guilty love inspired by the hatred of a G.o.ddess was expressed, in all its symptoms, with a force and terrible naturalness, that almost suffocated the beholder. After she had taken the poison, the exhaustion and paralysis of the system,--the sad, cold, calm submission to Fate,--were still more grand.

I had heard so much about the power of her eye in one fixed look, and the expression she could concentrate in a single word, that the utmost results could only satisfy my expectations. It is, indeed, something magnificent to see the dark cloud give out such sparks, each one fit to deal a separate death; but it was not that I admired most in her.

It was the grandeur, truth, and depth of her conception of each part, and the sustained purity with which she represented it.

The French language from her lips is a divine dialect; it is stripped of its national and personal peculiarities, and becomes what any language must, moulded by such a genius, the pure music of the heart and soul. I never could remember her tone in speaking any word; it was too perfect; you had received the thought quite direct. Yet, had I never heard her speak a word, my mind would be filled by her att.i.tudes. Nothing more graceful can be conceived, nor could the genius of sculpture surpa.s.s her management of the antique drapery.

She has no beauty, except in the intellectual severity of her outline, and she bears marks of race, that will grow stronger every year, and make her ugly at last. Still it will be a _grandiose_, gypsy, or rather Sibylline ugliness, well adapted to the expression of some tragic parts. Only it seems as if she could not live long; she expends force enough upon a part to furnish out a dozen common lives.

TO R.W.E.

_Paris, Jan_. 18, 1847.--I can hardly tell you what a fever consumes me, from sense of the brevity of my time and opportunity. Here I cannot sleep at night, because I have been able to do so little in the day. Constantly I try to calm my mind into content with small achievements, but it is difficult. You will say, it is not so mightily worth knowing, after all, this picture and natural history of Europe.

Very true; but I am so const.i.tuted that it pains me to come away, having touched only the gla.s.s over the picture.

I am a.s.siduous daily at the Academy lectures, picture galleries, Chamber of Deputies,--last week, at the court and court ball. So far as my previous preparation enabled me, I get something from all these brilliant shows,--thoughts, images, fresh impulse. But I need, to initiate me into various little secrets of the place and time,--necessary for me to look at things to my satisfaction,--some friend, such as I do not find here. My steps have not been fortunate in Paris, as they were in England. No doubt, the person exists here, whose aid I want; indeed, I feel that it is so; but we do not meet, and the time draws near for me to depart.

French people I find slippery, as they do not know exactly what to make of me, the rather as I have not the command of their language.

_I_ see _them_, their brilliancy, grace, and variety, the thousand slight refinements of their speech and manner, but cannot meet them in their way. My French teacher says, I speak and act like an Italian, and I hope, in Italy, I shall find myself more at home.

I had, the other day, the luck to be introduced to Beranger, who is the only person beside George Sand I cared very particularly to see here. I went to call on La Mennais, to whom I had a letter. I found him in a little study; his secretary was writing in a large room through which I pa.s.sed. With him was a somewhat citizen-looking, but vivacious elderly man, whom I was, at first, sorry to see, having wished for half an hour's undisturbed visit to the Apostle of Democracy. But those feelings were quickly displaced by joy, when he named to me the great national lyrist of France, the great Beranger.

I had not expected to see him at all, for he is not to be seen in any show place; he lives in the hearts of the people, and needs no homage from their eyes. I was very happy, in that little study, in the presence of these two men, whose influence has been so real and so great. Beranger has been much to me,--his wit, his pathos, and exquisite lyric grace. I have not received influence from La Mennais, but I see well what he has been, and is, to Europe.

TO LA MENNAIS.

Monsieur:--

As my visit to you was cut short before I was quite satisfied, it was my intention to seek you again immediately; although I felt some scruples at occupying your valuable time, when I express myself so imperfectly in your language. But I have been almost constantly ill since, and now am not sure of finding time to pay you my respects before leaving Paris for Italy. In case this should be impossible, I take the liberty to write, and to present you two little volumes of mine. It is only as a tribute of respect. I regret that they do not contain some pieces of mine which might be more interesting to you, as ill.u.s.trative of the state of affairs in our country. Some such will find their place in subsequent numbers. These, I hope, you will, if you do not read them, accept kindly as a salutation from our hemisphere. Many there delight to know you as a great apostle of the ideas which are to be our life, if Heaven intends us a great and permanent life. I count myself happy in having seen you, and in finding with you Beranger, the genuine poet, the genuine man of France. I have felt all the enchantment of the lyre of Beranger; have paid my warmest homage to the truth and wisdom adorned with such charms, such wit and pathos. It was a great pleasure to see himself.

If your leisure permits, Monsieur, I will ask a few lines in reply.

I should like to keep some words from your hand, in case I should not look upon you more here below; and am always, with grat.i.tude for the light you have shed on so many darkened spirits,

Yours, most respectfully,

MARGARET FULLER.

_Paris, Jan_., 1847.--I missed hearing M. Guizot, (I am sorry for it,) in his speech on the Montpensier marriage. I saw the little d.u.c.h.ess, the innocent or ignorant topic of all this disturbance, when presented at court. She went round the circle on the arm of the queen. Though only fourteen, she looks twenty, but has something fresh, engaging, and girlish about her.

I attended not only at the presentation, but at the ball given at the Tuileries directly after. These are fine shows, as the suite of apartments is very handsome, brilliantly lighted,--the French ladies surpa.s.sing all others in the art of dress; indeed, it gave me much pleasure to see them. Certainly there are many ugly ones; but they are so well dressed, and have such an air of graceful vivacity, that the general effect was of a flower-garden. As often happens, several American women were among the most distinguished for positive beauty; one from Philadelphia, who is by many persons considered the prettiest ornament of the dress circle at the Italian opera, was especially marked by the attention of the king. However, these ladies, even if here a long time, do not attain the air and manner of French women. The magnetic fluid that envelops them is less brilliant and exhilarating in its attractions.

Among the crowd wandered Leverrier, in the costume of Academician, looking as if he had lost, not found, his planet. French _savants_ are more generally men of the world, and even men of fas.h.i.+on, than those of other climates; but, in his case, he seemed not to find it easy to exchange the music of the spheres for the music of fiddles.

Speaking of Leverrier leads to another of my disappointments. I went to the Sorbonne to hear him lecture, not dreaming that the old pedantic and theological character of those halls was strictly kept up in these days of light. An old guardian of the inner temple seeing me approach, had his speech all ready, and, manning the entrance, said, with a disdainful air, before we had time to utter a word, "Monsieur may enter if he pleases, but madame must remain here" (_i.e._, in the court-yard). After some exclamations of surprise, I found an alternative in the Hotel de Clugny, where I pa.s.sed an hour very delightfully, while waiting for my companion.

I was more fortunate in hearing Arago, and he justified all my expectations. Clear, rapid, full, and equal, his discourse is worthy its celebrity, and I felt repaid for the four hours one is obliged to spend in going, in waiting, and in hearing, for the lecture begins at half past one, and you must be there before twelve to get a seat, so constant and animated is his popularity.

I was present on one good occasion, at the Academy,--the day that M.

Remusat was received there, in the place of Royer Collard. I looked down, from one of the tribunes, upon the flower of the celebrities of France; that is to say, of the celebrities which are authentic, _comme il faut_. Among them were many marked faces, many fine heads; but, in reading the works of poets, we always fancy them about the age of Apollo himself, and I found with pain some of my favorites quite old, and very unlike the company on Parna.s.sus, as represented by Raphael.

Some, however, were venerable, even n.o.ble to behold.