The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume Iii Part 57

Almost distracted, I flew myself to the inn; but the answer was repeated! The route to Luxembourg, they told me, was infested with straggling parties, first, from the wandering army of Grouchy, now rendered pillagers from want of food ; and next, from the pursuing army of the Prussians, who made themselves pillagers also through the rights of conquest. To travel in a chaise would be impracticable, they a.s.sured me, without a guard.

I now resolved upon travelling in the diligence, and desired to secure a place in that for Tr?ves. There was none to that city !

"And what is the nearest town to Tr?ves, whence I might go on in a chaise?"

"Luxembourg."

I bespoke a place, but was told that the diligence had set off the very day before, and that none other would go for six days, as it only quitted Brussels once a week.

My friend the Baroness de Spagen next told me that, if travel I would, I had but to go by Li?ge, which, though not a direct, was the only safe road; that then she would put me under the protection of her brother-in-law, the Comte de Spagen, who was himself proceeding to that city by the ensuing night- coach.

I accepted this kindness with rapture. I flew myself to the book-keeper I had so abruptly quitted, and instantly secured a place in the Li?ge diligence for night; and I was taking leave of my hosts, a Brussels fiacre being at the door, laden with my little luggage, when I was told that Le Roi, the confidential servant of Madame d'Henin, besought to speak a word to me from his mistress. He told me that the Princesse 'was quite miserable at my hazardous plan, which she had gathered from Madame de la Tour du Pin, and that she Page 371

supplicated me to postpone my purpose only till the next day, when I should have some one of trust to accompany me.

I a.s.sured him that nothing now could make me risk procrastination, but begged him to still the fears of the excellent Princesse by acquainting her I should be under the protection of the Comte de Spagen.

arrived at the inn after this last unprepared-for impediment, three or four minutes too late ! What was the fermentation of my mind at this news! A whole week I must wait for the next diligence, and even then lose the aid and countenance of le Comte de Spagen.

Le Roi, who, through some short cut of footpaths and alleys, had got to the inn before me, earnestly pressed me, in the style of the confidential old servants of the French n.o.bility, to go and compose myself chez la princesse. Even my host and hostess had pursued to wish me again good-bye, and now expressed their warm hopes I should return to them. But the book-keeper alone spoke a language to s.n.a.t.c.h me from despair, by saying my fiacre might perhaps catch the diligence two miles off, in the All?e Verte, where it commonly stopped for fresh pa.s.sengers or parcels.

Eagerly I promised the coachman a reward if he could succeed, and off he drove. The diligence was at the appointed place, and that instant ready to proceed ! I rushed into it with trepidation of hurry, and when more composed, I was eager to find out which of my fellow- travellers might be the Comte de Spagen; but I dared risk no question. I sat wholly silent. We arrived at Li?ge about nine in the morning I now advanced to the book-keeper, and made inquiries about the Comte de Spagen.

He had arrived in the earlier coach, and was gone on in some other to his estates.

As calmly as was in my power, I then declared my purpose to go to Tr?ves, and begged to be put on my way.

I was come wrong, the book-keeper answered; the road was by Luxembourg.

And how was I to get thither?

By Brussels, he said, and a week hence, the diligence having set off the day before.

Alas, I well knew that! and entreated some other means to forward me to Tr?ves,

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He replied that he knew of none from Li?ge; but that if I would go to Aix, I might there, perhaps, though it was out of the road, hear of some conveyance; but he a.s.serted it was utterly impossible I could leave Li?ge without a pa.s.sport from the Prussian police-office, where I should only and surely be detained if I had not one to show from whence I came. This happily, reminded me of the one I had from M. de jaucourt' in Paris, and which was fortunately, though accidentally, in my hand-basket.

Arrived at Aix, I earnestly inquired for a conveyance to Tr?ves; none existed! nor could I hear of any at all, save a diligence to juliers, which was to set out at four o'clock the next morning.

To lose thus a whole day, and even then to go only more north instead of south, almost cast me into despair. But redress there was none, and I was forced to secure myself a place to juliers, whence, I was told, I might get on.

At any more tranquil period I should have seized this interval for visiting the famous old cathedral and the tomb of Charlemagne; but now I thought not of them; I did not even recollect that Aix-la-Chapelle had been the capital of that emperor. I merely saw the town through a misty, mizzling rain, and that the road all around it was sandy and heavy, or that all was discoloured by my own disturbed view.

I laid down, in a scarcely furnished apartment, without undressing. I suffered no shutter or curtain to be closed, lest i should lose my vehicle ; and such was my anxiety, that at three o'clock, by my own watch, I descended to inquire if we were not to set off. I wandered about by the twilight of a season that is never quite dark, but met no one. I returned to my chamber, but, always in terror of being forgotten, descended again in a quarter of an hour, though still without success. An hour, says Dr.

Johnson, may be tedious, but it cannot be long : four o'clock at last struck, and I ran into a vehicle then ready in the courtyard of the auberge.(284)

I found myself alone, which, at first, was a great relief to my mind, that was overburthened with care and apprehension, and glad of utter silence. Ere long, however, I found it fed my melancholy, which it was my business rather to combat and I was not, therefore, sorry when a poor woman with a child was admitted from the outside through the charity of the coachman, as the rain grew heavier.

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At juliers we stopped at a rather large inn, at the head of an immensely long market-place. It was nearly empty, except where occupied by straggling soldiers, poor, lame, or infirm labourers, women, and children. The universal war of the Continent left scarcely a man unmaimed to be seen in civil life. The women who met my eyes were all fat, with very round and very brown faces.

Most of them were barefooted, nay, barelegged, and had on odd small caps, very close round their visages. The better sort, I fancy, at that critical time, had hidden themselves or fled the town.

We entered Cologne through an avenue, said to be seven miles in length, of lime-trees. It was evening, but very light, and Cologne had a striking appearance, from its magnitude and from its profusion of steeples. The better sort of houses were white and looked neat, though in an old-fas.h.i.+oned style, and elaborately ornamented. But, between the ravages of time and of war, the greater part of them seemed crumbling away, if not tumbling down.

A FRIENDLY RECEPTION AT COLOGNE.

But while I expected to be driven on to some auberge, a police officer, in a Prussian uniform, came to the coach-door, and demanded our pa.s.sports. My companion made herself known as a native, and was let out directly. The officer, having cast his eye over my pa.s.sport, put his head through the window of the carriage, and, in a low whisper, asked me whether I were French?

French by marriage, though English by birth, I hardly knew which to call myself; I said, however, "Oui." He then, in a voice yet more subdued, gave me to understand that he could serve me. I caught at his offer, and told him I earnestly desired to go straight to Tr?ves, to a wounded friend. He would do for me what he could, he answered, for he was French himself, though employed by the Prussians. He would carry my pa.s.sport for me to the magistrate of the place and get it signed without my having any further trouble though only, he feared, to Bonn, or, at farthest, to Coblenz, whence I might probably proceed unmolested. He knew also, and could recommend me to a most respectable lady and gentleman, both French, and under the Prussian hard gripe, where I might spend the evening en famille, and be spared entering any auberge.

Page 374 He conducted me, in silence, pa.s.sing through the cloisters to a house not far distant, and very retired in its appearance'.

Arrived at a door at which he knocked or rang, he still spoke not a word, but when an old man came to open it, in a shabby dress, but with a good and lively face, be gave him some directions in German and in a whisper, and then entrusted with my pa.s.sport, he bowed to me and hurried away.

The old man led me to a very large room, scarcely at all furnished. He pulled out of a niche a sort of ebony armchair, very tottering and worn, and said he would call madame, for whom he also placed a fauteuil, at the head of an immense and clumsy table. I was then joined by an elderly gentlewoman, who was led in ceremoniously by a gentleman still more elderly. The latter made me three profound obeisances, which I returned with due imitation, while the lady approached me with good breeding, and begged me to take my seat.

The old man then, who I found was their domestic, served the tea.

I know not whether this was their general custom, or a compliment to a stranger. But when we had all taken some, they opened into a little conversation. It was I, indeed, who began by apologising for my intrusion, and expressing at the same time my great relief in being spared going to an auberge, alone as I was; but I a.s.sured them that the gentleman who had brought me to their dwelling had acted entirely by his own uninfluenced authority.

They smiled or rather tried to smile, for melancholy was seated on their countenances in its most fixed colours and they told me that person was their best friend, and lost no opportunity to offer them succour or comfort. He had let them know my situation, and had desired they would welcome and cheer me.

Welcome me, the lady added in French, they did gladly, since I was in distress; but they had little power to cheer me, involved as they were themselves in the depths of sorrow.

Sympathy of compa.s.sion soon led to sympathy of confidence; and when they heard to whom I belonged, and the nature of my terrible haste, they related their own sad history. Death, misfortune, and oppression had all laid on them their iron hands ; they had lost their sons while forcibly fighting for a usurpation which they abhorred; they had lost their property by emigration; and they had been treated with Page 375

equal harshness by the revolutionists because they were suspected of loyalty, and by the royalists because their children had served in the armies of the revolutionists. They were now living nearly in penury, and owed their safety and peace solely to the protection of the officer who had brought me to them.

With communications such as these, time pa.s.sed so little heavily, however sadly, that we were ill-disposed to separate; and eleven o'clock struck, as we sat over their economical but well served and well cooked little supper, ere the idea of retiring was mentioned. They then begged me to go to rest, as I must be at the diligence for Coblenz by four o'clock the next morning.

To another large room, nearly empty except the old, high, and narrow bed, the domestic now conducted me, promising to call me at half-past three o'clock in the morning, and to attend me to the diligence. I did not dare undress; I tied my watch, which was a small repeater, round my wrist, and laid down in my clothes-but to strike my watch, and to pray for my beloved invalid, and my safe restoration to him, filled up, without, I believe, three minutes of repose, the interval to my conductor's return.

At half-past three we set out, after I had safely deposited all I durst spare, where my disinterested, but most poor host would inevitably find my little offering, which, if presented to him, he would probably have refused. I never heard his name, which he seemed studious to hold back; but I have reason to think he was of the ancient provincial n.o.blesse. His manners, and those of his wife, had an antique etiquette in them that can only accord with that idea.

The walk was immensely long; it was through the scraggy and hilly streets I have mentioned, and I really thought it endless. The good domestic carried my luggage. The height of the houses made the light merely not darkness ; we met not a creature; and the painful pavement and barred windows, and fear of being too late, made the walk still more dreary.

I was but just in time; the diligence was already drawn out of the inn-yard, and some friends of the pa.s.sengers were taking leave. I eagerly secured my place - and never so much regretted the paucity of my purse as in my inability to recompense as I wished the excellent domestic whom I now quitted.

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FROM COLOGNE TO COBLENZ AND TREVES.

I found myself now in much better society than I had yet been, consisting of two gentlemen, evidently of good education, and a lady. They were all, German, and spoke only that language one to another, though they addressed me in French as often as my absorption in my own ruminations gave any opening for their civility.

And this was soon the case, by my hearing them speak of the Rhine ; my thoughts were so little geographical that it had not occurred to me that Cologne was upon that river - I had not, therefore, looked for or perceived it the preceding evening: but upon my now starting at the sound of its name and expressing my Strong -curiosity to behold it, they all began to watch for the first point upon which it became clearly visible, and all five with one voice called out presently after, "Ah, le voil?!"(285) But imagination had raised expectations that the Rhine, at this part of its stream, would by no means answer. It seemed neither so wide, so deep, so rapid, nor so grand as my mind had depicted it nor yet were its waters so white or bright as to suit my ideas of its fame. At last my heart became better tuned. I was now on my right road; no longer travelling zig-zag, and as I could procure any means to get on, but in the straight road, by Coblenz, to the city which contained the object of all my solicitude.

And then it was that my eyes opened to the beauties of nature; then it was that the far-famed Rhine found justice in those poor little eyes, which hitherto, from mental preoccupation, or from expectations too high raised, had refused a cordial tribute to its eminent beauty, unless indeed its banks, till after Bonn, are of inferior loveliness. Certain it is, that from this time till my arrival at Coblenz, I thought myself in regions of enchantment.

>From Coblenz to Tr?ves I was two days travelling, though it might with ease have been accomplished in less than half that time. We no longer journeyed in any diligence that may be compared with one of France or of England, but in a queer German carriage, resembling something mixed of a coach, a chaise, and a cart.

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