W ILLIAM W O RD SW ORT H

AND A N NETTE VALLON

P S D RE UME MINIATURE P O RTR AIT O F ANNETTE VALLO N E M I L E L E G O U I S

W IL L IA M W O R D S W O R T H A N D ANNET T E VA LLON

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1 9 2 2 L O N D O N <5 T O R O N T O

. M D E N T S L T D I . ea SO N .

NEW Y RK : E P DU T (53 C O . . T ON O.

C O NT ENT S

PAGE PREFACE

WILLIAM W ORDSWORTH VALLON

APPENDICES

Genealogy of the Vallons

Le tte rs of Annette Vallon to William and D oroth y Wo rdsw orth

Marriage Certificate of Caroline Wordsw orth

Petition to the King on behalf of Annette Vallon

. A on ord o V Literary Note W sw rth , written

' for Madame A . Marquet, Wordsw orth s grand-daughter LIST O F ILLU STRATION S

FACSIMILE or A LETTER FROM ANNETTE ILLIAM 0th VALLON To W WORDSWORTH, 2

‘ Ma rch, 1 7 92

0 0

From a dra wmg by Ha ncock in 1 7 98 PAUL VALLON

F o r m the pa inting by B . R. Ha ydon a b out 1 830 W SW T 'S D GHT IN ORD OR H AU ER, CAROL E P REFA C E

SOME time after I had pub lish e d The Ea rly Life of

Willia m Wordsworth, in the last years of the last century, I met in London my friend Thomas Hutch n w ho oo n inso , now deceased, was s after to make himself known as the erudite editor of Wordsw orth , a nd Shelle y Lamb . He had many times encouraged and helped me with his advice while I was pre k paring my b oo . In the course of our talk he asked me whether I was aware of a well-established tradi i n in m W rd w orth t o the Coleridge fa ily that William o s , during his stay in France, had of a youn g French n h lady a so ,) w o afterwards visited him at Rydal n Mount . This stateme t which mixed truth with — some error ah error which ca n now be easily — accounted for made me regret that I had not s known the fact beforehand, o as to alter some pages

of my work which were flatly contradicted by it . I But as had then turned to other subjects , I let n a the thing pass without more comme t, nd allowed n n the story to sleep for many years , ot hidi g it from ' those who were concerned with the poet s life but

never committing it to print . Then came the time when Professor George Harper of Princeton University began to write

his masterly biography of the poet . I told him

the little I knew, but no further progress was made till he discovered among the British Museum vii viii P R E FA C E

’ man uscripts a series of letters written by the poet s l sister, Dorothy Wordsworth , to Mrs . C arkson, the - wife of the anti slavery apostle, wherein clear men tion was made of a French lady named Madame Vallon (Annette)and of a daughter of hers named

Caroline whom Dorothy called her niece . Their Paris address was also given in the same letters .

Once furnished with this clue, Professor Harper could give us a first sketch of the love-story in his nd In ue nce Willia m Wordsworth, His Life , Works a fl , 1 which came out in 91 6 . Having soon after come to France again during the war to help in the American

Hospital of Neuilly, he devoted his very scanty leisure to further research and was so fortunate as to find out some documents of great importanc e, such as the birth and marriage certificates of Caroline W ordsworth . He, moreover, identified Annette as the sister-in-law of a Madame Vallon whose memoirs n of the revolutio ary times had appeared in 1 91 3. All these discoveries he generously imparted to me while he was in Paris, but I must confess that though they strongly impressed me on the spot, the terrible — circums tances the war was then at its darkest hour - n soon drove the precise facts from my mind, leavi g n only the remembra ce of their general interest . When

Professor Harper had to return to his university, lin unwil g to leave his research only half done, he n challe ged me to bring it to an end . But I had no such design at the time, and might never have turned to the task at all , had not the English publisher of my book on The Ea rly Life of Wordsworth told me la st year of his intention to issue a second edition of that work . I answ ered that I owed it to the reader not to publish again without making the corrections P R E F A C E ix

and additions necessitated by later discoveries . I therefore set out to write an appendix on the relations between Wordsworth and Annette . For this I began to dip into our Records, national and local, those of

Paris , Orleans and Blois . Besides the documents formerly revealed to me by Professor Harper a nd quite recently published by him at the Princeton ' University Press under the title of Wordsw orth s

French Da ughte r, I lighted on many others which he had not the time to hunt for, and, by degrees , the French family of the Vallons assumed a definite shape before my eyes . It was my good fortune to get into touch at last with some living members of that family, the descendants of Wordsworth and ' Annette on one side, and of Annette s brother Paul on the other . The result of my researches appeared in the Re vue des De ux Monde s of the rst April and

1 st May 1 92 2 , but the exigencies of the Review precluded all recognition of my debt to those who had done most to help in the completion of my la bour .

First of all, I beg respectfully to thank Madame

René Blanchet, the eldest grandct of Madame ' a V uch e le t, who was herself the poet s eldest grand daughter . To her I owe , among other valuable ' information, the curious copies of Caroline s mar ria ge contract and of the petition to the king made on behalf of Ann ette by her aristocratic friends in ' 1 8 1 6; also the fine portrait of the poet s daughte r

Caroline in her old age , and the essay on Words worth 's poetry written for the special benefit of ' a Caroline s third d ughter, Madame Marquet . I am also exceedingly grateful to Madame Le coq ' ' Vallon, the descendant of Annette s brother Paul l P R E F A C E

l Vallon, who had a ready made extensive private inquiries into the family’s early history and treasured

up recollections of th e revolutionary times . By her or through her I was informed of ma ny circumstances n u relating to Paul Vallo . She also comm nicated to Galle rand me the interesting researches of Abbé , the ' Director of Blois Seminary, on Paul and Annette s

uncles, the priests Charles Olivier and Claude Vallon . But she did more than all by letting me know that a double letter of Annette to William and Dorothy n Wordsworth, written in 1 7 92 , had quite rece tly been discovered in the Records of Blois by the learn ed

Archivist of that town , M . Guy Trouillard . I owe her much besides for the establishment of the Vallon n ge ealogy . To her father, M . Omer Vallon , I am indebted for the right of reproducing the presumed miniature of Annette which is among his possessions ; n a u h o to her cousi , M . de la Flotte, for the same t ' risa tion n as regards Paul Vallo s portrait, and also for having been allowed to read the memoirs of his ' n gra dfather Amedee Vallon, Paul s second son .

I am deeply grateful to Mr . Gordon Wordsworth, n n the li eal desce dant of the poet, for his courteous communica tions an d especially for his positive assur ance that no traces of Annette and Caroline subsist in the family papers that have been preserved, for it would have b een unjustifiable to give to the world a fragmenta ry and often conjectural story of the episode so long as there remained a possibility of ' having a more thorough account of the po et s doings and feelings . It is a pleasant duty to express my thanks to

. M Guy Trouillard, already me ntioned , and M .

Jacques Soyer, the Archivist of Loiret ; to M . Pinault, P R E FA C E

’ t chef de l E a t civil de Blois, whose inexhaustible kindness has allowed me to ascertain many facts and dates in the lives of the Vallons before 1 8 1 5; and to Mademoiselle Cecile Duca ffy of the Archives Dé a rte m e nta le s e t n Prefe cture p " Commu ales , de la Seine, to whose untiring and intelligent exertions I owe the discovery of the living descendants of a nd Wordsworth Annette .

Yet, in spite of so much benevolent aid and of my ff re personal e orts , I am conscious that much still Th mains obscure in the story . e course of the love story of Annette and William in France a a It i better im gined than historic lly related . i s there fore pleasant to hear that it will soon be told with the n e viable freedom of the novelist by Mrs . Marg aret The biographer is often at a loss : it is

1 at Orleans and what at Blois . Neither is it known I with certainty whether Wordsworth took the bold step of revisiting France and Annette in the midst

n n v of the Terror . The feeli gs and conversatio s of the two former lovers at Calais in 1 802 ca n only be guessed at ; so can the help given by the poet to the

mother either to educate or marry their daughter . n Those questio s would , of course, be clearly ’ not 5 answered, had the poet nephew and “first bio 11 the papers a nd letters It . w s to the adventure a surely his right, a nd he considered it his duty, to do so . But it happens that by so doing he perhaps suppressed ' what migh t be to-day Wordsworth s best justi ‘j fic a ti on , or at any rate what might account for so me things which we ca n either not explain or

not approve . xii P R E FA C E

It is to be hoped tha t the too mea gre lineaments of the story as told in this book will be little by n c little filled up by new docume ts , the existen e or whereabouts of which the writer had not th e means

of imagining . The substan ce of the following pages is nearly identical with the articles in the Re vue des De ux in Mondes. But the limited space allowed him the Review having obliged the author to compress or o or suppress several details , he now takes the pp

tunity of publishing his text at full length . All the

references lacking in the Review will be found here . Several documents of various interest have also been r given in full in the Appendices , instead of the sho t e xtracts or mere analyses as hitherto . Moreover, some ' illustrations are now added : besides Wordsworth s - well known portrait by Hancock about 1 7 96, they consist of the reproduction of a miniature which is presumed by the Vallon family to represent Annett e ' under the Directory ; the portrait of Wordsworth s

daughter Caroline in her old age, and for compariso n that of Wordsworth by Haydon about 1 830 ; the hke ne ss of Paul Vallon, who plays an important ' part in the story of his sister s life ; and fin ally the facsimile of a page of the letter written by Ann ette W s to ord worth in 1 7 93, and confiscated by the

French police . It is perhaps superfluous to vindicate the present book against the charge of being one of those uh pleasant disclosures whi ch the public would be be tter without, for the subject it deals with is no longer w ll k a nd is m since re l e own, it _ y be ief that his n _ _ reputation will sufle r less damage if th e tale is P R E F A C E xiii

told at full length . What he might now most suffer from, would be timid reticence and whispered hints . Many a reader will even admit that the man 's honest nature is made more manifest by the long /

fight of his loyalty against untoward circumstances .

More humanised and truer to life, he may become fi ‘ m r rn z e sy pathe tic in - the end . It is good to know - that he did not find sanctity ready made in his cradle , ' no fl vile e and that p —g of nature made easier for him than fog g th e rsj gh e ifnfailifig practice ofThe domestic

in s . his virtues which celebrate . ome of best verse . The character shown by the beginning of this story was a real young man, not a premature sage . He was altogether like the lover of Ruth :

A Youth to wh om w as give n So c h of e a th -so c h of e a e n mu r mu H v , c h And su impe tuous blood . But the following pages are not only intended to complete the likeness of a great poet on whom so many books have already been written . It has also appeared to me that the French family he chan ced to be connected with had a striking story well deserving notice ; that their adventures were much the same in outline as many of those novels of Balzac whose characters follow the fluctuations of the most dramatic, most intense and unstable period of French annals ; that, in fact, it was upon the destinies of such families that more than one volume of the Lom édie Humaine was built up . The mysterious conspiracies , wild intrigues and police inquiries so dear to Balzac are not wanting in the lives of the

Vallons . But in this instance, the singularity of such eventful lives is made more striking by the propin uit q y of a great foreign poet, of the solita ry dreamer P R E F A C E

of the Lakes and august priest of Nature, who was l in at one time a most sucked by their vortex . One wonders at the convergence of his hermit life with their tumultuous careers . The mere contrast is f enough to make one admire the variety a nd pic ‘ ture sque ne ss of this world .

2 W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

- to some rich young fellow countryman , and to accompany him in his continental travels . At the

o t sa fromnnidg g gnm mi p e ry. Who was to y, w as after all, whether the poems he even then com posing, were not to make him famous at once, sparing him the slavery of a profession ? He was revising a description of his birthplace, the beautiful Lake l 3 Country, and meditating another of the splendid Alpine tramp he had made the year before with a Cambridge friend , on foot, his knapsack on his back . In all these verses Nature is his theme . His dominant passion had already revealed itself, but it was still far from engrossing all his thoughts . He was curious of everything ; he felt a keen appetite for life . His mood was not yet attuned to the seclusion of a country hermitage . Hardly out of college, he had ' t l 1n Ioi1don t se t ed - I. where he had ius spent several months, idling about, drawn thither by the varied pleasures of the crowded metropolis, and if he now turned to France, the principa l attraction was the Revo luti n o . He remembered his arrival at Calais on 1 3th 1 July, 7 90 , the eve of the Federation, and the ecstasy of joy a nd hOpe that then possessed the whole country : a thrilling memory which long made his heart beat a nd faster, the traces of which he sought durin g his new stay . His mind still bore the imprint of those ineffable hours during which the rapture of a whole nation had accompanied with its mighty music his own mirth of a student on holiday. His mind t was then s irred by no political faith, unless it were n by the word Liberty i its fresh gloss, its vague u n ness f ll of i finite promise ; he had, above all , been An Eve mn Wa k . r g l De sc iptw e Ske tche s. A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 3

moved by the overflowing spirit of brotherhood that showed itself in a thousand acts of courtesy towards n n n the you g E glishma , the son of a free country . Decidedly the glimpse he had had of France and

of the French had enchanted him . He now returned eager to enjoy that same hearty a nd greeting, w ith his expecta tions of social inter

course he could not but mingle some dream of love ,

—' ‘ ’ ‘ the scenes and circumstances of wh iEh h é Eould no t n n yet determi e . Everythi g predisposed him to it . No existing attachment was there to prevent a n e w 3 5519 9 no i n 19 ; str ct rule of co duct yet guided his

steps . Austerity had been foreign to his education ; h s for t i he was grateful all his life, rejoicin g to have been

Unc h e c e d nnoc e nc e too de ica e k by i l t , An d o a not on too into e a n m r l i s l r t, t ‘ Sympa hie s too c ontra cte d .

He had known no rigid discipline in his native West

morland , still less at Cambridge , loose as its morals not n were . He does co ceal from us that at the university he consorted with bons viva nts rather n n n than with ear est stude ts . It is sayi g a good a n deal , d will suggest much to those who have read to some extent the descriptions of college life in those days . It may no t be superfluous to remind the reader in that Wordsworth was born 1 7 7 0, so that he was a n old man of 67 when Queen Victoria ascended n the thro e . He might have died before her accession a n an d t without y loss to his poetry to his glory . I is n a n d fi o ly through his latest, weakest, effusions a d

- re lude XIV . 1 . P , 339 4 4 W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

chiefly owing to the tendency of his first b iogragli e rs that h e has assumed that Victorian air which is d e cide dly anachr onistic: No greater mistake ca ii be F made ifi literary history than the confusion of the ' ne in 1 m two e pochs , th e o which he 1 1 m

in which he outlived himself and died . Wordsworth a nd was, to all intents purposes, M through n out his best years , and his youthful co duct should be judged according to the standard of times very

widely separated from those of Victoria . Grea t l oose ne ss of manners prevailed in the last ' — — decades of the e i ghtéeh th century much corrup tion in the higher and much roughness in the n lower ranks of society . There certai ly existed even

then in England , chiefly among the Evangelicals, classes of men remarkable for their entire purity — o i even austerity morals , but the general tone of n nor the cou try was neither refined, even what would n afterwards have been called simply dece t . n Of the difference betwee those and later times , s n fi n a ingle i stance will suf ce here . It puts , I thi k, n the whole co trast in a nutshell . Dorothy Words ’ r wo th , the poet s exquisite sister, writing to a friend — - — in 1 7 95 she was then tw enty three expressed her self in this way

n A atural daughter of Mr . Tom Myers (a cousin of mine whom I dare say you have heard me mention) is comi ng over to England to be educated a nd ' T. Myers brother has requested that I should n e 1 take her u d r my care . Who could imagine a young lady of the Victorian era speaking with this simplicity and ingenuousness

' Ha e Wzllzam Wor o h rp r s dsw rt , I . p . 2 7 5. AN D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 5 of her is only a trifling of those e xte nt 11 a tura 1 days , but it tends to show to what an , __ children were a normal occur“rence under th e Georges . ” f The case was so 213 1517 113 1 it scarcely provoked n any comme t . ' There w a s no strain of asceticism in the young ' poet s nature, to make him an exception to his age . n However reticent his poetry may be, we ca feel in it the ardour of his blood in those years . It partly reveals what De Quincey bluntly describes as Words ' n f worth s preternatural a imal sensibility, di fused through a ll the animal passions (or appetites) a nd considers as the basis of his intellectual

It would be quite idle to give proofs , had not the fact n n bee ignored by most critics and biographers . Setti g aside mw h om he was to sing in his finest verse and for whom he felt amon g the n E glish hills the joy of his desire, there were " ’ daughters of m m fi h é rs Wh om he visited during his Cambridge vacations . With them the whole night sometimes passed in dances from which n he came home with fevered brain, havi g felt in their company

h h oc f n - n n e e e d Slig t s ks o you g love liki g i t rsp rs , Wh ose transie nt ple asure mounte d to th e h e a d ‘ And i n e th t gl d rough th e ve 1ns .

And it was that very tingling that had favoured in the birth M s “poetic vocation . It was the h __ morning followin g one of those nights of rustic

' 1 De uince s oll e i in s Da d a on Q y C e ct d Wr t g , Edite d by vi M ss ,

6 . II . p . 2 4 - e lude IV . 1 1 Pr , 3 7 9 . 6 W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H revelry that coming home on foot and seeing the c on rise of a glorious dawn , he had had the first sciousne ss of his genius and dedicated himself to 1 his n the worship of Nature . The tumult of se ses n n had been the means of rousi g his imagi ative fire . For the first time he had felt the truth of the pro found maxim he uttered later on : Feelin g comes "2 n in aid of feeli g .

One year later, when he journeyed across the Alps , the sublimity of the mountains had not engrossed his enthusiasm to the point of blinding him to the beauty of the girls he met on his way . The dark Italian maids he passed by on the shore of Lake Como had an d stirred in him voluptuous desires , he was to in remember them that very year 1 7 92 , in lines full of a sensuous exaltation which makes itself felt in Spite of the awkward a nd old-fashioned form of the verse

a e e ! h o e o th a in th noon- ide h a d e F r w ll t s f rms t, y t s , Re t ne a e tt e s , r th ir li l plots of Wh e a te n gla de ; h o e e a d a e e th a i T s st f st y s, t be a t ng bre asts inspire T o throw th e sultry ra y of young De sire ; h o e i h o e de of a anc e c o e an T s l ps, w s ti s fr gr m , d go, ' Ac c ordant to th e c h e e k s unquie t glow; ' h o e h a do ea in o e o t i h a a T s s wy br sts l v s s f l g t rr ye d, And i n th e oon of a on s a a r si g, by m p ssi w ye d . Surely the young man who wrote these lines n was either ignorant of, nor deaf to the call of the senses . He revelled in beautiful scenery but — in desired love love its integrity, not merely the n immediate satisfaction of a passi g fancy, for his his heart was as impetuous as senses . He carried — — e lude IV . 1 , 8 . re lude XII. 6 0 Pr 3 9 3 P , 2 9 7 . Descri tive Ske tches — p , 1 48 56 . A N DzAN N E T T E VA L L O N 7

1 into his attachments the violence of affection that endeared him to his sister Dorothy . There were in his disposition all the elements which make for s a great pa sion .

n n m a n o n THIS , the , was the you g who his arrival at Orleans alighted at The Three Emperors a nd n without delay went in quest of lodgi gs . He finally decided on the rooms offered him by Monsieur

- Gellet Duvivier, a hosier, Rue Royale, at the corner of the Rue du Tabour which is called the Coin n Ma gas . There, for the moderate sum of eighty 2 n n fra cs a mo th, he had both board and lodging . His host was a man of 37 whose mind had been ’ nd deranged by his wife s recent death , a who showed im prudent exaltation in the expression of his hatred — of the Revolution, a n unfortunate whose tragic end n s we shall soo hear of. In his hou e the poet found ’ - s a nd as fellow boarders two or three cavalry o fli c e r , a young gentleman from Paris , who all no doubt W n shared the political opinions of their host . he he wrote on the 1 9th December to his elder brother he knew as yet no one else in the town . Yet there was one exception : one family which find I very agreeable, and with which I became acquainted by the circumstance of goin g to look at n their lodgi gs, which I should have liked extremely

1 Le t e of Do oth of I 6th e b . 1 . t r r y F , 7 93

Le tte to Ric h a d th 1 t De c . 1 1 . Ha e r r Wordswor , 9 h , 7 9 rp r,

. 1 . I p . 45 8 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

n . to have ta ken , but I fou d them too dear for me Jj fiil th e paperis torn a nd we c a n only make out the fi ~ ” e v e mn s fhére . words : I have . of my g Does - _ he mean that e ing unable to lodge with them he was spending his evenings at their house ? And was that house th e house in which Annette was living ?

And if such is the case, is it the house in the Rue Andr du Poirier where lived M . e Augustin Dufour, n greffie r da tribuna l of the Orlea s district , who with his wife w as to assist Ann ette in her ordeal ?

Mere conjectures these , to which we are driven n by the lack of authe tic details . The letter to his brother Richard, in which Wordsworth gives us W e these few details, is cheerful . feel that he is enjoying the novelty of the place . Everything pleases him ; even the surrounding country, which no doubt

- “seems very flat to the hill born youth, but abounds in agreeable walks , especially by the "side of the n n Loire , which is a very mag ifice t river . He realises that his French is not at all up to the mark, yet he does not intend to engage a teacher of n the la guage . He has no intention ofxlgoing to that expense . Had he, so soon, found Annette willin g to give him free conversation lessons ? The young lady whose life was to be linked with n his own, Marie Anne (or An ette)Vallon , was born 2 nd 1 6 at Blois on 2 June, 7 6 . She was the sixth a nd ' n last child of Jean Leo ard, surnamed Vallon , a n n surgeo , and of Francoise Yvo , his wife . The father belonged to a family which , by its ow n tradi n tion , traced itself back to Scotla d , and in which the s n ’ surgical profe sio was hereditary . One of Annette s - brothers , writing to the Board of the HOte l Dieu of i - Blo s , stated that his great grandfather, grandfather

W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

n of hatred to monarchy . For these reaso s a pre fe c toria l report of 9th Thermidor of the ninth

year of the Republic speaks highly of them . It ' commends Claude s great theological science a nd

declares Charles to be of perfect morals , learned ” 1 and tolerant .

There does not seem, then , to have prevailed from the first in the Vallon family the hostility towards the Revolution which manifested itself later on so

violently in some of their members . The name of ’ n i 1 n Jea Jacques , given n 7 58 to the eldest of A nette s

n s . brothers , strengthe s thi impression The father must have become a n adept of the new creed spread by Jean Jacques Rousseau ; of his worship of nature n and se sibility . Yet there was a sturdy sense of tradition in that well-established family whose head had for generation after generation confined himself n within his corporatio as within a caste . If the two n priests themselves became constitutio al, they n none the less retained their loyalty to religio . Charles Olivier uttered an indignant protest when n n in the Conve tio , order to sever priests from Chris tia nit y, pledged itself to give pecuniary assistance to n those who would be willi g to give up the ministry . He wrote to the Citoye n Administra te ur on 3oth 1 March, 7 94, the very day on which Robespierre ordered the arrest of the Indulge nts I beg you ill will not depend on me for help , and not take it

if I tell you truthfully that religion , conscience a nd honour forbid me to take any step towards resigning "2 my ministry, which I hold from God alone . He

1 ow e in o a on on th e tw o t A é I my f rm ti prie sts o bb J. Ga lle ra nd o e o a t th e e na , pr f ss r S mi ry of Blois . Le te c o nica e d to m e a - t r mmu t by M dame Le coq Vallon. A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 1 1

in was the end , after the Concordat, to recant his n oaths of the revolutio ary period . ’ Finally Wordsworth s evidence , his repeated amr r ude n n mation in The P e l that, before knowi g Captai n n s Michel Beaupuy, he had lived among the oppo e t n i h of the Revolutio , induces us to th nk t at as early as 1 7 92 those of the Vallon family whose acquaintance

he could have made , saw rather with sorrow than with satisfaction the adva n ce of the nation towards a n republic . As to An ette herself, it is probable that she remained rather indifferent to politics until the da y when a tragedy that struck her home threw

her into the most active opposition . If she felt the ' slightest disagreement with Wordsworth s opinions o n n mo archy and republic , it did not trouble her

hi m . much, engrossed as she was by her love for

UNLESS we are to accept the idea that Annette b e ' ca me Wordsworth s mistress o n their very first n meeti g, the birth of their child as early as 1 5th 1 December , 7 92 , obliges us to think they made each ’ ' other s acquaintance soon after the poet s arrival at 1 n Orleans where he spent the wi ter . There is nothing

' 1 It is impossible to know th e e xa c t da te of Wordsworth s c h a n e o f e side nc e o O e an t no tha g r fr m rl s o Blois, but w e k w t h e me ant to spe nd th e Win te r in th e forme r town (Le tte r to ' a th e of 2 rd Nov . 1 1 Ha e . . 1 2 2 and Do o h s M ws 3 , 7 9 , rp r, I p , r t y o f th D e c . 1 1 1b1d. . 1 On th e o th e h a nd i w e a d t 7 , 7 9 , p 2 4) r , f mi th a t th e re is a pa ra lle lism be twe en h is ow n story and th a t of Il ' Va udra cour a nd ulia w e a re le d to infe th a Wo d o h J , r t r sw rt s

love h a d tw o suc c e ssw e towns for its sc e ne of a ction . 1 2 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H astonishing in Annette havin g made a stay- even a — prolonged stay ia that town . In Orleans lived her brother Paul, with whom she seems to have been on particularly intimate, partly, perhaps, account of their n earness in age, partly on account of a l certain similarity of temperament . Pau had for some ' years been notary s clerk in Orleans under a Maitre u Courtois , whose office was in the Rue de Bo r du Dufours gogn e, close to the Rue Poirier where the n n e were living . In wi ter Orlea s offered more attra

n . tions , bei g a larger and busier town Paul had n a nd made frie ds th ere , his worldly tastes , his

n . sociable temper, fou d an echo in Annette We know what Paul ’s physical appearance was m an - he was a small dark , with a thick set neck, and a large bold eyes under heavy black brows . We h ve a glimpse of his character in the memoirs of his n gra dson Amedee , a magistrate, who declares him to have been one o"f the wittiest men he had the

n n . privilege of knowi g, with an excelle t heart His n chivalry and generosity te ded to excess , and his ca relessness of money was so great that his fina ncial ’ os n f n p itio su fered by it . The appearance of An ette s ‘ n daughter is also k own to us . It is a face which ,

according to its age , wears a look of frank gaiety, or s a gently mischievous smile . Ann ette dwell so

T on her h e i' fath Er th a t ______to f ‘ it w ould be illusory to expect to find thE e xpre ssion "

of the mother in the face of the child . The portrait — ' ' of Ann ette pulfiished in this volume is not well enough authenticated for us to place much reliance on it . It does not seem as if livelin ess had been s i n out tand gly characteristic of her, though kindness i ta inl and generos ty a y were . In the letters of AN D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 1 3

Annette that have recently been discovered the dominant note is that of a n irrepressible, exuberant sensibility which is a trait of her nature and is not exclusively due to the harassin g circumstances in which the letters were written . She abounded in a nd words, w as prone to effusions tears . These emotions of a sensitive soul were , moreover, quite of a nature to win her the young Englishman ’ s n heart . He himself was i those years inclined to melancholy and the elegiac mood . His very first _ ” T ' M bE n TnEpi i e d by the sight of a girl n n weepi g at the heari g of a woeful story . At that sight, he said, his blood had stopped running in his veins

e n e e — ls a Dim w re my swimmi g y s my pu e be t slow, ’ And my full h e a rt w a s sw e ll d to de ar de lic ious pa in .

' The maiden s tears had made manifest her virtue . ' The poet s turn for sentimentality found in Annette many an opportunity of satisfying itself, while the garrulity of the young Frenchwoman fell in splendidly n with his i tention of learning the language . All subsequent evidence agrees in representing ’ as n n Annette obligi g and generous . For eco omy s s W ake , ordsworth had decided on not incurring the

n . expe se of a teacher . his“tutor _ Sh e listened kindly to the stammered se nte nc?s o{ if n o the foreig er . She set him at ease by laughing g od r hum Y oure dly over his unpronounceable name . Her n te der heart was filled with affection for the youth ,

onne ne Axiolo us t o e a n Ma a z ine S t sig d g , prin e d in Eur p g (Ma rc h 1 7 87 ) and a scribe d to Wordsworth by Knight a nd t Hutc hinson . Profe ssor Ha rpe r e xpre sse s some doubt as o th e a ho s ut r hi p. W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

younger than she by four and a half years , who was separated from all his friends a nd was living among

men whose language he knew but ill . And when William allowed his budding passion to burst n forth, her too charitable soul was powerless agai st

his ardour . n His love for her was an exalted , blinding passio ,

in the presence of which all else vanished . The sight ’ n of Annette at her window, or even of An ette s ' window alone, was each day s supreme instant . He in himself tells us so , though under a disguise, the SIOTy of Va udra cour a nd j ulia

A wretched poem, said Matthew Arnold, the only ’ . one of Wordsworth s which it was impossible for ' him to read . The verdict is not altogether unde not n served . But Arnold errs in excepti g a few very no t n fine lines, and, on the other hand, does take i to

account what we now know, that is to say the keen biographical interest of this awkward and confused

poem, to which th e author seems to have found some ffi in n n di culty assigni g a place amo gst his works , a nd is of which he at a loss to explain the origin .

‘ He began by inserting it at the end of th e ve ry book of The Pre lude in which his memories of Fi ance a are rel ted . The poem strikes th e love note which

is lacking elsewhere . It was at first, accordin g to

Wordsworth , a story told by his friend Captai n

Beaupuy, the devoted Republican, who was tryin g to make the young Englishman realise the evils of a nd the old regime , particularly the horrors of the le tres de c t ca he t. n Vaudra cour You g , a nobleman from Auvergne, loved a daughter of the people whom he wanted to

marry . A le ttre de ca che t obta ined by his f ather came A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 1 5

I as a barrier between him and his purpose . m prisoned for having killed one of the men sent out n to arrest him, he o ly recovered his freedom by n pledgi g himself to give up his mistress . Could he

be true to such an oath ? The lovers met again, but

were again violently separated . Julia, now a mother,

was shut up in a convent . The child was left with Va ra co ud ur, who withdrew with it to a hermitage in n the woods . 1 7 89 sou ded the call of freedom ; it could

not rouse him from his lethargy : he had become insane . It is easy to see that Va udra cour is not Words

worth, nor his story that of the poet . There existed between Wordsworth and Annette no difference of ' caste . The surgeon s daughter was as good as the ’ son of the Earl of Lonsdale s steward . There was e no violence used in their case ; no le ttre de ca ch t, n murder, priso , convent, nor tragic ending . But ' n before comi g to the lovers woes, the poet described - con a tgLez his w orks n and it is the only place in _ — where he ha s done so the intoxication of passion . As ’ i nve ntio e v n n e r was his forte , he turn ed for help to the memories and exact circumstances of his own love story in order to give some reality to the first hours

of rapture broken by sudden partings . He may have been afrai d lest marks of his personality should be discovered in the poem if it found a place so near his o wn adventures, and it is this , rather than the over n n burde i g of the Ninth Book of The Pre lude , and the — awkwardness of its composition h e never was very sensitive to defects of this kind- which induced him Va udr cour a 1 0 to publish a nd Julia separately in 8 4 . on in Later , when in his old age he started comment g n upo his poems , he wrote at the head of this one a

note, the object of which w as to avert suspicion , W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

rather than to give information to the public . The

story , he says this time, was told him not by Beaupuy but from the mouth of a French lady who had been" - - - an d an eye and ear witn ess of all that was done said . An d he adds : The facts are true ; no inventio"n as to these has been exercised, as none was needed .

A most astonishing French lady surely, with the

eyes of a lynx, the ears of a mole , to have over ' n n heard , eve to their mi utest details , all the lovers n in effusions , and to have been both prese t and / visible at their most secret meetings ! One can

hardly refrain from smiling, in reading the begin - l nin g of the poem, at the thought of the story tel er endowed with senses so acute behind whom the n poet hides his ide tity .

However, no careful reader will be led astray . in Professor Harper, the most thorough and best

formed of his biographers , straightway proclaimed the connection between Va udra cour a nd j ulia and W ' dim ordsworth s youthful love adventure . The real

culty is to draw the line betw een reality and fiction , ' ' Va dra cour between Wordsworth s story and u s .

To Wordsworth, the lover of Annette, no doubt n m an belo g the ecstasies of the very young who sees ,

not a mere woman of flesh and blood, but rather he knows not what blinding splendour He beheld a vision and adored the thin g he vision so dazzling that its very radiance renders it

indistinct . It will be observed that his attitude of ’ wonder is more in keeping with the youth s sudden ' Vaudra cour s passion for the foreigner, t“han with n lo g and tender love for his Julia, known from the n cradle, beloved si ce she was a child , the constant

companion of his games throughout his childhood .

W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

Poor verse and wretched moral ! Rather than s a n confess - to the rash thoughtlessne s of instant of n n pas ion, to the sudden exaltatio of heart and se ses, s " the poet chooses to as cribe to Va udra cour a cal

ts . cula te d act, in the very depth of his transpor In n spite of that constrained expla ation, suggested with

but little conviction by the author himself, we are tempted to b elieve that Wordsworth and Annette n n merely succumbed, with no preco ceived desig , n ai like thousands of others, because ature prev led

over prudence, and passion over wis dom . They love d each other unreservedly from the time of their ‘ stay at Orleans ; and when Annette left the town to n go back to Blois , at the beginni g of the spring of 1 7 92 , she already carried about her , like Julia, per no t n haps not knowing it, perhaps " yet bei g sure of m it, the pro ise of a mother .

' J SHALL we look in Va udra cour a nd j ulia for the reason of that change of residence ? Va udra cour is ' opposed not only by his father but also by Julia s ' humble parents, who are in fear of the nobleman s

. o “anger Julia , as s on as her shame is known to them , f is hurried away by them one night, in spite of her

protests . When in the morning her lover realises

what has happened, he does not know whither to

turn for her . He

ha ed e a d e a th t C f lik wil b st in e oils .

But he is soon able to find her track, follows her to the distant town where they carried a nd confined her : A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 1 9

Ea sily m a y th e se que l b e divin e d — Wa lks to and fro wa tchings a t e ve ry h our ; ' And th e a a e w h o h e ne e sh e m a f ir C ptiv , , w r y, Is busy a t h e r ca se me nt as th e swa llow e in its in on a os h n e a ch Flutt r g p i s, lm t wit i r , A o th e e n e n e i h b ut p d t n st, d d t us e spy He r Lo e — h e nc e o e n n e v r t a st l i t rvie w, Ac co h e d nde e nd h mplis u r fri ly s ade of night .

Was Annette in the same way taken back to Blois in spite of herself and torn from her lover by her alarmed n e frie ds ? W have no reason for assuming this .

Her father was dead . Her mother, who had married again , was without much power over her . Yet Blois was her native town ; there stood the family house . She had no private means and had probably visited Orleans on the invitation of friends or her brother

Paul, for a limited space of time . Despite her twenty

five years, she w as therefore still partly dependent on her people, and it is likely that at Blois the ' couple s intimacy was held in greater check than at n Orlea s . The town was smaller and Annette better o l oked after . Indeed the two lovers did wander about Blois and n n n its surrou dings . We eve k ow that their walks often too k them to the neighbourhood of the con — vent in which Annette had been brought up a n opportunity for them to grow sentimental over "1 their happy innocent years . For aught we know, Wordsworth may have had some access to the Vallon family . He may have been acquainted with the two priests , the uncles of Annette, who were perhaps in his mind when he said to Ellis a Yarn ll in 1 849, that during the Revolution he had

' 1 We a h e h nd g t r t is from Anne tte s le tte r printe d in Appe ix II . C W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

a n d known many of the a bbés and other ecclesiastics ,

thought highly of them as a class ; they were earnest, faithful m e n ; be ing unmarried, he must say, they were the better able to fulfil their sacred duties ; "1 they were married to their flocks . But it is not certain how far th e house in which a n We Annette lived was Open to the young m . are therefore inclined to believe that Wordsworth drew — from his ow n memories the lines the last fine lin es of the poem— ih which he describes a nocturn al e n n me ting of the lovers , i voking for the occasio the a nd memory of Romeo and Juliet, of the lark which n gave the sig al for the last embrace . This scene of n n passion on a summer ight, which the Fre ch lady narrator could surely not have seen with her eyes nor heard with her ears , probably commemorates one of their secret meetings during the second part of their loves : Through a ll h e r c ourts Th e a can Cit e th e w 1 nds v t y sl pt; busy , ha e e no ce a n inte a f e T t k p rt i rv ls o r st, Move d not; me anwhile th e ga la xy displa ye d He r re ha i e e o fi s, t t l k myst ri us pulse s be a t — Aloft mome ntous b ut une a sy bliss ! T o th e ir full h e arts th e unive rse se e me d hung ' On tha t brie f me e ting s sle nde r filame nt !

l Re m inisc e nc e s of . E a na f Mr llis Y r ll o Phila de lphia : W . ’ Kni h Li e o Wor dsworth Vol. . g t s f f , II p . 334. Th e passa ge e dia te e ce din 15 a m usm e a d in th i imm ly pr g g, r e l ght of wha t w e now n o . a nc e e a te a na w a s our n e t e k w Fr , r l s Y r ll, x subj ct, a nd o ne hich e e e d e ne a h is a w s m v ry r h e art. He h d be e n c h in h a c o n a t th e o e a f i mu t t u try utbr k o th e Re volut on, and a e a d d n i ts de e c ft rw r s uri g wil st x e sse s . At th e time of th e e p e e a a c e h e w as a t O e a n r in S t mb r m ss r s rl s . Add e ss g Mrs. Wordswo th, he sa id I w onde r I ca me to sta e so lon r y the r g, ’ a nd a t a e riod so exa p tmg . A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 2 1

' The other striking fact of Wordsworth s stay at n Blois , the town of the Vallo s , is his friendship with

Captain Beaupuy . Of that attachment only, he n Pre lud spoke abunda tly and beautifully in his e . But n in omitti g Annette, he at the same time did away } with all that made the pathetic complexity of those summer months .

Wordsworth , who could now see Annette only by stealth , found himself thrown back upon the society of other companions . It seems that at this time he was b oarding M Of the late Bassigny regi n me nt, all of whom , with one exceptio , he introduces to us as exalted aristocrats whose minds were bent on emigrating . He now made friends with the only one who was in favour of the new ideas , Captain

Mic hel Beaupuy . Very soon , their friendship became ' n close , and the young foreig er deferentially listened - — to the officer of thirty seven who a nobleman by birth— had abandoned all the interests of his caste and even the esteem of his colleagues for the re volu ’ tiona ry cause . Be aupuy s eager proselytism converted — ' the young Englishman into a true patriot, a j a cobin in the sense the word had in 1 7 92 — prompted by a

! eal equal to his own . They were frequently to be 1 seen together at the patriotic club of Blois ; in the town a nd its surroundings , amon g neighbouring forests and even in places as distant as Chambord or

Vendome, they would take long walks durin g which

Beaupuy preached his gospel . From each of these n talks , Wordsworth retur ed incre asm gly exalted by his republican enthusiasm , for a Republic was in

' 1 o W ll a Word o th o l Ha e Li e i i sw . e e m V . c h i1i . S rp r s f f r , I . v , a nd e spe cia lly his Wordsworth a t Bloxs i n j ohn Marley a nd 6 othe r Essays, 1 92 . WI L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

the air . His ardour was like a consuming fever . In

that heart already heated by love , stirred by anxiety

n n . and remorse, it soon flamed "i to passio Again n feeling comes in aid of feeling . Meanwhile A nette was beginning secretly to prepare the expected ’ ' i W a nd “f baby s l nen, bidding illiam touch kiss all the n a things that were to be used for the infa t, p rtic u a, n la rly a little pink cap inte ded for it . They

mourned together, between two kisses, their lost n n n n i nocence . Dreading the impe di g and i evitable i f l reve ations, they discussed, perhaps, the possibility

of a marriage that would patch up matters . In n these impassioned emotions, weeks passed away a d

the much dreaded event drew nearer .

BEAUPUY had started for the Rhine on a 7 th July n with his regime t, and Wordsworth still lingered at

Blois . Beaupuy had not been the cause of his coming a nd n there , he needed a other departure, another n invitatio to go away in his turn . He stayed on till nni the begi ng of September, and we may hazard n two reaso s for his new removal . One of them may have been the sudden death of ' n A nette s eldest brother . Jean Jacques the surgeon - n d died at thirty four, leavi g a widow an two little o ne daughters , aged tw o years and the other a few

n . n mo ths Accordi g to a family tradition, he was killed one night in the forest of Blois on his way to i br ng urgent help to a wounded man . The precise is date missing, but would appear to be in the second A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 2 3

1 half of 7 92 . For the benefit of his widow, three doctors from Blois offered to the town officials to take over his post as surgeon to the HOte l-Dieu a nd

to the hospitals of the parishes of St . Louis, St . a nd One Nicolas St . Saturnin . of the three was his ' o n w brother Charles Henry, who, at the widow s n n 1 1 request, was fi ally appoi ted on 3th November . Such a tragedy alone would have been sufficient to an upset the family and necessitate some ch ges . But ' Annette s departure from Blois may easily be a c counted for by direct motives . The state she was in n could no lo ger be concealed . It was impossible for her to remain in her native town without her trouble becoming public . She preferred to return to Orleans where, in some quiet place near com n passio ate friends, she might give birth to her child . W n rd And ordsworth again followed her thither . O 3 n September, he o ce more da ted from Blois a letter n to his elder brother, aski g him for an urgently needed sum of money . The next day he was back at Orleans , where he tells us he happened to be n duri g the September massacres . It was indeed on the morning of 4th September t n n hat Four ier, sur amed the American , despite the n orders issued by the Co vention, started at the head of his gan g for Versailles with the prisoners who were waiting in the p"rison of Orleans for the verdict e te mbri se urs of the High Court . At Versailles, s p s (or assassins)from Paris were appointed to meet a nd butcher them . This crime, conceived a nd pe rpe tra te d in cold blood , caused a shudder of horror to run through the town which had witnessed the

1 1 A c hi e of th e Ho -D e f Re i e E o os r v s te l i u o Blois, g str , f li - 57 8 . W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

’ i wretched creatures departure . It left beh nd an in extinguishable hatred in the hearts of all those l who were not amon g the fa natics of the Repub ic . It is astonishing that Wordsworth should make no allusion to this event ; he speaks of the September massacres only as of a Parisian tragedy . The only in Des ri tive event he commemorates, either his c p

Ske tches or in his Pre lude , as having taken place during the period of his second stay at Orleans is the proclamation of the Republic . This is the occa Ske tches sion of a veritable p ae an of joy . His show him wandering by the source of the Loiret a nd n seei g the river, its banks and the whole earth trans formed by the magic world . It is all over with n the mo archy, with all monarchies . The reign of 1 happiness and freedom has begun for all men . Strange alternations of enthusiasm a nd de spon dene y when from those delightful visions he fell back to the thought of the young girl who was on n the eve of becomi g a mother . Was he allowed to see her at Orleans during the few weeks he spent

1 On h a a e oc ca on as o a e e n t t s m si , Wordsworth w pr b bly pr s t a t th e Civic Fe ast give n a t Orle a ns on 2 1 51 Se pte mbe r to c e e a e th e e ion f na c d in h c h l br t suppr ss o mo r hy, ur g w i de an As a puty M ue l ma de a spe e ch be fore th e Asse mbly . o of th e a of o a t fire w as se t to a i oo d- i e : symb l f ll r y l y, b g w p l ’ Le fe u e s t o e nne e e n is n e c h e r c o o é s l ll m t m a l é orm b fi , mp s ’ de fa gots éle vés e n une h a ute pyra mide c ouronn ée d un bo uque t ' d a rtific e i b ie nté t o e e i e a é a nte qu t mb n m ll fl mm ec h es tinc e l s, ' ’ e t les c itoye ns se livre nt a la joie qu i ls re sse nte nt de l é ta b lisse e ri de la Ré e a n a i e e e th o ia e m t publiqu fr c s ; dans l ur n us sm , ’ ’ ave c c es éla ns qui n a ppa rtie nne nt qu a de s h omme s vra ime nt di ne de la i e é le s c i de V e la Ré e ! Vi e g s l b rt , r s iv pu"bliqu v la na on an a e ! écla e n e — o e d in ti fr c is t t d toutes pa rts . Qu t ’ Histon e de la Ville d Orléa ns B e t imb e n l . . , by , Vo . II p. 1 2 2 5

W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

that his revolutionary zeal alone made him wish to

stay on in France . Had it been possible for him , he ' n n : tells us , he would have shared the Giro dins fortu e "1 made common cause with some who perished . He hides from us the chief reason of his unwilli ng n ess to leave the country in which his child had n just been bor .

WHY did Wordsworth leave France without marrying

Annette ? He had owned his daughter, why did he not legitimise her by making the mother his wife ? n 1 Considering the passion which i flamed him in 7 92 , e a nd n it s ems he would have done so there the , had n it been i his power . And yet there was no marriage . ' n There was no e before Caroline s birth, as her christenin g certificate testifies ; there was n on e later on n , as is attested by th"e death certificate of A nette, who died a spinster . The likeliest explanation is his poverty, which was only too real . To support wife a n d child he needed help from his guardians , an insta lment of the money one that was to be his day. Therefore it was indis n n pensable to obtai their co sent . He might perha ps disarm their Opposition by showin g his readiness to enter some one of the careers they pointed out to — him even the church, which, at that time, did not exact too strict a faith . He decided , therefore, to go n n to E gla d , with the inte ntion of returnin g shortly to n bring help to the dear o es he had left in France,

FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FRO M AN NETTE VALLON ! I !

0 M

‘1

TO I IAM O RD S ORTH 2 OTH MARCH 11 W LL W W , , 7 9 a v ! P

A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 2 7

n or to take them away with him to his own cou try .

This plan was submitted to Annette , who accepted it n resig edly . Wordsworth was to come back and ' marry her as soon as he had his guardians consent

and the necessary help . Another man might have reversed the decision ;

married Annette straightway, then placed before his n gua rdia s the accomplished fact . Marriage first ; money would come afterwards when fate should n n think fit . This would have been sple did imprude ce, 6d but it was made impossible by the inborn cautious n n n ness of the you g poet . His native wari ess i clined n n to procrasti atio . Besides , he may have been some what alarmed by the force of the fascination which n enchai ed him . To speak plainly, he had lived n n n n in Fra ce for months in an u know , stra ge and feverish atmosphere inwl i ic h he felt at times as though

h e . n n n were dre—aming A nette was fasci ati g, but she - ' ifi n remained part a mystery to him . He felt a xious n n - a nd at havi g so far resig ed his will power, lost the ' - ' i u a nd control of his actions . She gave the m p lSe u swept him on in h e r wake , n ot merely beca se she was four years older than he, but because she was gifted with that natural intrepidity which w a"s to make her a model conspirator, a n intriguer as a her political dversaries called her . Who can assert in that she did not find pleasure in concealment, and her very sorrows an exciting sensation not devoid of charm ? Did Wordsworth in the depth of his heart feel a vague mistrust of the woman he loved ? 2 8 W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

VII

' ON coming back to London, Wordsworth s time was occupied in two directions : the publication of his first tw o poems in the h0pe that they might bring a nd n i him fortune as well as fame , the co siderat on of the steps that must be taken to propitiate his un cles . He hesitated to face them, knowing them to be displeased and hostile . He begged his sister

Dorothy, who lived with her uncle, Dr . Cookson , a

n . n clergyma , to speak for him He co fided every -” con mg to Dorothy, who immediately ceived a w a rmm éfidn for the youn g French mother and n her child . She imagi ed no other issue than marriage, and she already pictured the cottage in which the a nd in newly married couple would live, which she 1 ow n would have a place . Of her accord , she started

' 1 We ga th e r this from Anne tte s le tte rs to William a nd o h e T h e d e a of a e t e d e in a a D rot y (App ndix IL). r m r ir lif sm ll ' c otta ge whic h is found both in Dorothy s le tte rs and i n Words ' worth s Evening Wa lk first ma ke s its a ppe a ra nce a t th e be gin ning of 1 7 93 wh e n th e le tte rs we re writte n an d th e poe m ’ is e as e e a publ h d . It w first conne ct d with William s de t rmin tion to a nne e e e as t e te te a nd m rry A tt . Th c otta g w o sh l r both Sis r h is Wife . T is h ow w e ough t to re a d th e following line s in A n Eve nin Walk a dd e sse D g , r d to orothy

E e n now Ho e e c a n c e ne v [ p ] d ks for m e a dist t s , (For da rk a nd broa d th e gulf of time be twe e n) i din h a c o a e i h h e r onde ra G l g t t tt g W t f st y, o e o n o e i h o e o e c of a (S l b ur , s l W s , s l bj t my w y; How fa ir its lawns and silve ry woods a ppe a r ! How swe e t its stre amle t murmurs in mine e ar 1) Wh e e w e e nd to o de n da ha use r , my Fri , g l ys s ll , Till our small sh are of h ardly- pa ining sighs (For sighs will e ve r trouble huma n bre a th) C e e h h e d n o th t an i f r p us i t e r qu l bre ast o de a th .

W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

she devotes hers this time chiefly to Dorothy, to whom

she owes a n answer a nd gives ample measure . n The two letters, read together, are a lo g and n pathetic appeal to the dista t friend . At every page

is repeated the prayer : Come back and marry me . n She suffers too much in his abse ce . She loves him

so passionately ! When she embraces her child , she thinks Sh e holds William in her arms : Her little heart often beats against mine ; I think I am feeling ' her father s She writes to Dorothy i ! I wish I could g ve you some comfort, but alas I

o . in cannot . I rather should l ok for it from you It is the certain ty of your friendship that I find some comfort, a nd in th e unalte rable fe e lings of my dear Williams (sic).

n him n . I can ot be happy without , I lo g for him every day Indeed she sometimes tries to call reason to her ' help . She wishes for her lover s return , yet fears it, n n for war is threate ing . She co tradicts herself four times in the course of ten lin es

d e e My istre ss would be l ssened were we marri d, yet I re gard it as almost impossible that you should risk e n yours lf, if we should have war . You might be take n e priso e r . But wher do my Wishes l e ad me ? I sp e ak as though th e instant of my happine ss were

n . W a nd e n n at ha d rite t ll me what you thi k, a d do your ' e e n e n d v ry utmost to hast your daught r s happi ess a n mine, — but only if there is no t the slightest risk to be rum but n i not a n I thi k the war W ll l st lo g . I should wish our two n n re conCi le d o atio s to be [ ] . That is ne of my most e arnest e n wishes . But abov all, fi d out some way by which we c a n write to e ach other in case the corre spondence e e n n e b tw e the two ki gdoms w re stoppe d .

Her strongest reason for in sistin g on marriage is n her motherly love, rather tha her wifely passion . A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N

She is ready to accept that William should come n o ly to go away again immediately afterwards, if he n must . Although she needs him for her happi e ss n she would make the sacrifice . But the her situation n bei g regularised , her daughter could be given back : to her . She writes to Dorothy

I c an assure you that were I happy enough to have my dear Williams journey back to France a nd give me th e

. m title of his wife, I should be comforted First ydaughter would have a father a nd her poo r mother might enjoy n s th e delight of always having her ear. I Should my elf give her the care I am jealous to se e her receive from no n s other hands . I should lo ger cau e my family to n l blush by calling her my daughter, my Caroli e ; I shou d

d n . n take her with me a n go to the cou try There is o ; in not find n 1 solitude which I should charm, bei g with her. Her bitterest trial was on the day on which the child went out for the first time, for the woman who carried her passed before the"mother ’ s house : n 10 without s“topping That sce e , she writes ] u . ! Dorothy, ca sed me"a whole day of tears They are flowing even now . n In deed, Caroli e is the theme of almost all her n u letters . She speaks endlessly about the wo derf l Jm onth - progress aEhi e ve d by the th re e s old babe . In ' ' ' ' her mother s eyes she is a b e a utiful picture of her - m n hi . father , though she is not fair haired like A nette n carrie s on with the child many a te der, childish dialogue . She smothers her with kisses and bathes in in her tears . She speaks of her pride dressing her , in pu"ttin g on that little pink cap which fits her so n W . well, and which she had o ce bidden illiam kiss

ut on The first time sh e had it on, I p it her head myself after kissing it a thousand times . I said to her, W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

nn My Caroline, kiss this bo et. Your father is less happy than I he cannot see "it ; but it should be clear u i . to you, for he p t his l ps to it

The impression left on us by these letters is firstly, that Annette is in every sense a kind a nd passionately n fond woman . No bitter word or recriminatio is to be

found in all these pages . Nor is her disinterestedness

less manifest . She raises no cry of poverty , no call l for material help . She is all sensibi ity . Too much

so for our present taste, even if we take into account

the circumstances in which she writes . We feel that her natural tenderness has been accentuated by the reading of the novels of that time— novels in which

tears flowed abundantly, which teemed with moving n apostrophes . This is the more evide t by reason of unc the inferiority of her education . There is no p tua tion in her letters and her spelling is eminently

fanciful . Here and there , one meets sentences with le ra a popular turn , like chagrin que vous avez p port a moi then again we find whole paragraphs

overflowing with the facile sen timentality of the age . She writes to Dorothy

' Ofte n when I am alone in my roo m with his [William s] n letters, I dream he is goi g to walk in . I stand ready to n d throw myself i to his arms an say to him : Come, my a nd r love, come d y these tears which have long been flow m a nd s e i i g for you, let us fly e Carol ne, your ch ld and your likeness ; behold your Wife ; sorrow h as a ltered n her much ; do you k ow her ? Ay, by the emotion which

your heart must share with hers . If her features are altered, i i if her pallor makes t imposs ble for you to know her, her

n h n . i K A heart is u c a ged It is st ll yours . now your nnette, ' n n Caroli e s te der mother . Ah ! my dear Sister, is n such my habitual state of mi d . But waking from my A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 33

h l ' delusion as from a dream, I do not see him , my c i d s fath er; he is very far from me . These transports occur aga in a nd again, a nd throw me into a state of extreme n dejectio . Although inexhaustibly voluble when she pours out her heart , she seems to be devoid of intellectual L curiosity . She is an afflicted lover, a doting mother . But she seems to know nothin g of that William whom she longs to see again , nor yet to want to learn n V 1. anythi g . She does not inquire after his doings ; h ? I does S e even realise that he is a poet Of the war,

' ' ' of politiés; of th e da Wh ing T error she has not a word ’ to say, except in so far as it concerns her lover s journey . Her sentimental absorption is absolute . I.

The pathetic strain never relaxes . ' One may imagine Words worth s perturbation as he received these moving letters , which at first were n freque t . Did many others come to his hand after

2 oth March , 1 7 93 ? Were the next ones likewise intercepted ? We find no trace of another letter from n : Annette till the end of 1 7 95. But one thi g is sure tha t Dorothy performed without much delay her arduous mission . She spoke to her uncle Cookson .

The result was not favourable . She complains on i th 6 June in a letter to her friend Jane Pollard, of the preju"dices of her two uncles against her dear 'r / l 1 Wi liam . She must have heard a thorough indict n me t of him, directed not only against his political n n heresies , a d have been somewhat shake by it, for she owns that he ha sbeen somewhat to blame she a n one ; adds, The subject is unpleasant for a letter" it Will employ us more agreeably in conversation .

But her affection will take no se rious alarm . She

1 ' o a i i th . . 0 . Pr fesso r H rpe r s Life of W ll am Wordswor , I p 2 2 W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

' perceives in her brother 5 strange and wayward

i n th e s . nature , his very errors , mark geniu A Repulsed by his gua rdians, called for by nnette , Wa r ha d what did Wordsworth do ? , which been

officially declared on rst February, had little by little

become a reality . The lovers who had, when they n parted, hoped for a near reu ion, found themselves

divided by an almost insuperable obstacle . William could only run the risk of another journey to France a nd at the cost of the utmost difficulties perils . Did n he run that risk ? It is an ope question . Much might be said to prove that he did or that he did n n u n : not . O one poi t all his readers will be na imous i ’ they will wish that, for ch valry s sake, he had ' 'has tened to Annette s relief, no tt hstan ding his lack of money, in Spite of the war and in the teeth n of da ger . Against the probability of his having shown this courage there is the silence of his Pre lude and our n n general k owledge of his cautious ature . His very sister had declared the year before, that "he was wise n 1 e ough to get out of the way of danger . A strange combination of outward circumstances and natural wariness always kept him from dangerous e xtra va gances . Some friendly power always held him back n no a n on the bri k of the precipice . He was t the m to defy fate . He it is who thought at one time of n n n joi i g his desti y to that of the Girondins, but was prevented ; who in the midst of the English counter Terror wr ote a proud republica n letter to the Bishop f of Llanda f, but kept it in man uscript and probably never even sent it to his opponent ; who in 1 7 95 wrote satirical verses against the Court and the

1 Le te of Doro h 61h Ma 1 . H . . 1 8 1 . t r t y, y, 7 92 arpe r II p AN D A N N E T TE VA L L O N 3 5

Regent, but decided not to publish them . His courage was of the passive rather than of the active - ii b i n an ki d . d i e was capable of stu h e ss d silent n perti acity, not of that fiery temper that hurls itself ' n agai st the cannon s mouth . n But it is never safe to generalise . You g love may have momentarily transformed his native circum spe c n n t tion . There are stro g reaso s o believe that for ' f ' once he was capable of a ne impw dén Why did fi " ey he lin ger for a whole m oa TfOWaTds th e end of the summer of 1 7 93 in the Isle of Wight when nothing n obliged him to do so, if he was not waiti g for some 1 smack to carry him over the Channel ? Besides, he mus t have been in France again in the autumn of

1 7 93 if he was present at the execution of Gorsas, n f on t the first Giro din sent to the sca fold, 7 h Octo n ber, as he told Carlyle in If we combi e this statement with an anecdote related by Alaric Watts , which evidently contains some truth a nd much error, Wordsworth was on this occasion alarmed by a

Republican named Bailey, who told him that he would surely be guillotined if he remained in France a n y longer, whereupon Wordsworth fled back to 3 n n Engla d . The risk he had ru Simply by coming

1 w e t e t t . . ith ch oo in e c o I o his sugg s ion o Mr G . C Sm , s l sp t r ' a t E n e a Wo d o h fe e hn s di h a e n d o h n . n burg , k Wor sw rt i O r sw rt s g — h i e h e ta e d in th e e f Wi h se e re lude . 1 0 . w l s y Isl o g t, P }X 3 5 3 1 ' ' ? Ca rlyle s Re minisce nce s se e Ha rpe r s Willia m Words worth . . 0 a nd . . 1 . , I p 2 9 II p 4 7 ’ 3 l Wa s Ha e i li r o 1 . Ac c o d n to rp r s W a m Wo dsw rth , I . 7 9 r i g tt , a i e a id : h a e t o t in a a nd ha n B l y s He d m W rdswor h P ris, vi g warne d h im th a t h is c onne c tion With th e Mounta in re nde re d his t a on h e e a t th a i e e i o th e oe de ca e d si u ti t r "t t m p r l us, p t mp i th e a i i h e e is no ind ca ion of tim e . W gr t pre c pita t on . T r i t t th e e nd of 1 2 a Wordswo rth could b e in no da nge r a 7 9 , D 36 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

e at all, at a time of war between the two countri s , was extreme . As soon as the Terror had set in, it

would have been sheer madness to stay on . As a friend of the Girondins and as an Englishman he was doubly liable to suspicion . Even if he made that bold attempt as his admirers wish it might be proved he did— as it would perhaps b e i to fh €7 ¥nfie tte _ proved if the family papers relat ng episode had not all been destroyed— it is quite possible that he had only been able to reach Paris on his way

to Blois a nd had had to take flight home, not only

without marrying, but also without seeing Annette . .

Whether he crossed the Channel or not, we know by The Pre lude how wretched at heart he was through

out the Terror . He was shaken with anger against the ministers of his country whom he held re s po n sible for the war ; he longed for the victory of the

Republic over her enemies, over the English them

selves, and refused to join in the thanksgivings with which the churches of England greeted the naval

successes of their people, even rejoicin g within him a t self the defeat of the English armies .

At first his poetry is gloomy . He puts into it all his hatred of war and takes a delight in recounting

its atrocities . He paints its Sinister effects on indi vidua ls and families ; he gives expression to his n n i dignation agai st the whole of society, which is ' - ill ordered , unjust, merciless to the humble , heart

co a a t e e e od He e e th mp r iv ly qui t p ri . ne v r w as conne ct d Wi th e Moun i ta m . H s sympa thie s we re a ll for th e Girondins Lo e a a n t Ro e e e d f ( uv t g i s b spi rr , Th e a ne c ote is full o ro a e th e t g ss mist k s, but fa c of his be ing in Pa ris a t a pa rticularly dan e o o e n and his h a vm de ca e d n c a g r us m m t, g mp , ca s rce ly ha e e e n in e nte v b v d.

W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

poet echoes the philosopher . He discards at that time a n n every institution , law, creed , rite , d o ly believes in

e s na Li e t p r o l b r y, c h to th e ind e t a int o f e ne a a Whi , bl r s r s g r l l ws io a e ia a do Supe r r, m gist r lly pts de th e h of Ci c stanc e fla h e d One gui , lig t r um s, s e t c 1 Upon a n inde p nde n inte lle t .

He may have gone further still in his enfranchisement, n a nd fought against pity itself, a freque t source of Wh o n n injustice . k ows but that he strove to harde his heart like Oswald in his Borde re rs

Th e e of o a n wil s w m , And c a t of a e se duc m e ason t r f g , g r , firs a de e a ne a ote c t on a nd o c e d M w k ss pr i , bs ur 1 Th e mora l sh ape s of things .

He w s s _ felt that his first duty a __to keep unblemi hed n his i tellectual faculties , above all his poetic gift, n thre atened by the a guished appeals from Blois . His nature was too tender and passionate to allow n him to fortify himself agai st compassion . But it is likely that he may then have tried to harden his heart

and , moreover, that he held this hardening to be a n higher Jzirtue . His first biographer, his ephew

Wordsworth, who had in his hands and _ _Bis_ hop s afterward destroyed the evidence of the case, does ’ not conceal that his uncle s doctrines then revealed

themselves in his very conduct . True, he attributes the evil thereof to France and the Revolution : F The most licentious theories were propounded, all "3 s n n restraint were broke , libertinism was law . You g W n ordsworth , ema cipated by the Revolution , would

1 — 1 - e lude XI. o . The Bor .2 de e rs . 1 0 . Pr , 4 4 r , II 90 3 3 M moi s o W l a m r e il i Wordswo th . r f , I p . 7 4 . WILLIAM W O RD SW ORTH From a dra wm g b y H ancock i n 1 7 98

A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N for a time appear to have resembled the solitary man of his Excursion who did not scruple to display unhallowed a ctions worn as open Signs of "1\ prejudice subdued . He was certainly no Don n Jua , but could very well be an adept of free love . While he was endeavouring to choke the voice of —‘ T — — — hi takih fe fii e in s hea—rt— and conscience by g g " the ' " ' a b stf ion S e th fcaT t n aEt of H heories , An ette on the

‘ ’ h ffo h n ot er hand , roused m e r plai tive sorrow by a f tragedy very near to her, was little by little in ected by a political fever the violence of which was to counterpoise her love .

So grievous were the misfortunes through which the Vallons were to live during the Terror that the piteous situation of the young husbandless mother n soo took a secondary place amid their troubles . Annette herself ceased to be absorbed by her ow n W cares . At the time at which she wrote to ords worth and Dorothy her tearful letter, the Terror was n ragi g at Orleans , and Paul , her favourite brother, he who had stood by her in the time of her trouble , was about to come dangerously within reach of the guillotine . Paul Vallon found himself implicated in the alleged criminal attack on the delegate of the People — Leonard Bourdon a n affair in which ludicrous a nd n atrocious elements are inextricably mixed . Bourdo was one of the most shameless demagogues of the

1 - T Excurswn . 6 . he , II 2 9 7 2 W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

Revolution, previously to which he had styled him e self Bourdon de la C rosniér . The founder of an

- Educational Home a nd a clever self advertiser, he had obtained from the Asse mblée constitua nte per mission to lodge in his institution the famous cen

te na ria n of the Jura, so as, he said, to impress on n Le his pupils a respect for old age . Duri g the gis n la tive , he had ma aged to get himself elected as n deputy for Orlea s, his native town . Sent to this town in August 1 7 92 to look into the procedure

employed agai nst the prisoners of the High Court, i he had given help to Fourn er, known as the Ameri

can, and had in consequence taken part in that butchering of the poor wretches by the septe m

brisse urs, which we mentioned above . Although Bourdon ’ s complicity cannot be distinctly n h determi ed , he had acquired for imself ever since

that date a criminal notoriety at Orleans . However, supported by the most turbulent elements of the n a n n tow , d tha ks to them sent as deputy to the n n n n O n Conve tio , he delighted i defyi g his ppone ts , [the aristocrats of the national guard who were n suspected of reactio ary feelings . in n Thus it is that March 1 7 93, while on a missio ' COte d Or to the , he went out of his way to see his n a n Jacobin friends at Orleans . Without seei g y of

the local authorities, he immediately presented him ' self amid acclamations to the People s Society, whom

he excited with incendiary talk . The meeting at the club was followed by a patriotic dinn er where n nn dru ke ess was added to political excitement . - From the banquet room, there soon poured forth an intoxicated a n d yelling mob that insulted the

aristocrats on their way, and threatened the soldier A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 4 1

on duty at the Town Hall . The man gave the alarm, u and f the body of the g ard rushed out a scu fle ensued, in which Bourdon got a few bayonet thrusts which n n merely grazed his ski . The comma ding officer of not n n n the national guard was lo g in liberati g Bourdo . The latter was carried to his inn and there most care fully tended . Concerned about the consequences n of the fray, the mu icipality expressed their regrets to Bourdon for a fight which they could neither 1 n foresee nor preve t . But Bourdon had made up his mind to strike the attitude of a republican martyr . He wrote to the Convention a letter in which he affects to be a victim n of the aristocrats . He pictures the affair as a ki d of conspiracy in which a delegate of th e people hardly escaped being murdered . He was saved , he says , by nothing less than a miracle . If he is still n living, he owes it to a coi , now dyed with his blood , which was in his pocket . That coin plays the part of the blessed medal in pious stories , for n the blade, slidi g alon g the face of the Goddess n n n Liberty , was o ly thus preve ted from penetrati g 2 more deeply . Bo urdon cries for revenge . At the n n Conve tio , Barrere claims to see in the assault, the n ews of which is brought by the same post as that n of the Ve dee insurrection , the proof of a huge

1 . Histoire de la e r e ur e T e rna ux Vol. VI. Cf T r , by Mortim r ,

t s . T h h e f th e e o t p . 47 9 e qq e a ut or is a d a dly e ne my o T rr ris s, h is n o a on e e c a e as is o e d an but i f rm ti is p rf tly a ccur t , pr v by t l e xa mina tion of th e origina l docume nts in th e Archi ve s na iona es. 1 Le tte r of Léo na rd Bourdon to th e Co nve ntion of Igth

a c h 1 . A th e d c a t n to th e o don M r , 7 93 ll o ume nts re l i g B ur a f a a re o nd i n th e A rchive s na tiona les BB3° 8 and f ir f u , 7 u AF 1 67 . 4 2 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

n i : n mo arch st plot They wa t, he says , to murde"r

i . the Republic, and beg n with the patriot deputies n n n n n Full of i dig atio , the Conve tio declare Orleans n n to be in a state of rebe llio , and suspe d the muni n t cipal authorities . The i s igators of the plot are to

be arraigned before the revolutionary court .

The mayor of Orleans , however, writes to the Convention a nd asks that he may be held as sole culprit and sole responsible person ; the readin g of his generous letter instantly converts the hysterical e n assembly . The s nte ce is repealed only to be pro nounce d again a few days later by the influence of n n n th the Mou tai . Not till a mo th later, on 2 6 April, b e is military law to abrogated . n During this mo th, Orleans lies under the terrorist im li regime . Some thirty suspected persons are p ' d n n ca te , amo g whom are Wordsworth s former la d ' - n lord, Gellet Duvivier, and A nette s brother, Paul

Vallon . The Jacobins at Orleans busy themselves in gather ing eviden ce against the a ristocrats and the nationa l

guard , which they hate . One of them , who was also one of the most active supporters of Bourdon , the

apothecary Besserve, writes to his good brothers a nd frien ds to assure them that the affair is bein g actively

followed up , tha t the accused have grounds for some n uneasi ess , that his own eviden ce h as terrified more one than of them , that he spoke with the frankness characteristic of the genuine republican and honest ma n S , and that he howed Truth so na"ked that n 1 more tha one judge fell in love with her .

’ 1 T ue te e rtO r y, Rép i e genéra l de s Source s ma nuscri te s de ’ l histoi re de a ris e nda nt la evolution ra n a ise l. P p R f c , Vo VIII p. 2 7 8 .

W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

Paul Vallon had tried to disengage himself from ' ’ the patriots hands ; he had not come to the as saulters help, but had been called to the rescue by one of n ffi n them, and this evide ce was amply su cie t to lose Wa s in him his head . he not known town as a friend of the old regime ?

Yet some hope dawned for the accused . Other s n n representatives of the people pa si g through Orlea s , gave an account to the Convention of the wretched state of the town (1 1 th May); by their statements n scuflle the crimi al attempt was reduced to a mere , n on o the responsibility of which was throw to B urdon . t n On Ig h May, Noél read a report exo eratin g th e n n town council and incriminati g Bourdo . The un n n n n Mo tain grew i dig ant . The Giro di Louvet n n n made an eloque t reply . The Conve tio followed ’ Noel s lead and cancelled their former verdict . But n n a fort ight later, the Mou tain had the upper n n hand agai . The accused , tra sferred to Paris, n to the Co ciergerie du Palais, were arraigned by - n l n Fouquier Ti vi le before his tribu al . ' — Gellet-Duvivie r s daughter a minor— now pre n n se ted a petitio , in which she explains that since ' ’ his wife s death her poor father s mind is unhinged , that the people of Orleans know him to be weak n n mi ded , that si ce his arrest his madness has become complete , that his incoherent shouting prevents his - s fellow prisoners from sleeping, that when she vi its t her fa her, he does not recognise her, calls her his a nd n wife offers to marry her . She dema ds for him a medical examination so that his madness or weak n minded ess may be certified . - In correct style, Fouquier Tinville granted the n - examinatio , but poor Gellet Duvivier nevertheless A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 4 5 was one of the nin e accused from Orleans to mount f the sca fold on 1 3th July . Nearly two years passed after 9th Thermidor before the iniquitous case was revised . Six sec — tions of the commune of Dijon the town Bourdon ‘ — visited just after the scuflle at Orleans then de nounce d the deputy as having boasted that he had himself purposely provoked the fray (91h May, n Bourdo , who, in the meantime, had had his period of grandeur, who had succeeded to

Robespierre as president of the Jacobins, who had moderating factor but by virtue of his alliance with ' the He b e rtists or Enra gés (maddened ones) —and who, urged by his fear of his powerful enemy, had helped to accomplish his overthrow— Bourdon was denounced as infamous by his colleagues , though n n they had been witnesses to many kinds of i huma ity . n Legendre, during a séa ce of the Convention, Boissy ' d An la g s in the Council of the Five Hundred, one after the other called him murderer . He lasted out till the Empire , however, having returned to his educational calling a nd become head of a o primary scho l . n Mea while , more cautious or more lucky than - Gellet Duvivier, Paul Vallon succeeded in saving W i h his head . hen they tried to arrest him on 2 4 1 n April, 7 93, he had disappeared . He figures amo g

the accused , marked down as absent, whom Fou uie r- q Tinville indicted on i 6th June , and ordered

to be committed to the Conciergerie . He was in n n Lo ch on hidi g at Orlea s at the house of a M . 1 Pe titb oi s, a merchant a nd a friend of the family .

1 ' a n c i e i f A edee a on a son . M us r pt m mo rs o m V ll , P ul s W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

But we may well imagine the anxiety of his friends , n n and of his sisters, duri g all these months whe the

least word might cause his death . No doubt he

was assisted by them as far as lay in their power, with the constant fear of their very help betrayin g

him . No doubt also that the atrocious injustice under which their brother laboured inspired these women

With the hatred of the Revolution . This miserable affair must have occupied a great part of the letters Which An nette conti nued to send ? Wordsworth . But did he get them And did his

own letters reach her ? The first he received , as far h as we know, is that of which Dorot y speaks to a friend in November 1 7 95: William has had a

letter from France since we came here . Annette

mentions having despatched half a dozen , none of "1 which he has received . The violence of the war n im re dered all correspondence precarious , if not

possible . However, relations be came frequent again

n mi . duri g the preliminaries of the Pe“ace of A ens rst th Then from 2 December, 1 80 1 , to 2 4 March , ' 1 802 , are noted down in Dorothy s diary a series of n letters excha ged between the poet and Annette . It is clear that their correspondence was as active as a nd possible, that circumstances alone prevented it n from bei g carried on continuously .

1 Le e of Do o h to Mrs a h a of oth No e e tt r r t y . M rs ll 3 v mb r,

1 . Se e Ha e 7 95 rp r, I . p . 2 92 . A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 47

IF no , in this new series of letters , Annette has such tragic adventures to relate, yet misfortunes and dangers have not ceased to beset her and her friends S after a hort period of calm . n The Terror o ce over, Paul Vallon having come out of his hidin g-place and returned to the office 'of Maitre n Courtois, it seems there was a short period duri g which the Vallon family could breathe in peace . The three sisters lived together at Blois , poorly enough no doubt (but who was not poor but on good terms with the best society of the town . They lived with their mother and stepfather at the family d house in the Rue u Pont . Sheltered by the name o a ffl da m e William that she had assumed, or of — — nn Veuve William for one finds both in turn A ette , n protected from scandal, was bringing up Caroli e .

Her brother Charles Henry, who had become head of the family at the death of Jean Jacques , was in a prosperous situation as head surgeon at the Hospital of Blois .

Life , after th e fall of Robespierre and throughout Dir tor S the eg y , in spite of persisting troubles, in pite of war and the general impoverishment of the country, had the sweetness of convalescence . It seems to have had at Blois a peculiar charm , according to Dufort, m oirs Co te de Cheverny, who drew in his Mem this idylli c picture

Thanks be rendered to the inhabitants of the town th e of Blois, who have succeeded in making of society which gather there the pleasantest that may be imagine d .

Blois is in every way preferable to its thre e neighbours , 48 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

O and n n i h as rleans , Vendome Tours, a disti ctio t always n n h as e njoyed . T h e ge eral lack of mea s levelled all i Si nifi rivalry a nd th ere is no disparity in rank . The n g cant trade that is being carried on does not arouse com h v e n petition . The few people who at Blois stay by reaso ds of its irr e sisti ble attracti on . Despite [he ad ] the ll n poverty suffered by a classes, there are gatheri gs of e e n twenty, thirty people, sometim s mor . The stra ger admitted to these pa rties might think hi mself i n th e midst W e n e n l e e d a nd of a family . om are lega t y dr ss , there are numbers of marriageable young girls, every one prettier e n n e r than th ext . Music is carried to a poi t of grea t p n b e e fe ction . [They give co certs] that would deem d in 1 good even Paris . A fine spirit of generosity prevailed towards the

victims of the Revolution , according to another wit

ness , the wife of Doctor Chambon de Montaux , who lived at Blois from 1 7 93 to 1 804 :

One would never e n d if one tried to give a n account of the acts of kindness performed by the people of Blois on n behalf of the u happy proscribed . W e were welcomed a nd he lped as brothers by the nobility of the town— true lun a nd to g state . Our tears were dried by the hand 2 of friendship .

Royalists were numerous and active . Blois was on"e n - of the most ardent ce tres of the counter revolution . th The 9 of Thermidor raised great hopes . The ’ Vendemiaire insurrection found in Blois zealous agents who corresponded with the Paris sections in

' ‘ 1 Me moi res sur les o Regue s de L uis X V. e t Louis X VI. e t sur

la Revoluti on a r . N . D fo o te de t o , p J u rt, C m Ch e ve rny, In r ducte ur de s A a a de e é é mb ss urs, Lie ut nant G n ra l du Blaisois 1 2 iée ar Ro e de C ré ve c ce u ( 7 3 publ s p b rt r. Tome II . 1 ote d i n Mémoire s de Ma da me Va llon Qu , publis h e d by Guy

o i a d . Tr u ll r , p 2 2 3 (no te ). A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 49

revolt, a nd among these agents men such as Guyon de Montlivault and Pardessus the younger, to whom we constan tly find reference among the friends of the Vallon sisters . These early hopes were to be ’ 1 h th 1 wrecked on 3t Vendemiaire (5 October, 7 95) by young Bonaparte on the steps of the church r n of St . Roch . At fi st great discouragement e sued ' n nn for the royalists . The to e of A ette s letter mentioned by Dorothy on 3oth November, must have been very different according as it was written n before or after 1 3th Ve démiaire . n But soo the party took heart again . Without n aim renounci g their , they changed their tactics . To the Parisian insurrection succeeded the provincial choua nne rie of which Blois was to be one of the chief centres and into which Annette threw herself heart and soul . She allied herself with the most combative among the Chouans, those criticised n by the Comte de Chever y, whose own ideal was to keep h"imself and family Safe by an absolute l 1 nul ity . Cheverny is full of recriminations against the im prudent members of his class or party, whose n intrigues enda ger the security of others . Yet when n n the occasio comes , whe a clever stroke has been well struck , he is fain to applaud it . Thus he relates with relish a certain incident at Blois in which one of the three sisters bears a part . It occurred after an anti -royalist move on the part n of the Directory . The act of the 2 2 nd of Germi al , in the fourth year of the Republic (t 1 th April, had just prescribed new penalties against non-juring n priests and emigrants . There happe ed to be two

1 M res e r érnoi d he ve n . . 1 8 . C y, II p 2 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

emigrants in the prison of Blois . A plot was formed n n in the town to help them to escape . One mor i g five persons were arrested before the prison by a

patrol ; among them was Lacaille the younger, aged ’ sixteen years , gunsmith , and surgeon s apprentice u a n n under Vallon . They were acc sed of h vi g plan ed the escape of the emigrants . On the ground by them - - And was found a very well made rope ladder . Cheverny adds here

d o le a nd A em ise l Vallon, of me ritorious character of n as a n obligi g disposition, is questioned by the jury to having orde red twenty-seve fathoms of rope to make n the ladder which w as to save h e prisoners . She ow s to n i in havi g orde re d th e rope but says it s still her attic, 1 i i s sh e i n n not i . wh ch proved true . Thus s pro ou ced gu lty

If Cheverny congratulates her, it is probably b e ca use he thinks she showed both daring in abettin g a nd f the escape skill in getting out of the di ficulty .

He rejoices at the happy issue of the case which , in compliance with the request of the accused, had n been tried in Orleans . O ce acquitted , they came back triumphantly to Blois in the carriage of Brunet f - d f the co fee house keeper, a n a scu fle ensued between their followers a nd the Jacobin post on duty, in which the latter got the worst of it . Although we cannot say for certain which of the n n Vallo sisters Cheverny has in mind , there are ma y n reaso s to believe that it was Annette , who is always n de fi oted as the most active of the trio . She now nitely separated herself from her uncles, the con stitutiona l n priests , a d went back to the old form of worship . Her signature is found to a secret Roman

1 Mémou s e de he e rn . C v y, II p. 2 95.

52 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H procedure was to provoke the former Terrorists to make trouble so that th e suspicions of the Directory n might be shifted on to them . The Choua s were under oath to ren der every as sistance to the Catholic 1 and royal party .

It was no mere affair of caste, as may be seen . The bulk of the soldiery was drawn from the people . Part of the population lightheartedly entered the fight n l against the Jacobins , i sulted and revi ed them, occa In n siona lly came to blows with them . the ra ks of the n n conspirators were found men of all ra ks . The Vallo sisters threw their house open to noblemen such as

Montlivault and Rancogne, to bourge ois such as Jean

Marie Pardessus, to artisans such as the gunsmith a n d n n Lacaille his so s, to mentio only those whose s in ts name are coupled with theirs the police repor . ’ Pa rde ssus s father had been in custody durin g the n Terror, his younger brother was killed at Save ay, n n c fighti g u der La ro h e ja que lin, Jean Ma rie himself was the ordinary counsel for th e Chouans of the n n regio when brought to justice . Charles , the so of n n i the Marquis de Rancog e, despite the e treat es of his father— as timorous as Cheverny him self— was n d for a time a captai under Georges C a dou a l . The n you ger Lacaille too , it is said, fought under the ’ same chief. Lacaille 5 very apprentices were known for their extremist opinions ; one of them was later shot at Brest under suspicion of espionage in n E glish pay . n - The usual meeti g place of the Chouans was , ’ Be rrue t s f - doubtless, co fee house , The Three

1 Mémo ire s sur le s Co nse ils Ch ouans re mis a u Mim s tre de 12 o ic e én é a e le 1 Ve n o e a n V . a 1 P l g r l 3 t s (3 m rs, 7 97 ) A chi e na ona e F7 0 r v s ti l s, 62 0 . AN D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 53

n Mercha ts . But there were more secret haunts ,

used chiefly by those who were being tracked down , and the house of the Vallon sisters was one of these We no t n shelters . do know the ame of those num n b e rle ss Fre ch people who , as we are told by a 1 n Restoratio document, owed their salvation to n h An ette, of tho"se who were saved , idden and n assisted by her, of the persecuted emigra ts and priests whom Sh e helped to escape from prison a nd n death . Amo g those who later testify to her devoted n one Roch e m ouh e t ess , only , the Chevalier de la , declares that M"adame William saved his life at the o peril of her w n . The others are witnesses to her devotion rather than personally her debtors : Theo

dore de Montlivault, the Comte de Salaberry, the n Vicomte de Malartic, the Baro de Tardif, etc . It is just possible that the Vicomte de Mont morency-Laval owed her some direct assistance in n — h e his troubles . Formerly a stau ch liberal had n t gon e as far as to move, on the ight of 4 h August, — the abolition of the aristocratic privileges h e had repented of what he termed his errors ; towards the end of the century he was in the department of - - W n Loir e t Cher under threat of arrest . he the

Bourbons came back to the throne, he gave proof of his gratitude to Annette . All those who struck at the Jacobins won Annette 's n sympathy, amo gst others Nicolas Bailly, whom we shall meet later as her great friend . It was he who , ' entrusted with the public prosecutor s speech agai nst 1 Babeuf a nd his followers at Vendome in May 7 97 , contributed to the condemn ation of the redoubtable socialist a nd to the fall of his Jacobin supporters .

1 e e n Se App dix IV. W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

The activity of the Vallon sisters, and chiefly of a nd not Annette , was extreme could long escape the n atten tion of the governme t . The police searches ranged nearer a nd nearer and ended in the compila tion of a long list of suspected persons, whose arrest was decreed by the Minister of Justice . This v igilance began at the end of the Directory, and continued into the first months of the Consulate . 1 1 51 n 1 8 From I oth October, 7 99, to 3 Ja uary, 00, n n - were indicted : Mo tlivault, Montmore cy Laval , s Rancogne the younger, Jean Marie Parde sus , Puzéla ' - n- (Paul Vallon s future father i law, whom we Shall n meet again), amo g many others . Annette was one of n not the pers“o s to be arrested on the spot, but for whom it were advisable to have an order for a dom iciliary search to examine their papers a nd arrest them if a ny plotting is discovered (police document, t 3 rs Janua ry, She is marked down o n the police paper as Widow Williams a t Blois ; gives V "1 shelter to the Chouans . We do not know whether the search took place . a It is cert in, however, that more coherent action was being ta ken against the Chouans . Most of them

were discovered ; some were imprisoned, others n placed u der supervision and rendered powerless . W The big fight in the est ended on 2 6th January, ' 1 0 8 0, with Georges C a douda l s defeat at Pont de

Loch , followed by his submission . The Chouans were capable of nothing more than spasmodic n movements in the followi g years . This was a source of sadness for a zealous royalist nn and n like A ette, perso al troubles were added to it .

Her eldest sister Francoise, at more than thirty

1 A c hi e na t ona e F7 r v s i l s, 62 00 . A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N

five years old , was implicated in a mysterious a nd

painful adventure . W e must imagine the strange atmosphere in which these women conspirators moved in order to under — — stand there is no question of excusin g what hap n We pened to Fra coise . must consider the perturbing promiscuity of excited m e n and women maddened i n u h n t rn wit a ger and with fear, the secret meetings , n the long whisperi gs , the feverish intimacy, when a nd pity provokes love danger leads to unrestraint . In 1 8 J\9 , Franco“ise gave birth to a son whose father " T is not kh 6 w n Given the extraordinary laxity of h morals throug out the country during the Directory, the mad thirst for pleasure which carried away all n classes , a nd the ge eral discredit into which marriage

had fallen, this might have been a simple occurrence “enough at a time "when so many men and women n followed nature . But in the house of the Vallo n sisters , who were know for their devotion to Church

and Thron e , a nd who were nieces of two priests , the

' f t n VCI / matter was di ferent . I was a sca dal in the Y I W J anct ua ry. hat jeers, what sarcasms would be ! levelled at the Catholic“cons““pirators How their adversaries would mak e use of the adven ture to ridicule the Cause itself ! Thus Fran coise was in n duc e d, after having concealed her state, to aba don t the child . The very day of its birth (Is November,

it was exposed at the Hospital of Blois, where , on account of the date (1 1 th Brumaire of the seventh n year of the Republic), they gave it the ames of

Toussaint Décadi . Both calendars were thus united n n n Décadi , a revolutio ary name , striki g a stra gely m false note in the records of a monarchist fa ily . ' We must remember that Francoise s broth er, Charles W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

We n Henry, was head of the hospital . may co clude that he connived at the plan a nd exercised Special supervision over the disown ed child . Nature had been sacrificed to the Cause, but it would be wrong l n to regard Francoise as devoid of all maternal fee i g .

She suffered and did not forget . Twenty years later, in when settled away from Blois , Paris, where she t w as safe from the malicious curiosi y of neighbours , nd Sh e owned Toussaint Décadi as her child (2 2 May, and some time afterwards married him to a not girl of illegitimate birth, who could upbraid him ud with his own (z 2 July,

At the same time , Annette was beset with other n n n n a xieties co cer i g her brother Paul, who suddenly n in 1 left Orlea s , 800, to lead in Paris a precarious a nd n u disorderly existe ce of which we shall speak f rther . It is not probable that Annette related all these misfortunes in the letters received from her by W n 1 ordsworth at the beginni g of 802 , but she ’ n could tell e ough"to justify Dorothy s exclamation , Poor Annette !

WHILE these various cares engro ssed Annette a nd severed from him, if not her heart, at least her thoughts, the poet himself was drifting from the love that had long possessed him by turns with de a nd n light with sufferi g . We can ascribe to the end of 1 7 95 in e stre n e m e nt the grow— g g of which at first not h aW Ee e n i he may qu te conscious . During the

Terror, his passion had been kept on the alert by A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 57

the dread of the scaffold to which he might think nn n A ette exposed , realisi g as he did her generous imprudence . He has related the nightmares that n n hau ted his sleep, without confessi g, however, that they were not merely called up by vague a nd general i li s h fears , but by int mate and tangible rea tie . T ere a b a t m n 1 n was , mor over, no e n i love for Fra ce . e e g___ h s ' —

He saWth e crimes that were commi t cl, but he a lsO i n saw the he roism _wh ch sho e through that da rkness . He deplored the actions of the ruling ‘‘ party , but preserved his faith in the people and in "1 the virtues which his eyes had seen . Circumstances had simultaneously brought into existence his love for the woman who was becomin g an ardent royalist a nd his enthusiasm for republican Fran c e J The destin ies of these two passions remained strangely n n F i terwove . As long as ranize continued to be n the la d on which his hopes centred, Annette had n n no reason to fear forgetfulness or estra geme t .

But the war continued , still preventing the wished for meeting . By Slow degrees, France, becoming a — n warlike nation , lost her prestige for him Fra ce, together with all he had left there . The indefinite duration of hostilities oblige d him to fix his life in his own country since he was shut out from the other . His need of feminin e tenderness was almost satisfied e - by his t union with his sister Dorothy, in whom he discovered treasures of imaginative and poetical n n sympathy of Which his Fre c h frie d , unacquainted his n with to gue , deaf to his verses , unaccustomed to r n ural life, was quite incapable . Besides , a prolo ged . feeling of powerlessness brings with it a kind of al sis n n pae y of the affections . Had he bee willi g to 1 i Pre lude , XI. 87 . W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

atone for the harm done to Annette, he could not have done so . Had he been desirous of helping her t in the accomplishment of her maternal du y, he had n neither the money nor the means of sendi g it . ’ When, by his friend Raisley Calvert s legacy in 1 00 7 95, he was enabled to dispose of £9 , he could not use this sum in assisting mother and child . He used it as is well known . He secured for himself out d a t _ _ of the income of his mo est capi al g _ frug al life devoted to which heM ia mi his i e Ra o n An d s st r at cEd w . the happiness he enjoyed there was such that after a time he mus t have felt a secret terror of a ny alteration in his mode of living t. r w i hi te a 11 5 that ould depr ve mof Dorothy, r; 11 from the Muse and the country. When to Dorothy w as d a ded Coleridge, when his emotional and inte lle c w as in n e tual life a way complete , whe the first po ms which gave him the certainty of his genius gushed out, and he advanced towards the composition of the Lyrica l Ba lla ds in the combined joy of friend ship and poetry ; above all , when from the confusion ' in which Godwin s anarchic doctrines had left him ,

' turne ait o 515 66611 n he W cou try, which day after day became dearer and more indispensable to his heart, and steeped himself again in the remotest memories of his childhood centred round the Lake s — th e di trict then thought of Annette and Caroline, moving as it still was , no lon ger came before his eyes as n e a_ t ou ling co trary to _ the sav _ _ _ r b _ i i d rect on now followed by the flow of his existence .

There was not, at first, any lessenin g of his sym pathy for their distress nor of the feeling of the obligations he had incurred . But when troubled by l n his recol ectio s, he use d the famous Goethean t e

6 0 W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

n lulli ng her babe to rest, who could i deed imagine , as she looked in vai n for the return of the father, that he no longer cared for her ? Here we distinctly recognise some of the feelings to which Annette 1 gives expression in her letter of 1 7 93

e as T hy fa th e r c are s not for my br t, ' i t e e e a th e e to e t T s hin , sw t b by, r r s ; ’ — T is a ll thine ow n l a nd if its h ue Be a n e d th a w as so a i to Vie c h g , t f r w, ' e f r th e e do e ! Tis fa ir nough o , my v e a t itt e c hi d is flo n My b u y, l l l , w , But th ou Wilt live With m e in love ; ’ And wh a t if my poo r c h e e k b e b row n t ’ T is we ll for m e th ou c a nst not se e e How pa le a nd w a n it e lse would b .

D e a n t th e i ta nt itt e L e r d o r u s, my l l if ; ' I a m thy fa th e r s we dde d Wife And und e rne a th th e spre a din g tre e o e t We tw o Will live i n h n s y. is e c o o a e If h swe e t b oy h uld f rs k ,

1 ' . e e c e t e one so C] in Ann tt s le tte r : Sh e is su h a pr tty li tl , pre tty th a t my love of h e r a lmost distra cts m e unle ss I h old h e r c on n a o e o o ti u lly in my a rms . Be hold y ur wif ; s rr w h as te e h h e r h e r a l r d e r muc h . Do you know f If

e a t e a re a te e d h e . is i o . f ur s l r e r h art is unc h ange d It"st ll y urs ’ Kno o Anne tte a i th w y ur , C rol ne s te nde r mo e r . I c a nno e e t Wh e n t xpr ss h e d e gre e of my love for my da ughte r. h o d h e r in a a a line I l my rms I ofte n re pe t to h e r : C ro , my de a c hi d ou h a e no t e f a a r l , y v your fa th r ; h e is a r w y, poo r — ttle one . a him t t. e n li C ll o you, my pe Th o ly e a e e m e is to se e e o a not so pl sur l ft h r. Y ur f th e r is h a a s a o ine h e i n t e it t ppy I, C r l , W ll o s e you W h this iny c a p ' o n o h e a d y ur . Wo d o th ne e e a d th a e te h e c e a n r sw r v r r t l t r, but re e iv d m y oth e rs Whic h pe rh a ps c ame muc h ne a re r th e fe e lings e xpre sse d in h is a a b ll d . A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N

With m e h e ne ve r would h a ve sta ye d From him no h arm my ba be ca n ta ke ; h e m an is e c h e d a d But , poor , wr t m e ; And e ve ry da y w e two will pra y ' F r h a one a nd far a a o him t t s g w y .

Again there is Ruth who is carried away by the sweet words of the young Georgian , by his n n encha ting descriptio s of the Tropics . She allows him to lead her to the altar, but the young husband , soon caught again by his passion for a free a nd wandering life, shortly after leaves her and she becomes mad with grief.

’ Fifteen years later, we f m d the same story told 1 n in The Excursio agai n, but this time in a tone of i i n e d fica t on . We are i vited to mourn over the poor n you g peasant girl Ellen, so grave and so beautiful, -" who yet was seduced and h a d foi sole comfort the

1 child of her sin . Poverty drives her to hire herself e a nd as a nurse ; her child dies . Ellen fad s away dies

full of repentance .

THUS did Wordsworth give utterance to his trouble

when he thought of Annette . This is In in 1 800 forgetfulness . letters he wrote to Dorothy he still spoke with tender feeling of Annette a nd her n n child . But what was beyo d his co trol was to prevent his imagination from becomin g estranged

from her as from a being alien to his deeper nature . n She appeared to him more and more as a n accide t,

a surprise in the course pf his existence . As early — I 86 1 0 . Book V . 7 7 3 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

h e l as 1 7 99, had re udiated her poetica ly, had out of _ p a the secrecy of hi s i35s} discovered a favoured riv l . of He had sacri ficed her to the memory Lucy .

The Lucy poems , which are among the purest r ie w e ls of the Wordsworthian poet y, were written durin g a stay he made at Goslar, in Germany, with ' n Dorothy, in 1 7 99 . Read in the light of An ette s a nd adventure , they assume a newer perhaps a deeper meaning .

Doubtless she remains an enigma to us, this young

Lucy, to whose cottage the poet went on horseback n l We i the moon ight . have here the memory of a youthful love which it is fit we should place before nn — 1 that for A ette . It is indeed at this date 7 99 ' that Wordsworth s mind reverts to the early time of a nd hi l dra w ne w his life to his native l s, in order to _ a nd faith strength from them . One ca n fancy Lucy loved by the Hawkshead pupil about the e nd of his schoo l time, or by the Cambridge student during one n of his vacatio s . Wha t we have to consider here n is that Wordsworth co veys to her, into the grave n where she has lo g been buried, the assurance that n it is she whom he was right in lovi g, she Whose n n love had su k deepest i to his heart .

She had indeed two claims on his love , over which n nothi g now seems to him able to prevail . She was m rl n a ounfi gi , dwelli g in a secluded a nd lovely

. m n dale Nature ea t to mou"ld her herself, to make of her a lady of her ow n . Her beauty was like n the reflectio of the beauty of heaven , of clouds, springs a nd woods :

And h e ha b e th e e a h a rs s ll br t ing b lm, And h e rs th e sil e nc e and th e c a lm O e in e n a e h n f mut s s t t i gs . A N D A N N E T TE VA L L O N 6 3

Th e floa ting c louds th e ir sta te sh a ll le nd T o h e r ; for h e r th e Willow be nd ; Nor sh a ll sh e fa il to se e Eve n in th e motions of th e Storm ' Gra c e th a t sh a ll mould th e Ma ide n s form B ile nt a h ys symp t y. T h e sta rs of midnight sh a ll b e de ar T o h e r; a nd sh e sh a ll le a n h e r e a r In ma ny a se cre t pla c e Wh e e e t da nc e h e a ard n r rivul s t ir w yw rou d, And be a uty born of murmuring sound

Sh a ll pass into h e r fa c e .

' Lucy s other claim was that she was English. No doubt it is the weariness of his stay in Germany, which forces from the poet a vow nevermore to n n leave his cou try . No doubt his time in Fra ce had been very different and he had then rebelled against n the necessity which recalled him to London . But ow all foreign countries are repellent to him . He recon ' ciles himself with his ow n country over Lucy s grave

e e n n no n m e n I trav ll d amo g u k w , In la nds be yond th e se a ; r En a n ! di d no h e n No , gl d I k w till t

Wha t love I bore to th e e .

’ Tis a h a e anc h o d e a ! p st, t t m l ly r m Nor will I quit thy sh ore A se c ond time ; for still I se e m

T o love th e e more a nd more .

Among thy mounta ins di d I fe e l T h e joy of my de sire ; And sh e I ch e rish e d turne d h e r wh e e l

Beside a n English fire .

Th e th n h c onc e a e d y mornings sh ow d, y ig ts l , T h e bowe rs wh e re Luc y pla ye d ; And th ine too is th e last gre e n fie ld ' Th a t Lucy s e ye s surve ye d . W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

It may be that these verses were not directed against th a ss h r i n Annette , but e over and, by g oring her, y p . e She n n they p onounce her doom . it is who owes othi g I r _ n n n to the soil or sky of E gla d, who speaks a other n language , who would be an exile in an E glish

village and wondered at by the villagers . Above - n- all she is town born and tow bred , garrulous of

’ speech and possessed of all the Worldly qualities

' which the poet now proclaims worthless if not rep t e n n h e nsible , and there are in her no e of the i clina ii 1 i n n b i . tio s t t _ g__ a_ soul to Nature She s a foreig er no a nd a townswoman . If ever the poet w did

marry her, it would be out of gratitude or from a

sense of duty, but with the inward certainty of

having wrecked his life .

Now n , tha ks to his sister, he finds the new Lucy in so far as it is possible for another woman to renew th e miracle of an apparition beloved at the dawn of a nd n youth, made divi e by death . He had quite n forgotte her, that Mary Hutchinson who was his ' n W schoolfellow at the Pe rith dame s school, and hom n he had seen agai , with pleasure , in the same place n 1 8 In duri g his summer holidays of 7 9 . later years she had lon g been driven from his thoughts by

Annette . Dorothy herself, who was her comrade, n had eglected her for her bosom friend Miss Pollard .

But Miss Pollard was now married, and time, distance a nd silence had caused Annette ’s memory to fade

more and more . Dorothy, in whom every other f A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 6 5 consideration gave way to the duty of protecting her ’ n in M brother 3 ge ius , vited ary to Visit he r at Race n n 1 down, where she spe t the spri g of 7 97 , not seein g much of the poet however, who frequently absented n himself duri g this time . It is after the journey to Germany a nd the Lucy poems that William appears to have been convinced that the happiness of his l n th n ife would be fou d in a marriage wit-h e ge tle rl n , who knew a d loved rustic

1 800 , he went to see her at the a nd Yorkshire farm where she and her family lived, in her turn she spent the winter of 1 80 1 —2 at Dove in Cottage, the humble house at Grasmere , the Lake n a nd Cou try, in which Wordsworth Dorothy had nn n n settled at the begi ing of the ce tury . Mea while, the poet addressed to Mary a definite declaration of love, for what other name can we give to the poem to Mary Hutchinson written and published as early 1 as 1 800 ? In a walk amid the woods he found a delightful nd secluded glade , enclosing a law n a a small pool . The place was sheltered from the hot sun a nd the n rough wi d . This peaceful retreat immediately blended itself in his mind with the soothin g image of Mary . It is unknown to travellers

b ut it is be a utiful ; And a n t h is c tt e ne a if a m an sh ould pl o a g r, h d e e e e t th e h e te of its t e e S oul sl p b n a h s l r r s, And e nd its a te ith h is da i ea bl w rs W ly m l, He o d so o e i t th a in h is d e a th -h o w ul l v , t ur Its ima ge wo uld survive a mong his th ough ts And th e e o e e t a th i ti Noo r f r , my swe M ry, s s ll k,

With a ll i ts e e c h e w e h a e na e d o Y o u. b s, v m fr m

a as far To M . H. : Our w lk w W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

a nd The declaration was made, if anything still n withheld Wordsworth from ma rrying, it was ot n Annette , but his lack of mo ey, or rather, it seems, his inability to support both Annette and Mary : ’ was he not to provide for his daughter s educa tion f (He had decidedly abandoned the thought of makin g — Annette his wife . ) He also had and here his courage — n is seen to tell Mary everything, if he had ot done n s n so before . It is true that this co fes io was then t less difli cul than it seemed to be a generation later .

. A natural child was a frequent occurrence and did o 1 not mean s much . Whatever else we may think, ' n n Wordsworth s ho esty is evide t . To him the lot n of the two women was interdepende t . He wished neither Mary to be ignoran t of his past nor Ann ette ' n of his decisio . We read in Dorothy s diary of

3 1 8 1: March, 1 80 2

n . W A rai y day illiam very poorly . Two letters from ’ e and one Ann Sarah [Mary s sist r] from poor ette . W e se e Anne t a nd resolved to t e, that William should go to Mary . The pecuniary condition was fulfilled almost imme diately after this decision . In June, Wordsworth learned that the son of the old Earl of Lonsdale ' who had just died, would pay his father s debt ; and a n Mary was told without delay . Dorothy d he were to leave Grasmere to go and see her . From now on she was his betrothed . Fa r w This is proved by the e e ll he addressed , before leaving his little Dove Cottage, to his garden a nd n flowers , promisi g them a speedy return with her who is to be his Wife :

1 e t Se a n e , p . 4 .

W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

e s e ci lovers is a somewhat extraordin ary proceeding, p ally when one considers that during that time Mary

was awaiting her lover . Everything seems to have passed simply and f n cordially, without transports of a fectio or out ’ bursts oi passion . In Dorothy s diary of the period , : written just after her return to Grasmere, we read

We found Ann ette an d Caroline chez Ma da me Avril ‘ ' t r W e l th e se a da ns la rue de la Té e d O . wa ked by shore almost every evening with Annette and Caroline n n or William and I alone . O e ight I shall n ever forget n n d th e day had bee very hot, a d William a n I walked alone toge"ther upon the pier . Alon e, that is without Annette, for Dorothy adds

Caroline was delighted . It was on this occasion that Wordsworth wrote

one of his most famous sonnets, the only one of his poems that relates to his French daughter

is a ea te o e e n n It b u us v i g , ca lm and fre e ; Th e h oly time is quie t a s a Nun Bre a thle ss With a dora tion ; th e broa d sun 15 sinking down in its tranquillity ; ' Th e ge ntle nes s of h e a ve n broods o e r th e Se a L e n ! th e mi h e n is a ak e ist g ty B i g w , And doth with his e te rna l motion make A sound i e h nde — e e a n l k t u r v rl sti gly. Dea h d ! d e a i ! h a a r C il r G rl t t w lke st With m e h e re , h o a e a n to c h e d o e n ho h If t u pp r u u by s l m t ug t, Thy na ture is not th e re fore le ss divine : ' Th ou h e st in Abraha m s boso m all th e ye ar ; ' ' And w orshi st th e e e nne h pp at T mpl s i r s rine , God e in ith h e e h e n e b g W t w w know it not.

c There is ertainly nothing in this pious effusion , a full of biblic l and religious evocations , to betray n the prese ce of a natural daughter of the poet . That A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 6 9 is why ma ny critics have thought that Wordsworth here addressed his own sister— regardless of the fact that Dorothy was of all women the most exquisitely

sensitive to natural beauty . To us who are better n informed, this almost sace rdotal blessi g offers a striking example of the way in which Wordsworth was apt to solemnise the most mundane passages of

his life . It may either irritate or amuse readers averse n n n from all u timely a d inopportune solem ity . There is indeed a wonderful forgetfulness of contingencies,

a rare lack of compunction in the father, a frail

sinner, who transforms himself into a sovereign But the words in the sonnet which are of greates"t import to us are untouched by solemn thought , which furnish us with a key to the imaginative dis agreement between the Wordsworths and not only — — n Caroline, but also and still more A nette . To be sure Caroline was a ten-year-old child who was readier to play on Calais pier than to contemplate with august emotion the setting of the sun in the

sea . All we know of her tends to prove that she was

a nd . playful lively, more sociable than contemplative

It is no mere question of age , Annette, like her - daughter, was ill fitte d for prolonged ecstasies in the n i presence of ature . Her m nd would soon turn back n to her ordi ary cares , to her friends at Blois, to the political intrigues she had left in suspense to revisit

her former lover . William and she had now only one common

feeling, their hatred of Bonaparte ; and even in this f they di fered, for they hated him for diametrically

opposite reasons . Annette execrated in him the hero of l gth Vendémiaire who had ruined the last royalist [ 7 0 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H / n hopes , the Consul who, instead of usi g his absolute n choua n p to restore the Bourbons, was stifli g [ ower ne rte and preparing the accession of his own dynasty . n Precisely on the i sth of that mo th of August, fell the anniversary of his birth and the proclamation of

his Consulship for life . They were sources of common

woe and indignation for the two lovers of yore . But ’ Wordsworth s anger was roused by seeing his re publican dreams belied and set at naught by the

return of tyranny . He was exasperated with those of his compatriots who were pouring into France to n salute the new despot . He co trasted the Calais of 1 0 a nd 1 802 with that of 7 9 , the official joyless pomps of the present festivities with the raptures of true mirth a"t the Federation . The words Good morrow, a n citizen, which had made his heart beat faster d

had seemed to him the very accents of fraternity,

were now, though he still heard them here and there, "1 a hollow word, as if a dead man spoke it . His rekindling patriotism was fanned by the dis appointment caused by this new visit to the country W in which he had once so nearly lost it . hat a change ! n on The English ame was no longer French soil , as n it was wo t to be, a token of honour, a symbol of w ' Freedom ; it as an enemy s name, frequently ll coupled with curses . War had fi ed the souls of the

two peoples with mutual hatred . He felt the weak ness of the peace treaty which had enabled him to make this journey

h an I, wit m y a fe a r For de o n a n h e a e my ar C u try, m y rtf lt sighs, A on m e n w h o do not o e h e r in 2 m g l v , l ge r h e re .

1 Sonne t : Jones ! as from Ca lais Sonne t : Fa ir Star of e ve ning A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N

All the acts , past or present, of the new master were hateful to him . As a poet he lamented the extinction l of the Venetian Republic, so great in the memories ' of men . He pitied Toussaint L Ouv e rture who was 2 thrown into prison . He waxed indignant at the return to slavery decreed in the very country in which all men had so recently been proclaimed free . He execrated the act which drove all the negroes 3 from France .

However, he did not yet recant his old affection for France . He did not yet decisively take sides with either of the two nations which— in this time of peace — were movin g towards an imminent and terrible encounter . He tried to divert his thoughts from the present so that he might cling to hope :

Ha is h e w h a n n t f r o e ppy , o c ri g o o P p , n n ca o n h t no Co sul, or Ki g, n s u d imse lf o k w

Th e de n of Man and l e in h o e . sti y , iv p

With his mind thus engaged , feeling himself already half a stranger, he listened with inattentive ears to the long tales recounted by Annette of the politics of Blois , of the conspiracies into which she had nor ardently plunged, but of which neither names details affected the poet . Besides, what did the monarchist and Catholic cause matte r to him then ? It was to take thirteen years of a new and formidable war to make him desire the restoration of the Bour ' bons . Ann ette s arguments and explanations jarred with his own opinions . Much as he might admire th e bravery of the loyal monarchist, and be moved

1 Sonn e t : Onc e di d sh e h old 2 onne : a n th e o nh a S t Touss i t, m st u ppy 3 Sonne t : We ha d a fe ma le passe nge r W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

by her perils and misfortunes, he could not but blame morals a nd habits which were suggested by ’ Annette s narratives, wha tever might be her rese rv e in the telling . How far away he felt her to be from what now

ma de up his whole life, not only from nature, but from poetry as he understood and practised it ! Between them stood the barrier of lan guage ; never

could she delight in the verses he had written, nor in those he still would write ; never would she grasp their rhythm nor their beauty ; even if he translated

them to her, scarcely could she catch at a few of

the ideas that had inspired him, and those ideas ,

strange a nd subtle as they were, were more likely to l bewilder than to enchant her . His daughter herse f

did not know English , and he despaired of ever

making her intellectually a nd p oetically his child .

Besides , in the long interval which had elapsed since 1 7 92 he had lost the fluency and readiness of his n Fre ch . To speak it was now a painful effort, words

and accentuation played him false . To balance these impressions of profound dis appointment he would have had to feel so me renewal n of the old fascination , a rekindli g of the ashes of his n an d se suous exalted passion . Alas ! Annette i - was now g g six, and aged, no doubt, by anxieties

. on n and trials He, the other hand, was still a you g a nd man, shielded from her influence by a new love ; all he could feel for her was a remnant of affection n compou ded of gratitude for the past, of pity for

the present . With the Wisdom a nd calm which the years

had brought, they were, moreover, probably both

agreed on rejecting the idea of a permanent union . A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N

Circumstanc es , against which they had railed so n n lo g, had on the whole bee merciful in holding them r t apa t . The ten years hey had lived away from each other had Opened an impassable gulf between their s tastes and habit , or rather had brought to light the dif essential ference of their natures . Annette, no less than William, now realised the impossibility of a life n in common . She would have bee deeply grieved at parting from her friends at Blois, to whom she w as o bound by the ties of common h pes, fears and perils . She would have been terrified at the idea of the hostile island, where a language unknown to her was spoken, where (to judge by William and

Dorothy, in spite of all their friendly attentions) the people had their own ways of seeing and feeling, their own emotions and pleasures which were so f di ferent from hers . Both showed rare wisdom in confirming their n in separation, a d still greater wisdom in parting friendship with kind thoughts towards each other . Indeed this equanimity was possible only because passion was dead . There subsisted only the memory of the past which seems to have remained w ith them n untroubled by poig ant regrets . The whole story n - i e ded without any ill feeling, with a certa n sweet ness veiled by a sha dow of sadness . We read in ' Dorothy s diary on 2 9th August, the very day of the ’ Wordsworths return to Dover : We sate upon the

Dover cliffs, and looked upon France with many a melancholy and tender thought . What had been agreed upon betw een Wordsworth and Annette ? W0 do not know . Neither do we know what steps he took to assist t“he mother of his child , nor the offers he had made It may be that W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

n Wordsworth , fearing for Caroli e the influence of ’ Annette s combativity, proposed to take charge of his daughter after having come to an agreement with Mary n Hutchi son , who was capable in her generous kind n ness of bein g a mother to her . But either Annette n nor Caroli e, who were all in all to one another,

could consent to this change . The help proffered ' by Wordsworth for his child s education then took

another form, of which we have no evidence . Was it immediate and effectual ? Or was it the promise of a yearly help soon cancelled by circumstances ? It was not till the following year that the Earl of Lonsdale was to repay the money owed by his father . Wordsworth had received nothing of it when he saw Annette at Calais . If he was content with a mere promise, what was the outcome of it later ? n n on Eight mo ths after their meeti g, war broke n out a ew, and all communication between them was once more cut off. The one thin g certain is that Caroline remained with her of whom circumstances had made her doubly the daughter . She remained French and n spoke the la guage of France . The Calai s interview was the decisive crisis of the love of Wordsworth and Annette . They were n — to remain frie ds to the end friends, but never a nd husband wife . William . was to marry Mary, and eventually did so on 4th October . Annette was to go back to Blois with Caroline . The former one lovers saw another only once again, eighteen years afterwards .

7 6 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

recently, in Madrid , she had been connected with P ri non the French ambassador, M . de é g ; M . de

Villequier, the agent of the Bourbons, and Godoy, the prince of the Peace, of whom she had simultaneously n been the mistress . She complace tly showed letters from Godoy ; she also exhibited some from the late

Prince Louis of Prussia .

She was pretty, and was mistress of the art of n preserving her beauty, to the point of unblushi gly giving herself out as twenty years younger than she s was . Gifted with a geniu for intrigue, she gave such excellent reasons for her movement, she excelled to such an extent in confusing people ’ s minds that the wonderful Consulate police itself seems not to n have see very clearly what her game was . Paul made her acquaintance at the house of a

- certain Maugus, a lodging house keeper, who lived in the Place du Martroi, and had formed a literary ” society called Cracovie, where the newspapers were read . He lived with her until she forsook him for other conquests . But that period of dissipation made regular work wearisome and the life at Orleans distasteful to him . Either because Maitre Courtois no longer appreciated his services, or because the metro polis attracted him, he left Orleans for Paris in 1 800 .

There he occupied several posts , never stopping long in any, staying for instance three months with M . de La ste rie y , the famous agriculturist, who was then n writi g on Spanish sheep . Finally he took work i with Ma tre Thierry, a notary at Melun , and was there n u n when , duri g a short jo r ey he took to Paris, he found himself again in the presence of Madame de Bon n . S euil The old passion flamed up again on the pot .

She was going, she told him, to Spain with AN D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 7 7

' francs worth of goods , lace and false pearls . She offered to take him as her assistant or secretary . He consented . At least such is the explanation of the adventure that Paul gave to the police, but it is likely that under the cover of these business trans actions , a Bourbon intrigue was hidden . n Th eir passports , which have bee prese rved with n their descriptions, are interesti g . Madame de Bon - neuil declares herself to be twenty nine , but a marginal note from the police makes the correction : She is n early fifty . One may, however, imagine her a pretty - woman with brown hair, well made nose, small

n . mouth , round chi , round face and high colour n As for Paul Vallo , he wears a brown wig ; he is but five feet four inches ; he has grey eyes under a high forehead barred by dark eyebrows . n They went first to Spai , where they stayed from

March to August 1 802 , that is until the month that W a nd e in ordsworth Annette sp nt together Calais .

From the very start, they had strange ups and downs .

She sold lace . She again tried the batteries of her charms on the prince of the Peace in order to obtain n from him permission to export piastres , but fortu e n soo wearied of her . She went on to Portugal . There they passed through a time of hardships, and Paul, according to a family tradition , in order to earn his l in iving had to load orange ships the port of Lisbon . n From Portugal they went to England, whe ce, after n n spe di g three months in London , they sailed for — Holland . They spent all the winter together from — November 1 802 to March 1 80 3 either in Amster or dam at The Hague . But at that date, the Consulate police began to feel uneasy on the subject of the adventuress and to suspect her of political intrigues . 7 8 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

Her passage through London had made her an object of suspicion . No doubt peace with England was n not yet broken , but everyone k ew it was but a truce betw een tw o deadly enemies . As early as ~ 2 1 5t Janua ry, 1 803, the High Commissioner for the commercial relations of the French Republic in Holland addressed from Amsterdam a report to

Semonville, the French ambassador at The Hague , ' warning the latter of Madame de Bonne uil s arrival in Amsterdam on 1 8th November with a person six teen or seventeen years old, of charming appearance, whom she calls her niece and treats pretty badly ; an Englishman about forty, tolerably well looking, of average size, who styles himself Lord Spenser, - n and finally a little, dark, rather ill looking ma , about thirty years old, who is called Vallon , and whom off she passes as her secretary . She keeps up a very active correspondence : Besides a secretary who does not leave her "and seems very busy, she herself writes ceaselessly . Paul Vallon must have le ft her in March 1 803 to go back to Paris . We do not know if he was still with her on 1 3th March when Madame de Bonneuil n was first visited by detective Ma cke ne m . This age t, who seems to have had a turn for humour, has left us curious and detailed accounts of his conversations with the adventuress . She was suspected by the Chief Consul of plotting n with the E glish against his life . Ma cke ne m intro duc e d himself to her as a ci-de va nt (former noble m a n ) ruined by the Revolution, but formerly very n i timate with Bonaparte, who had not withdrawn his confidence from him . Madame de Bonneuil, on her side, claimed to have a secret plot to divulge to

. AN D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 7 9

the Chief Consul, but to him only, which concerned n n n some Englishme who i te ded to murder him . The detective expressed surprise that they should have chosen a"pretty woman like her as confidante of such n horrors . Here, assumi g a modest countenance, she n co fessed to me, with pain (she said), that it was to her poor charms that she owed her knowledge of this infamous secret . Her beauty had excited rivalry between two men who were taking the lead in this

matter, and had betrayed each other out of hatred .

The English , then , had put a price of three thousan d ’ guineas and a pension upon Bonaparte s head . As Ma ck n f e e m seemed doubtful, she o fered to let him - see her n ext door neighbour, Colonel Spenser, one n of the conspirators . And in fact, the said Colo el

appeared as if by magic . There followed a conversa

tion in English between him and the lady, of which — Ma cke ne m did not understand a single word no more than Spenser understood her when she spoke Ma m French with cke ne . She repeated to each

whatever she chose . Throughout she tried to pass herself off on Ma cke ne m as a patriot working for the

good of Bonaparte .

Ma cke ne m continued to follow up her traces . He tried to catch her up at Pyrmont in the Prin cipality W of aldeck, a nd sent a very amusing report from - Hanover to General Moncey, inspector general of 1 t the police , on 3 h August . n Before reachi g Pyrmont, he had learned that Madame de Bonneuil had just taken public leave of the society of that watering-place at a ball given by in the Prince of Brunswick . She had particularly sisted on saying good - bye to the Bavarian Electress ” " before going, so she said, to Gotha . There was 8 0 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

Ma ke m not a moment to lose . c ne showed his cre de n tials to the Prince of Waldeck and asked him to expel

from his court the adventuress who, as vile as her

birth, is impudent enough to introduce herself into society where she can maintain herself only by dint ” n of lyi g and fraud .

n i Ah ! the pri ce said to me, n a public place such n n as Pyrmo t, whe you se e a woman, you do not ask who sh e is nor e sh e n sh e wh re "comes from, but o ly"whether is n a nd . A e n i you g pretty s to b i g pretty, I repl ed, it sh e so d n may be is thought , but as regar s youth, I have k own n n her for at least twe ty years"as a very active courtesa , a nd n n ! n very da gerous i triguer . A"h said His High ess sh e h - A i fiv e . n to me, "is at most t irty dmitt g this to H in ie be the case, I said, Your ighness, be g a sold r, must know that for "a soldier the campa igning years ne n are recko d double . The pri ce laughed and said n n i on n Si ce you i s st goi g to Pyrmont, I will give n n i structio s .

And indeed Ma cke ne m gained his point and was - taken in a post chaise to Pyrmont, but he was driven n alo g circuitous and abominable roads, while an ex press hurried straight away by a direct route to warn n Madame de Bon euil . When the exhausted de te c tive arrived, she had fled into Prussian territory . Poor Ma cke n e m , in order to uphold the prestige of the

consular police, had to invent an errand in search of lodgings at Pyrmont for his sick wife, which left him no choice but to take up his quarters in the small - watering place from which the clever bird had flown .

8 2 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H when the strategic genius of one of his sisters — 1 probably Annette helped him out . In January

1 804 Paul came, accompanied by her, to the market n tow of St . Dye, on the Loire, a little above Blois , to take possession of a small legacy . In this very town la — lived the notary Puzé , a well known monarchist, whose adventures under the Revolution have been

related by his daughter, Marie Catherine, in her

Me moirs, lately published . ' Louis Puze la (1 7 48 a passionate devotee of the royalist and Catholic cause, had plunged with n gloomy zeal i to the fight against the Revolution . ' He had undergone more than four months imprison n me t under the Terror, and his elder daughter, n Marie Catheri e, then seventeen years old, in order to alleviate the physical sufferings of a sickly father, and to support him with her filial love, had of her own free Unexpectedly Pu éla a D set free, z had settled as a not ry at St . ye, where he lived with his heroic daughter and her n younger sister, upo both of whom hi s ascetic and n sullen temper imposed a trying restrai t . Unable to bear the thought of seeing them exposed to un

godly temptations, he forbade all kinds of amuse

ment . He would not hear of the elder girl trying to divert her thoughts by music or reading . The

mere idea that she might marry was odious to him . He employed her as his clerk so that no young man

should have access to his house . Moreover, his n fa aticism made everyone avoid him . In his eyes ' hardly any of the St . Dye families were zealous

1 ' Th e following pa ge s are grounde d on Me moires de Ma dame Va llon e dite d o i a d 1 1 , by Guy Tr u ll r , 9 3, c hie fly from pp A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 8 3

n e ough for the good cause . Raboteau, an agent

of the Directory, wrote on 1 7 th November, If he had had his way, our unhappy country would n n - have become a other Ve dee. The non jurin g priests and n th e n eve deported o es, of whom he was the ze alous n n his n frie d, fou d at house lodgi g, a chapel and sup of porters their fatal errors . He has t“wo young ladies worthy from their manners to be ci-de va nt Wh o i i nl duchesses, , just l ke th"e r dear father, o y visit the most respectable houses . Raboteau had certainly no idea of what the duch n esses suffered under the e forced regime . Marie n l Catheri e was falling into a dec ine . She finally fell

ill, and came dangerously near to death . A famous

Parisian physician , Dr . Chambon de Montaux, was

then at Blois, but he had, in the capacity of Mayor

of Paris in 1 7 93, been a member of the commission that had to notify to the kin g the death sentence

passed by the Convention . It mattered not that he should have resigned his functions immediately after

wards , and that he had been persecuted by the

. Puzéla Terrorists To , he "was no better than a ow n regicide . For his sake, his daughter tells us , he would rather h"ave died than see him, but for n mine he co sented . Here we must quote a page from the Memoirs

n . M . Chambo came He stayed by me a Whole day, n watched my ill ess, told my fathe r that so far as he could judge it was due to a kind of life little fitted to one of my e x a nd n a n s , age dispositio ; d that he must prepare him se lf to lose me in a very short time if he made me work on in a . the s me way . My father was crushed This

1 1 Mémoires de Ma da me Va llon, p . 2 6 . 84 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

se ntence ruined all his plans, but he loved me too much

to sacrifice me . n During my convalescence, which was very lo g, your fath er [that is Paul Vallon : she is writing for h e r children] h e n came out of th e prison of Ste . Pelagie where had bee e detained since his return from foreign countri s . A small

legacy necessitate d his presence at St . Dyé . His pa rents were living at Blois an d one of his sisters accompanied

. i him . Th e fame of my father was great The pol tical o a nd Opinions of th e sister were said to be very g od, t sh e n alth ough she did no know us, i troduced her brother ; th e victims of th e Revolution told their misfortunes to n c on each other and were soo fast friends . Your father fide d to mine that he was watched by the police an d that n n he could stay nowhere u less With special permissio .

To attempt disobedience w as to defy the tyrants . His sister had heard of the presumed cause of my n n illness . Her brother had bee for fiftee years a head n ro clerk at Orleans a nd was a very tal e ted m an . She p

posed our marriage to my fath er . Still dazed by the blow n delivered to him by M . Chambon, circumve ted by th e no a nd n sister, who gave him time to breathe co tinually n th e n l n a s him represe ted mo archist a lia ce worthy of , my h n in n fat er, who had swor his heart ever to let me marry , n was persuaded . To his mi d, there w as no need of his ' n n : in a nd e n daughter s co se t they settled everyth g, th your n father was i troduced to me as my destined husband . I was morally very weak at that time and phys ically e i l e weak r st l , for I rememb r I could not rise from a large e nd easy chair to welcom brother a sister . I agreed to h n e n everyt i g With a fe li g of joy .

Three weeks later I married your fathe r .

The thing is perhaps a little less strange than ' Pu éla Mademoiselle z thought it . Her father s name — in 1 7 97 1 800 had been on the same list of su"spected Chouans as Annette, the widow William . Both

W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

his mate by his transformed life . The secretary of the equivocal Madame de Bonneuil was to become an

accomplished notary , a perfect husband, the father of four children destined to enter honourable careers n three sons, one a prefect, a other a barrister, the

third a judge ; a daughter who married first a notary, a our then a Conse ille r a l C . His good behaviour is certified by the very man him 1 who was set to supervise , Prefect Corbigny .

This prefect was clever, temperate, courteous and s n lightly sceptical . A Breton by birth, bei g given at twenty-two a mission in Brittany during the

Terror, he managed to prevent excesses in his - t- district . Appointed Prefect of Loir e Cher at the - age of twenty nine, he was able in a short time to calm down excited spirits and to reconcil e contending l n n parties . He ral ied to the e w regime ma y stubborn opponents by his efforts to restore to all the emigrants of his department such of their estates as had not n been sold . He was averse from all viole ce . He was no n fanatic in politics , a d he carried out his functions with a regretful eye on the literary studies of his

youth . Was he not the author of two tragedies, a few comedies and some poems ? When he died in 1 8 1 1 , a baron of th e Empire, peace reigned in the n departme t formerly so turbulent . l n Paul Va lo found in him no churlish jailer . When n n he had reported to him on arrivi g at Blois , Corbig y no doubt looked with some curiosity at the friend of

1 On Corbigny se e Biographie Um ve rse lle e t Porta tive des C onte mpora ins ou c tzonna i re historique des hommes vw a nts ' ’ e t des h omme s m or e r lz ous ts d puis 1 7 88 Jusqu d nos j ou s, pa b e s la d re ct on d MM l s ol t P e uve i i e . Ra bbe Vi e i h de Bor m e t S e . , j r

o o . a 1 8 . f ur v ls , P ris, 34 AND A N N E T T E VA L L O N 87

Madame de Bonneuil committed to his guard . At n first sight he judged that his wild oats were sow . 1 8 As early as roth December, 03, he wrote to the

Secretary of State for Justice, who had ordered him to undertake a n inquiry :

The information I have gathered about Paul Vallon shows h im to be a respectable m an whose head h as been e Re n u turned by certain events of th volutio , b t who is no his now sobered down . There is doubt that behaviour n h a d th e n n at Blois , si ce I opportu ity of watchi g him, n n h n gives no ground for uneasi ess . I have ot i g but him n favourable reports to make of si ce that time .

Yet there were a few weeks at the beginning of n his married life , when Paul all but took a other rash n step . He could not bear at first the idea of settli g - in- f n ear his austere father law . In spite of the e forts in of his wife to palliate the matter her Me moirs, we n n n catch a hi t of early differe ces of opi ion .

Your father [she writes to her children] lived o n fairly good terms with mine ; th e conformity of their Opinions e n o made up for the diff re ce of tastes, but y ur father n n e n loved socie ty, whereas mi e o ly joyed his home . Pu éla h a d n u his He [M. z ] give p all his rights over h did not e i i daughters, but e r al se t .

n t Thus Paul , only rece tly married , asked (2 5 h

February, 1 804) to be released from supervision and from intern ment in the department of Loir-e t in Cher . He needed, he said, to reside Paris for n n busi ess reaso s . He had a partner in Paris . He no t find n could mea s of livelihood at Blois . It seems n no t that while applyi g for release, he did wait for the application to be granted , for the prefect thought it necessary to threaten him with arrest . This caused 8 8 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

great terror to his young wife, from whom they had till then hidden the fact that he was under police

supervision . She writes There were folk charitable enough to tell me that th e Prefect of Loir-e t-Cher meant to have your father arrested é h n t be cause he dared to leave St. Dy . I was t u ders ruck at th e prospect of seein g the prisons again Open their doors . In a great state of terror I spoke of it to my father, who th en told me everything and added : Your husband has thirteen years of persecution to his credit, my daughte"r : I needed these qualifications in my son - in law .

n l o . I we t to cal n the prefect, to whom I must do justice He said to me : I wanted to give your husband a lesson n n him of prude ce by threatening him . In compelli g to

n n n on . co ti ue to live ear you, I am not hard him Be

n . comforted, madam, I entrust your husba d to you Go and n th e a nd se e co sult police registers, you will Wha"t n testimo ials I have given i n favour of h is establishment . d So I did; his report was most flattering to m e , an most moderate in respect of the political conduct of my father nd a husband . The adroitn ess and moderation of the courteous n n prefect succeeded sple didly . Paul resig ed himself ; n n - - entered i to part ership with his father in law, and ’ succeeded him as notary when Puze la died two

years later . l In Yet the po ice remained suspicious . spite of a new and favourable report from the prefect on 3oth 1 80 in October, 4, which it is stated that Paul Vallon n has behaved properly si ce comin g to Blois , that a nd - - he has married , is working with his father ih law, n n a notary, which i"cli es us to think that he means to lead a quiet life , the Secretary of State postponed ’ n the exami ation of Paul s request to be liberated .

90 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

tran quillity and internal security of the Republic .

Regarding the Vallon sisters, he says

am The Va llon sisters, as well as their sister Mad e Williams (sic) have always been known as friends and abettors of th e royalists . They have a brother who is under supervision in my de partm e nt and who was for a long time imprisoned in the Temple prison on account of journeys he h a d made into foreign parts with Th e n W a i Madame de Bonneuil . woma illi ms part cularly is known as a n active intriguer . The police commissary of Blois assures me the re are no suspicious meetings in n - n that house . As I have o ly to day retur ed to my de partment I cannot give more positive information am n n in th e matter, but I goi g to arra ge for a watch to be set on th em which will let me know all that is done 1 at their house . The prefect ends by reducing the affair to modest proportions . He admits that there is in the de partm e nt a fairly large n umber of supporters of the Bourbons who would try to turn to their advanta ge n an eve t such as the one we were threatened b y, ' " that is the Chief Consul s death , but at bottom there is nothin g to be anxious about

- n n n th e n Their well k ow weak ess of character, stre gth n n i of the gover me t, the firmness of the ad ministrat on, and th e n i i comfort they e joy, W ll prevent them, I th nk, a n a n i n i from m ki g y cr mi al attempt, but it is essent a l to n watch their doi gs closely as th eir political Opinions , n l n n a ge eral y speaki g, are u s tisfactory . You may depend on me that no pains will be spared to prove to th em that is n n a in n n i there othi g to be g ed by ursi g fool sh hopes . The prefect also admits in that very , letter of

1 7 A ch e na iona e F 6 1 0 6 d on : o ce e c e e r iv s t l s, 4 , 5 ivisi P li s r t , Do s e n ° s i r 8 1 7 1 . AN D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 9 1

1 6th November, 1 804, in which he notes the good behaviour of Paul , that the family of the Sieur Vallon and that of his wife have been known since n the b eginning of the Revolution, for political opinio s and habits of intrigue "which have always been in favour of the old order .

Yet his own policy was not to punish, but to disarm and conciliate . He succeeded in his aim . Two of the uncompromising supporters of the Bourbo ns who were suspected of frequenting th e house of the de moise lles Vallon were soo n to make their peace with the new regime . Guyon de Montlivault b e came chief secretary of Madame Bonaparte (for which error he made amends in 1 8 1 5, when he was con s i n u tra As p cuous amo g the most fervid l s). to Jean - Marie Pardessus , he became deputy mayor of Blois 8 i n 1 04, and mayor in 1 80 5. We find him a deputy to the Legislative Assembly in 1 807 , and in 1 81 0 the Imperial Government appointed him Professor of

Commercial Law in Paris, the first stage of his career as a famous jurisconsult . No doubt he remained a monarchist at heart , but he dropped all active hostility against the Empire .

Annette and her sisters , who re mained firm in their faith, must have suffered from these desertions .

Powerless and isolated , th ey were leading a quiet life . The n n turbule t A nette herself, who, on account of her n n E glish name, felt the weight of a double suspicio , kept quiet and devoted herself to the education of her daughter . We know nothing more of her until the fall of the Empire . War had barred all possible communications between herself and Wordsworth . Only a few domestic events in the house in the Rue da Pont are known to us : the death within a few 9 2 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

h Ve r e months in 1 80 5 of her stepfat er, Dr . g z , and of her mother, a n d four years later the death of i An eli ue the second of the three sisters , Adela de g q . Were those losses the reason for which Annette left the family house , or did she do so on account of the a bdioa tion of Napoleon in 1 8 1 4 ? Whatever the t reason , it is in Paris hat we find Annette and

Caroline settled at the Restoration .

XVII

WHEN Napoleon resign ed his thron e at Fontaine i 1 8 1 bleau , on 1 4th Apr l, 4, it was news as joyful to n ha d Wordsworth as to A nette . Both fought in their — o n ow n way the e by prose and verse , the other by — n intrigue against the usurper . The conclusio of the long war also enabled them to resume a c orre spon e b n th e d nce of which war had ee sole interrupter . The poe t could not think of France without ca lling up the image of his former mistress and their child . a He rem ined anxious for their safety , although his affections had long since ceased to be concentrated on n l them . His E g ish family, with their joys and sor in rows , were becoming all all to him . The sweet tenderness of Mary was sinking deeper and deeper

his h e a rt . into Indeed he had chosen wisely . True, she had none of the brilliant qualities which the world admires and which fascinate people at first sight . But n"ow that he saw the very puls ations of her being , he knew all her worth . She was endowed t t wi h the true beau y, that of the soul , whi ch only discloses itself to loving eyes

94 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

’ to us , but we hear an echo of them in Dorothy s n n correspondence with her frie d Mrs . Clarkso , the - Wife of the anti sla very apostle, which has been published by Professor Harper . We learn from it that a young officer named Eustace Baudouin visited the Wordsworths at Rydal

Mount, a nd that Baudouin was a prisoner of war 1 liberated by the recent pea ce . The brother of a n colonel of the Imperial Army, he had bee sent to a nd the military school of St . Cyr thence to Spain - as a sub lieutenant at the age of nineteen . He had scarcely had time to show his valour there when he n was thrice wounded, was taken priso er at Olot in a n d n n Ca talonia, on 1 3th April, 1 81 1 , soo after se t to n n a Engla d . There , duri g three years of c ptivity, he had at the same time an opportunity of learnin g the language and of making the acquaintance of the n Wordsworths . His relatio s with them became close enough for Dorothy to call him in 1 8 1 4, our friend ” 2 n - Baudoui . It is probable that when peace re opened to him the gates of France , he was entrus ted by the poet with some message for Annette . Then ce spran g up between the Vallon and Baudouin families a rapid n intimacy . Besides the colo el , Eustace had another

brother, Jean Baptiste Martin, then head of an office ’ n at the Mo t de Piete . The latter, who was thirty h t ree years old , fell in love with Caroline Words n - worth , who was twe ty one, asked her in marriage

and was accepted . It is this marriage which is th e

Mini s té re de la e e : A c h e Gu rr r iv s a dministra ti ves . It w as With out doubt h is fre que nt pre se nc e a t Ryda l Mount th a t la te r on gave th e Cole ridge s th e impre ssion th a t Wo rds o th h a d ha d a son not a da h te in a w r , ug r, Fr nc e . Eus ta ce a do in w as e a c t of th e a e a e as B u u x ly s m g Caroline . AN D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 9 5

' chief argument of Dorothy s first letters to Mrs . Clarkson after the Restoration :

She [Caroline] a nd her mother [Dorothy writes on th d 9 October, 1 8 1 4] are extrem e ly anxious that I shoul be present at the wedding a nd for that purpose have in n ss pressed me very much to go October. This, u le such good fortune attended us as being take n under ' a nd t your your Husband s protection, we could no think

n a nd I h_ t of at this seaso , therefore _ w_is_ hat the

be deferred till next spring or summer, because I de sire exceedin gly to see the poor Girl b e fore she takes n n a other protector than her mother, u der whom I believe sh e i nd inn has been bred up n perfect purity a ocence, a nd to whom she is light a nd life a nd perpetual ple a sure ; - n though, from the over generous dispositio s of the mother, n fi they have had to struggle through ma y dif culties .

Well, I began to say that I particularly wished that you could have seen them at th is time, as through you I n n n n n should have bee able to e ter i to some expla atio s , e in e n which, imperfectly as I e xpress mys lf Fr ch, are d ffi n i cult, a nd as you would have been able to co firm or ' contradict the reports that we receive from Caroline s a nd n sic h e r n n a nd Mother Mr . Beaudoui ( ) of i teresti g a sh amiable qualities . They both s y that e rese mbles her

Father most strikingly, a nd her lette rs give a picture of n and n n a feeli g i genuous mi d . Yet there must be some hin h n t g, I t i k, very unfavourable to true delicacy in n d h e r French manners . Both Caroli e an Mother urge my n in e on n goi g Octob r this accou t, that, after a young n n woma is o ce engage d to be married, it is desirable th at th e e d d lay afterwar s should be as short as possible, as sh e e e n a nd n e n is subject to p rp tual scruti y u pl asa t remarks , a nd on e of the reasons they urge for marriage in general n in n n sh e is that a si gle woman Fra ce, u less have a 1 r n t a n corzszde ra tion. fo tu e, is no treated with y

' - Ha e illia m th . . 1 1 1 rp r s W Wordswor , II pp 2 2 . W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

Dorothy is anxious about the journey . Though the Clarksons assure her they found a kind welcome in

Paris from the French people, she cannot help thinking that thei"r judgment is formed on the n s best of the people, for accou t from all other quarters depict the French as rude and brutal in

their manners . She would fain have M . Baudouin

meet her at Calais , but is frightened at the expense this plan would involve

W e should wish to carry pres e nts of Engli sh m a nufa c C n ture . an this be do e Without much risk or disagreeable trouble?

On 3 1 5t December she announces her journey

for April 1 8 1 5, but as she expects to stay in Fran ce

at least nine or ten weeks , she is afraid of the dis ’ turb a nce s which are sure to occur during the king s coronation

n e n Besides the jour ey will be very xpe sive, which we ca n a nd th n ill afford, e mo ey would be better spent in ' n in e n n augme t g my Ni ce s weddi g portio . To this effect e n n I have writt to her . She would ot consent to marry n without my prese ce, which was th e reason that April was fixed

If she were not troubled at the thought of leaving - - her brother and her sister in law, she would think n n— na of the jour ey with satisfactio y, with delight, ' for that dear youn g woman s sake whom I believe "1 to be thoroughly amiable . n But Napoleo returns from Elba , a nd the plans

for the marriage and journey are all upset . As ea rly 1 6th as March , before the Emperor reached Paris , and

1 ' Ha e Willia m Wo dswo th — rp r s r r , II . pp . 2 1 3 1 4 .

W I L L IA M W O R D S W O R T H

Ann ette was again th e fearless C houa nne of old

in the fight against Napoleon . The Baron de Tardif, ' testifying in 1 8 1 6 to Annette s indomitable royalism, des cribes her conduct during the Hundred Days in these terms :

During the last events which plunged France into h no in mourning, s e performed acts of courage, with ter n nl h n es te d motives . Co scious o y of her attac me t to the e o la i n l gitim ate dynasty, she p sted proc mat o s at night, - distribute d them in th e day time, favoured the escape of the brave m e n who wanted to devote themselves to th ' 1 e king s service .

Her merit was the greater, in that many of her

political frien ds bowed to the new imperial order . Guyon de Montlivault paid his court to Napoleon his after return . Nicolas Bailly signed the Address from the Cour de Cassation to the returning Emperor in spite of just having signified his adherence to his n depositio . The jurisconsult Pardessus himself wrote an address to Napoleon , an act whi ch he recanted a few months afterwards in Parliament :

i t n n I was very gu l y, bu"t I asked pardo of my"ki g, and n my ki g forgave me . On your kn ees th en, sa id - . n n n in M de"Girardi laughi g . With a wax ca dle your n 1 ha d, cried M . de Kéra try.

It is pleasing to see tha t Annette was guilty of no such weakness . She was guided, not by interest, but by her monarchist faith .

1 Se e A e nd : T he a on d e a d w h o h a a s pp ix B r T r if, gives t t pr i e to Anne te c e t e th e a e of E a c e a do n w h o a s t ,“r ifi s s m ust B u ui , (s y Tardif de ) w as e ntruste d with th e e xhi bition of"all poste rs d e stine d to bring ba c k th e pe ople to th e ir king (Archives ‘ da Mmrste re de la Gue rre ). 1 B o a hie Un i ive se lle e t orta tive e tc . o cit. gr p r P , , p . AN D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 99

At the same time, the Waterloo campaign roused the anxieties of the Wordsworths . Their hatred of o n n Nap leo , and alas ! of Fra ce, reached its climax . The new victory of the Allies did not soo the their n violent anger . The good Dorothy, echoi g the poet who was about to write that Tha nksgiving Ode of his , which might have been inspired by the Holy l n Al ia ce itself, makes an attack in her letter of 1 5th th e August on English admirers of France , and adds : Would that all the English had Prussian

hearts , and that our generals and counsellors had 1 the soul of Bliiche r ! She then goes on to give news of Annette :

It is impossible for me to think of going to Paris this e year . W have had letters from our Friends written just e n after the r tur of the king . They were in great joy at n a d n that eve t, n urged me a d my companions to go, all n a nd t bei g safe quiet . At h e same time the y waited our ’ n n n determi atio respecti g Caroline s coming over . We nl n n d could o y a swer that the time of meeti g my Br . an n Sr. was go e by, a nd that we could not appoint a ny particular plan , knowing of nobody about to return from a nd n no n n Paris, havi g frie ds in Lo don to whom we n could with propriety e trust her, but we proposed that the Mother should look out for some person or persons n h c n comi g to London, to whose care s e might be o n sig ed till we could hear from her of her arrival there . t n This I trust may no be difficult, as Madame Vallo has n in Lon a numerous acquaintance . I wish you had bee if don in lodgings . The great d ficulty Will be there ; for people who might be re lied upon for th e journey must n in l n 1 be co t ual y comi g from Paris .

1 ' Ha er Willia m d o th . . 1 6 . rp s Wor sw r , II p 2 1 ' — H e illia o o th . . 1 6 1 arp r s W m W rdsw r , II pp 2 7 . I OO W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

XVIII

OWING to continual postponements on the part of in n the Wordsworths , the wedd g fi ally took place without Caroline having been to see her father in a n W n Englan d , a nd without y of the ordsworths bei g ' “ on present at th? cerem y . 8th The wedding was celebrated on 2 February, n Ma irie rd a rrondisse 1 8 1 6, at noo , at the of the 3 n n me nt. An ette wa ted the ceremony to be impressive and summoned her brillian t friends from far a nd n n n near . They willi gly a swered the summons , wishi g to acknowledge the services rendered to the Bourbon n h oua nn e cause by the valia t C of Blois . The wedding had all the appearance of a royalist manifestation . ' n In the marriage certificate, the spelli gof the bride s name was duly corrected a nd the former error pointed in out . It is true other mistakes were made its stead . Caroline was spoken of as the fille maj e ii re (of age) sic W r r éta i n of Williams ( ) ordsworth, p op i re , livi g at n K n sic rm orla n Gra s e r e dan ( ), duchy of We ste d (sic) ' Among the witnesses were the b ride groom s I a nn brother, Eust ce Baudouin of St . Etie e , head n n va l e i structor of the Scotch compa y, Che ie r d la ’ Lé ion d honne izr g , and former prosecutor of Babeuf; i and Nicolas Bailly, Chevalier, Ofi cie r de la Légion ' d honne ur n , councillor of the Cour de Cassatio . n n n The weddi g was consecrated at St . Vi ce t de n Paul, the church o the hill, whose broad successive flights of stairs lend themselves so admirably to the n l n asce t of a bril ia t procession .

In spite of her very limited resources, Annette n n had i sisted on givi g a great dinner, to which she had invited the largest number she possibly could

1 0 2 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

1 81 i 1 7 th October, 5, registered by and left with Ma tre n D e h éra in, a notary i Paris . This certificate does not n one ffi exist, but a other kept in the same o ce merely specifies that Caroline acted with the consent of her father , which she declares having in her posses 1 sion . Besides , as we shall see, this certificate does

’ ‘ ‘ to lii s sine cure as sta mp We srmora

‘ ‘ la ndf w hi ch b rought h irrr f zioo a ye ari r zsl grg a t pity that all trace of Annette a nd Carofine should — - -q ’ have Been carefuTlfl e stroye d by the poet s nephew where the proof that the father contributed to his ’ child s settlement . F would i be the more des rable, as the Words worths knew very well how modest were the resources of mother and daughter . In her letter of 4th April , 1 8 1 6 n , to Mrs . Clarkso , Dorothy wrote

' Th e n n e a u uin s : you g perso is married to M . B do h e W e o . h a d e Br t r have just a lett r from them both, n n i writte a mo th after their marr age . I b e lieve him to n - n e be a oble mi ded, xcellent m an, a nd sh e seem s to - n n have well grou ded hopes of happi ess, provided poverty c an be kept out of doors, but though their present n is e e tw o i come v ry w ll for persons, it is not e nough

a i . . . h as for a f m ly Mr B a place under government, and i h e us W ll have, t y assure , a certain increase of income ’ in i C a short t me ; besides, . s mother h as the prom ise of a place for herself or one of h e r family in recompense e h e r th for s rvices performed by for e royal cause, but I sh e n fear may wait lo g for this, as th e poor kin g ha s not

1 C . A ndi 111 f ppe x . A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 1 0 3

wherewithal to reward all who deserve it . In case of Mr . ’ n h is B. s death, his w idow will have half the amou t of l present income as a pension .

There is no longer any question here of the dowry, which had been mentioned in the letter on g rst

December, 1 8 1 5, without any explicit statement as to who would provide it . The marriage contract left with Maitre De h éra in seems to dispose of all ideas of a settlement by the n father on the daughter . But for still another reaso , n n it is an i teresti g document . It is here, more than in the brilliant ceremony of the marriage itself, that we see Annette in all her glory as a loyal royalist .

Round this empty table, witnesses to n co tract , sat several of the great people of the day to do homage to the poor mother of a portionless xc e girl . The certificate is so strange, the form so e p i n t o al, that it would deserve complete quotation : the n Be a uv e a u Due widow of the Pri ce de , the wife of the a nd de Montmorency, the Vicomte de Montmorency ’ A a ra n the Marquis d v y, both peers of France , a d the fie ld- Baron de Tardif, mars“hal, came thither among a dozen people to declare they held the marriage n as desirable, whereas the co tract specifies that the whole fortune of the pair is their personal property, and stipulates for a total jointure of two n n s thousa d fra c . A few of the witnesses are already known to us from their conn ection with Annette : the Vicom te n de Montmore cy, Jean Marie Pardessus , the Baron - - de Tardif. The member for Loir e t Cher, Josse de

Beauvoir, came to greet the former Choua nne in the

1 ' Ha e William o dsworth . . 1 . rp r s W r , II p 7 2 1 0 4 W ILLIAM W O R D S W O R T H

name of the department in which she had fought . ’ The Marquis d Av a ra y acts in a way as the delegate

of the king himself; for his brother, the Comte ' n 1 8 1 0 d Av a ra y, u til his death in had been the most faithful companion a nd dearest friend of Monsieur

(afterwards Louis XVIII), during the emigration . Follow m g the example of the noble friends of the fi n Vallons , the most famous of cials of the time know n to the Baudouins also came a nd sig ed their names . as It constitutes , as it were , a review of the ultr

oi n . n , the Restoratio This imposi g series of witnesses ' marks the zenith of Annette s career . It was to her what was later to Wordsworth the famous Oxford

ceremony in 1 839, when he was proclaimed a Doctor

of Civil Law amid the cheers of the audience . An

honour devoid of all solid advantage to her, we must z — a n admit flash of soon extinguished sple dour . Some of the persons who had taken part in that n n demonstratio , however, realised the painful co trast ' between Annette s rights and her fortune . They joined

' ” a num e rous body of others w ho h a d formerly been

helped by her, or had been witnesses of her courageous

services, to petition for a royal recompense in her l n favour . An ette asked for that reward to be given not

to herself but to her daughter, and finally a lottery on office was applied for behalf of Madame Baudouin . We again find in this petition the signatures of the ' d Ava ra Marquis y, of Josse de Beauvoir, of the

Baron de Tardif, of I. M . Pardessus, and of a

score of other noble persons in addition . Among the n latter, we shall only ote the Marquis de Bartillat, n the Duc de St . Aig an, the Comte de Salaberry . n Not co tent with signing, I. M . Pardessus added a

1 Se e e nd I App ix V.

1 0 6 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

XIX BUT she is happy in having by her side her daughter find and gran dchildren . After the marriage we the n Baudouins living at 47 Rue Charlot , with An ette .

- - Her son in law, Jean Baptiste Martin Baudouin, then head of an office at the Mont de Piété, was to n hold in that office the positions , first of i spector, then - 1 1 6 - n of sub director . He was in 8 a good looki g man - of thirty six, the second of three brothers , the two

1 8 . n others being officers . He lived till 54 It is pleasa t to see the close friendship that united him with his n brothers , especially with Eustace, the you ger, who was at all times a n active intermediary between the l Vallons a nd the Wordsworths . Eustace a so had for s -in- n hi sister law, Caroli e, who was of his own age , n f a si cere a fection . He is very much attached to -in- a nd n n his sister law", has give us a very pleasi g n n accou t of her, wrote Dorothy to Mrs . Clarkso th (4 April,

The very year of her marriage, on 2 7 th December, 1 8 1 6 , Caroline gave birth to a first child , a daughter, ’ by whom the En glish poet s French posterity was to be assured . The godfather was her grandfather : \ W sic a Mr . illiams ( ) Wordsworth , propriét ire , re n a t R da lm o nt a nd sidi g y u n ear Kinda] , We ste rm orl ’ " sic i n 1 ( ), the ch ld s mater al grandfather . The poet, n not bei g present at the christenin g, was represented no by Nicolas Bailly, w doyen of the councillors of the Cour de Cassation ; the godmother was the i ' ' w fe of the father s elder brother, ne e Carolin e von Honi sh of n g , a Viennese by birth . It is touchi g to

1 i th c e i f ca e o Lo i i é e _ aud o n a B r rt fi t Qgrmh B ui . P ris, T usE/ a r e M ri .

’ W O RD SWO RTH S D AUGHTER CAROLINE B AUD OUIN (née VALLO N)

AN D A N N E T TE VA L L O N 1 0 7

' find among the child s names that of the English

aunt who had always borne her a tender affection . She was christened Louise Marie Caroline n She was, it is true, ge erally known as Louise, but ' this mark of affection given to the poet s exquisite We sister pleases us . could wish that the idea had originated with William himself, the godfather . The Baudouins were to have two other daughters n n 1 th 1 8 1 An e Leonide , bor on 5 December, 9, who died before she was six, on 1 5th October, 1 8 n r th 2 5, and Marie Marguerite Caroli e , born on a ' November, 1 82 3 . So the poet s daughter had already n with her two little girls, the one early four years , the n dsw o t g t other nine mo ths old, when the Wor rhi last

1 82 0 . paid her, in October , their so long _d y visit — — ' "h - ela ed Wordsw oftl with his w e aiid sigfEr f if , accompanied his also by friend Henry Crabb Robinson, were n comi g home from a tour on the Continent . We find a few details of that visit in the diaries kept by 1 Dorothy, Mrs . Wordsworth and Robinson . n Having arrived i Paris on ISt October, the poet and his sister went the next morning to see the n Baudoui s . It was arranged that they were all to meet, Annette and Mrs . Wordsworth included , in ' on the Louvre at e o clock . It was in the Museum , n the , that the first interview between the former m lover and the wife of the poet took place . The sa e day, the Wordsworths left the hotel where they had put up to take up their abode in the Rue Charlot, n near the Baudoui s . It is Mrs . Wordsworth who tells us so in her diary . Robinson notes down a little more explicitly on grd October : Having break n fasted alo e , I repaired to the Rue Charlot and was

1 e e H e . S a rp r, II . p 3 1 9 . 1 0 8 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

introduced to Mrs . Baudouin , a mild , amiable little "1 n th woman in appeara ce . On the 7 he goes to see n the Wordsworths , but fi ds they are out . Thence Valon s c he goes a nd calls on Madame (i ). On the o n n n 8th , he again calls the Baudoui s , where he lear s that the Wordsworths are not yet back from Ver n n n sai lles . He retur s o ce more and fi ds Dorothy . Always Dorothy ! The diaries also speak of Captain Eustace Bau ’ douin s great kindn ess to the visitors ; he was their n NO n atte tive guide everywhere . allusio is made to ' We n the poet s grandchildren . know from a other source that Wordsworth found less enjoyment at n th e Louvre than at the Jardin des Pla tes . It is jus t possible that he took young Louise Dorothee to the n n garde to show her the a imals .

This is all the record we have of that meeting, the last which took place between the Wordsworths a n d n their Fre ch friends . A psychological novelist i find m ght in this situation matter for a long chapter . Yet no very vivid emotions seem to have been stirred n n a nd by the meeting . Time had blu ted se sibilitie s n W e va ities on both sides . may be sure that the tin n gree g which passed betwee Mrs . Wordsworth a nd n m n a nd A nette was si ple , frie dly devoid of n bitter ess . Besides , the ignorance of French on one a nd n l on diffi side of E g ish the other, obviated the n n culty of co versatio . All passed very happily We indeed . have had great satisfaction at Paris in seeing our Friends whom I have mentioned to "2 you . Of this when we meet . Thus wrote Dorothy

. s n to Mrs Clark o after her return to England .

1 Se e Ha e . 1 . rp r, II p . 3 9 1 Se e Ha e 1 rp r, II . p . 3 9 .

1 1 0 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

moral and religious . He explains Wordsworth by commenting on Lamartine, for whom his admira n tion rises to enthusiasm . Fi ally he acclaims in

Wordsworth the poet of childhood, and, by a skilful transition, concludes

n 0 b e ne volent a nd venerable poet, may Fra ce always love a nd ke ep with re vere nce thy b e loved childre n— thou who hast worked so long for the moral well -being of n s n l n th youth, a nd hast e tru ted to a a ie soil y dearest affections

The booklet of nine pages was dedicated to Madame

A . Marquet, granddaughter of the illustrious poet "1 Wordsworth . When the former professor of foreign literature n W n wrote these li es , ordsworth was still alive . An ette had been dead for five years . We read in the death register :

In 1 8 1 o 1 the year 4 , n oth Jan uary, died in Paris , des du in r Boulevard Filles Calvaire 1 1 , the 8th a ra n diss me t Ann l n n e n Marie e Va lo , k own as William , a n 2 e m lo ee e e n -fiv p y ag d s ve ty e years, born at Blois (Loir e t Spinster .

Poor words, the pathetic quality of which will be felt by those who know what moving realities are ‘ " n n n n s in st r here hidde u der the desig atio of f p e , ' under a nd w lfi picture the str of the seventy-five year-old \employ e e" , b uried in - She was the Pere Lachaise cemetery . Wh in 1 8 6 en 4 , at the death of Carolin e v on Honigs hof, the wife of Colonel Baudouin of St . Firrnin, the

1 Se e e nd App ix V . 1 Th e o d o a h a w r pr b bly means t t sh e h e ld a small sta te c fli ce . A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 1 1 1

- Baudouin family bought a burying ground there, ' n Annette s remai s were exhumed , and together with n n those of her gra ddaughter, Anne Leonide, tra s in n on ferred to the vault in which, their tur , her s in-law a nd her daughter Caroline were to be laid n to rest near her . O the slab we can still read these words

n e n th 1 1 A n Leo ide Baudouin, born i s December, 8 9, th O 1 An n i i s died i s ctober, 82 5, a nd Marie ne Vallo W ll am i n nd th (s c), bor 2 2 June, 1 7 66, died 1 0 January, 1 84 1 , and th 1 8 6 exhumed laid together on 2 8 Novemb e r, 4 .

What were Wordsworth 's feelings at the new s of '

? . Annette s death Doub—tless, not very profound ’ w a s g ugjyifi h i w as He was old and g g m the _ time when with circumstantial inaccuracy he dictated to Miss Fenwick senile notes on his poems, amongst t a others those W flifi , which seem a n - t - l e g n like effor ov a ai . in n n oblivio . In this year, moreover, all the remaini g passion in his soul gathered itself into a kind of egotistica l of “the impendin g r ma riage of his English daughter Dora with Mr . uillina n n Q . From this time onward, everythi g else ff seems to have been indi erent to him . He was to in 1 die 850 .

It deserves notice, however, that in the year after ' Annette s death he published a translation into English verse of a short French poem that appeared in a volume entitled La Pe tite Choua nne rie on Histoire ' ' 1 d ii n olle e Bre on E C g t sous 1 mpire . The English translation bears the name of The Ea gle a nd the ' D ve o . Was not there some recollection of Annette s

1 A. . Ri By F o . London, Moxori , 1 842 . 1 1 2 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H bravery as a Chouanne in the praise given to the beardless bo ys who boldly fought against the soldiers of the French Emperor ?1

After all , we can only spe ak with hesitation of the ’ n old man s feeli gs, for all trace of the letters ex changed between the En glish a nd the French families n of the poet has been lost . Yet it is certai that the correspondence was not closed with the visit in 1 82 0 of which Dorothy said she had kept so pleasant a remembrance . ' ' After Ann ette s death, and Wordsworth s appoint ment as poet laureate the Baudouin family made a move to obtain some recognition by him of la n W their c ims to relationship . As soo as ordsworth W ' himself was dead , Mrs . ordsworth, the poet s n ephew, Bishop Wordsworth , and Crabb Robinson almost decided to make some public statement th e relating to affair of 1 7 92 . The question was u n very serio sly discussed amo g them . But the ' 2 n Baudoui s efforts seem not to have been ins istent . A few words will suffice to bring the story to its n close . Caroli e Wordsworth (Madame Baudouin)was to outlive her father twelve years . Her life, less ’ eventful than Annette s , has no history, but her features are known to us . It will be remembered nd that, according to her mother a to M . Eustace n Baudoui , she strikingly resembled the poet . Look in g at her portraits, all taken in her later years , this resemblance is chiefly visible in the chin and

1 h an I t k Mr. Gordon Wordsworth for pointing out to m e thi oe a nd its o a e e A e s p m pr b bl r lation to th e nne tte e pisod . 1 ow e h i n o a n t H h o nd I t s i f rm tio o Profe ssor a rpe r, w o f u th e fa c ts among th e Crabb Robinson docume nts (dia ry a nd e te e e e d a t the D i i l t rs pr s rv r. W llia ms l brary in London).

I I 4 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

religious subjects , but the Versailles museum con n ta ins several historical compositio s by him . He has preserved in a fine portrait the features of his mother ’ - n in law, Wordsworth s Fre ch daughter . a uc h e le t on nd Madame V died 2 October, 1 869,

leavin g two daughters who are now dead, but ' through w hose c hildre n the poet s descent is con _

tinue d , numerous and prosperous .

IN the course of this story we see two beings so strongly contrasted that only the illusion of young love could ever have draw n them together and

created between them a passionate union, which , n ha d impatient of conve tions and obstacles, they

once hoped to render permanent . Wordsworth n a nd Annett e were separated by la guage, political n n opi io s, tastes and temperaments . Chance had n n brought together these two atures , far asu der as n nn n the poles, and created betwee them a co ectio which, in various forms, was to last all their n life lo g .

What is extraordinary in their adventure, is not so much the ardent passion of its initial stages as its gradual conversion into a friendship which later takes

the form of a somewhat distant family tie , a calm and " "" vague connection which was no t only a cce pte d by l the poet himse f, but imposed by him upon his inner W family circle . hat gives to this liaison its particular aspect is the part played by the pure and kind A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 1 1 5

Dorothy, whose gentle heart sympathised from th e beginning with the foreigner loved by her brother - and was drawn towards their child , Dorothy who little by little became, in the place of William, the his habitual correspondent of former mistress . Perhaps still stranger is the perfect equanimity of the legitimate wife, not ignorant of the past, but giving her sanction to it, and , without trace of retrospective jealousy, of the slightest bitterness, going to visit the woman who gave her husband his first child .

It is a singular situation . Instead of lessening ’ our idea of Wordsworth s goodness and his con - n formity to moral laws, hi s love adve ture only shakes it a moment to strengthen it immediately afterwards . He may as a young man have strayed from law and n order, but soo we know not what secret power induces him to make of what might have been but a passing folly, a sort of first marriage followed by a separation by mutual consent, without clashing or violence . He builds up a new life, a new family, n n quite withi the law this time, without severi g his on ties with the old e . We can understand how the

French Wordsworths could have believed , from — n n n n the seco d ge eratio o ward , tha w h a d — ” take5 51505 between Annette and William during ~ h ' F V l t é e o utfdn, a marriage of which neithe r th e place , the da te nor the conditions were known , no ' n doubt co cluded after Caroline s birth , maybe illegal , - that is to say performed by some non juring priest, n as was ofte n do e at the time, a nd as the catholicism n n of the Vallo s re dered it probable . The documents d that have been found , it must be owned , fi x — o not ' e ggoul a ge thi sTbelie f; batsfirEIyW ord sworth carried 1 1 6 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H even into his irregularity a consta ncy and gravity which consecrated it .

If, unhappily, on account of the loss of the docu n n n ments which might reassure us , a pai ful u certai ty is left as regards the help given by him to his mistress in 1 in 1 80 and their child, either 7 92 , 2 , or at the ' n time of Caroline s marriage, on the other ha d we ca n at a ny rate be glad that he did not keep his past

n n n nor . a secret . He either co dem s disowns it Most of those who surround him are aware of it ; first his guardians a nd his sister, then his wife and some of his friends had been told the story . No n reserve was imposed on Dorothy, who inge uously s writes about it to Miss Pollard or Mrs . Clark on . n n This si cerity is pleasi g . It breathes of simplicity u n and nat re . It is o ly later that mystery enveloped n the whole adve ture . It does not seem that Words worth as a man was responsible for it, except perhaps in the later years of his life . t It must, however, be acknowledged that as a poe d ind r n he helpe to bl the wo ld . More i tent on n an educatio th on pure truth, aspiring to play an almost sacerdotal role, he allowed an image of l himse f, more edifying than exact, to take shape in nd his verse . He hardly showed his weakn esses a n mistakes , or if he co fessed them at all, did so in terms so moderate that no one could have guessed all that was hidden by certain harmless- lookin g words . He did even more , since he undertook to a nd Pre lude retrace his own youth , practised in his , u in where all is tr e , the deceit which consists n n the omissio of embarrassi g facts . He himself warns us of it, in a way ; but he cannot prevent the effect of the suppressions he thought himself

1 1 8 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

n u Ske tches, which he wrote duri g that same tum l tuous year . Hampered , however, by his subject, he could only express in it his love and remorse without fusing them with the rest . He could but force— into - ' a merely picturesque poem those fits of Biiiltation . ” — e ih 7 er l ic h 2 . and of bitt me ancholy wh h felt— 7 9 He _ ‘ _ t n o h i th é pE Ti t w ch , as we know, was an enchantment to him, regrets and remorse which came to him two years later . In the midst of his Alpine rambles he stops now and then, h and sighs . He declares t at human joy is brief and he number"s among life 's scourges the spectres of n conscie ce . He has no hope of overcoming his despair" Save in the land where all thin gs are Ske tches forgot . But, save in the , his principle was reserve , the escape from the dramatic and the stifling n a of passio . Hence the peculiar ch racter of his poetry, which involves the limitation of its grasp o n the imagination and consequently of the number of his readers . The episode of Annett e thus helps us to form a n juster appreciatio of his poetry . It is not that it a n n n becomes esse tial element of it . The sig ificant

‘ n a ‘ n fact_ is adve ture is suppressed as thi g

' ' ’ l is iiot wh oll adventitious and foreign . Yet its va ue y ' ' We h a v e ‘negative . seen that it gave the poet subject ! matter or inspiration for several poems written by Ihim before 1 802 - those in which he represents some ' — ' If éEke n T vifé h r some girl- mother abandoned by her seducer . Even his fine lines to Lucy and to Mary Hutchinson take a deeper meaning when we are th e aware of other passion , so different, which ' n once burnt in the you g man s heart, and of the A N D A N N E T T E VA L L O N 1 1 9 comparisons which are implied in the tribute he offers them . This episode thus affords us a favourable point whence to survey his life, his character and his works . It leads us to a revision of our judgment .

This is the best justification of these pages . But in relating it with all the details possible in view of the rare and scattered nature of the docu f ments , which are di ficult to find and to connect l with one another, we have also tried to cal up , against the background of the Revolution, through which a whole family live their eventful history, n r the image of his Fre ch mist ess ; and on the whole, her weaknesses being admitted , she appeared to us worthy of a sketch— the eager and generous girl who ’ n could captivate the young poet s love, who, aski g " n n nothi g for herself, with no bitter recrimi ations , could retain the friendship of the mature man/ I m s t sh e a v e m ore 1 Q egd the bet er part, since _ j e j _ g i than s“he rece ved . r He courage as a monarchist is admirable, what ever opinion we may hold of the choua nne rie . She who , in the service of her cause, from devotion to her political friends , many a time risked being n arrested , thrown i to prison and perhaps guillo tined , assumes the aspect of a heroine . She was also a devoted sister whose energetic decision once saved from wreck the brother she loved . And throughout, she splendidly performed her maternal duty to the child whom circumstances had left to her sole ca re, to her sole affection .

She succeeded , according to her lights , in ensuring for less troubled and penurious e o own . She, who was an mpl yee 1 2 0 W I L L I A M W O R D S W O R T H

to her last day, managed that her daughter should t ere be a re n i .

And if she had a taste for worldly vanities, it is W ’ in the wedding of that daughter, ordsworth s daughter, that she gave full scope to her inclination, in the first months of 1 8 1 6 which mark the ! eni th n of a chequered existe ce, half shade, half sunshine .

APPEND IX II

LETTERS OF ANNETTE VALLON TO WILLIAM AND DOROTHY WORDSWORTH

1 (2 0th MARCH, 7 93)

[THE following lette rs have been recently discove re d by o i in R th e D e e n M . Guy Tr u llard the ecords of épart m t ' - - n du n du de Loir e t Che r . Fo ds Comite de Surveilla ce

D n ia 060 . now e th e éparteme t ; l sse L . 2 They b ar mark

LD 990 bis. T h e two letters were addre ssed as a single one to

1 Monsie ur Williams Wordsworth 1 1 Staple Inn No . London

Angle te rre .

The le tter to Willi a m Wordsworth is written on both Th e a side s of a single sheet of paper . address is fr med a e n in the latter p rt of the lett r, the paper bei g Simply O n th n th folded in an d se aled . e broke wax of e seal a V

is still disce rnible . The lette r to Dorothy fills up two sheets of very close n th e e e i th handwriti g, last s ntenc s bein g written n e n Th e margi . sheets are of smaller Siz e than the one used

th e Wi ia so as b e n o e . for letter to ll m , to e cl s d in the latter ink de h The has fa d, but t e characters remain quite e distinct. Som words have be en obscured or torn he re a nd the re by th e foldi n g in of th e flaps a nd th e bre aki ng On e of th e seal . or two more are blotted out by a n ink n e stain . My co j ctural restorations of those words are

indicated by brackets . ' Anne e in u tte s sp ll g is q ite personal , irregular and

. h arbitrary I ave tried to preserve it throughout . She 1 2 4

1 2 6 AP P E N D I X I I

n mes vce ux le s plus sincere . Mais surtout i forme [toi ' d un] moyen pour nous écrire e n cas que la c orrespon

dan ce entre les deux royaume fut inte rom pue . ' Ta sce ur me parle [de notre] petit menage avec un n e n e ntousiasm e qui me fait grand [pla isir] . Que ous s ro s

on . e heureux, 6 m on tendre ami ; oui [ ] sera heureux J ' ll ro re t m e ncha nte . te le promet . Ta fi e fait des p g qui Tache de faire ton possible pour me la donner bien t6t ' ‘ pour ne plus m e n séparé, cette chere petite qui rit a nn r dé a sa e t ui prese nt si bien, qui co o s j pauvre mere q on e n m on m on bient6t demandera s pere . Vi , ami, mari, re cevoir les e m b rasse m e ns tendre de ta femm e, de ta ll si fi e . Elle e st si jolie, cette pauvre petite, jolie que la ' ' te ndre sse que j ai pour elle m e n fera perdre la tete si je ' n n n le s E e l ai pas continuelleme t da s bras . lle te resemble e n n m e s de plus e n plus tous les jours . J croit te te ir da s

s . Son cmur n n le n e “bra petit bat souve t co tre mie ; j n croit sentire celui de son pere ; mais pourquoi, Caroli e, ' est-tu insensiblet pourquoi ton c mur me s agitte-t-il as n te n 6 p qua d celui de ta mere bat ms t 0 m on ami, bie t t il le l ne n uh sera agité quand je ui direz : Caroli , da s ns n d n i le mois, da qui ze, a s huit jour, tu vas vo r plus de fl iomm e s l le chérit , e plus tendre des cce ur C n n de ma aroli e sera émue, elle se tira la premiere n n e t e se satio c sera de te ndresse pour son pere . Je te m on prie, cher petit, de faire passer aussi t6t cette lettre ' ' a sce ur l e n é ma chere que j aime de toute m on am e , de gag de n e rien dire a ton oncle ; c e sera un combat péni ble ' l a soute r qu el e aura ni e . Mais tu le juge nécessaire . ' arriv e i n J de me promener avec ma pet te, m on a ge (ca r elle e n 3 la candeur); e lle a été fort guaie ; je lui ' allois a s n e n ait dit que j écrire o pere . J lai bie embrassé ' pour toi . Je me chagrine bie n de c e qu elle a toujours son ’ d n sa pouce a s bouche . Elle vas s a b im e r les yeux ; elle les tire c es yeux ; e t c c sér015 grand domage ca r elle les ' n a bie beau . Je n e n écri e pas bien lon g ca r je nai pas le tems . Je veux retourner voir la petite a six heure ; il e n est n 6 n e demie bie t t ci q . Je tai écrit une lettre bien longue A P P E N D I X I I 1 2 7

r n e n 6 . dimanche . Je spe e recevoir de tes ouvell s bie t t A e a o e v oude rois n di u, m on ami, dit bien ta s eur que j bie ' apprendre qu e lle e st plus tranquille . Aime toujours ta ' petite fille e t ton Annette qui t e m b rasse mil fois sur la ' sur e t m on i bouche, les yeux pet t que j aime toujours, ' : e t éc rire que je re com ande bien a tes soins adieu, j z ' d n . . ima che Adieu, j e t aime pour la vie - e n n ca r Parle moi de la guerre, c e que tu pe se, cela mocupe beaucoup .

LETTER To DOROTHY

BLO1$ le 2 0 ma rs 1 7 93 m e rc re dy a 1 0 h e ure du ma tin . i Si l e st consolant pour moi, ma chére soeur, de voir linté ré e t que vous pre nez a [m es tris]tes chagrins , j ' m affli ge bien e n meme tems d e c e qu i ls vous rendent si se ntim e ns n a ude s us malheureuse . Mes so t de mes ' e n e trouv e rois as re nde roit expressions . J n p qui vous a u naturel ma vive re connaissance ; elle égale la tta ch e ’ n mu n n me t que j ai po ur ma ch ére s t . Ces deux se time ts sont grave dans m on am e ; le tems ne fe ra que le s aug n n u s i e ns e n me ter, surtout qua d ne e spa se m e nous r a séparera plus , quand pou ai dire mil fois le jour me ' soeur que je l aime avec cette tendresse que je sens déja ’ e n e e bi viv m nt . Que vos lettres sont touchante, que j ai de peine a e n soute nire la lecture ! Je les arrose de larmes e m on r ni a une comme c lle de ami . Vot e der ere ma f it sensation si vive ; a chaque ligne je voyois la sensibilité de votre am e e t c e t intérét si touchant que vous prenez ‘

m es n . E n n oe e a pei es lle so t gra de, ma chére s ur, j vous ' n e s : l avoue, mais e l a ugm ante z pas e n vous affligant trop ’ ' l i de e que je vous re nd malhe ure use e st cruelle pour moi ; c es oui moi qui trouble votre repos, qui fait couler vos - . l oe m on larmes Ca mez vous, 6 ma chére s ur, amie, jai grand besoin de cette assurance pour ne pas étre plus 1 2 8 AP P E N D I X I I

nn inquiétte . Je v oude rois pouvoir vous do er quelque ' e ne le a d e n consolations, mais hélas ! j peu ; cest moi ' a n n e e chercher a upres de vous . Ces d s l assura c de votr ’ amitié que je trouve quelque soulagement e t da ns l invio e u la b ili té des sentiments d e m on cher Williams . Je ne p e e le desire les a s etre he ureus sans lui, j tous jours, m i ’ ' j a ura i asse de raisons pour m e soume ttre a u sort qu il ' n e l a e lle e n a m on faut que je subisse t . J p souv t secour, cette raison qui trop souvent e st foible e t irnpuisa nte ‘ e s e tim e ns non e a upres de m s n pour lui : , ma chere ami , ' jamais il ne c c fera une idée juste du besoin que j ai de lui pour etre heureuse ; m aitrisée pa r un senti ment qui e n e s e t cause tous m s chagri s, j chérit toujours on empire ' l influe nc e qua sur moi [un amour t] cher 5 m on ca ur ’ u Son sous cesse o c pe e de lui . image me suit par tout ; n n h c e s e souve t seule da s ma c ambre avec lettres, j crois ' e t a n c e s e t qu il v a entré . J suis pret e me jetter da s bras d : n m on n lui ire Vie t, ami, vie essuie des larmes qui e lon te m s ollons n coule d puis g pour toi ; v voir Caroli e, ton n n n l n e fa t, ta ressembla ce ; vois ta femme, e chagri ' ' ‘ n h n re connois-tu m o on l a bie c a gée ; la f oui, a cette e ti ton ote a e l e n n que r doit partag r avec e Si . Si se s traits so t c h an si ale ur n m éc onai ssa b le son c mur ge, cette p te la re d , e st le Il i ton toujours meme . e st toujours a to . Re conois nn n ! A ette, la te dre mere de Caroline . Ah ! ma chere ‘ ' ie S ur, voila l etat oii je suis contin ue llement ; revenu ’ d e m on d un n n l n erreur comme so ge, je e e vois poi t, le m on e n n il st e e s pere de fa t ; e bi n loin de moi . C scene se renouvelle bien souvent e t me jette dans une n e méla colie xtreme . ' Mais, ma chere amie, je vois sans y pense que loing de n vous co soler, je vais encore é guilloné le s chagrins que a vous avez raport moi, mais je ne pe u rien vous cacher, c e se roit n a a faire i jure la ste r de m on chere Williams,

n fille lui . la ta te chérit de ma , de ca ch e la moindre choses ' ' Non e ne le , j ferai pas . C es dans le sein de l amitie que ' l infortuné trouve des consolations ; cest dans celui de ' ‘ o a ma s eur que j aime m épe nch e r, mais si vous vous

1 30 AP P E N D I X I I voyage de France pour ve nir me donne r le titre de sa

e se rois n . D a b ort fille a uroit un fe mme, j co solée ma pere ' e t sa pauvre mere jouiroit du bonheur de l avoir toujours e donne rois - d e s n e ave c elle . J lui moi meme soi s que j ' n suis jalouse qu elle re coiv e nt de mai s etran gere . Je ne ' ir e n l a e llant fille fe rois plus roug e ma famille p ma , ma ‘ ir Caroline ; je la pre nde rois avec moi e t j ois a la campagne . ' Il n e st pas de solitude oii je ne trouvas de s charmes avec e n a e xc és e n e lle . J e peu vous dire quel j porte la te dresse n n m e s e e pour ma fille . Quand je la tie da s bras, j lui répe tt ! fille a ton r so uven t : Caroline , ma chere , tu n pas pé e ; i il is l e st bien loin g de toi, pauvre petite . Si te v oyo , e t roi e s ta chere tante, combien il te trouv e t intéressante . L - im o e n n f e rom e te rai . a era tu, m n fa t Oui, j leur p po ur toi

Apelle ton pere, ma pe tite . Bient6t je te prenderai dans ’ ‘ ' m es bras ; j ire z a u devant de c e pere qui a coute tant de larmes a ta mere ; tu le se re ra dans tes petit bras ; tes petite levre lui donnerons un b aizé bien tendre ; elle lui n e e n ! O sero t chere, c e s caress s inoc tes . ui, ma chere ' ’ sce ur ire n d a , j z lui porter so enfant . J ai éja montré ' Caroline la route ; j ire z encore demain avec elle ; nous ' l a e lle rons i e n p , mais l ne nous entend ra pas ; ny vous no ’ nn e m n e nte nde re as a plus, ma bo a ie, vous z p , m is vous ’ penserez que presque tous les jours je m é ch a pe a deux heure aprés-midy pour aller avec ma fille dans les lieux ' qui me sont chere puisque j y ait été si souve nt avec votre fr r e é e . J parle a Ca roli ne comme si elle e nte ndois ; je ’ : R fill le n oii lui dit egarde, ma e ; c est ici couve t a été e élevée ta mer , oii souve nt avec ton pere nous nous sommes attendrie e n pensant a c es jours heureux de ' l inoc en ce oii e l e n n tu es actu lem nt . Co serve la lo gtemps, n ma Caroli e, si tu veux étre heureuse ; sois toujours ' sourde aux cris des passions ; ne connois jamais d a utre s ' e n n e t s time ts que l amour pour ton pere, ta tante ta ! E mere . lle m e donne les plus grandes espérances ; je ’ ' crois qu elle réponde ra aux b onte s e t aux soms que vous ’ v oude re n n e ca r sce ur z bie pre dr d elle, , ma chere , vous ' sa n serez seco de mere, e t je suis pe rsua de e [du soin] A P P E N D I X I I 1 3 1 que vous m e tte re z a travailler is e n faire une seconde - vous meme . ’ Vous voule z que je vous parle d elle ; c e s bien me e n e n n n prendre pa r m on foible . J tarie poi t e parla t de ' n n ne m ave u le n ma fille . La te dresse mater elle g poi t, mais ' je suis orge uie use de l e nte ndre dire par tous ceux qui la ' nff n v oyie nt que c c n est pas un e an t ordi aire . Le premier ' rtois rr jour qu elle a sorti, la femme qui la po fut a étte z ' E a pa r plusieurs personnes pour l a dmire r. lle p ssa pa r ' ' ’ n e ne re e tte c e u e rouva la maiso , mais j peu vous p z q p ' ' n son infortune e mere . Je ait parlé dans ma derniere a n n e n e rm e t m on ami . Mé agez ma se sibilité me p tan de ' passe sur cette scene qui m a valu une journée e ntiere ’ n . e m tte . de larmes . Elle coule e core J arre ' n n Je reprend la plume . C est e core de Caroli e que je b se rv r r vais entretenir sa tante . Jo e tous les p og e ts quelle ’ il E e st n fait ; son rapide . lle d u e vivacité qui se develope ' Il n n tous les jours . est plus possible de la faire ma ger l I ' couchée comme sont tous e s enfants . l faut qu elle soit ' assise sur les genoux e t elle s y tien seule . Bient6t elle d ' vou e ra manger seule . Le jour que j ai recu votre lettre ' ’ e t e W e m re ss c lle de illiams, j m e p ai d aller lui dire . Je lui fit baiser les deux e t apres je lui mit la v6tre dans ces '

n le e n . mai s ; elle la garda tout tems qu lle ma ga Je croit, ' a rta e ois t la pauvre petite, qu elle p g ma joie ; elle rioi ‘ beaucoup . Jus de la peine a lui 6ter pour lui donner

son re . E celle de pé lle la prie avec la meme vivacité, e t ' ' ' n a rés l a utr le r l u e p es, je lui fit mettre ses v es e t j y apli uois les q mienne . Cette soirée délicieuse finie trop t6t e t je ne pouvois la quitter ; c e s le seule plaisir qui me ' e n e n reste, de la voir ; j jouit j amais asse . Apres midy je ' s e n vai aller lui faire baise cette lettre . J ferai u e croix ’ n l e ndroit e t e l da s , j me procurerez e plaisir de la baisé r e ap és elle . J croit bien que ma chere smur e n aura ausi pour y appliquer ce s levre s e t es plus tendre de la mere e t de vera cette lettre avant vous e n u' plus q un tous les quatre, ma 1 32 A P P E N D I X II

un vie nde ra n n e n ch ere amie ; jour que, réu it e s mble, otre e n unions s ra i dissoluble . n du in e a Vous avez ri t de ma va ité, so s que j met

un an a . habiller ma fille ; oui, cest pour moi gr d pl isir Ce tte petite toque ros e qui lui vas si bien a un grand prix

Mon h . e ra e lle pour Ann ette . c er ami la baisé J me p lui ‘ avoir fait baisé tout c e qui devait servire a son enfant . Ce n c e tendre pere, c e t ami se sible, a touché tout qui fait ' e fille r aujourdhui la parur de ma . La premiere fo s qu elle ' c e s - la porté, moi qui lui mit, moi meme apres l avoir e : E n b aiz é mil fois . J lui dit mbrasse, ma Caroli e, cette ’ T on n as si il ne coiffure . pere est p heureux que moi ; te la vera pas ; mais elle d0i t tétre chere ; il y a mis sa bouche . Je le fait sortire actuellement tous les jours de ux heure ; ' elle se porte bien mais elle ma donn é bien d e l inquiétude ‘ d n une pendant quelque jours . Vous avez dii la voir a s ' l lettre que je vous ait e critte . Actuel ement vous devez u avoir rec deux . n finire nn e Ava t de ma lettre, ma bo e amie, j vous re com ande ne affli e e bien de pas vous gé , de chach r a ute ms que vous le po ure z a votre oncle e t votre tante les raisons qui comande a vos larmes de couler . Je voude rois bien pouvoir vous dire pour les arrétte z que e tr ne urie j suis heureuse, mais je vous om pe rois vous po z le croire ; mais a u moin je peu vous assuré avec vérité que si il e st possible que m on am i puisent ve nire me d nn le n m al re t o er titre glorieux de so épouse, g la cruelle ’ nécessité qui l ob lige ra de quitte r aussi t6t sa femme e t son e u nfant, je s porte rai plus aisément un e absence pénible ‘ a sa fille la vérité, mais je serai a meme de trouver dans un ' ’ dédom a e m e nt g qui m est interdi jusqu a cette époque . e e r J suis forcé de fini re mais je ne fait que c om m anc . finie e le Le papier toujours trop t6t . J me procurerai s 6 e fille plai ir de vous écrire bient t . J volle chez ma ’ a ussit6 t que j a urai diner; je m porte rai ma lettre avec

. A i o moi d eu, ma chere s eur ; non, pas adieu, ca r je vous di e n rez core deux mot .

APPEND IX III

MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE OF CAROLINE WORDSWORTH

1 8 1 6 (MARCH, )

ollé ue Le s 6 e t 1 5 ma rs 1 8 1 6 . De vant Me . e t son c g ont compa ru ' ti nne tte d C . Madame Louise E e Archia , veuve de M 6 n e t Ferdin and Ger me de Beauvau, prince de Crao , ' e e nn nn d Al n e d mois lle Jea e Marie Bo e py, demeura t tout s

a rue . deux Paris, Ste Croix 2 2 ,

Madame Anne Louise Carolin e Goyon de Matignon, ' Anne n e n épouse d Charles Fra cois, duc de Montmor cy, a ' demeurant Paris , rue de l Univ e rsité, e n M . Mathieu Jean Félicité, Vicomte de Montmor cy, ' pair de France, Chevalier d h onne ur de son altesse ‘ R n oyale Madame, gouverneur d u chateau de Compieg e, n a demeura t Paris, rue de Lille, ' . n n Bé d v a ra M Claude A toi e de zia de , ma rquis A y, an u R i pair de Fr ce, lieutenant généra l des armées d o , - i s . e t ma tre de la garde robe de a Majesté Louis XVIII , ‘' An eli ue A i D e m aill s n d g q dela de y, o épouse, emeurant n e a i re v ll n e s mble Par s , rue de G e e , faubourg St . Germai

No . 85,

. n i e n M Claude, baro de Tard f, maréchal de camp, anci ofii cie r a C l supérieur des g rdes du corps du roi, h eva ier - n n a . de Sai t Louis, demeura t Paris, rue Jacob No 2 2 ,

. A l M uguste Guil aume Josse de Beauvoir, depute de e t n a 6 Loir Cher, demeura t Paris, rue de Grenelle, h tel n de Bourgog e, ' . n M Jea Marie Pardessus, professeur a l Ecole de 1 34 A P P E N D I X III 1 3 5

D h D n a roit, membre de la c ambre de éputés, demeura t ' c le Paris a l E o de Droit, ’ l An n n éne ra l du M . Guil aume toi e Baro , directeur g n a rue n Mont de Piété, demeura t Paris, des Petits Augusti s

No . 2 0, e nn D sa rn C M . Eti e Barthelemy y de Villefort, hevalier - e t n - e -dir des ordres de Saint Louis de Sai t Lazar , sous e c te ur du Mont de Piété, rue des Vieilles Andriettes No . 4,

Mada me Anne Francoise Gabrielle Pontonnier, épouse ’ n n du de Re ne Victor Pesso , i specteur de la navigation n n t bassin de la Chare te I férieure, e Louise Constance le n a de s n 1 Pesson, sa fil , demeura t Paris, rue Sai ts Peres 7 , an Dub onexie Pinie ux C e M . Pierre Fr cois de , hevali r ' e n de e e n a de l ordre royal de St . J a Jerusal m, d meura t

n . 1 8 Paris , rue Neuve des Mathuri s No , '

d H6 ni s of . e t Madame Marie Louise g h , épouse de M in n n - n Baudouin de St . Firm , lieute a t colonel, d e meura t

- du . a Paris, rue Cherche Midi No 2 5, ' Le sque ls ont déclaré qu ils ont po ur agréable le mariage dont les conditions civiles ont été a rrété e s par le contrat e n dont le minute precede tre M . Jean Baptiste Martin

n t . Ann n sic Baudoui e Mlle e Caroli e Wortsw orth ( ).

The contract itself is as follows

Pa r de va nt Me . ont compa ru

. e n n u n M J a Baptiste Baudoui , chef de bureau a Mo t i n a de P ete, demeura t Paris, rue de la Tixéra nde rie No . ' 8 fils e 2 , majeur de G orges Baudouin, prOprie taire e t de ' nn E e nn son e Marie A e ti e, pouse , actuell e me nt sa veuve , ’ e n a n D n 6 d Or d meura t Mo tbard, éparteme t de la C te , e t e i e Ann n W orts rth fille Mad mo s lle e Caroli e w o ,

. W . Worts h e nn majeure de M w ort e t de Mme . Mari A e n Wi l e e Vallo , dite l iam, d m urant la demoise lle a Paris , ‘ l ue nn . on ére a Paradis 35, faubourg Poisso iere, M s p Grasne r res Ke n e n An l p dal g e te rre , e t Mme . sa mere a a a u Paris , rue Ch rlot 47 , Marais, Stipulant e t contractant la dite de moiselle pour elle e t ' e n son nom du n n n s n , co se teme t de M . o pere qu elle 1 36 A P P E N D I X III déclare avoir e t en prese nce e t du consentement de ’ s d a utre . Mme . a mere, part

ARTICLE I

Le s futurs époux seront communs e n bie ns conformé

ment aux article s du Code Civil .

ARTICLE III

Les dits futurs époux déclarent que toute leur fortune e st mobiliere e t ils mettent e n communauté tout c e qui ' ' n a n n c ons u nc e i appartie t chacu d e ux, e eq e l n est fait r tion aucune a pp ecia de leurs apports .

ARTIC LE IV

' n d un Stipulatio préciput de deux mille francs .

Dont a cte le 1 6 év ie 1 8 1 6 f r r . Ont signé

A . O SW T C . W RD OR H,

d te M . A . VALLON i WILLIAM, IN BAUDOU .

1 38 A P P E N D I X I V T MALE , maréchal de camp, atteste avec plaisir

le contenu .

M fficie r des . LE COMTE DE QUINE ONT, O gardes ’

EL . LE MARQUIS DE C OURTAV , marechal de camp e a LE COMTE DE SALABERRY , m mbre del la Ch mbre ’ des deputes .

LE COMTE DE BERANGER, maréchal de camp . n a sa D E LUSIGNAN atteste tous c es faits . Ils so t

connaissance . ' TAI G d e sca dron n . DE ROS N , chef de drago s LE CHEVALIER DE LA ROCHEMOUHET déclare que Madam e Williams lui a sauvé la vie e n ex

posant la Sienne . R n n les l LA BOISE DE AISEUX, comma da t roya istes n sous les ordres de M . Le Ve eur, commissaire ’ ' d sa n l O rle anois . e Majesté, da s ' - n l a rm ée VICOMTE DE MALARTIC, major ge eral de du n e Wi l royale Mai e, att ste que Madame l iams 3 rendu des services Signalés pendant le ' ’ temps de l insurre ction de la Vendee e t avec ' ' un desinteresseme nt qui lui donne des droits ' aux b onte s du Roi .

LE C T . AIGNAN I NC . DU DE S , PA R DE FRA E ’ LE VIC MT OSMO N n O E D D, commissaire extraordi aire ' d u Roi a , atteste la verite des f its .

Pour copie conforme . C e rtifié conforme e t véritable feme WILLIAMS VALLON ' (signa ture d Anne tte ).

[e n marge] ' Je suis plus a meme que personn e d a tte ste r le dé ' v oue m e nt le d e sintéresse m e n Md parfait, t rare que e . ' Wi i n n ans e le c nn ois ll am a mo tres depuis vi gt que j o , e t ’ ’ malhe ureuseme nt j a tteste aussi l oub li ou se s droits a ' n da n la bo té roi so t laisse es .

' ' C IE. DE B Y offici SALA ERR , e r vendéen, député du

d . ept de Loir e t Cher . A P P E N D I X I V 1 39

[e n marge] Depuis vingt-cinq a ns je c onnois Madame Williams ' Vallon ; il est impossible d avoir porté le dévouement e t les sacrifices pour la cause royale e t les malheureux plus ’ loin que ne l a fait cette dame . ‘ Elle mérite non pas in le re t [intéréti ] mais justice e t ' ’ j amais Justice n aura été mie ux rendue qu e n la réc om ' pensant pa r um bureau de Lotterie qu e lle sollicite pour le Madame Beaudouin sa fil .

PARDESSUS,

Député de Loir e t Cher . [e n dessous] Les soussignés députés de LOi r e t Che r c e rtifie nt a ' tous ceux qu il appartie ndra que le s originaux de s Pieces ' ci dessus énoncées sonts t este es e ntre leurs mains . E JOSSE B AUVOIR,

le i 1 8 1 6 B Y . Paris, 4 avr l . C TE. DE SALA ERR

[2 feuille] ' Madame Williams depuis vingt cinq a ns n a cessé de nn e du do er des preuv s plus parfait royalisme . Elle a ' un caché, secouru, grand nombre d Em igrés e t de pretres ' E t persecutes . lle e n a fait échapper de s prisons e e lle a par son zele e t son courage arraché a la mort b e aucoup fidéles du Roi e n e D n de sujets exposant s s jours . a s tous ' le s tems elle a se rvi la cause Royale avec un désinte re sse ment absolu : Dans les de rniers événements qui ont n n n le e d plo gé la Fra ce da s deuil, lle a fait e s traits de n e nne n son a t courage, sa s calcul p rso l . Ne voya t que ta ch e m e nt a n ch i la Dy astie légitime, elle a ffi o t la nuit le s n n f ai le s proclamatio s , les répa dait le jour, e s t partir e v ouloie nt se R i Brav s qui dévouer pour la cause des o . Elle joint la copie c e rtifiée des témoignages nouvell e s ' n qu elle a obte us .

’ Le cause e t les intéréts du roi m a iant rapproché ' pendant les ce nt jours d inte rrégne de Madame ' ' ' a a tt st Willi ms, j e e qu il n e xistai t pas a cette 1 40 A P P E N D I X Iv

époque Si malheureuse dans toute la France un e t étre aussi zélé, aussi dévoué aussi courageux ' t e o qu elle, e j suis heureux de grossir de m n ’ nom la nombreux e t respectable lis te qu elle

présente, LE N DE DIF BARO TAR , Maréchal de cam p e t ancien officie r supérieur des u gardes d corps .

l 1 1 6 Paris, e 6 mars, 8 .

1 42 A P P E N D I X V and found them in the principles a nd events of th e n in revolution which had just broke out France . By Virtue of the impulse it received from this politica l cataclysm it was suddenly raised from the most servi le na i a nd imitation to the highest degree of origi l ty paradox . The change whi ch took place in literature at this time was as comple te and at th e same time as startli n g as Th e n that which took place in politics . mi ds of politicians n a nd an d poets were in a state of ferme t, , accordin g to n th e ide as current at the mome t, the whole world was to

d e n n . E be re newed, an to b come accordi g to ature very n h t or hi n e e n thing know as aut ori y fas o , l ga ce or system, s e n n e w as cast aside a b lo gi g to pr judice or pedantry . d Lice nce became extreme, a n was pushed to its furthest e a lions in limits . The D uc who were to br g about th e great promised renaissance were Southey (th e n poe t laure ate) L ica l Ba lla and the two authors of the yr ds, Coleridge and n oe Wordsworth . They fou ded their p tic doctrin e on

e all . e nature alone, stripp d of art This po try reduced to one level a ll distinctions of nature an d society ; it shatte re d e d the golden imag s of poetry, an stripped them of the ir so Splendid coats of arms, that they might be teste d in n ni th e crucible of ordi ary huma ty . The proofs are to be o n th e n d f u d throughout works of the poets amed, an , all in n above , the umerous compositions of him to whom hi is e t s article particularly devot d . Th e n Lake School is the school of ature ; it was , at th e nd n e of the eighteenth ce tury, what the school of n n n n r imagi atio had bee two ce turies ea lier . Unde r th e n E n h great Quee lizabeth, Imaginatio was t e prototype th e an d n of poetry of the time, imagi ation, confin ed h n e n im wit i r aso able l its, may be inde ed re garded as th e n e m us truly i spired guide of g . It may j ustly be called th e e an d n n n e i eld r sister compa io of I t ll gence . In poetry, th e e n Sin two se m to u ite to form a gle muse . And are not e in n n th e i n th e po ts , all atio s, Pilgr ms of Ge ius, see rs and th e proph e ts f Are the y not the benefactors of the world, whose duty is to Sin g the b e ne fic e nc e a nd A P P E N D I X v 1 43 powe r of the Creator ? What soul could be so insensible as to refuse the m homage an d adoration ? Kin gs of

n n . En the past, th ey transform it i to the prese t dowed an n with the double faculties of seer d prophet, they u fold in n n a nd a prospect of the future, tur dazzli g gloomy . They are the brilliant oracles which reveal themselves l n a to our eyes like a pi lar of flame, or like a su be m struggling through the Clouds . Wh o, then, would refuse to reve rence the poets ? n not n For the poet of true feeli g, there are two differe t n an d h e worlds, the world of se se the world of thought ; enfolds them, he unites them ; for him there is but one not n sam e universe . He does k ow what de lights him most — n n i the flowers u foldi g at our feet n the meadow, or the n n a nd m n in Stars twi kli g , as it were, co i g to birth the fi s one rm am e nt above our head . Wordsworth calls the e e the pure r flection of the oth r, for to the poetic soul of Wordsworth feeling is im agination beautifyin g every n i n d th thi g . Thus poets add beauty to create d th gs, an e puissant wand of th ese magicians of thought is naught e n t n n lse but imagi a io or feeli g . We can therefore justly say :

o e én 6 o o e e n u én e S y z b i, v us t us, p l ri s d g i , ' Voya ge urs qui ma rc h e z a l i mm orta lité En légua nt a ux huma ins c e s Cha nts de ve rite ' Dont les a nge s du Cie l vous dic te nt l ha rm onie !

A e nd d t the of a religious me itation, Wordsworth makes this touchin g and sublime prayer :

T h e Poe ts Oh ! i h na e b e n e e d a on t e m g t my m umb r m g h irs, h e n a d o d e n T gl ly w ul I d my morta l da ys .

And n n his he attai ed the oble aim of geni us, for hi s a n prayer was he rd by the muses, the mi isters of divinity . Spenser was th e poet laure ate of the great Queen E W - lizabeth, as ordsworth is to day of the young Queen ns Victoria. Spe er had also founded a school, but a school n n nl n i of imagi atio o y ; othing n his doctrine was real, 1 44 A P P E N D I X v

d Hi s save language ; all was fiction an allegory . great i h poe m th e Fa e ry Que en, wh ch he composed w ile private secretary to the Viceroy of Ireland, is an allegorical work of the highest order . a nd R n In Wordsworth , Poetry, Philosophy eligio are — um te d by a bond both powerful a nd fruitful th e spirit n n i n n of love ; and whe this se t me t is developed, i tel li g e nc e and imagi nation create within th em selves vast i e d all n th concept ons . Th y pro uce the emotio s of e sublime and beautiful ; thus, in th e noblest an d highe st feelin gs h r e il and of m an, t ese th ee sisters, Po try, Ph osophy a nd h i s n Religion, are one , t is marvellous unity consta tly i i n th e e in th e S i real sed most xquisite of all feel gs, pir t of love . But th e purpose of Wordsworth a nd his school was not

n a . h a h e i o ly to ple se T eir purpose was to r ise, to et er al se hi m m an, to ma ke purer, more grateful to God, more confident of His marvellous a nd in exh austi ble goodness . Are not poe ts like Wordsworth our most profound theologians ? Do they not brin g to us the knowledge of happiness and the subli mest morality ? The ir pious a nd phi losophic muse sings in h ymns a nd odes th e sacred beauty of nature and the powerful God who created it ; h t e song of m e n becomes like as the son g of the an gels . Anoth er cha racteristic of th e poetic sch ool of Words h i s ha n wort t t, i stead of choosin g elevated subj ects, it n ns l s i co cer itself a most exclu ively W th humble life . Thus i s e not i n n r it a po try of pass o o of imagination, but of

f i n a nd th e . A Si a fect o heart mple labourer, a humble S can its i i hepherdess be hero or heroine . Its pr nc pal obj ect i s to sanctify and to beautify th e humblest emoti ons Th e of quiet lives . home is its alta r ; it rarely strays e n th e Ci l i hi b yo d rcle of fami y l fe . One might say that t s is li En (d h poetry pecu ar to gla , and is, of all poe try, t at d e th e which pro uc s most ,m oral effects on th e lowest n t sh o ra ks of socie y . It w/ th e m th at their state is ca p of d n th e able pro uci g sweetest, the pures t, the most

exquisite pleasures . It opens their hearts to th e voice

1 4 6 A P P E N D I X V

d n n m te Con an remai faithful to their most i ti a victions . nn an d It is to this i er life, full of purity, of joy of useful in n and W activity, th at Lam artine Fra ce ordsworth in n n u n W e E gland desire to bri g back h ma ity . repeat ; we wish with all our heart that there were in France fifty a W and n poets of the st mp of ordsworth Lamarti e . Such poets are th e true Apostles of morality . nn n We ca ot co clude this article, which has already e xceede d the limits we had intended, without remarking o n one trait of the lovable character of Wordsworth h is n h i s d affectio for youth, esire to be useful to it . Thus all his works dealing With childre n have an atm o e f i h n S i t sph re o ch ldlike fres ess, of impl ci y, of naivete, a nd a te ndency at once moral a nd religious ; so that th e l ittle ones, as the good Vicar of Wakefield calls th e e n e n n n n l n and l Childr , l ar u witti gly lesso s of re igio phi o in n m 0 sophy a so g about a bird or a si ple flower . n e n a nd n and be evol t ve erable poet, may France ever love — keep with reverence thy Cherished children thou w h o s - hast worked o long for the moral well being of youth, a nd hast e ntrusted to a n alie n soil thy dearest affections !

By A FORMER PROFESSOR OF FOREIGN LITERATURE .

E N thi 1 0th De ce e 1 8 6 . M LU , s mb r, 4

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