Chapitre XXIII

An inconnue-Who was " Madame de V—?"-Chateaubriand's correspondence with her-Their meeting and its unfortunate result-Chateaubriand discovers that his inamorata is fifty years of age-A second inconnue-The allusion to her in the Mémoires.

THE anonymous author of Un dernier amour de René introduces the first of the " inconnues " mysteriously as Madame la Marquise de V— - ; but he produces the veiled lady's portrait as his frontispiece and adds information which makes it easy to pierce the secret of her identity. Her husband, he tells us, was appointed in 1827 to the office of Inspecteur des Douanes at Toulouse; and a reference to the Almanach Royal for 1828 shows that a M. de Vichit then occupied that position. We can recover the name, therefore, though, when recovered, it means nothing; and there is nothing to be said about M. de Vichit except that he was the Inspector of the Customs whose wife loved Chateaubriand.

She loved him for his books, and made his acquaintance by writing to him. Her first letter dates as far back as 1816. Among some old papers, she said, she had found a manuscript which she would like to show him, as she believed that its contents concerned some member of his family. He replied that he would give himself the pleasure of calling on her; but, frightened and abashed by her own temerity, she sent him the manuscript and fled from Paris. The manuscript did not, in fact, concern Chateaubriand or any of his relatives; so he merely thanked the stranger for her politeness and forgot the incident.

Eleven years later the stranger wrote again. She was then living alone in a country house near Viviers, in the South of France. She and Chateaubriand had a common friend in M. Hyde de Neuville-the same M. Hyde de Neuville who had met Chateaubriand when he was travelling with Natalie de Noailles-Mouchy in Spain: that was her excuse for addressing him. She had read in the papers, she said, that overwork had made him ill, and that he had grounds for anxiety as to the health of Madame de Chateaubriand. Would he think her presumptuous if she asked him to instruct his secretary to write to her once a fortnight and inform her how he and Madame de Chateaubriand were getting on? He replied, in his own hand, saying that he could not think of assigning that honour to a secretary, and assuring her that he and Madame de Chateaubriand were both " a little better »

That was towards the end of November 1827, when the Villele ministry was tottering to its fall; and it was the beginning of a long interchange of letters, seventyfive of which have been printed. Chateaubriand, according to his custom, destroyed Madame de Vichit's letters; but Madame de Vichit kept copies of them, and pinned them to Chateaubriand's answers, and added occasional explanatory notes in the margin, so that there is no difficulty in following the romantic. interlude. At first, of course, she addressed him as « M. le Vicomte" and subscribed herself " Marquise de Vichit," but not for long. Already in the third letter of the series we find her calling him her " cherished star,' and signing herself " Marie.'

They are delightful letters to read, for they contain almost everything that one would expect, and end in a revelation and a surprise. It is agreed between the parties that they love each other though they have never met, and that some day they will meet-and that then, perhaps-who knows? And meanwhile there are delightful little jealousies, and characteristic little coquetries-not on one side only. Madame de Vichit makes Chateaubriand jealous-it is one charmingly feminine touch among many-by assuring him that there really is no reason for him to be so. There is a certain Chevalier de Berbis-but why trouble about him? He has all the virtues-but he is ugly, uglier even than M. de Villele, who, but for M. de Berbis, would be the ugliest man in France.

The bait takes-or seems to do so. "I am not reassured," Chateaubriand writes, "by your portrait of your admirer. These ugly lovers, like Du Guesclin, often make conquests." And then again, in a later letter, apropos of some other jealousy: " No, Marie. It is I who am going to arrange your life for you. Patience for a little while, and all the difficulties shall be smoothed away." And meanwhile, and pending an interview, there is coquetry between the correspondents on the subject of their respective ages.

Chateaubriand insists that he is old, and he is quite sure that his correspondent must be young. "Your handwriting,

" he says, "is that ot a young woman.

Mine has grown old like myself." And then again: "The wind of adversity has no more spared my moustache than it spared that of Henri IV, and the tale of my years is written on my brow." That was his way-his "little device of vanity"-as he confesses in his Mémoires. He liked his " inconnues " to be agreeably surprised when they saw him, and say to themselves: "Ah, he is not so very old after all!" " My little trick," he adds, " has sometimes succeeded;" and we can see it succeeding with Marie. "You had told me so much about your age and your white hair that ... But you are younger than I thought, and you look younger than you are, so that my letters are improper »

Only, if Chateaubriand was younger than Marie thought, Marie, on her part, was older than Chateaubriand supposed. She was, in fact, very, very near to her fiftieth birthday; but recognizing Chateaubriand's mistake, she could not bring herself to remove it. Perhaps he should have read between the lines and guessed when she begged him to love her for the sake of her letters, just as she loved him for the sake of his books. Perhaps, too, he should have found a hint in some of her excuses for avoiding interviews. But he did not. For eighteen months he was devoured by the curiosity which her evasiveness provoked; so that when at last he did meet her in the summer of 1829- but one must not anticipate.

Except for this one excusable deception, Marie's heart, as her letters reveal it to us, was singularly frank and candid. It is impossible to read those letters without feeling that one knows her through and through. She was very silly in her infatuation, but very feminine, and very charming. Her proceedings may not have been quite fair to M. de Vichit; but we know so little about M. de Vichit that we cannot say much about that. He had left her to live alone in the country instead of taking her to Toulouse; and such things are not to be done with impunity in a romantic age. Marie, in spite of her years, was a romantic woman. She wanted some one to love and to live for, and Chateaubriand encouraged her; and very likely she thought of him, not as a mortal with human weaknesses, but as an Olympian god.

One cannot say how far she thought of going, or was prepared to go. Her letters contain a good many appeals to "the proprieties," which one must not assume to have been insincere simply because they crop up rather quaintly. The inference is rather that Marie would on no account tempt, though she might perhaps be tempted, and that, if she did not feel capable of resisting a siège en règle, she did not expect one, seeing that Chateaubriand was great and good. She was very sorry for him-sorry when his political ambitions were disappointed, and still sorrier when he spoke of his gloom and melancholy; and she would like to help him, and believed that she could do so. She would like, she said, to be his " guardian angel." As for the rest-well probably she felt content to leave the rest to him.

We can see the infatuation even in her prose style. It is an obvious imitation of his prose style, full of his gorgeous imagery, and echoing his measured, melancholy cadences. There are even moments when it rises almost to his level; and it is not marred, but is made more charming, by the touches of feminine solicitude which appear in the midst of the polished, flowing phrases. How spiteful are Chateaubriand's enemies! How important it is that he should be careful of his health-especially at Rome, where there are such dreadful fevers! Is not office bad for him? Is there not a fear that he may overwork himself? Or does he need the distraction to divert him from too melancholy meditations?

And very soon, of course, there are confidences. Marie addresses Chateaubriand as "the elect of my heart," and tells him all about herself and her husband. Married at the age of thirteen, she has not been happy, though no blame is to be attached to M. de V-. He is an "excellent% man ; she values his "esteem and friendship." But he suffers from " spleen and its most frightful consequences." She is unable to regard him as " a guide and a support.' She " cherishes " and " respects " him, but she does not " confide " in him. '

In fact she does not even live with him, and has not done so for a long time. He is serving his country to the best of his ability in the Toulouse Customs House, and she has retired to the country in order to be near her mother, who is an invalid-and she has " embraced resignation as a friend,' and learnt how to "suffer without making others sad." Such is " the friend whom God has sent " to the " dear master."

The " dear master," as a matter of course, expresses the desire to meet his friend. An infirm mother and a distant husband are no insurmountable obstacles. Chateaubriand may well have imagined that the infirmity of the one and the absence of the other had been mentioned for no other purpose than to show that Marie was accessible. He begins to talk, therefore, of seeking her out in her solitude, though he cannot commit himself to a promise: " My life is so fettered that my plans are only dreams. I hope to realize them, but I have lost the confidence of youth which transforms chimeras into realities." He will come some day-she may be sure of that; but it may be many months before he is able to do so. In the meanwhile, why should not Marie come to him? " Come to me! Come to me!" is the refrain of letter after letter.

Of course Marie wants to come; equally, of course, she is afraid. She knows she has been bold; but at the bottom of her heart she is timid. She has defied the proprieties; but she has not ceased to think of them. She has been unconventional; but she wants to be conventional too. It seems clear that she dreads, and wishes to put off, the day when Chateaubriand will discover that she is not a girl, but a middle-aged woman. So she makes excuses, and finds it impossible to be in Paris except at dates when she knows that he will be absent. And then, in the midst of her hesitations, he tells her that there is a prospect of his being nominated to the Embassy at Rome, and asks: " How would you like the idea of travelling in Italy if fortune should thrust me into this pleasant place of exile?" Whereupon the voice of the proprieties speaks, and indeed almost screams-

"You ask me if I would like to travel in Italy in case you went there? My dear master!!! If I were a bird I would fly after you to Italy, or even to Norway, with the same delight. If I were a young man, I would become your secretary or your page, and follow you without one backward look. If I were the relative or the friend of Madame de Chateaubriand, I would leave all to attend you. I would devote my heart and my strength to the task of nursing her night and day, in order to preserve her life for you. But, being what I am, how can I, without impropriety, travel alone in a foreign country ? »

But Marie does not quite mean what she says-or changes her mind when she has said it, and when she perceives that the prospect of receiving a visit from Chateaubriand in her secluded valley is, after all, remote and doubtful. " My life," he tells her, " is so uncertain that, though I am always making plans, I never know whether I shall be able to realize them. It is my passionate desire to visit a Pyrenean wateringplace. But shall I be able to? And, if I do, shall I be able to visit you in your mountains either on my way there or on my way back?" So all is uncertainty; but he adds, italicizing his words: " Come to me! The shelter is not a very sure one, but a ruin may sometimes afford a place of refuge." And then Marie begins to melt, albeit with due regard-or at all events with some regard-for Madame de Chateaubriand's claims and feelings-

"The heart of Madame de Chateaubriand is yours. Tell her that you have a last surviving sister! Beg her to love me, and she will do so! Then I shall be able to accompany you both to Rome. I shall only be with you when your hearts require me. Our life will be full of gentle emotion and charm. You will both, made happy by one another, find comfort in my pure and faithful friendship. ... That is the inspiration that has been vouchsafed to me in answer to my prayers.®

But that is not at all what Chateaubriand means. He does not see why Madame de Chateaubriand should be mixed up in the matter. He knows Madame de Chateaubriand better than Marie knows her. So he replies to Madame de V- - in a phrase copied textually from one of his letters to Madame de C telling her that he has been writing all day, and that his hand is tired, but that his heart is not, and then continuing-

"Ah, if only my life were my own to dispose of! What a happiness it would be to have you with us! But I am helpless in the matter, and I dare not even take the risk of making a proposal which would appear extraordinary. A wife's many virtues are not always and necessarily productive of peace, charm, and happiness »

The next letters argue the question out. Marie is quite sure that the dear master has misjudged Madame de Chateaubriand, and that she and Madame de Chateaubriand would get on very well together: "Your fortunate companion would first love me only for your sake, but she would soon love me for my own sake too." Her presence would be " a relief to Madame de Chateaubriand from the irksome constraints of her position." Chateaubriand protests that it would be nothing of the kind; and Marie returns to the charge-

"I was assuming," she writes, "that you had found love in marriage, calm in your studies, and happiness in your virtues. Now that I know that this is not so, all is trouble and confusion in my heart and mind. The whole moral order of the universe seems to me to have been upset by this incomprehensible misunderstanding.

And she continues, reverting to her project-

" For propriety's sake, I did not want it to be said that I was going with you. But I thought that we might meet on the way, and that my carriage might follow yours as far as Rome, and that there we might separate, and that, in my quality of temporary resident in the city, I might call on Madame de Chateaubriand occasionally, or frequently, according to the degree of the intimacy which might establish itself between us.

And then, a day or two later, she sketches the programme in more detail-

"I thought you might tell Madame de Chateaubriand that a woman who had shown you some proofs of regard, several years ago, had inspired you with a benevolent interest, which her letters had caused to deepen into friendship; and that, as this woman was coming to Rome, you wished to seize the occasion to show her some hospitality, and would like Madame de Chateaubriand to see to this. Hence an introduction and an exchange of calls. If Madame de Chateaubriand had loved you as I thought she did, you would inevitably have been the link between us, and she would have accorded me her friendship on account of my affection for you-just as she now inspires my own most sympathetic interest, in spite of the fact that I only know her by name. ... Surely that was not such a very extravagant idea »

But Chateaubriand still knew better, though he did not like to say so too bluntly. He must not, he says, " enter into details " about Madame de Chateaubriand's " disposition and temper"; but, of course, Marie can come to Rome if she likes to take the risk: "You could make Madame de Chateaubriand's acquaintance there, and remain if you still thought the situation possible after you had seen her." But really it is not worth while. It is not likely that he will be long in Rome, and he will probably be able to pay Marie a visit on the way back.

It was not a very encouraging letter; and the relaxation of Chateaubriand's ardour seems to date from it. Marie was so hurt by it that she left it unanswered for nearly a month-at the end of which time Chateaubriand wrote to inquire whether she was ill, or whether she was tired of corresponding with him. She replied that her silence had been due to " considerations of propriety and delicacy"; and after that, though the correspondence continued for several months longer, it was never glad, confident morning again. " Marie,' Chateaubriand could still write, " is a great charm for my life;" but Marie, nevertheless, found something wanting in his letters. There was, she objected, "a sort of anonymous style about them as if they were addressed to nobody in particular"; and she was wounded because he would neither send

U 2 291 her his portrait nor give himself the trouble of composing a " form of prayer" for her use.

He was, in fact, as we shall see presently, otherwise, and very fully, engaged; and while she, on her part, remained blindly devoted as ever, his feeling for her was gradually declining into an idle curiosity to see what she was like.

In one of her letters, she asks him, with resigned melancholy, "When men of genius live on earth, are they capable of any tender thought for the mortals devoted to them?" but he only replies to the effect that she will be sorry to hear that the Pope is dead. In another, written from Paris, she tells him that she has been to see his Infirmerie Marie-Thérèse, and laid her hand upon his writing-desk-"the repository of so much glory and so much gloom"-and has hardly been able to tear herself away. In a third she suggests that he should buy a house that is for sale in her own neighbourhood. Nine acres of land are attached to it. The rooms are lofty and the windows large; the walls are six feet thick; there is a well in the garden, and an avenue of chestnuts. Fifty thousand francs is the price asked, but forty-eight thousand would probably be accepted. The necessary repairs would cost eight or ten thousand francs.

And so forth. Marie goes into the details as minutely as an estate agent; but Chateaubriand is not to be tempted. He wants to see her-that is all, except that he also thinks it well for her peace of mind that she should see him. "If you have any illusions about me, ," he writes, " they will then evaporate;" and, as she is in Paris and he is due there shortly, a meeting must be arranged. "You have seen my little house," he writes, in reply to her letter about the Infirmerie. " Now you must see me ;" and he asks for an appointment. She makes one, with a last word about the "proprieties," and a flutter of apprehension. "Never mind about my illusions," she says. " It is for your own illusions that I tremble."

Not without reason. He saw her, and saw that she was fifty; and when he had seen that, all was over between them. He called on her two or three times, at brief intervals, and then he ceased to see her; and then he went off to Cauterets to drink the waters and to forget all about her. But she did not forget. She treasured his letters, bearing no malice, and thinking no evil, but fondly cherishing the memory of the passing kindness of an angel to one of the daughters of men.

Every one should read her letters, for they are full of human nature, and this brief summary has done much less than justice to them; and every one who has read them should then follow Chateaubriand on his pilgrimage to the Pyrenees and mark his next confession of an adventure there.

"I was engaged in composing poetry when, on the banks of the stream, I met a young woman. She rose and came over to me, knowing, from the talk of the village, that I was at Cauterets. It appeared that this unknown lady was an Occitanian, who had been writing to me for the last two years, though I had never seen her. The mysterious stranger introduced herself. Patuit dea !

"I used to return the visits of my Naiad of the torrent. One evening, when I was parting from her, she insisted upon following me. I had to carry her back to her own apartment in my arms. Never have I felt so ashamed. The idea of inspiring such an attachment at my age seemed to be absolutely ridiculous. I felt as I were being humiliated and mocked at. ... But I let the fugitive impression of my Clémence Isaure efface itself, and the mountain breezes soon carried the caprice away, and the bold and charming stranger had reason to be grateful to me, for she is now married."

So there was another-and not one other only! In addition to these two mysterious strangers, of whom we know so little, there was also Hortense Allart, afterwards de Méritens, of whom we know a good deal, because she was not ashamed of her irregularities, but so proud of them that she took the world into her confidence.

Hortense Mart de Méritens (From a medallion by David d' Angers. Reproduced by permission of the Gloviste du Mercure de France)