LETTER VIII.
Cape Francois.
We are still here, my dear friend, and my disappointment and vexation have been so great, that ten days have passed since I have written a single line.
The general, thinking Clara was sent away against her will, and determined to thwart the intentions of her husband, laid an embargo on all the vessels in the port.
St. Louis raved, and swore she should not leave her room till he conducted her on board.
To prevent all intercourse from without, he keeps her locked up in a small room, adjoining her chamber.—Nobody, not even myself, can see her, except in his presence; and thus all confidence is at an end between them.
She weeps continually, and I am afraid the torments she suffers will destroy her health.
St. Louis is unworthy of her: he thinks it possible to force her to love him:—How much more would a generous confidence influence a heart like her's!
Many of his friends have represented to him the impropriety of his conduct. The challenge he gave general Rochambeau filled every body with terror, for it exposed him to certain death. To have left his post without orders was a crime equally serious; and, if the general has passed them both over in silence, it is supposed that his vengeance only slumbers for a time to be more sure in its effect.
He thinks Clara attached to the general. I know she is not! her vanity alone has been interested. To be admired was her aim, and she knew that, by attracting the notice of the general in chief, her end would be accomplished. She succeeded even beyond her wishes, but it has been a dangerous experiment; and will cost her, I fear, the small portion of domestic peace she enjoyed.—Domestic felicity she never knew! I am convinced that she has never been less happy than since her marriage!
Nothing can be more brutal than St. Louis in his rage! The day of his affair with the general, he threw her on the ground, and then dragged her by the hair:—I flew to her, but his aspect so terrified me that I was obliged to withdraw: and when his fits of tenderness return he is as bad in the other extreme. He kneels before her, entreats her pardon, and overwhelms her with caresses more painful to her than the most terrible effects of his ill-humour. And then his temper is so capricious that he cannot be counted upon a moment. I have seen him oblige her to stay at home and pass the evening alone with him, after she had dressed for a ball.
This does not accord with the liberty French ladies are supposed to enjoy. But I believe Clara is not the first wife that has been locked up at St. Domingo, yet she excites little sympathy because she has not the good fortune to be one of the privileged.
In Continuation.
Certain events, which shall be related, prevented me from finishing my letter. The same events have produced an entire change in our affairs, and we are now fixed at St. Domingo for some time.
The embargo is raised:—the general in chief is gone to Port-au-Prince; all the belles of the Cape have followed him. Clara is at liberty, and her husband content!
As soon as we had an opportunity of conversing together, Clara related to me occurrences which seem like scenes of romance, but I am convinced of their reality. Under the window of the little apartment in which she was confined, there is an old building standing in a court surrounded by high walls. The general informed himself of the position of Clara's chamber, and his intelligent valet, who makes love to one of her servants, found that it would not be difficult to give her a letter, which his dulcinea refused charging herself with. He watched the moment of St. Louis's absence, entered the deserted court, mounted the tottering roof, and, calling Clara to the window, gave her the letter, glowing with the warmest professions of love, and suggesting several schemes for her escape, one of which was, that she should embark on board a vessel that he would indicate, and that he would agree with the captain to put into Port-au-Prince, whither he would speedily follow her.—Another was, to escape in the night by the same window, and go to his house, where he would receive and protect her. But the heart of Clara acknowledged not the empire of general Rochambeau, nor had she even the slightest intention of listening to him.
If her husband knew all this it would cure him, I suppose, of his passion for locking up. But, incapable of generosity himself, he cannot admire it in another, and would attribute her refusal of the general's offers to any motive but the real one.
How often has she assured me that she would prefer the most extreme poverty to her present existence, but to abandon her husband was not to be thought of. Yet to have abandoned him, and to have been presented as the declared mistress of General Rochambeau, would not have been thought a crime nor have excluded her from the best society!
Madame G——, who has nothing but her beauty to recommend her, (and no excess of that) lives with the admiral on board his vessel. She is visited by every body; and no party is thought fashionable if not graced by her presence, yet her manners are those of a poissarde and she was very lately in the lowest and most degraded situation. But she gives splendid entertainments: and when good cheer and gaiety invite, nobody enquires too minutely by whom they are offered.
Clara laughs at the security St. Louis felt when he had her locked up. Yet in spite of bolts and bars love's messenger reached her. The general's letters were most impassioned, for, unaccustomed to find resistance, the difficulty his approach to Clara met added fuel to his flame.
You say, that in relating public affairs, or those of Clara, I forget my own, or conceal them under this appearance of neglect. My fate is so intimately connected with that of my sister, that every thing concerning her must interest you, from the influence it has on myself; and, in truth, I have no adventures. I described in a former letter, the gallantry of the French officers, but I have not repeated the compliments they sometimes make me, and which have been offered, perhaps, to every woman in town before they reach my ear. But a civil thing I heard yesterday, had so much of originality in it that it deserves to be remembered. I was copying a beautiful drawing of the graces, when a Frenchman I detest entered the room. Approaching the table he said. What mademoiselle do you paint? I did not know that you possessed that talent. Vexed at his intrusion, I asked if he knew I possessed any talents. Certainly, he replied, every body acknowledges that you possess that of pleasing. Then looking at the picture that lay before me, he continued: The modesty of the graces would prevent their attempting to draw you. Why? I asked. Because in painting you, they would be obliged to copy themselves.
With all this bavardage receive my affectionate adieu!