MRS. JORDAN IN FRANCE.
Decline of Mrs. Jordan’s health—Description of her cottage and grounds at Boulogne-sur-Mer—Madame Ducamp and her servant Agnes—Their account of Mrs. Jordan’s habits and manners—Removal of that lady to Versailles and subsequently to St. Cloud—Account of her illness and last moments.
The circumstances which induced Mrs. Jordan to repair to the continent were of such a nature, that the reader need not think it extraordinary that a deep impression was made upon her health; not indeed in the shape of actual disease, but by the workings of a troubled spirit, pondering and drooping over exaggerated misfortunes. Estranged, though only temporarily, from those she loved, and from that profession the resort to which had never failed to restore her animation and amuse her fancy, mental malady soon communicated its contagion to the physical organisation, and sickness began to make visible inroads on the heretofore healthy person of that lamented lady.
She established herself first at Boulogne-sur-Mer. A cottage was selected by her at Maquetra, about a quarter of a mile from the gate of the fortress. Often have I since, as if on classic ground, strolled down the little garden which had been there her greatest solace. The cottage is very small, but neat, commodious, and of cheerful aspect. A flower and fruit garden of corresponding dimensions, and a little paddock (comprising much less than half an acre) formed her demesne. In an adjoining cottage resided her old landlady, Madame Ducamp, who was in a state of competence, and altogether an original. She had married a gardener, much younger and of humbler birth than herself. I think she had been once handsome: her story I never heard fully; but it appeared that she had flourished during the Revolution. She spoke English when she pleased; and, like most Frenchwomen, when d’âge mûr, was querulous, intrusive, and curious beyond limitation, with as much professed good-nature as would serve at least fifty of our old English gentlewomen. She was not, in truth, devoid of the reality as well as the semblance of that quality: but she overacted the philanthropist, and consequently did not deceive those accustomed to look deeper than the surface. This good lady is still in statu quo, and very likely to remain so.
Under colour of taking her vacant cottage for a friend, a party of my family went to Maquetra, to learn what we could respecting Mrs. Jordan’s residence there. The old lady recollected her name, but pronounced it in a way which it was scarcely possible for us to recognise. A long conversation ensued, in some parts as interesting, and in others nearly as light as the subject could admit of.—Madame Ducamp repeated to us a hundred times, in five minutes, that she had “beaucoup, beaucoup de vénération pour cette chère, chère malheureuse dame Anglaise!” whom she assured us, with a deep sigh, was “sans doute un ange supérieur!” She was proceeding to tell us every thing she knew, or I suppose could invent, when, perceiving a child in the garden pulling the flowers, she abruptly discontinued her eulogium, and ran off to drive away the intruder; having done which, she returned to resume: but too late! in her absence her place had been fully and fairly occupied by Agnes, an ordinary French girl, Madame Ducamp’s bonne (servant of all work), whom we soon found was likely to prove a much more truth-telling person than her mistress.
Agnes informed us, with great feeling, that “the economy of that charming lady was very strict: nécessairement, je crains,” added she, with a slow movement of her head and a truly eloquent look. They had found out (she said) that their lodger had been once riche et magnifique; but when there she was very—very poor indeed! “But,” exclaimed the poor girl, her eye brightening up and her tone becoming firmer, “that could make no difference to me! si j’aime,—j’aime! J’ai servi cette pauvre dame avec le même zèle (peut-être encore plus) que si elle eut été une princesse!”
This frank-hearted display of poor Agnes’s sentiments was extremely affecting; it was, however, not in fact called for, since Mrs. Jordan might have commanded, during the whole period of her continental residence, any sums she thought proper. She had money in the bank, in the funds, and in miscellaneous property, and had just before she came over received some thousands. But she was become nearly careless as well of pecuniary as other matters, and took up a whim (for it was nothing more) to affect poverty,—thus deceiving the world, and giving, herself, a vantage-ground to the gossiping and censorious.
Agnes’s information went on to show that Mrs. Jordan’s whole time was passed in anxious expectation of letters from England, and on the English post-days she was peculiarly miserable. We collected from the girl that her garden and guitar were her only resources against that consuming melancholy which steals even the elements of existence, and plunges both body and mind into a state of morbid languor—the fruitful parent of disease, insanity, and death.
At this point of the story Madame Ducamp would no longer be restrained, and returned to the charge with redoubled assertions of her own friendship to “the poor lady,” and bonne nature in general.
“Did you know her, Monsieur?” said she: “alas! she nearly broke my heart by trying to break her own!”
“I have heard of her since I arrived here, Madame,” replied I cautiously.
“Ah! Monsieur, Monsieur,” rejoined Madame Ducamp, “if you had known her as well as Agnes and I did, you would have loved her just as much. I am sure she had been accustomed to grandeur, though I could never découvrir la cause de sa ruine. Ah!” pursued Madame, “she was aimable et honnête beyond description; and though so very poor, paid her louage like a goddess.” At this moment some other matter, perhaps suggested by the word louage, came across the old woman’s brain, and she again trotted off. The remaining intelligence which we gathered from Agnes related chiefly to Mrs. Jordan’s fondness for music and perpetual indulgence therein, and to her own little achievements in the musical way on a guitar, which she produced,—whereby, she told us with infinite naïveté, she had frequently experienced the gratification of playing and singing Madame to sleep! She said that there was some little mutual difficulty in the first place as to understanding each other, since the stranger was ignorant of the French language, and she herself “had not the honour” to speak English. “However,” continued Agnes, “we formed a sort of language of our own, consisting of looks and signs, and in these Madame was more eloquent than any other person I had ever known.” Here the girl’s recollections seemed fairly to overcome her; and with that apparently exaggerated sensibility which is, nevertheless, natural to the character of her country, she burst into tears, exclaiming, “Oh Ciel! oh Ciel!—elle est morte! elle est morte!”[[36]]
[36]. The intermixed French phrases which I have retained in sketching this conversation at Maquetra may perhaps appear affected to some; and I frankly admit there are few things in composition so disagreeable to me as a jumble of words culled from different tongues, and constituting a mélange which advances no just claim to the title of any language whatever. But those who are accustomed to the familiar terms and expressive ejaculations of French colloquy, know that the idiomatic mode of expression only can convey the true point and spirit of the dialogue, and more particularly does this observation apply to the variegated traits of character belonging to French females.
The conversation with Agnes consisted, on her part, nearly of broken sentences throughout—I may say, almost of looks and monosyllables! at all events, of simple and expressive words in a combination utterly unadapted to the English tongue. Let a well-educated and unprejudiced gentleman hold converse on the same topics with an English and a French girl, and his remarks as to the difference will not fail to illustrate what I have said.
Far—very far be it from me to depreciate the fair ones of our own country. I believe that they are steadier and better calculated to describe facts, or to advise in an emergency: but they must not be offended with me for adding, that in the expression of every feeling, either of a lively or tearful nature, as well as in the graces of motion, their elastic neighbours are immeasurably superior. Even their eyes speak idioms which our less pliable language cannot explain. I have seen humble girls in France who speak more in one second than many of our finest ladies could utter in almost a century! Chaqu’un a son goût, however; and I honestly confess, that a sensitive French girl would make but an ill-assorted match with a thorough-bred John Bull!
I cannot help thinking that the deep and indelible impression thus made by Mrs. Jordan upon an humble unsophisticated servant girl exemplifies her kind and winning manners better than the most laboured harangues of a whole host of biographers.
Madame Ducamp meanwhile had been fidgeting about, and arranging every thing to show off her cottage to the greatest advantage; and without further conversation, except as to the price of the tenement, we parted with mutual “assurances of the highest consideration.”
I renewed my visits to the old woman; but her stories were either so fabulous or disconnected, and those of Agnes so unvaried, that I saw no probability of acquiring further information, and lost sight of Mrs. Jordan’s situation for a considerable time after her departure from Boulogne. I thought it, by-the-bye, very extraordinary that neither the mistress nor maid said a word about any attendant of Mrs. Jordan, even although it was not till long after that I heard of Col. Hawker and Miss K * * * * having accompanied her from England. After Mrs. Jordan left Boulogne, it appears that she repaired to Versailles, and subsequently, in still greater privacy, to St. Cloud, where, totally secluded, and under the name of Johnson, she continued to await, with agitated impatience, in a state of extreme depression, the answers to some letters, by which was to be determined her future conduct as to the distressing business that had led her to the continent. Her solicitude arose not so much from the real importance of this affair as from her indignation and disgust at the ingratitude which she had experienced, and which by drawing aside the curtain from before her unwilling eyes, had exposed a novel and painful view of human nature.
At that period I occupied a large hotel adjoining the Bois de Boulogne. Not a mile intervened between us; yet, until long after Mrs. Jordan’s decease, I never heard she was in my neighbourhood. There was no occasion whatever for such entire seclusion; but the anguish of her mind had by this time so enfeebled her, that a bilious complaint was generated, and gradually increased. Its growth did not appear to give her much uneasiness—so dejected and lost had she become. Day after day her misery augmented, and at length she seemed (we were told) actually to regard the approach of dissolution with a kind of placid welcome!
The apartments she occupied at St. Cloud were in a house in the square adjoining the palace. This house appeared to me large, gloomy, cold, and inconvenient; just the sort of place which would tell in description in a romance. It seemed almost in a state of dilapidation. I could not, I am sure, wander over it at night without a superstitious feeling. The rooms were numerous, but small; the furniture scanty, old, and tattered. The hotel had obviously once belonged to some nobleman; and a long, lofty, flagged gallery stretched from one wing of it to the other, which looked over a large uncultivated garden, and a charming country beyond. But Mrs. Jordan’s chambers were wretched: no English comforts solaced her latter moments! In her little drawing-room, a small old sofa was the best piece of furniture: on this she constantly reclined, and on it she expired.[[37]]
[37]. When I first saw Mrs. Jordan’s abode at St. Cloud, it was on a dismal, chilly winter’s day, and I was myself in corresponding mood. Hence perhaps every cheerless object was exaggerated, and I wrote on the spot the above description. I have again viewed the place: again beheld with melancholy interest the sofa on which Mrs. Jordan breathed her last. There it still, I believe, remains; but the whole premises have been repaired, and an English family has now one wing, together with an excellent garden, before overgrown with weeds: the two melancholy cypress-trees I first saw upon the little terrace yet remain. The surrounding prospect is undoubtedly very fine; but I would not, even were I made a present of that mansion, consent to reside in it one month;—in winter, not one night!
The account given to us of her last moments, by the master of the house, was very affecting: he likewise thought she was poor, and offered her the use of money, which offer was of course declined. Nevertheless, he said, he always considered her apparent poverty, and a magnificent diamond ring which she wore, as quite incompatible, and to him inexplicable. I have happened to learn since that she gave four hundred guineas for that superb ring. She had also with her, as I heard, many other valuable trinkets; and on her death, seals were put upon all her effects, which I understand still remain unclaimed.
From the time of her arrival at St. Cloud, it appears, Mrs. Jordan had exhibited the most restless anxiety for intelligence from England. Every post gave rise to increased solicitude, and every letter she received seemed to have a different effect on her feelings. Latterly she appeared more anxious and miserable than usual: her uneasiness increased almost momentarily, and her skin became wholly discoloured. From morning till night she lay sighing upon her sofa.
At length an interval of some posts occurred during which she received no answers to her letters, and her consequent anxiety, my informant said, seemed too great for mortal strength to bear up against. On the morning of her death this impatient feeling reached its crisis. The agitation was almost fearful: her eyes were now restless, now fixed; her motion rapid and unmeaning; and her whole manner seemed to bespeak the attack of some convulsive paroxysm. She eagerly requested Mr. C * * *, before the usual hour of delivery, to go for her letters to the post. On his return, she started up and held out her hand, as if impatient to receive them. He told her there were none. She stood a moment motionless; looked toward him with a vacant stare; held out her hand again, as if by an involuntary action; instantly withdrew it, and sank back upon the sofa from which she had arisen. He left the room to send up her attendant, who however had gone out, and Mr. C * * * returned himself to Mrs. Jordan. On his return, he observed some change in her looks that alarmed him: she spoke not a word, but gazed at him steadfastly. She wept not—no tear flowed: her face was one moment flushed—another livid: she sighed deeply, and her heart seemed bursting. Mr. C * * * stood uncertain what to do: but in a minute he heard her breath drawn more hardly, and as it were sobbingly. He was now thoroughly terrified: he hastily approached the sofa, and leaning over the unfortunate lady, discovered that those deep-drawn sobs had immediately preceded the moment of Mrs. Jordan’s dissolution. She was already no more!
Thus terminated the worldly career of a woman at the very head of her profession, and one of the best-hearted of her sex! Thus did she expire, after a life of celebrity and magnificence, in exile and solitude, and literally of a broken heart! She was buried by Mr. Forster, now chaplain to the ambassador.
Our informant told this little story with a feeling which evidently was not affected. The French have a mode of narrating even trivial matters with gesticulation and detail, whereby they are impressed on your memory. The slightest incident they repeat with emphasis; and on this occasion Mr. C * * * completed his account without any of those digressions in which his countrymen so frequently indulge.
Several English friends at Paris, a few years ago, entered into a determination to remove Mrs. Jordan’s body to Père la Chaise, and place a marble over her grave. The subscription, had the plan been proceeded in, would have been ample; but some (I think rather mistaken) ideas of delicacy at that time suspended its execution. As it is, I believe I may say, “Not a stone tells where she lies!”