"J'avais arrêté un appartement pour une semaine, mais une voix me dit, 'Pars,' et je savais qu'il y'avait du danger. Je fis appeler la maîtresse de l'hôtel. Je lui dis, 'Je vous payerai tout ce que vous voulez, mais je dois partir. Faites attendre dix minutes la malle-poste pour Marseilles.' J'arrive à Marseilles fatiguée. Je me repose sur un lit. Il faisait déjà nuit. J'appelais ma femme de chambre et je lui dis, 'Je veux sortir.' Je sors. J'avance. Je retourne. Ah, mon Dieu! qu'est ce que c'est? J'ai peur: je tremble: je ne sais pourquoi. 'Annette, suivez-moi,' je dis. J'avance encore. Je monte les rues étroites de Marseilles. J'arrête. Oh, mon Dieu! qu'est que c'est que je vois—une rue! Je ne puis plus avancer, mais qu'est que c'est cette rue? Je tourne: je monte la rue en frémissant. 'Annette, suivez-moi.' J'arrête. Je vois une maison—une fenêtre. La maison est fermée. C'est ici. Je mésure la distance de cette maison à la maison vis-à-vis. Une, deux, trois, quatre. La police me suivait. Ils soupçonnaient quelque chose, mais je disais, 'Qu'est que c'est que cela—une maison, une fenêtre?' La police entre dans la maison, dans cette fenêtre elle y trouva une machine infernale. Napoleon était sauvé: il devait y passer le lendemain."
From her extraordinary powers of second-sight, supernatural gifts were attributed by ignorant persons, and to her own great distress, to Madame de Trafford. The poor around her, both in Touraine and at Paris, often implored her to heal their sick, insisting that she could do so if she would, for she had the power.
"J'allais à la Madeleine un dimanche pour la messe. La fille de mon cocher avait ête bien malade depuis longtemps. Je demandais à mon cocher en descendant à l'église comment se portait sa fille. 'Elle a demandé Madame de Trafford,' disait-il en pleurant, 'jusqu'à son dernier moment.'—'Comment, Florimond,' lui dis-je, 'que voulez vous dire?'—'Elle est morte,' disait il en sanglotant: 'elle est morte hier à minuit.'—'Ah,' disais-je, et je descendais de la voiture. 'Florimond, pourquoi ne m'avez-vous pas fait appeler?' J'entrais à l'église, mais je ne pouvais rester tranquille. Je sentais que je ne pouvais rester pour la messe, et je sortis. Je remonte en voiture. 'Florimond, au grand trot,' lui dis-je, 'chez vous.'—'Chez moi, Madame,' dit-il; 'ah, il est trop tard; ah, si vous étiez venue plutôt, Madame, mais le pauvre enfant a déjà changé,' et le pauvre homme pleurait; ah! combien il aimait cet enfant. Nous arrivons. Je descends vite. Je monte. J'entre. J'ouvre la porte. Déjà on avait placé un linceul sur le corps de la jeune fille: on se preparait à l'ensevelir. La mère et la garde-malade étaient dans la chambre. Je fis sortir la garde. J'approche le lit. Je jette par terre chapeau et mantelle. Je lève le linceul. Ah! je n'avais jamais vu un mort: je ne puis vous dire l'effêt que cela me fit. Déjà depuis si peu d'heures! Il avait treize heures qu'elle était morte, et les levres étaient serrées: tout le contour de la bouche était décoloré. Je m'approchais. 'Seigneur,' dis-je, 'je ne vous ai rien demandé jusqu'à ce jour: je vous demande aujourd'hui la vie de cet enfant. Oh, Seigneur, c'est la fille unique, rendez donc, je vous en supplie, rendez donc cette fille à sa mère.' Alors une voix d'un mauvais esprit me dit, 'Tu peux rendre la vie: tu as le pouvoir.' Mais je répondis, 'Moi, je ne puis rien, je ne suis rien; mais, Seigneur, vous avez le pouvoir, vous seul pouvez tout; rendez donc, je vous supplie, rendez donc cette fille à sa mère.' Je passais la main sur la figure de l'enfant: je le prends par la main. 'Lève-toi,' lui dis-je, et la jeune fille se levait en sursaut! mais ses yeux étaient encore fermés, et tout doucement elle dit ces paroles, 'Madame T.. r.. a.. fford.. je.. vais.. dormir.' Les couleurs revenaient tout doucement dans ses joues. Je me retournais à la mère: 'Votre fille dormait,' dis-je. Je quittais la maison. Je commandais qu'on lui donnait à manger. 'Florimond,' dis-je à mon cocher, 'vous pouvez monter: votre fille n'est pas morte—elle dort.' Je quittais Paris sur-le-champ."[267]
The generosity of Madame de Trafford knew no bounds. Once she went to Bourges. She arrived at the hotel and ordered dinner. The waiter said dinner could not be ready for an hour. She asked what she could do to occupy the hour. The man suggested that she could visit the cathedral. She said she had often seen the cathedral of Bourges: "what else?" The man suggested the convent of Ursuline nuns on the other side of the street. "Yes," she said, she was much interested in education, she was much interested in Ursuline nuns—she would go to them.
A nun showed her everything, and she expressed herself much pleased; but the nun looked very sad and melancholy, and at last Madame de Trafford asked her what made her look so miserable. "Oh," said the nun, "it is from a very peculiar circumstance, which you, as a stranger, could not enter into."—"Never mind," said Madame de Trafford, "tell me what it is?"—"Well," said the nun, "since you insist upon knowing, many convents were founded in the Middle Ages by persons who had very peculiar ideas about the end of the world. They believed that the world could not possibly endure beyond a certain number of years, and they founded their institutions with endowments to last for a time which they believed to be far beyond the possible age of the world. Now our convent was founded on that principle, and the time till which our convent was founded comes to an end to-morrow. To-morrow there are no Ursuline nuns of Bourges: to-morrow we have no convent—we cease to exist."—"Well," said Madame de Trafford, "but is there no other house you could have, where you could be re-established?"—"Oh, yes," said the nun, "there is another house to be had, a house on the other side of the street, which would do very well for a convent, but to establish us there would cost £3000. We are under vows of poverty, we have no money, so it is no use thinking about it."—"Well," said Madame de Trafford, "if you can have the house, it is a very fortunate circumstance that Mr. Trafford sent me a bill for £3000 this morning: there it is. You can have your convent." This story my sister had from the nuns of Bourges: it was her second-sight of the trouble overhanging them which had taken Madame de Trafford to Bourges.
Amongst the most extraordinary of the dictations of Madame de Trafford are those which state that she was really the person (accidentally walking and botanising on those mountains) who appeared out of a dense fog to the two children of La Salette, and whom they took for a vision of the Virgin.
People who have heard our histories of Madame de Trafford have often asked if I have ever seen her myself. I never did. The way in which I have been brought nearest to her was this. One day I had gone to visit Italima and Esmeralda at their little lodging in Chester Terrace, in the most terrible time of their great poverty. I was standing with my sister in the window, when she said, "Oh, how many people there are that I knew in the world who would give me five pounds if they knew what it would be to me now. Oh, how many people there are that would do that, but they never think of it." Esmeralda thought no one was listening, but Italima, who was sitting on the other side of the room, and who was then in the depths of her terrible despair, caught what she was saying, and exclaimed, "Oh, Esmeralda, that is all over; no one will ever give you five pounds again as long as you live."
Three days after I went to see them again. While I was there, the postman's knock was heard at the door, and an odd-looking envelope was brought up, with a torn piece of paper inside it, such as Madame de Trafford wrote upon. On it were these words: "As I was sitting in my window in Beaujour this morning, I heard your voice, and your voice said, 'Oh, how many people there are that I knew in the world who would give me five pounds if they knew what it would be to me now! Oh, how many people there are that would do that, but they never think of it.' So I just slipped this five-pound note into an envelope, and here it is." And in the envelope was a five-pound note.
"J'étais là; telle chose m'advint." I was present on both these occasions. I was there when my sister spoke the words, and I was there when the letter came from Madame de Trafford sending the five-pound note, and repeating not only my sister's words, but the peculiar form of reduplication which she so constantly used, and which is so common in Italy when it is desired to make a thing emphatic.
Esmeralda spent the greater part of the summer at Mrs. Thorpe's, where I frequently visited her. She was soon deep in affairs of every kind, far too much for her feeble frame, as she added incessant religious work to her necessary legal worries. She would go anywhere or bear anything in order to bring over any one to the Roman Catholic Church, and was extraordinarily successful in winning converts. Her brother William had already, I think, been "received," and her little sister-in-law, Mrs. William Hare, was "received" about this time. Esmeralda's most notable success, however, had been in the case of Mr. and Mrs. T. G. When she was living in Sloane Street, she heard accidentally that Mrs. G. was wavering in her religious opinions. Esmeralda did not know her, but she drove immediately to her house at ten o'clock in the morning, and by four o'clock that afternoon not only Mrs. G., but her husband, had been received into the Roman Catholic Church.