The Story of My Life, volumes 1-3

by Augustus J. C. Hare

Amongst the remarkable persons whom I frequently saw in my earlier Oxford life was the venerable Dr. (Martin Joseph) Routh, President of Magdalen, born 1755, who died in 1854, in his hundredth year. He would describe his mother as having known a lady who had met Charles II. walking round the parks at Oxford with his dogs. He had himself seen Dr. Johnson "scrambling up the steps of University." In him I myself saw a man of the type of Dr. Johnson, and of much the same dress, and even ponderous manner of speaking. I remember Goldwin Smith once asking him how he did, and his replying, "I am suffering, sir, from a catarrhal cold, which, however, sir, I take to be a kind provision of Nature to relieve the peccant humours of the system." His recollections of old Oxford extended naturally over the most immense period. Sir George Dasent has told me that the President once asked him, "Did you ever hear, sir, of Gownsman's Gallows?"—"No, Mr. President."—"What, sir, do you tell me, sir, that you never heard of Gownsman's Gallows? Why, I tell you, sir, that I have seen two undergraduates hanged on Gownsman's Gallows in Holywell—hanged, sir, for highway robbery."

A few years before the President's death, when he was at Ewelme, his living in the country, his butler became insane and had to be sent away. When he was leaving, he begged to see the President once more, "to ask his blessing," as he said. The President received him in the garden, where the man, stooping as if to kiss his hand, bit it—bit a piece out of it. "How did you feel, Mr. President," said Sir G. Dasent afterwards, "when the man bit your hand?"—"Why, at first, sir," said the President, "I felt considerably alarmed; for I was unaware, sir, what proportion of human virus might have been communicated by the bite; but in the interval of reaching the house, I was convinced that the proportion of virus must have been very small indeed: then I was at rest, but, sir, I had the bite cauterised." It was often observed of Dr. Routh that he never appeared on any occasion without his canonicals, which he wore constantly. Some ill-disposed undergraduates formed a plan which should force him to break this habit, and going under his window at midnight, they shouted "Fire." The President appeared immediately and in the most terrible state of alarm, but in full canonicals.

It was only forty-eight hours before Dr. Routh died that his powers began to fail. He ordered his servants to prepare rooms for a Mr. and Mrs. Cholmondeley, who had been long since dead, and then they felt sure the end was come. They tried to get him upstairs to bed, but he struggled with the banisters as with an imaginary enemy. He then spoke of pedigrees, and remarked that a Mr. Edwards was descended from two royal families: he just murmured something about the American war, and then he expired. He left his widow very ill provided for, but the college gave her a handsome income.

On reaching home in the summer of 1854, all the anxieties of the previous winter about my mother's health were renewed. She was utterly incapable of either any physical or any mental effort, and my every minute was occupied in an agony of watchfulness over her. I felt then, as so often since, that the only chance of her restoration was from the elasticity of foreign air, and then, as so often since, was my misery and anxiety increased by the cruel taunts of my aunts, who protested that I was only trying to drag her away from home, at a sacrifice to her comfort, from a most selfish desire for my own amusement. However, when a short stay at Southborough and Eastbourne seemed rather to increase than cure the malady, the absolute decision of her doctor caused the talked-of journey to be accomplished, and we set out for Switzerland, accompanied by Charlotte Leycester,—my mother, as usual, being quite delighted to go abroad, and saying, "I have no doubt as soon as I reach Boulogne I shall be quite well,"—a result which was very nearly obtained. We lingered first at Fontainebleau, with its pompous but then desolate château, and gardens brilliant with blue larkspurs and white feverfew—the commonest plants producing an effect I have seldom seen elsewhere. A pet trout, certainly of enormous age, and having its scales covered with a kind of fungus, was alive then, and came up for biscuit: it was said to have belonged to Marie Antoinette. At Chalons we took the steamer down the Saône, and a picture that dwells with me through life is that of the glorious effect, as we entered Lyons, of the sun suddenly bursting through the dark thunderclouds and lighting up every projection of roof and window in the tall houses which lined the quay and the bright figures beneath. I have often been at Lyons since, but have never cared for it as I did then, when we stayed long enough to enjoy S. Martin d'Ainay, and the picturesque ascent to the Fouvières and noble view from its terrace, and to marvel at the vast collection of votive offerings, memorials of those who prayed to the Virgin in danger and were protected by her, while we wondered where the memorials of those were who invoked her and whose prayers were not answered. My mother went straight from Lyons to Aix-les-Bains by voiturier, but I lingered to see the beauties of Vienne, and followed by steamer up the Rhone and Lac de Bourget with my Southgate friend Walter Portman.[97] We found Aix terribly hot, and generally spent the evenings by or on the lake, where one day my mother, Lea, and I were in some danger, being caught in a tremendous burrasco. Thence a most wearisome journey voiturier took us from Aix to Geneva, a place for which I conceived the most intense aversion, from its hot baking situation, and the illiberal and presumptuous "religion" of its inhabitants. While there, in a hotel facing the lake, I was called up in the middle of the night to Lea, who was very alarmingly ill, and while attending to and trying to calm her, was roused by shrieks of "Fire" in the street, and saw the opposite house burst into flame. Alarm-bells rang, engines were summoned, crowds arrived, and only a change in the wind saved us from destruction or flight. We moved afterwards to the Hôtel des Etrangers, a house in a damp garden near the lake. Here we were seated almost alone at the little table-d'hôte when we heard the most extraordinary hissing and rushing sound, like a clock being wound up, and a very little lady entered, who seemed to be impelled into the room, followed by her husband. On reaching her chair, several loud clicks resulted in her being lifted into it as by invisible power! It was Mrs. Archer Clive, the then celebrated authoress of "Paul Ferroll," who had no legs, and moved by clock-work.

While at Geneva, I saw many of its peculiar celebrities, especially M. Gaussen and M. Merle d'Aubigné, the historian of the Reformation, whose real name was only Merle, the sequence having been adopted from his former residence. He had a very striking appearance, his hair being quite grey, but his shaggy eyebrows deep black, with a fine forehead and expression. Another person we saw was M. Berthollet, with an enormous head. It was with difficulty that any of these persons could be convinced that our sole object in coming to Geneva was not to see a certain pasteur, of whom we had never even heard. We visited Ferney, which thrives upon the unpleasant memory of Voltaire, who had a villa there, in which we saw the tomb of—his heart! The inn has as its sign a portrait of him in his French wig.

We spent a pleasant afternoon at Colonel Tronchin's lovely villa. He was a most excellent man, and one could not help seeing how nobly and unostentatiously he employed his large fortune for the good of others. Yet one could not help seeing also how many of his followers put up their religious scruples like an umbrella to ward off whatever was not quite to their liking—how "No, I could not think of it; it would be against my conscience," became at Geneva, as elsewhere, very liable to be said in pure selfishness.

My mother's sufferings from the heat led to our going from Geneva to Chamounix. On the way we slept at St. Martin. As I was drawing there upon the bridge, a little girl came to beg, but beggars were so common that I paid no attention to her entreaties, till her queer expression attracted me, and a boy who came up at the same time described her as an "abandonnée," for her father was in prison, her sister dead, and her mother had deserted her and gone off to Paris. The child, who had scarcely an apology for being clothed, verified this in a touching and at the same time an elf-like way—grinning and bemoaning her sorrows in the same breath. Charlotte Leycester gave her four sous, with which she was so enchanted that she rushed away, throwing her hands into the air and making every demonstration of delight, and we thought we should see no more of her. However, in going home, we found her under a wall on the other side of the bridge, where she showed us with rapture the bread she had been able to buy with the money which had been given her. An old woman standing by told us about her—how wonderfully little the child lived on, sleeping from door to door, and how extraordinary her spirits still were. It was so odd a case, and there was something so interesting in the child, that we determined to follow her, and see where she really would go to sleep. To our surprise, instead of guiding us through the village, she took her way straight up the woods on the mountain-side, by a path which she assured us was frequented by wolves. It was very dark, and the place she led us to was most desolate—some châlets standing by themselves in the woods, almost at the foot of the mountain; the glass gone from the windows, which were filled up with straw and bits of wood. Meantime we had made out from the child that her name was Toinette, daughter of François Bernard, and that she once lived in the neighbouring village of Passy, where her home had been burnt to the ground, a scene which she described with marvellous gesticulations. She seemed to have conceived the greatest affection for Charlotte. When asked if she knew that it was wrong to lie and steal, she said, "Rather than steal, I would have my head cut off, like the people in the prisons. I pray every day, and my prayer shall be always for you, Madame."

A great dog flew out of the cottage at us, but Toinette drove it away, and called out a woman who was standing in the doorway. The woman said she knew nothing of Toinette, but that she had implored to sleep there about three weeks before, and that she had slept there ever since; and then the child, caressing her and stroking her cheeks, begged to be allowed to do the same again. The woman offered to go with us to another house, where the people knew the child better. On arriving, we heard the inmates at prayers inside, singing a simple litany in responses. Afterwards they came out to speak to us. They said it was but for a very small matter François Bernard was imprisoned, as he had only stolen some bread when he was starving, but that, if he came back, he could do nothing for Toinette, and as her uncles were idiots, there was nobody to take care of her: if we wished to do anything for her, we had better speak to the Syndic, who lived higher up the mountain; so thither we proceeded, with Toinette and all her female friends in our train.

It was a strange walk, by starlight through the woods, and a queer companionship of rough kind-hearted people. Toinette, only seven years old, laughed and skipped over the stones, holding Charlotte's gown, and declaring she would never leave her. We had expected to find the magistrate living in a better house than the others, but it was like its neighbours—a little brown châlet by the side of a torrent. The Syndic was already in bed, but Madame, his wife, speedily got him up, and we held a parley with him on the wooden staircase, all the other people standing below. He said that there were no workhouses, no orphan asylums, and that though it was a bad case, the commune had no funds; school did not open till October, and even if Toinette got work there was no lodging for her at night. However, when Charlotte promised to clothe her, he was so much enchanted with the "grandeur de sa charité," that he said he would consult with the commune about Toinette. Meantime, in the morning Charlotte bought her some clothes, and settled something for her future; but before we left we saw that she must not be too much indulged, as she asked Charlotte, who had given her a frock, shoes, and hat, to give her also some bonbons and a parasol!

We heard of Toinette Bernard for some years afterwards, and Charlotte Leycester sent annual remittances for her; but eventually she absconded, and utterly disappeared like a waif.