[109a] ‘The Brontës at Brussels,’ by Frederika Macdonald.—The Woman at Home, July 1894.
[109b] This statement has received the separate endorsement of the Rev. A. B. Nicholls and of Miss Ellen Nussey.
[110] M. and Mme. Héger celebrated their golden wedding in 1888, but Mme. Héger died the next year. M. Constantin Héger lived to be eighty-seven years of age, dying at 72 Rue Nettoyer, Brussels, on the 6th of May 1896. He was born in Brussels in 1809, took part in the Belgian revolution of 1830, and fought in the war of independence against the Dutch. He was twice married, and it was his second wife who was associated with Charlotte Brontë. She started the school in the Rue d’Isabelle, and M. Héger took charge of the upper French classes. In an obituary article written by M. Colin of L’Etoile Belge in The Sketch (June 5, 1896), which was revised by Dr. Héger, the only son of M. Héger, it is stated that Charlotte Brontë was piqued at being refused permission to return to the Pensionnat a third time, and that Villette was her revenge. We know that this was not the case. The Pensionnat Héger was removed in 1894 to the Avenue Louise. The building in the Rue d’Isabelle will shortly be pulled down.
[121] Pictures of the Past, by Francis H. Grundy, C.E: Griffith & Farran, 1879; Emily Brontë, by A. Mary F. Robinson: W. H. Allen, 1883; The Brontë Family, with Special Reference to Patrick Branwell Brontë, by Francis A. Leyland: Hurst & Blackett, 2 vols. 1886.
[123] After Mr. Brontë’s death Mr. Nicholls removed it to Ireland. Being of opinion that the only accurate portrait was that of Emily, he cut this out and destroyed the remainder. The portrait of Emily was given to Martha Brown, the servant, on one of her visits to Mr. Nicholls, and I have not been able to trace it. There are three or four so-called portraits of Emily in existence, but they are all repudiated by Mr. Nicholls as absolutely unlike her. The supposed portrait which appeared in The Woman at Home for July 1894 is now known to have been merely an illustration from a ‘Book of Beauty,’ and entirely spurious.
[138] There are two portraits of Branwell in existence, both of them in the possession of Mr. Nicholls. One of them is a medallion by his friend Leyland, the other the silhouette which accompanies this chapter. They both suggest, mainly on account of the clothing, a man of more mature years than Branwell actually attained to.
[142] In the Mirror, 1872, Mr. Phillips, under the pseudonym of ‘January Searle,’ wrote a readable biography of Wordsworth.
[145a] Charlotte writes from Dewsbury Moor (October 2, 1836):—‘My sister Emily is gone into a situation as teacher in a large school of near forty pupils, near Halifax. I have had one letter from her since her departure—it gives an appalling account of her duties. Hard labour from six in the morning until near eleven at night, with only one half-hour of exercise between. This is slavery. I fear she will never stand it.’—Mrs. Gaskell’s Life.
[145b] Haworth Churchyard, April 1855, by Matthew Arnold. Macmillan & Co.
[158] See chap. xiii., page 346.