\"Madame d'Arblay ne peut qu'tre infiniment flatte de l'extrme bont de Madame la Comtesse de Stael. Elle aura trs certainement l'honneur de se prsenter chez Madame de Stael aussitt que possible."(179)
Cooler than this it was not easy to write, and the ne peut qu'tre is a tournure that is far enough from flattering. I hope, however, it will prepare her for the frozen kind of intercourse which alone can have place between us.
MADAME DE LAFAYETTE.
As I wished much to see the parade, or review, which was to take place on the 5th, and is only once a month, we were forced to devote the preceding day to visits, as it was decreed in our council of etiquette that I could not appear in a place where I might be seen by those who had shown me the civility of beginning an acquaintance, till I had acknowledged my debt to them. . . . I was so thoroughly tired when I returned from all these visits, that I was forced to rest upon a bed for the remainder of the day, to my no small discomposure before the evening was closed; for, in a close cap, my feet in their native, undraperied state, hidden by a large, long, wrapping morning Page 222 gown, your daughter, my dearest sir, lay reclined on a bed when, rather late in the evening, I was told Madame d'Henin was in the salon. I was going to send in my excuses, while I rose to get ready for waiting upon her - but Alex flung open the door, and seeing where I was, and how fatigued, she insisted on my keeping still, and came to my bedside, and sat in friendly converse, listening to the history of my morning excursion, till a ring at the bell of our ante-room made me desire to have nobody admitted. Alex again, however, frisking about, prevented Pauline, my little femme de chambre, from hearing me, and she announced Madame de Lafayette!
You may easily believe this name, and my present situation, put me into no small commotion. I was beseeching Madame d'Henin to go to the saloon with my apologies, when Alex, whose illness, though it has diminished his strength and his flesh, has left his spirits as wild as ever, called out to proclaim where I was, and while Madame Lafayette was gently moving on, flung the bedroom door wide open, saying, "Mamma is here! " Madame Lafayette, concluding, I suppose, that I received du monde in the French manner, immediately presented herself at the door, where I had no resource but to entreat Madame d'Henin, who is her intimate friend, to receive her, for I was wholly powerless, with my unsandaled feet, from rising. Madame d'Henin now brought her to my bedside, where nothing could have been more awkward than my situation : but that the real reverence I had conceived for her character and her virtues made the sight of so singular a person, her condescension in the visit, and her goodness, though lame, in mounting three pair of stairs, give me a sensation of pleasure, that by animating my spirits, endowed me with a courage that overcame all difficulties both of language and position, and enabled me to express my gratitude for her kindness and my respect for her person, with something far nearer to fluency and clearness than anything in speech I have yet attempted. My mind instantly presented her to me, torn from her beloved family, and thrown into the death-impending prison of Robespierre ; and then saved by his timely destruction from the scaffold, and then using her hardly-recovered liberty only by voluntarily sacrificing it to be immured with her husband in the dungeon of Olmtz.(180) Various as may be the opinions of Page 223
the politics of M. de Lafayette, all Europe, I believe,'concur in admiration of the character and conduct of his virtuous and heroic wife. Indeed, nothing since my arrival has so sensibly gratified me, from without, as this visit.
Madame Lafayette is the daughter of the ci-devant Duc d'Ayen, and consequently niece of Madame de Tess, the duke's sister. She was married to M. de Lafayette when she was only seventeen years of age. By some cold or mismanagement, and total want of exercise in the prison of Olmtz, some humour has fallen into one of her ankles, that, though it does not make her absolutely lame, causes walking to be so painful and difficult to her that she moves as little as possible, and is always obliged to have a stool for her foot. She now resides with M. de Lafayette and their three children entirely in the country, at a chateau which has descended to her since the revolutionary horrors and therefore has not been confiscated, called "La Grange." They never come to Paris but upon business of positive necessity. She had arrived only this morning on a visit to her aunt, Madame de Tess, to make some preparations for the approaching marriage of her only son.
Her youngest daughter, Mademoiselle de Lafayette, accompanied her. She is a blooming young creature of English fairness-as we English choose to say-with a bright native colour, and beautiful light hair ; otherwise with but indifferent features, and not handsome : yet her air, though modest even to the extreme that borders upon bashfulness, is distinguished, and speaks her to be both sensible and well brought up.
Madame de Lafayette, also, is by no means handsome; but has eyes so expressive, so large, and so speaking, that it is not easy to criticise her other features, for it is almost impossible to look at them. Her manner is calm and mild, yet noble. She is respected even by surrounding infidels for her genuine piety, which, in the true character of true religion, is severe only for herself, lenient and cheerful for all others. I do not say this from what I could see in the hour she was so good as to pass with me, but from all I have heard.
She warmly invited me to La Grange, and requested me to name an early day for passing some time there. I proposed