CHAPTER XIII.
EUGÈNE SUE AND CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S BRUSSELS LIFE.
II.
ACCUSATIONS AND PROTESTATIONS!
I have said Eugène Sue, in Miss Mary ou l'Institutrice, gave two phases of Charlotte Brontë. With the one as Mdlle. Lagrange I dealt in the preceding chapter, and now I write concerning that wherein Miss Brontë is openly represented as the Irish governess at the de Morville establishment.[63] Easy it is to recognize this character is a phase of Charlotte Brontë, but as her pupil Alphonsine puts it plainly in describing her, she is "Mdlle. Lagrange, avec la beauté de plus"—Charlotte Brontë, with beauty and virtues exaggerated. The following incident I find only in the feuilleton (not the extant volume), the which circumstances support as history concerning the days of Miss Brontë's dejection at the Brussels pensionnat. It should be read in the light of the lines in Chapter XIX. of The Professor, where she, as Frances Evans Henri, tells Crimsworth, obviously M. Héger, that he remarked her devoirs dwelt a great deal on fortitude in bearing grief. In the evening Alphonsine, M. de Morville's daughter, who says many things we know must have issued from M. Héger's lips—(this is in palpable imitation of Charlotte Brontë's Method I., interchange of the sexes of characters portrayed from life. For further use of this method see also the close of Chapter XII. and elsewhere in The Professor, and my writing on Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre)—pays a visit to the chamber of the Irish governess:—
"Were you not reading?... I see a book on your work-table. May I look?... The Imitation of Christ!" exclaimed Alphonsine, after having read the title-page. "Oh! this is a beautiful book, is it not?"
"Truly beautiful!" answered Mary; "the cover is old, the pages worn out in many places. You must not wonder at it: from the age I began to read, I don't think I ever passed three nights without reading at least one chapter of this admirable work."
The Imitation of Christ in English was a book Charlotte Brontë was setting much store upon when she was but nine years of age.[64] Her copy was then an old one. Evidently she took the book with her to Brussels and read it at the pensionnat. It would seem M. Héger, whom she instructed in English, requested to hear the work in this English translation:—
"Pray what chapter were you reading?" continues Alphonsine. "I should so much like to hear you read it to me: I have occasionally read a page of The Imitation, but always in French; now, if you would be so good as to read slowly and pronounce very distinctly, I think I could understand this pious work in your language."