Plantation Reminiscences

by Letitia M. Burwell

And Macaulay gives a painful picture of Madam D’Arblay’s life as waiting maid to Queen Charlotte—from which we are not to infer, however, that all Queens are cruel to their waiting maids.

Madam D’Arblay—whose maiden name was Frances Burney—was the first female novelist in England, who deserved and received the applause of her countrymen. The most eminent men of London paid homage to her genius. Johnson, Burke, Windham, Gibbon, Reynolds, Sheridan, were her friends and ardent eulogists. In the midst of her literary fame, surrounded by congenial friends, herself a star in this select and brilliant coterie, she was offered the place of waiting maid in the palace. She accepted the position, and bade farewell to all congenial friends and pursuits. “And now began,” says Macaulay, “a slavery of five years—of five years taken from the best part of her life, and wasted in menial drudgery. The history of an ordinary day was this: Miss Burney had to rise and dress herself early, that she might be ready to answer the royal bell, which rang at half after seven. Till about eight she attended in the Queen’s dressing-room, and had the honor of lacing her august mistress’ stays, and of putting on the hoop, gown and neckhandkerchief. The morning was chiefly spent in rummaging drawers and laying fine clothes in their proper places. Then the Queen was to be powdered and dressed for the day. Twice a week her Majesty’s hair had to be curled and craped; and this operation added a full hour to the business of the toilet. It was generally three before Miss Burney was at liberty. At five she had to attend her colleague, Madame Schwellenberg, a hateful old toadeater, as illiterate as a chamber-maid, proud, rude, peevish, unable to bear solitude, unable to conduct herself with common decency in society. With this delightful associate Frances Burney had to dine and pass the evening. The pair generally remained together from five to eleven, and often had no other company the whole time. Between eleven and twelve the bell rang again. Miss Burney had to pass a half hour undressing the Queen, and was then at liberty to retire.

“Now and then, indeed, events occurred which disturbed the wretched monotony of Frances Burney’s life. The court moved from Kew to Windsor, and from Windsor back to Kew.

“A more important occurrence was the King’s visit to Oxford. Then Miss Burney had the honor of entering Oxford in the last of a long string of carriages, which formed the royal procession, of walking after the Queen all day through refectories and chapels, and of standing half dead with fatigue and hunger, while her august mistress was seated at an excellent cold collation. At Magdalen College, Frances was left for a moment in a parlor, where she sank down on a chair. A good natured equerry saw that she was exhausted, and shared with her some apricots and bread, which he had wisely put in his pockets. At that moment the door opened, the Queen entered, the wearied attendants sprang up, the bread and fruit were hastily concealed.

“After this the King became very ill, and during more than two years after his recovery Frances dragged on a miserable existence at the palace. Madame Schwellenberg became more and more insolent and intolerable, and now the health of poor Frances began to give way; and all who saw her pale face, her emaciated figure and her feeble walk, predicted that her sufferings would soon be over.

“The Queen seems to have been utterly regardless of the comfort, the health, the life of her attendants. Weak, feverish, hardly able to stand, Frances had still to rise before seven, in order to dress the sweet Queen, and sit up ’till midnight, in order to undress the sweet Queen. The indisposition of the handmaid could not, and did not escape the notice of her royal mistress. But the established doctrine of the court was, that all sickness was to be considered as a pretence until it proved fatal. The only way in which the invalid could clear herself from the suspicion of malingering, as it is called in the army, was to go on lacing and unlacing, ’till she felt down dead at the royal feet.”

Finally Miss Burney’s father pays her a visit in this palace prison when “she told him that she was miserable, that she was worn with attendance and want of sleep, that she had no comfort in life, nothing to love, nothing to hope, that her family and friends were to her as though they were not, and were remembered by her as men remember the dead. From daybreak to midnight the same killing labor, the same recreation, more hateful than labor itself, followed each other without variety, without any interval of liberty or repose.”

Her father’s veneration for royalty amounting to idolatry, he could not bear to remove her from the court—“and, between the dear father and the sweet Queen, there seemed to be little doubt that some day or other Frances would drop down a corpse. Six months had elapsed since the interview between the parent and the daughter. The resignation was not sent in. The sufferer grew worse and worse. She took bark, but it soon failed to produce a beneficial effect. She was stimulated with wine; she was soothed with opium, but in vain. Her breath began to fail. The whisper that she was in a decline spread through the court. The pains in her side became so severe that she was forced to crawl from the card table of the old fury, Madame Schwellenberg, to whom she was tethered, three or four times in an evening, for the purpose of taking hartshorn. Had she been a negro slave, a humane planter would have excused her from work. But her Majesty showed no mercy. Thrice a day the accursed bell still rang; the Queen was still to be dressed for the morning at seven, and to be dressed for the day at noon, and to be undressed at midnight.”

At last Miss Burney’s father was moved to compassion and allowed her to write a letter of resignation. “Still I could not,” writes Miss Burney in her diary, “summon courage to present my memorial from seeing the Queen’s entire freedom from such an expectation. For though I was frequently so ill in her presence that I could hardly stand, I saw she concluded me, while life remained, inevitably hers.”

“At last, with a trembling hand, the paper was delivered. Then came the storm. Madame Schwellenberg raved like a maniac. The resignation was not accepted. The father’s fears were aroused, and he declared, in a letter meant to be shown to the Queen, that his daughter must retire. The Schwellenberg raged like a wild cat. A scene almost horrible ensued.