PAMELA AT BELLECHASSE
The Schooldays of Lady Edward Fitzgerald
“Pale, pretty Pamela!” So charming a picture she makes, in her husband’s letters to his mother, as she sits in the window by the garden of Kildare Lodge, daintily stitching for her baby; or out in the garden (while he sits in the window) “busy in her little American jacket planting sweet pea and mignonette”; or in stately Leinster House, making for him a point of light in its gloom, of comfort in its loneliness, with her baby in her arms, “her sweet, pale, delicate face bending over it, and the pretty look she gives it,” that our hearts are hers for all time. Even the sordid story of the after years cannot alienate them from her. For us, in Ireland, whatever France may have done with her during the hard and pitiless “twenties” of the nineteenth century, she lives for ever, set by her husband’s love in an atmosphere of eternal youth, of eternal romance—lovely and pale, and sweet—Lord Edward’s girl-wife.
This is why, having come across, in the Mémoires of her mother, Madame de Genlis, an account of the education shared by Pamela with the Orléans children at the Convent of Bellechasse, I felt convinced that my readers would be grateful to me for setting the story of it down at the end of this book I have gathered, not of hero-lays indeed, but of tales of little girls’ school lives in many ages and many lands.
Apart altogether from our special interest in Pamela, as Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s wife, it is true that Madame de Genlis is too important a figure in the history of education to be passed over in silence. Through Miss Edgeworth’s Moral Tales, in which it is impossible to mistake her influence, her ideas have influenced middle-class education in Ireland as far down as the present generation at least (as distinct from the “rising” generation, which will doubtless be preserved from them by the thoughtfulness of our Education Boards in prescribing Miss Edgeworth’s works for examination purposes). In this connection it would be extremely interesting to inquire how far the outlook of the Irish Bourgeoisie, which gives such offence to Mr. Yeats, can be laid at the charge of Madame de Genlis.
In herself, that good lady united two oddly dissimilar educational traditions, that of Madame de Maintenon, and that of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau, perhaps, more because he was the fashion, and Madame de Maintenon by conscious selection. But there was one aspect of Madame de Maintenon’s system, which Madame de Genlis was, unhappily, unable to assimilate, because there was wanting in her own the deep and genuine piety which gives such strength to Madame de Maintenon.
It was in 1777, when the little twin Orléans Princesses were tiny babies, that Madame de Genlis (in accordance with a promise to their mother made before their birth: that she should take charge of their education), withdrew from her brilliant position as Court Lady at the Palais Royal, to the seclusion of the Convent of Bellechasse. She does not omit to point out what a sacrifice she was making, but then—what will she not do for her dear Duke and Duchess?
If the truth must be told, the sacrifice was more apparent than real. It is easy enough to gather from Madame’s own hints that her position at the Palais Royal, where she had made many enemies, was not altogether pleasant. Moreover, she was shrewd enough to see that in the new career as “gouvernante” of these royal children, there was a chance of distinction for a woman of her very real talents and intelligence which could never be gained at Court.
Clever actress and dramatist that she was, she never took more pains with her setting than on this occasion. She herself had drawn the plans “for the charming pavilion in the midst of the convent garden,” where she and her pupils were to live. Hers, too, of course, was the idea of the vine-covered pergola which connected it with the convent. The ceremony of installation was arranged, one may be sure, by her, though she passes it off as a “gentillesse” of the community. “I felt nothing but joy in entering this peaceable asylum where I was to exercise so sweet a sovereignty: I reflected that I should be able to give myself up to my real tastes, and I should be no longer exposed to the malice which had caused me such pain.”
There was not very much “seclusion” for the first few days, at all events. Everybody of her acquaintance, whether at the Palais Royal, or out of it, had heard so much of the establishment at Bellechasse that there was a rush to see it. Madame de Genlis, for all her “quiet” tastes, had the greatest pleasure in the world showing them round. “Everyone was enchanted with the place, which was really charming. I had in my room a large alcove, of which my bed only occupied the half; from it, there opened a passage, leading to the Princesses’ room, where a glass door without a curtain enabled me to see from my own bed everything that was going on. One of the rooms of the suite held in glass-cases my whole natural history collection. This and my bureau were all I had brought with me from the Palais Royal.” You will never guess why the “bureau” has such importance until Madame tells you that “she was the first woman to have a bureau,” and was very much criticised for it, though now it was all the fashion.