The harp and piano were then brought forward and this was the most trying part of all—not from any want of skill in the performers, for the majority were perfect on both instruments, but from the nature of the performances themselves. France is not renowned for native music, but neither Italian genius, nor German science, has produced more exquisite little snatches of melody than are to be found in some of the nooks and corners of the provinces. Paris is, like other capitals, an epitome of the world; but Languedoc, the wild country of Auvergne, the Vosges mountains, the hidden and quiet vales of Normandy, and even the melancholy sands of the Breton, have airs of singular and characteristic sweetness. Gretry and Rousseau were but their copyists. Sorrow, solitude, and love, are every where, and their inspiration is worth all the orchestras in the globe.
Those simple airs were more congenial to the depressed spirits of the whole assemblage than the most showy bravuras; and, sung by those handsome creatures—for beauty adds a charm to everything—retained me spell-bound. But, on the performers, and their circle of hearers, the effect was indescribable. All the world knows, that there is nothing which revives memories like music. Those were the airs which they had heard and sung from their infancy; the airs of their early companionships, hopes, and perhaps loves; sung in their gardens, their palaces, at their parents' knees, by the cradles of their children, at their firesides, every where combining with the heart. Sung now in their exile, they brought back to each heart some recollection of the happiest scenes and fondest ties of its existence. No power of poetry, nor even of the pencil, could have brought the past so deeply, so touchingly, with such living sensibility, before them. There at least, was no acting, no display, no feigned feeling—their country, their friends, the perils of husband and brother in the field, the anguish, almost the agony, of woman's affection—and what can equal that affection?—was in the gestures and countenances of all before me. Some wept silently and abundantly; some buried their faces on their knees, and by the heaving of their bosoms alone, showed how they felt; some sat with their large eyes fixed on heaven, and their lips moving as in silent prayer; some almost knelt, with hands clasped and eyes bent down, in palpable supplication. Stranger as I was to them and theirs, it was painful even to me. I felt myself doubly an intruder, and was thinking how I might best glide away, when I saw Mariamne, in an attempt like my own, to move, suddenly fall at the feet of the duchess. She had fainted. I carried her into the open air, where she soon recovered. "Do you wish to return, Mariamne?" said I. She looked at me with amazement. "Return! It would kill me. Let us go home." I placed her on her horse, and we moved quietly and sadly away.
"That was a strange scene," said I, after a long interval of silence.
"Very," was the laconic reply.
"I am afraid it distressed you," I observed.
"I would not have seen it for any consideration, if I could have known what it was;" she answered with a new gush of tears. "Yet what must my feelings be to theirs? They lose every thing."
"But they bear the loss nobly. Still they have not lost all, when they can excite such sympathy in the mind of England. They have found at least an asylum; but what was the object of this singular meeting?"
"Oh, who can tell what they are dreaming of in their distraction?" she said with a deep sigh. "It was probably to turn their talents to some account; to send their works to London, and live by them—poor things, how little they know of London!—or, perhaps, to try their chance as teachers, and break their hearts in the trial. Revolutions are terrible things!" We lapsed into silence again.
"I pity most the more advanced in life," I resumed. "They have been so long accustomed to all the splendours of Paris, that living here must be felt with incurable humiliation. The young are more elastic, and bear misfortune by the mere spirit of youth; and the lovely find friends every where. Did you observe the noble air, the almost heroine look, of that incomparable girl who first showed her drawing?" Mariamne shot a quick glance at me.
"You have quite forgotten her name, I suppose?" said she, with a scrutinizing look.