The Abbé Delille, another fellow-countryman of Sidonius Apollinarius, of the Chancelier de l'Hospital, of La Fayette, of Thomas, of Chamfort[211], had also come to settle in London, after being driven from the Continent by the inundation of the Republican victories. The Emigration was proud to number him in its ranks: he sang our misfortunes, a reason the more for loving his muse. He did a great deal of work; he could not help himself, for Madame Delille locked him up and did not release him until he had earned his day's keep by writing a certain number of verses. I called on him one day, and was kept waiting; then he appeared with very red cheeks: it is said that Madame Delille used to box his ears; I know nothing about it; I only say what I saw.
Who has not heard the Abbé Delille recite his verses? He told a very good story: his ugly, irregular features, lit up by his imagination, went admirably with his affected delivery, with the character of his talent, and with his clerical profession. The Abbé Delille's masterpiece is his translation of the Georgics, with the exception of the sentimental pieces; but it is as though you were reading Racine translated into the language of Louis XV.
The Abbé Delille.
The literature of the eighteenth century, saving a few fine talents which dominate it, standing as it does between the classical literature of the seventeenth century and the romantic literature of the nineteenth, without lacking naturalness lacks nature; given up wholly to arrangements of words, it was neither sufficiently original as a new school, nor sufficiently pure as an ancient school. The Abbé Delille was the poet of the modern country-houses, in the same way as the troubadours were the poets of the old castles; the verses of the one and the ballads of the other point the difference which existed between aristocracy in its prime and aristocracy in its decrepitude: the abbé describes the pleasures of reading and chess in the manor-houses in which the troubadours sang of tourneys and crusades.
The distinguished persons of our Church militant were at that time in England: the Abbé Carron, who wrote the life of my sister Julie; the Bishop of Saint-Pol-de-Léon[212], a stern and narrow-minded prelate, who contributed more and more to estrange M. le Comte d'Artois from his country; the Archbishop of Aix[213], slandered perhaps because of his success in society; another learned and pious bishop, but so avaricious that, had he had the misfortune to lose his soul, he would never have bought it back. Nearly all misers are men of wit: I must be a great fool.
Among the Frenchwomen in the West End was Madame de Boigne[214], amiable, witty, filled with talent, extremely pretty, and the youngest of them all; she has since, together with her father, the Marquis d'Osmond[215], represented the Court of France in England much better than my unsociability has done. She is writing now, and her talents will reproduce admirably all that she has seen[216].
Mesdames de Caumont[217], de Gontaut[218], and du Cluzel also inhabited the quarter of the exiled felicities, if at least I am mistaking Madame de Caumont and Madame du Cluzel, both of whom I had seen for a moment in Brussels. What is quite certain is that Madame la Duchesse de Duras[219] was in London at that time: I was not to know her till ten years later. How often in one's life one passes by that which would constitute its charm, even as the navigator cuts through the waters of a heaven-favoured land which he has only missed by one horizon and one day's sail! I am writing this on the banks of the Thames, and to-day a letter will go by post to tell Madame de Duras, on the banks of the Seine, that I have come across my first memory of her.
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From time to time the Revolution sent us Emigrants of new kinds and opinions; different layers of exiles were formed: the earth contains beds of sand or clay left behind by the waves of the Deluge. One of those waves brought me a man whose loss I mourn to-day, a man who was my guide in literature, and whose friendship was both one of the honours and one of the consolations of my life.
You have read, in an earlier book of these Memoirs, that I had known M. de Fontanes in 1789: it was in Berlin, last year, that I learnt the news of his death. He was born at Niort of a noble Protestant family: his father had had the misfortune to kill his brother-in-law in a duel. Young Fontanes, brought up by a brother of great merit, came to Paris. He saw Voltaire[220] die, and that great representative of the eighteenth century inspired his first verses: his poetic attempts attracted the notice of La Harpe. He undertook some work for the stage, and became intimate with a charming actress, Mademoiselle Desgarcins. Living near the Odéon, wandering around the Chartreuse he celebrated its solitude. He had made a friend destined to become mine, M. Joubert[221]. When the Revolution occurred, the poet became entangled with one of those stationary parties which always remain torn by the progressive party which pulls them forwards and the retrograde party which draws them back. The monarchists attached M. de Fontanes to the staff of the Modérateur. When the bad days began, he took refuge at Lyons, where he married. His wife was confined of a son: during the siege of the town, which the revolutionaries had called "Commune-Affranchie[222]," in the same way as Louis XI., when banishing the citizens, had called Arras "Ville-Franchise[223]," Madame de Fontanes was obliged to move her nursling's cradle in order to place it within shelter from the bombs. Returning to Paris after the 9 Thermidor, M. de Fontanes established the Mémorial[224] with M. de La Harpe and the Abbé de Vauxelles[225]. He was proscribed on the 18 Fructidor, and England became his haven of refuge.