Clive did not offer to follow her to Scotland, he knew quite well that the encouragement he had had was only of the smallest; that as a relation she received him frankly and kindly enough; but checked him when he would have adopted another character. But it chanced that they met in Paris, whither he went in the Easter of the ensuing year, having worked to some good purpose through the winter, and despatched as on a former occasion his three or four pictures, to take their chance at the Exhibition.
Of these it is our pleasing duty to be able to corroborate to some extent, Mr. F. Bayham’s favourable report. Fancy sketches and historical pieces our young man had eschewed; having convinced himself either that he had not an epic genius, or that to draw portraits of his friends, was a much easier task than that which he had set himself formerly. Whilst all the world was crowding round a pair of J. J,.’s little pictures, a couple of chalk heads were admitted into the Exhibition (his great picture of Captain Crackthorpe on horseback, in full uniform, I must admit was ignominiously rejected), and the friends of the parties had the pleasure of recognising in the miniature room, No. 1246, “Picture of an Officer,”—viz., Augustus Butts, Esq., of the Life Guards Green; and “Portrait of the Rev. Charles Honeyman,” No. 1272. Miss Sherrick the hangers refused; Mr. Binnie, Clive had spoiled, as usual, in the painting; the heads, however, before-named, were voted to be faithful likenesses, and executed in a very agreeable and spirited manner. F. Bayham’s criticism on these performances, it need not be said, was tremendous. “Since the days of Michael Angelo you would have thought there never had been such drawings.” In fact, F. B., as some other critics do, clapped his friends so boisterously on the back, and trumpeted their merits with such prodigious energy, as to make his friends themselves sometimes uneasy.
Mr. Clive, whose good father was writing home more and more wonderful accounts of the Bundelcund Bank, in which he had engaged, and who was always pressing his son to draw for more money, treated himself to comfortable rooms at Paris, in the very same hotel where the young Marquis of Farintosh occupied lodgings much more splendid, and where he lived, no doubt, so as to be near the professor, who was still teaching his lordship the polka. Indeed, it must be said that Lord Farintosh made great progress under this artist, and that he danced very much better in his third season than in the first and second years after he had come upon the town. From the same instructor the Marquis learned the latest novelties in French conversation, the choicest oaths and phrases (for which he was famous), so that although his French grammar was naturally defective, he was enabled to order a dinner at Philippe’s, and to bully a waiter, or curse a hackney-coachman with extreme volubility. A young nobleman of his rank was received with the distinction which was his due, by the French sovereign of that period; and at the Tuileries, and the houses of the French nobility, which he visited, Monsieur le Marquis de Farintosh excited considerable remark, by the use of some of the phrases which his young professor had taught to him. People even went so far as to say that the Marquis was an awkward and dull young man, of the very worst manners.
Whereas the young Clive Newcome—and it comforted the poor fellow’s heart somewhat, and be sure pleased Ethel, who was looking on at his triumphs—was voted the most charming young Englishman who had been seen for a long time in our salons. Madame de Florac, who loved him as a son of her own, actually went once or twice into the world in order to see his début. Madame de Moncontour inhabited a part of the Hotel de Florac, and received society there. The French people did not understand what bad English she talked, though they comprehended Lord Farintosh’s French blunders. “Monsieur Newcome is an artist! What a noble career!” cries a great French lady, the wife of a Marshal to the astonished Miss Newcome. “This young man is the cousin, of the charming mees? You must be proud to possess such a nephew, madame!” says another French lady to the Countess of Kew (who, you may be sure, is delighted to have such a relative). And the French lady invites Clive to her receptions expressly in order to make herself agreeable to the old Comtesse. Before the cousins have been three minutes together in Madame de Florac’s salon, she sees that Clive is in love with Ethel Newcome. She takes the boy’s hand and says, “J’ai votre secret, mon ami;” and her eyes regard him for a moment as fondly, as tenderly, as ever they looked at his father. Oh, what tears have they shed, gentle eyes! Oh, what faith has it kept, tender heart! If love lives through all life; and survives through all sorrow; and remains steadfast with us through all changes; and in all darkness of spirit burns brightly; and, if we die, deplores us for ever, and loves still equally; and exists with the very last gasp and throb of the faithful bosom—whence it passes with the pure soul, beyond death; surely it shall be immortal? Though we who remain are separated from it, is it not ours in Heaven? If we love still those we lose, can we altogether lose those we love? Forty years have passed away. Youth and dearest memories revisit her, and Hope almost wakes up again out of its grave, as the constant lady holds the young man’s hand, and looks at the son of Thomas Newcome.
CHAPTER XLVI.
The Hotel de Florac
Since the death of the Duc d’Ivry, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots, the Comte de Florac, who is now the legitimate owner of the ducal title, does not choose to bear it, but continues to be known in the world by his old name. The old Count’s world is very small. His doctor, and his director, who comes daily to play his game of piquet; his daughter’s children, who amuse him by their laughter, and play round his chair in the garden of his hotel; his faithful wife, and one or two friends as old as himself, form his society. His son the Abbé is with them but seldom. The austerity of his manners frightens his old father, who can little comprehend the religionism of the new school. After going to hear his son preach through Lent at Notre-Dame, where the Abbé de Florac gathered a great congregation, the old Count came away quite puzzled at his son’s declamations. “I do not understand your new priests,” he says; “I knew my son had become a Cordélier; I went to hear him, and found he was a Jacobin. Let me make my salut in quiet, my good Léonore. My director answers for me, and plays a game at trictrac into the bargain with me.” Our history has but little to do with this venerable nobleman. He has his chamber looking out into the garden of his hotel; his faithful old domestic to wait upon him; his House of Peers to attend when he is well enough, his few acquaintances to help him to pass the evening. The rest of the hotel he gives up to his son, the Vicomte de Florac, and Madame la Princesse de Moncontour, his daughter-in-law.
When Florac has told his friends of the Club why it is he has assumed a new title—as a means of reconciliation (a reconciliation all philosophical, my friends) with his wife nee Higg of Manchester, who adores titles like all Anglaises, and has recently made a great succession, everybody allows that the measure was dictated by prudence, and there is no more laughter at his change of name. The Princess takes the first floor of the hotel at the price paid for it by the American General, who has returned to his original pigs at Cincinnati. Had not Cincinnatus himself pigs on his farm, and was he not a general and member of Congress too? The honest Princess has a bedchamber, which, to her terror, she is obliged to open of reception-evenings, when gentlemen and ladies play cards there. It is fitted up in the style of Louis XVI. In her bed is an immense looking-glass, surmounted by stucco cupids: it is an alcove which some powdered Venus, before the Revolution, might have reposed in. Opposite that looking-glass, between the tall windows, at some forty feet distance, is another huge mirror, so that when the poor Princess is in bed, in her prim old curl-papers, she sees a vista of elderly princesses twinkling away into the dark perspective; and is so frightened that she and Betsy, her Lancashire maid, pin up the jonquil silk curtains over the bed-mirror after the first night; though the Princess never can get it out of her head that her image is still there, behind the jonquil hangings, turning as she turns, waking as she wakes, etc. The chamber is so vast and lonely that she has a bed made for Betsy in the room. It is, of course, whisked away into a closet on reception-evenings. A boudoir, rose-tendre, with more cupids and nymphs by Boucher, sporting over door-panels—nymphs who may well shock old Betsy and her old mistress—is the Pricess’s morning-room. “Ah, mum, what would Mr. Humper at Manchester, Mr. Jowls of Newcome” (the minister whom, in early days, Miss Higg used to sit under) “say if they was browt into this room?” But there is no question of Jowls and Mr. Humper, excellent dissenting divines, who preached to Miss Higg, being brought into the Princesse de Moncontour’s boudoir.
That paragraph, respecting a conversion in high life, which F. B. in his enthusiasm inserted in the Pall Mall Gazette, caused no small excitement in the Florac family. The Florac family read the Pall Mall Gazette, knowing that Clive’s friends were engaged in that periodical. When Madame de Florac, who did not often read newspapers, happened to cast her eye upon that poetic paragraph of F. B.’s, you may fancy, with what a panic it filled the good and pious lady. Her son become a Protestant! After all the grief and trouble his wildness had occasioned to her, Paul forsake his religion! But that her husband was so ill and aged as not to be able to bear her absence, she would have hastened to London to rescue her son out of that perdition. She sent for her younger son, who undertook the embassy; and the Prince and Princesse de Moncontour, in their hotel at London, were one day surprised by the visit of the Abbé de Florac.
As Paul was quite innocent of any intention of abandoning his religion, the mother’s kind heart was very speedily set at rest by her envoy. Far from Paul’s conversion to Protestantism, the Abbé wrote home the most encouraging accounts of his sister-in-law’s precious dispositions. He had communications with Madame de Moncontour’s Anglican director, a man of not powerful mind, wrote M. l’Abbé, though of considerable repute for eloquence in his Sect. The good dispositions of his sister-in-law were improved by the French clergyman, who could be most captivating and agreeable when a work of conversion was in hand. The visit reconciled the family to their English relative, in whom good-nature and many other good qualities were to be seen now that there were hopes of reclaiming her. It was agreed that Madame de Moncontour should come and inhabit the Hôtel de Florac at Paris: perhaps the Abbé tempted the worthy lady by pictures of the many pleasures and advantages she would enjoy in that capital. She was presented at her own court by the French ambassadress of that day: and was received at the Tuileries with a cordiality which flattered and pleased her.
Having been presented herself, Madame la Princesse in turn presented to her august sovereign Mrs. T. Higg and Miss Higg, of Manchester, Mrs. Samuel Higg, of Newcome; the husbands of those ladies (the Princess’s brothers) also sporting a court-dress for the first time. Sam Higg’s neighbour, the member for Newcome; Sir Brian Newcome, Bart., was too ill to act as Higg’s sponsor before majesty; but Barnes Newcome was uncommonly civil to the two Lancashire gentlemen; though their politics were different to his, and Sam had voted against Sir Brian at his last election. Barnes took them to dine at a club—recommended his tailor—and sent Lady Clara Pulleyn to call on Mrs. Higg—who pronounced her to be a pretty young woman and most haffable. The Countess of Dorking would have been delighted to present these ladies had the Princess not luckily been in London to do that office. The Hobson Newcomes were very civil to the Lancashire party, and entertained them splendidly at dinner. I believe Mrs. and Mr. Hobson themselves went to court this year, the latter in a deputy-lieutenant’s uniform.