Diary And Notes Of Horace Templeton, Esq. Volume I

Charles James Lever

Diary And Notes Of Horace Templeton, Esq. Volume I (of II)

CHAPTER I

Hôtel des Princes, Paris

It is a strange thing to begin a “Log” when the voyage is nigh ended! A voyage without chart or compass has it been: and now is land in sight – the land of the weary and heart-tired!

Here am I, at the Hôtel des Princes, en route for Italy, whither my doctors have sentenced me! What a sad record would be preserved to the world if travellers were but to fill up, with good faith, the police formula at each stage of the journey, which asks, “the object of the tour!” How terribly often should we read the two short words – “To Die.” With what sorrowful interest would one gaze at the letters formed by a trembling hand; and yet how many would have to write them! Truly, the old Italian adage, “Vedere Napole es poi morire” has gained a new signification; and, unhappily, a far more real one.

This same practice of physicians, of sending their patients to linger out the last hours of life in a foreign land, is, to my thinking, by no means so reprehensible as the generality of people make out. It is a theme, however, on which so many commonplaces can be strung, that common-place people, who, above all others, love their own eloquence, never weary of it. Away from his children – from his favourite haunts – from the doctors that understood his case – from his comfortable house – from the family apothecary, – such are the changes they ring; and if dying were to be done often, there would be much reason in all this. But it is not so; this same change occurs but once, and its approach brings with it a new train of thoughts and feelings from all that we have ever felt before. In that twilight hour of life, objects that have escaped our vision in the blaze of noon-day become clear and distinct; and, even to the least reflecting of minds, an increased power of perception and judgment is accorded – the viaticum for the coming journey!

I remember being greatly affected by the stories in the “Diary of a Physician,” when first I read them: they were powerfully written – and so real! Now this is the very quality they want: they are altogether unreal.

Terrific and heart-stirring as the death-bed scenes are, they are not true to nature: the vice and the virtue are alike exaggerated. Few, very few persons can bring themselves by an effort to believe that they are dying – easy as it seems, often as we talk of it, frequent as the very expression becomes in a colloquialism, it is still a most difficult process; but once thoroughly felt, there is an engrossing power, in the thought that excludes all others.’

At times, indeed, Hope will triumph for a brief interval, and “tell of bright days to come.” Hope! the glorious phantom that we follow up the Rhine – through the deep glens of the Tyrol, and over the Alps! – Only content to die when we have lost it!

There are men to whom the truth, however shocking, is always revealed – to whom the Lawyer says, “You have no case,” and the Physician confesses, “You have no constitution.” Happily or unhappily – I will not deny it may be both – I am one of these. Of the three doctors summoned to consult on my health, one spoke confidently and cheeringly; he even assumed that kind of professional jocularity that would imply, “the patient is making too much of it.” The second, more reserved from temperament, and graver, counselled caution and great care – hinted at the danger of the malady – coupling his fears with the hopes he derived from the prospect of climate. The third (he was younger than either of the others, and of inferior repute,) closed the door after them, and resumed his seat.

I waited for some time expecting him to speak, but he sat in silence, and seemingly in deep thought. “And you, my dear doctor,” said I at length, “are you equally confident as your learned colleagues? Will the air of Italy – ?” He lifted up his eyes as I got so far, and their expression I shall not readily forget – so softly tender, so full of compassionate pity, did they beam. Never did a look convey more of sorrowing regret, nor more of blank despair. I hesitated – on his account I feared to finish what I had begun; but, as if replying to the expression of his glance, I added, “But still you advise me to go? You counsel the journey, at least?”

He blushed deeply before he could answer. He felt ashamed that he had failed in one great requisite of his art. I hastened to relieve him, by saying with a joyous air, “Well, I will go. I like the notion myself; it is at least a truce with physic. It is like drawing a game before one has completely lost it.”

And so here I am – somewhat wearied and fevered by the unaccustomed exertion, but less so than I expected.

I sincerely hope it is only the fastidiousness of a sick man, and not that most insufferable of all affectations – exclusiveness; but I will own I never disliked the mixed company of a steam-boat so much before. It is always an unpleasant part of our English travelling-experience, that little steam trip from our own coast to the French or Belgian shore. The pleasuring Cockney, only sufferable when sick – the runaway Bank clerk – the Hamburg Jew – the young lady going to Paris for spring fashions – the newly-married barrister, with his bit of tawdry finery from Norwood, silly, simpering, and fidgetty – the Irish landlord, sulky and familiar by turns; all, even to the Danseuse, who, too refined for such association, sits in her carriage on deck, have a terrible sameness when seen, as I have done them, something like fifty times; nor can I suppose their united attractions greatly heightened by the figure of the pale gentleman, who coughs so incessantly, and whose wan cheek and colourless eye are seen to such formidable contrast with the bronzed and resolute face of the courier beside him.

Yet I would far rather think this want of due tolerance for my travelling companions was a symptom of my malady, than of that truly English disease – self-importance, I know of nothing that tracks our steps on the Continent so invariably, nor is there any quality which earns for us so much ill-will.

It is quite a mistake to suppose that these airs of superiority are only assumed by persons of a certain rank and fortune – far from it. Every denizen of Cheapside and the Minories that travels abroad, deems himself immeasurably above “the foreigner.” Strong in his City estimation, and charged with the leader in “The Times,” he struts about like an upstart visiting the servants’ hall, and expecting every possible demonstration of respect in return for his condescension. Hence the unhappy disparity between the situation of an Englishman and that of any other native abroad. Instead of rejoicing at any casualty which presents to him a chance-meeting with a countryman, he instinctively shrinks from it. He sees the Frenchman, the Italian, the German, overjoyed at recognition with some stranger from his own land, while he acknowledges, in such a contingency, only another reason for guardedness and caution. It is not that our land is wanting in those sterling qualities which make men respected and venerated – it is not that we are not, from principle and practice, both more exacting in all the requisites of good faith, and more tenacious of truth, than any people of the Continent; – it is simply that we are the least tolerant to every thing that differs from what we have at home, that we unscrupulously condemn whatever is un-English; and, not satisfied with this, we expect foreigners to respect and admire us for the very censure we pass upon their institutions.

There is, therefore, nothing so compromising to an Englishman abroad as a countryman; except —hélas that I should say so! – a countrywoman!

Paris is very beautiful in spring. There is something radiant and gorgeous in the commingled splendour of a great city, with the calmer beauties of leafy foliage and the sparkling eddies of the bright river. Better, however, not to dwell longer on this theme, lest my gloomy thoughts should stray into the dark and crime-trodden alleys of the Bois de Boulogne, or the still more terrible filets de St. Cloud! How sad is it when one’s temperament should, as if instinctively, suggest the mournful view of each object! Rather let me jot down a little incident of this morning – an event which has set my heart throbbing, and my pulse fluttering, at a rate that all the Prussic acid I have learned to take cannot calm down again.

There come now and then moments to the sick man, when to be well and vigorous he would consent to be poor, unfriended in the world – taking health alone for his heritage. I felt that half an hour ago – but it is gone again. And now to my adventure, for, in my unbroken dream of daily life, it seems such.

I have said I am lodged at the Hôtel des Princes. How different are my quarters from those I inhabited when first I saw this city! This would entail a confession, however, and I shall make it some other day. My salon is No. 21, the first drawing-room to the right as you turn from the grand staircase, and opening by the three spacious windows on a balcony overlooking the Rue de Richlieu. It is, indeed, a very splendid apartment, as much so as immense mirrors, gilding, bronze, and or moulu can make it. There are soft couches and chairs, and ottomans too, that would inspire rest, save when the soul itself was restless.

Well. I lounged out after breakfast for a short stroll along the Boulevards, where the shade of the trees and the well-watered path were most inviting. Soon wearied – I cannot walk in a crowd – I returned to the hôtel; slowly toiled up-stairs, waking the echoes with my teasing cough; and, instead of turning to the right, I went left, taking the wrong road, as I have so often done in life; and then, mistaking the numerals, I entered No. 12 instead of No. 21. Who would credit it, that the misplacement of a unit could prove so singular.

There was one change alone which struck me. I could not find the book I was reading – a little volume of Auerbach’s village stories of the Schwartz-Walders. There was, however, another in its place, one that told of humble life in the provinces – not less truthful and heart-appealing – but how very unlike! It was Balzac’s story of “Eugénie Grandet,” the most touching tale I have ever read in any language. I have read it a hundred times, and ever with renewed delight. Little troubling myself to think how it came there – for, like an old and valued friend, its familiar features were always welcome – I began again to read it.

Whether the result of some peculiar organisation, or the mere consequence of ill health, I know not, but I have long remarked, that when a book has taken a strong hold upon me – fascinating my attention and engaging all my sympathies, I cannot long continue its perusal. I grow dreary and speculative; losing the thread of the narrative, I create one for myself, imagining a variety of incidents and scenes quite foreign to the intention of the writer, and identifying myself usually with some one personage or other of the story – till the upshot of all is, I drop off asleep, to awake an hour or so afterwards with a very tired brain, and a very confused sense of the reality or unreality of my last waking sensations.

It is, therefore, rather a relief to me, when, as in the present case, the catastrophe is known to me, and all speculation on the future denied. Poor Eugénie, how I felt for all your sorrows! – wondrous spectacle of a heart that could transmute its one absorbing passion into another, and from love, the fondest and most confiding, beget a pure and disinterested friendship!

At last the book glided unnoticed from my hand, and I slept. The sofa where I lay stood in a part of the room where a deep shadow fell from the closed jalousies of a window, so that any person might easily have entered or traversed the apartment without noticing me. I slept calmly and without a stir – my dreaming thoughts full of that poor girl’s love. How little does any first passion depend upon the excellence of the object that creates it! How ideal, purely ideal, are those first emotions of the heart! I knew something of this, too; for, when young – very young, and very impressionable, with a strong dash of romance in my nature, that lent its Claude Lorraine tint to all I looked at, I fell in love. Never was the phrase more fitting. It was no gradual or even imperceptible declension, but a headlong, reckless plunge; such as some confident and hardy swimmer, or very often a bold bather, makes into the water, that all may be quickly over.

I had been appointed attaché at Vienna, where Lord Newington was then ambassador – a widower with an only daughter. I was very young, fresh from Woolwich, where I had been studying for the Artillery service, when the death of a distant relative, who but a year before had refused to see me, put me in possession of a very large fortune. My guardian, Lord Elderton, an old diplomate, at once removed me from Woolwich, and, after a short sojourn at his house near Windsor, I was introduced into what Foreign-office people technically denominate “The Line,” and what they stoutly uphold as the only career for a gentleman.

I must some day or other jot down a few recollections of my life at Gortham, Lord Elderton’s seat, where, with Grotius and Puffendorf of a morning, and old Sir Robert Adams and Lord Hailiebury of an evening, I was believed to be inhaling the very atmosphere of learned diplomacy. Tiresome old gentlemen, whose thoughts stood fast at the time of Fox and Pitt, and, like a clock that went down in the night, steadily pointed to an hour long bygone. How wearied I was of discussions as to whether the King of Prussia would declare war, or the Emperor of Austria make peace! whether we should give up Malta, and lose Hanover! Pitt must, indeed, have been a man of “dark counsels,” for, whether he wished for an alliance with France or not was a nightly topic of debate, without a chance of agreement.

All these discussions, far from tending to excite my ardour for the career, served to make me dread it, as the most tiresome of all possible pursuits. The light gossip, too, over which they regaled themselves with such excellent relish, was insupportably dull. Who could care for the pointless repartees of defunct Grand Dukes, or the meaningless caprices of long-buried Archduchesses?

If, then, I was glad to escape from Gortham and its weary company, I had formed no very sanguine expectations of pleasure at Vienna.

I saw very little of the Continent in this my first journey. I was consigned to the charge of a cabinet messenger, who had orders to deliver me “safe” at Vienna. Poor M’Kaye, slight as I was, he left me very little of the small coupé we travelled in. He weighed something more than twenty stone, a heaving mass of fat and fretting: the great misery of his life being that Washington Irving had held him up to European ridicule, for he was the original “Stout Gentleman” whose heavy perambulations overhead suggested that inimitable sketch.

We arrived at Vienna some hours after dark, and after speedily traversing the narrow and winding streets of the capital, drew up within the porte-cochère of the English embassy. There was a grand ball at the embassy – a sovereign’s birth-day, or a coronation, I forget which – but I can well remember the dazzling splendour of the grand staircase, a blaze of wax-lights, and glittering with the brilliant lustre of jewelled dresses and gorgeous uniforms; but, perhaps, even more struck by the frequent announcement of names which were familiar to me as almost historical personages – the Ester-hazies, the Schwarzenbergs, and the Lichtensteins, when suddenly, with almost a shock, I heard my own untitled name called aloud, “Mr. Horace Templeton.” It is, I believe, a very old gentry name, and has maintained a fair repute for some half-dozen centuries; but, I own, it clinked somewhat meagre on the ear amid the high-sounding syllables of Austrian nobility.

I stood within the doorway of the grand salon, almost stunned by the sudden transition from the dark monotony of a night-journey to the noonday blaze of splendour before me, when a gentle tap from a bouquet on my arm aroused me, and a very silvery voice, in accents every one of which sank into my heart, bade me welcome to Vienna. It was Lady Blanche Newington that spoke – the most lovely creature that ever beauty and station combined to form. Fascinations like hers were new to me: she mingled gentleness of manner with a spiritual liveliness, that seemed ever ready to say the right thing at the right moment. The ease with which, in different languages, she addressed the various individuals of the company, employing all the little delicate forms of those conventionalities French and Italian so abound in, and through all, an unobtrusive solicitude to please, that was most captivating.

My whole occupation that night was to steal after her unobserved, and gaze with delight at traits of manner that my ardent imagination had already elevated into graces of mind. I was very much in love – so much so that, ere a few weeks went over, iny brother attachés saw it, and tormented me unceasingly on the subject. Nay, they went further: they actually told Lady Blanche herself, so that I dreaded to meet her, not knowing how she might treat my presumption. I fancied all manner of changes in her bearing towards me – reserve, coldness, perhaps disdain. Nothing of the kind! She was only more familiar and cordial than ever. Had I known more of the world, or of the feminine part of it, I should have read this differently: as it was, it overwhelmed me with delight. There was a frankness in her tone towards me, too; for, now, she discussed the temper and character of our mutual acquaintances, and with a shrewdness of criticism strange in one so young. At last we came to talk of a certain Count de Favancourt, the secretary of the French embassy; and as I mentioned his name she said, somewhat abruptly,

“I half suspect you don’t like the Count?”

“Who could?” replied I, eagerly; “is he not a ‘Fat?’” – using that precious monosyllable by which his countrymen designate a certain class of pretenders.

She laughed, and I went on, not sorry to have an opportunity of severity on one for whom I had conceived an especial hatred – indeed, not altogether without cause, since he had, on more than one occasion, marked the difference of our official rank in a manner sufficiently pointed to be offensive;

and yet, the rigid etiquette observable to another embassy forbade all notice of whatever could be passed over.

Like a very young man, I did not bound my criticism on the Count by what I saw and observed in his manner, but extended it to every possible deduction I could draw from his air and bearing; winding up all by a very broadly-hinted doubt that those ferocious whiskers and that deep baritone were any thing but a lion’s skin over a very craven heart.

The last words were scarcely uttered, when a servant announced the Count de Favancourt. There is something, to a young person at least – I fancy I should not mind it now – so overwhelming on the sudden appearance of any one on whom the conversation has taken a turn of severity, that I arose confused and uneasy – I believe I blushed; at all events, I perceived that Lady Blanche remarked my discomfiture, and her eyes glanced on me with an expression I never observed before. As for the Count, he advanced and made his deep reverence without ever noticing me, nor, even while taking his seat, once shewed any consciousness of my presence.

Burning with indignation that I could scarce repress, I turned towards a table, and affected to occupy myself tossing over the prints and drawings that lay about – my maddened thoughts rendered still more insufferable from fancying that Lady Blanche and the Count seemed on far better and more intimate footing than I had ever known them before.

Some other visitors being announced, I took the occasion to retire unobserved, and had just reached the landing of the stairs when I heard a foot behind me. I turned – it was Favancourt. For the first time in my life, I perceived a smile upon his countenance – an expression, I own, that became it even less than his habitual stern scowl.

“You have done me the honour, sir,” said he, “to make some observations on my manner, which, I regret to learn, has not acquired your favourable opinion. Now, I have a strong sense of the inconvenance of any thing like a rupture of amicable relations between the embassy I have the honour to serve and that to which you belong. It is, then, exceedingly unpleasant for me to notice your remarks – it is impossible for me to let them pass unnoticed.”

He made a pause at these words, and so long that I felt bound to speak, and, in a voice that passion had rendered slightly tremulous, said,

“Am I to receive this, sir, in the light of a rebuke? because, as yet, I only perceive it conveys the expression of your own regret that you cannot demand an explanation I am most ready to afford you.

“My demand is somewhat different, sir, but, I trust, will be as readily accorded. It is this: that you resign your position as attaché to this embassy, and leave Vienna at once. There is no necessity that any unfavourable notice of this affair should follow you to another mission, or to England.”

“Stop, sir, I beg of you: I cannot be answerable for my temper, if you persist to outrage it. While you may press me to acknowledge that, while half an hour ago I only deemed you a ‘Fat,’ I now account you an imbecile.’”

“Enough!” said the Count, passing down the stairs before me.

When I reached my lodgings, I found a “friend” from him, who arranged a speedy meeting. We fought that same evening, behind the Prater, and I received his ball in my shoulder – mine, pierced his hat. I was recalled before my wound permitted me to leave my bed. The day I left Vienna, Lady Blanche was married to Count Favancourt!

Some fourteen years had elapsed since that event and the time in which I now lay sleeping on the sofa; and yet, after all that long interval – with all its scenes of varied interests, its stormy passions, its hopes, its failures, its successes – the image of Blanche was before my mind’s eye, as brightly, joyously fair, as on the evening I first beheld her. I had forgotten all, that time and worldly knowledge had taught me, that, of all her attractions, her beauty only was real – that the graceful elegance of her bearing was only manner – that her gentleness was manner – her winning softness and delicacy mere manner – that all the fair endowments that seemed the rich promise of a gifted mind, united to a nature so bounteously endowed, were mere manner. She was spirituelle, lively, animated, and brilliant – all, from nothing but manner. To this knowledge I did not come without many a severe lesson. The teaching has been perfect, however, and made me what I am! Alas! how is it that mere gilding can look so like solid gold – nay, be made to cover more graceful tracery, and forms more purely elegant, than the real metal?

I have said that I slept; and, as I lay, dreams came over me – dreams of that long-past time, when the few shadows that fell over my path in life were rather spots where, like the traveller on a sunny road, one halts to breathe awhile, and taste in the cool shade the balmy influence of repose. I thought of Blanche, too, as first I had seen her, and when first she taught my heart to feel the ecstasy of loving, breathing into my nature high hopes and longings, and making of life itself an ideal of delight and happiness. And, as I dreamed, there stole over my senses a faint, thrilling memory of that young joy my heart had known, and a feeling like that of health and ardent buoyancy, which for years long I had not experienced. Her voice, tremulous with feeling, vibrating in all the passionate expression of an Italian song, was in my ears – I could hear the words – my very heart throbbed to their soft syllables as she sung the lines of Metastasio, —

“E tu, qui sa si teTi sovrerai di me.”

I started – there she was before me, bending over the harp, whose cords still trembled with the dying sounds; the same Blanche I had known and loved, but slightly changed indeed: more beautiful perhaps in womanhood than as a girl. Her long and silky hair fell over her white wrist and taper hand in loose and careless tresses, for she had taken off her bonnet, which lay on the floor beside her; her attitude was that of weariness – nay, there was a sigh! Good Heavens! is she weeping? My book fell to the ground; she started up, and, in a voice not louder than a whisper, exclaimed, “Mr. Templeton!”