LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 290, 17 May 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A LADY OF ST. CYR. By Mrs Jerome Mercier. ( Concluded ,) The play was Racine’s immortal “Esther,” written for “ Les Dames de St Cyr,” the youthful proteges of the great and wise, and, let us believe, the good Madame de Maintenon, The poet was there, listening with an apparent indifference to the verse, and a complete absorption in the acting ; the great of the land were there, to do honor to the benevolence of her who was their queen in all but name. On one of these, the eye of that remarkable woman suddenly rested when the young girl’s song began. She marked his start, his heightened colour, the rapid passage of his hand across his eyes. The play went on, but his embarrassment continued ; and when again that sweet voice had arisen and ceased, the white, firm hand of Madame de Maintenon beckoned him to her side. He was a stern man, prematurely aged ; and in spite of the elegant dissimulation of that most polished court, he could not entirely control his features as she said to him with a certain meaning in her clear, smooth tones:

‘ You appear touched by the charms of our young chorister, Monsieur le Due. Does her face awaken any remembrance? Her name is Lucie Lemeunier, I keep her here until she shall be claimed by those who have a better right to the honor and happiness of maintaining her.’ The Duke murmured some indistinct reply. In a lower and more significant tone, Madame de Maintenon continued: ‘Her mother died in poverty, and the child might have died of hunger but for the Princess Marie Amelie and my poor self.’

The Duke de Ste Barbe fell back with a low bow into the little crowd of courtiers behind the royal chair. He was a childless man, and often in his loneliness the thought of his beautiful sister, and the child whom he had never seen, had haunted him.

The play was' ended. With a profound and ineffable joy, due only to the approbabation of One who is the King of kings, the young girls had received the praises of the monarch ; great in the eyes of men : great or little in the eyes of the ever-watching angles ? No one asked the question. ‘ Madame, they have played admirably,’ said one noble lord to her who was the mainspring of it all. “ So admirably, my lord,” she replied (and was there not in her tone one faint touch of the acerbity of a woman losing her bloom before the aspect of so much youthful loveliness ?) —“ so admirably that they shall never play again.” At this moment, with a deep bow and a countenance stongly moved, the Duke de Ste. Barbe again addressed her. “ Madame,” said he, in an agitated voice, “you know all. If you consent, I will accept from your hands the last trust of my poor unhappy sister.” “Shall I have cause to regret it, sir, if I let her leave my quiet home ?” asked Madame de Maintenon, her searching look fixed keenly on him. “Never, madame; rely upon my honor : her resemblance to my sister when in her greatest beauty has touched my heart profoundly.” “I will consult his Majesty,” she responded, the severity breaking up into a genial smile. She turned, and, in a low voice, explained the whole to Louis. It was a position dear to a Frenchman’s heart; the poetic drama was to be crowned with one of prose. No English words can paint the ineffable French grace of that most graceful and dignified, alas! most hollow court, as the young Lucie was called forward from her sisters, to receive a word of benevolence from the king, and, by her protectress, to be placed in the arms of the relative who had left her mother to die in poverty. We may ask, was Lucie happier in the splendour of a ducal palace than in the sequestered tranquility of St Cyr? Well she had learned in that calm retreat to be modest and pious, and to rest on a stay which will support us alike in a cottage or a palace; and so we may safely leave her, not in the hands of a vacillating and stern relative, but in those of One who never faileth nor forsaketh those who trust in Him. ROMANCE IN A*PARIS PENSION. Part I, i “ Women certainly are a horrid invention! How I wish that a Black Plague or a second Deluge would carry you all off! What an abode of peace, what an oasis this world would then be ! ” This chivalrous amiable sentiment is uttered by my cousin, a fine young man of five-and-twenty, about six-foot-two in height, and with an eyeglass always stuck in his eye, which seems to expand when he gives vent to ferocious invectives against my sex. The above philippic is provoked by my determination to go and spend a few months in Paris in order to study painting at Madame Latour’s atelier . I had been meditating some time upon this move, when a letter received that morning from my friend Olga Soultikoff, a young Russian, then in Paris, chiefly for 'painting purposes, decided me. This is the letter, which, unfortunately, I had read to my cousin : . ‘ Chez Madame Dupont, ‘ Quai des Grands Augustins, Paris. ‘My dear Louisa, —You must keep the promise you made me to come and spend some time in * Ce cher pays de France, Berceau de ton enfance.’ Come at once, to brightness and sunshine. How can you remain so long in dreary, dirty, dismal, damp, depressing Loudon? where the sun only shines through a thick yellow flannel dressing gown, as if that luminary suffered from a cold in his head and gets up late, well muffled in blankets. The London climate has upon me the effect of a pall, and the dismal grandeur, contrasted with the hideous poverty, makes me shudder. There is no lightness, no abandon, no grace; nobody seems to care for anybody else, and everybody tries to outshine his neighbour. Still there is much goodness in Old England : roast beef, porter, plum-pudding are the emblems of Great Britain; solid, heavy, respectable, wholesome. Perhaps champagne may be typical of France : light, airy, intoxicating ; but my artistic temperament prefers this to the respectable heaviness of England. However, I must not speak too harshly about that mighty country, as I have only spent a few months there. Italy and France are the promised lands for the artist nature. There is a delightful pension, not far from the

Louvre —that sautuary consecrated to the chefs-d'oeuvre of the great old masters ! Madame Dupont is a nice little woman; never interferes with anybody, never asks indiscreet questions; enfin, this is Liberty Hall. There is a live Genius flourishing here, or rather, like most geniuses, on the brink of ruin. He wears his hair long, dresses very shabbily, has holes in his wideawake—for the sake of ventilation, he declares ; he is stuffed with queer, strong, artistic ideas, and he and I are great friends. There are about forty boarders, most of them odd, but come and judge for yourself. Igo to Madame Latour’s studio; she is a great artist, coloring gorgeous, worthy of Rubens or Correggio ; she is also a musician and a mathematician, is originate and eccentric, and is separated from her husband, simply because Monsieur Latour bored her and was always prowling about her studio; so she told him that her apartment was too small and he had better go off. The meek husband obeyed, and he is now in Belgium, quite happy, for he fears his artist wife. They had one child, but Madame Latour one day, in a fit of absence of mind, sat upon her baby, and, as she is a very stout woman, the bady never recovered being sat upon, and died a few days after. She did not feel the lot much, and now lives but for Art; her enthusiasm, her love, are concentrated in that. In her early youth she loved passionately, was deceived, and so she threw her mind, her soul, her very body, into her painting. If I were a man, I should bo devoted to such a woman. She has so much soul, so much power; her great black eyes shine like seas of light, with that sacred fire which seems to consume her. Such women are rare because genius is rare. Madame Latour, though a genius, is fond of the pomps and vanities of this wicked world; she intends giving a grand fancy ball in six weeks from this, and I want you particularly to be there. Write by return of post to let me know what day I am to expect you. and do not be persuaded into not coming by that cousin of yours. Is he still a woman hater ? An fond , I think he loves us all too much, and that to conceal his tender heart he puts on an armour of cynicism and indifference. “ Your affectionate friend,

“Olga Soultikoff.”

“ PS.—Tell your cousin that I heard thnt he is already much in love. lam glad to hear it, for when he is married he will think better of all women, and when he gets into Parliament, will espouse our cause, stand up for and discuss our rights and our wrongs, perhaps vote for our having the franchise.” My cousin Horace scrowls atrociously over this post scriptum. ‘Fall in love indeed I No one will ever find me suffering from that complaint.’ * But you are certain to be in that condition some day or other, and the attack will be bad; for love’ is like the measles : if you get it early in life you recover easily, but once on the shady side of thirty you will suffer terribly.’ * There might have been some danger for me if I had lived a century ago, when there were a few charming women on the earth—quiet innocent beings, satisfied with the sphere of home duties; but now they are merely amphibious creatures struggling to the front, wanting to take our place, to govern the world, to vote, to get into Parliament, to become doctors, clergymen—l hate them all! There is an open antagonism between the sexes, an uncivil’ war. And you, instead of keeping in your orbit, which means happiness, want to join that horrid faction of strong-minded females—a third sex, a social excrescence. Do not be a blooming idiot. Remain at home; you are more likely to marry than if you scamper about the Continent and become an artist. Men do not like independent women; we do not want to be ruled by our wives. Women ought to have the qualities which are generafly wanting in men ; to complete us, as it were. '

‘Ah ! you are getting afraid of us. You lords of creation, you do not like to lookup to, but down upon us ; but surely, Horace, you could not respect me if 1 remained at home for ever, tatting and tatting, with a kind of label all over me, “ Waiting to be married. Fragile.’ I know a woman who hates her r sex; her advice is matrimony, coutc que coute— to go off in shiploads to the colonies, like so many droves of cattle, in order to get husbands. I think it a degrading notion. There is an immense majority of women in Great Britain; we cannot all get married; so what are the women who have no filthy lucte to do ?’ ‘Burn them alive,’ growls Horace, his eyeglass getting to look wicked and large, ‘ and I think that I should begin with Mademoiselle Olga. She is a dangerous young, person, very exahee, enthusiastic, wild—an undetected young lunatic ; but I am sorry, though, for her; she is young, alone, and extremely pretty,’ adds my cousin, relenting, and the eyeglass slips off. ‘ She is an orphan too, poor girl! no one to look after her. But you have no excuse, so I advise you to remain in London, and take plenty of exercise, for you seem to me to be expanding fearfully, and that may spoil your chances in life.’ r ’ ' t

Now this is a stab, a Parthian shot. The skeleton in my closet is the dread of growing like Falstaff, or a more recent hero. I had tried Banting, but to no effect. . However, I do not betray my mortification, only shrug my shoulders, leave, the room in order not to , hear any more unpleasant truths, and write., off to Olga ; for if a thing has to be done, let it be done quickly. Then fgo out and post the leqtei’, for I never believe that my letters r reach their , destination unless I drop them ■ddth my own hands into the letter box. It is with a mixed sensation of pleasure and regret that later on I find myself at the station alone ! A sense of loneliness creeps over me, I almost wish to be back in the ' snug English drawing room, listening to f Horace’s invectives and sermons. Here all is turmoil, life, bustle, glare, glitter, rest' lessuess, noise of cabs,, porters rushing,about with big trunks, everybody and everything hurrying to and fro. Suddenly I hear my name called out, two arms are round my neck, and there stands bright, pretty little Olga, accompanied by two gentlemen. To he continued.