Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino (Afterwards Duchesse de Talleyrand et de Sagan), 1831-1835. Dorothée Dino

Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino (Afterwards Duchesse de Talleyrand et de Sagan), 1831-1835 - Dorothée Dino


Скачать книгу
found Lord Grey yesterday in a state of depression which he did not attempt to disguise. It is a contagious malady, and seems to have attacked all his adherents. Lord Grey's lassitude and weariness is to my thinking the most alarming symptom of the weakness of the Cabinet as now constituted. Lord Durham's attacks on Lord Grey in the Times wound him deeply. Conservatives and Radicals are alike speculating on the succession of the Whigs, and it is impossible to disguise the fact that this is a critical moment for every one.

      While talking yesterday to a friend I remembered that when I was seventeen, I, like many other women of the period in Paris, was romantic or silly enough to consult Mlle. Lenormand who was then much in vogue, taking what I thought sufficient precautions not to be recognised by her. One had to fix the day and the hour beforehand and this I arranged through my maid giving a false name and address. She gave me an appointment and on the day named I went with my maid in a cab, taken at a distance from my abode, to the Rue de Tournon where the sorceress lived. The house was of good appearance and the rooms clean and even rather pretty. We had to wait till a gentleman with moustaches had left the chamber where the Sibyl delivered her oracles. I made my maid go in first and my turn came next. After some questions about the month, day and hour of my birth, and about my favourite animal, flower and colour, and about the animals, flowers and colours which I particularly disliked, she asked whether she should make the great or the little cabala for me, the price being different. At last she came to my fortune and told me what follows. I may have forgotten some insignificant details but I give the main part of what she predicted, and I have since repeated it to several persons, my mother and M. de Talleyrand among the number.

      She said that I was married, that I had a spiritual bond with an exalted personage (my explanation of this is that the Emperor was my eldest son's godfather), that after much pain and trouble I should be separated from my husband, that my troubles would not cease till nine years after this separation, and that during these nine years I should experience all manner of trials and calamities. She also said that I should become a widow when no longer young but not too old to marry again which I should do. She saw me for many years closely allied with a person whose position and influence would impose on me a kind of political position and would make me powerful enough to save some one from imprisonment and death. She said also that I should live through very difficult and stormy times, during which I should have very exciting experiences, and that one day even I should be awakened at five o'clock in the morning by men armed with pikes and axes who would surround my house and try to kill me. This danger would be the consequence of my opinions and the part I was destined to take in politics and I should escape in disguise. I should still be alive, she said, at sixty-three. When I asked whether that was the destined end of my days she answered, "I don't say you will die at sixty-three, I only mean that I see you still alive at that age. I know nothing of you or your destiny after that."

      The leading circumstances of this prediction seemed to me then too much out of the probable course of events to cause me any anxiety. I told my friends about it as a sort of joke, and, though the most improbable parts of it have come true, such as my separation from my husband, my prolonged troubles, the interest in public affairs which M. de Talleyrand's concern with them has imposed on me, I confess that unless some one has mentioned some similar matter, I think very rarely about what Mlle. Lenormand told me, and very little of herself though she was a remarkable person. She seemed to be over fifty when I saw her. She was rather tall and wore a loose, black, trailing gown. Her complexion was ugly and confused, her eyes were small, bright and wild; her countenance, coarse and yet uncanny, was crowned with a mass of untidy grey hair. The whole effect was unpleasant, and I was glad when the interview was over.

      I thought of her prophecies in July 1830, when I was alone at Rochecotte surrounded by conflagrations, and was receiving the news of what was happening in Paris, and when I saw General Donnadieu's regiments marching past my windows on La Vendée where it was thought Charles X. would go. I heard some denouncing the Jesuits whom they were silly enough to accuse of setting fire to their houses and fields, and others crying out against "malignants" such as I. The Curé came to my house for refuge and the Mayor asked whether I did not think that the soutane, which according to him reeked of brimstone, should be turned out of the commune. Already I saw myself surrounded by pikes and axes, and escaping as best I could disguised as a peasant. I escaped then, but I have sometimes said to myself that it was only a postponement and that I should not get off in the end.

      London, June 10, 1834.– Lord Dacre, who was to have joined the Ministry, has had a fit and fallen from his horse which puts him out of the question. They are now thinking of Mr. Abercromby for the Mint with a seat in the Cabinet.

      Yesterday we had at dinner M. Dupin, the young Ney and Davoust, M. Bignon and General Munier de la Converserie. If to speak ill of every one is to praise one's self M. Dupin did it to perfection. He treated with the utmost scorn the King and his Ministers and every man and woman in Paris. Some are mean, dowdy chatterboxes, others are robbers, smugglers, I know not what. Immorality was castigated and justice brandished her flaming sword. M. Piron, the cicerone and the very humble servant of M. Dupin, multiplied his formulæ of adulation. What he chiefly praised was the lucid and detailed manner in which the great man had explained to the English Ministers the embarrassment and danger of their position. I think they would have been equally obliged if he had not crossed the sea to tell them what they know only too well already.

      After dinner I had to endure the honeyed insincerity of M. Bignon. He reminded me of Vitrolles' cloying and inferior manner, he is rather like him in face, distinctly like him in his talk and above all in his bearing. I think however, that M. de Vitrolles' conversation is more vivacious, and his imagination more brilliant. As yesterday was the first time I have spoken to M. Bignon it would be wrong to judge him on one conversation, but one cannot fail to be struck with his calm and submissive manner which at once puts one on one's guard.

      London, June 11, 1834.– Mr. Abercromby's appointment was in last night's Globe. We shall see if this will mollify the tone of the Times which ill-treated poor Lord Grey shamefully yesterday morning.

      Among the many sayings of M. de Talleyrand here is one which is very good and not much known. M. de Montrond was saying to him last year that Thiers was a good sort of man and not so impertinent as you would expect from a parvenu. "I will tell you the reason," replied M. de Talleyrand: "c'est que Thiers n'est pas parvenu, il est arrivé." I fear that this remark is too subtle to be altogether true, but that is the fault of M. Thiers. Impertinence is becoming a familiar method with him. Since his marriage he has been living in a kind of solidarity with the smallest sort of people, ill reputed pretentions, parvenus assuredly and not arrivés. It is impossible, in spite of the floods of wit with which he deluges the mud which surrounds him, that he should not be bespattered if not smothered. It is really a great pity.

      London, June 12, 1834.– At Holland House yesterday I heard a story of how the Abbé Morellet complained to the Marquis of Lansdowne that at the Revolution he lost his pensions and his benefices though he had written and spoken so much on the Revolutionary side, and of how the Marquis answered: "My dear sir, how can you be surprised, there are always a few wounded in the victorious armies."

      London, June 13, 1834.– There is a rumour that Dom Miguel has escaped and that a conspiracy has broken out at Lisbon against Dom Pedro; all kinds of sinister details are added. This, it seems, is nothing but a Stock Exchange trick, the truth being that there were some unpleasant demonstrations against Dom Pedro when he showed himself at the play. The simultaneous expulsion of both the rivals would be the most satisfactory conclusion of the great drama.

      There is some surprise that Dom Miguel has not yet disembarked in England. Don Carlos arrived yesterday at Portsmouth in the Donegal.

      Spain is annoyed, and with reason, because the Duke of Terceira and the English Commissioner who made Dom Miguel sign an undertaking not to return did not exact a similar promise from Don Carlos. They now wish England and France to take measures against Don Carlos so as to make him an outlaw in Europe. This however is not admissible, in spite of the notes of the Marquis de Miraflorès and the diatribes of Lord Holland.

      The conversation at Holland House is very curious. Little Charles Barrington was there the other day and said he had been prevented


Скачать книгу