Richard Lovell Edgeworth: A Selection From His Memoirs. Maria Edgeworth
in between the Rhone and the Saone. When the works were nearly completed, an old boatman warned Edgeworth 'that a tremendous flood might be expected in ten days from the mountains of Savoy. I represented this to the company, and proposed to employ more men, and to engage, by increased wages, those who were already at work, to continue every day till it was dark, but I could not persuade them to a sudden increase of their expenditure. … At five or six o'clock one morning, I was awakened by a prodigious noise on the ramparts under my windows. I sprang out of bed, and saw numbers of people rushing towards the Rhone. I foreboded the disaster! dressed myself, and hastened to the river … When I reached the Rhone, I beheld a tremendous sight! All the work of several weeks, carried on daily by nearly a hundred men, had been swept away. Piles, timber, barrows, tools, and large parts of expensive machinery were all carried down the torrent, and thrown in broken pieces upon the banks. The principal part of the machinery had been erected upon an island opposite the rampart; here there still remained some valuable timber and engines, which might, probably, be saved by immediate exertion. The old boatman, whom I have mentioned before, was at the water-side; I asked him to row me over to the island, that I might give orders how to preserve what remained belonging to the company. My old friend, the boatman, represented to me, with great kindness, the imminent danger to which I should expose myself. "Sir," he added, "the best swimmer in Lyons, unless he were one of the Rhone-men, could not save himself if the boat overset, and you cannot swim at all."
'"Very true," I replied, "but the boat will not overset; and both my duty and my honour require that I should run every hazard for those who have put so much trust in me." My old boatman took me over safely, and left me on the island; but in returning by himself, the poor fellow's little boat was caught by a wave, and it skimmed to the bottom like a slate or an oyster-shell that is thrown obliquely into the water. A general exclamation was uttered from the shore; but, in a few minutes, the boatman was seen sitting upon a row of piles in the middle of the river, wringing his long hair with great composure.
'I have mentioned this boatman repeatedly as an old man, and such he was to all appearance; his hair was grey, his face wrinkled, his back bent, and all his limbs and features had the appearance of those of a man of sixty, yet his real age was but twenty-seven years. He told me that he was the oldest boatman on the Rhone; that his younger brothers had been worn out before they were twenty-five years old.'
The French society at Lyons included many agreeable people; but Edgeworth singles out from among them, as his special friend, the Marquis de la Poype, who understood English, and was well acquainted with English literature. He pressed Edgeworth to pay him a visit at his Chateau in Dauphiny, and the latter adds: 'I promised to pass with him some of the Christmas holidays. An English gentleman went with me. We arrived in the evening at a very antique building, surrounded by a moat, and with gardens laid out in the style which was common in England in the beginning of the last century. These were enclosed by high walls, intersected by canals, and cut into parterres by sandy walks. We were ushered into a good drawing-room, the walls of which were furnished with ancient tapestry. When dinner was served, we crossed a large and lofty hall, that was hung round with armour, and with the spoils of the chase; we passed into a moderate-sized eating-room, in which there was no visible fireplace, but which was sufficiently heated by invisible stoves. The want of the cheerful light of a fire cast a gloom over our repast, and the howling of the wind did not contribute to lessen this dismal effect. But the dinner was good, and the wine, which was produced from the vineyard close to the house, was excellent. Madame de la Poype, and two or three of her friends, who were on a visit at her house, conversed agreeably, and all feeling of winter and seclusion was forgotten.
'At night, when I was shown into my chamber, the footman asked if I chose to have my bed warmed. I inquired whether it was well aired; he assured me, with a tone of integrity, that I had nothing to fear, for "that it had not been slept in for half a year." The French are not afraid of damp beds, but they have a great dread of catching some infectious disease from sleeping in any bed in which a stranger may have recently lain.
'My bedchamber at this chateau was hung with tapestry, and as the footman assured me of the safety of my bed, he drew aside a piece of the tapestry, which discovered a small recess in the wall that held a grabat, in which my servant was invited to repose. My servant was an Englishman, whose indignation nothing but want of words to express it could have concealed; he deplored my unhappy lot; as for himself, he declared, with a look of horror, that nothing could induce him to go into such a pigeon-hole. I went to visit the accommodations of my companion, Mr. Rosenhagen. I found him in a spacious apartment hung all round with tapestry, so that there was no appearance of any windows. I was far from being indifferent to the comfort of a good dry bed; but poor Mr. Rosenhagen, besides being delicate, was hypochondriac. With one of the most rueful countenances I ever beheld, he informed me that he must certainly die of cold. His teeth chattered whilst he pointed to the tapestry at one end of the room, which waved to and fro with the wind; and, looking behind it, I found a large, stone casement window without a single pane of glass, or shutters of any kind. He determined not to take off his clothes; but I, gaining courage from despair, undressed, went to bed, and never slept better in my life, or ever awakened in better health or spirits than at ten o'clock the next morning.
'After breakfast the Marquis took us to visit the Grotto de la Baume, which was at the distance of not more than two leagues from his house. We were most hospitably received at the house of an old officer, who was Seigneur of the place. His hall was more amply furnished with implements of the chase and spoils of the field than any which I have ever seen, or ever heard described. There were nets of such dimensions, and of such strength, as were quite new to me; bows, cross-bows, of prodigious power; guns of a length and weight that could not be wielded by the strength of modern arms; some with old matchlocks, and with rests to be stuck into the ground, and others with wheel-locks; besides modern fire-arms of all descriptions; horns of deer, and tusks of wild boars, were placed in compartments in such numbers, that every part of the walls was covered either with arms or trophies.
'The master of the mansion, in bulk, dress, and general appearance, was suited to the style of life which might be expected from what we had seen at our entrance. He was above six feet high, strong, and robust, though upwards of sixty years of age; he wore a leather jerkin, and instead of having his hair powdered, and tied in a long queue, according to the fashion of the day, he wore his own short grey locks; his address was plain, frank, and hearty, but by no means coarse or vulgar. He was of an ancient family, but of a moderate fortune.' Here Edgeworth adds a long description of the grotto and its stalactites. They returned to dine with the old officer at his castle.
'Our dinner was in its arrangement totally unlike anything I had seen in France, or anywhere else. It consisted of a monstrous, but excellent, wild boar ham; this, and a large savoury pie of different sorts of game, were the principal dishes; which, with some common vegetables, amply satisfied our hunger. The blunt hospitality of this rural baron was totally different from that which is to be met with in remote parts of the country of England. It was more the open-heartedness of a soldier than the roughness of a squire.'
During the winter of 1772 Edgeworth was busy making plans for flour-mills to be erected on a piece of land gained from the river. But his stay in Lyons was cut short as the news reached him in March 1773 that Mrs. Edgeworth, who had returned to England for her confinement, had died after giving birth to a daughter. He travelled home with his son through Burgundy and Paris, and on reaching England arranged to meet Mr. Day at Woodstock. His friend greeted him with the words,' Have you heard anything of Honora Sneyd ?'
Mr. Edgeworth continues: 'I assured him that I had heard nothing but what he had told me when he was in France; that she had some disease in her eyes, and that it was feared she would lose her sight.' I added that I was resolved to offer her my hand, even if she had undergone such a dreadful privation.
'"My dear friend," said he, "while virtue and honour forbade you to think of her, I did everything in my power to separate you; but now that you are both at liberty, I have used the utmost expedition to reach you on your arrival in England, that I might be the first to tell you that Honora is in perfect health and beauty, improved in person and in mind; and, though surrounded by lovers, still her own mistress."
'At this moment I enjoyed the invaluable reward of my steady adherence to the resolution