Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (469 page)

“La voix des timides et des traîtres protesta contre cette sentence.  ‘C’est abuser de droit de la victoire!  C’est fouler aux pieds le vaincu!  Que l’Angleterre se montre clémente, qu’elle ouvre ses bras pour recevoir comme hôte son ennemi désarmé.’  L’Angleterre aurait peut-être écouté ce conseii, car partout et toujours il y a des âmes faibles et timorées bientôt séduites par la flatterie ou effrayées par le reproche.  Mais la Providence permit qu’un homme se trouvât qui n’a jamais su ce que c’est que la crainte; qui aima sa patrie mieux que sa renommée; impénétrable devant les menaces, inaccessible aux louanges, il se présenta devant le conseil de la nation, et levant son front tranquille en haut, il osa dire: ‘Que la trahison se taise! car c’est trahir que de conseiller de temporiser avec Buonaparte. 
Moi je sais ce que sont ces guerres dont l’Europe saigne encore, comme une victime sous le couteau du boucher. 
Il faut en finir avec Napoléon Buonaparte.  Vous vous effrayez à tort d’un mot si dur!  Je n’ai pas de magnanimité, dit-on?  Soit! que m’importe ce qu’on dit de moi?  Je n’ai pas ici à me faire une réputation de héros magnanime, mais à guérir, si la cure est possible, l’Europe qui se meurt, épuisée de ressources et de sang, l’Europe dont vous négligez les vrais intérêts, pré-occupés que vous êtes d’une vaine renommée de clémence.  Vous êtes faibles!  Eh bien! je viens vous aider.  Envoyez Buonaparte à Ste. Hélène! n’hésitez pas, ne cherchez pas un autre endroit; c’ést le seul convenable.  Je vous le dis, j’ai réfléchi pour vous; c’est là qu’il doit êtré et non pas ailleurs.  Quant à Napoléon, homme, soldat, je n’ai rien contre lui; c’est un lion royal, auprès de qui vous n’êtes que des chacals.  Mais Napoléon Empereur, c’est autre chose, je l’extirperai du sol de l’Europe.’  Et celui qui parla ainsi toujours sut garder sa promesse, celle-là comme toutes les autres.  Je l’ai dit, et je le répète, cet homme est l’égal de Napoléon par le génie; comme trempe de caractère, comme droiture, comme élévation de pensée et de but, il est d’une tout autre espèce.  Napoléon Buonaparte était avide de renommée et de gloire; Arthur Wellesley ne se soucie ni de l’une ni de l’autre; l’opinion publique, la popularité, étaient choses de grand valeur aux yeux de Napoléon; pour Wellington l’opinion publique est une rumeur, un rien que le souffle de son inflexible volonté fait disparaître comme une bulle de savon. 
Napoléon flattait le peuple; Wellington le brusqne; l’un cherchait les applau-dissements, l’autre ne se soucie que du témoignage de sa conscience; quand elle approuve, c’est assez; toute autre louange l’obsède.  Aussi ce peuple, qui adorait Buonaparte s’irritait, s’insurgeait contre la morgue de Wellington: parfois il lui témoigna sa colère et sa haine par des grognements, par des hurlements de bêtes fauves; et alors, avec une impassibilité de sénateur romain, le moderne Coriolan toisait du regard l’émeute furieuse; il croisait ses bras nerveux sur sa large poitrine, et seul, debout sur son seuil, il attendait, il bravait cette tempête populaire dont les flots venaient mourir à quelques pas de lui: et quand la foule, honteuse de sa rebellion, venait lécher les pieds du maître, le hautain patricien méprisait l’hommage d’aujourd’hui comme la haine d’hier, et dans les rues de Londres, et devant son palais ducal d’Apsley, il repoussait d’un genre plein de froid dédain l’incommode empressement du peuple enthousiaste. 
Cette fierté néanmoins n’excluait pas en lui une rare modestie; partout il se soustrait à l’éloge; se dérobe au panégyrique; jamais il ne parle de ses exploits, et jamais il ne souffre qu’un autre lui en parle en sa présence.  Son caractère égale en grandeur et surpasse en vérité celui de tout autre héros ancien ou moderne.  La gloire de Napoléon crût en une nuit, comme la vigne de Jonas, et il suffit d’un jour pour la flétrir; la gloire de Wellington est comme les vieux chênes qui ombragent le château de ses pères sur les rives du Shannon; le chêne croît lentement; il lui faut du temps pour pousser vers le ciel ses branches noueuses, et pour enfoncer dans le sol ces racines profondes qui s’enchevêtrent dans les fondements solides de la terre; mais alors, l’arbre séculaire, inébranlable comme le roc où il a sa base, brave et la faux du temps et l’effort des vents et des tempêtes.  Il faudra peut-être un siècle à l’Angleterre pour qu’elle connaise la valeur de son héros. 
Dans un siècle, l’Europe entière saura combien Wellington a des droits à sa reconnaissance.”

How often in writing this paper “in a strange land,” must Miss Brontë have thought of the old childish disputes in the kitchen of Haworth parsonage, touching the respective merits of Wellington and Buonaparte!  Although the title given to her
devoir
is, “On the Death of Napoleon,” she seems yet to have considered it a point of honour rather to sing praises to an English hero than to dwell on the character of a foreigner, placed as she was among those who cared little either for an England or for Wellington.  She now felt that she had made great progress towards obtaining proficiency in the French language, which had been her main object in coming to Brussels.  But to the zealous learner “Alps on Alps arise.”  No sooner is one difficulty surmounted than some other desirable attainment appears, and must be laboured after.  A knowledge of German now became her object; and she resolved to compel herself to remain in Brussels till that was gained.  The strong yearning to go home came upon her; the stronger self-denying will forbade.  There was a great internal struggle; every fibre of her heart quivered in the strain to master her will; and, when she conquered herself, she remained, not like a victor calm and supreme on the throne, but like a panting, torn, and suffering victim.  Her nerves and her spirits gave way.  Her health became much shaken.

“Brussels, August 1st, 1843.

“If I complain in this letter, have mercy and don’t blame me, for, I forewarn you, I am in low spirits, and that earth and heaven are dreary and empty to me at this moment.  In a few days our vacation will begin; everybody is joyous and animated at the prospect, because everybody is to go home.  I know that I am to stay here during the five weeks that the holidays last, and that I shall be much alone during that time, and consequently get downcast, and find both days and nights of a weary length.  It is the first time in my life that I have really dreaded the vacation.  Alas!  I can hardly write, I have such a dreary weight at my heart; and I do so wish to go home.  Is not this childish?  Pardon me, for I cannot help it.  However, though I am not strong enough to bear up cheerfully, I can still bear up; and I will continue to stay (D. V.) some months longer, till I have acquired German; and then I hope to see all your faces again.  Would that the vacation were well over! it will pass so slowly.  Do have the Christian charity to write me a long, long letter; fill it with the minutest details; nothing will be uninteresting.  Do not think it is because people are unkind to me that I wish to leave Belgium; nothing of the sort.  Everybody is abundantly civil, but home-sickness keeps creeping over me.  I cannot shake it off.  Believe me, very merrily, vivaciously, gaily, yours,

“C.B.”

The
grandes vacances
began soon after the date of this letter, when she was left in the great deserted pensionnat, with only one teacher for a companion.  This teacher, a Frenchwoman, had always been uncongenial to her; but, left to each other’s sole companionship, Charlotte soon discovered that her associate was more profligate, more steeped in a kind of cold, systematic sensuality, than she had before imagined it possible for a human being to be; and her whole nature revolted from this woman’s society.  A low nervous fever was gaining upon Miss Brontë.  She had never been a good sleeper, but now she could not sleep at all.  Whatever had been disagreeable, or obnoxious, to her during the day, was presented when it was over with exaggerated vividness to her disordered fancy.  There were causes for distress and anxiety in the news from home, particularly as regarded Branwell.  In the dead of the night, lying awake at the end of the long deserted dormitory, in the vast and silent house, every fear respecting those whom she loved, and who were so far off in another country, became a terrible reality, oppressing her and choking up the very life-blood in her heart.  Those nights were times of sick, dreary, wakeful misery; precursors of many such in after years.

In the daytime, driven abroad by loathing of her companion and by the weak restlessness of fever, she tried to walk herself into such a state of bodily fatigue as would induce sleep.  So she went out, and with weary steps would traverse the Boulevards and the streets, sometimes for hours together; faltering and resting occasionally on some of the many benches placed for the repose of happy groups, or for solitary wanderers like herself.  Then up again — anywhere but to the pensionnat — out to the cemetery where Martha lay — out beyond it, to the hills whence there is nothing to be seen but fields as far as the horizon.  The shades of evening made her retrace her footsteps — sick for want of food, but not hungry; fatigued with long continued exercise — yet restless still, and doomed to another weary, haunted night of sleeplessness.  She would thread the streets in the neighbourhood of the Rue d’Isabelle, and yet avoid it and its occupant, till as late an hour as she dared be out.  At last, she was compelled to keep her bed for some days, and this compulsory rest did her good.  She was weak, but less depressed in spirits than she had been, when the school re-opened, and her positive practical duties recommenced.

She writes thus: —

“October 13th, 1843

“Mary is getting on well, as she deserves to do.  I often hear from her.  Her letters and yours are one of my few pleasures.  She urges me very much to leave Brussels and go to her; but, at present, however tempted to take such a step, I should not feel justified in doing so.  To leave a certainty for a complete uncertainty, would be to the last degree imprudent.  Notwithstanding that, Brussels is indeed desolate to me now.  Since the D.s left, I have had no friend.  I had, indeed, some very kind acquaintances in the family of a Dr. — -, but they, too, are gone now.  They left in the latter part of August, and I am completely alone.  I cannot count the Belgians anything.  It is a curious position to be so utterly solitary in the midst of numbers.  Sometimes the solitude oppresses me to an excess.  One day, lately, I felt as if I could bear it no longer, and I went to Madame Héger, and gave her notice.  If it had depended on her, I should certainly have soon been at liberty; but M. Héger, having heard of what was in agitation, sent for me the day after, and pronounced with vehemence his decision, that I should not leave.  I could not, at that time, have persevered in my intention without exciting him to anger; so I promised to stay a little while longer.  How long that will be, I do not know.  I should not like to return to England to do nothing.  I am too old for that now; but if I could hear of a favourable opportunity for commencing a school, I think I should embrace it.  We have as yet no fires here, and I suffer much from cold; otherwise, I am well in health.  Mr. — - will take this letter to England.  He is a pretty-looking and pretty behaved young man, apparently constructed without a backbone; by which I don’t allude to his corporal spine, which is all right enough, but to his character.

“I get on here after a fashion; but now that Mary D. has left Brussels, I have nobody to speak to, for I count the Belgians as nothing.  Sometimes I ask myself how long shall I stay here; but as yet I have only asked the question; I have not answered it.  However, when I have acquired as much German as I think fit, I think I shall pack up bag and baggage and depart.  Twinges of home-sickness cut me to the heart, every now and then.  To-day the weather is glaring, and I am stupified with a bad cold and headache.  I have nothing to tell you.  One day is like another in this place.  I know you, living in the country, can hardly believe it is possible life can be monotonous in the centre of a brilliant capital like Brussels; but so it is.  I feel it most on holidays, when all the girls and teachers go out to visit, and it sometimes happens that I am left, during several hours, quite alone, with four great desolate schoolrooms at my disposition.  I try to read, I try to write; but in vain.  I then wander about from room to room, but the silence and loneliness of all the house weighs down one’s spirits like lead.  You will hardly believe that Madame Héger (good and kind as I have described her) never comes near me on these occasions.  I own, I was astonished the first time I was left alone thus; when everybody else was enjoying the pleasures of a fête day with their friends, and she knew I was quite by myself, and never took the least notice of me.  Yet, I understand, she praises me very much to everybody, and says what excellent lessons I give.  She is not colder to me than she is to the other teachers; but they are less dependent on her than I am.  They have relations and acquaintances in Bruxelles.  You remember the letter she wrote me, when I was in England?  How kind and affectionate that was? is it not odd?  In the meantime, the complaints I make at present are a sort of relief which I permit myself.  In all other respects I am well satisfied with my position, and you may say so to people who inquire after me (if any one does).  Write to me, dear, whenever you can.  You do a good deed when you send me a letter, for you comfort a very desolate heart.”

One of the reasons for the silent estrangement between Madame Héger and Miss Brontë, in the second year of her residence at Brussels, is to be found in the fact, that the English Protestant’s dislike of Romanism increased with her knowledge of it, and its effects upon those who professed it; and when occasion called for an expression of opinion from Charlotte Brontë, she was uncompromising truth.  Madame Héger, on the opposite side, was not merely a Roman Catholic, she was
dévote
.  Not of a warm or impulsive temperament, she was naturally governed by her conscience, rather than by her affections; and her conscience was in the hands of her religious guides.  She considered any slight thrown upon her Church as blasphemy against the Holy Truth; and, though she was not given to open expression of her thoughts and feelings, yet her increasing coolness of behaviour showed how much her most cherished opinions had been wounded.  Thus, although there was never any explanation of Madame Héger’s change of manner, this may be given as one great reason why, about this time, Charlotte was made painfully conscious of a silent estrangement between them; an estrangement of which, perhaps, the former was hardly aware.  I have before alluded to intelligence from home, calculated to distress Charlotte exceedingly with fears respecting Branwell, which I shall speak of more at large when the realisation of her worst apprehensions came to affect the daily life of herself and her sisters.  I allude to the subject again here, in order that the reader may remember the gnawing, private cares, which she had to bury in her own heart; and the pain of which could only be smothered for a time under the diligent fulfilment of present duty.  Another dim sorrow was faintly perceived at this time.  Her father’s eyesight began to fail; it was not unlikely that he might shortly become blind; more of his duty must devolve on a curate, and Mr. Brontë, always liberal, would have to pay at a higher rate than he had heretofore done for this assistance.