The Diary of an Ennuyée | Page 2

empty, and cold, and despairing, It shrinks in my desolate
breast.
But a spirit is burning within me, Unquench'd, and unquenchable yet; It
shall teach me to bear uncomplaining, The grief I can never forget.
Rouen, June 25.--I do not pity Joan of Arc: that heroic woman only
paid the price which all must pay for celebrity in some shape or other:
the sword or the faggot, the scaffold or the field, public hatred or
private heart-break; what matter? The noble Bedford could not rise
above the age in which he lived: but that was the age of gallantry and
chivalry, as well as superstition: and could Charles, the lover of Agnes
Sorel, with all the knights and nobles of France, look on while their
champion, and a woman, was devoted to chains and death, without one
effort to save her?
It has often been said that her fate disgraced the military fame of the
English; it is a far fouler blot on the chivalry of France.
* * * * *
St. Germains, June 27.--I cannot bear this place, another hour in it will
kill me; this sultry evening--this sickening sunshine--this quiet,

unbroken, boundless landscape--these motionless woods--the Seine
stealing, creeping through the level plains--the dull grandeur of the old
chateau--the languid repose of the whole scene--instead of soothing,
torture me. I am left without resource, a prey to myself and to my
memory--to reflection, which embitters the source of suffering, and
thought, which brings distraction. Horses on to Paris! Vite! Vite!
Paris, 28.--What said the witty Frenchwoman?--_Paris est le lieu du
monde où l'on peut le mieux se passer de bonheur;_--in that case it will
suit me admirably.
29.--We walked and drove about all day: I was amused. I marvel at my
own versatility when I think how soon my quick spirits were excited by
this gay, gaudy, noisy, idle place. The different appearance of the
streets of London and Paris is the first thing to strike a stranger. In the
gayest and most crowded streets of London the people move steadily
and rapidly along, with a grave collected air, as if all had some business
in view; here, as a little girl observed the other day, all the people walk
about "like ladies and gentlemen going a visiting:" the women
well-dressed and smiling, and with a certain jaunty air, trip along with
their peculiar mincing step, and appear as if their sole object was but to
show themselves; the men ill-dressed, slovenly, and in general
ill-looking, lounge indolently, and stare as if they had no other purpose
in life but to look about them.[B]
July 12.--"Quel est à Paris le suprême talent? celui d'amuser: et quel est
le suprême bonheur? l'amusement."
Then le suprême bonheur may be found every evening from nine to ten,
in a walk along the Boulevards, or a ramble through the Champs
Elysées, and from ten to twelve in a salon at Tortoni's.
What an extraordinary scene was that I witnessed to-night! how truly
French! Spite of myself and all my melancholy musings, and all my
philosophic allowances for the difference of national character, I was
irresistibly compelled to smile at some of the farcical groups we
encountered. In the most crowded parts of the Champs Elysées this
evening (Sunday), there sat an old lady with a wrinkled yellow face and

sharp features, dressed in flounced gown of dirty white muslin, a pink
sash and a Leghorn hat and feathers. In one hand she held a small tray
for the contribution of amateurs, and in the other an Italian bravura,
which she sung or rather screamed out with a thousand indescribable
shruggings, contortions, and grimaces, and in a voice to which a
cracked tea-kettle, or a "brazen candlestick turned," had seemed the
music of the spheres. A little farther on we found two elderly
gentlemen playing at see-saw; one an immense corpulent man of fifteen
stone at least, the other a thin dwarfish animal with gray mustachios,
who held before him what I thought was a child, but on approaching, it
proved to be a large stone strapped before him, to render his weight a
counterpoise to that of his huge companion. We passed on, and
returning about half an hour afterwards down the same walk, we found
the same venerable pair pursuing their edifying amusement with as
much enthusiasm as before.
* * * * *
Before the revolution, sacrilege became one of the most frequent
crimes. I was told of a man who, having stolen from a church the silver
box containing the consecrated wafers, returned the wafers next day in
a letter to the Curé of the Parish, _having used one of them to seal his
envelop_.
* * * * *
July 27.--A conversation with S** always leaves me sad. Can it