Volume 7 — A Sister's Story. [Footnote 220]

We do not usually go to France for pictures of domestic life; yet, when we do find a cultivated French family penetrated with the home instincts which are so much more common on the opposite side of the channel, and lavishing upon the members of their own household an affection elevated and sanctified by true piety, there is a charm about the scene which is apt to be wanting in our own more commonplace experience. The charm, to be sure, often asserts itself too boldly; for the Frenchman has a keen relish for sentiment, and in nine cases out of ten the rapture with which love fills his heart is only half of it inspired by the object of his passion, while the other half is an unconscious admiration of the delicacy of his own feelings. He makes a romance out of love for his father and mother, and his affection for his sweetheart is an extravagant poem. Still, unless you analyze it too closely, which there is no need of your doing at all, the poem is almost always beautiful and delicate, and sometimes possesses the true poetical aroma. A Sister's Story is a romance of love, trial, happiness, and death. Nobody but a French woman could have written it; yet the sentiment is not what is commonly called "Frenchy," because it is etherealized by a genuine Christian refinement, and because, moreover, it is a true history.

The Count de la Ferronnays, who was French ambassador at St. Petersburg in 1819, and afterward at Rome, had a large family of children, one of whom, Pauline, married an English gentleman, and is the author of this book. Another, Albert, is the hero. They all loved one another with a rare and touching tenderness, and loved God, too, with a simple and unaffected devotion. The revolution of 1830 deprived the Count of his diplomatic appointment, despoiled him of most of his fortune, and, as he was a stanch adherent of the Bourbons, left him without hope of a future career in the service of the state. The family seem, however, to have accepted their reverses cheerfully, and to have made little change in their way of life, except by practising a stricter economy than they had been used to. They passed most of their time in Italy, mingling with people of rank and distinction, or travelling in search of health, as one or another of them showed symptoms of approaching disease. Albert was a young man of handsome appearance, and, we should judge, of no mean accomplishments. He was warm-hearted, remarkably sensitive, somewhat of a dreamer, romantic, poetical, and pure in heart. The life of a man of society he sanctified with the piety of a recluse. The revolution which cut short his father's public career destroyed also the young man's prospects in life, and left him, just entering manhood, without fixed occupation, and without much hope of obtaining employment suitable to his rank and tastes. This enforced idleness, coupled with the delicacy of his constitution, already perhaps undermined by the pulmonary disease which was so soon to carry him off, predisposed him to a melancholy reflectiveness which, though corrected by his devout aspirations, was nevertheless morbid. The feminine delicacy of his nature was developed by close intimacy with his sisters, and his religious elevation was doubtless heightened by his frequent intercourse with Montalembert, whose sentiments he fully shared, though he was unable to join in his labors, with M. Rio, whom he accompanied to various parts of Italy, with the Abbé Gerbet, and with other distinguished Catholics of that brilliant day.

Among the acquaintances of the Count's family in Rome was the Countess d'Alopeus, widow of the celebrated Russian plenipotentiary at Berlin, and afterward wife of Prince Lapoukhyn. She had a daughter, Alexandrine, a beautiful and amiable girl, apparently, like Albert, of a pensive turn of mind, and, though a Lutheran, (her mother being a German,) of a strongly religious disposition. Albert fell in love with her the first time they met, and from that time love and religion filled up all the rest of his short life. It was but a little while before Alexandrine learned to return the tender sentiment. The intimacy ripened fast; but there were many difficulties in the way of marriage, and it was only after two years, marked by severe trials, that they were at last united in 1834. Ten days afterward Albert burst a blood-vessel, and from that time until his death, in 1836, their happiness was clouded by the gradual approach of the untimely fate which they could hardly help foreseeing. The picture which Mrs. Craven, with the help of the journals and letters of this dear young couple, has drawn of their courtship, their love, their few hours of happiness, and their admirable married life, with all its consolations and all its sufferings, is full of the most delicious beauty. It could not have been so natural, had it not been drawn from the life; it would not have been so exquisite, had not the artist been herself a poet.

By the side of her husband's dying bed, Alexandrine was received into the Catholic Church. She appears to have possessed a stronger though not a more lovely character than Albert, and in her widowhood its magnificence was fully developed. During the twelve years she survived her husband, she learned to the full the great lessons of self-abnegation, humility, and detachment from all worldly things. Even in the first days of her sorrow, God rewarded her with a strength which surprised all who knew her; and this was succeeded after a while by a completeness of resignation and a spiritual joy which were no less than saint-like. "We shall see," writes Mrs. Craven, in beginning the narrative of these final years, "by what efforts of resignation, by what self-surrender, she obtained peace, and entered upon that other period of her life which she speaks of in her story, and of which she once said, 'Even before old age and death, faith gave me rest!' This rest, which went beyond resignation, even beyond peace, which Alexandrine had soon recovered; a rest which marked the latter part of her life by a joyousness unknown to her young days, she did not attain till she had gone through many fresh sorrows. It was God's will that she should outlive most of those who had proved her firmest friends and most tender comforters in her widowhood. Almost at one time she lost her own brother, my father, Eugénie, and Olga," (Albert's sisters, to whom she was deeply attached.) "It may be that this was allowed that, when after such repeated blows she was still able to say she was happy, no one might mistake the source whence that happiness sprang." She gave herself up to the service of the poor and suffering, and in order to make herself more like the objects of her charity, whom she loved so tenderly, she used to deprive herself of all the little every-day luxuries and conveniences which belonged to her station, and in which naturally she took a particular delight. She made trial of a conventual life, but that was clearly not the path in which God wished her to walk, and her director bade her leave it. During the latter part of her life she resided principally with Albert's mother, in Paris. Here is a picture of her occupations at that time:

"To meet the deficiency in her resources, she gradually restricted her own expenditure to the narrowest compass, and deprived herself of everything short of absolute necessaries. One day I happened to look into her wardrobe, and was dismayed at its scantiness. When we, any of us, made this kind of discovery, she blushed and smiled, made the best excuses she could find in return for our scoldings, and then went on just the same, giving away all she possessed, and finding every day new occasions for these acts of self-spoliation. She had, of course, long ago sold or given away all her jewels and trinkets, but, if she ever happened to find among her things an article of the smallest value, it was immediately disposed of for the benefit of the poor. For instance, one day she took out of its frame a beautiful miniature of Princess Lapoukhyn at the age of twenty, and sold the gold and enamel frame, defending herself by saying that it was the only thing of value she still possessed, and did not in the least enhance the value of her mother's charming likeness. Two black gowns, and a barely sufficient amount of linen, constituted her whole wardrobe, so that she had reduced herself, as far as was possible in her position of life, to a state of actual poverty. Her long errands were almost always performed on foot, and at dinner-time she came home often covered with dirt and wet to the skin. One day, when she was visiting some Sisters of Charity in a distant part of Paris, one of them looked at her from head to foot, and then begged an alms for a poor woman much in need of a pair of shoes. Alexandrine instantly produced her purse and gave the required amount, with which the sister went away, and in a quarter of an hour returned, laughing, and bringing with her a pair of shoes, which she insisted on Madame Albert's putting on instead of those she was wearing, which were certainly in the worst possible condition. On her return from these distant excursions, she usually put on her evening dress and came down to Madame de Mun's drawing-room, where she found my mother, who also had often been engaged in similar charitable duties. During that winter I often joined this little circle, now so thinned by death, and so soon to break up altogether. For one brief moment I would fain pause and look back in thought to that well-remembered room and its long table, at which my mother and Madame de Mun were wont to sit, with Eugénie's children playing at their feet; and at the place near the lamp, where Alexandrine was to be seen every evening, with her head bending over her work; her brown hair divided into two long plaits, a way of wearing it which particularly became her, though it was certainly not chosen on that account. She did not, however, profess to be free from all thought about her appearance; on the contrary, she was always accusing herself of still caring for admiration; and when once she heard that somebody who had accidentally spoken to her had said she was pretty, she exclaimed with half-jesting indignation: 'I really believe that, if I were in my last agony, that would please me still!' Very pretty certainly she looked on those evenings, in her simple black dress; always calm and serene, and brightening up whenever the great interests and objects of life were the subjects of conversation. Otherwise she remained silent, occupying herself with her embroidery, or else, taking her little book of extracts, so full of beautiful thoughts, from her pocket, she read them over and added new ones from her favorite books.

......

"Time never hung heavy on Alexandrine's hands. After such trials and sufferings, she could say as Madame Swetchine did: 'that life was lovely and happy; and ever, as it went on, fairer, happier, and more interesting.' The melancholy which was natural to her character in youth, and which the radiant happiness that for a moment filled up her life had not been able to overcome—that melancholy which was the sign perhaps of some kind of softness of soul, and which so many deaths and such floods of tears could naturally have increased—had been completely put down and overcome by the love of God and the poor. One day as I saw her moving about her room which she had made so bare, with an air of the greatest gayety, we both of us suddenly recalled the terrible days of the past, when her grief had been full of gloom, and then she said, what was very striking to any one who knew how deep was her unutterable love to the very last, 'Yes, that is all true; those were cruel and dreadful days; but now, by God's grace, I mourn for my Albert gayly.'"

Subsequently she was admitted, as a lodger, to the convent of St. Thomas of Villanova, in Paris, and there she died with the peacefulness and holy joy which she had merited by her life. By what austerities she had prepared for and probably hastened her end, we may judge from this incident:

"One morning at Mass in the convent chapel, a lady happened to hear her cough, and noticing her pale looks and poor apparel, she went to one of the sisters, and told her that there was a lady in the church who was probably too poor to provide herself with necessaries, and that she should be very happy to supply her with milk daily, if she had not the means to purchase it. This kind soul was quite ashamed when the sister told her the poor lady was Madame Albert de la Ferronnays; but Alexandrine, much amused, laughed exceedingly at the mistake, and did not treat herself better than before."

One loving hand which has traced this beautiful story whose outlines we have thus roughly reproduced, has illustrated it with many touching reminiscences of the other members of the charming family circle, of which Albert and Alexandrine are the central figures. There is an exquisite pathos in every page, and

"The tender grace of a day that is dead"

is delineated with an unaffected delicacy which must move every heart. Miss Bowles, we should add, has proved herself an admirable translator, so good a one that her version reads like an original.