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CHAPTER V.

MANON'S SUITORS.

After her mother's death, Manon passed a fortnight in a very precarious state between convulsive fits and hours of mute prostration, unrelieved by tears. To divert her thoughts from constantly brooding on her loss, an Abbé, who sometimes came to see her, bethought him of lending her the Nouvelle Héloïse. This book was an era in Madame Roland's life. If Plutarch had inspired her with a love of republican institutions, the Nouvelle Héloïse showed her the ideal of domestic life, and she now eagerly read and re-read Rousseau's works: he became her breviary. Like other devout worshippers of this oracle of the eighteenth century, she burned to tender her homage to The Master, as Boswell and as Gibbon and hundreds of others had done, amongst whom the redoubtable Robespierre is said to have been one. Chance seemed to favour Manon's wishes, for amongst her acquaintances there happened to be a Swiss gentleman, to whom, as was her habit with friends, she had given a nickname, labelling him the "Philosophical Republican." This abstraction of a man—human enough, however, to be presently much in love with the fair Manon—was sufficiently obliging to make over to her a ​commission he had been entrusted with, that of proposing to the impecunious Rousseau the composition of some musical airs. Marie Phlipon, delighted at this opportunity of seeing Rousseau, immediately indited an eloquent epistle, setting forth its object, adding that she would do herself the honour of fetching the answer in person at the stated time. Behold her then sallying forth in company with the faithful Mignonne, in a flutter of trepidation, hurrying through the streets of Paris, and arriving at last in the Rue Platrière, where Rousseau then lived. With the reverence with which one enters a temple, she knocked at the humble door, and thus she afterwards described her sensations to Sophie:—

It was opened by a woman of at least fifty, in a round cap, a clean and simple morning gown and a large apron. She looked severe and even a little hard.

"Madame, may I ask, does not M. Rousseau live here?"

"Certainly, Mademoiselle."

"Could I see him?"

"What is it you want of him?"

"I came for an answer to a letter which I wrote him a few days ago."

"Mademoiselle, he admits no one; but you can tell the people who have dictated your letter—for, of course, you never wrote such a letter as that——"

"Excuse me," I interrupted.

"The handwriting alone shows it to be by a man."

"Would you like to see me write?" I asked, laughing.

She shook her head, adding: "All that I am empowered to tell you is that my husband has absolutely given up doing things of that sort; he would wish nothing better than to be of service, but he is of an age to take some rest."

"I know it, but I would have felt flattered to have had my answer from his own lips; and I will, at least, seize this occasion to express my veneration for the man whom I esteem the most in all the world. Pray accept it, Madame."

She thanked me by keeping her hand on the lock as I went downstairs.

​And so while everywhere young hearts were yearning to do him homage, Rousseau himself, shrinking from contact with his kind, was gnawed, cankered by that worst disease of the mind, the dreadful horror of imagining an enemy in everyone who sought to approach him. Perhaps, while outside the ardent girl waited eagerly to tell the author of the Nouvelle Héloïse what an unpayable debt she owed him, the man, whose burning thoughts were now alive within her, hid himself like some dumb wounded animal. He did not know, alas! that at his door, vainly knocking for admittance, stood his very own daughter (for we are not only born in the flesh but in the spirit), that there, young and strong, beautiful and impassioned with thought, there waited one ready to render back to him in his old age the spiritual glow he had once emitted—he did not know—and, with only a wall between, they crossed each other unseen, never to meet on earth. But while the poor, time-battered body of the man was dragging out the few last years of abject wretchedness, his spirit had gone forth from him, swaying thousands of minds, as the vivifying west wind stirs the boughs of a vernal forest. Like Jubal—the inventor of the lyre—in George Eliot's fine conception, who dies broken-hearted by the wayside while the people pass on triumphantly chaunting his praises, Rousseau, too, was miserably perishing, even while his thought was becoming a living force which

Set the world in flame

Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more.

In 1776 and also in 1777, the year preceding that of both Voltaire's and Rousseau's death, Madame Roland was intently studying the latter's works, and continually ​alluding to him in her correspondence, especially to the Discours and the Contrat Social, "A book to be studied, not read," she remarked, "because, although very clearly written, it is too full of matter for the connection of the whole to be seized without effort."

The whole of Rousseau's works were given her by the "Republican Philosopher," who had fallen in love with her. In touching on this Chapter of Suitors, we must retrace our steps and begin with those who had appeared on the scene before the mother's death. For Manon did not belong to that class of shabbily treated young women who can at most boast of but one or two strings to their bow, being in that, as in some other respects, so favoured by nature as to be beset by a legion of wooers. These importunate creatures became the plague of her life, and she at last dreaded the addresses of a new aspirant as much as some young ladies rejoice in receiving them. It is curious enough to mark how these pretenders to Mademoiselle Phlipon's hand rise in the social scale in proportion as her personality gradually triumphs over her surroundings. The reader may remember that Spanish Colossus who taught her the guitar, and who in turn conceived the wild idea of asking this girl of fourteen or fifteen in marriage of her father. In his footsteps foUpwed another of her teachers, the wizened little dancing-master, who, for the second time a widower, had had his huge wen operated upon before proceeding to the more delicate operation of proposing for her in marriage.

M. Phlipon, who prided himself not a tittle on his personal appearance, enjoyed the joke heartily, and without precisely telling his daughter of these curious wooers, threw out so many sly hints, that she could ​not help knowing all about it. As has been said, Manon used to go shopping with her mother, or occasionally with the maid, and in her dealings with a neighbouring butcher was always particularly well served. To her surprise, this identical butcher, whom she used to see on week-days cutting up joints, was always meeting them on their Sunday walks in a handsome suit of black and lace ruffles. Moreover, when she fell ill once, he sent round every morning to inquire after her health, enforcing the message with the choicest tit-bits of his shop. Thereat her father smiled, joked, rubbed his hands, and one day gravely introduced her to a certain Mademoiselle Michon, who had come ceremoniously in the butcher's name (a rich widower) to ask her hand. Her father having maliciously let her in for this interview, she found means to evade giving an offensive refusal, by saying that she was so fond of her present way of life, as to be resolved not to change her state for years to come. This reply did not precisely suit the views of her father, who exclaimed, "Why, here is an answer, forsooth, to frighten away all future lovers!"

Presently, however, there came an offer from a man her parents deemed not at all unsuited to her. This was in 1771, when she was seventeen, and it is curious to note how, before she had really thought much about marriage, she mechanically viewed it after the conventional French fashion. This man—a jeweller, who had already lost two wives, and who had a good business, an excellent reputation and an amiable disposition, seems chiefly to have desired the connection because Manon's unusually serious turn of mind led him to think she would make a capital housewife and accountant. She herself seemed quite without illusions! In ​writing to Sophie, she reveals her inmost thoughts, and one can see that at this youthful age she felt almost as much bound to abide by her parents' choice as did Portia by the fateful caskets. Begging her friend's assistance on this "terrible occasion," she says she has had one interview with the gentleman, without being able to recall precisely "whether he was dark or fair," though it seems to her that "he was of a sallow complexion, with a long thin face, much pitted with the small-pox; hesitating of speech, and with nothing in his manners to attract or repel."

This affair, to her infinite relief, came to nothing; but one suit had no sooner been refused than a fresh wooer straightway started up, chiefly recruited from the tradesmen of "the quarter." These were by no means love suits, in our English sense, but business-like proposals, made by the relatives of would-be husbands to the lady's relatives, who first of all went to work in a round-about way, inquiring into the respective fortunes, character, disposition of the pair. To be so persistently sought after for years, not only shows that Marie Phlipon must have been considered the beauty of her quarter, but that her character and manners inspired the highest regard; not to forget that, being an only child, she was supposed to be an heiress in her small way.

Another batch of suitors having been sent about their business, Gatien Phlipon began to show signs of restiveness. He could sympathise with his daughter's aversion to ally herself with a pastrycook; but when it came to her refusing a thriving woollen-draper or goldsmith, he lost all patience. He began to rate her soundly for her dislike to shopkeepers, and Louis Blanc, as we have before hinted, seems inclined to ​accuse her of wanting in love for the people because she scouted the proposed matches. But what are the reasons she gave her father for this dislike? Why, antipathy for those very bourgeois failings of which this eminent historian accuses her. She will not marry a rich tradesman because, forsooth, she has observed that the only way of making money in trade is by selling dear what has been bought cheap, "by overcharging customers and beating down the poor workman. I should never be able to descend to such practices," she told Phlipon, "nor to respect a man who made them his daily occupations."

The next suitor that presented himself belonged to a different class; he was a promising young doctor from Provence, ambitious of rising in his profession, and looking out for a wife with some fortune. The preliminaries of this match had literally been all settled before Manon knew a word of the matter. As it is not customary in France for young men to visit at a house where there are young ladies, the girl was one day taken by her parents, as if casually—a shower of rain being the ostensible excuse—to the house of a certain lady, a distant relative, where they were hospitably entertained. In the meanwhile, Dr. Gardanne also dropped in, as if by accident. "The first impression was not enchanting," Manon wrote to her friend. "A man, above middle height, in wig and doctor's gown, dark, coarse-featured, with small eyes, glittering under bushy black eye-brows, and an imperious air. However, he grew animated in conversation, did ample justice to the sweetmeats," which he cracked in talking, and, with a gallantry smacking of the school, said to the young lady that he was very fond of sweets, to which the latter, not without a smile and a blush, ​replied timidly, "that men were accused of loving sweet things, because in dealing with them one required great sweetness." The cunning doctor appeared enchanted with the epigram. Her father would willingly have given them his benediction on the spot; this politeness enraged his daughter.

Nothing was definitely settled on that occasion, but Madame Phlipon, tender and pensive, began seriously expatiating on the advantages of this match; and Manon herself did not see any valid reason for refusal, save for the objection that, as she had had no opportunities of knowing, she could not well love this doctor. This was, of course, not taken into account, and, a formal offer being presently made, a second interview took place. Without being prepossessed in his favour, Manon told her friend that there was a good deal to be said in favour of this match. Some of her incidental remarks afford curious glimpses into the manners of the time. "M. Gardanne," she says, "does not wish for one of those women who, in marrying, expect a lady's-maid, a second footman, a private sitting-room—one of those women, in short, who pass the night at parties and the day at cards, as is the custom with doctors' wives." These seem great expectations for the wife of a doctor of but eight years' practice. Dr. Gardanne having already a well-furnished house, it seemed as if the marriage must be concluded instantly, and mother and daughter went to pass a week in the country, during which the necessary formalities were to be arranged.

Manon's dowry was to be, on this occasion, eight hundred and eighty three pounds—worth treble the amount that it would be now. Meanwhile, M. Phlipon, busy, inquisitive, elated, lost no time in making all ​possible inquiries concerning his future son-in-law, wrote off to the doctor's friends in Provence, made nice inquiries of the tradesmen he dealt with, and of his servants, and, having discovered that he had quarrelled with an influential person in his province, began lecturing him with the airs of the prospective father-in-law. The choleric doctor, having already heard of some of these proceedings, was so much ruffled in temper as to show his discontent to the relative who had first been instrumental in bringing the parties together. Whereupon this lady, no less fiery, considered her cousin slighted, and the affair was broken off. On the ladies return from the country, nothing further was said of the suitor; Manon felt intensely relieved, the mother not sorry, and the father too crestfallen to say a word.

In fact, he had now given up pressing Manon to get married, and, as time went on, was less anxious about the matter than his wife. He began enjoying the sense of his importance in having so admired a daughter. He now always showed her the various written demands for her hand that reached him, and his daughter would dictate the answer, couched in the most judicious terms, in the name of her papa.

In the meanwhile Madame Phlipon had died; Marie was keeping house for her father, when there called on her a young man, whom she had known some years ago, and who, on seeing her, asked, much moved, whether someone were ill. "Someone is dead," was her scarce audible reply. She then told what had happened, and read his sympathy in his silent emotion.

This young man was a certain Pahin de Lablancherie, who, two years later, in 1778, acquired some reputation ​by starting, in concert with Brissot, a General Correspondence on the Arts and Sciences, or News of the Republic of Letters. This ambitious scheme, intended as an international association of scientific and literary men, looks like a germ of our British Associations and Social Science Congresses; and the man who planned them must have had some far-reaching ideas and good intentions, if nothing more. Certain it is that he was the first suitor of modern views who crossed Madame Roland's path, and the first who in any way touched her feelings.

He was also a man of literary proclivities, and, in 1776, published a work entitled, "Extracts from a Journal of my Travels; or, the History of a young Man: a Lesson to Fathers and Mothers." There is frequent mention of this book in Manon's correspondence, and an interesting review of it by her, written for her friend's behalf. She speaks of it with the impartiality of a critic, though admitting that she is afraid to mention it to others for fear they should suspect her interest in the author. It was a dull, moralising work, yet containing shocking descriptions of the licentiousness prevalent in the seminaries and colleges of the time, and it may have inspired Manon with some of that recoil from "the innate ferocity" of man which is a noticeable feature in her.

Lablancherie had proposed for Manon some years before; but, considering that he was only two-and-twenty, penniless, and studying for the Bar, with no definite prospects of advancement, the father considered such a marriage out of the question, and would not even hear of a correspondence, for which he had begged before returning to Orleans. That Manon regarded his suit with very different eyes from those ​of her other wooers is very clear from her letters to her confidante Sophie. She could see nothing so wild in the young man's proposition to her father—to let them marry at once, live in his house for a few years, and, by means of her dowry, assist him to purchase a place in the magistracy, and so start them for life. She nevertheless acquiesced in M. Phlipon's decision; and now, after the lapse of a few years, behold! Lablancherie made his appearance again, at a time when her mother's death had made a sad vacuity in her heart, and when the interesting pallor of her lover seemed to indicate that he had suffered much on her account.

There is no doubt that her feelings were touched at last, that she was in love, even if that love partook more of a fancy than a passion, was more of the head than the heart. If she had not been in love, would she have thought of saying that, though he was not a Rousseau, "his moral sentiments were beautiful and well expressed"? If she had been more in love, would she have laid stress on his "infinite historical allusions and quotations from authors without end"? At any rate, such as it was, it had some of the effects by which we can tell the highest kind of love, it kindled a very passion of perfection in her in order to make herself worthy of this exalted being, whom she had fashioned in the image of her ideal; and whenever she did a generous action (and she did many), she naïvely laid it to the account of Lablancherie. She did not at this time contemplate marriage. It sufficed her that she was beloved of this "virtuous" young man, that they saw each other occasionally, that they could think of each other in absence. This state of affairs by no means suited the father's views. After his wife's ​death he had considered it incumbent on himself to be always present when his daughter saw visitors; but he very soon grew restive, ill-tempered, finally intimating to Lablancherie to discontinue his visits.

Here was a sad complication, a dire perplexity! Filial obedience in conflict with pity for an unhappy man, dying apparently for love of her!—duty and affection pulling her heart in contrary directions! While suffering less on her own account than on that of her lover, she is equally loth to speak and to keep silence, till at last, driven to desperation at the thought of what Lablancherie must endure, she bursts out to her friend, in January 1776, being then in her twenty-second year:—"Sophie, Sophie, my friend! I am passing through the most violent crisis; I am in the most cruel conflict with myself. I have only strength enough left to throw myself into the arms of friendship. In another moment the letter I enclose would have been despatched to its address. Only by a great effort have I restrained myself. I wish to delude myself by sending it to you. My soul longs to unburden itself—I think it necessary for the life of him I love; but then prejudice—custom—my father! … O God! how I suffer!

The letter alluded to in the above lines is one which Manon, after much inward trepidation, had at last penned to her lover, in which she tells him that, bound by her father's wish, she is obliged to give up her intercourse with him, and that he must henceforth try and forget her.

The letter was sent by Sophie, and the result was that Lablancherie discontinued his visits entirely. Manon repeatedly expresses admiration for a lover who could thus respect her wishes and act up to ​the highest principles; but whether she really liked it, those must decide who understand a woman's heart.

Months thus elapsed, and the lovers saw and heard nothing of each other. Preoccupied though Manon was, she used to enjoy walking out on a Sunday afternoon with her father, and on one such occasion she diverted herself in the Tuileries Gardens by inwardly criticising every person they passed, for she was, as she sometimes accused herself, something of a quiz. Amongst a group of ladies she caught sight of one, however, who struck her as so pretty and charming that she could find no fault with her. Suddenly she saw her father bowing to someone, and behold! by the side of this very pretty lady she caught sight of Lablancherie, who, while meeting her smile of surprise, from deep respect cast down his eyes. She was pleased at this unexpected meeting—or professed herself pleased. But a month afterwards, on walking in the Luxembourg with a lady friend, she again encountered him; and this time the grave, philosophic, love-sick Lablancherie was actually seen walking with an ostrich feather in his hat! (Then the height of fashion.)

"My poor heart," she writes to Sophie, has been greatly perplexed and fatigued of late in consequence of a number of insignificant little events. Imagine that I have met D. L—b—e: that he wore a feather in his hat. Ah! you cannot imagine how this cursed little feather has tormented me. I have turned and twisted in every direction to reconcile so futile an ornament with that high philosophy, that rigid simplicity of taste, that noble way of thinking, which have endeared him to me. I can only see excuses, and am feeling cruelly what great significance little ​things acquire when they make us suspect the nature of a beloved object." Was it really the little feather that was in fault, or was it a look, an air, a something that, like a flash, sometimes reveals unsuspected qualities in an intimately-known person. At any rate, it proved "the little rift within the lute." Manon learnt that day from her companion that Lablancherie had lately proposed to a rich, lovely young lady: was known to have done so in several other cases of heiresses, and, oh, horror! went by the name of "the lover of the eleven thousand virgins." How much to believe of this gossip the girl hardly knew; but it shattered the ideal she had formed of him. It had been so much more an ideal she had loved than a man, that she did not suffer very deeply. She had lost faith in Lablancherie, and with her faith all desire to marry him; but she declared that she would only marry the man who was what Lablancherie appeared to be.

The remarkable girl, however, was gradually attracting round her men of literary distinction and high social position, only too proud to come and chat with her. Among these was a Monsieur de Sainte Lette, a deputy from the Colony of Pondicherry to the French Court. This gentleman, who had travelled over all the world, and who had amassed a vast fund of knowledge and observation, came to the Phlipons with a letter of introduction from a certain Demontchery, a captain of sepoys in India, who, before leaving Paris, had also unsuccessfully proposed for the fair Manon. On returning to France after some years, he intended renewing his proposal, but learned that the lady had become Roland's wife within the fortnight. The society of Sainte Lette, a man of about sixty, but full of fire and intellect, a friend of Helvétius, and an enthusiastic humanitarian, was a ​rare intellectual treat to Manon. In his vivacious, glowing manner, he satisfied her craving for knowledge by enlarging her ideas of society and government. Sometimes, about this time, Manon would preside over little dinners given to four or five friends, when the sociable, jovial M. Phlipon, flattered at seeing such distinguished guests at his table, would only show himself from his most amiable side. The conversational powers of the future Madame Roland were flow for the first time called into play.

Amongst several highly-cultivated men whose acquaintance she made through Sainte Lette, there was a M. de Sévelinges, a gentleman who had recently lost a beloved wife, and was plunged in grief when first Manon saw him. He was of an ancient family, of restricted means, and lived at Soissons, where he held some financial post, giving the rest of his time to the study of literature. Whereas Sainte Lette's nature seemed "compacted of fire and sulphur," his Pylades was of a gentle and melancholy temperament, and of the most refined sensibility. He, too, little by little, came under Manon's irresistible charm. After corresponding with her for a considerable time, there crept a something tender and insinuating into his letters; he seemed to find his solitude irksome, and to feel grieved at her position. He often dilated on the charms of a thoughtful companionship, finally writing a letter which, though somewhat ambiguously couched, had every appearance of a proposal of marriage. The idea of marrying M. de Sévelinges was not repugnant to Manon, and, though she was not the least in love with the gentleman, she may possibly have considered herself disillusioned in that respect, while in reality she was very heart-whole, as Sainte Lette had once ​said to her, so heart-whole that she now formed a plan, which, however startling, reveals the simplicity and elevation of her nature. No sooner had she received Sévelinges' letter than she grasped the whole situation of affairs. Here was a highly-refined, cultivated man, tender-hearted, intellectual, learned, subtle, a man with whom she could have that community of ideas which was to her the sine quâ non of married life—a man who led a lonely, depressed, isolated existence, while she at home felt more and more in her father's way, between whom and herself the breach had been gradually widening. Trouble, discord, ruin, were threatening her domestic horizon, while the pleasing prospect of a peaceful home beckoned to her from Soissons. On the other hand, her high sense of justice warned her that M. de Sévelinges' means were extremely limited, his income not exceeding four hundred pounds per annum. His means, such as they were, partly proceeding from his first wife's fortune, seemed naturally to belong to his sons, two young men in the army, who would have just cause to complain, she considered, if, by the advent of a young family, they should be still further stinted in their expenses. Had she herself possessed a more ample dowry, her way would have been clear enough; but, under the circumstances, she could not reconcile such a marriage with her conscience. But an idea struck her, and to her faithful confidante, Sophie, she confesses that she thinks De Sévelinges must have been cherishing a similar notion—that of gaining a sister and companion, under a title which the custom of society rendered indispensable. This vision of passing her life by the side of a man to whom she would minister with an absolutely unselfish devotion quite ​enchanted Manon's benevolent heart. In her protestations of being free from all passion, one cannot help feeling the vibrations of a nature that had never yet sounded its own depths—that was ready to pledge itself to, it knew not what, in the very ecstasy of self-sacrifice.

But the girl's dream was not destined to be carried into practice. Either M. de Sévelinges did not understand her, or she did not understand him, and they both expressed themselves in such very guarded, delicate, and ambiguous terms, that they wrote apparently quite at cross-purposes. For, as these wavering seniors frequently do, he seems to have backed out of the negotiation, and Manon's last word to Sophie was, that she hardly knew whether to be offended or not, but ended with a hearty laugh.

To enumerate the many other suitors who came forward one after another to propose for Mademoiselle Phlipon would sound too like the fairy tale of the proud king's daughter, who used to have the claimants to her hand marshalled before her in a row, and refuse them in turn by pronouncing one to be as thin as a pole, another as fat as a barrel, and a third bearded like a goat, till her enraged sire declared that the first vagrant who came begging alms at his gates should have her, whether or no. M. Phlipon at one moment behaved not unlike this incensed monarch. Seeing that a "martial young Apollo," a thriving Greffier des Bâtiments, and a certain M. Coquin, a round-faced, beaming young man, "a good paste of a husband," young and wealthy, if not wise, had all been rejected in turn, he was actually for marrying her to a man who, as she was entering her door, met her casually, and asked whether she could direct him ​to a certain house, and, in the course of a day or two, proposed for her to M. Phlipon, through the intervention of friends. "My father," she writes, "did not find it so absurd; what more shall I say? With a little good will on my part, I might have found myself become a vendor of lemonade, and been gloriously installed in a café. … Oh," she adds, after a few more comic remarks, "was it worth while to have such a variety of paths to choose from to keep obstinately on the solitary road of celibacy."

Single she was not destined to remain long, however; but before we follow up the story of her acquaintance with Roland, let us cast a glance at the kind of life she now led with her father.