Authors: Marjorie Bowen
The next day he was prevented from the early attendance on Madame de Sillery which he had planned, by the arrival in his room of Mr. Reynolds with some other Irish who had lately arrived in Paris full of enthusiasm for the new government, many of them already deep in plans to apply the principles and methods of the French revolution to the state of Ireland.
Fitzgerald put them all by, laughing. The sun shone, though it was wintry. He must go to Pamela, but he promised them his company at White’s, where he intended to remove himself during the course of the day, then went out into the streets of Paris which to him were very agreeable, with a great bustle of people going eagerly to and fro on this business of creating a new world for mankind. But the scene he had witnessed the night before lingered uneasily in his mind; men were embracing each other with joy at the news of the victory of Jemappes, and yet the relatives of the hero of that battle, M. de Chartres, he had seen only a few hours ago looking at each other with apprehension, and whispering of a flight over the frontier. But Fitzgerald, optimistic, light-hearted, unable to believe evil of any, could not believe that the family and friends of Philippe Egalité, of M. de Chartres, were really in any peril.
He found Madame de Sillery alone in the pale room which looked bleak in the wintry light. She was busy with papers, letters and accounts, and appeared surprised to see him. Her troubles of the night before had not diminished. She said to him at once:
‘My dear pupils do not wish to leave Paris while their father is in danger, but you must help me persuade them —’
She spoke distractedly, hardly knowing who it was before her, but the Irishman’s next words brought her up to an astonished realisation of his presence and an amazed scrutiny of his person.
‘I am sorry to interrupt you in your urgent affairs, Madame, but my business is pressing too. You are the guardian of Pamela — of Mlle. Sims, are you not?’
‘Poor Pamela — yes. In her infancy I took pity on her unprotected innocence. She and the little Hermine have no friend save myself.’
‘Then, Madame, I have the honour to ask you for the hand of Pamela and to request that our marriage may be very soon.’
He smiled at the lady’s look of bewilderment, and added:
‘The times are difficult, are they not? And you speak of a flight; besides I must not stay long in Paris —’
‘There are some formalities to consider, Monsieur,’ said Madame de Sillery, frowning.
‘I know. I will subscribe to them.’
He told her his age, his rank, his prospects, his connections, his fortune, while the lady rapidly considered this astounding proposition.
‘You have not spoken to Pamela? You only saw her for the first time last night.’
‘But it is enough. One cannot explain. But you, Madame, must understand without explanation. We looked at each other. I do not think that she will refuse me.’
‘Pamela,’ said Madame de Sillery, rather pale, and biting the end of her quill pen, ‘has nothing. The Orléans family are ruined. Do you understand that — ruined!’ Her face became hard, and sharp lines showed round her mouth and nose. ‘I have nothing, either. Whether one goes against or follows the revolution it comes out the same.’
‘But that does not matter to me at all, Madame. I have sufficient. My brother, should I choose to ask him, would see I was placed very high, so would my uncle, the Duke of Richmond.’
‘But you,’ said Madame de Sillery, looking at him with shrewd, lively eyes, ‘are a revolutionary, too? You are bitten by this fashionable fever of the times, are you not? What is to become of Pamela if you are proscribed? She will have nothing.’
Fitzgerald, even in his present exalted mood, was startled by this.
‘But I have no intention, Madame, of taking any active hand against the English government. God forbid. My brother, my mother, my uncle, my friends, are all intimates of the English court. I hope that affairs in Ireland will be accomplished in moderate fashion. We have men like Mr. John Fitzgibbon, Mr. Robert Stewart and Mr. Grattan, who speak for reform.’
‘Bah!’ Madame de Sillery swept aside all this. ‘You make a show of prudence, but you are not prudent. You are wild, hot-headed, and on the first excuse will fly to extremes.’
Her restless glance strayed to the papers under her nervous hands.
‘But it is an emergency,’ she muttered. ‘One must take what chance one can! This marriage will be better for Pamela than anything else that offers.’
‘I only want your leave to ask her. Pamela and I will surely quite soon understand each other.’
‘You must not think to live in Paris or in France, Monsieur. You must take her away to Ireland. You must promise me to keep out of your Irish politics and brawls.’
‘I believe I shall not have any temptation to enter into those matters, Madame. I intend to live very quietly, for a while at least, retired in the country.’
‘Ah, that would suit Pamela very well. She is quite a little savage in her tastes. All for peace and birds and flowers…so she was brought up, you know, with the Orléans children, a simple natural creature.’
‘So I was bred myself, Madame. I have had near ten years of war, of wandering, and I wish to be quiet for a while.’
Madame de Sillery considered him closely, appraising his elegance, his air of candour and good humour, the look of refined intelligence… She held out her hand with an air of impulsiveness.
‘Very well, you shall have your Pamela. But do not surprise her like you did me. While we are in Paris — I do not know how long that may be — wait on her, be with her constantly, learn her tastes, her mind, and give her a chance to learn yours. And, Monsieur, since you are going to burden yourself with a wife, and a young, penniless, wilful wife at that, be a little careful how you conduct yourself. I speak from a bitter experience.’
Fitzgerald wanted no more than this; as he kissed the lady’s extended hand he asked:
‘Where is she now?’
‘With Mlle. d’Orléans. They try to distract one another by playing on the harp and drawing.’
Madame de Sillery pulled the bell. When Pierre entered: ‘Ask Mlle. Sims to come at once.’
And when Pamela came into the room, Madame de Sillery said:
‘This gentleman wishes to make himself agreeable to you.’
Pamela answered without embarrassment.
‘I was expecting him.’
From Lord Edward Fitzgerald to his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Leinster, from Paris, the first year of the Republic, 1792.
‘
Dearest Mother, — I know you will be surprised to hear from me here — do not be uneasy, this town is as quiet as possible and, for me, a most interesting scene. I would not have missed seeing it at this period for anything… I lodge with my friend, Paine; we breakfast, dine, and sup together. The more I see of him the more I like and respect him. I cannot express how kind he is to me; there is simplicity of manner, a goodness of heart, a strength of mind in him that I never knew a man before possess. I pass my time very pleasantly, and read, walk, and go quietly to the play. I have not been to see any one, nor shall not. The present scene occupies my thoughts a great deal.
‘
Give my love to Ogilvie and the girls. I think he would be much entertained and interested if he were here. I can compare it to nothing but Rome in its days of conquest: the energy of the people is beyond belief. There is no news the
Morning Chronicle
does not tell you, so I won’t repeat it.
‘
I go a great deal to the Assembly; they improve much in speech.
‘
God bless you, dearest mother, believe me,
‘
Your affectionate son,
‘EDWARD,’
‘
P.S. — Let me know if I can do anything for you here. Direct — Le Citoyen Edouard Fitzgerald, Hotel de White, au Passage des Petits, pres du Palais Royal.
’
A little later, after the taking of Mons and the victory of Jemappes:
‘
I am delighted with the manner in which the French feel their success; no foolish boasting or arrogance at it; but imputing all to the goodness and greatness of their cause, and seeming to rejoice more on account of its effect on Europe in general than for their own individual glory. This indeed, is the turn every idea here seems to take; all their pamphlets, all their treaties, all their songs extol their achievements but as the effect of the principle they are contending for, and rejoice at their success as the triumph of humanity.
‘
All the defeats of their enemies they impute to their disgust for the cause for which they fight, At the coffee houses and playhouse every man calls the other “camarade,” “frère,” and with a stranger they begin, “Ah, nous sommes tous frères, tous hommes, nos victoires sont pour vous, pour tout le monde”; the same sentiments are always received with peals of applause. In short, all the good enthusiastic French sentiments seem to come out, while to all appearances one would say they had lost all their bad. The town is quiet, and to judge from the theatres and the public walks, very full. The great difference seems in the few carriages, the dress, which is very plain.
‘
Tell Ogilvie I shall leave this next week and settle my majority, if I am not scratched out of the army… I dine to-day with Madame de Sillery.
‘
God bless you, dearest mother. I am obliged to leave you. Love to the girls. I long to see you and shall be with you at the beginning of the week after next. I cannot be long from you.
‘
Yours,
‘E.F.’
‘
P.S. — In the midst of my patriotism and projects you are always the first thing in my heart and ever must be my dear, dear mother.
’
The last lines were penned in a mood of remorse, for it was no longer the adored mother who was really foremost in the thoughts of Edward Fitzgerald, but Pamela. She was his companion in those quiet walks, those pleasant readings, those modest visits to the playhouse which took all his time. That he should have met such a woman at such a moment sent the young man to the heights of ecstasy.
Hand in hand with Pamela he seemed, indeed, to face the dawn of the Millennium.
But though Pamela was his constant, his immediate preoccupation, she could not altogether divorce him from the society of his countrymen, nor did Tom Paine, though he good-humouredly mocked the young lord and English officer as a mere adventurer who would not be willing to sacrifice the slightest of his natural advantages for any cause, fail to inculcate him with all his own extreme principles.
As Fitzgerald entered White’s one cold afternoon, Mr. Reynolds, who seemed waiting for him, presented to him a young man for whom he felt an instant liking and respect.
This was Mr. Wolfe Tone, whose life had been all action and whose indomitable purpose had surmounted almost inconceivable difficulties without means or influence. Scarcely speaking the French language, he had come from America, where he had left a wife and small family, the pleasant life of a farmer and complete security, to endeavour to rouse the French in the cause of Irish independence, and he had so far accomplished his purpose that he was in touch with every man of influence in Paris.
He was a slender young man with an aquiline nose and smiling eyes, extremely well-dressed in the Republican fashion with a little air of honest coxcombry that he laughed at himself as an admitted weakness. He said at once, with the utmost frankness:
‘I hope, sir, that you have considered what it means, making the acquaintance of men like myself?’
Fitzgerald smiled at this warning which came oddly from the boldest of the supporters of the French Revolution. But Tom Reynolds seemed displeased.
‘You were the last man to be so prudent, I thought, Mr. Tone,’ he exclaimed, on a note of reproach. ‘Lord Edward can be of the greatest assistance to your schemes.’
‘And may do himself the greatest amount of damage,’ replied Mr. Tone. ‘Are you, my Lord, sincere, or merely excited by youthful ardour?’
‘I am sincere in my good wishes,’ replied Fitzgerald. ‘I have not thought yet how far I should go in action.’
‘You wear the uniform of King George,’ said Tone, without the least malice or reproach. ‘You are highly connected in England. I should be sorry if any of my intrigues should hurt your future, sir.’
‘But what of yourself, Mr. Tone?’
‘I never had very much to lose, sir, and now have nothing at all. My old father is provided for and my brothers are wild, adventuring fellows like myself. As for my charming wife and dear children, I must trust them to Providence.’
Lord Edward was infinitely touched by these words from the man he had always heard referred to as a dangerous fanatic and an unprincipled agitator. He held out his hand and the young man clasped it warmly. Mr. Tone’s mention of his family gave Fitzgerald the first hesitation in his half-formed projects. Was it not his duty to be careful when he was to attach his fortunes to those of Pamela? Had not Madame de Sillery herself warned him? No politics, no brawls, no intrigues…
Mr. Tone instantly noted the cloud on the ingenuous face smiling at him.
‘We cannot expect to involve men like you,’ he said, regardless of the glances and frowns of Thomas Reynolds. ‘You have too much to lose. It were better, sir, if you kept away from us and knew nothing of our schemes.’
Uneasy at his own hesitation, Fitzgerald replied bluntly:
‘I don’t hold with a French invasion of Ireland, even if they had the men and money, which I doubt.’
‘I did not hold with it myself, sir, some time ago,’ replied Mr. Tone, in no way rebuked or discomposed, ‘but now there are many of us come to change our way of thinking. Not only myself, sir, who am of but small account, but many others, not fanatics willing to do anything for bread or plunder, nor unprincipled agitators, but gentlemen of good education and intelligence, and of peaceful tastes too, sir,’ added Mr. Tone, rather wistfully, ‘who would sooner handle a plough than a sword.’
‘You do not think the affairs of Ireland,’ interrupted Fitzgerald, ‘would be better left to men like Grattan, Stewart, Fitzgibbon?’
Mr. Tone shook his head. Slight derision flashed in his large eyes.
‘I trust none of them.’
‘They are moderate men and the policy of the English government is moderate.’
‘Do you think so, sir?’
Again Mr. Tone regarded him with kindly mockery. ‘Perhaps there is a good deal that you, moving in viceregal circles in Dublin, so much out of the country, far in America (as I hear you have been) have not heard. You must meet Mr. Thomas Addis Emmett, a learned gentleman, sir, one who has gone painfully into these questions, and Mr. John Sheares, and Mr. Bond and many others. And yet…’ The impetuous Mr. Tone checked himself. ‘No, I think it were best for you not to meddle.’ Yet he looked at Edward Fitzgerald with a bright appeal in his eyes as if he implored him to disregard advice and to join heart and soul in the cause to which he had himself devoted his entire life.
Fitzgerald hated his own hesitation. Never had he felt so conscious of his divided loyalties, his English connections, his obligations as an English officer, as a member of the Irish Parliament for his brother’s borough, as the future husband of the unprotected Pamela…
Mr. Reynolds, who had been watching him closely, stepped forward and seemed to be about to begin a vehement urging of his reluctance, but Mr. Tone, with a gesture of authority, checked his friend.
‘Let him be. It were neither wise nor kind to persuade him,’ he said definitely. ‘But, sir, you may tell us one or two things, without disloyalty to your friends, that would help us very much.’
‘All that I in honour may,’ said Fitzgerald, grateful to the man who had not thrust on him a difficult decision.
‘Well, then, sir,’ replied Mr. Tone, who spoke rapidly, but very clearly, who seemed to have all his facts at his finger-tips, besides a very winning and persuasive manner, ‘would, in the case of a rising, your brother join us? His Grace of Leinster, I mean. He is considered here our greatest man and I have often been asked by the French what part he would take. He is believed to have Liberal sympathies. He was a member of the old volunteers and afterwards of the United Irishmen.’
‘My brother is a very good-natured man, not at all inclined to action. I believe you would have his sympathy, but you must not count upon his support.’
Mr. Tone accepted this without comment.
‘And your other brothers, Lord Henry, for instance?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps Henry. They are none of them bigots or tyrants, sir. I believe at a push even Leinster — but I had best say no more.’
‘You shall not, sir,’ cried Tone immediately and warmly. ‘I will not even put to you the other questions that I had in mind.’
‘You lose your chance,’ grumbled Thomas Reynolds. Mr. Tone took no heed of that, but drew from his pocket a packet of papers.
‘Maybe there are matters here that your Lordship has never reflected on,’ he remarked pleasantly. ‘Look at them, I pray you, when you have a little leisure,’ and he took his leave.
Mr Reynolds lingered. ‘He had,’ he said, ‘a private matter of which he wished to speak to his Lordship.’ He was always very punctilious in his use of titles of respect when he was alone with Fitzgerald, though in company he affected the brusque, republican manner or the sentimental tone of loving friendship then fashionable in Paris, but now, as always when they were alone together, it was the silk merchant speaking to the nobleman whose mother was his customer.
It seemed he had a personal favour to ask and one that rather surprised Fitzgerald. Mr. Thomas Reynolds wanted a lease of Kilkea Castle, which belonged to the Duke of Leinster… ‘if Lord Fitzgerald would say a word for him perhaps he might have it and on terms not too difficult,’ and he added that he was thinking of marrying the sister of Mr. Tone’s wife.
‘Why, Mr. Reynolds, there should be no difficulty. I am sure my brother will be glad to have you as a tenant.’ But Fitzgerald thought, though his courtesy did not permit him to say so, that it was odd that the young silk merchant, in the midst of his patriotic schemes, should be thinking of socially raising himself by purchasing the lease of a pretentious residence, and using his money to give himself a stake in that country which he believed would shortly be shaken by a revolution.
Mr. Reynolds expressed a hearty gratitude for this promise, and went on to ask his Lordship if he would be present at the banquet to be given at White’s tomorrow. It was to celebrate the victories gained by the French over the Austrians at Mons and Jemappe, and was intended to be purely British, but some deputies of the Convention, some generals and other officers of the armies then stationed in or visiting Paris, would be present. Mr. Reynolds ran over the names of several English and Irish people of importance who were openly going to declare their adherence to the principles of the French Revolution.
Without hesitation Lord Edward promised to be present.