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Updated: June 8, 2025
D'Arblay and his two companions had been engaged, for ten days, in visiting the Huguenots within a circuit of four or five leagues round Toulouse, when they learned that their movements had been reported to the authorities there.
There is no difference, between enjoying this personal talk and enjoying The Mill on the Floss or books of biography. Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, and Mrs. Thrale, in her Letters, were inveterate gossips about the great man. And what an incomparable little tattler was Fanny Burney Madame d'Arblay!
There too was M. de Narbonne, a noble representative of French aristocracy; and with M. de Narbonne was his friend and follower General D'Arblay, an honourable and amiable man, with a handsome person, frank soldier-like manners, and some taste for letters. The prejudices which Frances had conceived against the constitutional royalists of France rapidly vanished.
We now turn from the life of Madame D'Arblay to her writings. There can, we apprehend, be little difference of opinion as to the nature of her merit, whatever differences may exist as to its degree. She was emphatically what Johnson called her, a character-monger.
Although they would rather have remained with the army, the lads at once thanked the Count; and stated their willingness to accompany the Sieur D'Arblay, whom they both knew and liked being, like De la Noue, cheerful and of good spirits; not deeming it necessary to maintain at all times a stern and grave aspect, or a ruggedness of manner, as well as sombre garments.
"The last of men," says Madame D'Arblay, "was Doctor Johnson to have abetted squandering the delicacy of integrity by nullifying the labours of talents." The Club, Johnson's Club, did itself no honour by rejecting on political grounds two distinguished men, one a Tory, the other a Whig.
The day may come when you yourself may fall back on a foreigner and Roman Catholic, and, if so, may he be as good as mine and may you live as happy with him!" She curtseyed and made to move on. I thought of this later when Miss Burney married M. D'Arblay, a Frenchman and Roman Catholic. I wondered then if she recalled this scene and her own strictures. She bridled with dignity.
Rousseau's Confessions are a miracle of candor: they reveal much concerning a certain weak, wandering, diseased, miserable, wicked Jean Jacques; but of that marvellous Rousseau whose writings thrilled Europe they contain how much? Not one word. Madame D'Arblay's Diary relates a thousand pleasant things, but it does not tell us what manner of person Madame D'Arblay was.
Johnson were always buzzing around the literary women of that day, the pretty D'Arblay, the dignified Mistress Montague of Portman Square, and the great Piozzi herself of course, you remember?" "Yes, I remember," whispered Robert, his face once more hidden, but a great peace possessing him. "Ben," he cried, almost joyfully, "what's the title of Helen's play?"
There is the story of the Chevalier D'Arblay, and his departure to France; and the description of his correspondence, in which he said for years that he was inconsolable and suffering inconceivable anguish at being obliged to absent himself from his wife; yet never able to assign any reason for his stay.
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