Records of a Girlhood | Page 2

(afterwards the Earl of Essex), who, with an enthusiasm more friendly
than wise, eagerly urged the accomplished Frenchman to come and
settle in London, where his talents as a draughtsman and musician,
which were much above those of a mere amateur, combined with the
protection of such friends as he could not fail to find, would easily
enable him to maintain himself and his young wife and child.
In an evil hour my grandfather adopted this advice, and came to
England. It was the time when the emigration of the French nobility
had filled London with objects of sympathy, and society with
sympathizers with their misfortunes. Among the means resorted to for
assisting the many interesting victims of the Revolution, were
representations, given under the direction of Le Texier, of Berquin's
and Madame de Genlis's juvenile dramas, by young French children.
These performances, combined with his own extraordinary readings,
became one of the fashionable frenzies of the day. I quote from Walter
Scott's review of Boaden's life of my uncle the following notice of Le
Texier: "On one of these incidental topics we must pause for a moment,
with delighted recollection. We mean the readings of the celebrated Le
Texier, who, seated at a desk, and dressed in plain clothes, read French
plays with such modulation of voice, and such exquisite point of
dialogue, as to form a pleasure different from that of the theatre, but
almost as great as we experience in listening to a first-rate actor. We
have only to add to a very good account given by Mr. Boaden of this
extraordinary entertainment, that when it commenced Mr. Le Texier
read over the _dramatis personæ_, with the little analysis of character

usually attached to each name, using the voice and manner with which
he afterward read the part; and so accurate was the key-note given that
he had no need to name afterward the person who spoke; the stupidest
of the audience could not fail to recognize them."
Among the little actors of Le Texier's troupe, my mother attracted the
greatest share of public attention by her beauty and grace, and the truth
and spirit of her performances.
The little French fairy was eagerly seized upon by admiring fine ladies
and gentlemen, and snatched up into their society, where she was
fondled and petted and played with; passing whole days in Mrs.
Fitzherbert's drawing-room, and many a half hour on the knees of her
royal and disloyal husband, the Prince Regent, one of whose favorite
jokes was to place my mother under a huge glass bell, made to cover
some large group of precious Dresden china, where her tiny figure and
flashing face produced even a more beautiful effect than the costly
work of art whose crystal covering was made her momentary cage. I
have often heard my mother refer to this season of her childhood's
favoritism with the fine folk of that day, one of her most vivid
impressions of which was the extraordinary beauty of person and royal
charm of manner and deportment of the Prince of Wales, and his
enormous appetite: enormous perhaps, after all, only by comparison
with her own, which he compassionately used to pity, saying frequently,
when she declined the delicacies that he pressed upon her, "Why, you
poor child! Heaven has not blessed you with an appetite." Of the
precocious feeling and imagination of the poor little girl, thus taken out
of her own sphere of life into one so different and so dangerous, I
remember a very curious instance, told me by herself. One of the
houses where she was a most frequent visitor, and treated almost like a
child of the family, was that of Lady Rivers, whose brother, Mr. Rigby,
while in the ministry, fought a duel with some political opponent. Mr.
Rigby had taken great notice of the little French child treated with such
affectionate familiarity by his sister, and she had attached herself so
strongly to him that, on hearing the circumstance of his duel suddenly
mentioned for the first time, she fainted away: a story that always
reminded me of the little Spanish girl Florian mentions in his

"Mémoires d'un jeune Espagnol," who, at six years of age, having
asked a young man of upward of five and twenty if he loved her, so
resented his repeating her question to her elder sister that she never
could be induced to speak to him again.
Meantime, while the homes of the great and gay were her constant
resort, the child's home was becoming sadder, and her existence and
that of her parents more precarious and penurious day by day. From my
grandfather's first arrival in London, his chest had suffered from the
climate; the instrument he taught was the flute, and it was not long
before decided