The International Weekly Miscellany - Volume I, No. 5 | Page 7

at Marseilles. I wished to
make no acquaintances and sought isolation and leisure, leisure and
study. I wrote the history of one revolution, without a suspicion that the
spirit of another convulsion looked over my shoulder, hurrying me

from the half finished page, to participate not with the pen, but
manually, in another of the great Dramas of France.
"Marseilles is however hospitable as its sea, its port, and its climate. A
beautiful nature there expands the heart. Where heaven smiles man also
is tempted to be mirthful. Scarcely had I fixed myself in the faubourg,
when the men of letters, of politics,--the merchants who had proposed
great objects to themselves, and who entertained extended views; the
youth, in the ears of whom yet dwelt the echoes of my old poems; the
men who lived by the labor of their own hands, many of whom
however write, study, sing, and make verses, come to my retreat,
bringing with them, however, that delicate reserve which is the
modesty and grace of hospitality. I received pleasure without any
annoyances from this hospitality and attention. I devoted my mornings
to study, my days to solitude and to the sea, my evenings to a small
number of unknown friends, who came from the city to speak to me of
travels, literature, and commerce.
"Commerce at Marseilles is not a matter of paltry traffic, or trifling
parsimony and retrenchments of capital. Marseilles looks on all
questions of commerce as a dilation and expansion of French capital,
and of the raw material exported and imported from Europe and Asia.
Commerce at Marseilles is a lucrative diplomacy, at the same time,
both local and national. Patriotism animates its enterprises, honor floats
with its flag, and policy presides over every departure. Their commerce
is one eternal battle, waged on the ocean at their own peril and risk,
with those rivals who contend with France for Asia and Africa, and for
the purpose of extending the French name and fame over the opposite
continents which touch on the Mediterranean.
"One Sunday, after a long excursion on the sea with Madame
Lamartine, we were told that a woman, modest and timid in her
deportment, had come in the diligence from Aix to Marseilles, and for
four or five hours had been waiting for us in a little orange grove next
between the villa and the garden. I suffered my wife to go into the
house, and passed myself into the orange grove to receive the stranger.
I had no acquaintance with any one at Aix, and was utterly ignorant of

the motive which could have induced my visitor to wait so long and so
patiently for me.
"When I went into the orange grove, I saw a woman still youthful, of
about thirty-six or forty years of age. She wore a working-dress which
betokened little ease and less luxury, a robe of striped Indienne,
discolored and faded; a cotton handkerchief on her neck, her black hair
neatly braided, but like her shoes, somewhat soiled by the dust of the
road. Her features were fine and graceful, with that mild and docile
Asiatic expression, which renders any muscular tension impossible, and
gives utterance only to inspiring and attractive candor. Her mouth was
possibly a line too large, and her brow was unwrinkled as that of a
child. The lower part of her face was very full, and was joined by full
undulations, altogether feminine however in their character, to a throat
which was large and somewhat distended at the middle, like that of the
old Greek statues. Her glance had the expression of the moonlight of
her country rather than of its sun. It was the expression of timidity
mingled with confidence in the indulgence of another, emanating from
a forgetfulness of her own nature. In fine, it was the image of
good-feeling, impressed as well on her air as on her heart, and which
seem confident that others are like her. It was evident that this woman,
who was yet so agreeable, must in her youth have been most attractive.
She yet had what the people (the language of which is so expressive)
call the seed of beauty, that prestige, that ray, that star, that essence,
that indescribable something, which attracts, charms, and enslaves us.
When she saw me, her embarrassment and blushes enabled me to
contemplate her calmly and to feel myself at once at ease with her. I
begged her to sit down at once on an orange-box over which was
thrown a Syrian mat, and to encourage her sat down in front of her. Her
blushes continued to increase, and she passed her dimpled but rather
large hand more than once over her eyes. She did not know how to
begin nor what to say. I sought to give