The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, vol 2 | Page 7

countries they eat the roots of this plant!" Now they are cultivated there, and the people have become fond of them.
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With M. de Sta?l and Madame de Broglie Miss Edgeworth was particularly happy. It had been reported that Madame de Sta?l had said of Maria's writings "que Miss Edgeworth était digne de l'enthousiasme, mais qu'elle s'est perdue dans la triste utilité." "Ma mère n'a jamais dit ?a," Madame de Broglie indignantly declared, "elle était incapable!" She saw, indeed, the enthusiastic admiration which Maria felt for her mother's genius, and she was gratified by the regard and esteem which Maria showed for her and her brother, and the sympathy she expressed in their affection for each other, and in their kindness to their little Rocca brother.
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MARIA to MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.
LYONS, HOTEL DU NORD, _Oct. 22, 1820_.
Lyons! is it possible that I am really at Lyons, of which I have heard my father speak so much? Lyons! where his active spirit once reigned, and where now scarce a trace, a memory of him remains. The Perraches all gone, Carpentiers no more to be heard of, Bons a name unknown; De la Verpilliere--one descendant has a fine house here, but he is in the country.
The look of the town and the fine facades of the principal buildings, and the Place de Bellecour, were the more melancholy to me from knowing them so well in the prints in the great portfolio, with such a radiance thrown over them by his descriptions. I hear his voice saying, La Place de Bellecour and l'Hotel de Ville--these remain after all the horrors of the Revolution--but human creatures, the best, the ablest, the most full of life and gaiety, all passed away.
It is a relief to my mind to pour out all this to you. I do not repent having come to Lyons; I should not have forgiven myself if I had not.
I have been writing to dear Mrs. Moilliet--nothing could exceed her kindness and Mr. Moilliet's. Dumont was excessively touched at parting with us, and gave Fanny and Harriet La Fontaine and Gresset, and to me a map of the lake--of the tour we took so happily together.
To MRS. RUXTON.
PARIS, _Nov. 1820_.
Never lose another night's sleep, or another moment's thought on the Quarterly Review [Footnote: An article on Maria Edgeworth's Memoirs of her Father, full of doubt, ridicule, misrepresentation, and acrimony. Miss Edgeworth never read this Review till 1835, when she was induced to do so by a letter from Mr. Peabody alluding to it. It was then powerless to give her pain, for its anonymous falsehoods had long fallen into oblivion.]--I have never read and never will read it.
I write this merely to tell you that I have at last had the pleasure of seeing Madame la Comtesse de Vaudreuil, the daughter of your friend; she is an exceedingly pleasing woman, of high fashion, with the remains of great beauty, courteous and kind to us beyond all expectation. She had but a few days in Paris, and she made out two for us; she took us to the Conciergerie to see, by lamp-light, the dungeons where the poor Queen and Madame Elizabeth were confined, now fitted up as little chapels. In the Queen's is an altar inscribed with her letter to the King, expressing forgiveness of her enemies. Tears streamed from the eyes of the young Countess de Vaudreuil, the daughter-in-law, as she looked at this altar, and the place where the Queen's bed was. Who do you think accompanied us to this place? Lady Beauchamp, Lady Longford's mother, a great friend of Madame de Vaudreuil's, with whom we dined the next day, and who had procured for us the Duc de Choiseul's box at the Théatre Fran?ais, when the house was to be uncommonly crowded to see Mademoiselle Duchenois in Athalie "avec tous les choeurs," and a most striking spectacle it was! I had never seen Mademoiselle Duchenois to perfection before.
MRS. MARCET to MARIA EDGEWORTH.
MALAGNY, _Nov. 15, 1820_.
I cannot make up my mind, my dear friend, to take my departure [Footnote: Mrs. Marcet was just setting out for Italy.] for a still more distant country without again bidding you adieu. I have hesitated for some time past, "Shall I or shall I not write to Miss Edgeworth?" for I felt that I could not write without touching on an article in the _Quarterly_--a subject which makes my blood boil with indignation, and which rouses every feeling of contempt and abhorrence. I might indeed refrain from the expression of these sentiments, but how could I restrain all those feelings of the warmest interest, the tenderest sympathy, and the softest pity for your wounded feelings? I well remember the wish you one day so piously expressed to me that