Antoinette Deshoulières (1638 – 1694)

Eleonore felt proud to inspire such an exquisite love, so finely expressed. She wanted to show her husband how she felt, how attuned their hearts were. Her muse came wonderfully to her aid in manifesting these promptings of her heart: she read him a reply which neither Deshoulière nor Sappho would have been ashamed to own.

ELEONORE’S REPLY

I am musing, dear Auguste, on my happiness,
to the beguiling sounds of your beautiful lute:
I owe it to you, oh my other self,
this happiness never equalled under the sky.
Delighting in divining, pre-empting my likes,
is there a single hankering, a single thought
not instantly detected and manifested
by the sensitive pains of your generous heart?
Unaware that the sweetest of binds lay in store
I yearned for the coming of the great day
when, in my father's custody,
I would leave these shores for a brighter land.¹⁵
Far from the ancient colony
where my parents brought me into the world;¹⁶
far from the place where Paul and Virginie
burned as I do with all the fervency of love,
in the cold grip of Fortune's unkindness,
I yearned to behold once more that other island,
relinquished to terror so recklessly by France;
an island coveted by pirates of the seas,¹⁷
where the Negro, overcome with rage, emboldened,
avenged with death the torment of his iron chains.
Not knowing the future, simple necessity
pointed us back to the shores of Haiti.¹⁸
Then you appeared: my scheme lay obliterated
and one solitary longing remained.
Abandoning the lands of the Americas
I turned towards you, gave you my hand, surrendered.
And when the Holy Father sanctified our bond,
when he bestowed on me the charge of serving you,
of freely yielding myself to your trust
I felt, Auguste, not the slightest sorrow.
Destiny smiled on me: what was there to regret?
And what match was ever more irresistible?
As you so skilfully delineate!
And with such openness! Such suavity!
How this picture, dictated by nature,
seduces with its grace and its simplicity!
How it delights the soul of this dreamer,
your recounting of our honest pleasure,
the sweet throes of your ignited desire,
that tender attentiveness to my ease
and your taste for the arts which charm our leisure-hours.
I shall go with you then along this riverside,
replaying moments that marked such fine emotions;
I shall view these so-charming disposings
of elected trees, placed to honour me.
How I shall cherish them! They will be your oeuvre!
Their shield will make a magical sanctuary.
I shall roam often in their shade,
my heart full of thanks, musing on my destiny.
Often too (oh happiest of blessings!)
I'll follow you beneath those dancing leaves
with my memories, my merriment and my love,
which in themselves would lighten the saddest of days.

But what a frightful reversal! What foreboding
in the midst of such sweet rapture
has bewildered your instrument, posing
against tones of exultation notions of death!
I am shaking! … Oh God, what a cruel picture!
Auguste! what are you saying? .. What terrible words! ..
Revel in the present, is the sage's stricture.
Your final lines annihilate my heart.
I know not what Fate has in store for us
nor when will come the day appointed for my death.
But if ever destiny rips you from my grasp
my sorrow will be the end of my self.

The happiness which Monsieur de Labouisse brought his Eleonore, so well rendered in her poetry, was expressed in prose in no less charming a manner. In 1804 she wrote to her half-brother, her mother’s son, who had made a considerable fortune in India and who was then in London on business, a letter in which we note the following passage:

“My dear parents, in their misfortune, have at least the joy of seeing me happy and of themselves being esteemed by my husband as if he was their own son. He is as attentive towards them as to me and nothing, I assure you, detracts from my satisfaction. ... Here we are two and a half years later and as much in love as the first day of our marriage.”

On the first of January 1818, after sixteen years of unwavering happiness, she wrote from Montreal a most tender letter to her husband, in which, after some confidences permitted in the privacy of intimacy, but which I dare not myself divulge, she added:

“How strange for me to have to write to you instead of kissing you, instead of hearing your thoughts and telling you mine in person! I feel as if I nothing will ever make me happy except to see you again! My dear Auguste, every day I love you more, and every day I appreciate more the happiness of belonging to you, the perfect being Heaven made for me alone. Where could you find a more absolute bliss than in our home? So let us not think of Fortune's trials. Love lightens the load. Without the Revolution we might never have met. Well then, everything works out for the best, so let us give thanks to Providence. I owe it twice as much as you, because you gave me happiness and wealth, and in exchange I only gave you a heart that loves you, albeit rapturously. That is the property with which you were content, and which is yours alone.”

Motherhood deepened Madame de Labouisse’s happiness; she had many children, the pride of their parents, and took on her daughters' education herself. Her health did not permit her to do so without help; but it was she who taught them reading, writing, French grammar, geography, drawing, and Italian. Mother and daughters were inseparable; she was like their elder sister, and the loving intimacy between them was a delight to those who witnessed it.

When she brought her daughters into society, people were taken by their charm and precocious talent. Let us listen again to Eleonore; she confided her thoughts about them in terms which perfectly convey a mother’s feelings, writing from Narbonne to her husband, who had been obliged to go away on business:

Die Gartenlaube (The Gazebo)

“Our children gave us great enjoyment! They danced the court minuet and the gavotte like little angels. They were much applauded; it became a question of who would pay me the most compliments, on their manners, their looks, and their graceful carriage in the dance. They really conducted themselves well. Hortense was more than pretty: her complexion was high, which enhanced the brightness of her beautiful eyes; she looked really heavenly. An air of modesty, expressed all through her little person, made her even more charming. Adolphe is such a handsome boy, with no awkwardness at all; he danced the contredanse, approaching his partners most graciously and leading them to their places with as cool an air as if he were a twenty-year-old; and do not think he chose the ones with two left feet; he always took the best dancers. Poor M. Brulo (their dancing master) was a picture. He cried with joy and kept repeating: ‘Such wonderful children!’ ... I must confess, my dear Auguste, it never once occurred to me that one could exaggerate what was said to me about our children. However, fearing that they would become too vain from all the compliments and congratulations, I could not help giving them a little corrective, remarking on the plaudits received by the lady sitting next to me. Her daughter really danced absurdly, but the contrary was observed to the mother, everyone finding the girl enchanting. Nothing escapes Hortense, however, who said to me when we were back: ‘But why did that lady say what she did not think? It would have been better not to say anything at all.’ ‘You are right,’ I replied, ‘but such is the way of the world, and that must give you the measure of the praises you received and the compliments made to me on your account.’ ‘Ah! I know myself what I ought to think of it,’ said Adolphe; ‘And I too,’ added Hortense, ‘and I shall never believe the compliments I am made.’ ‘Especially, children,’ I said, ‘when they are as exaggerated as those you received yesterday; for you must be well aware that, at your age, nobody can dance with that perfection I have heard so much about.’ ‘You are right, Mama,’ they both replied.”

This family, so close, so exemplary, so appealing, was too content for its happiness to last. Madame de Labouisse, who loved her children above all else, was stricken in the most painful way. She watched two of her daughters, Isaure and Sophie, suffer, languish and die before her eyes. Her only son, Adolphe, her best hope, who promised to nobly follow in the steps of his father, died in her arms in the springtime of his life, in his seventeenth year. Eleonore never left her sick children for a moment; she lavished care on them with an admirable energy and selflessness. She monitored the development and progress of each illness, wavered between hope and fear, buried deep inside the dread that weighed on her, so as not to worsen the concern of those around her. I have read the letters she wrote at this painful time. What feeling! What tenderness! What angelic acquiescence! What a testimony to her motherly love, her sweetness, her mind and her piety! How easy it is to love the person who wrote them!

Madame de Labouisse’s excellent qualities were revealed more strikingly during the long, painful illness suffered by her mother-in-law at the age of eighty-two. Overcoming her natural frailty, she seemed to be duplicating herself in order to preside over everything, to take care of everything, to pluck from death the woman she saw and loved as her second mother. The whole town of Castelnaudary praised her for this, and Monsieur de Labouisse, who was indebted to Eleonore for the unexpected recovery of his dear mother, expressed his gratitude many times.

The soul of this accomplished woman was too sensitive and too tender for the shocks it had received not to prove fatal. A short time after her mother-in-law's illness, she was gripped by an exhausted melancholy which she tried to hide from her family. On Sunday the twenty-sixth of May, returning from visits, she felt extremely tired and went to lie down ... Alas! she never got up again and took her last breath the following Monday, the third of June.

In a moving pamphlet just published by Monsieur de Labouisse, which a review has compared to the finest Nuits of Young¹⁹, he describes his wife's last moments:

“It was eight o'clock in the morning. She expressed a wish to receive the Last Rites. The doctor agreed, more through condescension than any conviction of urgent necessity. He said as much to his patient and assured us there was nothing to fear. The danger was there, but had given no sign. Indeed, her cough seemed to have yielded to remedies; it had stopped, so that our obliging doctor came out calm and almost reassured; but my heart was pounding brutally. The seriousness of the situation, the gravity of her request, the dreads all this raised in me.... I dared not dwell on such a prospect of anguish and pain.... I supported her with my arm, feeding her some broth which she did not finish, which she could not finish .... She was silent and composed; she prayed to the supreme arbiter of our destinies; she signals to me, I set her gently on the pillow, and hearing a slight noise I go to see if the confessor has arrived.... It was not him; he had still not come! .... I go back in: she had just died! ... When the priest arrived, he had only a corpse to bless! ... This tender daughter, this exceptional wife, this wonderful mother had been wrenched without warning from her stunned and appalled family! .. A few minutes before I had felt the pressure of her dear hand responding to my sighs and fears! and now! death had snatched its sweet victim, hope had vanished to make way for everlasting pain!... ..”

After this heart-breaking picture, what is left to say? Anything we could add would be drab and cold.

Madame de Labouisse’s literary friends, deeply saddened by her death, dedicated funeral songs to her, in which they paid homage to her talents and quality. Monsieur J. Sirven, our colleague at the Perpignan Academy, known for his easy, elegant, lively poems, and especially for his topical verses, full of grace and gaiety, for which he has just received a congratulatory letter from our immortal bard Beranger, published an elegiac ballad which deserves a place in this Sketch.

BALLAD
On the death of Madame de Labouisse-Rochefort,
by Monsieur J. Sirven.

Here, everything that draws a breath
is Fate's plaything
and so subject, pitiless Death,
to your empire.
Stop your onslaught I implore you!
But it is done—My prayers are pointless.
Lovers, lament for Eleonore.
She is no more.

She is no more … Her faithful lute
shudders at it,
the farewell of a deathless soul
to her beloved.
Don mourning, you whom I adore,
divine daughters, Muses, Graces, Virtues.
Lovers, lament for Eleonore.
She is no more.

She is no more … And her Auguste,
his eyes in tears,
accuses cruel Fate in vain
for his anguish.
God willed it so—The trumpet blast
has heralded His absolute decree.
Lovers, lament for Eleonore.
She is no more.

Illustration from page 32 of Nayral‘s biographical sketch

We have taken sweet satisfaction in presenting Eleonore as a model daughter, wife and mother. There only remains to speak of her literary talents and the various works she composed. She certainly never dreamt of becoming an author. If Monsieur de Labouisse had not taken pains to prompt her from time to time and then to save what she had written, there would be no trace of her work left. She was so modest, so distrustful of her ability, so vehemently feared becoming prey to that bitter criticism which so often plagues women, that she would never have chosen to publish anything.

The writings of Madame de Labouïsse are unfortunately not very numerous, but those that remain show much grace and skill. It is to be regretted that she attached so little importance to them and that the zeal with which she fulfilled the duties of her social position, prevented her from writing more.

The most interesting of them is Voyage from Isle de France, which Monsieur de Labouisse published in the second volume of his Biography of Eleonore. It is only nineteen pages long, but they are nineteen wonderful pages, full of liveliness, wit and feeling. It is a simple letter recounting memories requested by Madame de Parny, a fellow-creole from Isle de France. It is completely charming but one feels that, if the author had been writing for the public and posterity, she would have expanded her remarks and descriptions to advantage. The same can be said for two other unpublished travels: Toulouse to Orthez, in Bearn, and To Sallies, a town in the Basses-Pyrenees, noted for its salt fountain and the somewhat wild customs of its inhabitants. These two letters, written to her husband's aunt, Mademoiselle Charlotte-Eleonore de Bonaffos, are, it is fair to say, sparkling with wit, pleasure, and joy.

Second. The Cantatas of Metastasio, translated into French.
Unbeknownst to her husband, Eleonore decided to learn perfect Italian, with the aim of arranging a pleasant surprise. She consulted one of Monsieur de Labouisse's correspondents, Monsieur Tarteiron, a fine poet, Director of Registration in Foix, who encouraged her and gave her advice from which she profited. She translated Metastasio and presented the work to her husband on the twenty-eighth of August 1807.

Several of these Cantatas, including those commissioned for festivals by al poèta Cesareo, the court poet, were printed in 1808 at the end of a pamphlet Monsieur de Labouisse published under the title Idylls in Imitation of the Cantatas of Metastasio, followed by the First Volume of Amours. Monsieur Chardon de la Rochette reviewed it in Volume Three of his Miscellany, happening as he did so to compose a beautiful eulogy for Eleonore: “I am happy to quote these pieces because, contrary to  the opinion that a beautiful woman is too self-obsessed to care for her children—general enough and often too true—they prove it is possible to be a beautiful woman, a good wife, and a tender mother.”

Third. An unpublished translation into French of numerous Italian letters from Voltaire's General Correspondance.

Fourth. A large number of poems and reviews, published in Athenee des Dames [The Ladies' Athenaeum], Parnasse des Dames [Ladies' Parnassus], Mentor de la Jeunesse [Youth's Mentor], and especially in La Guirlande des Dames [The Ladies' Garland], a compendium which includes several translations of Tibullus, worthy of the original. Judge by this one:

TRANSLATION OF TIBULLUS
After Suspicion, Reconciliation

How sweet it is today for me to know
that my beloved puts new trust in me,
no longer holds that I am treacherous
in love, the very master of my heart!
A coquette may indeed be suspected
and such suspicions are only too just:
but that my love, my lover, my Auguste,
could mortify me to such a degree—
I, whose single and most cherished desire—
I, whose sweetest, sublimest destiny
is to consecrate to him my whole life,
him to follow, even beyond the grave!

It was excess of love that was to blame
for depriving you of simple reason.
That is your excuse, and that alone makes
me forgive your unworthy suspicion.
Such black suspicion! From what bitter source
could your ungrateful heart have brought it forth
when, but lately, before my mother's eyes,
I took my oath to honour you always?
I take it, my dearest Auguste, anew,
this sweet oath of indestructible love
which, on an august day, will be hallowed
by marriage at the steps of the altar.
It is for you alone your Eleonore
delights to live, to die under your rule;
it is to answer a call of honour,
her holding true to keeping faith with you.

One might call this not a translation but an imitation, or rather a happy paraphrase, of the text, clarified and beautified. The piece could not be more charming or transparent. Tibullus has never been translated like this.

To highlight Madame de Labouisse's poetic skill, let us append M. Carondelet-Poteles's translation of this same ode, which in the original contains but six lines:

Woman with wax tablets and stylus

SULPICIA TO CERINTHUS

Yes, it is sweet, for sure, to see that my lover
enjoys absolute trust in me.
Let us suspect vile hearts of basest treachery,
not the heart of Sulpicia.
Have more pride, Cerinthus; repel jealous fancies
of being a lover betrayed.
The one who is able to doubt my faithfulness
is sure of my absolute shame.

Count de Baderon St.Geniez has perhaps, as a translator, overly diluted the text in this easy, elegant version:

It is flattering, Cerinthus,
that, scarcely crediting my love,
you, with the waywardest of hearts,
should live meekly under my sway,
counting on my high-mindedness
in the matter of faithfulness.
If, however, your perjured soul
prefers, in its wanton urges,
the commonest of mistresses
to the daughter of Servius:
there will be shudderings of fear
that, in turn, a nameless stranger
should take up in my shattered heart
the entire place of Cerinthus.

The lines I have already quoted are enough to illustrate Madame de Labouisse’s fine talent. To complete the picture, I shall present another of her pieces, which seems to me to unite all those qualities that distinguish the work of the most renowned ladies of French Literature. It is an imitation of an Italian poem, called The Confession.

CONFESSION

I once defied the covey of lovers,
used to be brutal and cruel to them.
Today they have their vengeance, my disdain falters,
my turn now to lapse in the trap of such torment.
At the sighs of a lover too urgent, too sweet,
lips disallowing the gifts a heart has offered,
this heart controverts the mask of hardness,
and by dint of a thousand chinks its voice is heard.
Your devotion has eroded my prideful scorn;
you have bested it, Auguste, my words confess it:
yes, you have won my affection.
More than once in my eyes you have recognised it.
None can doubt your constancy, your fidelity.
Yet others have stayed true with no such victory;
others have sighed and uttered their tender pledges
and I remained rebellious.
Indifference felt so good, so vainglorious;
I was drunk on my own sobriety
when love came, confounded and captured me.
I saw you. An unfamiliar heat
discomfited me, made my heart stutter.
Now loving you is my gladness and my glory.
How eagerly I obeyed my father
when his blessed, beloved voice
spoke its ruling: "This is the one we have chosen!"
Such a sacred command to be given,
to strive forever to serve you!
These feelings, which I kept guarded from you,
need now to be surrendered to your trust.

How we do fool ourselves with our designs!
I thought that I could vanquish love, escape its chains,
dared to exult in an almighty sovereignty,
and I was a lover as helpless as any.

To imitate like this is really to compose, to create. Here is another fragment, wholly of her own invention, which, in its subject and execution, seems to me worthy of Anacreon.

THE ROSE

Loveliest daughter of springtime
anoint our sweet sanctuary;
and may the blustering south wind
spare your immaculate beauty.
Phoebus' circle is barely done
but your petals bestrew the ground.
Resplendent empress of flowers,
alas that you reign but a day!
Only a day, but what a day!
The buttercup, the tuberose,
carnation and our-lady's-tears
all cede to you the victory.
Rose, with the ambrosial scent,
the prettiest of ornaments,
one sight of you elates the eye.
Your calyx, open to the breeze,
symbolises sweetest pleasures,
but beware the whispered invite
of their too capricious urges!
Pride of the kingdom of flowers,
may I, like you, forever please
the husband whom I idolise.
When misfortune blighted our days
he dried up my tears' cold traces.
But may the life of our young love
be longer than your brief graces.

Who can dispute the deliciousness of this piece? It inspired Monsieur de Labouisse Rochefort's connubial muse to compose this thank you, which could be called a Hymn of gratitude.

TO THE ROSE
Sung by Eleonore

Rose, where did you get your gorgeous vermilion?
your regal mien, your tender, lucent refulgence?
What flower, Rose, do you fail to eclipse?
Who bestowed on you that luscious odour?
granted you such vivifying freshness?
Did you adorn the Graces' shining breasts?
You owe your day to Zephyr and Flora:
did they plant your green stem in the groves of Paphos?
Do you come from the land of the winding Adour?
Are you not a wonder of Paestum, of Hybla,
where Love was transported from distant atmospheres?
Could it be that her hand picked you
from the gardens of good Alcinous?
Or was your bloom cultivated
on the fertile banks of the tranquil Anaurus?²⁰
Is that scarlet from the queenly blood of Venus?
that exquisite scent distilled from Aurora's tears?
No, do not flatter yourself: these fine attributes
are all blessings owed to my Eleonore.
The tender young wife I adore
lavished on you her gracious care,
indulged you with her accustomed kindness;
and, anointing you with a single kiss,
ordained you queen of the flowers.

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