I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of
that republic. My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics,
and my father had filled several public situations with honour and reputation.
He was respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable
attention to public business. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied
by the affairs of his country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his
marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he became a husband
and the father of a family. As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot refrain
from relating them. One of his most intimate friends was a merchant who, from a
flourishing state, fell, through numerous mischances, into poverty. This man,
whose name was Beaufort, was of a proud and unbending disposition and could not
bear to live in poverty and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly
been distinguished for his rank and magnificence. Having paid his debts,
therefore, in the most honourable manner, he retreated with his daughter to the
town of Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in wretchedness. My father loved
Beaufort with the truest friendship and was deeply grieved by his retreat in
these unfortunate circumstances. He bitterly deplored the false pride which led
his friend to a conduct so little worthy of the affection that united them. He
lost no time in endeavouring to seek him out, with the hope of persuading him
to begin the world again through his credit and assistance. Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself, and it was ten months
before my father discovered his abode. Overjoyed at this discovery, he hastened
to the house, which was situated in a mean street near the Reuss. But when he
entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him. Beaufort had saved but a very
small sum of money from the wreck of his fortunes, but it was sufficient to
provide him with sustenance for some months, and in the meantime he hoped to
procure some respectable employment in a merchant’s house. The interval was,
consequently, spent in inaction; his grief only became more deep and rankling
when he had leisure for reflection, and at length it took so fast hold of his
mind that at the end of three months he lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of
any exertion. His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness, but she saw with
despair that their little fund was rapidly decreasing and that there was no
other prospect of support. But Caroline Beaufort possessed a mind of an
uncommon mould, and her courage rose to support her in her adversity. She
procured plain work; she plaited straw and by various means contrived to earn a
pittance scarcely sufficient to support life. Several months passed in this manner. Her father grew worse; her time was more
entirely occupied in attending him; her means of subsistence decreased; and in
the tenth month her father died in her arms, leaving her an orphan and a
beggar. This last blow overcame her, and she knelt by Beaufort’s coffin weeping
bitterly, when my father entered the chamber. He came like a protecting spirit
to the poor girl, who committed herself to his care; and after the interment of
his friend he conducted her to Geneva and placed her under the protection of a
relation. Two years after this event Caroline became his wife. There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this
circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection.
There was a sense of justice in my father’s upright mind which rendered it
necessary that he should approve highly to love strongly. Perhaps during former
years he had suffered from the late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved and
so was disposed to set a greater value on tried worth. There was a show of
gratitude and worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the
doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her virtues and a
desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing her for the sorrows she
had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace to his behaviour to her.
Everything was made to yield to her wishes and her convenience. He strove to
shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher
wind and to surround her with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion
in her soft and benevolent mind. Her health, and even the tranquillity of her
hitherto constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through. During
the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage my father had
gradually relinquished all his public functions; and immediately after their
union they sought the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change of scene and
interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders, as a restorative for
her weakened frame. From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born at
Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I remained for
several years their only child. Much as they were attached to each other, they
seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to
bestow them upon me. My mother’s tender caresses and my father’s smile of
benevolent pleasure while regarding me are my first recollections. I was their
plaything and their idol, and something better—their child, the innocent and
helpless creature bestowed on them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and
whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery,
according as they fulfilled their duties towards me. With this deep
consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life,
added to the active spirit of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined
that while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience,
of charity, and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all
seemed but one train of enjoyment to me. For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much desired to have a
daughter, but I continued their single offspring. When I was about five years
old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a
week on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent disposition often made
them enter the cottages of the poor. This, to my mother, was more than a duty;
it was a necessity, a passion—remembering what she had suffered, and how she
had been relieved—for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the
afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale
attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of
half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape. One
day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me,
visited this abode. She found a peasant and his wife, hard working, bent down
by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to five hungry babes. Among
these there was one which attracted my mother far above all the rest. She
appeared of a different stock. The four others were dark-eyed, hardy little
vagrants; this child was thin and very fair. Her hair was the brightest living
gold, and despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed to set a crown of
distinction on her head. Her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless,
and her lips and the moulding of her face so expressive of sensibility and
sweetness that none could behold her without looking on her as of a distinct
species, a being heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her
features. The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder and
admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly communicated her history. She was not
her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother was a German and
had died on giving her birth. The infant had been placed with these good people
to nurse: they were better off then. They had not been long married, and their
eldest child was but just born. The father of their charge was one of those
Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory of Italy—one among the
schiavi ognor frementi, who exerted himself to obtain the liberty of his
country. He became the victim of its weakness. Whether he had died or still
lingered in the dungeons of Austria was not known. His property was
confiscated; his child became an orphan and a beggar. She continued with her
foster parents and bloomed in their rude abode, fairer than a garden rose among
dark-leaved brambles. When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of our
villa a child fairer than pictured cherub—a creature who seemed to shed
radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the
chamois of the hills. The apparition was soon explained. With his permission my
mother prevailed on her rustic guardians to yield their charge to her. They
were fond of the sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed a blessing to them, but
it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty and want when Providence
afforded her such powerful protection. They consulted their village priest, and
the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents’ house—my
more than sister—the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and
my pleasures. Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost reverential attachment with
which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight. On
the evening previous to her being brought to my home, my mother had said
playfully, “I have a pretty present for my Victor—tomorrow he shall have it.”
And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I,
with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon
Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on
her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other
familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the
kind of relation in which she stood to me—my more than sister, since till death
she was to be mine only.