delighted with this proposal and his only stricture was that we delay sufficiently to allow him time to find a suitable residence. He would install his mother there also, as she had been most anxious to receive her new daughter-in-law ever since our marriage. So now the day approaches when we are to leave to undertake the six-hundred-and-fifty-mile journey south. I am happy at the prospect not only of seeing my husband’s family but also of seeing more of France. My only anxiety is that my mother does not appear to be at all in good health—she has grown thin and pale during the winter. I have a slight health worry also but think it likely can be attributed to a happy cause, and I wish that we may have hopes of issue for next year.
Château de Jordan, September 1784
They tell me that it is painful indeed to bear a child, but what is uppermost in my mind at present is how fearfully painful it is not to bear one. Perhaps it was the roughness of the roads, or the inadequacy of the accommodation Mama and I had on our long journey south that caused my sad loss.
‘You can never know the reasons for these things, Madame,’ said the old French doctor who attended me at the château following my accident. ‘But you are young and healthy as is your husband the Comte. There will be other children, of that you may be sure.’
How sad my husband was and his mother, too. They had prepared such a welcome for us at the end of our terrible journey. The château is a most charming place, so beautiful that it might be in a fairy story. Of course, château does not translate as “castle” as many an English person would suppose, but is more a gentleman’s residence with the sweetest chimneys, a fine roof, and dormer windows. Madame Belle Mere—how much nicer this sounds than mother in law!—was kindness itself, even though I was unable by virtue of the onset of my condition to truly appreciate the fine food and wine that had been set out in our apartments.
I seem to have been somewhat slow in recovering—perhaps it has taken longer than recovering from a lying in—but am at last beginning to feel a little stronger. Mama oversees the nursing and supervises my food in agreement with Madame Belle Mere and I have little to do but sit in the sun. I grow quite tanned because, though the summer is almost at an end, the sun is still strong so far south.
‘Before you return to England, my dear,’ said Mama, ‘we shall have to bleach your complexion with buttermilk lest yourEnglish relatives think you have been working in these swamps yourself.’
She was joking, but I long to be strong enough to accompany the Comte as he goes about his work. Never did I think that I should be so interested in farming matters, but the work he undertakes is so exciting and the buildings that are beginning to emerge are so fit for the landscape that I fail to see how anyone could object to them. My husband says this project will immortalise him and now that I have seen it, I believe him. To have been so singled out by the king and entrusted with this heavy task is indeed an honour of which we must all strive to be worthy. It had seemed to me to be impossible, but I now see how he will manage to change stagnant water to a fertile plain and will be a benefactor to the whole province.
November 1784
The cold is now so acute that it is hard to grip my pen as I write the sad news to all my relatives. Dear Madame Belle Mere is dead. The event is all the more shocking because the dear lady appeared to have escaped the dreadful fever that is common in these marshes and that has affected Mama, my husband, and me. We are all weakened by it, but my mother-in-law seemed to be in the best of health in spite of the damp that penetrates to your very bones hereabouts, when a sudden seizure, of not more that three quarters of an hour duration, took her from us.
My poor husband is distraught and, weakened as he already was by the fever, is in very poor spirits. Indeed,
Château de Jordan, September 1784
They tell me that it is painful indeed to bear a child, but what is uppermost in my mind at present is how fearfully painful it is not to bear one. Perhaps it was the roughness of the roads, or the inadequacy of the accommodation Mama and I had on our long journey south that caused my sad loss.
‘You can never know the reasons for these things, Madame,’ said the old French doctor who attended me at the château following my accident. ‘But you are young and healthy as is your husband the Comte. There will be other children, of that you may be sure.’
How sad my husband was and his mother, too. They had prepared such a welcome for us at the end of our terrible journey. The château is a most charming place, so beautiful that it might be in a fairy story. Of course, château does not translate as “castle” as many an English person would suppose, but is more a gentleman’s residence with the sweetest chimneys, a fine roof, and dormer windows. Madame Belle Mere—how much nicer this sounds than mother in law!—was kindness itself, even though I was unable by virtue of the onset of my condition to truly appreciate the fine food and wine that had been set out in our apartments.
I seem to have been somewhat slow in recovering—perhaps it has taken longer than recovering from a lying in—but am at last beginning to feel a little stronger. Mama oversees the nursing and supervises my food in agreement with Madame Belle Mere and I have little to do but sit in the sun. I grow quite tanned because, though the summer is almost at an end, the sun is still strong so far south.
‘Before you return to England, my dear,’ said Mama, ‘we shall have to bleach your complexion with buttermilk lest yourEnglish relatives think you have been working in these swamps yourself.’
She was joking, but I long to be strong enough to accompany the Comte as he goes about his work. Never did I think that I should be so interested in farming matters, but the work he undertakes is so exciting and the buildings that are beginning to emerge are so fit for the landscape that I fail to see how anyone could object to them. My husband says this project will immortalise him and now that I have seen it, I believe him. To have been so singled out by the king and entrusted with this heavy task is indeed an honour of which we must all strive to be worthy. It had seemed to me to be impossible, but I now see how he will manage to change stagnant water to a fertile plain and will be a benefactor to the whole province.
November 1784
The cold is now so acute that it is hard to grip my pen as I write the sad news to all my relatives. Dear Madame Belle Mere is dead. The event is all the more shocking because the dear lady appeared to have escaped the dreadful fever that is common in these marshes and that has affected Mama, my husband, and me. We are all weakened by it, but my mother-in-law seemed to be in the best of health in spite of the damp that penetrates to your very bones hereabouts, when a sudden seizure, of not more that three quarters of an hour duration, took her from us.
My poor husband is distraught and, weakened as he already was by the fever, is in very poor spirits. Indeed,
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