HoL

Holographical-Lee (HoL)
Vernon Lee (Violet Paget) : Letters, notebooks and manuscripts - Lettres, carnets et manuscrits


Votre recherche dans le corpus : 5 résultats dans 334 notices du site.

Auteur : Lee-Hamilton, Eugene
Eugene Lee -Hamilton to Matilda Paget_1871_May 22-page-001.jpg
22 Mai 1871
MeWC

Ambassade d’Angleterre
17 rue des Réservoirs
Versailles
May 22. 71
(monday, noon)
ˆE.L.H.’s return to France after leave at Rome
VP. 1919ˆ
My little darling,
I hope thou hast safely received my telegram telling thee of my arrival and good health ?
My journey was a very fatiguing one and difficult one. I have nothing of interest to tell thee respecting it however, except that yesterday morning, on arriving at Melun, I had to get out of the railway and take the diligence to Versailles right across the country. It took me nearly the whole day. At Dijon I first came upon the Prussians. Nothing can be more saisissant than their ˆthusˆ suddenly coming upon them. The first I saw were two sentries in full campaigning dress with their pointed helmets on the railway line, looking like ghosts in the grey morning light. On the Platform at Dijon there were a large number, all perfectly silent and quiet, and the contrast between them, --so soldier like, so rigid--, and the French soldiers who were hurrying about beside them was very curious. At Lonjumeau where I stop we stopped to rest the horses, and where I got some dinner yesterday, a balloon containing proclamations etc which had been let off at Paris by the Communists fell in the yard in front of the house I was eating in. There was great excitement of course and the ballon, --a small one—was carried off by the gendarmes. As one approaches Paris the military movement becomes very marked, Cavalry galloping along, estafettes etc etc –but I did not pass near enough to Paris to see any of the active operations. On arrival here I was given a small room in Lord L’s apartment (a very small one something like our Rue du Luxembourg apartment & on the second floor) The room is very small, but has is clean & has plenty of air. I fear it is quite out of the question finding even a bedroom to let here except at a fabulous price. 200 a month is asked for an inferior bedroom. So I suppose I must stay with Lord L. though I dread the long meals and the I should far prefer a more independent mode of life.
Lord L. is very cordial, as he always is. The other people staying with him are Wodehouse Sheffield and a new military attaché, Colonel Conolly, whom I have scarcely had time to judge of. West, the Secretary of Embassy, is also here.
I have arrived just in time for the great dénouement, it seems. As I telegraphed thee, the Army forced its way in to (sic) Paris yesterday, and a great battle is raging there today. Sheffield was has been at Meudon all the morning, whence there is a splendid view of the contest. He says the Versailles army has reached the Arc de Triomphe on the right bank of the Seine and the Champ de Mars on the other. The Insurgents are apparently bombarding Paris from Versa Montmartre, and we are very anxious for the safety of the Embassy & its inmates.
A great fire can also be distinctly seen to be raging in the neighbourhood of the Tuileries. I am going to Meudon in half an hour, and shall write thee this evening what I see. Here at Versailles there is of course tremendous excitement. Cavalry, artillery galloping about, great crowds in the streets. Large numbers of unfortunate prisoners are bro continually being brought into Versailles and are jee cruelly jeered at by the mob. I saw a great body of them this morning escorted down the Avenue de Paris by cavalry. They look like brigands rather than like soldiers. They are horribly dirty and squalid, most of them in a sort of garde mobile uniform. Most of them are either very young or very old, few of them middle aged. I saw among them many deserters from the regular army, who walked along doggedly, apparently quite prepared for their fate. Close by to this house is the Place du Château with the fine statue of Louis XIV and the inscription “à toutes les gloires de la France”. It was at the foot of this statue that the Crown Prince of Prussia distributed medals to his soldiers.
I have been studying the timetables between for thee between Verona & Salzburg. I find thou wilt have to make two days journey of it, and thou must absolutely sleep at Innsbruck. The best arrangement I can make for thee is to leave Verona at

Mots-clés :

Auteur : Lee-Hamilton, Eugene
Eugene Lee -Hamilton to Matilda Paget_1871_May 23-page-001.jpg

Me WC

Amb. d’Ang.

17 Rue des Réservoirs

Versailles

May 23. 71

Tuesday noon

My little darling.

I drove up to Meudon yesterday afternoon, a place whence one has a view of Paris very similar to the view of Rome from the Villa Mellini. The distance is about the same, and you see Paris extended bef below you just as we saw Rome so lately. All the chief monuments are perfectly distinct, the gilded dome of the Invalides, the Panthéon, the Palais de l’Industrie, the nouvel Opéra etc. The ramparts (surrounding Paris just as the Walls do Rome) are also perfectly conspicuous, and the breach through which the Versailles army entered. All the houses immediately within the ramparts are reduced to a state of ruin impossible to describe, as I could see with the naked eye, by the tremendous bombardment of the last two weeks. The whole quarter looked as if it had been ground in some gigantic coffee mill. No roofs, no walls, no insides no outsides. Nothing but streets of the most absolute décombres. At my feet the Seine wound placidly through the city just as the Tiber through Rome, and I could see all the bridges by which we walked so happily last summer, the Trocadéro etc. Nothing indicated that a tremendous battle was then raging inside Paris, only from time to time the low growling of cannon, and clouds of smoke rising slowly upwards in different Parts. I looked through a telescope and saw distinctly the tricolour floating on the Arc de Triomphe and on the Ecole Militaire, but the drapeau rouge still flying on the Louvre. All the houses outside the ramparts have been reduced to the most marvellous wrecks.

            At Meudon where I was a large Prussian battery had been pounding away at Paris all the winter. This battery ha is on the terrace of the Chateau de Meudon (just like the terrace before the Villa Mellini) The Château itself is utterly burnt out, the whole inside and the roof having disappeared; it was set on fire by a French shell; but the walls are still standing and the smiling faces of the Caryatide contrasted painfully with the state of the place. All the houses of the neighbourhood are more or less destroyed. I did not see a single one which had not at least one huge gaping shell-hole in it, large enough for a carriage to drive through.

            The Commune are ˆisˆ fighting desperately; they have so to speak ropes round their necks. Thiers told Lord L. last night that two thirds of Paris was ˆwereˆ already conquered, and that this morning at daybreak Montmartre was to be assaulted. The insurgents have two hundred most powerful guns there and I fear the carnage will be dreadful. This morning an uninterrupted cannonade was distinctly audible like distant thunder continually rolling. The number of prisoners brought into Versailles yesterday and today has been very great, understand that there are about ten thousand of them. The more recent batches of them consist apparently of the scum of the Paris population. There are strange to say many women among them. I should think the days of June ’48 must have been child’s play compared to the present insurrection and suppression. Rochefort was captured the other day escaping in disguise from Paris, and is in prison here. Assy, another a prominent member of the Commune has was taken yesterday. I did not enjoy my visit to Meudon yesterday, notwithstanding the interest of the sight. I felt lonely and could not help comparing it to our visit the other day to Monte Mario. Hadst Hadst thou and Bags been with me, how different it would have been!

            Versailles itself is all that can be desired. The park is exquisitely beautiful. How dear Baby would revel in the such a marvellous “French garden” as it is. It must certainly be the most magnificent thing of the sort ever conceived. The enormous marble edged bassins (the it takes an hour and a half to walk round the chief one) the dense avenues of box, the splendid shady woodland alleys, the marble statues, the grand flights of stone steps and the large expanses of green lawn –are incomparably beautiful. I can only describe the Park of Versailles as the a fusion on an immense scale of the Borghese, the Ludovisi, the Quirinal and the Tuileries. The Park is at one’s very door, and under other circumstances I should think Versailles a most charming and convenient place for thee to pass the summer in. But at present it is of course out of the question. It is impossible to get even a bad bedroom for 200 fr. a month (Wodehouse has been paying 500 for one) and the State of France is terribly precarious. I daresay however that thou mayest fint it advisable and agreeable to pass next summer here. –I forgot yesterday to insert my advice about thy journey. Here it is:

Leave Verona 2.12 afternoon. Arrive Innsbruck 11.20 Night

Next day Leave Innsbruck 7.45 morning; arrive Salz. 4.30 afternoon

I have not yet received a letter from thee. I kiss thee a thousand times. Thy E.

Mots-clés :

Auteur : Lee-Hamilton, Eugene
Eugene Lee -Hamilton to Matilda Paget_1871_May 24-page-001.jpg

MeWC

Amb. d’Ang.

17 Rue des Réservoirs

Versailles

May 24. 71

Wednesday, noon

My little darling,

I fear there will be very little of Paris remaining by tomorrow judging by the devastation of yesterday. The Louvre and the Tuileries are burning; the insurgents having set them on fire as I understand. The Madeleine is being battered to pieces, the Ministère des Finances & the Cour des Comtes [Comptes] (that fine building on the Quai Voltaire) in flames. The Embassy has been much injured, though Chiefly in the topmost stories where the servants sleep. My apartment is unhurt, only one ball having struck entered through my kitchen window. Nobody has been injured in the Embassy; Malet & the rest remained in the cellars yesterday. Lord Lyons is just going into Paris, --rather rash of him I think, as the there are still of course a good many Communists lurking in the houses who would be happy to fire a stray shot at passers by. Montmartre was carried yesterday at the point of the bayonet. The fighting was tremendous in the Champs Elysées, the Insurgents having a large battery erected at the Concorde end, xxx and the Versaillais another at the Arc de Triomphe. The Insurgents have set all the public buildings on fire. I also hear that they are blazing away upon the town indiscriminately from the two forts of Bicetre [Bicêtre] and Montrouge, which they still hold. In Paris however, they are being driven from steadily back into their last strongholds. I saw an Englishman last night who has charge of an ambulance in the Palais de l’Industrie. The shells kept dropping through the roof all night. –I received thy first dear letter last night ˆyesterday eveningˆ. It gave me such pleasure as did dear Baby’s. I have seen M. de Lespérut, who, as a Legitimist is in all his glory and expe evidently expects a speedy restoration. I fear the Legitimists are rather in too great a hurry. M. Thiers ha for reasons best known to himself has made an alliance with the Republicans, and notwithstanding his great services in creating an army and conquering the Commune he has I understand lost much of the confidence of the assembly. Now that the Commune is on the point of giving up the ghost, Civil war appears likely to break out between the parties who have were first united again by the pressure of the Prussian invasion, and next by the outbreak of the Socialists.

            Dear baby [Baby] will I fear be very angry with me for writing such a pamphlet as the above, but the events in Paris are today all engrossing. I like Versailles as a place very much ˆowing toˆ in the nearness of the beautiful park, and a charming swimming bath close by. I take my breakfast in my own room, and should be very well satisfied with my abode little room chez Lord Lyons, which is clean and airy, were it not that lunch and dinner are tedious and that I am not as independent as I should be in a lodging of my own. I have however asked M. de Lesperut to go with me to the Trianons on Saturday and then to dine with me at the Hotel des Reservoirs. He is a cultivated and agreeable companion, and I owe him a return for a dinner at Bordeaux.

            I shall try to get to Meudon this afternoon, and get a distant prospect of Paris. We have little work to do, but it may be only a momentary lull. Everything here is redolent of the old French monarchy; tout y respire le grand monarque. The Ministère des Affaires Etrangères where I and the other Ministères are established in the Palace. I found M. de l’Esperut in the room in which Louis XVI’s guards were cut down by the Paris populace when it marched to Versailles. The weather continues lovely. Tomorrow I will write a long letter to darling Bags. Today I have not sufficient materials for one, and must ask her to take her share of this one. My toile cirée parcel of books and boots arrived uninjured, but I was obliged to buy a little leather house for it in the shape of a tiny valise at Florence. A thousand loves. Thy E.

Mots-clés :

Auteur : Lee-Hamilton, Eugene
Eugene Lee -Hamilton to Matilda Paget_1871_May 25-page-001.jpg
MeWC   Versailles May 25 .71   My little darling, The Tuileries, the Hotel de Ville, all the Rue de Rivoli between the Rue de Luxembourg and the Rue d’Alger; all the left of the Rue Royale between the Rue St Honoré and the Madeleine; the Prefecture de Police; the greater part of the Palais Royal the Louvre xxxx, the Sainte Chapelle, the Conseil d’Etat the Cour des Comptes, the Palace of the Légion d’Honneur are all burnt down. Notre Dame had hitherto ˆescapedˆ up to yesterday evening. The Communists seem to have fired every building with Petroleum as they fell back from each position. Though they have now been There is a tremendous smoke hanging over Paris, which we can see distinctly from this window. Clouds of burnt flakes of paper from the destroyed Ministères are driving miles away from Paris. Of course besides the buildings I have mentioned a very great number of private houses have been burnt. The Galleries of the Louvre are saved, but the Louv great Louvre Library is destroyed.             I fear thou wilt not get this letter in time before thy departure from Rome. How I think of thee and Baby! Here, notwithstanding the nearness to Paris, everything is wonderfully lovely and peaceful. Did I tell thee in my yesterday’s letter that the Embassy is considerably damaged, but that my apartment has escaped? I enclose thee a letter just received from Mrs Jenkin. I hope thou wilt have a pleasant journey. How I wish I were with thee. There is a nice swimming bath here, to which I go daily. I daresay that this together with increased exercise, will strengthen me. I expect that the completion of the Paris victory of the assembly will only be the signal for a real civil war to begin. I expect it to break out almost immediately. Now that the Communists are crushed the several Parties in the Country must fall out. And the burning question of Republic or Monarchy must now be settled. – I take a long walk in the Park every morning and afternoon. I must now run out to Post this. Lord Lyons has been in Paris since yesterday. It is far from a safe place still, the Insurgents are firing petroleum shells from Belleville, which is to be attacked tomorrow by the troops. A thousand kisses. Thy E.

Mots-clés :

Auteur : Lee-Hamilton, Eugene
Eugene Lee-Hamilton to Matilda Paget_May_28_1871-01.jpg

MeWC

 

Amb. d’Ang.

17 Rue des Reservoirs

Versailles

May 28 . 71

Sunday evening

My little darling,

I have only just time to dash thee off a line to save the Post. This morning while dressing I received a Telegram from Alfred Turner, saying the Fort of Ivry had blown up and that he was horribly anxious as to the fate of the Maison de Santé in which his brother and uncle are. So I immediately, with Lord Lyons’ concurrence hired a carriage, after procuring the necessary safe conduct, and drove across country to Ivry. I am happy to say I found the Maison de Santé uninjured, and saw both patients who were quite well. The drive there and back lasted about six or seven hours, all along the position held by the Prussians during the Siege, and through one shattered village after the other. The destruction is indescribable. All the houses of all the villages being reduced to the condition of the Palace of the Caesars à peu près. Every wall is loopholed, and german inscriptions in chalk on all the doors. I have no time to write more to say. I fear this will reach Rome after thy departure.

            A thousand loves

Thy E.

I telegraphed of course result of my visit to Mr Turner

Mots-clés :

Formats de sortie

atom, dcmes-xml, json, omeka-xml, rss2