Part 33 (2/2)

”At this time the royal family were in great want of clothes, insomuch that the princesses were employed in mending them every day; and Madame Elizabeth was often obliged to wait till the king was gone to bed, in order to have his to repair. The linen they brought to the Tower had been lent them by friends, some by the Countess of Sutherland, who found means to convey linen and other things for the use of the dauphin. The queen wished to write a letter to the countess expressive of her thanks, and to return some of these articles, but her majesty was debarred from pen and ink; and the clothes she returned were stolen by her jailors, and never found their way to their right owner.

”After many applications a little new linen was obtained; but the sempstress having marked it with crowns, the munic.i.p.al officers insisted on the princesses picking the marks _out_, and they were forced to obey.

”_Dec. 7._--An officer, at the head of a deputation from the commune, came to the king and read a decree, ordering that the persons in confinement should be deprived of all scissors, razors, knives--instruments usually taken from criminals; and that the strictest search should be made for the same, as well on their persons as in their apartments. The king took out of his pocket a knife and a small morocco pocket-book, from which he gave the pen-knife and scissors. The officer searched every corner of the apartments, and carried off the razors, the curling-irons, the powder-sc.r.a.per, instruments for the teeth, and many articles of gold and silver. They took away from the princesses their knitting-needles and all the little articles they used for their embroidery. The unhappy queen and princesses were the more sensible of the loss of the little instruments taken from them, as they were in consequence forced to give up all the feminine handiworks which till then had served to beguile prison hours. At this time the king's coat became ragged, and as the Princess Elizabeth, his sister, was mending it, as she had no scissors, the king observed that she had to bite off the thread with her teeth--'What a reverse!' said the king, looking tenderly upon her; 'you were in want of nothing at your pretty house at Montreuil.' 'Ah, brother!' she replied, 'can I feel a regret of any kind while I share your misfortunes?'”

The Empress Josephine is said to have played and sung with exquisite feeling: her dancing is said to have been perfect. She exercised her pencil, and--though such be not now antiquated for an _elegante_--her needle and embroidery-frame, with beautiful address.

Towards the close of her eventful career, when, after her divorce from Bonaparte, she kept a sort of domestic court at Navarre or Malmaison, she and her ladies worked daily at tapestry or embroidery--one reading aloud whilst the others were thus occupied; and the hangings of the saloon at Malmaison were entirely her own work. They must have been elegant; the material was white silk, the embroidery roses, in which at intervals were entwined her own initials.

An interesting circ.u.mstance is related of a conversation between one of those ministering spirits a _soeur de la charite_ and Josephine, in a time of peculiar excitement and trouble. At the conclusion of it, the _soeur_, having discovered with whom she was conversing, added, ”Since I am addressing the mother of the afflicted, I no longer fear my being indiscreet in any demand I may make for suffering humanity.

We are in great want of lint; if your majesty would condescend”----”I promise you shall have some; we will make it ourselves.”

From that moment the evenings were employed at Malmaison in making lint, and the empress yielded to none in activity at this work.

Few of my readers will have accompanied me to this point without antic.i.p.ating the name with which these slight notices of royal needlewomen must conclude--a name which all know, and which, knowing, all reverence as that of a dignified princess, a n.o.ble and admirable matron--Adelaide, our Dowager Queen. It was hers to reform the morals of a court which, to our shame, had become licentious; it was hers to render its charmed circle as pure and virtuous as the domestic hearth of the most scrupulous British matron; it was hers to combine with the chilling etiquette of regal state the winning virtues of private life, and to weave a wreath of domestic virtues, social charities, and beguiling though simple occupations, round the stately majesty of England's throne.

The days are past when it would be either pleasurable or profitable for the Queen of the British empire to spend her days, like Matilda or Katharine, ”in poring over the interminable mazes of tapestry;” but it is well known that Queen Adelaide, and, in consequence of her Majesty's example, those around her, habitually occupied their leisure moments in ornamental needlework; and there have been, of late years, few Bazaars throughout the kingdom, for really beneficent purposes, which have not been enriched by the contributions of the Queen Dowager--contributions ever gladly purchased at a high price, not for their intrinsic worth, but because they had been wrought by a hand which every Englishwoman had learnt to respect and love.

FOOTNOTES:

[129] This sacred standard was taken by the Saxons in Devons.h.i.+re, in a fortunate onset, in which they slew one of the Sea-kings with eight hundred of his followers. So superst.i.tious a reverence was attached to this ensign that its loss is said to have broken the spirit of even these ruthless plunderers. It was woven by the sisters of Inguar and Ubba, who divined by it. If the Raven (which was worked on it) moved briskly in the wind, it was a sign of victory, but if it drooped and hung heavily, it was supposed to prognosticate discomfiture.

[130] Von Raumer's Contributions.

CHAPTER XXV.

ON MODERN NEEDLEWORK.

”Our Country everywhere is fild With Ladies, and with Gentlewomen, skild In this rare Art.”

Taylor.

”For here the needle plies its busy task, The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn, Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs, And curling tendrils gracefully dispos'd, Follow the nimble fingers of the fair; A wreath that cannot fade.”

Cowper.

”The great variety of needleworks which the ingenious women of other countries, as well as of our own, have invented, will furnish us with constant and amusing employment; and though our labours may not equal a Mineron's or an Aylesbury's, yet, if they unbend the mind, by fixing its attention on the progress of any elegant or imitative art, they answer the purpose of domestic amus.e.m.e.nt; and, when the higher duties of our station do not call forth our exertions, we may feel the satisfaction of knowing that we are, at least, innocently employed.”--Mrs. Griffiths.

The triumph of modern art in needlework is probably within our own sh.o.r.es, achieved by our own countrywoman,--Miss Linwood. ”Miss Linwood's Exhibition” used to be one of the lions of London, and fully deserves to be so now. To women it must always be an interesting sight; and the ”n.o.bler gender” cannot but consider it as a curious one, and not unworthy even of their notice as an achievement of art.

Many of these pictures are most beautiful; and it is not without great difficulty that you can a.s.sure yourself that they are _bona fide_ needlework. Full demonstration, however, is given you by the facility of close approach to some of the pieces.

Perhaps the most beautiful of the whole collection--a collection consisting of nearly a hundred pieces of all sizes--is the picture of Miss Linwood herself, copied from a painting by Russell, taken in about her nineteenth year. She must have been a beautiful creature; and as to this copy being done with a needle and worsted,--n.o.body would suppose such a thing. It is a perfect painting. In the catalogue which accompanies these works she refers to her own portrait with the somewhat touching expression, (from Shakspeare,)

”Have I lived thus long----”

This lady is now in her eighty-fifth year. Her life has been devoted to the pursuit of which she has given so many beautiful testimonies.

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