Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Lady Morgan to Lady Olivia Clarke, 27 August 1818
Calais,
August 27, 1818.
Here we are, my dear love, after a tremendous expense at
the hotel at Dover, where we slept last night, and embarked at twelve
o’clock this morning, in a stormy sea. The captain remained behind to try
and get more passengers, and the result was, that we remained tossing in the
bay near two hours, almost to the extinction of our existence. In my life I
never suffered so much. As to Morgan, he
was a dead man. The whole voyage we were equally bad; and the ship could not be
got into port,—so we were flung, more dead than alive, into a wretched
sail boat, and how we got on shore I do not know. It rained in torrents all the
time; but the moment I touched French ground, and breathed French air, I got
well. We came to our old ![]()
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auberge, MM.
Maurices, and the first place we got to was the
kitchen fire, for we were wet and cold;—and really, in that kitchen I saw
more beauty than at many of our London parties. Madame
Maurice and her daughter, are both handsome women. We were
obliged to have bedrooms opposite to the auberge, as it was quite full, but the house, Madame
told us, belongs to “maman.” She is herself
about fifty, so you may guess what “maman” is. She is admirable—a powdered head, three feet high, and
souflet gauze winker cap. Our chamber-maid is worth anything. She is not one of
the kitchen beauties, par exemple;
but here she is—an ugly woman of seventy, in her chemise, with the simple
addition of a red corset and a petticoat, several gold chains, and an immense
cross of shiny stones on her neck, with long gold earrings, and with such a cap
as I wore at a masquerade. With all this, her name is
Melanie; and Melanie has beauty
airs as well as beauty name. Whilst she was lighting our wood fire (for it is
severely cold) I asked her some questions about the Mr.
Maurice. You may guess what a personage he is, for she
said—“Ah pour notre Mr. Maurice
on ne parle que de lui—partout Madame on ne s’occupe que de
notre Mr. Maurice.” So much for Miss
Melanie and her Mr. Grundy. We dined at the
table d’hôte. We
had an Englishman and his wife, and a Frenchman only, for our company. The
Englishman was delightful. We had a capital table, with everything good, and in
profusion; but the Englishman sat scowling, and called for all sorts of English sauces, said the fish was infamous, and found
fault ![]()
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with everything, and said to the
waiter—“What do you mean by your confounded sour mustard?”
The poor waiter to all his remarks only answered in English, “How is dat,
sar?” The Burgundy was “such d——d stuff.” And the
last remark, “Why, your confounded room has
not been papered these twenty years,” was too much for our good breeding;
and we and the Frenchman laughed outright. Is it not funny to see our
countrymen leave their own country for the sole pleasure
of being dissatisfied with everything?
We leave this early to-morrow, and shall be in Paris the
next day, please God. Lafayette is to
come up for us to take us to his chateau; until, therefore, I learn the post
town of La Grange, direct to the Hotel d’Orleans,
where we shall go on our arrival in Paris. I feel myself so gay here already,
that I am sure my elements are all French. A thousand
loves, and French and Irish kisses to the darlings.
S. M.
Sir Thomas Charles Morgan (1780-1843)
English physician and philosophical essayist who married the novelist Sydney Owenson in
1812; he was the author of
Sketches of the Philosophy of Morals
(1822). He corresponded with Cyrus Redding.
