The Mysteries of Udolpho (120 page)

When the first congratulations were over, and the general joy became
somewhat more tranquil, the Count withdrew with Valancourt to the library, where a long conversation passed between them, in which the latter so clearly justified himself of the criminal parts of the conduct, imputed to him, and so candidly confessed and so feelingly lamented the follies, which he had committed, that the Count was confirmed in the belief of all he had hoped; and, while he perceived so many noble virtues in Valancourt, and that experience had taught him to detest the follies, which before he had only not admired, he did not scruple to believe, that he would pass through life with the dignity of a wise and good man, or to entrust to his care the future happiness of Emily St Aubert, for whom he felt the solicitude of a parent. Of this he soon informed her, in a short conversation, when Valancourt had left him. While Emily listened to a relation of the services, that Valancourt had rendered Mons. Bonnac, her eyes overflowed with tears of pleasure, and the further conversation of Count de Villefort perfectly dissipated every doubt, as to the past and future conduct of him, to whom she now restored, without fear, the esteem and affection, with which she had formerly received him.

When they returned to the supper-room, the Countess and Lady Blanche met Valancourt with sincere congratulations; and Blanche, indeed, was so much rejoiced to see Emily returned to happiness, as to forget, for a while, that Mons. St Foix was not yet arrived at the chateau, though he had been expected for some hours; but her generous sympathy was, soon after, rewarded by his appearance. He was now perfectly recovered from the wounds received, during his perilous adventure among the Pyrenées, the mention of which served to heighten to the parties, who had been involved in it, the sense of their present happiness. New congratulations passed between them, and round the supper-table appeared a group of faces, smiling with felicity, but with a felicity, which had in each a different character. The smile of Blanche was frank and gay, that of Emily tender and pensive; Valancourt's was rapturous, tender and gay alternately; Mons. St Foix's was joyous, and that of the Count, as he looked on the surrounding party, expressed the tempered complacency of benevolence; while the features of the Countess, Henri, and Mons. Bonnac, discovered fainter traces of animation. Poor Mons. Du Pont did not, by his presence, throw a shade of regret over the company; for, when he had discovered, that Valancourt was not unworthy of the esteem of Emily, he determined seriously to endeavour at the conquest of his own hopeless affection, and had immediately withdrawn from Chateau-le-Blanc – a conduct, which Emily now understood, and rewarded with her admiration and pity.

The Count and his guests, continued together till a late hour, yielding to the delights of social gaiety, and to the sweets of friendship. When Annette
heard of the arrival of Valancourt, Ludovico had some difficulty to prevent her going into the supper-room, to express her joy, for she declared, that she had never been so rejoiced at any
accident
as this, since she had found Ludovico himself.

‘Now my task is smoothly done,

I can fly, or I can run

Quickly to the green earth's end,

Where the bow'd welkin low doth bend,

And, from thence, can soar as soon

To the corners of the moon.'

M
ilton
[
Comus
]
¹

The marriages of the Lady Blanche and Emily St Aubert were celebrated, on the same day, and with the ancient baronial magnificence, at Chateau-le-Blanc. The feasts were held in the great hall of the castle, which, on this occasion, was hung with superb new tapestry, representing the exploits of Charlemagne and his twelve peers;
²
here, were seen the Saracens, with their horrible visors, advancing to battle; and there, were displayed the wild solemnities of incantation, and the necromantic feats, exhibited by the magician
farl
before the Emperor.
³
The sumptuous banners of the family of Villeroi, which had long slept in dust, were once more unfurled, to wave over the gothic points of painted casements; and music echoed, in many a lingering close, through every winding gallery and colonnade of that vast edifice.

As Annette looked down from the corridor upon the hall, whose arches and windows were illuminated with brilliant festoons of lamps, and gazed on the splendid dresses of the dancers, the costly liveries of the attendants, the canopies of purple velvet and gold, and listened to the gay strains that floated along the vaulted roof, she almost fancied herself in an enchanted palace, and declared, that she had not met with any place, which charmed her so much, since she read the fairy tales; nay, that the fairies themselves, at their nightly revels in this old hall, could display nothing finer; while old Dorothé, as she surveyed the scene, sighed, and said, the castle looked as it was wont to do in the time of her youth.

After gracing the festivities of Chateau-le-Blanc, for some days, Valancourt
and Emily took leave of their kind friends, and returned to La Vallée, where the faithful Theresa received them with unfeigned joy, and the pleasant shades welcomed them with a thousand tender and affecting remembrances; and, while they wandered together over the scenes, so long inhabited by the late Mons. and Madame St Aubert, and Emily pointed out, with pensive affection, their favourite haunts, her present happiness was heightened, by considering, that it would have been worthy of their approbation, could they have witnessed it.

Valancourt led her to the plane-tree on the terrace, where he had first ventured to declare his love, and where now the remembrance of the anxiety he had then suffered, and the retrospect of all the dangers and misfortunes they had each encountered, since last they sat together beneath its broad branches, exalted the sense of their present felicity, which, on this spot, sacred to the memory of St Aubert, they solemnly vowed to deserve, as far as possible, by endeavouring to imitate his benevolence, – by remembering, that superior attainments of every sort bring with them duties of superior exertion, – and by affording to their fellow-beings, together with that portion of ordinary comforts, which prosperity always owes to misfortune, the example of lives passed in happy thankfulness to
GOD
, and, therefore, in careful tenderness to his creatures.

Soon after their return to La Vallée, the brother of Valancourt came to congratulate him on his marriage, and to pay his respects to Emily, with whom he was so much pleased, as well as with the prospect of rational happiness, which these nuptials offered to Valancourt, that he immediately resigned to him a part of the rich domain, the whole of which, as he had no family, would of course descend to his brother, on his decease.

The estates, at Tholouse, were disposed of, and Emily purchased of Mons. Quesnel the ancient domain of her late father, where, having given Annette a marriage-portion, she settled her as the housekeeper, and Ludovico as the steward; but, since both Valancourt and herself preferred the pleasant and long-loved shades of La Vallée to the magnificence of Epourville, they continued to reside there, passing, however, a few months in the year at the birth-place of St Aubert, in tender respect to his memory.

The legacy, which had been bequeathed to Emily by Signora Laurentini, she begged Valancourt would allow her to resign to Mons. Bonnac; and Valancourt, when she made the request, felt all the value of the compliment it conveyed. The castle of Udolpho, also, descended to the wife of Mons. Bonnac, who was the nearest surviving relation of the house of that name, and thus affluence restored his long-oppressed spirits to peace, and his family to comfort.

O! how joyful it is to tell of happiness such as that of Valancourt and Emily; to relate, that, after suffering under the oppression of the vicious and the disdain of the weak, they were, at length, restored to each other – to the beloved landscapes of their native country, – to the securest felicity of this life, that of aspiring to moral and labouring for intellectual improvement – to the pleasures of enlightened society, and to the exercise of the benevolence, which had always animated their hearts; while the bowers of La Vallée became, once more, the retreat of goodness, wisdom and domestic blessedness!

O! useful may it be to have shewn, that, though the vicious can sometimes pour affliction upon the good, their power is transient and their punishment certain; and that innocence, though oppressed by injustice, shall, supported by patience, finally triumph over misfortune!

And, if the weak hand, that has recorded this tale, has, by its scenes, beguiled the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its moral, taught him to sustain it – the effort, however humble, has not been vain, nor is the writer unrewarded.

FINIS

1.
Thomson [The Seasons, ‘Autumn']
: 11. 65–8. James Thomson (1700–1748) was born in Scotland. He wrote
The Seasons
between 1726 and 1746. Separate editions of
Winter
(1726),
Summer
(1727) and
Spring
(1728) preceded the first publication of
The Seasons
(1730). He further revised and augmented the work for subsequent editions. All references are to
The Poetical Works of Thomson
, ed. J. Logie Robertson (London: Oxford University Press, 1908).

2.
‘
more in pity than in anger'
: An adaptation of ‘more in sorrow than in anger' from Shakespeare's
Hamlet
, I.i.231. The latter phrase is quoted in Vol. III, Ch. V.

3.
izard
: In Gascony, isart. ‘A capriform antelope allied to the chamois, found in the Pyrenees' (
OED
).

4.
made very tasteful improvements
: The manners, taste and accomplishments which Radcliffe gives to her characters are frequently anachronistic. St Aubert's botanizing and country-estate improvement are pursuits which were in vogue among the English upper classes from the 1740s onwards. However, the modesty of his improvements, his readiness to sacrifice taste to sentiment, and the ‘chaste simplicity' of his life position him socially as a man of virtue and creativity. In contrast, his pretentious brother-in-law, Monsieur Quesnel, plans extravagant extensions which involve demolishing the whole east wing of St Aubert's cherished boyhood home and cutting down an ancient chestnut tree as well as an avenue of trees in the grounds. That Quesnel should favour shaven grounds and Lombardy poplars out of character with the heavy Gothic mansion, and that St Aubert should protest strongly and has himself planted larch, beech, pine and mountain ash, are significant in the context of 1790s debates concerning the aesthetic principles of siting and constructing country houses and landscaping the grounds. In the turbulent years of the revolution in France, such principles were often polemically aligned with political ideologies. See Tim Fulford,
Landscape, Liberty and Authority: Poetry, Criticism and Politics from Thomson to Wordsworth
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), and Stephen Daniels, ‘The Political Iconography of Woodland in Later Georgian England' in Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels, eds.,
The Iconography of Landscape
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 43–82.

5.
‘Those tend'rer tints… die'
: Samuel Rogers,
The Pleasures of Memory
, ii.271–2. Son of a wealthy banker, Rogers (1763–1855) was influenced by his mother's Dissenting principles, and moved in foremost literary and political circles throughout his long life. At eighty-six he was offered the Poet Laureateship following the death of William Wordsworth in 1850. His fame rested mainly on
The Pleasures of Memory
(1792), which was admired by Byron, and his travel poem
Italy
(1830). For particulars of his life, see
Poems by Samuel Rogers
(London: Edward Moxon, 1860), pp. vii–lxiv.

6.
He taught her Latin and English… the sublimity of their best poets
: Presumably, then, Emily has read John Gower (1330?–1408) and Geoffrey Chaucer (?1345–1400).
The Faerie Queene
by Edmund Spenser (1552?–99) did not go to press until 1589, five years after the year in which the novel opens.

7.
wrapt in a melancholy charm
: rapt.

8.
led to enthusiasm and poetry
: Radcliffe's frequent use of ‘enthusiasm' coincides with that of William Duff (1732–1815), whose
Essay on Original Genius
(1767) explored the role of imagination in ordinary perception and related it to special acts of imagination of which only individuals gifted with original genius are said to be capable. According to Duff, one of the properties which indicates genius is ‘ENTHUSIASM of Imagination, which as it were hurries the mind out of itself'. The poet of original (in contrast to imitative) genius is supplied by Nature with the materials of composition and flourishes ‘in the peaceful vale of rural tranquillity'. See reprint edn (New York: Garland, 1970), pp. 171, 294.

9.
pencil
: This may be anachronistic, although the
OED
cites ‘pensil of black led (1612)', and other materials were used at this time for such an instrument.

10.
recollected courage
: Gathered or summoned up courage.

11.
the court of Henry the Third
: This is one of the few historical references in Udolpho. The designated turbulence of the period alludes to religious struggles in France about which Radcliffe does not elaborate. In 1584 Henry III's Catholic brother the duc d'Anjou died, leaving the Huguenot leader Henry of Navarre as next in line to the throne. Thus ensued what is known as ‘the war of the three Henris', the third Henri being the king's powerful subject the duc de Guise. The husband of the queen's younger sister, the duc de Joyeuse, was much favoured by the King. Thus, in speaking of ‘the character of the Duke de Joyeuse', and of ‘the Porte' (the official name for the seat of the Turkish government in that time), Quesnel is affecting a social status and intimate knowledge of the King's court and official business which he does not have.