Scott on Zélide: Portrait of Zélide by Geoffrey Scott. Richard Holmes

him happy.

      The cause of Belle’s persistence lay in her singular egoism. All her other suitors had been proposed to her by her parents, or had come forward of their own initiative; Bellegarde was her own creation, the hero of her private scheme, the puppet of her own conspiracy with Hermenches. He had loomed up, a shadowy figure, which her imagination could shape as it pleased. When the outlines became distinct and forbidding he was already a part of her will; a struggle had been engaged; her egoism was committed; and her reason worked unrestingly to justify her choice.

      And Hermenches was involved. Hermenches, her choice, on whom her egoism had fastened even more profoundly, Hermenches the confidant of her unending self-analysis. Truly, as she said, it was ‘an odd thing to upset heaven and earth, to fight with monsters, for the sake of a tepid marriage.’ But marriage with Bellegarde meant freedom from Zuylen, a gratifying defeat of the monsters,…and a future for this embarrassed friendship. For embarrassed it was. ‘I fear you may hold too large a part in my thoughts, that I may be forming the habit of preoccupying myself with you too constantly, and too keenly (avec un certain mouvement trop vif). I am determined that this shall not happen. What would be the end of it? A passion perhaps, perhaps a rupture…I am convinced my parents will never give a formal consent to this marriage; if the Marquis insists on this point, you and I, Hermenches, will not pass our lives together; you will live in Bellegarde’s châteaux without me. What shall we do then with the habit that unites us? Will you be satisfied to write to me all your life, and to see me never? Our letters have been all fire, always ardent and tender: after such letters we need to meet. We shall seek each other out, Hermenches – unless we quarrel – and then beware of passion, of jealousy, instinct, madness, and confusion! If I do not marry your friend, if I think always of you, some day we shall be lovers, unless we are separated to the ends of the earth, or unless you care for me no longer.’ What is to happen to them, she asks, if she does not marry Bellegardê What is to happen, one cannot help asking, if she does?

      This letter to Hermenches reveals a state of mind in Mademoiselle de Tuyll of a somewhat complicated order; a state of mind which may well have been disquieting to Monsieur de Bellegarde and the other eleven suitors. The cautious Marquis hung back. Mademoiselle de Tuyll was perfectly sympathetic: ‘I hold to the formula of liberty: every morning the Marquis must wake up with the freedom not to wish what he wished the day before’; and when she dismisses another suitor she is at pains that Bellegarde should not know it lest he should conceive his obligations to be increased. The Marquis availed himself of this liberty to the full: every morning, for the space of about four years, he woke up wishing what he had not wished the day before. But at last his painful dubiety gave place to a settled conviction. For this temperament, these conic sections, this alarming wit, this unsparing frankness, he was no match. But he found it very difficult to say so.

      Unhappy Mademoiselle de Tuyll! After so many letters, after so much self-scrutiny and analysis, after ‘combats with monsters’ and visits to bishops, she was twenty-eight; and still at Zuylen the cattle browsed on, the windmills slowly turned, the barges drifted by; and still she endured the ‘privation péniblè of her unmarried state.

      But all this time there had been other strings to her formidable bow. The King of Prussia, for example, had heard tell of this enchantress. A Dutch gentleman at his court, Belle said, ‘used to send His Majesty to sleep with the story of my charms.’ The King ‘liked this story as well as another,’ and desired to see Mademoiselle de Tuyll at the Prussian court. Monsieur le Comte d’Anhalt was to wed the paragon and bring her to Potsdam. The mother, sister, and friends of the Count were full of this desirable project; the Count himself, if not precisely full, was at any rate favourably disposed.

      The circumstances of this proposal were eminently flattering. The Anhalts, it was said, were to receive back their princely rank; the King took a lively interest in Belle; he had seen her portrait, and advised her to give up reading Fénelon. The Count was on the point of starting for Utrecht. He was always about to start. He remained in Germany; the trepidation which Belle never failed to inspire, even at a distance, kept him rooted to the spot. Mademoiselle de Tuyll observed the process of his collapse with an amused detachment. The Count d’Anhalt served very well as a pawn in her matrimonial diplomacy; she threatened her parents with him when they were too obdurate against Bellegarde; she used him as an excuse in order to discourage the ardour of a love-sick cousin; and with complete indifference she watched him gradually vanish over the horizon.

      She had, near at hand, a more eloquent admirer, who provided for her – and for us – a richer fund of comedy.

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