I have already had occasion to mention Grouvelle; but let us dwell for
a moment upon him and his sister. Both were admirable people, with
hearts as devoted to the cause of Republicanism as any Spartan or Roman
citizens. We shall meet them everywhere and in everything connected
with politics until Grouvelle disappears from the arena, at the same
time that his sister dies insane in the hospice de Montpellier. They
were the son and daughter of the Grouvelle who made the first complete
edition of the _Lettres de Madame de Sévigné_, and the same who, as
secretary of the Convention, had read to Louis XVI. the sentence of
death brought him by Garat. At the time I knew him, Grouvelle was
thirty-two or three, and his sister twenty-five, years of age. There
was nothing remarkable in his external appearance; he was very simply
dressed, with a gentle face and scanty fair hair, and upon his scalp he
wore a black band, no doubt to hide traces of trepanning. She, too, was
fair and had most lovely hair, with blue eyes below white eyelashes,
which gave an extremely sweet expression to her face, an expression,
however, which assumed much firmness if you followed the upper lines to
where they met round her mouth and chin. A charming portrait of herself
hung in her house, painted by Madame Mérimée, the wife of the artist
who painted the beautiful picture, _l'innocence et le Serpent_; the
mother of Prosper Mérimée, author of _Le Vase Étrusque, Colomba, Vénus
d'Ile_ and of a score of novels which are all of high merit. The mother
of Laure Grouvelle was a Darcet, sister, I believe, of Darcet the
chemist, who had invented the famous joke about gelatine; consequently,
she was cousin to the poor Darcet who died a horrible death, being
burnt by some new chemical that he was trying to substitute for
lamp-oil; cousin also to the beautiful Madame Pradier, who was then
simply Mademoiselle Darcet or at most called _madame._ They both had a
small fortune, sufficient for their needs, for Laure Grouvelle had none
of the usual feminine coquetry about her, but was something akin to
Charlotte Corday.
It was a noticeable fact that all the men of 1830 and the Carbonari
of 1821 and 1822 were either wealthy or of independent means, either
from private fortunes or industry or talent. Bastide and Thomas were
wealthy; Cavaignac and Guinard lived on their incomes; Arago and
Grouvelle had posts; Loëve-Weymars possessed talent and Carrel, genius.
I could name all and it would be seen that none of them acted from
selfish ends, or needed to bring about revolutions to enrich himself;
on the contrary, all lost by the revolutions they took part in, some
losing their fortunes, others their liberty, some their lives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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