The Royal Institution: Its Founder and First ProfessorsJones, Bence
History
The Royal Institution: Its Founder and First Professors
Jones, Bence
Davy, Humphry, Sir, 1778-1829; Royal Institution of Great Britain; Rumford, Benjamin, Graf von, 1753-1814; Young, Thomas, 1773-1829
I can do no more, my dear Sally, than simply give you the latest
news upon this the anniversary of my marriage, for I am still here,
and so far from things getting better they become worse every day.
We are more violent and more open, and more public, as may really
be said, in our quarrels. If she does not mind publicity, for a
certainty I shall not. As I write the uncouth word _quarrels_, I
will give you an idea of one of them.
In the first place be it known that this estate is a joint concern.
I have as good a right to it as Madame, she having paid rather
more in the beginning, but I an immensity of money in repairs and
alterations, &c. &c., besides a great deal of my own time and care
spent while we have been here.
I am almost afraid to tell you the story, my good child, lest in
future you should not be good; lest what I am about relating should
set you a bad example, make you passionate, and so on. But I had
been made very angry. A large party had been invited I neither
liked nor approved of, and invited for the sole purpose of vexing
me. Our house being in the centre of the garden, walled around,
with iron gates, I put on my hat, walked down to the porter’s lodge
and gave him orders, on his peril, not to let anyone in. Besides, I
took away the keys. Madame went down, and when the company arrived
she talked with them, she on one side, they on the other, of the
high brick wall. After that she goes and pours boiling water on
some of my beautiful flowers.
And the wretched climax came the next year:
Rue d’Anjou, St. Honoré, No. 39, Paris, April 12, 1808.
After what you know, my dear Sally, of my domestic troubles you
will naturally be anxious to know the present state of things.
There are no alterations for the better. On the contrary, much
worse. I have suffered more than you can imagine for the last four
weeks; but my rights are incontestable, and I am determined to
maintain them. I have the misfortune to be married to one of the
most imperious, tyrannical, unfeeling women that ever existed, and
whose perseverance in pursuing an object is equal to her profound
cunning and wickedness in framing it.
It is impossible to continue in this way, and we shall separate. I
only wish it was well over. It is probable I shall take a house at
Auteuil, a very pleasant place, with the Seine on one side and the
Bois de Boulogne on the other, about a league from Paris. I have
seen a very handsome house there which I can have--rather dear,
but that matters little can I but find quiet. It would be truly
unfortunate, after the King of Bavaria’s late bounties joined to
former ones, if I could not live more independently than with this
unfeeling, cunning, tyrannical woman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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