Madame de la Tour

“ At any rate, the women who love have more influence in the world than the women who fight, and so it happens that the sentimental traveler who passes through Port Royal without a tear for Madame de la Tour, begins to be in a glow of tender longing and regret for Evangeline as soon as he enters the valley of the Annapolis River. ”

“ We did not hear pa ask when Madame de la Tour "flourished," though "flourish" that determined woman did, in Boston as well as in the French provinces. In the present woman revival, may we not hope that the heroic women of our colonial history will have the prominence that is their right, and that woman's achievements will assume their proper place in affairs? When women write history, some of our popular men heroes will, we trust, be made to acknowledge the female sources of their wisdom and their courage. ”

“ At that period of life, when the graces of youth have just ripened into maturity, the lady of La Tour was as highly distinguished by her personal attractions, as by the strength and energy of her mind. Her majestic figure displayed the utmost harmony of proportion, and the expression of her regular [Pg 37] and striking features united, in a high degree, the sweetest sensibilities of woman, with the more bold and lofty attributes of man. ”

“ No actress knew better than she how to compose an attitude or a countenance. [150] In her whole person there was an exquisite grace, an exceptional charm, a taste, an elegance which amounted to subtlety. La Tour, the pastel painter, is he who has best reproduced her animated, spirituelle, triumphant physiognomy, the eyes full of intelligence and audacity, the satin skin, the supple figure, the general harmony, the charming and coquettish whole. ”

“ Charles de Menou d'Aunay, by the way, La Tour's great enemy, came with Razilly. But La Tour made haste to put himself right with the King of France, and, after a visit to Paris, came back to Nova Scotia 'Lieutenant-General for the King at Fort Loméron and its dependencies, and Commander at Cape Sable for the Colony of New France.' Doesn't that strike you as quite tremendous, when you think of the rocks and the fogs and the seals, together with the forests, that chiefly made up his domain?"
"It's very interesting," said Priscilla. "What became of La Tour?"
"It's a long story," responded Fritz. ”

“ I have never met a woman yet whose face did not light up at the thought of a walking tour, and in her heart long to don Rosalind clothes and set forth in search of adventures. We thus had the advantage, in planning our route, of several prettily coiffed heads bending over our maps and guide-books with us. ”

“ The most charming part of Tours is naturally the shaded quay that overlooks it, and looks across too at the friendly faubourg of Saint Symphorien and at the terraced heights which rise above this. Indeed, throughout Touraine it is half the charm of the Loire that you can travel beside it. The great dyke which protects it, or protects the country from it, from Blois to Angers, is an admirable road; and on the other side as well the highway constantly keeps it company. A wide river, as [6] Tours you follow a wide road, is excellent company; it brightens and shortens the way. ”

“ The taste, the fancy, the elegance, the refinement, are of those things which revive our standard of the exquisite. Such a piece of work is the purest flower of the French Renaissance; there is nothing more delicate in all Touraine.
There is another fine thing at Tours which is not particularly delicate, but which makes a great impres- sion, - the- very interesting old church of Saint Julian, lurking in a crooked corner at the right of the Rue Royale, near the point at which this indifferent thorough- fare emerges, with its little cry of admiration, on the bank of the Loire. ”

“ On that epoch-making day, the bloody axe of Charles Martel graved deep his name on the annals of France. But Tours has many another claim to historic renown. Touraine, the province of which it is the capital, is strewed with magnificent châteaux, whose very elaboration and beauty testify to how greatly French royalty and nobility loved its temperate climate. On our way from Poitiers to Tours, we shall pass through several charming little valleys and find attractive, though quiet, scenery, during most of the journey. The immediate surroundings of Tours are not pleasing. ”

“ In a niche there stands a statue of the famous old soldier, probably made from life. If only some sculptor or painter might have preserved for us the features of Joan!
Through that golden land which lies between the Loir and the Loire we drifted through a long summer afternoon, and came at evening to a noble bridge that crossed a wide, tranquil river, beyond which rose the towers of ancient Tours, capital of Touraine. ”

“ Tours
I AM ashamed to begin with saying that Touraine is the garden of France; that remark has long ago lost its bloom. The town of Tours, however, has something sweet and bright, which suggests that it is surrounded by a land of fruits. It is a very agreeable little city; few towns of its size are more ripe, more complete, or, I should suppose, in better humour with themselves and less disposed to envy the responsibilities of bigger places. It is truly the capital of its smiling province; a region of easy abundance, of good living, of genial, comfortable, optimistic, rather indolent opinions. ”

“ When women wish to carry a point, and find hindrances constantly recurring, they grow at last blind and wild, and dare anything and everything. The tour to Italy approached so fast; still the Minister was no nearer to letting go his high consideration for his beloved,—although from just her own motive, that of the tour, with the nearness of which he animated himself to a cheerful endurance of so short a flame. ”

“ Canon or Count of the Cathedral of Cologn, may be rank’d among our best Families in Germany.
Of all the Ladies, the Princess de la Tour is most distinguished by the Archduchess; for which the other Ladies envy her, but this is very natural: For the Princess de la Tour was born at308 Vienna, and, as it were, brought up with the Archduchess; and Friendships so early contracted are generally the most lasting. Besides, the Princess de la Tour discovers such an Attachment to the Archduchess, that ’tis not surprising that she should honour her with her Confidence. ”

“ The whole idea of the Grand Tour was thrown into disrepute after its adoption by crude and low-bred people, who thought it necessary to inform all their acquaintance where they had been, by a very unbecoming dress and a very awkward address: "not knowing that an Englishman's beef-and-pudding face will not agree with a hat no bigger than a trencher; and that a man who never learned to make a bow performs it worse in a head of hair dressed a L'aille Pidgeon, than in a scratch wig." [394]
In many other ways, also, travel lost its dignity in the eighteenth century. ”

“ At Tours, where he was known, he might browbeat his fellow-townsmen on any point wherein he and they differed; but in Paris, what was he? A unit in a position where his vanity did not care to picture himself.
He reached Tours weary and dusty, and felt the need for his usual cup of coffee at the café—perhaps greater need for the exercise of his usual self-assertion. On his way through the streets he met the doctor, who held up his hands.
“Are you off a journey, my good Monsieur Bourget? You have the air of a man who has been travelling all night.” ”

“ Nor must it be forgotten that the realism claimed by the later years, and the naturalism claimed for this girl's art, were already to be seen in full career in the master-work of La Tour in portraiture, and in the still-life of Chardin. This girl's genius never reached to the force of La Tour, nor the superb handling or colour-sense or vigour of Chardin, but she painted with rare skill the eminent women of her day and, with near as remarkable a skill, more than one man ”

“ With what traits you venture to depict Madame de Tourvel!... What man but would have paid with his life for such insolent boldness? What woman other than yourself would have escaped without receiving at least an ungracious retort? ”

“ To light the naked spirit brings;
Not with our partial eye shall scan,
Not with our pride and scorn shall ban,
The spirit of our brother man!
1841.
ST. JOHN. The fierce rivalry between Charles de La Tour, a Protestant, and D'Aulnay Charnasy, a Catholic, for the possession of Acadia, forms one of the most romantic passages in the history of the New World. La Tour received aid in several instances from the Puritan colony of Massachusetts. During one of his voyages for the purpose of obtaining arms and provisions for his establishment at St. ”

“ It is no longer the adorable, the celestial Madame de Tourvel, but an astonishing woman, a delicate sentimental woman, even to the exclusion of all others; a wonderful woman, such as a second could not be found. ”

“ THE STOLEN VOYAGE. “Miss Ethel Turner is Miss Alcott’s true successor. The same healthy, spirited tone is visible, which boys and girls recognized and were grateful for in ‘Little Women’ and ‘Little Men,’ the same absence of primness, and the same love of adventure.”—The Bookman. ”

“ At this moment a scene presents itself to the cool spectator, wholly without a parallel. The various habiliments of the company—riders and pedestrians mingled together—the sound of the horses—and the united clamour of the multitude—are altogether striking. At one time, the expressions of mirth predominate; while, at others, the heart-rending lamentations of the female relations of the defunct prevail, and in their turn vibrate upon the ear. The women, at length unwillingly disentangled from the body, return home with mournful wailing, and the procession continues its course to its destination. ”

“ His mistress's carriage was waiting, and he beside it, one day in spring when they were selling daffodils and violets on the street, and doves were murmuring around the church towers, and the sparrows clamorous, and everything which had life, in which hope was not quite dead, was flying, and darting, and blossoming, and creeping out into the sunlight. ”

“ The surrounding scenery is charming; and from the high grounds, north and south of the town, extensive views may be had in all directions—especially up the valley of the Pelice, and eastward over the plains of Piedmont—the whole country being, as it were, embroidered with vineyards, corn-fields, and meadows, here and there shaded with groves and thickets, spread over a surface varied by hills, and knolls, and undulating slopes.
The size, importance, industry, and central situation of La Tour have always caused it to be regarded as the capital of the valleys. ”

“ When it comes to longer runs, or to genuine touring, the Parisienne promptly abandons all effort to look well on the road. To be comfortable, to be suitably dressed, to be immaculate at the journey's end,—all these aims demand the setting aside of a desire to be beautiful ”

“ But we have given up to Madame de Hell as much of our limited space as we can spare, and now take leave of her with the acknowledgment that among modern female travellers she deserves a high rank in virtue of her intelligence, her sympathies, and her keen sensibility to all that is beautiful and good. ”

“ However, the curious simplicity of the piece, the rustic scenes and personages, here faithfully copied from reality, unlike the conventional village and villager of opera comique, and the pleasing sentiment that runs through the tale, were found refreshing by audiences upon whom the sensational incidents and harrowing emotions of their modern drama were already beginning to pall. The result was a little stage triumph for Madame Sand. ”

“ A walk of three miles' length upon a lonely country road, between the hours of two and four on a cold winter's morning, is scarcely a pleasant task for a delicate woman—a woman whose inclinations lean toward ease and luxury. But my lady hurried along the hard, dry highway, dragging her companion with her as if she had been impelled by some horrible demoniac force which knew no abatement. ”

“ It is a tour which embraces country widely differing in characteristics—one which takes in both the long, broad, ribbon-like roads of Central France, flanked by meadows, orchards, and farmsteads, and lofty mountains from the peaks of which other peaks capped with glistening snow may be gazed upon, sunlit valleys and sparkling lakes. It is a tour which no man could possibly make without a good machine, and yet it is a tour which, with a good machine, can be considered easy and comparatively inexpensive. ”

“ I have never seen another woman of such superb carriage. Her hair was blood-red, her brow lofty, and an indescribable air of majesty and pride spoke eloquently of her descent from fathers and mothers of power. ”

“ We hired the trap of an energetic woman who put it "to" with her own hands; women in Touraine and the B1esois appearing to have the best of it in the business of letting vehicles, as well as in many other industries. There is, in fact, no branch of human activity in which one is not liable, in France, to find a woman engaged. ”

“ On Sundays, the lady comes out richly dressed, with a dignified deportment that a duchess might envy, and slowly paces the promenade, accompanied by her children, elaborately attired, and the maid-servant, whose exterior has undergone the same magical transformation. ”