Memoirs, (chiefly autobiographical), from 1798 to 1886 / edited by his son Thomas More Madden.

  • Richard Robert Madden
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoirs, (chiefly autobiographical), from 1798 to 1886 / edited by his son Thomas More Madden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    distasteful to me. I had the misfortune to have acquired a habit of judging people by first impressions. There was something as I fancied in this person’s physiognomy indicative of intense self-conceit: so I was not disposed to communication, nor he to be civil, or even courteous during the first two days of our journey. Yet before it was over Monsieur de Pluvier and I were on excellent terms, which eventually led to a sincere friendship. I found him a kind-hearted and genial fellow. He was of an old and wealthy family in the south of France. During the time we both remained in Paris, there were few days that we did not meet, and we parted the best of friends. Bo much for first impressions and hasty judgments from outward appearances. On my arrival in Paris I took up my abode in the Hotel d’Hoi- lande, Eue Neuve des Bous Enfants. I had determined to seek some employment, and felt sanguine of success—without any good grounds indeed for that expectation except in my mother’s prayers, which I knew were never likely to fail being offered up for me whilst she was in life. That thought kept me up. After a while, however, I began to realize the difficulties of my position, and at times, and on one occasion particularly, to give way to a feeling of depression and despondency, and to think myself without hope for the future. Yet I was perfectly aware that I had only to write home and make known my want of means and they would be supplied. But some infatuation—a feeling of false pride—not only prevented my doing this, but determined me never to do it. * * * * * * Shortly before my arrival in Paris the Duke de Berri had been assassinated, having survived the restoration of the House of Bourbon to the throne only two years, and a general impression seemed to prevail in the public mind that a revolution was imminent. The gloom of the political atmosphere seemed to affect all classes, and was not lightened in my own case by the uncertainty and diffi- culties of my prospects. One day when labouring under these feelings, in bad health and mind depressed, I had as usual strolled out for air and exercise, and going along the Boulevards, at last sat down on the bank of the canal in front of the then existing ruins of the Bastille, by no means in a cheerful mood, when I was disturbed in my meditations by the noise of a person rushing past me. I looked up, and saw a man running down the bank and throw- ing himself headlong into the canal. I rushed in after him, and seized hold of him just as his head was for the second time going under water, and after a short struggle, as he resisted strenuously, I landed him safely on the bank. For this, however, he seemed in no wise obliged, being, on the contrary, at first in an agony of
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