DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61284#0295
A VISIT TO KNOLE
I5i
a remark which suggests how much the taciturnity of the chatelaine of
those days must have affected the spirits of a lively visitor. When the
Duchess warned her that there was never any conversation at the dinner-
table, Madame Lebrun replied that it was so at her own table, as she had
dined alone for years past! But at Knole this imitation of the monks of
the Grande Chartreuse was evidently carried too far for their countrywoman.
The Duchess of Dorset maintained almost absolute silence at table, and
even when her son, then a boy of about ten, came in for dessert, she scarcely
said a word to him—which seemed strange conduct to her guest, who found
in it a proof of a saying that the English women only loved their little
children, and hardly cared for them when they grew big. The portrait of
the Duchess which Madame Lebrun painted, and which hangs to-day in the
ball-room at Knole, is a very pleasing example of her work, and the fact
that Hoppner’s fine portrait of the same lady hangs in the same house
helps us to test its value as a likeness. We may still believe in her general
veracity as a portrait-painter after making the comparison thus offered.
Knole, both within and without, was in many ways much as it is to-day
in the time when, at the beginning of the last century, Vigee-Lebrun stayed
there. The “ very beautiful pictures,” the “ furniture of the Elizabethan
age,” and the “ dressing-table of solid silver,” of which she writes, are
still there; and outside in the park the two great trees which “ they told
me were more than a thousand years old” are yet alive. It is true that
one is a beech and the other an oak, whereas Madame calls them both
elms, but such is her way. Knole itself she calls “ Knowles” ; and to Lord
Whitworth’s name she can get no nearer than “ Wilfort.” Small blame
attaches to her for such inaccuracies. We laugh sometimes at the forms
in which English names appear in French books and newspapers, but it
is doubtful whether there is much to choose between ourselves and our
neighbours in such little errors.
A good deal of her spare time was passed in and about Twickenham,
then, as for nearly a century after, the English Bourbonnais, where exiled
princes of the royal family of France found homes amid the leafy gardens
of the Thames valley. Her friend of so many years, the charming Comte
de Vaudreuil, had found there, near to his beloved Comte d’Artois, a home
for the young wife whom he had married in England. Madame Lebrun
says that this wife was also the niece of the Comte. As a fact, she was
the daughter of his first cousin, the Marquis de Vaudreuil.
Whilst staying at Twickenham with Madame de Vaudreuil (who had
I5i
a remark which suggests how much the taciturnity of the chatelaine of
those days must have affected the spirits of a lively visitor. When the
Duchess warned her that there was never any conversation at the dinner-
table, Madame Lebrun replied that it was so at her own table, as she had
dined alone for years past! But at Knole this imitation of the monks of
the Grande Chartreuse was evidently carried too far for their countrywoman.
The Duchess of Dorset maintained almost absolute silence at table, and
even when her son, then a boy of about ten, came in for dessert, she scarcely
said a word to him—which seemed strange conduct to her guest, who found
in it a proof of a saying that the English women only loved their little
children, and hardly cared for them when they grew big. The portrait of
the Duchess which Madame Lebrun painted, and which hangs to-day in the
ball-room at Knole, is a very pleasing example of her work, and the fact
that Hoppner’s fine portrait of the same lady hangs in the same house
helps us to test its value as a likeness. We may still believe in her general
veracity as a portrait-painter after making the comparison thus offered.
Knole, both within and without, was in many ways much as it is to-day
in the time when, at the beginning of the last century, Vigee-Lebrun stayed
there. The “ very beautiful pictures,” the “ furniture of the Elizabethan
age,” and the “ dressing-table of solid silver,” of which she writes, are
still there; and outside in the park the two great trees which “ they told
me were more than a thousand years old” are yet alive. It is true that
one is a beech and the other an oak, whereas Madame calls them both
elms, but such is her way. Knole itself she calls “ Knowles” ; and to Lord
Whitworth’s name she can get no nearer than “ Wilfort.” Small blame
attaches to her for such inaccuracies. We laugh sometimes at the forms
in which English names appear in French books and newspapers, but it
is doubtful whether there is much to choose between ourselves and our
neighbours in such little errors.
A good deal of her spare time was passed in and about Twickenham,
then, as for nearly a century after, the English Bourbonnais, where exiled
princes of the royal family of France found homes amid the leafy gardens
of the Thames valley. Her friend of so many years, the charming Comte
de Vaudreuil, had found there, near to his beloved Comte d’Artois, a home
for the young wife whom he had married in England. Madame Lebrun
says that this wife was also the niece of the Comte. As a fact, she was
the daughter of his first cousin, the Marquis de Vaudreuil.
Whilst staying at Twickenham with Madame de Vaudreuil (who had