, 1880-05-03
Gibbons Early Love.

lE0 historian eftDOOn was never mar
ried. When mere boy. and while a
student at Oxford, he turned Roman
Catholic, and was sent by his indignant
father to S ritzerland, where Protes-
tant pastor undertook to bring him
back to the faith he had abandoned.
He succeeded IN curing him of his Ro-
maniziug proclivities, but, as the Sc.
quel showed, very little religious be-
lief remained after his abjuration had
been made. Much moral principle
seems to have gone with his trust in re-
ligion. He tells us in his entertaining
autobiography that, his father having
disapproved of his love for Suzanne
Curchod, a Swiss minister's daughter,
he sighed as lover, yet obeyed as
son, aud that the lady also calmly ac-
auiesced in the separation.
A recent contributor to the Reuue des
Deu1 blondes, member of the De Stael
family, who has had access to some of
the correspondence between Gibbon
and Mile. Curchod, shows by extracts
from their letters and connecting de-
tails that the last statement is false and
that the young man was very heartless.
He was not of age when he became en-
gagged, and his letters we're almost as
sonorous as his later work, the" De-
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
but, in the light of subsequent devel-
opments at least, they sound very hol-
low. Even Suzanne appears to have
suspected his fidelity at times, and her
doubts drew from him such an express
sion as this:
How could you doubt an instant
my love and fidelity? Have you not
read the depth of my soul hundred
times ? Have you not seen there pas
sion as pure as it is ardent? Have you
not felt that your image will always
hold the first place in ths heart which
you now despise, and that in the midst
of pleasures, honors, and riches, with
out you could have no happiness p
The elder Glbbon had more ambi-
tious views for his son, or perhaps the
general English contempt for foreign
ers, and early in their engagement the
lovers seem to have made up their
minds to wait. Still the father can not
be blamed for the fact that from his re-
turn to England, in 1853, to 1862,
when he finally broke off the alliance,
young Gibbon wrote Suzanne no let
ters, and accompanied little work
which he had written in French, on the
Study of Literature" with very
cold dedicatory note. She could not
easily forget him, though the exagger-
ated despair with which he closed his
farewell letter must have convinced any
unprejudiced person that he was
humbug. She could hardly believe
that the man she loved could act thus,
and when they met, a year later, she
could not tell whether all hope must be
abandoned. She wrote to him to know
what to expect, apologizing to him and
herself for the step, but declaring that
she could bear the suspense no longer.
She said:
I" For five years have sacrificed my
self to this chimera by conduct
unique and inconceivable. At last my
mind, romantic as it is, has been con-
v1nccd of its error. l ask of you on
my knees to dissuade foolish heart.
ference and my soul will resign itself to
its fate; certainty will produce the tran
quillity for which sigh. You will be
the most despicable of men if you re-
fuse this act of frankness, and God,
who sees my heart and loves me, with
out doubt, although He makes me suf
fer severe trials-that God, tell you,
will punish you IN spite of my prayers,
if there is the least disguise in your an
swer, or if by your silence you make
toy of my repose."
The letter was returned to her, and
bears on it these sad words, inscribed
by her own hand: "A thinking soul
is punished enough, and every thought
draws blood" She followed this with
another letter, ia which she avowed
that she had fancied in him man who
never existed, that he was now no more
to her than any other man, and pro-
posed Il friendly correspondence. This
proposition, with truly English phlegm
and caution, he did not answer for sew
eral weeks, and then with chilling cool
ness. The same course characterized
his actions at subsequent meeting.
The warm-hearted and indignant girl
denounced him in Il passionate letter.
She said:
"What remains for me now save to
bless On my knees the Supreme Being
who has saved nee from the greatest of
all evils? Yes, commence to believe
it-you would nave regarded me as a
burden. Ny existence could have in
jured yonr future or your ambition,
and your i'll disguised regrets would
have sent me to the tomb by the road
of despair
She lost the hand Of great historian.
but of very selfish man, and won that
of M. Necker, the banker OF Geneva,
and later the Confidential adviser of the
French king. By him Linn she became
the mother of Madame de Stael, and
the ancestress of the Broglies, and 9TH