Mount de Po Chantilly May 1865 - Willie writes to Fannie's Mother

Mount de Po Chantilly
May 1865
My Ever Dear Mother;
The preceding pages, written by your darling daughter, contain a short record of our travels in Europe, commenced soon after we landed in Liverpool and continued until our arrival in Pau, her last resting place on earth. During that happy period of her life, when her mind was in constant contact with all that was most beautiful and absorbing in art and nature, nothing could prove more fully that her dear mother was ever present to her memory than the care and regularity with which she daily recorded for your perusal, the impressions she derived from the many wonders she had seen. This day is but the frame work upon which she was to build, on her return to her happy home, a more complete and detailed record of all that she had seen deserving of notice in foreign lands. How often I have heard her expatiate, with childish delight upon the prospect of our speedy return, and rehearse the accurate account which her retentive memory enabled her to give you of the thousand wonders of London and Paris, the sublime scenery of the Alps, and the treasures of art of classic Italy.

As these beautiful pages, exhibiting so fully the development of her mind, the maturity of her judgement and the advantages she derived from travel, were destined exclusively for your eye, I had never perused them until after her death, and I need not tell you how deeply I was impressed by the sweet and touching evidences contained in them of the almost perfect happiness she enjoyed and of the undying love she entertained for me. As I have since frequently, in deep anguish of mind, pored over these pages, how vividly they have brought to mind every hallowed incident connected with that blissful period of our lives, when we were both too blessed in each others love to believe it possible that such happiness was too perfect for earth. You will thus understand, my dear Mother, why, day by day, I have become more attached to these pages, and would faire (?) have retained them in my possession, had I not remembered that your heart, like mine, stands in need of such bitter consolation as they may afford.

Although my numerous letters have conveyed to you an account of the chief incidents connected with the last illness of our lost darling, yet I had long ago resolved in compliance with your wish, to prepare for your perusal, a more connected narrative of the last years of her life, and of all the heartrending symptoms of that fatal disease to which she succumbed. I delayed the performance of this too painful task, as long as I was sustained by the hope that my own lips might communicate to you all that you most longed to know. But the possibility of our meeting has now become more remote than ever, and in my dreary exile my mind is more than ever absorbed by the image of the idolized being whom we mourn. These lines will I know be but a faint and imperfect echo of the mournful past. But even this sad! Sad narrative, though it will cause you to shed many bitter tears of anguish will afford you the melancholy consolation of knowing that no human effort was left untried to prolong the life of one whom God, in his tender love, had, at an early period singled out for the enjoyment of celestial bliss.

You know that from the moment of my marriage, the happiness of this adored being became my chief object in life, my chief anxiety the preservation and strenghtening(sic) of her delicate health. My principal inducement to visit Europe was the hope of fortifying her constitution by foreign travel. The only words she ever heard from my lips, approaching the accent of reproof, were those relating to her occasional imprudence in exposing herself thoughtlessly to the night air or to humidity and in not being warmly enough clad. When we separated from you in New Orleans, and she was deprived of your watchful experience, I felt more than ever the deep responsibility imposed upon me to preserve, by constant vigilance, an existence so precious to us all. During the year Succeeding my arrival in Europe, my endeavors seemed eminently successful. A portion of the Summer and autumn of 1861 were oh! How happily spent in the pure mountain air of Switzerland, where she delighted me by the increased elasticity of her step, her power of enduring fatigue, the rounded contour of her form, her excellent appetite and her evident enjoyment of life. In order to complete the work of fully establishing her constitution and fearing the effect of a Northern winter, we proceeded in Oct. first to Florence and subsequently to Rome and Naples, thus spending the entire winter in Italy. During the whole of this period she had never, at my earnest solicitation ceased to wear flannels, winter and summer. The deep hollow cough which had always so alarmed me at the Bay had almost entirely ceased, and I cannot recollect her having missed a single meal from the time she left home until long after our return from Italy.

As my father required my presence in Brussels, and as the winter was already far spent, we proceeded thither, at the latter part of March 1862, where, surrounded by a circle of devoted friends our darling joyfully passed the summer, shedding the radiance of her happiness on all around her. As winter approached I again thought of removing to a milder climate, but my apprehensions had been so completely silenced by her long improvement that I acquiesced in her and my father’s desire to spend the winter in Brussels, taking the precaution however of removing to a smaller suite of apartments, remarkable for their healthy exposure and freedom from cold and damp.

On my return from Copenhagen after ten days absence in Oct. 1862, I noticed that she was slightly thinner and paler than when I left; this she attributed to a severe cold, caught during my absence. I redoubled my ordinary precautions, insisted upon her wearing thicker clothing and furs notwithstanding the sumsual(?) mildness of the season, and made it a rule,- which we were always too happy in each others company to wish to infringe – to spend all our evenings in our well warmed and comfortable home, where we were engaged in useful reading and in music or else received a few intimate friends.

It was during the latter part of December or the beginning of January that I first noticed the gradual, periodical return of that deep, hollow cough which before our marriage had so often alarmed me, but now filled me with a vague, indefinable dread, as if betokening some impending disaster. Why! Oh why! Did I not hearken to those auscious foreboding and hasten off with my darling to a milder climate, where , even then, her life might have been preserved? This is a reproach which, as long as I live, I can never cease to address myself, though perhaps undeservedly. I permitted myself to be lulled into a false security by her representations, accompanied by those of my father and friends and this security was strengthened by the occasional disappearance of the cough. Ignorant as I then was of the premonitory symptoms of the frightful disease, I did not sufficiently notice that she frequently complained, particuclarily after dinner of the heat in our dining-room and that she would retire to her own parlor or bed-room where she never permitted a fire to be made. At such moments, I now to well recollect that her hands were slightly heated and that her cheek was suffused with a scarcely perceptible flush, These were doubtless the insidious approaches of that burning, consuming fever which came upon her as a thief in the night, defying the watchfulness of those whose sole thought was the preservation of her health.

About the middle of January she first began to com[plain of a slight pain near her left shoulder: I immediately called in a highly recommended physician, Dr. Geens, who had successfully treated several of our Southern friends. He made very light of the pain, pronounced it a slight attack of neuralgia, very prevalent at that season, and prescribed dome slight remedy, such as gentle friction with ointment. I nevertheless communicated to him my apprehensions, and insisted upon his returning frequently and sounding her lungs, which he repeatedly and carefully did pronouncing them again and again perfectly sound. Tho’ my alarm was not quieted, yet the disappearance of the pain contributed to confirm the doctor’s opinion. On a recurrence of the pain a few weeks afterwards the physician, again called in applied the same remedy with the same apparent success; he reiterated his opinion as to the soundness of her lungs and even expressed some astonishment at my apparent distrust of his judgement. I called his attention again to the delicacy of her constitution, to her occasional cough, and asked whether an immediate removal to the South of France or Italy would not be advisable. He repeated that there was no necessity for such a step and that she would certainly recover from her attack of cold and neuralgia as soon as dry weather set in. – Up to this period no marked outward change had occurred in our darling’s health; her appetite continued excellent, her color good and her spirits cheerful. Weather permitting, we daily took our walks in the Park or visited some of our friends. – We had rented a large furnished house and she took especial delight in superintending the household arrangements which were on the most comfortable scale. –

Towards the latter part of April the old familiar symptoms re-appeared in an aggravated form. The physician, again ausciously consulted repeated his confident assertions and prescriptions. But the cough accompanied by slight expectoration, continued to increase in violence and her nights rest was disturbed by the regular recurrence of fever. Early on the morning of the 6th of May she complained of more than usual pain and oppression near her left lung but seemed otherwise in her usual health and spirits. She was talking gaily with the beautiful little daughter of one of our neighbors, when she was seized with a more than usually violent coughing spell; on rushing to her side, I was horrified on perceiving that her expectoration was tinged with blood, which in a few moments began violently to gush from from (sic) her lips in thick, clotted masses. Rendered frantic by this horrible sight, the recollection of which willever continue to haunt me, I nevertheless, succeeded in controlling my emotions, and hastily summoned her physician and several of her kind friends who for weeks now constantly and faithfully assisted me in watching by her bed-side.

Her physician, actuated probably by that strange professional rule always to conceal the worst, affirmed most positively that the hemorrhage was in itself nothing serious, and that I had no cause to feel the slightest alarm. I told him I could no longer feel satisfied with his attendance alone, and asked for a consultation between himself and Dr. Graux, a celebrated physician of Brussels, partially retired from practice, but who at the urgent request of a mutual friend, now consented to give his advice. The consultation took place next morning after another violent hemorrhage, both physicians apparently concurring in the opinion that her lungs were not in the least affected, and that I was wrong in manifesting the slightest apprehensions as to the result. A fly-blister was applied over the left lung, but without accomplishing any permanent benefit, our dear patient continuing very weak and not being permitted to speak above a whisper. After a few days as the flush, indicating fever, continued to increase with the cough, I called on Dr. Graux, and begged him to again visit our darling; he did so, and to my surprise and horror advised that she should be bled. I informed Dr, Geens (her regular attendant) of this decision from which he utterly dissented. I then requested them again to meet in consultation, the result of which was that the advice of Dr. Graux was assented to notwithstanding my earnest opposition.

When I now look back, as I constantly do, at this agonizing period of existence, I can scarcely comprehend how I permitted myself to be so readily duped by the positive assertions even of two eminent medical men that her recovery was only a matter of time, and that her disease was not of the character to cause me the slightest alarm. So long and so fondly had I worshipped this idol of my heart, that I had invested her as it were with immortality and could not bring myself to contemplate the possibility of her loss. I continued up to the last, to listen, only too soundly to the deceptions of her physicians, and to the sanguine hopes of all who surrounded me. At the very time these confident statements were made by Dr. Graux, he informed , as I subsequently ascertained, several of my friends, under the veal (?) of secrecy that it was an improbability to save her life, while Dr Geens stated that from the narrowness of her chest and general delicacy of constitution it was only a wonder that she had lived so long. When I, after her death, reproached Dr. Graux, with having concealed the truth he replied: “ Would I have not been rather to “blame had I embittered her last moments” and perhaps hastened her death by communicating “to you the knowledge which at every “hour she would have read in your anxious “countenance?” Perhaps he was right; for with that facility she had acquired for reading my every thought, it would have been beyond my power so to have mastered my feelings as at all times to have concealed from her the dreadful truth.-

Even at the period of her first hemorrhage which I have just related, I was forced to leave her room for an hour or so in order that she might not witness my painful emotion. When I returned to her room, partly calmed by the assurances of the Doctor, She beckoned me to her side, and whispered in my ear: “You have been crying Willie:” she then looked at your portrait, hanging at the foot of her bed and murmuring “Dear Mama”: turned aside her head and wept. This and many other similar touching incidents which I have since connected together, lead me to believe that at that early period she feared she would never live to see you again, altho’ she never expressed such a thought to myself, for fear of giving me pain.

My own worst apprehensions were soon allayed by her apparent speedy recovery; such was the natural buoyancy of her constitution that her usual appetite and strength rapidly returned and early in June she even began gymnastic lessons at the urgent advice of Dr. Graux who insisted upon vigorous bodily exercise as necessary to the full restoration of her health. All dismal forebodings had vanished, and but for the daily recurrence of the flush, followed by slight coughing and expectoration, nothing indicated the gradual approaches of that fell disease, the symptoms of which are so baffling even to the most experienced observers. – In order to complete our darlings convalescence we were advised to spend a month at Spa, perhaps the most lovely watering place in Europe, where in the delightful environs of that charming spot we passed a most happy month, and I remember – such was my overwhelming confidence – having written to my father just before our return to Brussels that I considered my darlings health as completely re-established;-

On our return to Brussels July 11 her gymnastic lessons were resumed, her strength daily increasing, but the unmistakable daily hectic flush and other well-known symptoms of consumption still manifested themselves, altho she continued to enjoy her meals and to exhibit her usual flow of spirits. In the latter part of August, the flush and fever again became so alarming that I again called in Dr. Graux, who, to my horror again advised that she should immediately be bled. To this I at first positively objected, but was forced to yield, in consideration of his eminent experience and of the deep interest he manifested in the preservation of my darlings health. Altho’ a temporary relief was experienced, I then determined that I would not subject her to what I considered dangerous treatment and would consult some physician in Paris who had made diseases of the lungs a specialty, and being fully resolved not to spend another winter in the treacherous climate of Brussels, we left that city on the 15th of Sept. for Capri and the South of France.

And now, My Dear Mother, commenced the most painful part of this harrowing narrative, to retrace which required all the resolution that I can summon to my aid. Up to this period my perfect confidence in her speedy recovery had never been effectually shaken. In my utter ignorance of the ordinary symptoms of consumption, I permitted myself to be too readily deceived, by her physicians and by my friends, the majority of whom already anticipated the worst. But I was still at times haunted by a lurking suspicion that the truth had been concealed from me, and I determined to the undeceived, even if the knowledge cost me my peace of mind. I thought that I possessed sufficient self-control to conceal the dreadful truth even from one who had accustomed herself to read my every thought. –

Immediately on our arrival in Paris, we called on Dr. Louis, perhaps the first authority in Europe in cases of consumption,- to my darling’s repeated anxious inquiries, after a thorough examination, he answered in a seemingly confident manner, tho’ the expression of his face gave a different response. After returning with my darling to the hotel I left her, again visiting Dr. Louis and begging of him not to let me remain in ignorance of what it was so necessary that I should know. – I shall never forget that solemn compassionate expression of his face as he turned towards me: and said to me: “Ah! My poor young friend, she is very very sick.” At this announcement and the manner in which it was conveyed, I swooned away and fell to the earth. When I recovered my self-possession he seemed to regret what he had disclosed and said soothingly: But she is so young, she may yet recover: I have known “such instances.- But my all means conceal from her your apprehensions.”

In my anguish, It was long before I could return to the hotel, but when I did so, it was with a smile which never left my countenance,-except during the dread hours of the night, or when I happened to be absent from her for a short time- until the hour of her death. I now sought to laugh away her gloomy forebodings and I succeeded I then thought, in dispelling her anxiety. But I have now reason to believe that, even then she knew that she could not live, but would not, in her love, seek to dispel the illusion under which she imagined I was laboring. Thus it was, for the first and last time in our lives, that we both labored, unsuccessfully , to deceive each other.

Shortly after our arrival in Pau, the disease, I think, entered upon its second, or incurable stage. Hemorrhage succeeded hemorrhage in quick succession, her emaciation gradually and perceptively increased, the fever and cough became more violent. But even then (so prone are we to hope for the best) her physicians confident assertions that she might yet recover, the cheerful company of our kind friends, who providentially were present with me in that hour of trial, and the occasional pauses in the progress of he malady, during which she was apparently all life and animation again, combined to give me a certain amount of confidence up to within a few weeks of her death. Even as late as the month of January she continued her walks in the picturesque Park adjoining our beautiful little cottage, or else took drives together through the environs of Pau. Her pure and perfect love for me seemed at such moments to have overcome the fell destroyer, and I would encourage her to indulge in visions of the happiness we would enjoy when once more united to our loved ones at home. – But such visions were of short duration. – By the middle of January even the Dr. no longer sought to conceal from me that she must soon pass away. She had already suffered from swollen feet, one of the last and most fatal symptoms.- Several consultations of eminent physicians were held, but without beneficial effect. I would still carry her in my arms to enjoy the soft sunshine, on a little terrace overhanging our garden but she was now to frightfully weak and emaciated that I was forced even to discontinue this.- About the middle of February a sudden and alarming change came over her, characterized by an apathy, resembling a swoon, she ceased to take an interest in the conversation of her friends, and it was only when we were alone and she was sitting on my lap, her favorite seat, that her mind would rally and she would be cheerful and bright as of old.- I cannot refrain from relating a touching incident which occurred on the Wednesday preceding her death. She was lying in the parlor on the sofa, for the last time, and I was reading to her a hymn, when I perceived that her eyes began to wander, as if in search of something, I asked her if she wanted anything but she answered nothing and at first seemed to fail to recognize me. I was so overcome that I fell upon my knees beside her couch and sobbed aloud: she turned her eyes towards me and putting her arm around me, her features became illuminated with an angelic smile of triumphant joy that lasted but for a moment and then again gave way to the dull, lusterless expression characteristic of approaching dissolution. This was her last fully conscious moment on earth, and in it she seemed to invite me to the realms of bliss above. Alas! That her wish has not been fulfilled and that I am still amoung the living.

I have already written to you, at length of the painful scenes that ensued; of the lethargy, succeeded by delirium which commenced on Thursday and lasted until Saturday night, and of the almost miraculous state of semi-consciousness which preceded her death about 24 hours. I have not the courage to dwell again at length upon those agonizing moments.