Transcript 25 th January

The Storming of the Bastille, as depicted by Jean-Baptiste Lallemand (1790)
FRANCE
1788
Financial crisis in France. The
French government declared
bankrupt.
1789
April: Riots in Paris, caused by low
wages and food shortages.
May: The Estates-General
(parliament) is summoned for the
first time since 1614
June: The Third Estate (commons)
declares itself to be the National
Assembly. When they are locked
out of the meeting house – they
believe by the king – they take on
oath not to dissolve until a
constitution has been established:
The Tennis Court Oath.
BRITAIN
AUSTEN
FRANCE
1789
Increasing unrest and rioting in Paris.
July 14: The Fall of the Bastille.
July/Aug: Peasantry revolt against
feudalism, which the National
Assembly abolishes. Many aristocrats
flee France.
National Assembly adopts ‘The
Declaration of the Rights of Man’
October: Paris mob storm the Palace of
Versailles stormed. King Louis XVI
moved to Paris.
BRITAIN
AUSTEN
FRANCE
BRITAIN
AUSTEN
1790
Suppression of religious orders.
Abolition of nobility. Growing power
of the Jacobin club.
Nov: Burke
publishes
Reflections on the
Revolution in
France.
Wollstonecraft
responds with A
Vindication of the
Rights of Men.
JA writes
Love and
Freindship.
1791
June: Royal family's flight to
Varennes. Louis XVI forced to return
to Paris.
Feb/March: Paine
Charles
publishes The Rights Austen enters
of Man Part 1.
naval
academy.
April: Parliament
rejects Wilberforce’s
bill to abolish the
slave trade.
August: Slaves revolt in the French
controlled island of St. Domingo
(Haiti).
1792
FRANCE
BRITAIN
AUSTEN
Food riots in Paris. Other European
monarchies begin to mobilize against
France. Guillotine adopted as official
means of execution.
Jan: Wollstonecraft
publishes A
Vindication of the
Rights of Woman.
JA writes the
last of her
‘Juvenilia’.
April: France declares war against
Austria
July: The Brunswick Manifesto warns that should the French royal
family be harmed by the popular
movement, revenge will follow.
Austria and Prussia begin invasion of
France.
August: Storming of the Tuileries
Palace. Swiss Guard massacred. Louis
XVI of France arrested.
FRANCE
1792
Sept: First session of National
Convention, which replaces the
Legislative Assembly. This
immediately abolishes the monarchy
and declares France a republic.
1793
January 21: Louis XVI (Citizen Louis
Capet) guillotined.
April-June: Committee of Public
Safety established. The Jacobins
quickly seize control.
July: Robespierre elected to
Committee of Public Safety.
BRITAIN
AUSTEN
Feb: Britain declares
war on France.
Henry Austen
becomes a
lieutenant in
the Oxfordshire militia.
James Gillray, The Blood of the
Murdered Crying for Vengeance
(Feb. 1793)
FRANCE
1793
BRITAIN
AUSTEN
May: Parliament
suspends habeas
corpus.
Feb: Eliza de
Feuillide's
husband
guillotined in
Paris.
Sept: Start of Reign of Terror.
Between 20,000 and 44,000 are
executed over the following year.
October: Marie Antoinette
guillotined. Anti-clerical law passed
(priests and supporters now liable to
death on sight).
1794
July: Robespierre arrested and
guillotined without trial, along with
other members of the Committee of
Public Safety. End of the Reign of
Terror.
Nov: Treason Trials.
All three accused are
acquitted.
JA probably
writes Lady
Susan.
FRANCE
1794
1795
BRITAIN
AUSTEN
Sept: Charles
Austen leaves
the Royal
Naval
Academy and
enters active
service.
The National Convention is dissolved. Oct: King George III’s JA writes
The Directory replaces it (5 ‘directors’ coach is attacked by Eleanor and
who held executive power).
a mob calling for
Marianne.
‘Bread’ and ‘Peace’.
Oct: Royalists attempt a coup. The
young General Napoleon Bonaparte
Dec: British
makes his name suppressing it.
government passes
the ‘Gagging Acts’.
FRANCE
BRITAIN
AUSTEN
1796
Napoleon assumes command of
French army in Italy.
Dec: Failed French
landing at Bantry
Bay, West Cork,
Ireland
JA begins
writing First
Impressions.
1797
Prussia and Austria cease hostilities
with France. Britain now fighting
France alone.
April–June: Naval
mutinies occur at
Spithead and the
Nore.
JA revising
Elinor &
Marianne;
First Impressions rejected
by publisher
1798
Aug: Battle of the Nile. Nelson’s fleet
defeats Napoleon’s in Egypt.
Spring: Invasion
scare in England.
JA writing
Susan
(eventually
May-Sept: Irish
becomes
Rebellion, led by the Northanger
United Irishmen.
Abbey).
FRANCE
1799
BRITAIN
AUSTEN
Act of Union unites
Britain and Ireland,
creating UK.
Austens
move to Bath
Napoleon Bonaparte named ‘First
Consul’: now the effective dictator.
1801
c
1802
Treaty of Amiens. Hostilities cease.
Winter: JA
revises Susan.
1803
Napoleon imprisons all British males
on French soil and re-engages Britain,
breaking the Treaty.
Susan sold to
publisher
with HA’s aid
1804
Napoleon made Emperor.
JA writing
The Watsons.
James Gillray, Buonaparte, 48 Hours
after Landing (July 1803)
FRANCE
1805
1807
1810
1811
BRITAIN
Oct: Battle of Trafalgar. Nelson killed.
AUSTEN
JA’s father
dies
British parliament
abolishes the slave
trade (not slavery).
George III declared
insane.
The Prince of Wales
becomes Prince
Regent.
Luddites riots:
protests against
industrialization.
JA begins
work on
Mansfield
Park.
Oct: S & S
anonymously
published.
1812
FRANCE
BRITAIN
June: Napoleon invades Russia.
United States
declares war on GB.
AUSTEN
Oct: Napoleon’s defeated army
retreats from Russia.
1813
British invasion of France.
1814
Allies enter Paris. Napoleon
overthrown and exiled to the island
of Elba. The French monarchy is
restored under Louis XVIII.
Jan: Pride
and Prejudice
published.
Aug: GB forces take
control of
Washington DC &
burn the White
House.
Jan: JA begins
writing
Emma.
May:
Mansfield
Dec: Treaty of Ghent Park
ends war between
published.
GB and the US.
FRANCE
1815
BRITAIN
AUSTEN
March-July: ‘The Hundred Days’.
Napoleon escapes from Elba and
returns to Paris, where he regains
power.
Aug: JA
begins
writing
Persuasion.
June: Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon
finally defeated by Prussian and
British forces under the command of
the Duke of Wellington.
Dec: Emma
published.
Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to
the remote South Atlantic island of
Saint Helena (where he dies in 1821).
1816
Post-war economic
depression. Popular
political unrest
calling for reform.
JA buys Susan
back from
publisher.
FRANCE
1817
BRITAIN
AUSTEN
Jan-March: JA
works on
novel later
published as
Sanditon.
18 July: JA
dies.
Dec:
Northanger
Abbey and
Persuasion
are published
with Henry's
‘Biographical
Notice of the
Author’.
By preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state, in
what we improve we are never wholly new; in what we retain we
are never wholly obsolete. By adhering in this manner and on
those principles to our forefathers, we are guided not by the
superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic
analogy.
In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of
polity the image of a relation in blood, binding up the
constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties,
adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family
affections, keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth
of all their combined and mutually reflected charities our state,
our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.
The Last Interview
You will observe that from Magna Charta to the Declaration of
Right it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim
and assert our liberties as an entailed inheritance derived to us
from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity — as
an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom,
without any reference whatever to any other more general or
prior right.
entail, n.
The settlement of the succession of a landed estate, so that it
cannot be bequeathed at pleasure by any one possessor; the
rule of descent settled for any estate.
entail, n.
The settlement of the succession of a landed estate, so that it
cannot be bequeathed at pleasure by any one possessor; the
rule of descent settled for any estate.
I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate
should be entailed away from your own children.
(Mrs Bennet in Vol. 1, Ch. 13)
Conduct Books for Women
Thomas Gisborne, An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (1799).
John Gregory, A Father's Legacy to his Daughters (1774).
Miss Hattfield, Letters on the Importance of the Female Sex: With
Observations of Their Manners (1803).
Laetitia Matilda Hawkins, Letters on the Female Mind, Its Powers and
Pursuits (1793).
Hannah More, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education
(1799).
Sarah Pennington, An Unfortunate Mother's Advice to Her Absent
Daughters (1761).
Conduct Books for Women
"Philogamus", The Present State of Matrimony: or, the Real Causes of
Conjugal Infidelity and Unhappy Marriages (1739).
The Polite Lady: or, a Course of Female Education. In a Series of Letters,
from a Mother to Her Daughter (1769).
George Savile, The Lady's New Year's Gift: or, Advice to a Daughter
(1688).
Wetenhall Wilkes, A Letter of Genteel and Moral Advice to a Young Lady
(1740).
If aught on earth can present the image of celestial excellence in its
softest array, it is surely an accomplished Woman, in whom purity and
meekness, intelligence and modesty, mingle their charms. But when I
speak on this subject, need I tell you, that men of the best sense have
been usually averse to the thought of marrying a witty female?
[…]
Men who understand the science of domestic happiness, know that its
very first principle is ease. Of that indeed we grow fonder, in whatever
condition, as we advance in life, and as the heat of youth abates. But we
cannot be easy, where we are not safe. We are never safe in the
company of a critic; and almost every wit is a critic by profession.
(Fordyce, Sermons to Young Ladies)
"My beauty you had early withstood, and as for my manners—my
behaviour to you was at least always bordering on the uncivil,
and I never spoke to you without rather wishing to give you pain
than not. Now be sincere; did you admire me for my
impertinence?"
"For the liveliness of your mind, I did."
(p. 291)
Who is not shocked by the flippant impertinence of a selfconceited woman, that wants to dazzle by the supposed
superiority of her powers? If you, my fair ones, have knowledge
and capacity; let it be seen, by your not affecting to show them,
that you have something much more valuable, humility and
wisdom.
(Fordyce, Sermons to Young Ladies)
there seem to me to be very few, in the style of Novel, that you
can read with safety, and yet fewer that you can read with
advantage.—What shall we say of certain books, which we are
assured (for we have not read them) are in their nature so
shameful, in their tendency so pestiferous, and contain such rank
treason against the royalty of Virtue, such horrible violation of all
decorum, that she who can bear to peruse them must in her soul
be a prostitute, let her reputation in life be what it will. But can it
be true—say, ye chaste stars, that with innumerable eyes inspect
the midnight behaviour of mortals—can it be true, that any young
woman, pretending to decency, should endure for a moment to
look on this infernal brood of futility and lewdness?
They paint scenes of pleasure and passion altogether improper for
you to behold, even with the mind's eye. Their descriptions are
often loose and luscious in a high degree; their representations of
love between the sexes are almost universally overstrained. All is
dotage, or despair; or else ranting swelled into burlesque. In short,
the majority of their lovers are either mere lunatics, or mockheroes. A sweet sensibility, a charming tenderness, a delightful
anguish, exalted generosity, heroic worth, and refinement of
thought; how seldom are these best ingredients of virtuous love
mixed with any judgment or care in the composition of their
principal characters!
(Fordyce, Sermons to Young Ladies)
In the Old Romance the passion appeared with all its enthusiasm.
But then it was the enthusiasm of honour; for love and honour
were there the same. The men were sincere, magnanimous, and
noble; the women were patterns of chastity, dignity, and
affection. They were only to be won by real heroes; and this title
was founded in protecting, not in betraying, the sex […] The times
in which we live are in no danger of adopting a system of romantic
virtue. The parents of the present generation, what with selling
their sons and daughters in marriage, and what with teaching
them by every possible means the glorious principles of avarice,
have contrived pretty effectually to bring down from its former
flints that idle, youthful, unprofitable passion, which has for its
object personal attractions, in preference to all the wealth in the
world.
(Fordyce, Sermons to Young Ladies)
The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in
comparison of this. And it is the more to be lamented, because
there is reason to suppose as my dear Charlotte informs me, that
this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter has proceeded
from a faulty degree of indulgence […] Let me then advise you,
dear sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your
unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap
the fruits of her own heinous offense.
(p. 225)
This is a most unfortunate affair, and will probably be much talked
of. But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the
wounded bosoms of each other the balm of sisterly consolation
[…] Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it
this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable;
that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her
reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she
cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the
undeserving of the other sex.
(p. 219)
This is a most unfortunate affair, and will probably be much talked
of. But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the
wounded bosoms of each other the balm of sisterly consolation
[…] Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it
this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable;
that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her
reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she
cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the
undeserving of the other sex.
(p. 219)
Remember, my dear Evelina, nothing is so delicate as the
reputation of a woman: it is, at once, the most beautiful and most
brittle of all human things.
(Evelina, p. 279)
I shall hope to receive a more favourable answer than you have
now given me; though I am far from accusing you of cruelty at
present, because I know it to be the established custom of your
sex to reject a man on the first application, and perhaps you have
even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be
consistent with the true delicacy of the female character.
(p. 83)
On entering the drawing-room she found the whole party at loo,
and was immediately invited to join them; but suspecting them to
be playing high she declined it, and making her sister the excuse,
said she would amuse herself for the short time she could stay
below, with a book. Mr. Hurst looked at her with astonishment.
"Do you prefer reading to cards?" said he; "that is rather
singular."
"Miss Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, "despises cards. She is a
great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else."
"I deserve neither such praise nor such censure," cried
Elizabeth; "I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many
things."
"In nursing your sister I am sure you have pleasure," said
Bingley; "and I hope it will be soon increased by seeing her quite
well."
Elizabeth thanked him from her heart, and then walked
towards the table where a few books were lying. He immediately
offered to fetch her others—all that his library afforded.
"And I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my
own credit; but I am an idle fellow, and though I have not many, I
have more than I ever looked into."
Elizabeth assured him that she could suit herself perfectly with
those in the room.
"I am astonished," said Miss Bingley, "that my father should
have left so small a collection of books. What a delightful library
you have at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy!"
"It ought to be good," he replied, "it has been the work of
many generations."
"And then you have added so much to it yourself, you are
always buying books."
"I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such
days as these."
(pp. 27-8)
"What think you of books?" said he, smiling.
"Books—oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with
the same feelings."
"I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at
least be no want of subject. We may compare our different
opinions."
"No—I cannot talk of books in a ball-room; my head is always
full of something else."
(p. 71)
With a strong prejudice against everything he might say, she
began his account of what had happened at Netherfield. She read
with an eagerness which hardly left her power of comprehension,
and from impatience of knowing what the next sentence might
bring, was incapable of attending to the sense of the one before
her eyes. His belief of her sister's insensibility she instantly
resolved to be false; and his account of the real, the worst
objections to the match, made her too angry to have any wish of
doing him justice. He expressed no regret for what he had done
which satisfied her; his style was not penitent, but haughty. It was
all pride and insolence.
(p. 156)
But when this subject was succeeded by his account of Mr.
Wickham—when she read with somewhat clearer attention a
relation of events which, if true, must overthrow every cherished
opinion of his worth, and which bore so alarming an affinity to his
own history of himself—her feelings were yet more acutely
painful and more difficult of definition. Astonishment,
apprehension, and even horror, oppressed her. She wished to
discredit it entirely, repeatedly exclaiming, "This must be false!
This cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!"—and when
she had gone through the whole letter, though scarcely knowing
anything of the last page or two, put it hastily away, protesting
that she would not regard it, that she would never look in it again.
In this perturbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on
nothing, she walked on; but it would not do; in half a minute the
letter was unfolded again, and collecting herself as well as she
could, she again began the mortifying perusal of all that related to
Wickham, and commanded herself so far as to examine the
meaning of every sentence. The account of his connection with
the Pemberley family was exactly what he had related himself;
and the kindness of the late Mr. Darcy, though she had not before
known its extent, agreed equally well with his own words. So far
each recital confirmed the other; but when she came to the will,
the difference was great. What Wickham had said of the living
was fresh in her memory, and as she recalled his very words, it
was impossible not to feel that there was gross duplicity on one
side or the other; and, for a few moments, she flattered herself
that her wishes did not err. But when she read and re-read with
the closest attention, the particulars immediately following of
Wickham's resigning all pretensions to the living, of his receiving
in lieu so considerable a sum as three thousand pounds, again was
she forced to hesitate. She put down the letter, weighed every
circumstance with what she meant to be impartiality—deliberated
on the probability of each statement—but with little success. On
both sides it was only assertion. Again she read on; but every line
proved more clearly that the affair, which she had believed it
impossible that any contrivance could so represent as to render
Mr. Darcy's conduct in it less than infamous, was capable of a turn
which must make him entirely blameless throughout the whole.
How differently did everything now appear in which he was
concerned! His attentions to Miss King were now the consequence
of views solely and hatefully mercenary; and the mediocrity of her
fortune proved no longer the moderation of his wishes, but his
eagerness to grasp at anything. His behaviour to herself could now
have had no tolerable motive; he had either been deceived with
regard to her fortune, or had been gratifying his vanity by
encouraging the preference which she believed she had most
incautiously shown. Every lingering struggle in his favour grew
fainter and fainter; and in farther justification of Mr. Darcy, she
could not but allow that Mr. Bingley, when questioned by Jane,
had long ago asserted his blamelessness in the affair; that proud
and repulsive as were his manners, she had never, in the whole
course of their acquaintance—an acquaintance which had latterly
brought them much together, and given her a sort of intimacy
with his ways—seen anything that betrayed him to be
unprincipled or unjust—anything that spoke him of irreligious or
immoral habits; that among his own connections he was
esteemed and valued—that even Wickham had allowed him merit
as a brother, and that she had often heard him speak so
affectionately of his sister as to prove him capable of some
amiable feeling; that had his actions been what Mr. Wickham
represented them, so gross a violation of everything right could
hardly have been concealed from the world; and that friendship
between a person capable of it, and such an amiable man as Mr.
Bingley, was incomprehensible.
She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor
Wickham could she think without feeling she had been blind,
partial, prejudiced, absurd.
"How despicably I have acted!" she cried; "I, who have prided
myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my
abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my
sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust!
How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had
I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind! But
vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of
one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very
beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and
ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned.
Till this moment I never knew myself."
From herself to Jane—from Jane to Bingley, her thoughts were in a
line which soon brought to her recollection that Mr. Darcy's
explanation there had appeared very insufficient, and she read it
again. Widely different was the effect of a second perusal. How
could she deny that credit to his assertions in one instance, which
she had been obliged to give in the other? He declared himself to
be totally unsuspicious of her sister's attachment; and she could
not help remembering what Charlotte's opinion had always been.
Neither could she deny the justice of his description of Jane. She
felt that Jane's feelings, though fervent, were little displayed, and
that there was a constant complacency in her air and manner not
often united with great sensibility.
When she came to that part of the letter in which her family
were mentioned in terms of such mortifying, yet merited
reproach, her sense of shame was severe. The justice of the
charge struck her too forcibly for denial, and the circumstances to
which he particularly alluded as having passed at the Netherfield
ball, and as confirming all his first disapprobation, could not have
made a stronger impression on his mind than on hers.