As I Remember
into the Roman Catholic Church while in the Holy City, and made her
profession of faith in the Chapel of St. Ignatius, where the ceremony
took place by the special permission of the Most Rev. John Roothan,
General of the Jesuits. General Scott meanwhile had returned to the
United States, having been promoted to the rank of Commander-in-Chief of
the Army with headquarters in Washington. Accompanied by her mother,
Virginia Scott returned to America and, after a short time spent with
her parents in Washington, drove to Georgetown and, without their
knowledge or consent, was received there as an inmate of the "Convent of
the Visitation." Her family was bitterly opposed to the step, more
especially her mother, whose indignation was so pronounced that she
never to the day of her death forgave the Church for depriving her of
her daughter's companionship. General Scott, however, frequently visited
her in her cloistered home, and always manifested much consideration for
the Convent as well as for the nuns, the daily companions of his
daughter. Although she possessed a proud and imperious nature, combined
with great personal beauty and much natural _hauteur_, she soon became
as gentle as a lamb. She died about a year after entering the Convent,
but she retained her deep religious convictions to the last. She is
buried beneath the sanctuary in the chapel of the Georgetown Convent. In
connection with her a few lines often come to my mind which seem so
appropriate that I can not deny myself the pleasure of quoting them:
She was so fair that in the Angelic choir,
She will not need put on another shape
Than that she bore on earth.
I have heard it stated that during Virginia Scott's residence in Paris
there existed a deep attachment between herself and a young gentleman of
foreign birth. The story goes that in the course of time he became as
devoted to his religion as he had hitherto been to the beautiful
American, and that it was agreed between them that they should both
consecrate themselves thereafter to the service of God. He accordingly
entered at once upon a religious life. I have heard that they afterwards
met at a service before the altar, but that there was no recognition. As
intimate as I became with the members of the Scott family in subsequent
years, I never heard any allusion to this incident in their family
history, and I can readily understand that it was a subject upon which
they were too sensitive to dwell.
Father Connelly, whom I have mentioned in connection with Miss Scott's
conversion, began his career as an Episcopal clergyman. There was a
barrier to his becoming a Roman Catholic priest, as he was married; but
his wife soon shared in his religious ardor, and when he entered the
priesthood she became a nun. He lacked stability, however, in his
religious views, and was subsequently received again into the Episcopal
Church. It was his desire that his wife should at once join him but she
refused to leave the Convent, and she finally became the founder of the
Order of the "Sisters of the Holy Child." I have heard that he took
legal measures to obtain possession of her, but if so he was
unsuccessful in his efforts.
Another one of Madame Chegaray's distinguished pupils was Martha Pierce
of Louisville. As she attended this school some years before I entered,
I knew of her in these days only by reputation. But some years later I
had the pleasure of knowing her quite intimately, when she talked very
freely with me in regard to her eventful life. She told me that upon a
certain occasion in the days when women rarely traveled alone she was
returning to Kentucky under the care of Henry Clay, and stopped in
Washington long enough to visit the Capitol. Upon its steps she was
introduced to Robert Craig Stanard of Richmond, upon whom she apparently
made a deep impression, for one year later the handsome young Southerner
carried the Kentucky girl, at the age of sixteen, back to Virginia as
his bride. During her long life in Richmond her home, now the
Westmoreland Club, was a notable _salon_, where the _beaux esprits_ of
the South gathered. She survived Mr. Stanard many years. Beautiful, even
in old age, gifted and cultivated, her attractions of face and intellect
paled before her inexpressible charm of manner. She traveled much abroad
and especially in England. A prominent Kentuckian once told me that he
heard Washington Irving say that Mrs. Stanard received more attention
and admiration in the highest circles of English society than any other
American woman he had ever known. She corresponded for many years with
Thackeray, the Duke of Wellington and many other prominent Englishmen,
and in her own country was equally distinguished. In the course of one
of our numerous conversations she told me that after the death of Edward
Everett she loaned his biographer the letters she had received from that
distinguished orator. During the latter part of her life she gave up her
house in Richmond and came to Washington to reside, where she remained
until the end of her life. She left no descendants. Her husband's
mother, Jane Stith Craig, daughter of Adam Craig of Richmond, was
immortalized by Edgar Allan Poe, who, fictitiously naming her "Helen,"
paid feeling tribute to her charms in those beautiful verses commencing:
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
Among my other schoolmates at Madame Chegaray's were Susan Maria
Clarkson de Peyster, a daughter of James Ferguson de Peyster, who
subsequently married Robert Edward Livingston; Margaret Masters, a
daughter of Judge Josiah Masters of Troy, New York, and the wife of John
W. King; Virginia Beverly Wood, a daughter of Silas Wood of New York,
who became the wife of John Leverett Rogers; and Elizabeth MacNiel,
daughter of General John MacNiel of the Army and wife of General Henry
W. Benham of the U.S. Engineer Corps.
After a number of years spent in teaching, Madame Chegaray gave up her
New York school and moved to Madison, New Jersey (at one time called
Bottle Hill), with the intention of spending the remainder of her life
in retirement; but she was doomed to disappointment. Discovering almost
immediately that through a relative her affairs had become deeply
involved, she with undaunted courage at once opened a school in Madison
in the house which she had purchased with the view of spending there the
declining years of her life. Previous to this time I had been one of her
day scholars; I entered the second school as a boarding pupil. Once a
week we were driven three miles to Morristown to attend church. I recall
an amusing incident connected with this weekly visit to that place. One
Sunday a fellow boarder, thinking that perhaps she might find some
leisure before the service to perfect herself in her lesson for the
following day, thoughtlessly took along with her a volume of French
plays by Voltaire. During the service someone in a near pew observed the
author's name upon the book, and forthwith the Morristown populace was
startled to hear that among Madame Chegaray's pupils was a follower of
the noted infidel. It took some time to convince the public that this
book was carried to church by my schoolmate without her teacher's
knowledge; and the girl was horrified to learn that she was
unintentionally to blame for a new local scandal. While I was at Madame
Chegaray's I owned a schoolbook entitled "Shelley, Coleridge and Keats."
I brought it home with me one day, but my father took it away from me
and, as I learned later, burned it, owing to his detestation of
Shelley's moral character. On one occasion he quoted in court some
extracts from Shelley as illustrative of the poet's character, but I
cannot recall the passage.
After two years spent in Madison, Madame Chegaray returned to New York
and reopened her school on the corner of Union Square and Fifteenth
Street in three houses built for her by Samuel B. Ruggles. At that time
the omnibuses had been running only to Fourteenth Street, but, out of
courtesy to this noble woman, their route was extended to Fifteenth
Street, where a lamp for the same reason was placed by the city. Madame
Chegaray taught here for many years, but finally moved to 78 Madison
Avenue, where she remained until, on account of old age, she was obliged
to give up her teaching.
While I was still attending Madame Chegaray's school, my father, under
the impression that I was not quite as proficient in mathematics and
astronomy as it was his desire and ambition that I should be, employed
Professor Robert Adrian of Columbia College to give me private
instruction in my own home. Under his able tuition, I particularly
enjoyed traversing the firmament. I was always faithful to the planet
Venus, whose beauty was to me then, as now, a constant delight. In those
youthful days my proprietorship in this heavenly body seemed to me as
well established as in a Fifth Avenue lot, and was quite as tangible. I
regarded myself in the light of an individual proprietor, and, like
Alexander Selkirk in his far away island of the sea, my right to this
celestial domain there was none to dispute.
After the flight of so many years, and in view, also, of the fact that
sometimes the world seems to us older women to be almost turned upside
down, it may not be uninteresting to speak of some of the books which
were familiar to me during my school days. One of the first I ever read
was "Clarissa Harlowe" by Samuel Richardson. "Cecilia," by Frances
Burney, was another well-known book of the day. Mrs. Amelia Opie was
also a popular authoress, and her novel entitled "White Lies" should, in
my opinion, grace every library. Miss Maria Edgeworth and Mrs. Ann Eliza
Bray, the latter of whom so graphically depicted the higher phases of
English life, were popular authoresses in my earlier days in New York.
Many years later some of the books I have mentioned were republished by
the Harpers. "Gil Blas," whose author, Le Sage, was the skilful
delineator of human nature, its attributes and its frailties, was much
read, and, in my long journey through life, certain portions of this
book have often been recalled to me by my many and varied experiences. I
must not fail to speak of the "Children of the Abbey," by Regina M.
Roche, where the fascinations of Lord Leicester are so vividly
portrayed; nor of another book entitled "The Three Spaniards," by George
Walker, which used to strike terror to my unsophisticated soul.
When Madame Chegaray retired temporarily from her school life and moved
to Madison in New Jersey, Charles Canda, who had taught drawing for her,
established a school of his own in New York which became very prominent.
He had an attractive young daughter, who met with a most heartrending
end. On her way to a ball, in company with one of her girl friends,
Charlotte Canda was thrown from her carriage, and when picked up her
life was extinct. As there were no injuries found upon her body, it was
generally supposed that the shock brought on an attack of heart-failure.
Subsequently the disconsolate parents ordered from Italy a monument
costing a fabulous sum of money for those days, which was placed over
the grave of their only daughter in Greenwood Cemetery, where it still
continues to command the admiration of sightseers. This tragic incident
occurred in February, 1845, on the eve of the victim's seventeenth
birthday.
While Madame Chegaray was my teacher there was a charming French society
in New York, her house being the rendezvous of this interesting social
circle. I recall with much pleasure the names of Boisseau, Trudeau,
Boisaubin, Thebaud and Brugiere. Madame Chegaray's sister, Caroline,