Berlioz: Volume Two by Cairns David

Author:Cairns, David
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141991412
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2019-03-06T16:00:00+00:00

By the time he wrote that, in the spring of 1849, his reasons for staying in Paris had become more compelling and more personal. In October 1848 Harriet had the first of a series of strokes. A second followed in mid-February, a third, the most violent, in July, a fourth soon afterwards, and a fifth early in October. On that occasion Louis was home from boarding-school, and father and son scoured the quartier adjoining Montmartre in frantic search of a doctor.26 (Some time in the spring of 1848 Harriet had moved out of the city to the Rue St Vincent, Montmartre, round the corner from where she and Berlioz had lived in the mid-1830s in the time of their happiness.)27 Copious bleedings and mustard baths were still the prescribed medical response. They did not actually kill her. But though the attacks became less frequent she was left paralysed on the right side, able to speak only with difficulty and in need of two full-time female attendants. “Harriet is no worse” was the best he was able to report. There could be no significant improvement in her condition. At times she had so little power of speech that he could only guess what she was trying to say, ask, “Is it such and such?”, and wait for her yes or no.

An unpublished letter dated “Montmartre, 19 October [1849]” shows Berlioz at her bedside.

(I am writing to you, my dear Louis, on behalf of your mother and at her dictation.)

My dear Louis

I am not too bad at the moment, the fine weather is doing me good, but I don’t find it easy to speak, which very often gives me trouble making myself understood.

I hope you are working hard; your father tells me you are content, and that he is content with you. Write to me next week and give me detailed news of what you are doing. Your letters do me so much good! They console me in my sad state. I embrace you with all my heart, my dear child.

Your affectionate mother

H. Berlioz+

+Your mother’s signature, written with her own hand.

P.S I too embrace you, my good Louis, and will write soon. Hector B.

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