Favorites of 2024: Movies and television

"The sleep of reason produces monsters," Plate 43 of Los Caprichos by Francisco Goya, 1799. Image source: History of Medicine Division, US National Library of Medicine.

Favorite movies seen in 2024

In a year full of horrors with no end in sight, we gravitated towards disturbing, unsettling movies that seemed to capture the foreboding spirit of the times.

Vampyr (1932), screenplay by Christen Jul and Carl Theodor Dreyer; directed by Dreyer.

Image source: carlthdreyer.dk

A traveler, Allan Gray (Julian West), arrives at a remote chateau-turned-hotel in what seems to be an almost deserted village. He is surrounded by an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear, and becomes convinced that the innkeeper's youngest daughter (Sybille Schmitz) is the victim of a vampire. Events unfold with the logic of a nightmare; in the film's most horrifying sequence, Gray is sealed in a glass-fronted coffin and witnesses his own burial. Director Carl-Theodor Dreyer wrote, "With Vampyr I wanted to create a waking dream on the screen and show that horror is not to be found in the things around us but in our own subconscious."

Thanks to some dear friends, we saw this film in a restored print with the live orchestral accompaniment of Wolfgang Zeller's original score performed by the SF Conservatory of Music Orchestra conducted by Timothy Brock. For my full-length review, please see "A waking dream": Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr.

Poor Things (2023), screenplay by Tony McNamara, based on the novel by Alasdair Gray; directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.

Poster for Poor Things. Image source: CelebMafia.com

A kind of postmodern Bride of Frankenstein, Poor Things is the story of a young suicide victim reanimated when she receives a transplant of her own unborn child's brain. Naïve and (literally) childlike, Bella (Emma Stone) soon attains the "bitter knowledge of deceit, injustice, and cruelty: the immense suffering that humans, and the social and economic systems we've created, cause other humans." For my full-length review, please see Poor Things.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), screenplay by Jay Presson Allen, adapted from her play based on Muriel Spark's 1961 novel; directed by Ronald Neame.

Maggie Smith as Miss Jean Brodie.

Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith) is a charismatic teacher in a girls' school in Edinburgh in the early 1930s. She tries to instill in her charges her own admiration for all things Italian: its Renaissance art, its food—and its dictator, Benito Mussolini. She herself is a kind of classroom dictator, anointing favorites from among her students and playing manipulative emotional games. She fights furiously against anything that threatens her self-image or her position at the school, even if it's her own happiness. The film shows how fascism and cruelty are perpetuated not only in our political but our personal lives. When teeth are bared is it a smile, or a snarl?

Gordon Jackson as Gordon Lowther and Maggie Smith as Miss Jean Brodie.

Maggie Smith died on 27 September of this year. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was her 11th film, and it made her an international star. And rightly so—her performance of the imperious, magnetic, troubled teacher is indelible. But there are other compelling performances in the film as well. The first is by Celia Johnson (of the great Brief Encounter (1945)) as the school's headmistress, Miss Mackay, who has increasing misgivings about Miss Brodie's sway over her "girls" and her power in the school. And the second is by Pamela Franklin as the watchful Sandy, one of Miss Brodie's favorites, who like the others not only wants to be like her, but wants to be her. She becomes aware too late of the moral compromises that will entail.

Pamela Franklin as Sandy and Maggie Smith as Miss Jean Brodie.

Franklin, 18 at the time of filming, gives a performance that is assured, daring, and deeply disconcerting. Young as Franklin was, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was not her first major film role. Eight years earlier she had starred in another milestone of British cinema:

The Innocents (1961), screenplay by Truman Capote with William Archibald and John Mortimer after the novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James; directed by Jack Clayton.

Deborah Kerr as Miss Giddens and Peter Wyngarde as Peter Quint. Image source: Silver Sirens

Perhaps the best Hitchcock film not directed by Hitchcock, The Innocents creates a mounting atmosphere of suspense and dread. An inexperienced young governess, Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), accepts a position caring for two orphaned children at a remote country estate. She is welcomed by the sympathetic housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins), and finds 10-year-old Flora (Pamela Franklin) to be sweet and charming.

They are soon joined by 11-year-old Miles, who has been expelled from boarding school for bad behavior (we don't learn the specifics; the headmaster simply writes that "he is an injury to the others"). After Miles' arrival, the governess begins to see ghostly apparitions of a man and a woman. She learns that they must be Peter Quint (Peter Wyngarde), a valet, and Miss Jessel (Clytie Jessop), the former governess, both of whom died within the past year. In life, the two were secretly lovers; are the spirits of the dead trying to possess and corrupt the children? Or are the strange visions and sounds all in the governess's mind? The film never allows us to decide what is real and what is her dark fantasy; whatever the case, horrifying consequences result.

https://youtu.be/muz-0gY5RtM [song ends at 1:03]

The eerie "O Willow Waly," from the opening credits of The Innocents. Although it sounds like a old English folksong, it was composed for the film by Georges Auric with lyrics by Paul Dehn. This performance is generally credited to Isla Cameron, the Scottish folk singer and actress who plays Anna in the film. However, Cameron was 34 years old at the time and often sang with a distinct Scots accent; could this voice belong to an uncredited Pamela Franklin?

Favorite television series seen in 2024

Mr Bates vs the Post Office (4 episodes, 2024), screenplay by Gwyneth Hughes; directed by James Strong.

The cast of Mr Bates vs the Post Office (Toby Jones, center). Photo credit: ITV Plc. Image source: New Stateman

In 1998 Alan Bates (played by Toby Jones) and his partner Suzanne Sercombe (Julie Hesmondhalgh) invested £65,000 of their life savings in a post office in a town on the Welsh coast. Two years later the Post Office implemented a new automated sales and accounting system, Horizon. Almost immediately huge financial discrepancies appeared: in the first couple of months Horizon reported an erroneous £6,000 deficit in their accounts. Like other subpostmasters Alan and Suzanne were contractually liable for making up any shortfalls. Although they submitted nearly a hundred complaints about the reliability of the system, no investigation of Horizon took place; instead, Bates was told that no other post office had reported any problems. Alan and Suzanne's contract with the Post Office was terminated in 2003, and they lost their investment.

Bates started a campaign, seeking other subpostmasters who had experienced problems with Horizon. After setting up a website and receiving some publicity about his case, in 2009 he called a meeting of subpostmasters affected by Horizon discrepancies. More than twenty people showed up; all had been told that no one else had reported any problems. Many of those attending had been subject to unjust prosecution for theft and fraud by the Post Office. Ultimately it turned out that there were hundreds of subpostmaster victims. Huge judgments had been assessed, people bankrupted, prison terms served and lives ruined. Meanwhile the Post Office stonewalled or tried to coopt all complaints and investigations. Screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes brings her skills as a former journalist and documentary filmmaker to the dramatic retelling of this multifaceted story, and the ensemble cast led by Jones does a superb job of embodying the disbelief, anguish, and growing anger experienced by these ordinary people.

When this series was broadcast earlier this year on Britain's ITV network it finally brought broad public attention to the flaws in the Horizon system and the persecution of the subpostmasters. Thanks to the public outcry cases are being revisited, some compensation paid, and the former head of the Post Office was shamed into returning her CBE. But that does not make up for the devastation of hundreds of lives and the decades the subpostmasters have had to spend pursuing justice. And as our financial transactions, power grids, 911 call centers, oil pipelines, elections, and other essential services become ever more dependent on electronic systems, we should all be very concerned about their vulnerabilities. Mr Bates vs the Post Office is not a feel-good story, but an urgent warning.

Your Lie in April (22 episodes, 2014–15), screenplay by Takao Yoshioka, adapted from the manga series by Naoshi Arakawa; directed by Kyōhei Ishiguro.

Kaori and Kōsei in Your Lie in April. Image source: justfocus.fr

Teenaged pianist Kōsei Arima has been drilled from childhood into becoming a technically flawless competition-winning machine. But when his demanding mother dies, he loses his ability to hear his own playing. Then Kōsei meets free-spirited violinist Kaori Miyazono, who chooses him to be her musical partner despite his struggles. For Kaori, playing from the heart is more important than winning competitions. Her approach inspires Kōsei to free himself from the crushing burden of his mother's expectations and find his own authentic musical voice. He finds himself falling in love with Kaori—but heartbreak awaits.

Your Lie in April incorporates many time-honored elements of teen stories: the manic pixie dream girl who sweeps the socially awkward hero off his feet, the tomboy secretly in love with her oblivious best friend, tragic events that threaten newfound friendships. But the series avoids formula through the quality of Takao Yoshioka's writing, the striking animation and Kyōhei Ishiguro's fluid direction. I found it to be engaging and unexpectedly moving; many thanks to the relative who thought (correctly) that we would greatly enjoy it.

Coming up: Favorites of 2024 in music and books

"Alas he is married as well as myself": Eliza de Feuillide continued

Eliza Hancock (later de Feuillide Austen), by an unknown French artist, 1780. Image source (reversed): Miss Jane Austen

A continuation of Eliza de Feuillide, Jane Austen's "outlandish cousin."

Shortly after their marriage, Eliza and Henry Austen rejoined Henry's regiment at Ipswich, Suffolk, about 75 miles northeast of London near the Channel coast. Life as an officer's wife with its endless social round seems to have suited her. In mid-February 1798 she wrote to her cousin Philly Walter,

Matrimony is generally accused of spoiling correspondents, but I was so bad a one before I entered the holy state, that it could not well make me worse, and therefore I trust my dear friend that you do not put down my late silence to its account—Indeed the fact is that in addition to my accustomed dislike to writing, my time has been constantly taken up, for on my arrival here most of the families in the place were civil enough to visit me, and my brother officers and brother officers wives of course did likewise. To all these visitations succeeded invitations to parties which are as thick in this country as hops in yours, and besides these parties there is at least one ball every week—so that what with my morning avocations and walks or drives for I am sometimes so gracious or so imprudent as to trust my neck to Henry's coachmanship, I find it difficult to make a leisure hour—

The Duchess of Richmond's Ball, by Robert Alexander Hillingford, 1870s. [1] Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Eliza also described the dynamic of her marriage, in which, perhaps unsurprisingly, she occupied center stage:

. . .Unmixed felicity is certainly not the produce of this world, and like other people I shall probably meet with many unpleasant and untoward circumstances but all the comfort which can result from the tender affection & society of a being who is possessed of an excellent heart, understanding & temper I have at least ensured—to say nothing of the pleasure of having my own way in every thing, for Henry well knows that I have not been much accustomed to controul and should probably behave rather awkwardly under it, and therefore like a wise man he has no will but mine, which to be sure some people would call spoiling me, but [I] know it is the best way of managing me.

Although now remarried, Eliza remained an incorrigible flirt. In the same letter she continued teasingly,

I have not yet given you any account of my brother officers of whom I wish you could judge in person for there are some with whom I think you would not dislike a flirtation—I have of course entirely left off trade but I can however discover that Captn. Tilson is remarkably handsome, and that Messrs. Perrott & Edwardes may be chatted with very satisfactorily, but as to my Colonel Lord Charles Spencer if I was married to my third husband instead of my second I should still be in love with him—He is a most charming creature[,] so mild, so well bred, so good, but alas he is married as well as myself and what is worse he is absent and will not return to us in less than a month. [2]

Lord Charles Spencer, by Charles Turner after Henry Ashby, 1803. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG D42016 CC-BY-NC-ND

Along with the pleasure she found in the society of Henry's regiment, Eliza did experience "unpleasant and untoward circumstances." She had cared for her epileptic son Hastings from the moment of his birth, nursing him herself rather than sending him to a wet-nurse, and keeping him with her despite his continual need for care. (In contrast, Jane Austen's developmentally disabled brother George was sent away from the family to be permanently cared for by strangers.) In October 1801 Hastings died; he was only 15. Eliza wrote to Philly,

So awful a dissolution of a near & tender tie must ever be a severe shock, and my mind was already weakened by witnessing the sad variety and long series of pain which the dear sufferer underwent—but deeply impressed as I am with the heart rending scenes I have beheld I am most thankful for their termination, and the exchange which I hope my dear child has made of a most painful existence for a blissful immortality. [3]

Henry resigned his military commission in 1801, and set himself up as a banker managing payments to British militia regiments. In March 1802 the Treaty of Amiens was signed, ending the war against revolutionary France in which Britain had been engaged since 1793. A wave of Britons travelled to France after peace was declared, joined that summer by Henry and Eliza, who were seeking to recover her share of her former husband's estate. They travelled with a friend, a Mrs. Marriott. They evidently had little success in their case, though, and in the spring of 1803 Henry returned to England to attend to his business there.

Eliza and Mrs. Marriott apparently remained in Paris. In mid-May 1803 war was declared again between Britain and France, and on 22 May Napoleon issued an edict that British travellers in France and French Italy were subject to arrest. Eliza and Mrs. Marriott left Paris immediately for Calais, several days' journey away by carriage. According to an Austen family history, Mrs. Marriott spoke only English and they were in danger of discovery at every stage of the journey. But Eliza's perfect French enabled her to do all the talking and pass as a Frenchwoman while Mrs. Marriott remained silent; together, the women made it safely back to England. Hundreds of other British citizens were not so lucky, and spent the next 11 years "on parole," that is, constrained to stay in France on their "parole d'honneur." Most were sent to Verdun and had to remain there until Napoleon's abdication in 1814.

However, Napoleon's declaration was aimed at "men between the ages of 18 and 60 [who] were declared prisoners of war based on their eligibility to serve in the militia." [4] While some women and girls were also detained, the sources I've seen suggest that it was because they were travelling in family groups with male relatives. Certainly if Henry had still been in the country he would have been in danger, but would the French have been concerned about two middle-aged women (Eliza was now 41) returning home? Whatever the truth, Eliza's story of her clandestine flight from Paris and the perilous rescue of her monolingual friend would have placed her in the ever-desired role of heroine.

In 1811 Henry, whose bank was now well-established, was instrumental in arranging for the publication of Jane's first novel Sense and Sensibility by the firm of Thomas Egerton.

Henry Austen, sometime after his ordination in 1816. Image source: Numismag

Egerton was a publisher of military books, and probably came to Henry's attention through his militia connections. The novel was published on commission, that is, at Jane's financial risk. Should the novel fail to sell, she would owe Egerton for the costs of printing and promotion. [5]

While Jane corrected the proofs of the novel in April 1811, she stayed at Henry and Eliza's house at 64 Sloane Street, on the border between Knightsbridge and Chelsea just a few blocks south of Hyde Park. She wrote to her sister Cassandra,

No, indeed, I am never too busy to think of S. and S. I can no more forget it than a mother can forget her sucking child; and I am much obliged to you for your inquiries. I have had two sheets to correct, but the last only brings us to Willoughby's first appearance [Chapter IX]. Mrs. K[night]. regrets in the most flattering manner that she must wait till May, but I have scarcely a hope of its being out in June. [In the end it wasn't published until the fall.] Henry does not neglect it; he has hurried the printer, and says he will see him again to-day. It will not stand still during his absence, it will be sent to Eliza.

. . .I am very much gratified by Mrs. K's interest in it; and whatever may be the event of it as to my credit with her, sincerely wish her curiosity could be satisfied sooner than is now probable. I think she will like my Elinor, but cannot build on anything else.

Title page of the first edition of Sense and Sensibility. Image source: Jane Austen's House CHWJA:JAHB1.1-3

Jane was writing to her sister on Thursday 25 April. Two days earlier Eliza had held a party, and most of Jane's letter was taken up with a description of the event:

Our party went off extremely well. There were many solicitudes, alarms, and vexations, beforehand, of course, but at last everything was quite right. The rooms were dressed up with flowers, &c., and looked very pretty. . .

At half-past seven arrived the musicians in two hackney coaches, and by eight the lordly company began to appear. Among the earliest were George and Mary Cooke, and I spent the greater part of the evening very pleasantly with them. The drawing-room being soon hotter than we liked, we placed ourselves in the connecting passage, which was comparatively cool, and gave us all the advantage of the music at a pleasant distance, as well as that of the first view of every new comer. I was quite surrounded by acquaintances, especially gentlemen. . .

Including everybody we were sixty-six—which was considerably more than Eliza had expected, and quite enough to fill the back drawing-room and leave a few to be scattered about in the other and in the passage.

The music was extremely good. . .and all the performers gave great satisfaction. . .The house was not clear till after twelve. [6]

In the spring of 1812 Eliza became ill. It may well have been breast cancer, the disease that had caused the death of her mother two decades earlier. Over the course of the next year, Eliza became weaker and more debilitated. On Thursday 22 April 1813, after Henry had sent word to his mother and sisters at Chawton Cottage, Jane's niece Fanny Knight recorded in her diary, "Edward [her elder brother] went to Town with Aunt Jane as we had a very bad account of Mrs. H.A." [7] Perhaps Henry or Eliza had asked for Jane, or perhaps there was no need to ask. Henry was evidently Jane's favorite brother, and she had a close bond with Eliza as well; in 1792 Eliza had written Philly Walter, "My heart gives the preference to Jane, whose kind partiality to me, indeed requires a return of the same nature." [8]

On Monday 26 April Fanny Knight wrote, "We heard that poor Mrs. H.A. died on Saturday night," just two days after Jane arrived at her bedside. [9] Eliza was only 51. But she had lived to see Jane's second novel published in January 1813. That novel features Jane's liveliest, wittiest, and most resolute heroine. Her name, of course, is Elizabeth.

Title page of the first edition of Pride and Prejudice. Image source: Jane Austen's House CHWJA:JAHB13.2.1-3

Coda: Jane Austen at Home

This short post series started out as a review of Lucy Worsley's biography Jane Austen at Home, which has just been reissued in a 250th Birthday Edition by Hodder & Stoughton. Clearly, though, like James and Henry Austen, I became fascinated by Eliza de Feuillide. At a time when most women of their class were confined to home and care of family, she and her mother led remarkable, "racketing" lives (to use a favorite word of Eliza's; it means "tak[ing] part in large, noisy social entertainments," according to the Shorter OED). They travelled extensively, took part in lavish entertainments at pre-revolutionary Versailles and elsewhere, and generally enjoyed themselves to an extent that other women found almost indecent. After spending ten days with Phila and Eliza at the spa town of Tunbridge Wells in September 1787, Philly Walter wrote to a relative about their endless round of shopping, country rambles, teas, dinner parties, plays, Assembly Room balls, and flirting:

They. . .lived a gayer life than I ever before experienced, engagements for every hour; for the first few days I was miserable, and wd. have given anything to have got away to any retired corner, but their very great kindness, affection and attention to me soon reconciled me to the dissipated life they led and put me in mind that every woman is at heart a rake. [10]

This quote is taken from Austen scholar Deirdre Le Faye's Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', which I discovered from Worsley's extensive reference list. Le Faye's book draws heavily on Eliza's letters to Philly Walter (as well as other sources) to tell the story of her life and its many intersections with the Austen family. As I hope the excerpts I've included show, Eliza's letters are thoroughly delightful and just a little bit wicked, as she must have been in life. And so, unable to resist her charm even after the passage of more than two centuries, I changed my plan mid-course to write more about her, with Le Faye's books as the main sources.

Le Faye is well known as a staunch Austen family advocate who refuses to countenance any hint of impropriety or scandal; for example, she dismisses the strong evidence that Warren Hastings was Eliza's father. Nonetheless, it's clear even through Le Faye's filter that Phila's and Eliza's adventures were eyebrow-raising, and also reveal a great deal about how restrained and confined were most 18th-century women's lives in comparison. The extensive quotations from Eliza's expressive letters would, by themselves, be enough to recommend Le Faye's book.

But this is a journey I wouldn't have embarked on without Worsley's highly entertaining, vividly written, and deeply researched biography. So I wanted to end this short series with a strong recommendation of Worsley's book, which is one of the best biographies of Austen I've read. Her emphasis on Austen's different homes over the course of her itinerant life is a fascinating framework through which to view her experiences and her fiction. Worsley's book also silently corrects some errors in Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen: A Life, which on its publication in 1997 was widely regarded as the definitive Austen biography. Even if you've read Tomalin's excellent book, Worsley's Jane Austen at Home will provide many additional insights and pleasures.

Lucy Worsley, Jane Austen at Home, 250th Birthday Edition. Hodder & Stoughton, 2024. Image source: Jane Austen Centre, Bath

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1. Looking for images of military balls around 1800 I kept coming across paintings of the Duchess of Richmond's Ball in Brussels on 15–16 June 1815, the eve of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. So this image of men in uniform in a decorated ballroom is anachronistic in two ways: it represents an event that happened nearly two decades after Henry and Eliza's marriage, and it was painted in the 1870s, roughly 60 years after the moment it depicts. Still, it served my limited purpose, and so I hope I'll be forgiven.
2. Quoted in Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin': The Life and Letters of Eliza de Feuillide, The British Library, 2002, pp. 153–154. Henry's driving and the dynamic of his and Eliza's marriage may have inspired a scene in Persuasion, where Anne Elliot is given a ride in the Croft's gig and sees that although the Admiral holds the reins, Mrs. Croft is in charge: "'My dear Admiral, that post! we shall certainly take that post.' But by coolly giving the reins a better direction herself they happily passed the danger; and by once afterwards judiciously putting out her hand they neither fell into a rut, nor ran foul of a dung-cart; and Anne, with some amusement at their style of driving, which she imagined no bad representation of the general guidance of their affairs, found herself safely deposited by them at the Cottage." (Ch. X)
   
3. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', pp. 159–160.
4. Kelsey Power, "Dress, Identity, and Negotiation by British Prisoners of War in France, 1803-1812," British Journal for Military History, Vol. 7 No. 2 (2021). https://ojs.gold.ac.uk/index.php/bjmh/article/view/1555
5. For more on the publishing modes available to Jane Austen and the publishing history of her novels during her lifetime, please see Six months with Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey and women writers and readers. The first edition of Sense and Sensibility sold out after 18 months, making Jane a tidy profit of £140.
   
6. Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra, Thursday [25 April 1811]. https://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/brablt10.html#letter56. Mrs. Knight was the wife of Jane's brother Edward Knight.
7. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 171.
8. Quoted in Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 76.
9. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 171.
10. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 79.

Eliza de Feuillide, Jane Austen's "outlandish cousin"

Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin': The Life and Letters of Eliza de Feuillide. Eliza to her cousin Philly Walter, 17 January 1786: ". . .the purpose of the abovementioned Journey [to the spa town of Bagnères, France] has been entirely answered, & your outlandish Cousin's Health & good Looks perfectly restored." [1] Image source: Abebooks.com

This post is a continuation of Was Jane Austen's aunt a sex worker?: Jane Austen at Home, part 1.

In 1777, 15-year-old Betsy Hancock was taken by her mother Phila to Europe. Betsy had received the typical education of a girl of her class, focussing on accomplishments that would enhance her marital prospects: she learned to play the harp and harpsichord, dance, ride, write in an elegant hand, do simple sums (sufficient to oversee the management of the household), read and speak French, and act in plays, something she enjoyed especially keenly. Perhaps she understood even at a young age that the ability to hold center stage and compel fascination was a key skill for women to develop in a society where other sorts of power—economic, political—were denied them.

The main reason for the European journey was economy: it was cheaper to live on the continent than in London. Phila and Betsy visited Germany and Belgium before reaching Paris in 1779. Their social introductions there were smoothed by Sir John Lambert, an Anglo-French baronet and friend (or "friend"?) of the widowed Phila. It may have been Sir John who introduced Phila and Betsy, who now called herself Eliza, to Captain Jean François Capot de Feuillide. De Feuillide claimed, without evident basis, to be a count. Eliza was apparently represented to de Feuillide as a rich heiress with connections to, and perhaps additional expectations from, "Lord Hastings."

Both representations were exaggerations at best. De Feuillide, an officer in Queen Marie Antoinette's own regiment, had not been ennobled. He was the son of a lawyer who was the mayor of Nérac, about halfway between the cities of Bordeaux and Toulouse in southwest France. De Feuillide had received the royal grant of 5,000 acres of marshland near Nérac tax-free on the stipulation that he would have it drained and cultivated.

Eliza had received the enormous gift of £10,000 from Warren Hastings, the Governor-General of India and almost certainly her biological father, which enabled her (and her mother) to live comfortably. However, the money was under the control of two trustees, one of them Jane Austen's father, and Eliza only had access to the interest, amounting to £500 a year—a substantial sum, but nowhere near the capital de Feuillide needed to carry out his land reclamation plans. According to the lawyer John Woodson, who was Hastings' brother-in-law and the other trustee of Eliza's fortune, swamps weren't the only thing the de Feuillide family wanted to drain. Woodson wrote to Hastings that Phila "seems inclined to give up to them the sum which was settled on her for life. . .they seem already desirous of draining the mother of every shilling she has." [2] No doubt Eliza's fortune, as well as her beauty, were a strong attraction for de Feuillide.

Phila, though, perhaps influenced by the faux-Comte's title, was apparently all for the match, and in 1781 the 19-year-old Eliza married the 31-year-old de Feuillide. She wrote her cousin Philadelphia Walter about her marriage that "it was a step I took much less from my own judgment than that of those whose councils and opinions I am the most bound to follow."

My situation is everyways agreeable, certain of never being separated from my dear Mama whose presence enhances every blessing I enjoy, equally sure of my husband's affections, mistress of an easy fortune with the prospect of a very ample one, add to these the advantages of rank & title, & a numerous and brilliant acquaintance, amongst whom I can flatter myself I have some sincere friends, & you will unite with me in saying I have reason to be thankful to Providence for the lot fallen to my share. [3]

Eliza Hancock de Feuillide, date unknown, possibly copied from the 1780 miniature below.

In 1785 Eliza became pregnant, and de Feuillide wanted the child to be born in England. Given the just-concluded war (1778-1783) and historical antipathy between France and Britain, this was an unusual wish for a French landowner. However, the probable motive was to encourage Warren Hastings to recognize the baby as his grandchild, particularly if it was a boy; the hope was that money would follow recognition. In the end Eliza and Phila seem to have miscalculated either the term of Eliza's pregnancy or the travel time to England. On 25 June 1786 the baby—a boy, named Hastings as still further encouragement for acknowledgement by his grandfather—was born in the port of Calais, before the women could make the crossing to Dover.

Phila, Eliza and Hastings continued their journey to England as soon as they were able to travel, and in December 1786 they came to Steventon Rectory. Jane's mother described the visit in a letter to her niece Philadelphia Walter:

We are now happy in the company of my Sister Hancock[,] Madame de Feuillide & the little Boy. . .The little Boy grows very fat, he is very fair & very pretty; I don't think your Aunt at all alter'd in any respect, Madame is grown quite lively, when a child we used to think her too grave. We have borrowed a Piano-Forte, and she plays to us every day; on Tuesday we are to have a snug little dance in our parlour, just our own children, nephew & nieces. . .quite a family party. [4]

It was the first time Eliza had visited since Jane was an infant. Jane was now 11 and "much impressed by Eliza's charm and cosmopolitan vivacity." [5]

But in this and subsequent visits Jane may also have noticed some other, less appealing aspects of her cousin. Eliza may have been a partial model for the character of Camilla Stanley in Jane's 1792 story "Catharine, or the Bower":

. . .She was elegant in her appearance, rather handsome, and naturally not deficient in abilities; but those years which ought to have been spent in the attainment of useful knowledge and mental improvement, had been all bestowed in learning drawing, Italian and music, more especially the latter, and she now united to these accomplishments, an understanding unimproved by reading and a mind totally devoid either of taste or judgement. Her temper was by nature good, but unassisted by reflection, she had neither patience under disappointment, nor could sacrifice her own inclinations to promote the happiness of others. All her ideas were towards the elegance of her appearance, the fashion of her dress, and the admiration she wished them to excite. She professed a love of books without reading, was lively without wit, and generally good humoured without merit. Such was Camilla Stanley; and Catharine, who was prejudiced by her appearance, and who from her solitary situation was ready to like anyone, th' her understanding and judgement would not otherwise have been easily satisfied, felt almost convinced when she saw her, that Miss Stanley would be the very companion she wanted. . .She therefore attached herself to Camilla from the first day of her arrival. [6]

Shades of Isabella Thorpe and another Catherine, Catherine Morland, in Northanger Abbey.

Jane Austen's manuscript of "Catharine, or the Bower." Image source: The British Library on Pinterest

Eliza has also been seen as a partial model for the manipulative and unscrupulous title character of Lady Susan, and for the pretty, vivacious, harp-playing, pleasure-loving Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park.

During her Christmas visit the following year Eliza took a leading role in the Austen family's theatricals, arranged and managed by 22-year-old James, the eldest Austen sibling. The first play was Susanna Centlivre's The Wonder: A Woman Keeps A Secret (1714). In the play, set in Lisbon, we learn that Isabella is about to be married against her will to a much older but very rich aristocrat. The Wonder is an eyebrow-raising choice, given that both Aunt Phila and Eliza had married older men for motives other than love.

Title page of Susanna Centlivre's The Wonder: A Woman Keeps A Secret, Fifth Edition, 1756. Image source: HathiTrust.org

Isabella: . . .the thoughts of a husband is as terrible to me as the sight of a hobgoblin. . .to be forc'd into the arms of an idiot, a sneaking, snivling, drivling, avaricious fool, who has neither person to please the eye, sense to charm the ear, nor generosity to supply those defects. Ah, Inis! What pleasant lives women lead in England, where duty wears no fetter but inclination: The custom of our country inslaves us from our very cradles, first to our parents, next to our husbands; and when Heaven is so kind to rid us of both these, our brothers still usurp authority, and expect a blind obedience from us; so that maids, wives, or widows, we are little better than slaves to the tyrant Man. [7]

Eliza played Violante, who has had a trust of £20,000 settled on her by her grandfather. Her father has lied to her about the terms of the trust and is scheming to send her to a monastery and appropriate her money to his own use. Again, the character's situation implies an uncomfortable parallel to Eliza's real-life circumstances.

The dialogue in the play is also bawdy at times—a perhaps surprising choice for a household whose head was a clergyman, and which had two sons, James and his 16-year-old brother Henry, planning to make careers in the church. Here's an exchange between Violante and the Scottish Colonel Britton that takes place in her house. Isabella has sent a message for the Colonel to meet her there, but he thinks that Violante is Isabella, and that she seeks an assignation:

(Enter Violante veil'd)

Colonel Britton: . . .I am come to obey your Ladyship's commands.

Violante: Are you sure of that, Colonel?

Colonel: If you not be very unreasonable indeed, Madam. A man is but a man. (Takes her hand, and kisses it.)

Violante: Nay, we have no time for compliments, Colonel.

Colonel Britton: I understand you, Madam—Montre moy votre Chambre [show me to your room].

Violante: Nay, nay, hold Colonel, my bed-chamber is not to be enter'd without a certain purchase.

Colonel: [Aside] Purchase! Humph, this is some kept mistress, I suppose; who industriously lets her leisure hours. [To Violante] Look ye, Madam, you must consider we soldiers are not overstock'd with money—but we make ample satisfaction in Love. . .Then prithee use a conscience, and I'll try if my pocket can come up to your price. (Puts his hand into his pocket.)

Violante: Nay, don't give your self the trouble of drawing your purse Colonel, my design is level'd at your person, if that be at your own disposal.

Colonel: Ay, that it is Faith Madam, and I'll settle it as firmly upon thee—

Violante: As law can do it. [8]

In Mansfield Park, 24-year-old eldest son Tom Bertram plans a private performance of Elizabeth Inchbald's Lovers' Vows (1798), a translation and adaptation of German playwright August von Kotzebue's Das Kind der Liebe (Love Child). This is improper for several reasons. Not only is the subject of the play risqué—it concerns a son born out of wedlock—but for its actors it will bring about, in the words of Thomas Gisborne's Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (1797), "the unrestrained familiarity with the other sex which inevitably results from being joined with them in the drama." [9] 

Title page of the first edition of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Image source: Jane Austen's House

Tom will later come to rue his plan because it brought together in "dangerous intimacy" the handsome and charming Henry Crawford with Tom's sister Maria, playing the roles of the illegitimate son Frederick and his unmarried mother Agatha, a "fallen woman" with whom he is tenderly reunited. The rehearsals also bring together Tom's brother Edmund with Henry's alluring sister Mary, as the virtuous clergyman Anhalt and the woman he secretly loves, the flirtatious Amelia. [10]

As Lionel Trilling has pointed out,

In touching one another or making love to one another on the stage these four are not adopting a pose, but are, on the contrary, expressing their real feelings. The impropriety lies in the fact that they are not acting, but are finding an indirect means to gratify desires which are illicit and should have been contained. [11]

Title page of Lovers' Vows by Elizabeth Inchbald, 1798. Image source: Internet Archive

Maria Bertram will later truly become a "fallen woman" when she abandons her husband Mr. Rushworth and runs away with Henry Crawford. And Edmund will fall in love with (and come perilously close to proposing to) the selfish and amoral Mary. Theatricals are shown to be romantically dangerous indeed.

Like Amelia in Lovers' Vows, Eliza was notoriously flirtatious; James Austen's son later wrote that both his Uncle Henry and his father were "fascinated" by her. James may have signaled how dazzled by Eliza he was by writing an epilogue to The Wonder, spoken by Eliza as Violante:

Now forced to quit their long held usurpation,
These men all wise, these Lords of the Creation!
To our superior rule themselves submit,
Slaves to our charms, & vassals to our wit.
We can with ease their ev'ry sense beguile,
And melt their Resolutions with a smile. [12]

Eliza Hancock (later de Feuillide), by an unknown French artist, 1780. ". . .I send my picture in miniature done here to my uncle G. Austen. . .It is reckoned here like what I am at present. The dress is quite the present fashion & what I usually wear." [13] Image source (reversed): Miss Jane Austen

In 1787 the beguilement of James and Henry by their older, married Cousin Eliza seems to have been clearly apparent to their 12-year-old sister Jane. In "Henry and Eliza: a novel," a story which Jane wrote around this time, Eliza is the name of a foundling discovered by Sir George and Lady Harcourt and raised as their daughter. (Was Jane somehow aware that Aunt Phila's husband was not her Cousin Eliza's father?) Despite being raised to have "a Love of Virtue & a Hatred of Vice," at 18 Eliza is caught stealing £50 and sent away. She winds up as a companion to "the Dutchess of F." and her daughter Lady Harriet:

Mr Cecil, the Lover of Lady Harriet, being often with the family was often with Eliza. A mutual Love took place & Cecil having declared his first, prevailed on Eliza to consent to a private union, which was easy to be effected, as the dutchess's chaplain being very much in love with Eliza himself, would, they were certain, do anything to oblige her.

The Dutchess & Lady Harriet being engaged one evening to an assembly, they took the opportunity of their absence & were united by the enamoured Chaplain.

When the Ladies returned, their amazement was great at finding instead of Eliza the following Note.

"Madam"

"We are married & gone."

"Henry & Eliza Cecil." [14]

The couple flee and go to live in France. It's difficult not to see the smitten "Henry," the captivating "Eliza," and "the enamoured Chaplain" as comically exaggerated versions of Henry, Eliza, and James.

Jane Austen's manuscript of "Henry and Eliza." Image source: Bodleian Library, Oxford

Just 18 months after Eliza's 1787 Christmas visit the French Revolution erupted. Eliza, who had been dividing her time between France and England, travelled to London with her mother and son just before the storming of the Bastille. They remained in England, while, apart from a few weeks' visit to England in the spring of 1792, Eliza's husband stayed in France; landowners who fled were branded as émigres and their estates were seized.

During the Reign of Terror, the "Comte" de Feuillide would discover that pretending to be an aristocrat had unfortunate consequences. In February 1794 he was arrested by the Committee for Public Safety, and shortly after his arrest was sent to the guillotine. Eliza's mother had died in 1792 of breast cancer; Eliza was now orphaned, widowed, and a single mother. She had just turned 32.

After waiting through the year-long mourning period, in 1795 Henry Austen proposed to Eliza. He was now 24 and a lieutenant in the Oxfordshire Militia. She turned him down; whatever her liking for him, a junior officer's pay was little incentive to matrimony. As she later wrote her cousin Philly Walter of a higher-ranking and richer officer, "I beg you will send Captn. Anderson to me with all speed for his £100,000 will suit me wonderfully well[. It is] indeed very unfair in such a disinterested being as yourself [to ma]ke such conquests, you ought to leave them to those females who like myself have a great relish for all the pretty things that are not to be had without plenty of cash." [15]

In the spring of 1795 James Austen's wife of three years, Anne Mathew Austen, died suddenly, leaving him as the single father of a daughter, Jane-Anna-Elizabeth (known in the family as Anna). A single father with a daughter, a single mother with a son: it must have seemed a matter of course for James to propose to Eliza, which he did in 1796.

James Austen, date unknown. Image source: Jane Austen's House

But Eliza was less than enthusiastic about becoming a rural clergyman's wife. She wrote to Philly Walter on 13 December,

. . .in spite of all your conjectures and belief, I do assert the preliminaries are so far from settled that I do not believe the parties ever will come together, not however that they have quarrelled, but one of them cannot bring her mind to give up dear liberty, and yet dearer flirtation—after a few months stay in the country she sometimes thinks it possible to undertake sober matrimony, but a few weeks stay in London convinces her how little the state suits her taste. [16]

James must have gotten the message sooner than Eliza realized. In November he had become engaged to Mary Lloyd, a longtime Austen family friend; they celebrated their marriage in mid-January 1797. Mary Lloyd Austen apparently never forgave Eliza for attracting James' romantic interest. Years later one of Anna's daughters wrote that Mary

would neither go to [Eliza's] house nor receive her at Steventon—I believe the ci-devant Countess, who was an extremely pretty woman, was a great flirt, and during her brief widowhood flirted with all her Steventon cousins, our Grandfather inclusive, which was more than his after wife could stand or could ever forgive—and I think it is very probable the he hesitated between the fair Eliza and Miss Mary Lloyd. I can testify that to the last days of her life my Grandmother continued to dislike and speak ill of her. [17]

As we've seen, the hesitation was on Eliza's side, not James'.

Henry, meanwhile, on the rebound from his rebuff by Eliza, had engaged himself to Mary Pearson, the daughter of a naval officer, in early 1796. But in the fall of that year, as it was becoming apparent that James and Eliza would likely never marry, Mary Pearson broke off her engagement with Henry. He turned to Eliza for consolation—but could could she have been the cause? Perhaps Mary discovered that Henry was still carrying a torch for his beautiful cousin. On 7 November Eliza wrote to Philly,

Our cousin Henry Austen has been in town: he looks thin & ill—I hear his late intended is a most intolerable flirt, and reckoned to give herself great airs—The person who mentioned this to me says she is a pretty wicked looking girl with bright black eyes which pierce thro & thro, No wonder this poor young man's heart could not withstand them. [18]

Mary Pearson by William Wood, 1798. The curators of Jane Austen's House speculate that Mary may have been a model for Lydia Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, whose original version, First Impressions, was written in 1797, the year following Mary's broken engagement with Henry. Image source: Jane Austen's House CHWJA:JAH437

With both Henry and Eliza now free of other attachments, he soon renewed his proposal. She remained uncertain, though, that she wanted to remarry. On hearing of a mutual acquaintance, a three-time widow who was husband-hunting again, Eliza wrote to Philly, "She certainly pays a great compliment to the married state by wishing to engage in it a fourth time—I am sure I find it difficult enough to determine on a second. . .my impulse in favour of liberty & disfavor of a lord & master, is. . .irresistible." [19]

Henry soon received a promotion to captain and was named adjutant and paymaster of his regiment. In May 1797 Eliza wrote that he "bids fair to possess a considerable share of riches & honours; I believe he has now given up all thoughts of the Church, and he is right for he certainly is not so fit for a parson as a soldier." [20]

Whether Henry's change in outlook began to make him more appealing as a potential husband, or whether the 35-year-old Eliza simply felt that it was time for her to control her own fortune, she now applied to George Austen and John Woodman to dissolve the trust Warren Hastings had set up for her and transfer the money to her own control. Mr. Austen readily agreed, but Woodman hesitated. On applying to Warren Hastings for advice, he received the sharp reply, "As Mme. de Feuillide is desirous of taking the money, which is now in trust with you and Mr. Austen, into her own hands, you certainly ought to comply with her desire." [21]

Woodman finally did so in October. Eliza drew up a will which ensured that her estate would go to the care of her son Hastings, who was subject to debilitating epileptic seizures, and not to any future husband.

These financial matters settled, she gave further consideration to Henry Austen. When he proposed again while on leave in London for the Christmas holidays, she accepted him. She wrote to Warren Hastings,

I have consented to an union with my cousin Captn. Austen who has the honor of being known to you.—He has been for some time in possession of a comfortable income, and the excellence of his heart, temper, & understanding, together with his steady attachment to me, his affection for my little boy, and disinterested concurrence in the disposal of my property, in favor of the latter, have at length induced me to an acquiescence which I have withheld for more than two years. [22]

Henry and Eliza were married in St. Marylebone Parish Church, London, on 31 December 1797. Jane Austen's "outlandish cousin" was now her sister-in-law.

Next time: Incorrigible flirtation, hairbreadth escapes, and lavish parties: Eliza de Feuillide, continued

Last time: Was Jane Austen's aunt a sex worker?: Jane Austen at Home, part 1

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1. Quoted in Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin': The Life and Letters of Eliza de Feuillide, The British Library, 2002, p. 68.
2. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 51. Ultimately de Feuillide did drain Phila of every shilling she had: she lent him her entire capital, £6500, with instructions in her will not to pursue its recovery. Later, Eliza found that it was indeed irrecoverable.
3.  Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', pp. 52–53.
4. Quoted in Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, Second Edition, Cambridge, 2004, p. 57.
5. Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, p. 57.
6. Jane Austen, "Catharine, Or The Bower," in R.W. Chapman, ed., The Works of Jane Austen Vol. VI: Minor Works, reprinted with revisions by B.C. Southam, Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 197–198 (capitalization modernized here and elsewhere).
7. Susanna Centlivre, The Wonder: A Woman Keeps A Secret, Fifth Edition, Company of Booksellers, pp. 7–8.
8.  Susanna Centlivre, The Wonder, pp. 47–48.
9. Quoted in Elaine Jordan, "Pulpit, Stage, and Novel: 'Mansfield Park' and Mrs. Inchbald’s 'Lovers' Vows.'" NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 20 no. 2, 1987, pp. 138–148. https://doi.org/10.2307/1345874
10. Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814, Ch. XLVIII.
11. Quoted in Jordan, "Pulpit, Stage, and Novel."
12. I'm unable to trace the "fascinated" comment by James Austen-Leigh. It appears in Paula Byrne's Jane Austen and the Theatre (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Liverpool, 2000, p. 23) and Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen: A Life (Knopf, 1997, p. 56), but Byrne gives it no attribution and Tomalin cites Austen-Leigh's Memoir of Jane Austen (1879), in which a full-text search of the digitized editions on HathiTrust fails to find it. James Austen's epilogue to The Wonder is quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, p. 62.
13. Jane Austen, "Henry and Eliza: a novel," in R.W. Chapman, ed., The Works of Jane Austen Vol. VI: Minor Works, reprinted with revisions by B.C. Southam, Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 35–36.
14. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 47.
15. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 135.
16. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 132.
17. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 169.
18. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, p. 98.
19. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 134.
20. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 139. Henry would later (1816) be ordained as a deacon, and for the next three years serve as a curate in the village of Chawton where his mother and two sisters lived.
21. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 143.
22. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 151.