"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.