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 G E N D E R I N G T H E L A T E M E D I E V A L A N D E A R LY M O D E R N W O R L D

Edited by Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks

Gendered Temporalities
in the Early Modern World
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Gendering the Late Medieval and Early
Modern World

Series editors: James Daybell (Chair), Victoria E. Burke, Svante Norrhem, and
Merry Wiesner-Hanks

This series provides a forum for studies that investigate women, gender, and/
or sexuality in the late medieval and early modern world. The editors invite
proposals for book-length studies of an interdisciplinary nature, including,
but not exclusively, from the fields of history, literature, art and architectural
history, and visual and material culture. Consideration will be given to both
monographs and collections of essays. Chronologically, we welcome studies that
look at the period between 1400 and 1700, with a focus on any part of the world,
as well as comparative and global works. We invite proposals including, but not
limited to, the following broad themes: methodologies, theories and meanings
of gender; gender, power and political culture; monarchs, courts and power;
constructions of femininity and masculinity; gift-giving, diplomacy and the
politics of exchange; gender and the politics of early modern archives; gender
and architectural spaces (courts, salons, household); consumption and material
culture; objects and gendered power; women’s writing; gendered patronage and
power; gendered activities, behaviours, rituals and fashions.

Books in the series:

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World

English Aristocratic Women’s Religious Patronage, 1450-1550: The Fabric of Piety
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Chivalry, Reading, and Women’s Culture in Early Modern Spain: From Amadís de
Gaula to Don Quixote

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Gendered Temporalities in the Early
Modern World

Edited by Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks

Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Amsterdam University Press

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Cover image: Pietro della Vecchia (1608-1678), The Three Fates. The Fates, female deities in
Greek mythology who determined the length and course of each person’s life, often symbolized
time’s passing in Renaissance and baroque art. Photo Credit: Alinari / Art Resource, NY

Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden

Layout: Crius Group, Hulshout

Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by
the University of Chicago Press.
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

isbn 978 94 6298 458 5

e-isbn 978 90 4853 526 2 (pdf)
doi 10.5117/9789462984585
nur 685

© The authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2018

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of
this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)
without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations
reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is
advised to contact the publisher.

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Table of Contents

Introduction 7
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks

Part I Temporality and materiality

1 Time, gender, and the mystery of English wine 19

Frances E. Dolan
2 Women in the sea of time 47
Domestic dated objects in seventeenth-century England
Sophie Cope
3 Time, gender, and nonhuman worlds 69
Emily Kuffner, Elizabeth Crachiolo, and Dyani Johns Taff

Part II Frameworks and taxonomy of time

4 Telling time through medicine 95

A gendered perspective
Alisha Rankin
5 Times told 115
Women narrating the everyday in early modern Rome
Elizabeth S. Cohen
6 Genealogical memory 135
Constructing female rule in seventeenth-century Aceh
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Su Fang Ng
7 Feminist queer temporalities in Aemilia Lanyer and Lucy
Hutchinson 159
Penelope Anderson and Whitney Sperrazza

Part III Embodied time

8 Embodied temporality 187

Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’ Medici’s sacra storia, Donatello’s Judith, and
the performance of gendered authority in Palazzo Medici, Florence
Allie Terry-Fritsch

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 9 Maybe baby 213
Pregnant possibilities in medieval and early modern literature
Holly Barbaccia, Bethany Packard, and Jane Wanninger
10 Evolving families 235
Realities and images of stepfamilies, remarriage, and half-siblings in
early modern Spain
Grace E. Coolidge and Lyndan Warner

Epilogue

11 Navigating the future of early modern women’s writing 261

Pedagogy, feminism, and literary theory
Michelle M. Dowd

Index 283

List of figures

Figure 2.1 Tin-glazed earthenware mug, dated 1642, London.

Victoria and Albert Museum, London 48
Figure 2.2 Brass and iron spit jack, dated 1670, England. Victoria
and Albert Museum, London 53
Figure 2.3 E  lm chest, dated 1640, England. Victoria and Albert
Museum, London 56
Figure 2.4 S ilk, leather, and beadwork bag, dated 1625, England.
Collection of John H. Bryan, used by permission 63
Figure 4.1 ‘Astrological’ or ‘zodiac’ man in a portable folding
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

almanac, 1451–81. Wellcome Library London 100

Figure 4.2 D  etail of Peter Slovacius’s 1581 almanac with zodiac
man and symbols indicating auspicious dates for
various procedures. Wellcome Library London 101
Figure 8.1 D onatello (Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi), Judith,
c. 1464, bronze, located between mid-1460s and 1495
in the garden of Palazzo Medici, today in the Sala dei
Gigli, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Photo: author 188
Figure 8.2 D  etail of Figure 8.1. Photo: author 204
Figure 10.1 J uan Bautista Martínez del Mazo, The Painter’s
Family, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
Used by permission 246

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Introduction
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks

Is time gendered? This collection of essays addresses this question with

a focus on the early modern period, an era that is itself designated by a
contested periodization. It examines gendered and embodied temporalities,
and the ways that time structured early modern lives and the textual and
material commemorations of those lives.
The essays examine aspects of gendered temporality in England, Italy,
Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Aceh, and Virginia, thus allowing trans­
regional and transnational comparisons. The authors come from different
scholarly disciplines, including art history, English, history, Spanish, and
women’s and gender studies, and several are written by interdisciplinary
groups of authors. The collection is divided into three parts—temporal­
ity and materiality, frameworks and taxonomies of time, and embodied
time—followed by an epilogue that considers how these issues play out in the
classroom, and explores the contemporary stakes of this research. The essays
draw on a broad array of textual and material primary sources—letters, me­
dicinal recipes, almanacs, scholarly works, poems, plays, court testimonies,
biographies and autobiographies, sacred stories, puzzles, wills, petitions,
financial records, royal edicts, mirrors for princes, paintings, sculpture,
needlework, and household objects. The use of a wide variety of material
objects as sources is particularly noteworthy. Material culture is becoming
an increasingly important part of the analysis of the past, and the essays in
the book that analyze how material objects express, shape, complicate, and
extend human concepts of time represent this trend. Among the material
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

objects examined in the book is the human body, as some essays explore
somatic experiences of temporality in periods that range from the moment
to the family life course. Whether they use material or textual evidence,
or both, essays examine categories, definitions, and conceptualizations
of time set out by both women and men, and by individuals across the
social scale, thus examining elite and popular culture. Taken together, the
essays allow an assessment of the ways that gender and other categories of
difference condition understandings of time, and note how contemporary

Wiesner-Hanks, M.E. (ed.), Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam
University Press, 2018.
DOI: 10.5117/9789462984585/INTRO

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 8 Merry E. Wiesner-Hank s

and early modern conceptions of time inform one another and our work
as scholars and teachers.
Most of the essays in this volume began as presentations and conversa­
tions at the ninth Attending to Early Modern Women conference, held
in 2015 at the University of Wisconsin– Milwaukee, for which the title
was the rather playful: ‘It’s About Time’. In choosing this focus, we were
both responding to and extending the renewed critical attention that is
being paid to temporality. As the cultural theorist Emily Apter put it in
another playful phrase in a recent forum on feminist theory, ‘It’s Time’s
time.’1 Time and temporality are now featured in handbooks and guides
for undergraduate students as ‘critical concepts’ or ‘key terms’ they should
understand.2 After a decade or so in which some queer theorists rejected
periodization, chronology, change over time, and sometimes time itself as
teleological, heterosexist, and normalizing metanarratives and advocated
‘unhistoricism’ or ‘new presentism’, literary critics are increasingly calling
for approaches that recognize the communal investments of historicist,
feminist, and queer methodologies.3 In the same summer that Attending
to Women was discussing time in Milwaukee, the International Society of
Cultural History was doing so in Bucharest, with a conference focusing on
culture and time.4 Peter Burke has examined the history of the idea that time
is culturally constructed, and in the 2006 Natalie Zemon Davis lectures at
Central European University, Lynn Hunt focused on changes in chronological
frameworks, past, present, and future.5 These considerations assert what

1 Apter, ‘Women’s Time’, p. 1.

2 Handbooks include Adam, Time, and West-Pavlov, Temporalities. The revised Advanced
Placement course for European, world, and US history also includes periodization as one its
nine key historical thinking skills, thus extending this concern to secondary school students.
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

(For European history, see: College Board, ‘AP European History’, 2017, https://secure-media.
collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap-course-overviews/ap-european-history-course-
overview.pdf).
3 Queer theory’s rejection of futurity and of differences between past and present began
with Edelman, No Future, and Goldberg and Menon, ‘Queering History’. These were critiqued
by Valerie Traub, among others, in her ‘New Unhistoricism in Queer Studies’ and Thinking Sex
with the Early Moderns. Reviews of this debate, and calls to recognize commonalities as well as
differences, can be found in Friedlander, ‘Desiring History and Historicizing Desire’, several of
the essays in Loomba and Sanchez, eds., Rethinking Feminism in Early Modern Studies, and the
essay by Penelope Anderson and Whitney Sperrazza in this volume.
4 Five of the papers from this conference, along with several others, are in Arcangeli and
Korhonen, eds., ‘A Time of Their Own’. Some of the articles in this special issue focus on women’s
understanding and measurement of time.
5 Burke, ‘Reflections on the Cultural History of Time’. Hunt’s Davis lectures have been published
as Hunt, Measuring Time, Making History.

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Introduc tion 9

many of the essays in this volume do: time is an embodied aspect of human
existence, but also mediated by culture; experiences and understandings
of time change, and the early modern period may have been an era when
they changed significantly, with the introduction of new vocabularies and
technologies of time; time is gendered and also structured by other social
hierarchies; material objects shape experiences and conceptions of time.6
The three essays in Part I, ‘Temporality and Materiality’, take up this focus
on objects. In ‘Time, Gender and the Mystery of English Wine’, Frances E.
Dolan examines what at first appears to be a familiar ‘timeless’ beverage
but was actually unstable and unknowable. Although we often associate
the English with beer, ale, and cider, wine was everywhere in sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century England, Dolan notes. More than a beverage, it was
invested with all kinds of significance, starting with the communion cup,
but those meanings were often contested. This was in part because wine,
while highly valued, had often fallen victim to the ravages of time and
transport by the time it reached English consumers, and was doctored by
those who sold and served it, from coopers and tavern keepers to cooks
and housewives. As a consequence, wine was widely distrusted as foreign,
spoiled, and adulterated. It was also understood to have its own timeline
or life course, moving from ‘fresh’, ‘young’, or ‘brisk’ wines that were prized
above older vintages to the spent wines that formed the basis for distilled
spirits and medicines. Wine’s unpredictability was associated with feminin­
ity, as it made women and men alike more disordered and vulnerable, but
was particularly dangerous for women, who were warned not to drink in
excess and praised for abstinence or moderation. Wine also occasionally
provided an opportunity for women, however, who joined experiments
in growing grapes and making wine in England. Ranging across a wide
variety of sources, from Elizabethan London to colonial Virginia, and from
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

the sixteenth century to popular depictions of that period today, Dolan

tells the story of the gendering of wine, its consumption and production.
Tackling wine as a work in progress, she argues that wine connects us to the
past largely to the extent that it continues to be a mystery or a knowledge
problem, a beverage at once familiar and inscrutable.
We may not know what the wine consumed by early modern women
and men was, but we know it was served in drinking vessels and at all
hours of the day, as were other fermented beverages. In ‘Women in the Sea
of Time: Domestic Dated Objects in Early Modern England’, Sophie Cope

6 For a cross-temporal look at how objects we use to ‘tell’ time, especially calendars and
clocks, shape our experiences and conceptions of time, see Birth, Objects of Time.

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 10  Merry E. Wiesner-Hank s

begins with one of those vessels, a tin-glazed earthenware mug inscribed

with the name of a woman and a date.7 She uses this and other domestic
dated objects to analyze the relationship between people and time, both
quotidian and eternal, focusing particularly on objects that circulated within
women’s networks, including cooking wares, chests, and embroideries. She
investigates how ideas of personal time were expressed by women through
the inscription of objects in their physical surroundings, arguing that such
objects demonstrate the significance of dates in marking and extending
social connections between women. Dated objects would ideally outlive
their owner and reach forward to posterity and beyond. Thus through their
inscriptions, women were able to mark out their own place in the much
wider sea of time.
In their jointly authored essay, ‘Time, Gender, and Nonhuman Worlds’,
the author team of Emily Kuffner, Elizabeth Crachiolo, and Dyani Johns Taff
continue this focus on the material, reaching beyond human temporal realms
to examine botanical, nautical, and disease-based perspectives on time that
disrupt hierarchies of gender and redefine ontological boundaries. They
discuss representations of the plant guaiac, used to combat the spread
of the so-called ‘French disease’ through Europe, that expose temporally
contingent definitions of masculinity, texts that portray human characters
with plant-like characteristics that contravene human chronologies, and
maritime metaphors in Shakespeare that disrupt human attempts to describe
masculine erotic desire as everlasting and female erotic desire as having
an expiration date. Their investigations reveal that nonhuman realms and
agents unsettle early modern writers’ attempts to establish essentialized
constructs of gender and time, thus revealing the interdependence between
human and nonhuman worlds.
The four essays in Part II, ‘Frameworks and Taxonomies of Time’, examine
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

categories, definitions, and conceptualizations of time set out by early

modern women and men of varying social classes in Europe and Southeast
Asia. In ‘Telling Time through Medicine: A Gendered Perspective’, Alisha
Rankin analyzes the role of gender in concepts of medical time, where
multiple, overlapping systems of time—astrological, seasonal, liturgical,
horological—guided medical theory and practice. She first discusses Renais­
sance medical scholarship by male authors, including learned theories of the
four humors, treatises on disease, and almanacs, all of which embedded the
microcosm of the human in a macrocosm of time. She then shifts the focus

7 This chapter began as a paper at the Gender, Power, and Materiality in Early Modern Europe
1500–1800 conference held at the University of Plymouth in April 2016.

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Introduc tion 11

to women’s concepts of medical time. Drawing on letters and medicinal

recipes written by German noblewomen, Rankin argues that women both
reflected broader reckonings of time and drew their own concepts of medical
temporality from the female body, including menstrual cycles, pregnancy,
and childbirth. Women thus engaged in deliberate attempts to understand
and pin down embodied time.
Educated noblewomen were not the only women who drew on many
languages of time to craft their own, as Elizabeth S. Cohen demonstrates in
‘Times Told: Women Narrating the Everyday in Early Modern Rome’. Using
the records of the criminal courts of Rome c. 1600, which include the voices
of non-elite women, many of them illiterate, from whom we seldom hear,
she finds that women’s testimony, delivered in intimidating formal settings
and recorded verbatim, carried serious legal weight. As complainants, as
suspects, and as witnesses, women had to remember, reconstruct, and tell
stories about recent and more distant pasts and to situate their accounts
within convincing temporal frames. Telling time orally was challenging,
and women, like their male counterparts, used varied narrative strategies
and temporal rhetorics to lend veracity to their tales. Cohen stresses that
the abstractions, precisions, and disciplines of official time—the sort that
we moderns take for granted—often gave way in early modern courts, as
in life, to less clear and less efficient, but nevertheless functional practices
of local time.
In ‘Genealogical Memory: Constructing Female Rule in Seventeenth-
Century Aceh’, Su Fang Ng takes us to Southeast Asia to examine the ways
in which a woman at the top of the social scale constructed genealogical
time as she memorialized her father. Four queens ruled Aceh, Sumatra
(present-day Indonesia), from 1641 to 1699; the first, Ṣafiyyat al-Dīn Taj
al-Alam, for 35 years. Ng analyzes similarities between Taj al-Alam’s symbols
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

of royal power and her father Iskandar Muda’s, especially their claim to
Alexander the Great as a legendary ancestor. Contesting the genealogy her
husband crafted, Taj al-Alam reinscribed a continuous genealogy from her
father in her elaborate diplomatic letters sent to foreign kings, including
one sent to Charles II of England in 1661, and in royal edicts. Continuity in
the rhetoric of royal power shows a daughter’s appropriation of paternal
as well as royal power. By the end of the seventeenth century, the myth of
queenship was so prevalent that some English visitors believed Aceh had
always been governed by queens, testifying to the power of Taj al-Alam’s
reworkings of genealogical memory.
With ‘Feminist Queer Temporalities in Aemilia Lanyer and Lucy Hutchin­
son’, Penelope Anderson and Whitney Sperrazza explore times embedded in

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 12  Merry E. Wiesner-Hank s

poems, and from Italy to England. They argue that the multiple temporalities
of Aemilia Lanyer’s ‘The Description of Cooke-ham’ and Lucy Hutchinson’s
Order and Disorder model a mutually galvanizing rather than antagonistic
relationship between feminist and queer theory. Lanyer’s and Hutchinson’s
texts return to long-standing feminist concerns: female communities, the
foundational stories of patriarchy, and a focus on desire both procreative
and emphatically not. But the theories the texts themselves manifest do
the work of queering—not as an alternative to, but in concert with—these
feminist concerns. For Lanyer, this involves not only a focus on the eroticism
of all-female communities, but also a lingering in a kiss oddly material and
suspended in time. For Hutchinson, it concerns the way that the impossibility
of procreative sex shows the needlessness of female harm. Lanyer’s and
Hutchinson’s feminist queer poems, Anderson and Sperrazza assert, rewrite
the sequence of events in order to imagine causality differently: pushing
back against received patriarchal narratives, they locate women at the
poetic origin not due to their reproductive capacities, but rather through a
consequentially queer desire founded upon disparaged affect.
Part III, ‘Embodied Time’, includes three essays that explore somatic
experiences of temporality in periods that range from the brief moment to
the generation. In ‘Embodied Temporality: Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’ Medici’s
sacra storia, Donatello’s Judith, and the Performance of Gendered Authority
in Palazzo Medici, Florence’, Allie Terry-Fritsch approaches Donatello’s
fifteenth-century bronze sculpture of Judith as a dramatic actor in Lucrezia
Tornabuoni de’ Medici’s sacred story, ‘The Story of Judith, Hebrew Widow’,
written in the 1470s. She traces how the performative cues of Lucrezia’s words
about how and when to look, listen, or imagine functioned to connect an
audience sitting in the garden of the Palazzo Medici somaesthetically with
the statue, thus prompting the opportunity for an active coproduction of the
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

narrative that bound performers and audience together in their embodied

temporality. The essay highlights the strategies by which Lucrezia’s narrative
enfolds contemporary Florentine attitudes concerning justice, virtue, and
political power into Judith’s sacred history, and analyzes Lucrezia’s self-
fashioning in relation to both the textual and sculptural biblical heroine as
a strategy to give voice to her critical role within the family and the state.
Gazing at a statue in the Medici Palazzo garden was an experience
shared by only a few, but wondering whether you or someone else were
pregnant was an experience shared by many, and repeated often across the
life course in an era when pregnancy could not really be confirmed until it
ended. In ‘Maybe Baby: Pregnant Possibilities in Medieval and Early Modern
Literature’, Holly Barbaccia, Bethany Packard, and Jane Wanninger examine

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Introduc tion 13

potentially pregnant women in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, William

Shakespeare, and John Webster. All three authors write women characters
whose status as mothers-to-be they never totally resolve, thus creating
periods of uncertainty in the supposedly inevitable advance from one phase
of life to the next. Taken together, these authors and their ‘maybe maternal’
female characters illustrate the extent to which potential pregnancy ampli­
fies the inscrutability of women’s bodies and highlights the thwarted efforts
of other characters, readers, and audiences to interpret them. By introducing
the possibility of these women’s pregnancies but leaving their maternal
status unverif ied, Barbaccia, Packard, and Wanninger argue, Chaucer,
Shakespeare, and Webster create experiences of embodiment infused with
epistemological uncertainty and temporal complexity.
If individual bodies could be changeable and complicated, families
were even more so, as Grace E. Coolidge and Lyndan Warner explore in
‘Evolving Families: Realities and Images of Stepfamilies, Remarriage, and
Half-siblings in Early Modern Spain’. One in three children in early modern
Europe experienced the loss of a parent, with the possibility of the surviving
parent’s remarriage to a stepmother or stepfather bringing stepsiblings
or new half-siblings. Coolidge and Warner use advice literature that sug­
gested strategies to cope with the evolution of a family as it moved through
death and remarriage, along with archival records of testaments, estate
inventories, and guardianship arrangements to reveal the gendered patterns
of stepfamilies, in which strong relationships between adult half-siblings
suggest a shared family identity even as families evolved over many years of
extended fertility, a feature of many stepfamilies. Visual representations of
family groups are relatively rare in Spain, but one of the few family portraits
of the seventeenth century – The Painter’s Family by Diego Velázquez’s son-
in-law Juan Bautista del Mazo – captures the expanded age range as well as
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

emotional connections and disruptions imposed by death and remarriage.

The future figures in many of the essays in this book, from wine made
for next year’s drinkers to testaments designed to divide inheritance among
children not yet born. In the final chapter, which serves as an epilogue,
‘Navigating the Future of Early Modern Women’s Writing: Pedagogy,
Feminism, and Literary Theory’, Michelle M. Dowd confronts that future
head on. She notes that the gendered nature of temporality takes on a
distinct set of meanings in the classroom, as we strive to make the past
in which early modern women and men lived and created simultaneously
strange and immediate to students who will shape the world in the years
ahead. She explores the challenges of teaching premodern women’s texts
within curricula where they are seen more often as comments on an era’s

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 14  Merry E. Wiesner-Hank s

gender politics than a part of its literature, and where all teaching in the
humanities is threatened. Using Elizabeth Cary’s Tragedy of Mariam as a case
study, Dowd proposes that we can engage our students in more meaningful
discussions about how and why the fact of female authorship matters by
inviting them to consider the complex intersection between gender and
form, that is (somewhat paradoxically) to have them read it as a drama as
well as a female-authored text. The essay concludes by inviting strategic
advocacy for premodern women writers in the contemporary classroom,
advice that makes explicit what all the essays implicitly promote.
Concerns with the future evinced by so many of the female subjects of this
book as they wrote, built, spoke, planted, drew up wills, devised medicines,
embroidered, or just went about the business of their lives belie the notion
common in the early modern period (and to some degree our own) that
women and their ideas and desires were more time-bound, while men and
their ideas and desires were (and are) everlasting and timeless. Women
shaped the future because of their reproductive capacities, of course, and
several essays point out how concerns about childbirth and those about
time were connected, so much so that giving birth in German was referred
to as ‘going on her time’. But women shaped the future even more through
the textual and material products they created, ordered, or purchased that
allowed them to escape the bounds of human life. Their sense of obliga­
tion to the future extended beyond their own families and kin to the less
fortunate whose lives they extended through food or medicine, and to
imagined readers or viewers for whom their writings or needlework would
be interruptions of a time past in the flow of daily life. Sometimes these
products crossed normative gender boundaries and allowed women—both
real and invented—to challenge or queer patrilineal and patriarchal norms,
while at other times they reinforced them, or they did all of these at once, as
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

conservative forms and usages sometimes made radical innovations possible.

How thoughts of the future shaped the actions of past actors is only one of
several themes that thread through the essays in the book. Another is how
people managed their time. Though men worried about women’s idleness,
which along with their wine drinking might lead to sexual excess, women
worried instead about not having enough time to carry out the various
tasks they needed to do. The earliest reference to the broadside ballad ‘A
Woman’s Work Is Never Done’, fittingly appears in the 1629 inventory of a
widow who sold ballads, no doubt one of many things she did to keep her
household going after the death of her husband, a common event, yet one
that marked a dramatic break in any family’s history.

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Introduc tion 15

A third common theme is the complexity of experiences of time. Early

modern women and men lived in a number of times at once—planetary,
botanical, biblical, seasonal, liturgical, multigenerational, life-course, daily,
horological—which overlapped and conflicted. Embodied time was itself
multitemporal and nonlinear, experienced as a moment when one might
glance at a statue or sip a glass of new wine, an hour whose events one had
to later recall to a judge, a day spent writing, several months when one
(or a woman who mattered) might or might not be pregnant, or a lifetime
of gradual aging punctuated by the type of events that we still call ‘life-
changing’ as well as far more mundane ones.
Finally, several of the essays point to the importance of things that did not
happen as well as those that did: children who were not born, powerful men
who desired but did not rape, lineages that did not continue, vines that did
not grow, ideas about time that did not become modern. They encourage us
to think about the histories we have not inherited, as well as those we have.
The phrase that was the conference theme in 2015, ‘It’s About Time’, was one
heard often in the political rhetoric of the United States in 2016, but that
feminist future did not come to pass. Why it did not was in part because of the
central issue traced in this collection: the power of gender and imaginings of
gender in lives past, lives present, and lives feared or dreamed for the future.

Works cited

Adam, Barbara, Time, Key Concepts (London: Polity, 2004).

Apter, Emily, ‘“Women’s Time” in Theory’, differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural
Studies 21.1 (2010), 1–18.
Arcangeli, Allessandro, and Anu Korhonen, eds., ‘A Time of Their Own: Experiencing
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Time and Temporality in the Early Modern World’, special issue of Journal of
Early Modern Studies 6 (2017).
Birth, K.K., Objects of Time: How Things Shape Temporality (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2012).
Burke, Peter, ‘Reflections on the Cultural History of Time’, Viator 35 (2004), 617–26.
Edelman, Lee, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 2004).
Friedlander, Ari, ‘Desiring History and Historicizing Desire’, Journal for Early
Modern Cultural Studies 16.2 (spring 2016), 1–20.
Goldberg, Jonathan, and Madhavi Menon, ‘Queering History’, PMLA 120.5 (2005),
1608–17.

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 16  Merry E. Wiesner-Hank s

Hunt, Lynn, Measuring Time, Making History (Budapest: Central European Uni­
versity Press, 2008).
Loomba, Ania, and Melissa E. Sanchez, eds., Rethinking Feminism in Early Modern
Studies: Gender, Race, and Sexuality (New York: Routledge, 2016).
Traub, Valerie, ‘The New Unhistoricism in Queer Studies’, PMLA 128.1 (2013), 21–39.
— Thinking Sex with the Early Moderns (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2015).
West-Pavlov, Russell, Temporalities, The New Critical Idiom (London: Routledge, 2012).

About the author

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks is Distinguished Professor of History and Women’s

and Gender Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She is the
long-time senior editor of the Sixteenth Century Journal, editor of the Journal
of Global History, and the editor-in-chief of the nine-volume Cambridge World
History (2015). She is an author or editor of more than 30 books and more
than 100 articles that have appeared in English, German, French, Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Chinese, Turkish, and Korean. Her books include
scholarly monographs, translations, thematic overviews, edited collections,
textbooks, and source readers for the college classroom, and books for young
adult and general readers. Her research has been supported by grants from
the Fulbright and Guggenheim Foundations, among others.
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 Part I
Temporality and materiality
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Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 1 Time, gender, and the mystery of
English wine
Frances E. Dolan

Abstract
Wine was widely drunk in early modern England. But would we recognize it?
Time unsettles the meaning of this ‘timeless’ beverage because early modern
people were unable to control its effects on the wines they consumed.
Wine’s unpredictability was, in the early modern period, both associated
with femininity and, occasionally, an opportunity for women who joined
experiments in growing grapes and making wine in England so as to make
wine that was more dependable and affordable. Ranging across a wide
variety of sources, from the sixteenth century to popular depictions of that
period today, this essay argues that wine connects us to the past largely
to the extent that it continues to be a mystery or a knowledge problem.

Keywords: wine; winemaking; early modern England; women; gender;

Shakespeare

We know early modern women and men drank wine. But we can’t know
exactly what that wine tasted like. As a knowledge problem, wine joins many
other mysteries of gendered experience in the past. Surviving evidence con-
firms an historical phenomenon we can call ‘English wine’ and some of the
ways in which it was gendered. As we will see, it is easy to document popular
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

attitudes toward wine in ballads and plays. We can readily find recipes for
making, using, or ameliorating wine, as well as fulminations against and
paeans to it. We can also find references to wine in inventories and account
books, lyric poetry, letters and diaries, popular accounts of commensality
and of murder, recipe compilations, medical texts, the notebooks of early
experimental scientists, and in the surprisingly large literature advocating
English grape growing and wine making in the seventeenth century. Moving
across the social landscape, wine left archival stains that offer tantalizing

Wiesner-Hanks, M.E. (ed.), Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam
University Press, 2018.
DOI: 10.5117/9789462984585/CH01

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 20  Fr ances E. Dol an

traces of its cultural centrality and its instability. To understand it, we need
to gather evidence from a range of sources, accepting that the resulting
assemblage will still be missing pieces and can never answer all of our
questions. As we try to pin down women’s lived relationship to wine as
consumers and producers, we find enigmatic hints, marginal comments,
texts of questionable provenance. No matter how widely we forage, the
specifics of how that wine smelled and tasted elude us.
In early modern England, most people, young and old, male and female,
queens and servants, routinely drank fermented beverages of some sort since
water was widely and wisely distrusted. Although we often associate the
English with beer, ale, and cider, those beverages they still manufacture and
export, wine, largely imported, was a favored beverage in England for most
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, until coffee, tea, chocolate, and
distilled spirits diversified beverage options and challenged its monopoly.
Wine had sacramental meanings, of course, in the communion cup at the
center of the celebration of the mass as well as in its supposed inversion,
the witches’ sabbath.1 Its sacramental meaning depended on its capacity for
transformation, its ability to become or be experienced as something else,
as well as its ability to change and bind its consumers. It was the lubricant
of good fellowship, from households to taverns to palaces. A standard gift to
and from royals and among aristocrats, it was so prized that it was the object
of piracy and profiteering; Sir Francis Drake, for instance, seized wine from
the Spanish.2 Fortunes were made in importing wine. Elizabeth I rented out
or farmed the right to collect customs duties on all imported sweet wines to
her particular favorites, first Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and later the
Earl of Essex. While it could be a luxury good, and a marker of elite status,
wine was also a crucial part of recompense for servants, high and low.3
While wine was highly valued and widely drunk, it had often fallen victim
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

to the ravages of time and transport by the time it reached English consumers’
cups. As a consequence, wine was widely distrusted as foreign, spoiled,
and adulterated. It was also understood to have its own timeline or life
course, moving from new wines that were prized above older vintages to the
spent wines that formed the basis for distilled spirits and medicines. Frugal
housekeepers and tapsters found uses for wine at every stage in its timeline,
from grape lees to vinegar, from new wine to distillations. Tackling wine
as a work in progress, most who served wine, from housewives to coopers

1 Bynum, Wonderful Blood; Camporesi, Juice of Life.

2 See Sebek, ‘More natural to the nation’, esp. pp. 107, 116; Fischer, ‘Digesting Falstaff’.
3 Somerset, Elizabeth I, p. 333; Braddock, ‘Rewards of Office-Holding’, esp. p. 45.

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 Time, gender, and the mystery of English wine 21

and tavern keepers, artfully amended and blended it. Did this make wine
foreign or domestic, a taste of the past, as it is often still called, or a fragile
compromise in the present? No one could be sure. That uncertainty was both
associated with femininity and, occasionally, an opportunity for women
who joined experiments in growing grapes and making wine in England.
The mystery of early modern wine is not only a function of the time that
has passed between now and then. Then as now, taste would have been
highly subjective, varying from person to person. More than that, early
moderns themselves struggled to anticipate and control the taste of their
wine because the process of importing and storing wine exposed it to the
ravages of time, temperature, and oxygen. While the causes of wine’s decay
were not fully understood, the effects were widely lamented. As we will
see, if we focus on early modern wine as a process unfolding in time, rather
than a stable product, we can see more clearly women’s roles as agents who
made and amended wine as well as consumed it.
Starting in the nineteenth century, the discovery of bacteria’s role in
making and spoiling wine opened up strategies for managing fermentation
and for preserving wine. But precisely because winemakers today have so
many ingredients and techniques available to them, the provenance and
contents of the wine we drink now remain less certain than we sometimes
like to think. Although many describe wine as a vehicle for tasting the time
and place where grapes ripened, this romanticization glosses over the many
interventions between vine and glass. What we know about early modern
wine is that it was inscrutable: unstable, contaminated, mixed up. What
we share with early modern drinkers, I contend, is uncertainty about what,
exactly, is in the wine we drink. It might seem as if wine links us to drinkers
in the past. But that link is tenuous. Ranging across a wide variety of sources,
from the sixteenth century to popular depictions of that period today, this
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

essay argues that what appears to be the same comestible simultaneously

connects and divides the present and the past.

Gender and wine consumption

Various scholars have explored the relationships among alcohol, sex, and
gender in medieval and early modern Europe, demonstrating the associations
of drunkenness with violence, sexual excess, and disorder for both sexes. 4

4 Martin, Alcohol, Sex, and Gender; Kümin, Drinking Matters; Bloom, ‘Manly Drunkenness’;
Ellinghausen, ‘University of Vice’; and Pleasing Sinne.

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 22  Fr ances E. Dol an

But what was particular to wine? In The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert

Burton identifies ‘The two maine plagues, and common dotages of human
kind, Wine and Women, which have infatuated and besotted Myriades
of people. They goe commonly together’.5 Proverbs provide more concise
versions of the same warnings, linking wine and women as threats to the
male drinker: ‘wine and wenches empty men’s purses’; ‘wine and women
make [wise]men runnagates’.6 Numerous ballads elaborate on the various
plots by which wine and women conjoin to ruin men.7 We might view even
the most conventional advice about wine as gendered. ‘Wine wears no
breeches’ is an early modern version of ‘in vino veritas’, suggesting drunks
have no secrets.8 This proverb depends on the twin assumptions that wine
drinkers are men (who conventionally wear pants) and that, when they
drink, they surrender the gendered authority that was so often troped as
‘wearing the breeches’, exposing, even emasculating themselves.
Medical advice variously advised and prohibited wine consumption,
usually based on the gender and age of the drinker. Andrew Boorde, in his
The Compendious Regiment of Health, advises that ‘Wine […] doth comfort
old men and women, but there is no wine good for children and maidens’.9
This advice continued for more than a century. Wine was bad for children
and good for the old because it raised the body’s temperature. Thomas
Venner, for example, advises that only after 40 should men ‘begin to make
much of the use of wine’; then it should be ‘given with a liberall hand unto
old men’ especially from 60 to death.10 According to proverbial wisdom,
‘Wine is old men’s milk’.11 Wine benefited the old because it provided the
vitality and heat they lacked.

5 Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, sec. 1.2.3.13, p. 291.

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6 Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, W 473, p. 474. See also Apperson, English Proverbs
and Proverbial Phrases, pp. 692–93.
7 See, for example, ‘The subtil Miss of LONDON’; ‘A Merry Dialogue’; ‘A Mornings Ramble’;
and ‘A Caueat or VVarning’. See also Wine and Women. On the association of wine and women,
see Scott, ‘Discovering the Sins of the Cellar,’ in which she emphasizes the homonyms cellar
and seller.
8 Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, W 490. Even ‘Put not good Wine into an ill bottle’
can have gendered implications. In The Arte of Rhetoric, Thomas Wilson elaborates on this as an
example of allegory or extended metaphor: ‘It is evill putting strong Wine into weake vesselles,
that is to say, it is evill trusting some women with weightie matters’, sig. N2r. This is connected
to advisories against women drinking wine since they were sometimes thought to have weaker
brains in general and thus poorer heads for wine.
9 Boorde, Compendious Regiment of Health, sigs. D1v–D2r.
10 Venner, Via recta, p. 40.
11 Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, W 483.

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 Time, gender, and the mystery of English wine 23

The drama provides another gauge both of the ubiquity of wine in early
modern England and the gendering of its consumption. According to Alan
Dessen and Leslie Thompson’s Dictionary of Stage Directions, wine is ‘the
most common item in tavern or banquet scenes or at other times when
figures drink’, appearing in about 65 stage directions. Shakespeare’s plays
mention wine at least 82 times. This doesn’t count the other words for
wine, including canary, malmsy, sack, and bastard.12 While some female
characters drink wine—Gertrude, for instance, pledges Hamlet with a
poisoned stoup of wine—it is male characters who most often call for wine.
‘Give me some wine; fill full’, requests Macbeth (3.4.90), trying to recover
from seeing Banquo’s ghost; ‘a Stoup of wine’ Sir Toby Belch demands in
Twelfth Night (2.3.111).13 In Antony and Cleopatra, Antony and Pompey call
for wine, but Cleopatra does not.
In Shakespeare’s plays, men’s wine drinking is as much a vulnerability as
it is an entitlement. In Richard III, the Duke of Clarence begs his executioner
for ‘a cup of wine’, is offered ‘wine enough’ then stabbed and drowned in ‘the
malmsey butt’ (malmsey was a fortified wine like Madeira; 1.4.147–48, 245);
his ghost later laments that he was ‘washed to death with fulsome wine’
(5.3.130). In The Tempest, Stefano exploits Caliban’s unfamiliarity with and
immediate lust for wine. The most famous manipulator of a man’s weakness
for wine would probably be Iago, who both insists on Desdemona’s sexual
availability through a leveling aphorism he appears to have invented—‘the
wine she drinks is made of grapes’ (2.1.239)—and exploits Cassio’s ‘very
poor and unhappy brains for drinking’ (2.3.29–30). He explicitly offers
Cassio ‘a stoup of wine’ (l.26; the very thing Claudius calls for and from
which Gertrude drinks in Hamlet). Cassio elaborates that he ‘could well
wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment’, that he
has already had the one cup he allows himself, ‘craftily qualified’ or diluted,
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and that he is therefore reluctant to ‘task [his] weakness’. Iago plays on

Cassio’s desire to drink ‘to the health of black Othello’ and to conform to
what the other gallants desire. Iago has cunningly used wine to prepare his
pawns: Roderigo, who has ‘caroused’ to Desdemona ‘Potations pottle-deep’;
three Cypriots, whom he has ‘flustered with flowing cups’; and then Cassio,

12 Varriano, Wine. Varriano has his own calculations: ‘In the 26 plays in which they are men-
tioned, sack appears 44 times, Rhenish wine four, and claret and malmsey once each’, p. 178.
In her study of sack in the Henry IV plays, Sebek, ‘More natural to the nation’, p. 109, points to
the play’s ‘interest in anchoring the wine that Falstaff consumes and that flows abundantly in
Eastcheap in the Elizabethan “moment”’, when imports from Spain dominated consumption
despite ongoing war with Spain.
13 All citations of Shakespeare will refer to The Norton Shakespeare.

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 24  Fr ances E. Dol an

whose weakness he knows and on which he plays. He has created a ‘flock of

drunkards’ on watch and then thrown an inebriated Cassio into the volatile
mix. He keeps it going with the repeated cry ‘Some wine, boys!’ (2.3.65). While
Iago is undoubtedly a villain, his strategy is not unique in Shakespeare.
Lady Macbeth proposes that she will tempt Duncan’s two chamberlains
‘with wine and wassail’ so that they become ‘spongy officers’ who lose
their control over memory and reason (1.7.64, 71). She later specifies that
she has drugged their possets—a comforting drink of spiced milk curdled
with wine that was often served at bedtime. What’s more, she associates
their incapacity with her own stimulation: ‘That which hath made them
drunk hath made me bold./ What hath quenched them hath given me fire’
(2.2.1–2). Thus the wine cup is a crucial weapon in instigating and escalating
these two tragedies, Othello and Macbeth. Perhaps more surprisingly, Portia,
too, exploits a man’s taste for wine to keep control over her marriage plot.
She complains that one of her suitors, ‘the young German, the Duke of
Saxony’s nephew’, is always drunk by the afternoon and so advises Nerissa,
her servant, that they can eliminate him as a marriage prospect if they use
his weakness to game the casket test her father established to determine
her husband: ‘set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for
if the devil be within and that temptation without, I know he will choose
it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge’ (1.2.81–85).
Here, as in Macbeth, a female character uses the word ‘sponge’ to describe
men’s weakness for wine, a weakness she both disdains and exploits. When
male characters call for ‘some wine, ho!’ they cannot be sure exactly what
they are getting or why it is being offered. The cup of fellowship might be a
means by which the host gains control of the story at the guest’s expense.
In various genres, women might also be described as drinking wine to
excess. Ballads describe how men’s and women’s wine drinking made women
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

more sexually vulnerable. One sums this up helpfully: ‘When Wine is settled
in your braine,/ you may be got with Child.’14 While wine was often linked to
heterosexual congress and risk, it also linked women to one another. In the
satirical pamphlet ‘Tis Merry When Gossips Meet, the gossips are drinking

14 ‘A new Ballad’. A female character in John Fletcher’s comedy The Wild Goose Chase (1621)
suggests that wine makes women more sexually vulnerable not only when they drink it but
when men do. Oriana advises her brother that as men drink sack ‘they ne’r speak modestly/
Unless the wine be poor, or they want money […] if in Vino veritas be an Oracle,/ What woman
is, or has been ever honest?/ Give ‘em but ten round cups, they’ll swear Lucretia/ Dy’d not for
want of power to resist Tarquine,/ But want of Pleasure, that he stayed no longer’, Act 1 scene 1,
sig. B2r.

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 Time, gender, and the mystery of English wine 25

claret and sack.15 In Middleton’s A Chastemaid in Cheapside, the gossips

at the Allwit Christening get drunk on ‘comfits and wine’ (3.2.49sd) and
the scene links their gossip and incontinence explicitly to wine. The Third
Gossip promises to tell the Fourth about her daughter’s ‘secret fault’ (which
turns out to be that she’s a bed-wetter) ‘when I have drunk’, and her friend
points out that ‘Wine can do that, I see, that friendship cannot’ (96–97).
Allwit is sure that the puddles under their stools are not ‘some wine spilt’ but
rather urine.16 According to these satires, the open ‘secret fault’ of women
socializing together is their incontinent consumption of wine. Do warnings
and satires suggest that enough women drank to provoke disapprobation or
that the very idea of women drinking wine—especially together—provoked
both mirth and terror? It is always hard to know.
Either way, texts in a range of genres constantly, even obsessively,
imagined women’s wine drinking.17 For example, in Paradise Lost, Milton
describes Eve, once ‘satiated’ with forbidden fruit, as ‘heightened as with
wine, jocund and boon’ (9.793). Milton’s simile requires readers to know how
women who are ‘heightened’ with wine would look and act.18 The simile
also draws on widespread unease about the connection between drinking
wine and poor judgment for women—and its potentially ruinous effects.
Thomas Tryon, for example, returns—repeatedly!—to the suggestion
that women should drink sparingly if at all. ‘Women ought not to drink

15 Rowlands, Tis Merry. Women drank with male friends as well as female. In Cavendish’s
Convent of Pleasure (3.6), a Citizen’s Wife, Mrs. Negligent, looking for her husband, enters a tavern,
‘where a Bush is hung out’, advertising that it sells wine. But she lingers to accept the wine two
gentlemen offer her, confiding ‘In truth, I find a cup of Wine doth comfort me sometimes’, p. 114.
16 Middleton, A Chastemaid in Cheapside; Paster offers an illuminating reading of incontinence
in the play in Body Embarrassed, pp. 52–63. I want to emphasize the central role of wine drinking
in this incontinence.
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

17 While all the speakers in a dialogue called Wine, Beere, and Ale, Together by the Eares are
male (Wine is a gentleman and Beere is a citizen) several of them suggest that women drink
wine. Wine boasts to Beere: ‘I am a companion for Princes, the least droppe of my blood, worth
all thy body. I am sent for by the Citizens, visited by the Gallants, kist by the Gentlewomen: I am
their life, their Genius, the Poeticall furie, the Helicon of the Muses, of better value then Beere’,
sig. B2r. The unclear antecedent for ‘they’, following hard upon the reference to gentlewomen,
suggests that perhaps gentlewomen value wine as their genius. Beer points out that wine is ‘kept
under locke and key, conf inde to some corner of a Cellar, and there indeed commonly close
prisoner, unlesse the Iaylor or Yeoman of the Bottles turne the Key for the chamber-maid now
and then, for which shee vowes not to leave him till the last gaspe where Beere goes abroad,
and randevous in every place’, sigs. B2r–B2v. Asserting his own accessibility and mobility, Beere
associates women’s wine consumption with sexualized secrecy and confinement.
18 Goldstein wonders whether this drunkenness might be the result of ‘a psychosomatic
reaction to her disobedience, or because of the chemistry of this particular fruit, or both?’ in
Eating and Ethics, p. 189.

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 26  Fr ances E. Dol an

Wine or strong Drink, which are bad for Men, but an hundred fold worse for
Women’, he advises.19 According to him, wine is worse for women because
it encourages an inclination to a sexual excess to which, he points out, only
human females descend. This includes activities he deems unproductive,
such as having sex while menstruating or pregnant and marrying younger
men. In A Way to Health, which begins with a laudatory poem from a Mrs.
Ann Behn, he warns of

the too frequent drinking of Wine and strong Drinks, which heats the Seed,
and pervokes Nature, and make her lose her way, which is very pernicious
and dangerous to al sorts of People, but more especially to WOMEN; and
therefore the Ancients did direct those of that Sex, to observe an higher
degree of Temperance and Order than they prescribed to Men, as knowing
that the whole Wellfare and Preservation of Mankind did chiefly depend
on their good or ill Constitution.20

Note how Tryon’s concern with controlling women also asserts men’s
dependence on them for the ‘whole welfare and preservation of mankind’.
While some of Tryon’s concerns seem idiosyncratic, his recourse to the
ancients is not. In The English Gentlewoman, for instance, Richard Brathwait
similarly announces that wine drinking leads inevitably to adultery and that as

For these Feminine Epicures, who surfet out their time in an unwomanly
excesse, we exclude them the pale of our Common-weale. Be they of
what state soever, they are staines to their Sexe for ever. Especially such,
who carouse it in deepe healths, rejoyce at the colour of the wine, till it
sparkle in their veines, inflame their bloods, and lay open a breach to
the frailty of their Sexe. For prevention whereof, we reade [in Pliny] that
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kinsmen kissed their kinswomen to know whether they drunke wine or

no, and if they had, to be punished by death, or banished to some Iland.21

This is yet another instance of the fantasy we find everywhere in the early
modern period that disorderly women could be killed or banished, a fantasy

19 Tryon, Way to Health, sig. N8r.

20 Ibid., sig. N6v. In the earlier A Treatise of Cleanness, he states that: ‘The whole Preservation
of Mens Health and Strength does chiefly reside in the Wisdom and Temperance of Women.
Therefor the ancient Wise Men in former Ages, did direct and accustom their Women to a higher
degree of Temperance than the Men’, sig. B4r.
21 Brathwait, English Gentlewoman, sig. H2r. Brathwait here refers to Plinie, Historie of the
World, I, p. 418, sig. Nn5v.

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that is always recalled wistfully as practice in some other time and place.
Kiss the girls and make them disappear. However different they may be,
Tryon and Brathwait both offer us vivid pictures of female desire enhanced
by wine and outside men’s control. Before cutting himself off with the
fantasy of a diagnostic kiss, Brathwait lingers over the vision of the ‘feminine
epicure’, risking the possibility of the reader who identifies with or desires
her. Sparkling in her veins, inflaming her blood, the wine she drinks seems
to become the blood it resembles, and therein lies its appeal and its danger.
We see the association of wine with bodily fluids in an erotic verse that is
often considered a curiosity or an embarrassment. In sonnet 63 of Barnabe
Barnes’s sonnet sequence Parthenophil and Parthenope (1593), the speaker
imagines copying the gods in taking different forms to gain access to his
mistress, contemplating encompassing various parts of her body as a glove,
a necklace, a belt. Parthenophil builds toward a discussion of becoming a
comestible, going inside rather than around. ‘Or that sweet wine which downe
her throate doth trickle,/ To kisse her lippes, and lye next at her hart,/ Runne
through her vaynes, and passe by pleasures parte’. Thomas Nashe ridiculed
this conceit as destined for the chamber pot, both fleeting and debasing.22
But what interests me is how the sonnet builds toward a desire to inhabit
the female body and imagines that the way to do that is as wine, which is
not quite digested as other nutrients might be but rather becomes part of
the body even as it passes through. Barnes’s conceit is affiliated with Ben
Jonson’s in much more famous and beloved lines: ‘Or leave a kiss but in the
cup,/ And I’ll not look for wine’.23 Jonson’s trick here is a displacement that
eludes Barnes. Contented with just a kiss in the cup, his speaker enjoins Celia
to drink to him only with her eyes, to quench their spiritual thirst with a
‘drink divine’. Just as, in the Song of Solomon, the bridegroom admires his
beloved’s mouth as ‘like the best wine […], that goeth down sweetly, causing
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the lips of those that are asleep to speak’,24 Jonson’s speaker imagines himself
as the drinker and his beloved as the drink. In contrast, Barnes puts the male
lover, Parthenophil, in the position of what will be consumed and imagines
an unsettlingly material mistress, Parthenope, who not only drinks but
urinates. Her lover, Parthenophil, combines aggression, imagining encircling
and then invading her, with the abjection of being consumed and then

22 Barnes, Parthenophil and Parthenophe, sonnet 63, sig. F4r; Nashe, Have with You, sig. Q2v.
23 Jonson, ‘Song: To Celia’. Wine’s supposed property of being human adjacent, a supplementary
bodily fluid, was described as being ‘homogeneall’. See Whitaker, Tree of Humane Life, and Dolan,
‘Blood of the Grape’.
24 Song of Solomon 7.8–9, 7.12.

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eliminated. But both Barnes’ and Jonson’s poems exploit the erotics of wine
as an animate extension of or supplement to the female body.
Because wine was so often associated with vulnerability, exemplary
women were praised for abstinence or moderation. According to the famously
ambivalent biography of Elizabeth Cary by one (or more) of her daughters,
while she ‘seemed not to have full power over herself in matter of diet’ and
had a weakness for sugar, ‘she by custome and nature never [drank] wine;
of which she never drunke more then a spoonfull att any time’.25 Of the
many contrasts between Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart, yet another is that
Elizabeth watered her wine, drinking more water than wine, while, by
various accounts, Mary Stuart both grew fat on wine and bathed in it.26 One
of Mary’s biographers, John Guy, argues that Mary asserted her queenship
even when imprisoned by maintaining the multicourse meals with wine
pairings that characterized the court. Apparently, she not only put on the
show but injudiciously indulged herself. Guy specifies her wine drinking as
particularly fattening.27 A letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury to Sir Walter
Mildmay (then Chancellor of the Exchequer and a member of the Privy
Council) in January 1569 complains that one of the unexpected costs of
housing Mary is the expense of procuring additional wine. He simply must
have more wine, he writes, because ‘truly two tonnes in a monthe have
not hitherunto sufficed ordinarily, besids that that is occupied at tymes
for her bathings, and suche like uses’.28 Each tun would be the equivalent
of about 252 gallons. A small bathing tub might have held around 40. To
place Shrewsbury’s request for more than 2 tuns a month for his household
or 24 per year in context, Elizabeth’s court went through about 300 tuns
per year at its heights, later reduced to 240. However little Elizabeth drank
herself, imported wine was a major expense for the court29—and for those
who entertained visits from her and her entourage.
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25 Elizabeth Cary, p. 144. There is some dispute as to which of Cary’s four daughters who became
Benedictines, Anne, Elizabeth, Lucy, or Mary, wrote the biography. Interest focuses on Anne
and Lucy.
26 On Elizabeth’s abstemiousness, see an undated manuscript attributed to John Clapham, a
member of William Cecil, Lord Burghley’s household: ‘The wine she drank was mingled with water,
containing three parts more in quantity than the wine itself’ (Read and Read, eds., Elizabeth of
England, p. 89). The editors claim that ‘these observations were rapidly composed within four
months of the death of Queen Elizabeth’ (ibid., vi). See also Somerset, Elizabeth I, p. 350.
27 Guy, True Life of Mary Stuart, pp. 431–32.
28 The letter, from the Talbot Papers, appears in Lodge, Illustrations, II, pp. 27–28.
29 Woodworth, ‘Purveyance for the Royal Household’. According to Woodworth, ‘The cellar was
expected to furnish annually from two hundred to three hundred tuns of wine. In the earlier
and more extravagant years of Elizabeth’s reign the household required three hundred tuns,

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Shrewsbury’s request in this letter hardens into a ‘fact’ about Mary in the
index of Lodge’s Illustrations of British History, which includes the entries
‘baths of wine used by the Queen of Scots’, and also, under Mary, ‘used to
bathe in wine’.30 Neither the Earl of Shrewsbury nor his wife, popularly
known as Bess of Hardwick, seems to have been happy about having
Mary billeted upon them by Elizabeth, who established the arrangement
immediately after they married. It would last for more than 15 years and
inflame conflict between the couple, including suspicions about possible
adultery between the Earl and Mary (who was 20 years younger than Bess).31
Mary, a prisoner, did not like this arrangement either. As a consequence,
communications from the Earl or Countess of Shrewsbury, or Mary herself,
regarding the arrangement have to be read critically. This letter from the
Earl was written very early in Mary’s stay. Is it evidence that she bathed in
wine or served or drank it at bath time? Is it evidence of the Earl’s prurient
interest in her habits? Or is it an attempt to capitalize on her reputation as
a larger than life consumer to get more support for what quickly emerged
as a financially ruinous assignment? For my purposes, it serves as evidence
that even when wine finds a place in the story or appears in the index, its
meaning is simultaneously gendered and murky. From communion cup to
bathtub wine was always bearing significance beyond itself. But what it
signified was usually under debate.

Wine and time

Wine’s epistemological instability and its usefulness both depended on the

fact that it had its own life course; it was, for good and ill, in time. Because
early moderns did not know how to control the effects of time and air on
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wines, old wines were seldom valued as better than young ones. Time was not
a friend to early modern wine, which was most consistently praised as ‘fresh’,
young, or ‘brisk’. As a consequence, early modern links between women and
wine do not celebrate maturity—in the way that we see in popular culture

but later the amount was reduced to two hundred and forty tuns. Most of the wine was French
wine. The merchants who supplied it were English and often were the same men who furnished
groceries for the spicery. Besides French wine the court used a small quantity of sweet wine
which it bought from merchants trading in Spain and the Levant’, p. 55. By the end of Elizabeth’s
reign, the cellar had compounded with wine merchants in order to reduce brokerage fees and
exert more control over the quality of the wine.
30 Lodge, Illustrations, II, pp. 435, 441.
31 See Durant, Bess of Hardwick.

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now. Rather, they offer a particular twist on the carpe diem tradition. The
speaker in one late seventeenth-century ballad concludes that for both
wine and women, ‘Nothing can be like the present Time,/ Give me Wine
and Women in their prime,/ And before that e’er they pall/ Give me all’.32
It was so difficult to stabilize wine in this period that it was usually
doctored in one way or another to conceal and slow spoilage, enhance
sweetness, and extend supplies. Amendments might be as benign as the
addition of herbs and spices, but they also included a witch’s cauldron of
bizarre possibilities. Strategies for preserving and improving wines included
variations on what have since become reliable methods: increasing its sugar
or acid levels; or using a preservative in the form of vitriol (a metal sulfate)
or sulfur. In other words, while sweetened wines were often called ‘bastard’,
most wines were adulterated in one way or another. One contemporary
called this the ‘mystery of vintners’.33 In the early modern period, wine
amendment was recognized as widespread and denounced as fraud; it was
variously called adulteration, transubstantiation, and alchemy. What went
into the barrel then was a bit more eclectic than it is now. But then as now
amending wine was part of the standard business of producing, storing,
and serving it.34
Many wine connoisseurs now suggest that drinking wine is a way to
taste the essence of another time and place. The word ‘terroir’ is often used
to describe how all of the constituents of location (soil constitution, sun
exposure, climate, precipitation, etc.) express themselves in a wine. Although
the effects of soil constitution, for example, cannot yet be quantified, it is
widely asserted that wine ‘tells the story of its origin’; that a glass of wine
‘tells a story, first of that place, and second of that year’.35 Purportedly,
then, to drink wine is to travel through time and space, to ‘uncork the past’
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32 ‘Beauteous JENNY’. There is some contradictory evidence as well, suggesting that aged
wines might be preferred, especially for older drinkers. According to Simon’s History of the Wine
Trade in England, for example, ‘The most unfortunate queen, Catherine of Aragon, was only
given new wine for her drinking, although this did not suit her failing health, and she begged,
but in vain, to have some other. In 1534, she sent to Chapuys, the Emperor’s Ambassador, for
a cask of old Spanish wine, which was given her, but it appears that the servant who executed
her commands was dismissed for the offence of obeying her orders, the King not choosing her
to drink or eat anything but what he provided for her’, II, pp. 138–39.
33 For lists of additions to wine, see Plat, Jewel House, sigs. I3v–I4r; True Discovery, pp. 27–28;
and Charleton, ‘The Mysterie of Vintners’, in Two Discourses.
34 For an overview of additives widely used in winemaking today, see the appendices to Feiring,
Naked Wine.
35 Goode and Harrop, Authentic Wine, pp. 2–4, 235. See also Dolan, ‘Wine, Time, and Terroir’.

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 Time, gender, and the mystery of English wine 31

or, as Keats put it, to savor ‘a beaker full of the warm south’.36 This access
to the past is always a fantasy. But aggressive wine amendments make it
especially hard to sustain. Renaissance drinkers did not taste another season
and climate as much as they sampled a fragile compromise cooked up in
a London tavern or a Yorkshire kitchen. Layers of time, place, and agency
commingled in a single mouthful.
Whose agency? Coopers, who both made barrels and shaped their con-
tents, were important wine amenders, as were tapsters. But housewives, too,
participated in fighting the effects of time through and in wines. Cookbooks
and other how-to guides addressed to women routinely tell them how to use
wine in medicines intended to offset the ravages of time.37 These practical
guides also advised housewives on how to ‘amend’—we might say ‘dis-
guise’—wines that had gone off. Gervase Markham’s The English Housewife,
for instance, includes a chapter on wines borrowed from a manuscript on
vintner’s secrets; in it, he advises the housewife on how to amend enormous
quantities of wine. As Michael R. Best points out in his edition of Markham,
‘what in the vintner was scandalous adulteration was admirable ingenuity
in the frugal housewife’.38 Women were also, as we will now see, important
participants in the venture of growing grapes and making wine in England.

Women and winemaking

Grape growing and winemaking, like the many other agricultural innova-
tions of which they formed part, were driven by men, those whom Joan Thirsk
calls ‘gentlemen farmers’, who both experimented with new methods and
wrote about those experiments.39 The majority of texts advocating English
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36 See, for example, McGovern, Uncorking the Past, pp. 27, 269, and passim; Keats, ‘Ode to a
Nightingale’, l. 15.
37 See Wall’s chapter on ‘Temporalities’, in Recipes for Thought.
38 Best, ‘Introduction’, xxv. Markham’s recipes for amending wine deal with huge quanti-
ties—appropriate to the professional and not the housewife. This is because, as Markham
only explains in his third edition, he took his chapter on wine from a ‘rudely written’ and
unpolished manuscript by ‘one professed skillful in the trade’ and expert in ‘vintner’s secrets’
(Best, ‘Introduction’, p. xviii). This manuscript, Secreta Dei pampinei, had been in Hugh Plat’s
hands and in, his Floraes Paradise, Plat claimed to have written it. Best compares a surviving
fragment of the manuscript (in the British Library) with Markham’s text, concluding that
Markham added nothing substantial to the content, polishing and reorganizing it. On Plat’s
relation to the manuscript, see also Thick, Sir Hugh Plat.
39 Of writers including Markham, Walter Blith, and John Worlidge, Thirsk asserts that
‘[t]hroughout the [seventeenth] century the strongest stimulus to experiment came from

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winemaking promote it as an extension of the many other ways of making a

rural estate self-sufficient and productive. Ancient taboos insisted women
were inimical to wine production: vines wither if a menstruating woman
passes; 40 wine sours if she enters the cellar in which it is stored. While
these fears were still occasionally repeated into the early modern period,
they were lapsing into obsolescence and they did not prevent women from
experimenting with grape growing and winemaking. Perhaps this is not
surprising since there was a long tradition of women brewers, as Judith
Bennett among others has documented, and winemaking in particular
resides at the intersection of domains women often controlled, including
gardening, medicine, and food production. 41 Although gentleman farmers
like gentlemen virtuosi instigated, bankrolled, and documented much of the
experimentation in gardens, kitchens, and labs, they did not monopolize it,
depending on wives, children, and servants. Those figures were not only on
the margins assisting. 42 In the notebooks, correspondence, and published
writings of various prolific polymaths, we catch glimpses of women who
were in the vanguard of English winemaking.
Barnabe Googe, in an ‘Epistle to the Reader’ in his translation of
Heresbach’s Foure Bookes of Husbandry, mentions that, at the time he
writes in the late sixteenth century, at an ‘ancient house’ at Chilwell, in
Nottingham, there ‘remaineth yet as an ancient monument in a great
windowe of glasse the whole order of planting, proyning, stamping, and
pressing of Vines. Besides, there is yet also growing an old Vine, that yeeldes
a Grape sufficient to make a right good Wine, as was notably proved by a
Gentlewoman in the said house’. 43 This gentlewoman is then the preserver
of an ancient tradition, like the window, like the vine, but also an innovator
who ‘proves’ that it is possible to reclaim a lost past so as to realize a future
for English wine.
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Also in the late sixteenth century, Hugh Plat visited the gardens of Sir
Francis Walsingham, principal secretary to Elizabeth I and often referred

gentlemen farmers such as these’ (Thirsk, ‘Plough and Pen’, esp. p. 301).
40 Crawford, ‘Attitudes toward Menstruation’, esp. p. 59; Camporesi, Juice of Life, pp. 113–17;
Krazitzky, Healing, Performance and Ceremony, p. 202, n.49.
41 Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters; Wall, Staging Domesticity; Wall, Recipes for Thought;
Laroche, Medical Authority; and Munroe, Gender and the Garden.
42 A. Cooper, ‘Homes and Households’; Hunter and Hutton, Women, Science, and Medicine;
Harkness, Jewel House.
43 Heresbach, Foure Bookes of Husbandry, sig. A3v. Googe mentions two men as well, but he
points out that the wines they produce are not ‘right good’ because of ‘the malice and disdaine
peradventure of the Frenchmen that kept them’, rather than any fault of soil or situation. The
gentlewoman he mentions seems to have avoided this pitfall by doing the work herself.

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 Time, gender, and the mystery of English wine 33

to as her ‘spymaster’, and his wife, Ursula, at their estate at Barn Elms,
on the Thames between London and Richmond. There, he observed that:
‘my Lady Walsinghams vines at barnes elms be planted against the back
of chimneys whose fiers doo greatly helpe the ripening of the grapes, so
likewise of the Apricock wch are bounde upp to the wall with the vines’.
According to Malcom Thick, what Plat saw ‘may have been the earliest
heated walls in English gardens’.44 Lady Walsingham is one of those women
whom we know largely through her associations with men: the best sources
on her are biographies of her husband, and even there she is only briefly
mentioned (and her heated walls not at all). She is the mother of the Frances
Walsingham who married Sir Philip Sidney and later the Earl of Essex.
Perhaps most intriguingly for my concerns here, John Dee was her near
neighbor at Barn Elms, and he describes Ursula as coming to his house ‘very
freely’; she served as godmother to his daughter Madinia. 45 Walsingham
may have been engaging in intrigue, but Ursula was forging connections
with influential if eccentric knowledge producers and ripening her grapes.
Plat was especially interested in grapes because he made wine which he
boasts is ‘rich, and of a strong boiling nature’ and would keep for ‘a whole
yeere, and sometimes longer, without any shewe of fainting deadness, or
discolouring: which is as much as any Vintner can well require in his best
French wines’. 46 Touting his own vintage, Plat also draws our attention to
the limited lifespan expected for all wines, homemade and imported. In
his Floraes Paradise (1608), Plat offers his wine as a ‘new, rare, and profit-
able invention’, second only to secrets in metallurgy. He identifies women
as particularly appreciative consumers of his homemade English wine.
Defending it as just as good as imports, he argues that ‘if any exception
shold be taken against the race and delicacie’ of his homemade wines, ‘I am
content to submit them to the censure of the best mouthes, that professe any
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true skill in the judgement of high country wines’, adding that the French
ambassador said ‘that he never drank any better new Wine in France’. ‘Race’
can mean many things in Plat’s praise for his wine, but it seems most likely
that he refers to the meaning specific to wine, that is, a kind or class of wine,
its essence or spirit, and a distinctive taste that links product to place. Race

44 Thick, Sir Hugh Plat, pp. 58–59, quoting British Library manuscript SL 2210 (sig. 79v). Thick
dates the notebook to about 1581–92. See also Mukherjee, ‘Secrets of Sir Hugh Platt’.
45 On Walsingham, see Budiansky, Her Majesty’s Spymaster; and Hutchinson, Elizabeth’s
Spymaster. For the detail about Ursula’s relation to Dee, see J. Cooper, Queen’s Agent, p. 263; and
Private Diary, pp. 3, 9, 18–19 (on visitors to Dee’s library) and 33 (on Ursula as godmother).
46 Plat, Floraes Paradise, sig. O8v.

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here is, then, an early word for terroir, what makes Plat’s wine distinctly his,
what distinguishes it from others. 47
Plat goes on to say

that now mee thinks I begin to growe somewhat strong in my supporters;

& therefore I make some doubt, whether I shall need to bring in that
renowmed Lady Arabella, the Countess of Cumberland, the Lady Anne
Clifford, the Lady Hastings, the Lady Candish, & most of the Maides of
Honour, with divers Lordes, Knights, and Gentlemen of good worth, that
have generally applauded the same. 48

The women Plat mentions include three, Arbella Stuart, Margaret Rus-
sell (the Countess of Cumberland and Anne Clifford’s mother), and Anne
herself, who will appear as dedicatees of Amelia Lanyer’s long devotional
poem Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum just a few years later (1611). The maids of
honor seem likely to be Anne of Denmark’s ‘maids of honor’, that is, many
of the same crew who had appeared in Ben Jonson’s Masque of Blackness
at court in 1605, 49 and which included Elizabeth Hastings, Countess of
Huntington, whom Plat seems to mention, as well as others of Lanyer’s
dedicatees (Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, and Catherine Howard,
Countess of Suffolk). Performers and patrons, this posse might also have been
among what Plat calls ‘the best mouths’, encouraging and benefitting from
the experimentation that helped to produce drinkable English wine. They
offer an appealing corrective to the much more familiar satires of women
drinking and gossiping together. Promoting invention, these ‘mouths’ are,
in Plat’s account, productive.
Samuel Hartlib’s compendious text Samuel Hartlib His Legacie (1652),
gathering together other writers’ texts and letters written to Hartlib, is,
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like all of the texts Hartlib midwifed into print, an undigested hodgepodge.

47 Ibid., sig. E7v. Plat’s use of ‘race’ corresponds to the term ‘typicity’: ‘the way a wine displays
characteristics shared among wines from this particular location’ (Goode and Harrop, Authentic
Wine, p. 13). ‘Racy’ is still used as a wine descriptor, but it has only gradually moved from meaning
tasting of the earth or tasting of its own sap or spirit to meaning more generally lively or sprightly
wine.
48 Ibid., sigs. E8r–v.
49 Of these women, the only one I cannot yet identify is ‘Lady Candish’. On Queen Anne’s court
and her ladies, see Barroll, Anna of Denmark. The names Plat lists do not overlap precisely with
Anna’s favorites. It is also not easy to determine exactly who served as ‘maids of honor’. However,
the cast lists of masques do survive. Nagy, Popular Medicine, discusses the herbal knowledge
and skill of aristocratic women, especially ‘the delight she [the Countess of Cumberland, Anne
Clifford’s mother] took in distilling waters and other chymical extractions’, p. 65.

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It includes a discussion of orchards and fruit growing, titled A large letter

concerning the Defects and Remedies of English Husbandry. The letter is
addressed to Hartlib, and he frames it as a work he first commissioned
and then amended and augmented. Written in the first person, it is often
attributed to Robert Child, who attempted, unsuccessfully, to establish a
vineyard in Massachusetts in the 1640s.50 In the course of a fervent argument
that the English should make their own wines and ciders rather than relying
on imports, the speaker (Child?) points to ‘some Ingenious Gentlemen’ who
‘usually make wine very good, long lasting, without extraordinary labour
and cost’ especially one in Kent, whom the margin identifies as Sir Peter
Ricard who ‘yearly maketh 6 or 8 hos-heads, which is very much commended
by divers who have tasted it, and he hath kept some of it two years, as he
himself told me, and it hath been very good’.51 Hartlib’s manuscript journal,
now searchable digitally, also records that ‘at my Lord Warwick’s Lady
Ranelagh heard a Relation of 20. Or 3. Tonnes of wine made last year 1652 of
English Grapes by one in Kent whose name she can easily learne’.52 Perhaps
Lady Ranelagh was describing the same Kentish gentleman who ends up in
Hartlib’s Legacy via Child. Lady Ranelagh was, of course, Katherine Jones,
Robert Boyle’s sister; they may have collaborated, certainly lived together for
the last 23 years of their lives, and are buried together.53 Focusing on wine
brings into view those women some historians of science have refused to
see but whose stories those who attend to early modern women are telling;
the digitization of lives, letters, and other sources is making it easier to
piece these stories together. Furthermore, Hartlib’s and Boyle’s notation
of intelligence women brought them about wine affirms that winemaking
was news. Lady Ranelagh was eager to hear a relation of it and to pass it
on to Hartlib as part of the overall project of agricultural ‘improvement’.
Women are part of this story, not only as what early moderns called rela-
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tors, that is, those who collect and convey information, but as newsmakers
and experimenters. In that capacity they are both on the record and off it,
in the story and at its margins. In Hartlib’s Legacie, the section on orchards
proceeds to recount that ‘lately in Surrey a Gentle-woman told me, that
they having many grapes, which they could not well tell how to dispose
of, she, to play the good House-wife, stampt them to make verjuice; but two

50 Pinney, History of Wine in America, pp. 29–30; Morison, Builders of the Bay Colony, pp. 244–68.
51 Hartlib, Samuel Hartlib His Legacie, sig. D4v. On Hartlib, see Greengrass, ‘Samuel Hartlib’,
pp. 304–22; Picciotto, Labors of Innocence, pp. 118–21; and Yeo, Notebooks, pp. 97–131.
52 Hartlib, Ephemerides, 1653, n. pag.
53 DiMeo, ‘Lady Ranelagh’s Book’; DiMeo, ‘Such a sister became such a brother’. On Hartlib’s
female correspondents, see also Bourke.

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moneths after drawing it forth, they found it very fine brisk wine, cleer like
Rock-water, and in many other places such experiments have been made’.54
The one ‘she’ stands out amidst the three ‘theys’, trumpeting the moment
when she resolves their uncertainty and we learn what motivated her, the
desire to play the good housewife and outwit the ravages of time. While the
1655 edition of this text mysteriously adds ‘Captain Tucker’ in the margin
as if to identify this Surrey gentlewoman, the passage itself remains the
same. Joan Thirsk notes this and laments that this change amounts to
‘robbing the Surrey lady of her claim to fame, and transferring it to Captain
Tucker’. But the original passage remains unchanged next to the reference
to Captain Tucker. Thirsk finds in Hartlib’s papers a 1653 reference to a
‘Captain Tuck’ who married Lord Winchilsea’s sister from Kent, and ‘is the
likeliest gent. Who hath so many tuns of wine out of English grapes’. For
her, this is a possible route to ‘tentatively restore the lady to the record’.55
But what’s interesting to me about this particular amendment by Hartlib
is that it leaves the description of the gentlewoman winemaker unrevised.
She is still on the record. If anything, the possibility of her association with
a Captain Tucker promises to add specificity to the attribution. Captain
Tucker could be a member of the ‘they’ who had excess grapes and who
discovered that the verjuice she had made turned into wine. But in all three
versions of Hartlib’s text (1651, 1652, 1655), she is there. Her experiment is
an important part of the text’s evidence that the English can and should
make good wine. Hartlib’s text goes on to appeal not to others who hope to
play the good housewife but to ‘ingenious men’: ‘I therefore desire Ingenious
men to endeavour the raising of so necessary and pleasant a commodity’.56
But while it cannot quite attach ingenuity to women, it depends on female
informants and reports on a female experimenter. Similarly, William Coles’s
Adam in Eden: or, Natures Paradise, also published in the 1650s, hales the
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effort of a single woman: ‘And though many of our Vines be of the same
kind with those in France, yet they seldom come to maturity, to make so
good Wine as theirs, our Country being colder: however, I have heard of

54 Hartlib, Samuel Hartlib His Legacie, sig. D4.

55 Thirsk, Alternative Agriculture, p. 137. Thirsk includes several invaluable pages on grape
growing as, ultimately, a failure, pp. 135–39. Picard, Elizabeth’s London, p. 167, claims ‘acqua vitae
(brandy) was being made commercially, on a small scale, by Jane Garrett, the wife of a foreign
leather dresser and merchant, in 1593’. Picard cites Scouloudi, Returns of Strangers, where one
finds other records of women aqua vitae distillers (entries 838 and 803v; 896 and 863v).
56 Hartlib, Samuel Hartlib His Legacie, sig. D4v.

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Time, gender, and the mystery of English wine 37

Wine made in England, of Grapes, growing in Mrs. Pits Garden at Harrow

on the Hill’ (on the outskirts of London).57
The praise for the effort of a single woman in Surrey or Harrow on the
Hill suggests the sliding scale of the local. This might expand to include
various English colonies, especially Virginia, in which the English aspired
to make ‘English wine’, with either native or imported grapes. For example,
James I sent hundreds of copies of a text on viticulture, as well as plant starts
and French experts, to Virginia in the hope of countering tobacco growing
with two other crops, grape vines and silk worms.58 But if the dream of
making English wine might extend to the Jamestown plantation it most
often condensed down to one gentlewoman in Surrey, one old vine, one
year’s glut of grapes, one housewifely scheme, one heated wall.
If rural gentlemen’s and gentlewomen’s experiments in winemaking
yielded only small quantities for the consumption of their families and
friends, inspiring anecdotes of ingenuity in a dream of English wine
production that has not quite been realized even yet, the English had a
more powerful contribution to make to the history of wine as consumers
who pushed the market, and through contributions to the production and
transport of wine.59 For example, in the 1630s, Sir Kenelm Digby invented the
sturdy dark glass wine bottle with a flat bottom and a punt, which required
a coal furnace that could reach extremely high temperatures. Without what
we still recognize as the modern wine bottle, as just one example, moving
champagne from lucky accident to method would have been impossible.
While Digby is credited with the bottle’s invention, it was probably tested
and first produced in Sir Robert Mansell’s glassmaking works, since he held
a patent until 1642. Elizabeth, Lady Mansell, ran her husband’s glassmaking
business in his absence, defended his patent, and switched from Scottish
coal to Newcastle coal for the glassmaking furnaces (thus lowering costs).60
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

In exploring how time and gender conjoin in creating the mystery of

English wine, I have proceeded by gathering, combining, and scrutinizing
surviving fragments of evidence. I have ranged across the early modern
period, gratefully synthesizing the work of other scholars, relying on our

57 Coles, Adam in Eden, sig. X1r.

58 On these initiatives, see Bigelow, ‘Gendered Language’.
59 Lukacs, Inventing Wine, pp. 61, 110.
60 Godfrey, Development of English Glassmaking, pp. 115, 196, 225–32. While I’m on the subject
of women’s involvement in manufacture, Elizabeth Cary, as part of her ongoing attempts to
secure maintenance from her husband, tried to get her husband’s pipe stave license ‘diverted to
her’ (Wolfe, ‘Introduction’, p. 23); this was a license to make and export staves used in making
barrels and casks for wine (Wolfe, ‘Introduction’, p. 23, n. 54).

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 38  Fr ances E. Dol an

growing treasure trove of biographical information to connect the dots among

some of the players, valuing plays, pamphlets, poems, agricultural treatises,
proverbs, ballads, notebooks, and correspondence equally as evidence
that wine was ubiquitous, gendered, and inscrutable. At every turn, I have
emphasized the questionable provenance of the surviving evidence. In this,
the surviving evidence resembles the wine I’m using it to trace—ephemeral,
elusive, possibly tainted. My method, then, resembles that of the maligned
wine amenders, who combined and doctored what they received. The only
difference is that I draw attention to this process of collection and combina-
tion, to what has gone into this cask and what is missing.

Wine in the popular imaginary

Wine remains central to popular depictions of the Renaissance broadly

conceived: fountains running wine epitomize court excess; overflowing
wine cups at Renaissance fairs and in historical fictions in various media
capture passion, risk, and excess—and more rarely, women taking a place
at the table to consult and consort with men and with one another. Even as
it captures one version of what makes the Renaissance a recognizable and
appealing brand, the wine in those cups seems to link us to the past; they
drink and we drink. Indeed, shows like The Tudors almost seem to imply
drinking games among viewers; one can easily find suggestions for such
games online. Lift your glass every time Henry has a tantrum. But what we
know about early modern wine is that it was unstable, adulterated, illegible.
What was and is in that cup?
The wine in popular representations of the Renaissance reinforces two
robust associations we have seen in early modern culture itself: that wine
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

was associated with sexual danger for women; and that English pride was
wounded by the reliance on imported wine. We see the association between
wine and sexual danger in the pilot of Reign, the Mary Stuart soap opera, in
which a female shadow warns her: ‘Taste all the love and sorrow but don’t
drink the wine’ (which will be drugged). ‘Don’t drink the wine’ condenses
the advisory that haunts so many fictions of Renaissance courts, those
bowers of bliss and blood into which we are invited as voyeurs even as we
are warned that many a maiden will not make it out intact.
We find versions of the association of wine with nationalism in two
popular depictions of Henry’s court. Hilary Mantel’s novel Bring Up the
Bodies figures Anne Boleyn’s exotic tastes and sexual allure in terms of
wine. The protagonist and narrator, Thomas Cromwell, observes that ‘Henry

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Time, gender, and the mystery of English wine 39

[the VIII] has been adapting his taste to hers. Henry used to enjoy hedge
wines, the fruits of the English summer, but now the wines he favours are
heavy, perfumed, drowsy’—that is French.61 While Mantel has achieved
a cultural prestige rarely afforded to historical fictions about Renaissance
queens, she has surprisingly little to say of interest about Anne Boleyn. But
Mantel suggests that the association of so many English queens with wine-
producing countries—France, Spain—helped to shape both the fashions
for (and distrust of) particular wines.
In the Showtime series The Tudors, Henry serves English wine to the
skeptical French ambassador, reminding him that ‘We’ve been making
wine in England since the Romans’. ‘As late as that?’ the ambassador sneers.
The ambassador’s verdict is that the wine is ‘uh, very fruity […] and strong
like a gladiator sweats’.62 The joke still works for audiences today because
of the assumption that the English still don’t make good wine—although
climate change is giving them an assist—even as it tries to remind viewers
that the English did make wine and that wine consumption and national
pride were inseparable even in the sixteenth century.
The role of wine in the popular vision of the Renaissance extends into
consumer goods, including the ‘wives of Henry VIII wine charms’ one can
find on Etsy. A wine charm is, of course, a way to identify your glass so that
you don’t constantly need a new one or drink from the wrong one. It’s a
way to know your wine from someone else’s. The charm secures a costume
party identification between present and past, frolicsome knower and
object of knowledge: I’m Jane Seymour! It also depends on the partygoer to
recognize the difference between, say, Catherine of Aragon and Catherine
Howard, Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleves. Few could. This technology for
knowing your wine depends, in this case, on knowing your history. But
neither is very stable. Even if you can consistently identify your queen and
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

your glass, that doesn’t mean you know any more about its contents than
Anne Boleyn might have. It’s the not knowing, I have been arguing, that
links us to early modern wine drinkers. Iago reassures Cassio that wine is
a ‘good familiar creature/ if it be well used’ (2.3.283–84). But on this as on
so many other fronts, he is not to be trusted. Cassio and Iago both know
that Cassio responds to wine differently than others do. For him, the cup of
fellowship is ‘unblessed’ and ‘the ingredient is a devil’ (2.3.282). The contents
of the cup vary from drinker to drinker. Wine is also dynamic in the bottle
or in the glass and dynamic over time, so that what is consistently called

61 Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies, p. 94.

62 Hirst, ‘Definition of Love’.

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 40  Fr ances E. Dol an

wine varies considerably. One final early modern proverb is this: ‘Wine
by the barrel, you cannot know’.63 This is the vinous version of ‘You can’t
judge a book by its cover’. Early moderns knew that they could not know.
One can find in historical fiction harbingers of stories other than the
predictable extremes of drunken, randy men and women who are either
villainous or victimized. For example, in Philippa Gregory’s Other Boleyn Girl,
that other Boleyn, Mary, stakes her claim as a domestic goddess who thrives
outside the court when she confides in the reader ‘I made an agreement with
one farmer that if he should get a good crop of grapes then I would ask my
father to send to London for a Frenchman to come on a visit to Hever Castle
and teach the art of winemaking’.64 That glimpse of Mary, overseeing an
experiment in making wine, is the kind of story about women and English
wine I’ve been inviting you to think about—a story for which we have some
evidence but that has not yet captured the popular imagination. But that
is starting to change.
In Deborah Harkness’s All Souls Trilogy, in the second book, Shadow of
Night, largely set in the sixteenth century, there are stolen moments when the
witch Diana Bishop attempts to distill spirit of wine, a concentrate used in
medicine and alchemy, and shares wine with Joanna Kelley, Edward Kelley’s
wife.65 The vibrant intersections of domesticity, the occult, and science, the
strange ways the past picks up signals from and sends out reverberations to
the present, are part of the early modern we know from attending to women
and gender. But it’s not a story we’ve had honored and told back to us all that
often. So far. Perhaps wine will help us to tell more interesting stories about
early modern gender for a popular audience. The surviving evidence about
wine supports more varied and engrossing stories than have dominated
popular depictions of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. That’s
so often true. It’s not just that there are better stories in the archives if we
Copyright © 2018. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

dig for them. It’s also that even the dustiest of archival research depends on
collecting fragments, looking in the margins, and puzzling over blots and
holes. As teachers and scholars, we can follow the lead of the best writers
of historical fiction and exploit gaps in our knowledge as opportunities.
If we have to speculate and elaborate anyway, why not do so in ways that
assign pleasure and agency to women?66

63 Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, W 492.

64 Gregory, Other Boleyn Girl, p. 29.
65 Harkness, Shadow of Night.
66 First, a toast. Merry Wiesner-Hanks’s invitation inspired me to write this essay; she then
guided me as I delivered it as a talk and then turned it into a chapter. Audiences at the Attending
to Early Modern Women conference and at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and

Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
 Time, gender, and the mystery of English wine 41

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Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 —Je présume, reprit le Kaw-djer, que vous ne m’avez pas abordé
pour que nous causions photographie. Venons au fait, je vous prie.
—Soit!... acquiesça le commandant.
D’un geste sec, il remit sa casquette galonnée.
—Mon Gouvernement, dit-il, en adoptant de nouveau le ton
officiel, m’a chargé de m’enquérir de vos intentions.
—Mes intentions?... répéta le Kaw-djer surpris. A quel sujet?
—Au sujet de votre résidence.
—Que lui importe?
—Il lui importe beaucoup.
—Bah!...
—C’est ainsi. Mon Gouvernement n’est pas sans connaître votre
influence sur les indigènes de l’archipel, et il n’a cessé de tenir cette
influence en sérieuse considération.
—Trop aimable!... dit ironiquement le Kaw-djer.
—Tant que la Magellanie est demeurée res nullius, poursuivit le
commandant, il n’y avait qu’à rester dans l’expectative. Mais la
situation a changé de face depuis le partage. Après l’annexion...
 Agrandir
«Je vous écoute,» répondit le Kaw-djer. (Page 179.)

—La spoliation, rectifia le Kaw-djer entre ses dents.

—Vous dites?...
—Rien. Continuez, je vous prie.
—Après l’annexion, reprit le commandant, mon Gouvernement,
soucieux d’asseoir solidement son autorité dans l’archipel, a dû se
demander quelle attitude il convenait d’adopter à votre égard. Cette
attitude dépendra forcément de la vôtre. Ma mission consiste donc à
m’enquérir de vos projets. Je vous apporte un traité d’alliance...
—Ou une déclaration de guerre?
—Précisément. Votre influence, que nous ne contestons pas,
nous sera-t-elle hostile, ou la mettrez-vous au service de notre
œuvre de civilisation? Serez-vous notre allié ou notre adversaire? A
vous d’en décider.
—Ni l’un, ni l’autre, dit le Kaw-djer. Un indifférent.
Le commandant hocha la tête d’un air de doute.
—Étant donné votre situation particulière dans l’archipel, dit-il, la
neutralité me paraît d’une application difficile.
—Très facile, au contraire, répliqua le Kaw-djer, pour cette
excellente raison que j’ai quitté la Magellanie sans esprit de retour.
—Vous avez quitté?... Ici, cependant...
—Ici, je suis sur l’île Hoste, terre libre, et je suis résolu à ne pas
retourner dans la partie de l’archipel qui ne l’est plus.
—Vous comptez, par conséquent, vous fixer sur l’île Hoste?
Le Kaw-djer approuva du geste.
—Cela simplifie les choses, en effet, dit le commandant avec
satisfaction. Je puis donc emporter l’assurance que mon
Gouvernement ne vous aura pas contre lui?
—Dites à votre Gouvernement que je l’ignore,» répondit le Kaw-
djer, qui souleva son bonnet et reprit sa marche.
Un instant, le commandant le suivit des yeux. Malgré l’affirmation
de son interlocuteur, il n’était pas convaincu que la ressemblance
qu’il avait cru découvrir fût imaginaire, et cette ressemblance devait
avoir, d’une manière ou d’une autre, quelque chose d’extraordinaire
pour le troubler aussi profondément.
«C’est étrange,» murmurait-il à demi-voix, tandis que, sans
tourner la tête, le Kaw-djer s’éloignait d’un pas tranquille.
 Le commandant n’eut plus l’occasion de vérifier le bien-fondé de
ses soupçons, car le Kaw-djer ne se prêta pas à une seconde
entrevue. Comme s’il eût redouté de donner prétexte à une
investigation quelconque dans sa vie passée, il disparut le soir du
même jour et partit pour une de ses randonnées coutumières à
travers l’île.
Le commandant dut donc se borner à effectuer le déchargement
de son navire, travail qui fut accompli en une semaine.
En dehors de la cargaison généreusement envoyée par le Chili au
profit commun de la nouvelle colonie, le Ribarto apportait également
toute une pacotille pour le compte particulier de l’un des colons, qui
n’était autre qu’Harry Rhodes.
Incapable de s’adonner à des travaux agricoles auxquels son
éducation ne l’avait en aucune façon préparé, Harry Rhodes avait eu
l’idée de se transformer en commerçant importateur. C’est pourquoi,
au moment de la proclamation d’indépendance, alors qu’on était en
droit de prévoir pour la nation naissante une heureuse destinée, il
avait chargé le commandant de l’aviso de lui expédier cette pacotille
quand il en trouverait l’occasion. Celui-ci s’étant fidèlement acquitté
de cette mission, le Ribarto transportait d’ordre et pour compte
d’Harry Rhodes une infinité d’objets divers, de médiocre importance
isolément, mais ayant tous cette qualité d’être de première
nécessité. Fil, aiguilles, épingles, allumettes, chaussures, vêtements,
plumes, crayons, papier à lettres, tabac, et mille autres objets,
constituaient cette pacotille, véritable assortiment de bazar.
Certes, le projet d’Harry Rhodes était des plus raisonnables, ses
choix des plus judicieux. Néanmoins, du train dont allaient les
choses, il était à craindre que son assortiment ne lui restât pour
compte. Rien n’indiquait qu’un courant de transaction dût jamais
s’établir parmi les Hosteliens, qui, en l’absence de toute règle
commune endiguant, limitant, solidarisant les égoïsmes individuels,
n’étaient autre chose qu’un agrégat fortuit de solitaires.
 Harry Rhodes, à en juger par la tournure des événements,
considérait désormais l’échec de son entreprise comme si probable,
qu’il fut tenté de laisser sa pacotille sur le Ribarto, d’y prendre lui-
même passage et de quitter un pays dont il ne semblait pas qu’il y
eût rien à espérer.
Mais où serait-il allé, encombré de ces marchandises hétéroclites,
si précieuses dans une région presque sauvage, et qui deviendraient
sans valeur dans les contrées où elles abondent? Toutes réflexions
faites, il se résolut à patienter encore. Il n’était pas à supposer que
ce bâtiment fût le dernier qui aborderait dans ces parages.
L’occasion se retrouverait donc de quitter l’île Hoste, si la situation
ne s’améliorait pas.
Le déchargement de sa cargaison terminé, le Ribarto leva l’ancre
et reprit la mer. Quelques heures plus tard, comme s’il n’eût attendu
que le départ du navire, le Kaw-djer revenait à la côte.
L’existence antérieure recommença, les uns jardinant ou pêchant,
le Kaw-djer poursuivant la série de ses chasses, la plupart ne faisant
rien et se laissant vivre avec une sérénité que justifiait dans une
certaine mesure l’augmentation du stock de provisions. La
population étant réduite à moins de cent âmes, en y comprenant le
Bourg-Neuf, nom donné d’un consentement général à
l’agglomération groupée autour du Kaw-djer, il y avait des vivres
pour au moins dix-huit mois. Pourquoi, dès lors, se serait-on
inquiété?
Quant à Beauval, il régnait. A vrai dire, c’était à la manière d’un
roi fainéant, et, s’il régnait, il ne gouvernait pas. D’ailleurs, à son
estime, les choses allaient très bien ainsi. Dès les premiers jours de
sa nomination, il avait, par décret, baptisé le campement, qui,
promu au rang de capitale officielle de l’île Hoste, portait depuis le
nom de Libéria; après cet effort, il s’était reposé.
Le don généreux du Gouvernement chilien lui fournit l’occasion
de faire un deuxième acte d’autorité, dont l’important objet fut
l’organisation des plaisirs de son peuple. Sur son ordre, tandis que la
moitié des boissons alcooliques apportées par le Ribarto était mise
en réserve, l’autre moitié fut distribuée aux colons. Le résultat de
cette largesse ne se fit pas attendre. Beaucoup perdirent
immédiatement la raison, et Lazare Ceroni plus que tous les autres.
Tullia et sa fille eurent ainsi à subir de nouveau d’abominables
scènes, dont les éclats se perdirent dans le grondement de la
kermesse qui, pour la seconde fois, secouait tout le campement.
On buvait. On jouait. On dansait aussi, aux sons du violon de
Fritz Gross, que l’alcool avait ressuscité. Les plus sobres faisaient
cercle autour du génial musicien. Le Kaw-djer lui-même ne dédaigna
pas de passer la rivière, attiré par ces chants merveilleux, plus
merveilleux encore d’être uniques dans ces lointaines régions.
Quelques habitants du Bourg-Neuf l’accompagnaient alors, Harry
Rhodes et sa famille qui goûtaient vivement le charme de cette
musique, Halg et Karroly, pour qui elle était une véritable révélation
et qui bayaient littéralement d’admiration. Quant à Dick et Sand, ils
ne manquaient aucune audition et se précipitaient sur la rive droite
dès que le violon se faisait entendre.
A vrai dire, Dick n’allait y chercher qu’une nouvelle occasion de
jeu. Il sautait et dansait à perdre haleine, en respectant plus ou
moins la mesure. Mais il n’en était pas de même de son camarade.
Comme lors des précédentes auditions, Sand se plaçait au premier
rang, et là, les yeux agrandis, la bouche entr’ouverte, frissonnant
d’une profonde émotion, il écoutait de toutes ses forces, sans perdre
une note, jusqu’au moment où la dernière s’envolait dans l’espace.
Son attitude recueillie finit par frapper le Kaw-djer.
«Tu aimes donc ça, la musique, mon garçon? lui demanda-t-il un
jour.
—Oh!... Monsieur!... soupira Sand.
Il ajouta d’un air extasié:
—Jouer... jouer du violon, comme M. Gross!...
 —Vraiment!... fit le Kaw-djer, amusé par l’ardeur du petit garçon,
ça t’amuserait tant que ça?... Eh bien! mais on pourra peut-être te
satisfaire.
Sand le regarda d’un air incrédule.
—Pourquoi pas? reprit le Kaw-djer. A la première occasion, je
m’occuperai de te faire venir un violon.
—Vrai, Monsieur?... dit Sand les yeux brillants de bonheur.
—Je te le promets, mon garçon, affirma le Kaw-djer. Par exemple,
il te faudra patienter!»
Sans pousser la passion musicale au même point que le jeune
mousse, les autres émigrants semblaient prendre plaisir à ces
concerts. C’était une distraction qui interrompait la monotonie de
leur existence.
Cet indéniable succès de Fritz Gross donna une idée à Ferdinand
Beauval. Deux fois par semaine régulièrement, une ration fut
prélevée au profit du musicien sur la réserve de liqueurs alcooliques,
et, deux fois par semaine, Libéria eut par conséquent son concert, à
l’exemple de tant d’autres villes plus policées.
Le baptême de la capitale et l’organisation de ses plaisirs
suffirent à épuiser les facultés organisatrices de Ferdinand Beauval.
Au surplus, il avait tendance, en constatant la satisfaction générale,
à s’admirer complaisamment dans son œuvre. Des souvenirs
classiques s’évoquaient dans sa mémoire. Panem et circences,
demandaient les Romains. Lui, Beauval, n’avait-il pas satisfait à cette
antique revendication? Le pain, le Ribarto l’avait assuré, et les
récoltes futures feraient le reste. Les plaisirs, le violon de Fritz Gross
les représentait, en admettant que tout ne fût pas plaisir dans ce
farniente perpétuel, au milieu duquel s’écoulait l’existence de la
fraction de la colonie qui avait le bonheur de vivre sous l’autorité
immédiate du Gouverneur.
Le mois de février, puis le mois de mars s’écoulèrent, sans que
fût troublé l’optimisme de celui-ci. Quelques discussions, voire
quelques rixes troublaient bien parfois la paix de Libéria. Mais
c’étaient là des incidents sans importance sur lesquels Beauval
estimait très politique de fermer les yeux.
Les derniers jours du mois de mars amenèrent malheureusement
la fin de sa quiétude. Le premier incident qui la troubla et fut comme
le prélude des dramatiques péripéties qui n’allaient pas tarder à se
dérouler, n’avait par lui-même aucune importance. Il ne s’agissait
encore que d’une altercation, mais cette altercation, en raison de
son caractère et de ses conséquences, ne parut pas à Beauval devoir
comporter une solution pacifique, et il jugea nécessaire de sortir de
son habile effacement. Mal lui en prit, d’ailleurs, et son intervention
eut un résultat sur lequel il ne comptait guère.
Halg fut, à son corps défendant, le héros de cet incident.
Après la bataille inégale qu’il avait été obligé de soutenir contre
Sirk et les quatre émigrants qui accompagnaient celui-ci, plusieurs
semaines s’étaient écoulées sans qu’il revît son rival. Par crainte
probablement d’une intervention plus efficace du Kaw-djer, ses
agresseurs avaient, depuis lors, cessé de prétendre au produit de sa
pêche. Bientôt, d’ailleurs, l’arrivée du Ribarto mit tout le monde
d’accord. Qu’importaient quelques poissons de plus ou de moins,
maintenant que les provisions étaient devenues si abondantes qu’on
pouvait à bon droit les considérer comme inépuisables?
Malheureusement, la cargaison du Ribarto n’était pas
exclusivement formée de denrées alimentaires. Le navire contenait
aussi une certaine quantité d’alcool, et, Beauval ayant commis
l’imprudence de le distribuer, le pernicieux breuvage avait aussitôt
porté le trouble dans le campement.
Chez les Ceroni, les choses prirent tout particulièrement une
mauvaise tournure. Les drames incessants qu’y provoqua l’ivresse de
Lazare Ceroni eurent pour conséquence d’accentuer l’aversion que
Sirk et Halg éprouvaient l’un pour l’autre. Alors que le second
s’érigeait en défenseur de Tullia et de sa fille, le premier semblait
flatter le vice du misérable époux et du père indigne. Cette attitude
de Sirk emplissait de colère le cœur du jeune Indien, qui ne pouvait
pardonner à son rival les larmes de Graziella.
L’épuisement de l’alcool distribué ne ramena pas le calme. Grâce
à son intimité avec Ferdinand Beauval, Sirk, reprenant pour son
compte la méthode de Patterson, parvint à renouveler la provision
de Lazare Ceroni, dont il espérait capter ainsi la bienveillance.
Le procédé, qui avait réussi une première fois, réussissait une
seconde. L’ivrogne prenait ouvertement parti pour celui qui favorisait
sa déplorable passion et se déclarait son allié. Bientôt il n’appela plus
Sirk autrement que son gendre, en jurant qu’il saurait briser la
résistance de Graziella.
La jeune fille évitait de mettre Halg au courant de la contrainte
contre laquelle il lui fallait lutter, mais celui-ci la devinait en partie,
et, conscient du jeu de Sirk, sa haine croissait de jour en jour.
Les choses en étaient là, quand, dans la matinée du 29 mars,
Halg, au moment où il venait de traverser le ponceau pour se rendre
sur la rive droite, aperçut, à cent mètres de lui, Graziella, qui,
échevelée, courant à perdre haleine, semblait fuir quelque danger
redoutable.
Elle fuyait, en effet, et un redoutable danger, car, à cinquante pas
derrière elle, Sirk la poursuivait de toute la vitesse de ses jambes.
«Halg!... Halg!... A moi!...» appela Graziella, dès qu’elle vit le
jeune Indien.
Celui-ci, s’élançant à son secours, barra la route au poursuivant.
Mais Sirk dédaignait un si frêle adversaire. Après un court arrêt, il
reprit son élan et, poussant un sourd ricanement, se précipita tête
baissée.
L’événement lui prouva bientôt sa présomption. Si Halg était
jeune, il devait à sa vie sauvage une adresse de singe et des
muscles d’acier. Quand l’ennemi fut à portée, ses deux bras se
détendirent ensemble comme des ressorts, et ses deux poings
l’atteignirent à la fois au visage et à la poitrine. Sirk, assommé,
s’écroula.
Les jeunes gens s’empressèrent de battre en retraite et de
rechercher un refuge sur la rive gauche, poursuivis par les
vociférations du vaincu, qui, ayant péniblement retrouvé le souffle,
les couvrait des plus effroyables menaces.
Sans lui répondre, Halg et Graziella allèrent en droite ligne
trouver le Kaw-djer que la jeune fille aborda en suppliante.
L’existence était devenue intolérable pour elle sur l’autre rive.
Autant qu’elle l’avait pu, elle avait caché ses misères, mais celles-ci
en arrivaient à un point où mieux valait tout dire. Ce matin même,
Sirk s’était enhardi jusqu’à la violence. Il l’avait malmenée, frappée,
malgré l’intervention de l’impuissante Tullia, tandis que Lazare
Ceroni—chose affreuse à dire!—semblait au contraire l’encourager.
Graziella avait enfin réussi à prendre la fuite, mais nul ne sait quelle
aurait été la fin de l’aventure, si Halg n’en avait pas brusqué le
dénouement.
Le Kaw-djer avait écouté ce récit avec son calme habituel.
«Et maintenant, demanda-t-il, que comptez-vous faire, mon
enfant?
—Rester près de vous!... s’écria Graziella. Accordez-moi votre
protection, je vous en supplie!
—Elle vous est assurée, affirma le Kaw-djer. Quant à rester ici,
cela vous regarde; chacun est libre de soi-même. Tout au plus me
permettrai-je de vous donner un conseil pour le choix de votre
demeure. Si vous m’en croyez, vous demanderez l’hospitalité à la
famille Rhodes, qui vous l’accordera certainement à ma prière.»
Cette sage solution ne se heurta, en effet, à aucune difficulté. La
fugitive fut reçue à bras ouverts par la famille Rhodes, et
spécialement par Clary, heureuse d’avoir une compagne de son âge.
Un souci torturait, cependant, le cœur de Graziella. Qu’allait
devenir sa mère dans l’enfer où elle l’avait abandonnée? Le Kaw-djer
la rassura. Sur l’heure, il irait inviter Tullia à rejoindre sa fille.

Agrandir
 Les jeunes gens s’empressèrent de battre en retraite... (Page 188.)

Disons tout de suite qu’il devait échouer dans sa charitable

mission. Tout en approuvant le départ de Graziella et en
s’applaudissant de la savoir en sûreté sur l’autre rive sous la
protection d’une famille honorable, Tullia se refusa obstinément à
quitter son mari. La tâche qu’elle avait accepté d’accomplir, elle
l’accomplirait jusqu’au bout. Cette tâche, c’était d’accompagner sur
la route de la vie, quoiqu’elle en dût souffrir, et dût-elle en mourir,
cet homme qui, en ce moment même, cuvait, masse inerte, sa
première ivresse de la journée.
En rapportant cette réponse, à laquelle il s’attendait, d’ailleurs, le
Kaw-djer trouva, près de Graziella, Ferdinand Beauval, soutenant
contre Harry Rhodes une discussion qui commençait à tourner à
l’aigre.
«Qu’y a-t-il? demanda le Kaw-djer.
—Il y a, répondit Harry Rhodes irrité, que Monsieur se permet de
venir réclamer jusque chez moi Graziella, qu’il prétend ramener à
son délicieux père.
—En quoi les affaires de la famille Ceroni regardent-elles M.
Beauval? interrogea le Kaw-djer d’un ton où grondait un
commencement d’orage.
—Tout ce qui se passe dans la colonie regarde le Gouverneur,
expliqua Beauval, en s’efforçant de se hausser, par l’attitude et
l’accent, à la dignité qui convenait à cette fonction.
—Or, le Gouverneur?...
—C’est moi.
—Ah! Ah!... fit le Kaw-djer.
—J’ai été saisi d’une plainte... commença Beauval sans relever la
menaçante ironie de l’interruption.
 —Par Sirk! dit Halg, qui n’ignorait pas les accointances des deux
personnages.
—Nullement, rectifia Beauval, par le père, par Lazare Ceroni, lui-
même.
—Bah!... objecta le Kaw-djer. C’est donc que Lazare Ceroni parle
en dormant?... Car il dort. Il ronfle même en ce moment.
—Vos railleries n’empêcheront pas qu’un crime ait été commis sur
le territoire de la colonie, répliqua Beauval d’un ton rogue.
—Un crime?... Voyez-vous ça!...
—Oui, un crime. Une jeune fille encore mineure a été arrachée à
sa famille. Un tel acte est qualifié crime dans la loi de tous les pays.
—Il y a donc des lois à l’île Hoste? demanda le Kaw-djer, dont les
yeux, à ce mot de loi, eurent des éclairs inquiétants. De qui
émanent-elles donc, ces lois?
—De moi, répondit Beauval d’un air superbe, de moi qui
représente les colons et qui, à ce titre, ai droit à l’obéissance de
tous.
—Comment avez-vous dit?... s’écria le Kaw-djer. Obéissance, je
crois?... Parbleu, voici ma réponse: Sur l’île Hoste, terre libre, nul ne
doit obéissance à personne. Libre, Graziella est venue ici, et libre elle
y restera, si telle est sa volonté...
—Mais... tenta de placer Beauval.
—Il n’y a pas de mais. Qui se risquera à parler d’obéissance me
trouvera contre lui.
—C’est ce que nous verrons, riposta Beauval. Respect est dû à la
loi, et dussé-je recourir à la force...
—La force!... s’écria le Kaw-djer. Essayez-en donc! En attendant
je vous conseille de ne pas lasser ma patience et de regagner votre
capitale, si vous désirez n’y pas être reconduit trop vite.
 L’aspect du Kaw-djer était si peu rassurant, que Beauval jugea
prudent de ne pas insister; il battit en retraite, suivi à vingt pas par
le Kaw-djer, Harry Rhodes, Hartlepool et Karroly.
Quand il fut en sûreté de l’autre côté de la rivière, il se retourna
menaçant:
—Nous nous reverrons!» cria-t-il.
Si peu redoutable que fût la colère de Beauval, il y avait lieu
pourtant d’en tenir compte dans une certaine mesure. L’orgueil
meurtri peut donner du cœur au plus lâche, et il n’était pas
impossible qu’il se risquât, avec la complicité de ses clients
ordinaires, à quelque coup de main, en profitant de l’obscurité de la
nuit.
Heureusement, il était facile de parer à ce danger. Beauval, en se
retournant de nouveau cent pas plus loin, put voir Hartlepool et
Karroly en train d’enlever le tablier du ponceau qui reliait les deux
rives. La flottille étant tout entière à l’ancre dans l’anse du Bourg-
Neuf, les communications étaient ainsi coupées avec Libéria, et une
surprise devenait irréalisable.
En comprenant à quel travail se livraient ses adversaires,
Beauval, furieux, montra le poing.
Le Kaw-djer se contenta de hausser les épaules, et, l’une après
l’autre, les planches du tablier continuèrent à tomber. Bientôt, il ne
subsista que les madriers formant les piles, contre lesquels bruissait
l’eau de la rivière séparant désormais les deux campements
adverses.
Ainsi se manifestait une fois de plus la nature combative des
humains. En acceptant dans leur cœur la possibilité d’un recours à la
guerre, en y préludant, de la manière que l’usage a consacrée, par la
rupture des relations diplomatiques, ces habitants de deux hameaux
perdus aux confins du monde habitable prouvaient que les citoyens
des grands empires ne sont pas les seuls à mériter le nom
d’hommes.
 IX
LE DEUXIÈME HIVER.

Lorsque le mois d’avril ramena l’hiver avec lui, aucun fait

nouveau de quelque importance n’avait jalonné la vie poignante et
monotone des habitants de Libéria. Tant que la température fut
clémente, ils se laissèrent vivre sans souci de l’avenir, et les troubles
atmosphériques dont s’accompagne l’équinoxe les surprirent en plein
rêve. Par exemple, aux premiers souffles des bourrasques
hivernales, Libéria parut se dépeupler. De même que l’année
précédente, on se calfeutra au fond des maisons closes.
Au Bourg-Neuf, l’existence n’était pas beaucoup plus active, les
travaux de plein air, et notamment la pêche, étant devenus
impraticables. Dès le début du mauvais temps, le poisson avait fui
dans le Nord vers les eaux moins froides du détroit de Magellan. Les
pêcheurs laissaient donc à l’ancre leurs barques inutiles. Qu’en
eussent-ils fait d’ailleurs au milieu des eaux soulevées par le vent?
Après la tempête, ce fut la neige. Puis un rayon de soleil,
amenant le dégel, transforma le sol en marécage. Puis ce fut la
neige encore.
Dans tous les cas, quand bien même le tablier du ponceau fût
resté en place, les communications eussent été malaisées entre la
capitale et son faubourg, et Beauval eût été bien empêché de mettre
ses menaces à exécution. Mais ne les avait-il pas oubliées? Depuis
qu’on l’avait si vertement expulsé de la rive gauche, elles étaient
restées lettre morte, et désormais de plus graves et plus pressants
soucis l’accablaient, au regard desquels le souvenir de l’injure reçue
devait singulièrement décroître d’importance.
 Réduite à presque rien après la proclamation de l’indépendance,
la population de Libéria avait maintenant tendance à s’accroître.
Ceux des émigrants partis dans l’intérieur de l’île qui, pour un motif
ou pour un autre, n’avaient pas réussi dans leurs essais de
colonisation, refluaient vers la côte à l’approche de la mauvaise
saison, et ils y apportaient avec eux des germes de misère et de
troubles que Beauval n’avait pas prévus.
Ce n’est pas qu’il fût menacé personnellement. Ainsi qu’il l’avait
supposé avec raison, on acceptait sans difficulté le fait accompli.
Personne ne manifestait la moindre surprise de le trouver promu à la
dignité de Gouverneur. Ces pauvres gens avaient, de naissance,
l’habitude d’être les inférieurs de tout le monde, et rien ne leur
semblait plus normal qu’un de leurs semblables s’attribuât le droit de
les régenter. Il y a d’inéluctables nécessités contre lesquelles il serait
fou de s’insurger. Qu’ils fussent petits et qu’il existât des grands,
qu’on les commandât et qu’ils obéissent, cela était dans l’ordre
naturel des choses.
Par exemple, la puissance du maître n’allait pas sans des
obligations symétriques. A celui qui s’élevait au-dessus de tous
incombait le devoir d’assurer la vie de tous. Pour eux l’humble
docilité, mais à la condition que leur pitance fût assurée. A lui l’éclat
du pouvoir, mais à la condition qu’il prit toutes les initiatives, qu’il
assumât toutes les responsabilités, que la foule, malléable tant
qu’elle est satisfaite, saurait bien rendre effectives, du jour où les
ventres crieraient famine.
Or, l’accroissement inattendu des bouches à nourrir tendait à
rendre cette échéance plus prochaine.
Ce fut le 15 avril qu’on vit revenir le premier de ces émigrants qui
se reconnaissaient vaincus dans leur lutte contre la nature. Il
apparut vers la fin du jour, traînant avec lui sa femme et ses quatre
enfants. Triste caravane! La femme, hâve, amaigrie, vêtue d’une
jupe en lambeaux, les enfants, deux filles et deux garçons, dont le
dernier avait cinq ans à peine, s’accrochant, presque nus, à la robe
de leur mère. En avant, le père, marchant seul, l’air las et
découragé.
On s’empressa autour d’eux. On les accabla de questions.
L’homme, tout ragaillardi de se retrouver parmi d’autres hommes,
raconta brièvement son histoire. Parti l’un des derniers, il avait dû
longtemps cheminer avant de rencontrer de la terre sans maître.
C’est seulement dans la deuxième quinzaine de décembre qu’il y
était parvenu et qu’il s’était mis à l’œuvre. En premier lieu, il avait
bâti sa demeure. Très mal outillé, livré à ses seules forces, il avait eu
grand mal à mener son entreprise à bonne fin, d’autant plus que son
ignorance de la construction lui fit commettre plusieurs erreurs qui
se traduisirent par une augmentation de la durée du travail.
Après six semaines d’efforts ininterrompus, ayant enfin terminé
une grossière cabane, il avait entrepris le défrichement.
Malheureusement, sa mauvaise étoile l’avait conduit sur un sol lourd
et sillonné d’un inextricable réseau de racines dans lequel la pioche
et la bêche avaient peine à se frayer passage. Malgré son labeur
acharné, la surface préparée pour l’ensemencement était
insignifiante, lorsque l’hiver fit son apparition.
Toute culture étant ainsi arrêtée net, dans un moment où il ne
pouvait encore espérer la moindre récolte, et les vivres, d’autre part,
commençant à lui manquer, il avait dû se résigner à abandonner sur
place ses quelques outils et ses inutiles semences, et à refaire en
sens inverse le long chemin parcouru quatre mois plus tôt d’un cœur
joyeux. Dix jours durant, sa famille et lui s’étaient traînés à travers
l’île, se terrant sous la neige pendant les tourmentes, marchant avec
de la boue jusqu’aux genoux quand la température devenait plus
douce, pour arriver finalement à la côte, harassés, épuisés, affamés.
Beauval s’occupa de soulager ces pauvres gens. Par ses soins,
une des maisons démontables leur fut attribuée, et on leur donna
des vivres sur lesquels ils se jetèrent goulûment. Cela fait, il
considéra l’incident comme résolu de satisfaisante façon.
 Les jours suivants le détrompèrent. Il ne s’en passait plus que
l’un ou l’autre des émigrants partis au printemps ne regagnât la
côte, ceux-ci seuls, ceux-là ramenant avec eux femmes et enfants,
mais tous pareillement déguenillés et pareillement affamés.
Certaines familles revenaient moins nombreuses qu’elles n’étaient
parties. Où étaient les manquants? Morts sans doute. Et sans doute,
aussi, la théorie lamentable des survivants continuait à s’égrener à
travers l’île, tous convergeant vers le même point: Libéria, où leur
flux ininterrompu ne tarderait pas à poser le plus effrayant des
problèmes.
 Agrandir
Sur l’autre berge, une centaine d’hommes...
(Page 199.)

Vers le 15 juin, plus de trois cents colons étaient venus grossir la

population de la capitale. Jusque-là, Beauval avait pu suffire à la
tâche. Chacun, grâce à lui, avait trouvé refuge dans les maisons
démontables où l’on s’entassait comme autrefois. Mais quelques-
unes de ces maisons ayant été transportées sur la rive gauche où
elles formaient désormais le Bourg-Neuf, d’autres ayant été détruites
avec imprévoyance, certaines ayant été réunies en une seule plus
vaste que Beauval appelait pompeusement son «Palais», la place
alors commença à manquer, et il fallut de nouveau recourir aux
tentes.
Mais la question des vivres dominait toutes les autres. Cette
multitude de bouches avides diminuaient rapidement les provisions
apportées par le Ribarto. Alors qu’on pensait avoir la vie assurée
pour une année et plus, on ne pourrait même pas, du train dont
allaient les choses, atteindre le printemps. Beauval eut la sagesse de
le comprendre et, faisant enfin acte de chef, rendit un décret par
lequel il rationnait sévèrement la population croissante.
Il fut débordé. On ne tenait aucun compte d’un décret qu’on
savait être dénué de sanction. Afin de le faire respecter, force lui fut
de recruter parmi ses plus chauds partisans une vingtaine de
volontaires qui montèrent la garde autour des provisions, comme
l’avaient jadis montée l’équipage du Jonathan. Cette mesure excita
des murmures, mais Beauval fut obéi.
Celui-ci croyait en avoir fini avec les difficultés de la situation ou
du moins avoir reculé les mauvais jours autant que cela était
humainement possible, quand d’autres catastrophes fondirent sur
Libéria.
Tous ces vaincus, qui refluaient vers la mer, y revenaient
moralement déprimés, affaiblis physiquement tant par le climat que
par les privations et les fatigues de la route. Ce qui devait arriver
arriva. Une violente épidémie se déclara. La maladie et la mort firent
rage dans cette population débilitée.
L’excès de leur détresse ramena vers le Kaw-djer la pensée de
ces malheureux. Jusqu’au milieu du mois de juin, ils ne s’étaient pas
inquiétés de son absence. On oublie facilement des bienfaits passés,
qu’on ne s’estime pas dans le cas de recevoir dans l’avenir. Mais la
misère où ils étaient réduits les fit songer à celui qui tant de fois déjà
les avait secourus. Pourquoi les abandonnait-il, à cette heure où tant
de maux les accablaient? Quels que fussent les motifs de la scission
survenue entre le campement principal et son annexe, combien ces
motifs leur paraissaient légers en regard de leurs souffrances! Et peu
à peu, plus nombreux de jour en jour, les regards se tendirent vers
le Bourg-Neuf, dont les toits perçaient la neige sur l’autre rive.
Un jour,—on était alors au 10 juillet,—le Kaw-djer occupait son
temps, une brume épaisse le retenant chez lui, à réparer une de ses
blouses en peau de guanaque, quand il crut entendre une voix qui le
hélait au loin. Il prêta l’oreille. Un instant plus tard, un nouvel appel
parvenait jusqu’à lui.
Le Kaw-djer sortit sur le seuil de sa maison.
Il faisait ce jour-là un temps de dégel. Sous l’influence d’une
humide brise de l’Ouest, la neige avait fondu. Devant lui, c’était un
lac de boue, au-dessus duquel traînaient des vapeurs, brumailles en
bas, en haut nuages, qui, les uns après les autres, se déversaient en
cataractes sur le sol détrempé. Impuissant à percer le brouillard, le
regard à cent pas ne distinguait plus rien. Au delà, tout disparaissait
dans un mystère. On n’apercevait même pas la mer, qui, abritée par
la côte, battait le rivage de vagues paresseuses et comme alanguies
par la tristesse générale des choses.
«Kaw-djer!...» appela la voix dans la brume.
Presque étouffée par l’éloignement, cette voix, venue du côté de
la rivière, arrivait au Kaw-djer comme une plainte.
Celui-ci se hâta et bientôt il atteignit la rive. Spectacle pitoyable!
Sur l’autre berge, séparés de lui par l’eau rapide que la destruction
du pont rendait infranchissable, une centaine d’hommes se
traînaient. Des hommes? Des spectres plutôt, ces êtres décharnés,
en haillons. Dès qu’ils aperçurent celui qui incarnait leur espoir, ils se
redressèrent à la fois et, d’un même mouvement, tendirent vers lui
leurs bras suppliants.
«Kaw-djer!... appelaient-ils à l’unisson. Kaw-djer!...»
Celui dont ils réclamaient ainsi le secours frémit dans tout son
être. Quelle catastrophe s’était donc abattue sur Libéria pour que ses
habitants fussent réduits à un si affreux dénuement?
 Le Kaw-djer, ayant du geste encouragé ces malheureux, appela à
son aide. En moins d’une heure, Halg, Hartlepool et Karroly eurent
rétabli le tablier du ponceau et il passa sur la rive droite. Aussitôt un
cercle de visages anxieux l’entoura. Leur aspect eût troublé le cœur
le plus dur. Quelles fièvres brûlaient dans ces yeux caves! Mais une
sorte de joie les illuminait maintenant. Le bienfaiteur, le sauveur était
là. Et les pauvres hères entouraient le Kaw-djer, ils se pressaient
contre lui, ils touchaient ses vêtements, tandis que dans les gorges
contractées gloussaient comme des rires de confiance et de joie.
Le Kaw-djer ému regardait, écoutait en silence. Ils lui disaient
leur misère. Ceux-ci, venus là pour eux-mêmes, lui expliquaient le
mal qui les tenaillait, ceux-là imploraient pour le salut d’êtres chers,
femmes ou enfants, qui agonisaient au même instant à Libéria.
Le Kaw-djer prêta patiemment l’oreille aux plaintes, car il savait
qu’une bonté compatissante est le plus puissant des remèdes, puis il
leur répondit collectivement. Chacun devait rentrer chez soi. Il irait
voir tout le monde. Personne ne serait oublié.
On lui obéit avec empressement. Dociles comme de petits
enfants, tous reprirent la route du campement.
Les réconfortant, les soutenant de la parole et du geste, trouvant
pour chacun le mot qu’il fallait, le Kaw-djer les accompagna et
s’engagea avec eux entre les demeures éparses. Quel changement
depuis qu’on les avait édifiées! Tout trahissait le désordre et l’incurie.
Une année avait suffi pour transformer en maisons vétustes ces
constructions fragiles qui s’effritaient déjà. Quelques-unes
semblaient inhabitées. La plupart, en tous cas, étaient closes, et
rien, sauf les amas d’immondices qui les entouraient, ne révélait
qu’elles fussent habitées. Cependant, sur le pas des portes,
apparaissaient de rares colons, que l’expression sombre des visages
disait accablés par l’ennui et par le découragement.
Le Kaw-djer passa devant le «palais» du Gouvernement, où, pour
le suivre des yeux, Beauval entr’ouvrit une fenêtre. D’ailleurs, celui-ci
ne donna pas autrement signe de vie. Quelle que fût sa rancune, il
comprenait sans doute que ce n’était pas le moment de la satisfaire.
Personne n’eût toléré un acte d’hostilité contre celui dont on
attendait le salut.
Au surplus, Beauval, dans son for intérieur, n’était pas loin de
s’applaudir de cette intervention du Kaw-djer. Lui aussi, il en
attendait quelque secours. Gouverner est agréable et facile quand
les jours heureux succèdent aux jours heureux. Mais il en allait
maintenant d’autre sorte, et le chef d’un peuple de moribonds ne
pouvait trouver mauvais qu’un autre l’aidât bénévolement à soutenir
le poids d’une autorité devenue bien lourde, mais qu’il se réservait in
petto de reconquérir dans son intégralité, lorsque les destins seraient
favorables.
Nul ne s’opposa donc à ce que le Kaw-djer accomplît sa mission
charitable, et son œuvre de dévouement ne rencontra aucun
obstacle. Quelle vie fut la sienne à partir de ce jour! Dès les
premières heures du matin, par tous les temps, il passait la rivière et
se rendait du Bourg-Neuf à Libéria. Là, jusqu’au soir, il allait de
maison en maison, se penchait sur les grabats sordides, respirait les
haleines enfiévrées, distribuait sans se lasser soins médicaux et
paroles d’espoir ou de consolation.
La mort avait beau s’acharner à frapper, sa clientèle de miséreux
n’en était pas diminuée. De nouveaux émigrants, revenant de
l’intérieur, bouchaient perpétuellement les vides. Sans cesse, il en
arrivait, dans un état d’épuisement d’autant plus accentué que ceux-
ci avaient résisté plus longtemps.
Quels que fussent sa science et son dévouement, le Kaw-djer ne
pouvait dominer la fatalité des choses. En vain, il luttait pied à pied
contre la tombe avide, les décès se multipliaient dans Libéria
décimée.
Il vivait au milieu des tristesses. Femmes et maris à jamais
séparés, mères pleurant leurs enfants morts, autour de lui ce n’était
que gémissements et que larmes. Rien ne lassait son courage.
Quand le médecin devait se déclarer vaincu, le rôle du consolateur
commençait.
Parfois aussi, et c’était alors plus triste encore peut-être, nul
n’avait besoin de ses consolations, et le défunt, solitaire jusque dans
la mort, ne laissait derrière lui personne qui le pleurât. Cela n’était
point rare, dans cette réunion d’émigrants, épaves dispersées par les
houles de la vie.
Un matin, notamment, comme il arrivait au campement, on
l’appela près d’une masse informe d’où un râle s’élevait. C’était un
homme, en effet, que cette masse informe à force d’énormité, un
homme que le sort avait catalogué sous le nom de Fritz Gross dans
la liste infinie des passants de la terre.
Un quart d’heure plus tôt, au moment où, au sortir du sommeil, il
s’exposait au froid du dehors, le musicien avait été foudroyé. Il avait
fallu se mettre à dix pour le traîner jusqu’au coin dans lequel il
agonisait. Au visage violacé, à la respiration courte et rauque du
malade, le Kaw-djer diagnostiqua une congestion pulmonaire, et un
bref examen le convainquit qu’aucune médication ne pourrait
l’enrayer dans cet organisme ravagé par l’alcool.
L’événement vérifia son pronostic. Quand il revint, Fritz Gross
n’était plus de ce monde. Son grand corps déjà froid gisait à même
le sol, saisi par l’immobilité éternelle, et ses yeux étaient désormais
fermés aux choses d’ici-bas.
Mais une particularité attira l’attention du Kaw-djer. Un instant de
lucidité avait traversé, sans doute, l’agonie du défunt, lui rendant
pendant la durée d’un éclair la conscience du génie qui allait périr
avec lui et, peut-être aussi, du mauvais usage qu’il en avait fait.
Avant d’expirer, il avait pensé à dire adieu à la seule chose qu’il eût
aimée sur la terre. En tâtonnant, il avait cherché son violon, afin de
pouvoir étreindre, au moment du grand départ, l’instrument
merveilleux qui reposait maintenant sur son cœur, abandonné par la
main défaillante qui l’y avait placé.
 Le Kaw-djer prit ce violon d’où tant de chants divins s’étaient
envolés et qui n’appartenait plus désormais à personne, puis, de
retour au Bourg-Neuf, il se dirigea vers la maison occupée par
Hartlepool et les deux mousses.
«Sand!... appela-t-il, en ouvrant la porte.
L’enfant accourut.
—Je t’avais promis un violon, mon garçon, dit le Kaw-djer. Le
voici.
Sand, tout pâle de surprise et de joie, prit l’instrument d’une
main tremblante.
—Et c’est un violon qui sait la musique! ajouta le Kaw-djer, car
c’est celui de Fritz Gross.
—Alors..., balbutia Sand, M. Gross... veut bien...
—Il est mort, expliqua le Kaw-djer.
—Ça fait un ivrogne de moins,» déclara froidement Hartlepool.
Telle fut l’oraison funèbre de Fritz Gross.
Quelques jours après, un autre décès, celui de Lazare Ceroni,
toucha plus directement le Kaw-djer. La disparition du père de
Graziella ne pouvait, en effet, que favoriser l’accomplissement des
rêves de Halg. Tullia n’appela à son aide que lorsqu’il était trop tard
pour intervenir avec quelque chance de succès. Dans son ignorance,
elle avait laissé la maladie se développer librement, sans concevoir
d’inquiétudes plus vives que de coutume. Savoir que celui à qui elle
avait tout sacrifié était irrémédiablement perdu fut pour elle un
véritable coup de foudre.
D’ailleurs, l’intervention du Kaw-djer, eût-elle été moins tardive,
fût pareillement restée inefficace. Le mal de Lazare Ceroni était de
ceux qui ne pardonnent pas. Juste conséquence de sa longue
intempérance, la phtisie galopante allait l’emporter en huit jours.
 Agrandir
«Je t’avais promis un violon, mon garçon, le voici.»
(Page 202.)

Quand tout fut terminé, quand le mort fut rendu à la terre, le

Kaw-djer n’abandonna pas la malheureuse Tullia. Prostrée, accablée,
elle semblait à son tour sur le bord de la tombe. Des années et des
années au milieu des pires douleurs, elle n’avait vécu que pour
aimer, aimer malgré tout celui qui l’abandonnait à mi-côte du
calvaire de la vie. Le ressort qui l’avait soutenue étant maintenant
brisé, elle s’affaissait, lasse de son inutile effort.
Le Kaw-djer emmena la pauvre femme au Bourg-Neuf, près de
Graziella. S’il existait un remède capable de guérir ce cœur déchiré,
l’amour maternel accomplirait le miracle.
Inerte, à demi-inconsciente, Tullia se laissa conduire et, chargée
de ses humbles richesses, quitta docilement sa maison.
Dans cet état de profond anéantissement, comment eût-elle
aperçu Sirk, qu’elle croisa au moment d’atteindre le ponceau
réunissant les deux rives?
Le Kaw-djer ne l’aperçut pas davantage. Ignorants de la
rencontre, tout deux passèrent en silence.
Mais Sirk les avait vus, lui, et s’était arrêté sur place, le visage
pâli par une soudaine fureur. Lazare Ceroni mort, Graziella réfugiée
au Bourg-Neuf, Tullia allant s’y fixer à son tour, c’était, il le
comprenait, la ruine définitive de ses projets si âprement poursuivis.
Longtemps, il suivit des yeux cet homme et cette femme qui
s’éloignaient côte à côte. Si le Kaw-djer s’était retourné, il aurait
surpris ce regard et peut-être, malgré son courage, eût-il alors
connu la peur.

X
D U SA N G .

Le défilé de ceux qui venaient se réfugier à Libéria dura

interminablement. Pendant tout l’hiver, il en arriva chaque jour. L’île
Hoste semblait être un réservoir inépuisable, et on eût dit vraiment
qu’elle rendait plus de misérables qu’elle n’en avait reçu. Ce fut au
début de juillet que le flot atteignit son maximum, puis il se ralentit
de jour en jour, pour cesser définitivement le 29 septembre.
Ce jour-là, on vit encore un émigrant descendre des hauteurs et
se traîner péniblement jusqu’au campement. A demi-nu, d’une
maigreur de squelette, il était dans un état lamentable. Il s’affaissa
en arrivant aux premières maisons.
Pareille aventure était trop ordinaire pour qu’on s’émût outre
mesure. On releva le malheureux, on le réconforta, et l’on ne
s’occupa plus de lui.
La source, à partir de ce moment, fut tarie. Qu’en fallait-il
inférer? Que ceux dont on était sans nouvelles avaient eu meilleure
fortune, ou bien qu’ils étaient morts?
Plus de sept cent cinquante colons étaient alors revenus à la
côte, au dernier degré, pour la plupart, de la dégradation physique
et de l’affaissement moral. Ces organismes affaiblis offraient aux
maladies le meilleur des terrains, et le Kaw-djer se surmenait à lutter
contre elles. A mesure que l’hiver avançait, les décès se
multipliaient. C’était une véritable hécatombe. Hommes, femmes et
enfants, jeunes et vieux, la mort les frappait tous indistinctement.
Mais elle avait beau supprimer tant de bouches voraces, il en
restait trop encore pour que les provisions du Ribarto fussent
suffisantes. Quand Beauval s’était résolu, bien tardivement déjà, à
rationner ses administrés, il ne pouvait prévoir que leur nombre
augmenterait dans de telles proportions et, lorsqu’il connut son
erreur et voulut la réparer, il n’était plus temps. Le mal était fait. Le
25 septembre, le magasin des provisions distribua ses derniers
biscuits, et la foule épouvantée vit se lever le hideux spectre de la
faim.
Par la faim, la faim qui déchire les entrailles, la faim qui ronge, et
tord, et vrille, telle était la mort dont allaient cruellement, lentement,
—si lentement!—périr les naufragés du Jonathan!
 Sa première victime fut Blaker. Il mourut le troisième jour dans
des souffrances atroces, malgré les soins du Kaw-djer que l’on
prévint trop tard. Celui-ci n’était plus, cette fois, en droit d’incriminer
Patterson, victime lui-même de la famine, et qui subissait le sort de
tous.
Les jours qui suivirent, de quoi vécurent les colons? Qui pourrait
le dire? Ceux qui avaient eu la prudence de constituer des réserves
de vivres les entamèrent. Mais les autres?...
Le Kaw-djer ne sut où donner de la tête pendant cette sinistre
période. Non seulement il lui fallait accourir au chevet des malades,
mais aussi venir en aide aux affamés. On le suppliait, on s’accrochait
à ses vêtements, les mères tendaient vers lui leurs enfants. Il vivait
au milieu d’un affreux concert d’imprécations, de prières et de
plaintes. Nul ne l’implorait en vain. Généreusement, il distribuait les
provisions accumulées sur la rive gauche, s’oubliant lui-même, ne
voulant pas se dire que le danger dont il reculait l’échéance pour les
autres le menacerait fatalement à son tour.
Cela ne pouvait tarder cependant. Le poisson salé, le gibier fumé,
les légumes secs, tout diminuait rapidement. Que cette situation se
prolongeât un mois, et, comme ceux de Libéria, les habitants du
Bourg-Neuf auraient faim.
Le péril était si évident que, dans l’entourage du Kaw-djer, on
commençait à lui opposer quelque résistance. On refusait de se
dessaisir des vivres. Il lui fallait longtemps discuter avant de les
obtenir, et l’on ne cédait que de guerre lasse et plus difficilement de
jour en jour.
Harry Rhodes essaya de représenter à son ami l’inutilité de son
sacrifice. Qu’espérait-il? Il était évidemment impossible que la faible
quantité de vivres existant sur la rive gauche suffît à sauver toute la
population de l’île. Que ferait-on quand ils seraient épuisés? Et quel
intérêt y avait-il à reculer, au détriment de ceux qui avaient fait
preuve de courage et de prévoyance, une catastrophe dans tous les
cas inévitable et prochaine?
 Harry Rhodes ne put rien obtenir. Le Kaw-djer n’essaya même
pas de lui répondre. Devant une telle détresse, on n’avait que faire
d’arguments et il s’interdisait de réfléchir. Laisser de sang-froid périr
toute une multitude, voilà ce qui était impossible. Partager avec elle
jusqu’à la dernière miette, quoi qu’il en dût résulter, voilà ce qui était
impérieusement nécessaire. Après?... Après, on verrait. Quand on
n’aurait plus rien, on partirait, on irait plus loin, on chercherait un
autre lieu d’établissement, où, comme au Bourg-Neuf, on vivrait de
chasse et de pêche, et l’on s’éloignerait du campement que peu de
jours suffiraient alors à transformer en effroyable charnier. Mais du
moins on aurait fait tout ce qui était au pouvoir des hommes, et l’on
n’aurait pas eu l’affreux courage de condamner délibérément à mort
un si grand nombre d’autres hommes.
Sur la proposition d’Harry Rhodes, on examina l’opportunité de
distribuer aux émigrants les quarante-huit fusils cachés par
Hartlepool. Avec ces armes à feu, peut-être réussiraient-ils à vivre de
leur chasse. Cette proposition fut repoussée. Dans cette saison, le
gibier était très rare, et des fusils, entre les mains de paysans
inexpérimentés, seraient d’un bien faible secours pour assurer
l’alimentation d’une si nombreuse population. En revanche, ils
seraient susceptibles de créer de graves dangers. A certains signes
précurseurs, gestes brutaux, regards farouches, altercations
fréquentes, il était facile de reconnaître que la violence fermentait
dans les couches profondes de la foule. Les colons ne cherchaient
plus à dissimuler la haine qu’ils éprouvaient les uns pour les autres.
Ils s’accusaient réciproquement de leur échec, et chacun attribuait à
son voisin la responsabilité de l’état de choses actuel.
Toutefois, il en était un qu’on s’accordait à maudire
unanimement, et celui-là, c’était Ferdinand Beauval qui avait
imprudemment assumé la mission redoutable de gouverner ses
semblables.
Bien que son incapacité éclatante justifiât amplement la rancune
des émigrants, on le supportait encore. Livrée à elle-même, une
foule, tourbillon confus de volontés qui se neutralisent, est incapable
d’agir. Son inertie rend sa patience infinie, et, quels que soient ses
griefs, elle s’arrête interdite au moment de toucher au chef, comme
saisie d’un religieux effroi devant son prestige qu’elle seule pourtant
a créé. Il en était ainsi une fois de plus, et peut-être les colons de
l’île Hoste n’eussent-ils manifesté leur colère que par des
conciliabules privés et de platoniques menaces en sourdine, s’il ne
s’était trouvé un des leurs pour les entraîner à l’exprimer par des
actes.
C’est une chose merveilleuse que, dans cette situation terrible, le
fantôme de pouvoir détenu par Beauval ait pu exciter des
convoitises. Pauvre pouvoir qui consistait à être le maître nominal
d’une multitude d’affamés!
Il en fut ainsi cependant.
En présence d’une si poignante réalité, Lewis Dorick n’estima pas
négligeable cette apparence d’autorité, et peut-être n’avait-il pas tort
après tout. Le bon sens populaire n’emploie-t-il pas, pour désigner la
puissance politique, l’expression vulgaire, mais expressive et
pittoresque, d’assiette au beurre? Dans la plus déshéritée des
sociétés, la première place assure, en effet, à son possesseur des
avantages relatifs. Beauval en savait quelque chose, lui qui en était
encore à connaître les souffrances de ses compagnons d’infortune.
Ces avantages, Dorick entendait les assurer à lui-même et à ses
amis.
Jusqu’alors, il avait impatiemment supporté la grandeur de son
rival. Jugeant l’occasion favorable, il entreprit une campagne, à
laquelle le malheur public donnait une base solide. Les sujets de
juste critique n’étaient que trop nombreux. Il n’avait que l’embarras
du choix. Peut-être aurait-il été fort embarrassé, si on lui avait
demandé ce qu’il eût fait à la place de son adversaire. Mais,
personne ne lui posant cette indiscrète question, il n’avait pas le
souci d’y répondre.
 Agrandir
Plus d’un colon fut soumis a la torture... (Page 212.)
 Beauval n’était pas sans discerner le travail de son concurrent.
Souvent, de la fenêtre de la demeure décorée par lui du nom
pompeux de Palais du Gouvernement, il regardait tout songeur
passer la foule, de jour en jour plus nombreuse à mesure que
l’approche du printemps adoucissait la température. Aux regards
qu’on lançait de son côté, aux poings qu’on brandissait parfois dans
sa direction, il comprenait que la campagne de Dorick portait ses
fruits et, peu enclin à descendre du pavois, il élaborait des plans de
défense.
Certes, il ne pouvait nier l’état de délabrement de la colonie, mais
il en accusait les circonstances et, en particulier, le climat. Son
imperturbable confiance en lui-même n’en était aucunement
diminuée. S’il n’avait rien fait, parbleu, c’est qu’il n’y avait rien à
faire, et un autre n’en eût pas fait davantage.
Ce n’est pas uniquement par orgueil que Beauval se cramponnait
à sa fonction. Malgré tout, dans les circonstances présentes, il avait
perdu beaucoup de ses illusions sur le lustre qu’il en recevait. Il
songeait aussi, avec inquiétude et complaisance à la fois, à
l’abondante réserve de vivres qu’il était parvenu à mettre à l’abri. En
aurait-il été ainsi, s’il n’avait pas été le chef? En serait-il encore ainsi,
s’il ne l’était plus?
C’est donc pour défendre sa vie, en même temps que sa place,
qu’il se jeta ardemment dans la lutte. Très habilement, il ne contesta
aucun des griefs énumérés par Dorick. Sur ce terrain il eût été
vaincu d’avance. Il les accentua au contraire. De tous les
mécontents, ce fut lui le plus ardent.
Par exemple, les deux adversaires différèrent, d’avis sur le
remède qu’il convenait d’appliquer. Tandis que Dorick prônait un
changement de gouvernement, Beauval conseillait l’union et faisait
remonter à d’autres la responsabilité des malheurs qui accablaient la
colonie.
Les auteurs responsables de ces malheurs, qui étaient-ils? Nuls
autres, d’après lui, que le petit nombre d’émigrants qui n’avaient pas
été dans la nécessité de se réfugier à la côte au cours de l’hiver. Le
raisonnement de Beauval était simple. Puisqu’on ne les avait pas
revus, c’est qu’ils avaient réussi. Ils possédaient, par conséquent,
des vivres, et ces vivres, on avait le droit de les confisquer au profit
de tous.
Ces excitations trouvèrent de l’écho dans une population réduite
au désespoir, et on leur obéit sans attendre. D’abord, on battit la
campagne dans les environs de Libéria, puis, en vue d’expéditions
plus lointaines, des bandes se formèrent, augmentèrent rapidement
d’importance, et enfin, le 15 octobre, ce fut une véritable armée de
plus de deux cents hommes qui, sous la conduite des frères Moore,
se rua à la conquête du pain.
Pendant cinq jours, cette troupe parcourut l’île en tous sens. Qu’y
faisait-elle? On le devinait en voyant affluer ses victimes, affolées de
la catastrophe imprévue qui avait annihilé leurs efforts. L’un après
l’autre, ils couraient au Gouverneur et lui demandaient justice. Mais
celui-ci les renvoyait rudement en leur reprochant leur honteux
égoïsme. Eh quoi! ils auraient consenti à se gorger tandis que leurs
frères mouraient de faim? Ahuris, les malheureux battaient en
retraite, et Beauval triomphait. Leurs plaintes lui prouvaient que la
piste indiquée par lui était bonne. Il ne s’était pas trompé. Ainsi qu’il
l’avait affirmé au petit bonheur, ceux qui n’étaient pas revenus
pendant l’hiver avaient vécu dans l’abondance.
Maintenant, en tous cas, leur sort était pareil à celui des autres.
Leur patient travail était rendu inutile et ils se trouvaient aussi
pauvres et démunis que ceux qui avaient consommé leur ruine. Non
seulement on était passé chez eux en trombe et l’on avait fait main
basse sur tout ce qui pouvait se mettre sous la dent, mais encore on
s’était livré à ces excès dont les foules, dussent-elles être les
premières à en pâtir, sont assez volontiers coutumières. Les champs
ensemencés avaient été piétinés, les basses-cours saccagées et
vidées de leur dernier habitant.
Bien maigre cependant était le butin des pillards. La réussite de
ceux qu’ils rançonnaient était en somme très relative. Avoir réussi,
cela voulait dire simplement que ces colons plus courageux, plus
habiles ou moins malchanceux que leurs compagnons, avaient
assuré vaille que vaille leur subsistance, mais non pas qu’ils fussent
devenus riches par miracle. On ne découvrait donc rien dans ces
pauvres fermes.
De là, parmi ceux qui sillonnaient la campagne, grande
désillusion, qui se traduisait souvent par des actes de véritable
sauvagerie.
Plus d’un colon fut soumis à la torture, afin qu’il dévoilât la
cachette dans laquelle on l’accusait de dissimuler des vivres
imaginaires. Les mêmes causes produisant les mêmes effets, l’île
Hoste, comme jadis la France, avait sa Jacquerie.
Le cinquième jour après son départ, la bande des pillards se
heurta aux palissades qui limitaient les enclos de la famille Rivière et
des trois autres familles, leurs voisines. Depuis qu’on s’était mis en
route, on n’avait cessé de penser à ces exploitations, les plus
anciennes et les plus prospères de la colonie, et l’on se promettait
merveille de leur pillage.
Il fallut déchanter.
Attenantes les unes aux autres, les quatre fermes, bâties sur les
côtés d’un vaste quadrilatère, constituaient, dans leur ensemble, une
sorte de citadelle, et une citadelle inexpugnable, car, seuls de tous
les colons, ses défenseurs étaient armés. Ils reçurent à coups de
fusils les assaillants, qui eurent, à la première décharge, sept
hommes tués ou blessés. Les autres n’en demandèrent pas
davantage et s’enfuirent en tumulte.
Cette escarmouche calma sur-le-champ l’ardeur des pillards.
Ceux-ci reprirent aussitôt la route de Libéria, qu’ils atteignirent à la
nuit tombante. Le bruit de leurs imprécations furieuses les y précéda
et annonça leur arrivée. On s’avança à leur rencontre, en prêtant
l’oreille à cette clameur venue de la campagne assombrie.
Tout d’abord, l’éloignement ne permettant pas de comprendre ce
qu’ils criaient ainsi, on crut à des chants de joie et de victoire, Mais
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