Any hypothesis that rests on Carlyle’s Reminiscences has to take into account the fact that he was an old man when he wrote the memoir, shattered by the sudden death of his wife, and that he was recalling a conversation that had taken place nearly thirty years before, with another old man who was reminiscing about events that would have happened almost half a century before that. A certain degree of scepticism is legitimate, especially as Carlyle purports to quote from Wordsworth verbatim.
Apart from Carlyle’s report, there is nothing of substance to support the speculation that Wordsworth returned to France in the autumn of 1793. In a volume in Wordsworth’s library there is a marginal note where Gorsas is mentioned: ‘I knew this man. W.W.’ It is easy to imagine how Wordsworth might have known Gorsas while he was staying in Paris the previous winter; much harder to imagine how he could have got to know him immediately before his execution, while he was in hiding and then in prison. But the proof that Wordsworth had known Gorsas at some stage makes Carlyle’s story a little more credible. For those who want to make a case for Wordsworth’s visit to France at this time there is yet another sliver of evidence, in the form of a third-hand account published in 1884 of a meeting in Paris between Wordsworth and ‘an old republican called Bailey’ – but the story is so garbled and contradictory as to be worthless.
Nor is there any reference in The Prelude to another visit to France. It is plausible that Wordsworth might have wanted to hide any trace of a visit to Annette; but that would not explain why he should conceal a visit to Paris. The horror of witnessing the guillotine in action – in the execution of a man he knew – would have left a deep impression on him: an impression which the poet would surely have wanted to describe in the poem on the growth of his own mind, of which such impressions form the essence.
Perhaps Wordsworth did return to Paris in the autumn of 1793. It is not impossible. But the evidence is too flimsy to form conclusions from it – about Wordsworth’s faith in the Revolution, his feelings for Annette Vallon, or anything else.39
By the middle of February 1794 Wordsworth was staying with the Rawsons in Halifax, together with Dorothy. One can be confident that their reunion was a very happy one. And it was extended when William Calvert offered Wordsworth the use of Windy Brow, a farmhouse near Keswick, on a steep bank above the River Greta. The surrounding scenery was magnificent: there were views from a terrace above the house of the whole vale of Keswick, Derwent Water in one direction and Bassenthwaite in the other, with mountains towering all around. Dorothy was so happy to be there with her brother, living in frugal simplicity, that she prolonged her stay from a planned few days to several weeks.
To reach Windy Brow they travelled by coach from Halifax to Kendal, then continued on foot, a two-day ramble much disapproved of by another of their aunts, who sent Dorothy a letter of censure to which Dorothy wrote a spirited reply: ‘So far from considering this as a matter of condemnation, I rather thought it would have given my friends pleasure to hear that I had courage to make use of the strength with which nature has endowed me, when it not only procured me infinitely more pleasure than I should have received from sitting in a post-chaise – but was also the means of saving me at least thirty shillings.’ Her aunt had supposed that Dorothy was living in ‘an unprotected situation’. ‘I consider the character and virtues of my brother as a sufficient protection,’ Dorothy declared defiantly. She defended her decision to prolong her stay at Windy Brow: ‘I am now twenty-two years of age,’ she pointed out, ‘and such have been the circumstances of my life that I may be said to have enjoyed his company only for a very few months. An opportunity now presents itself of obtaining this satisfaction, an opportunity which I could not see pass from me without unspeakable pain. Besides I not only derive much pleasure but much improvement from my brother’s society. I have regained all the knowledge I had of the French language some years ago, and have added considerably to it, and I have now begun reading Italian …’40
The walk itself would remain long in the memory of both. Its significance increased as the years passed. This was a return to the country of their childhood – but it also provided a glimpse of their future together, passing through places that would become sacred to them. ‘I walked with my brother at my side, from Kendal to Grasmere, eighteen miles, and afterwards from Grasmere to Keswick, fifteen miles, through the most delightful country that was ever seen.’41 It was early April when they set out, a day of mixed sun and showers. At their first stop, Staveley, they drank a basin of milk at a public house, and Dorothy washed her feet in a brook, afterwards putting on a pair of silk stockings at her brother’s recommendation. A little further on they reached Windermere, and continued north on the road that runs along the east bank of the lake to Ambleside. They picnicked beside a beck below Wansfell. Towards sunset, as they approached Grasmere, they left the road and followed the footpath along the south side of Rydal Water. The slanting yellow light cast deep shadows before the surrounding mountains.
* Only days before he was condemned in the name of George III, Paine, as a deputy in the Convention, had been sitting in judgement on the former French King.
* One of the now-defunct Inns of Chancery, then attached to Grays Inn. The building still stands on High Holborn.
* In fact Watson had not gone over to the other side. On 27 January 1795, for example, he was the only Bishop to vote against the continuance of the war with France, arguing in the House of Lords that there was no connection between ‘the establishment of a Republic in France, and the subversion of the English constitution’
* Wakefield likened the possibility of a restoration of the monarchy in France to a dog returning to its vomit, a phrase Wordsworth would later use to characterise the coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of France in 1804. See pages 214n and 377.
† Its full title was Peace and Union recommended to the associated Bodies of Republicans and Anti-Republicans.
* A mixture of fortified wine and hot water, sweetened and flavoured.
* Three of Coleridge’s brothers became soldiers, one became a doctor, one a clergyman, and two became schoolmasters
* Coleridge believed that he had succumbed to rheumatic fever, which would affect him periodically from this moment on; but the autopsy performed after his death does not support this diagnosis.
* Alcoholic tincture of opium, a reddish-brown liquid, lighter or darker according to strength. De Quincey kept his in a decanter, where it was sometimes mistaken for port by the unwary.16
* In 1792 William Wilberforce had introduced to Parliament a Bill to abolish the slave trade. It was passed by the House of Commons; but lacking government support, it was rejected by the Lords.