Frances Burney - Marriage

Marriage

In 1790-91 Burney wrote four blank-verse tragedies: Hubert de Vere, The Siege of Pevensey, Elberta and Edwy and Elgiva. Only the last was performed. Although it was one of a profusion of paintings and literary works about the early English king Eadwig to appear in the later 18th century, it met with public failure, opening in London in March for one night.

The French Revolution began in 1789 and Burney was among the many literate English figures who sympathised with its early ideals of equality and social justice. During this period Frances became acquainted with a group of French exiles known as “Constitutionalists,” who had fled to England in August 1791 and were living at Juniper Hall, near Mickleham, where Frances' sister Susanna lived. She quickly became close to Gen. Alexandre D'Arblay, an artillery officer who had been adjutant-general to Lafayette, a hero of the French Revolution whose political views lay between those of Royalist and of Republicans. D’Arblay taught her French and introduced her to the writer Germaine de Staël.

Burney's father disapproved of the alliance because of Alexandre’s poverty, his Catholicism, and his ambiguous social status as an émigré, but in spite of this they were married on 28 July 1793. The same year she produced her pamphlet Brief Reflections relative to the Emigrant French Clergy. This short work was similar to other pamphlets produced by French sympathisers in England, calling for financial support for the revolutionary cause. It is noteworthy for the way that Burney employed her rhetorical skills in the name of tolerance and human compassion. On 18 December 1794, Frances gave birth to their son Alexander (†19. January 1837). Her sister Charlotte's remarriage in 1798 to the pamphleteer Ralph Broome caused her and her father consternation, as did the move by her sister Susanna and penurious brother-in-law Molesworth Phillips and their family to Ireland in 1796.