Dickens is in Genoa at last! And it only took two weeks since leaving England. This will now be Dickens’ main base for the next twelve months – he will travel back to London for Christmas, and down to Rome in the new year, but he will always come back to Genoa. Now that he’s settled, temporarily, let’s take a moment to review who is travelling with Dickens on this Italian tour. Unlike his American tour, this time he and his wife Catherine took the children with them (for America, they took instead a painting of their children to remember them by, which let’s face it would have made a much quieter traveling companion!).
In 1844 Charles and Catherine had five children: Charley (born 6 January 1837), Mamie (born 6 March 1838), Katie (born 29 October 1839), Walter (born 8 February 1841), and Francis (born 15 January 1844) – so in July 1844 that would have been a 7-year old, a 6-year old, a 4-year old, a 3-year old and a six-month old baby. It’s also worth considering that their next child, Alfred, would be born 28 October 1845, implying that Catherine would have been pregnant for the second half of their Italian tour.
There would have been some support for Catherine in her sister Georgina. Georgina would in time become a second matriarch for the family, staying with Dickens after the controversial separation from Catherine, and jealously guarding Dickens’ reputation long after his death. But the Italian tour is long before all this is yet to occur, and Georgina, at this stage, is just 17 years old. However, given that she had moved in to Dickens’ home two years earlier (while he and Catherine were gallivanting across America) to look after the children, it can be assumed that by the time they were going to Italy she would already have a certain matriarchal status with the children. And given that we’re mentioning ages, Catherine herself was 32 at this time. It is worth stating because so often our impression of Catherine is based around the time of the infamous separation where she is depicted as the older, frumpier woman next to the young and voluptuous Ellen Ternan (which I think we can all agree is massively unfair, especially given the amount of children she bore for Dickens!). But Ellen Ternan is only five years old at this point and, I think we can agree, poses no threat; moreover Dickens and his wife are still relatively early in their relationship and the Dickens marriage is…well…happy.
We get a glimpse of this in the description of their arrival at the Hotel de l’Ecu d’Or, as written through the eyes (and exclamations) of the landlord and his wife:
The door is opened. Breathless expectation. The lady of the family gets out. Ah sweet lady! Beautiful lady! The sister of the lady of the family gets out. Great Heaven, Ma’amselle is charming! First little boy gets out. Ah, what a beautiful little boy! First little girl gets out. Oh, but this is an enchanting child! Second little girl gets out. The landlady, yielding to the finest impulse of our common nature, catches her up in her arms! Second little boy gets out. Oh, the sweet boy! Oh, the tender little family! The baby is handed out. Angelic baby! The baby has topped everything! All the rapture is expended on the baby! Then the two nurses tumble out, and the enthusiasm swelling into madness, the whole family are swept upstairs as on a cloud; while the idlers press about the carriage, and look into it, and walk round it, and touch it. For it is something to touch a carriage that has held so many people. It is a legacy to leave one’s children.
So that’s Catherine (lady of the family); Georgina (sister of the lady of the family), Charlie and Walter (first and second little boys); Mamie and Katie (first and second little girls); and Francis (angelic baby)…not to mention two nurses/servants. No wonder the onlookers are amazed to see a carriage that held so many. One of the servants would have been Anne Brown, Catherine’s maid, who had also travelled with them to America. Another may well have been the cook who Dickens mentions later in August as ‘being really a clever woman’ for being willing to integrate with the Italian servants, in contrast to her peers, who Dickens sees speaking to the Italian servants ‘with great fluency in English (very loud: as if the others were only deaf, not Italian)’. And then of course there was the Brave Courier, Louis Roche.
Hailing from Avignon, Roche would be the family’s guide for the holiday. He is only ever referred to as the Brave Courier or simply the Brave in Pictures – he is never mentioned by name, which is ironic given the way that he dominates the party. Dickens notes how people naturally assume Roche to be the head of the party instead of him.
And it would have been small comfort to me to have explained to the population of Paris generally, that I was that Head and Chief; and not the radiant embodiment of good humour who sat beside me in the person of a French Courier – best of servants and most beaming of men! Truth to say, he looked a great deal more patriarchal than I, who, in the shadow of his portly presence, dwindled down to no account at all.
There are two side to this – the larger than life personality of Roche, and the comparatively diminutive stature of Dickens. The description he gives of Roche is one we would expect to be given of Dickens himself, but again, this is young Dickens – no beard, not even a moustache yet. Instead he is a youthful-looking 32 year old who is relatively incognito. Daniel Maclise’s portrait of Dickens had accompanied copies of Nicholas Nickleby in 1839, but there was nothing like the dissemination of Dickens’ image such as would occur later in his life during the reading tours. At this stage, Dickens could still enjoy his anonymity to a point, hence Roche being mistaken so easily for the head of the party.
But last but not least, spare a thought for the last member of the party: Timber Doodle the dog. Timber is a shaggy white dog, possibly a terrier or a spaniel, that Dickens acquired in America, who is going to suffer in Italy. Heat and fleas will be his bane, with some extreme haircuts required to solve the problem, so that he resembles, in Dickens’ words, ‘a lion dog’. Oh dear Timber.
Dickens In Italy 
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