"In the days of the Terror ... it had been used ... as a prison""In the days of the Terror ... it had been used ... as a prison"
"In the days of the Terror ... it had been used ... as a prison"
There was another and very different old lady in Landerneau of whom I was very fond and whom, since she took a great fancy to me, I saw often. Her daughter was a friend ofmaman'sand made amésalliancethat caused the doors of Landerneau to close upon her.Maman, however, remained devoted to her, and continued to see as much of her as ever, and her mother, my oldfriend, was entirely indifferent to the doors, closed or open, of Landerneau. She wore a brightly colored Turkish silk handkerchief tied turban-wise about her head, and soft gray-leather riding boots,—men's boots,—so that she was known in her quarter asChat-botté. In her own house she wore men's dress-breeches, short jacket, and high boots. Her feet were remarkably small, and the wave of hair on her forehead was as black as jet. She was very downright and ready of speech, and used to talk to me as though I were a person of her own age. "Do you see, Sophie," she would say, "my poor daughter is a great goose. She struggles to be received, and gets only buffets for her pains. Why give oneself so much trouble for nothing?"
The disconsolate daughter and the son-in-law made their home with her in a great old house standing on the banks of the river. He was a wholesale wine merchant, and barrels and casks of wine stood about the entrance. My old friend lived almost entirely in her own room on the first floor, the strangest room. It was at once spotlessly clean and completely untidy. The bedhad no posts or canopy and was shaped like a cradle. Bottles of salad-oil stood on the mantel-shelf, and a bunch of carrots might be lying on the table among bundles of newspapers. From the windows one had beautiful views up and down the river and could see the stone bridge that had old houses built upon it. Across the river were her gardens, and she used often to row me over to them and to show me the immense old cherry-tree, planted by her grandfather, that grew far down the river against the walls of an old tower. This tower had its story, and I could not sleep at night for thinking of it. In her girlhood mad people were shut up there. There was only a dungeon-room, and the water often rose in it so that the forsaken creatures stood up to their knees in water. Food was thrown to them through the iron bars of the windows, but it was quite insufficient, and she gave me terrible descriptions of the faces she used to see looking out, ravenous and imploring. She remembered that the bones protruded from the knuckles of one old man as he clutched the bars. She used to pile loaves ofbread in her little boat, row across to the tower, and fix the loaves on the end of an oar so that she could pass them up to the window, and she would then see the mad people snatching the bread apart and devouring it. And when the cherries on the great tree were ripe she used to climb up into the branches and bend them against the window so that they might gather the fruit themselves from among the leaves, and she herself would gather all she could reach and throw them in. They had not even straw to sleep on. When one of them died, the body was taken out, and this was all the care they had. Such were the horrors in a town where people across the river quietly ate and slept, and the church-bells rang all day.
My most vivid recollections of Grandfather de Rosval place him at Landerneau, where he would stop with us on his way to Quimper during his tours of inspection. His arrivals in the sleepy little town were great affairs and caused immense excitement: post-chaise, postilion, whips cracking, horns blowing, and a retinue of Parisian servants. We children never had more than a glimpse of him at first, for he withdrew at once to his own rooms to rest and go through his papers. When he made his entry into the salon,—the salon of the slippery parquet and the nodding mandarins,—all the household was ranged on each side, as if for the arrival of a sovereign, and we had all to drop deep curtseys before him.
Grandfather de RosvalGrandfather de Rosval
Grandfather de Rosval
He was a rather imposing figure, with splendid clothes, the coat thickly embroidered along theedge with golden oak-leaves, and a fine, handsome head; but he was enormously, even ridiculously, stout. With an often terrifying and even repellent severity he mingled the most engaging playfulness, and our childish feelings toward him were strangely compounded of dislike and admiration.
When he arrived in the salon a lackey came behind him, carrying a large linen bag filled with a sweetmeat bought at Seugnot's, the great Parisian confectioner. I always associate these sweetmeats withbon papa. They were calledcroquignoles, were small, hard, yet of the consistency of soft chalk when one bit into them, and glazed with pink, white, or yellow. After the salutations,bon papawould take up his position before the mantelpiece and beckon the servant to give him the bag ofcroquignoles. We children, quivering with excitement, each of us already provided with a small basket, stood ready, and asbon papa, with a noble gesture, scattered the handfuls ofcroquignolesfar and wide, we flung ourselves upon them, scrambling, falling, and filling our baskets, with muchlaughter and many recriminations. Then, besides the little case formaman, also from Seugnot's, filled with tablets of a delicioussucre-de-pommein every flavor, were more dignified presents, bracelets and rings for her and for ourTante de Laisieuand boxes of beautiful toys for us. The only cloud cast over these occasions was that after having distributed all his bounties,bon papasat down, drew a roll of manuscript from his pocket, and composed himself to read in a sonorous voice poems of his own composition. Their theme, invariably, was the delight of reëntering one's family and country, and they were very pompous and very long, sometimes movingbon papaalmost to tears. The comic scene of family prayers that followed was pure relief, for even we children felt it comic to seebon papapraying.
"And are they good children?" he would ask. "Have they said their prayers?"
"The château was one of the oldest in Finisterre""The château was one of the oldest in Finisterre"
"The château was one of the oldest in Finisterre"
"Not yet,mon père,"mamanwould answer. "They always say their prayers at bedtime." Butbon papawas not to be so deterred from yet another ceremony.
"Good, good!" he would reply. "We will all say the evening prayers together, then."
And when we had all obediently knelt down around the room,bon paparecited the prayers in the same complacent, sonorous voice, making magnificent signs of the cross the while. On one of these occasions we were almost convulsed by poor little Ernest, whombon papahad taken in his arms, and who was so much alarmed by the great gestures going on over his head that he broke at last into a prolonged wail and had to be carried hastily away.
One ofbon papa'spoetic works I can still remember, of a very different and more endearing character. I was taken ill one morning while we were living with him in Paris and had been given to console me by a cousin of ours staying with us, the Duchesse de M——, a delicious little purse in white, knitted silk, embroidered with pale blue forget-me-nots. I toldmamanthat I wished very much to show this purse tobon papa, and that he should be informed of my illness. So I wrote him a note, and it was taken, with the purse, to hisroom. Presently the little parcel, much heavier, was brought back to me, and on opening my purse, I found inside it a centime, a liard, a sou—every coin, in fact, up to and including a golden twenty-franc piece. And this is the poem that was sent with the purse:
"Vous voulez jeune PrincesseQue je me rends près de vous?Que je baise de votre altesseLes pieds, les mains, et les genoux?Dans un instant je vais me rendreA vos désirs et à vos vœux,Mais vous me permettrez de prendreDeux baisers sur vos beaux yeux bleus."
"Vous voulez jeune Princesse
Que je me rends près de vous?
Que je baise de votre altesse
Les pieds, les mains, et les genoux?
Dans un instant je vais me rendre
A vos désirs et à vos vœux,
Mais vous me permettrez de prendre
Deux baisers sur vos beaux yeux bleus."
Such a grandfather, it must be admitted, had advantages as well as charms, yet our memory of him was always clouded by the one or two acts of cruel severity we had witnessed and of which I could not trust myself to speak.
In the Château de Ker-Guélegaan, near Quimper, lived an old friend of my family's, the Marquis de Ploeuc. The château was one of the oldest in Finisterre, an immense weather-beaten pile with a moat, a drawbridge, a great crenellated tower, and a turret that, springing from the first story, seemed, with its high-pointed roof, to be suspended in the air. Tall, dark trees rose in ordered majesty about the château, and before it a wide band of lawn, called atapis vert, ran to the lodge-gates that opened on the highroad. From the upper windows one saw the blue Brittany sea. Along the whole length of the front façade ran a stone terrace with seven wide steps; the windows of thesalle d'honneuropened upon this, and the windows of thepetit salonand the dining- and billiard-room. The furniture in thesalle d'honneurwas of Louis XV white lacquer, court chairs, andtabourets de cour. There were tall mirrors all along the walls, and in the corners hung four great crystal chandeliers. The curtains and portières were of a heavy, white silk that had become gray with time; they were scattered with bouquets of faded flowers, and caught up and looped together with knots of ribbon that had once been rose-colored. This glacial and majestic room was seldom used; it was in thepetit salon, leading from it, that guests usually sat. Here the chairs were carved along their tops with garlands of roses and ribbons so delicate that we children were specially forbidden to touch them. The walls were hung with tapestries, at which I used often to gaze with delight. One saw life-sized ladies and gentlemen dancing in stately rounds or laughing under trees and among flowers and butterflies. The great dining-room was paneled with dark wood carved into frames around the portraits of ancestors that were ranged along it. The coffers and the sideboards, where the silver stood, were of the same carved wood. I remember once going down topeep at the kitchen in the basement, and the dark immensity, streaming, as it were, with cooks, servants, kitchen-boys, and maids, so bewildered and almost frightened me that I never ventured there again.
The old marquis was a widower, and his married daughters, the Marquise de L—— and Mme. d'A——, usually lived with him and his unmarried daughter Rosine, who became a nun. He was a splendid old gentleman, tall, with a noble carriage and severe, yet radiant, countenance. In the daytime he dressed always in gray coat and knee-breeches, with gray-and-black striped stockings and buckled shoes. At night his thick, white hair was gathered into acatogan,—a little square black-silk bag, that is to say,—tied with a bow, and he wore a black-silk suit. On festal occasions, Christmas, Easter, or his fête-day, he became a magnificent figure in brocaded coat and white-satin waistcoat and knee-breeches; he had diamond shoe- and knee-buckles, diamond buttons on his waistcoat, and goldenaiguilletteslooped across his breast and shoulder.
The diamond buckles he left to me, to be given to me on my first communion, and in his lifetime he had made for me a beautiful missal bound in white parchment and closed with a diamond and emerald clasp; inside were old illuminations.
In his youth M. de Ploeuc had been an officer of the Chouans, and he was, of course, a passionate royalist. He always wore the Croix de St. Louis, a fleur-de-lis, with the little cross attached by blue ribbon. I asked him once if it was the same sort of decoration as my Grandfather de Rosval's, which, I said, was larger and was tied with red, and I remember the kindly and ironic smile of my old friend as he answered, "Oh, no; that is only the Légion d'honneur."
"He was a splendid old gentleman""He was a splendid old gentleman"
"He was a splendid old gentleman"
Brittany had many marquises, some of them also old and distinguished; but he was thedoyenof them all, and was always called simplylemarquis. Any disputes or difficulties among the localnoblessewere always brought to him for his decision, and on such occasions, if the discussions became heated, he would say, "Palsan bleu, mes seigneurs, il me semble que vous vous oubliez ici,"using the dignified oath already becoming obsolete. His French was the old French of the court. He never, for instance, said, "Je vous remercie," but, "Je vous rends gráce."
Guests at Ker-Guélegaan arrived with their own horses and carriages to stay a month or more, and open house was kept. Breakfast was at six for those who did not take communion at the mass that was celebrated every morning in the chapel adjoining the château; these breakfasted on returning. It was permissible for ladies, at this early hour, to appear very informally inpeignoirsandbigoudics.Bigoudicsare curl-papers or ribbons. The marquis almost always took communion, but he usually appeared at the six o'clock breakfast. After mass, once his correspondence dealt with, he played billiards with Rosine, the beautiful girl who became a nun in the order of the Carmelites, an order so strict that those who entered it died, to all intents and purposes, since their relatives never saw them again, and at that time were not even informed of their death. I see Rosine very clearly, bending over the billiard-tableunder her father's fond gaze, and I can also see her kneeling to pray in a corner of thepetit salon. It was with such simplicity that any suspicion of affectation or parade was out of the question. In the midst of a conversation she would gently ask to be excused and would go there apart and pray, sometimes for an hour. The ladies quietly gossiping over their embroidery-frames took it quite as a matter of course that Rosine should be praying near them.
"Guests at Ker-Guélegaan arrived with their own horses and carriages""Guests at Ker-Guélegaan arrived with their own horses and carriages"
"Guests at Ker-Guélegaan arrived with their own horses and carriages"
Déjeunerwas at ten, and it was then that one saw how strongly feudal customs still survived at Ker-Guélegaan. The marquis sat at the head of the table, and behind his chair stood his old servant Yvon, dressed in Breton mourning-costume in memory of his defunct mistress; that is to say, in blue, black, and yellow. The other servants wore the livery of the house. Half-way down the table the white cloth ended, and the lower half had a matting covering. Here sat all the farmers of Ker-Guélegaan and their families, taking their midday meal with their master, while M. de Ploeuc and his guests and family sat above. Wechildren were usually placed at a little side-table. The meal aways began by M. de Ploeuc rising and blessing the company with two outstretched fingers, like a bishop, and he then recited a benediction. He was always served first, another survival of patriarchal custom, forced upon him, rather, for I remember his protesting against it and wishing my mother, who sat next him, to be served before him; but she would not hear of it. During the repasts a violinist and abiniou-player, dressed in his Breton costume, played to us.
After luncheon the ladies drove or rode or walked as the fancy took them, or, assembled in thepetit salon, talked over their work. On hot days the blinds would be drawn down before the open windows, but in the angle of each window was fixed a long slip of mirror, so that from every corner one could see if visitors, welcome or unwelcome, were driving up to theperron.Goûter, at three, consisted of bread, fruit, and milk, and dinner was at five. After that the ladies and gentlemen assembled in thepetit salonand talked, told ghost-stories and legends, orplayed games till the very early bedtime of the place and period.
This was thetrain de vieat Ker-Guélegaan; but my memories of the place center almost entirely around the figure of my old friend. I was his constant companion. When he rode out after luncheon to visit his farms, I would sit before him on his old horse Pluton. He never let Pluton gallop for fear of tiring him. "Do you see,ma petite," he would say, "Pluton is a comrade who has never failed me. He has earned a peaceful old age." We passed, in the wood behind the château, a monument of a Templar that frightened and interested me. He lay with his hands crossed over his sword, his feet stayed against a couchant hound, and I could not understand why he wore a knitted coat. My old friend burst out laughing when I questioned him, and said that I was as ignorant as a little carp, and that it was high time I went to the Sacré Cœur. He told me that the knitted coat was a coat of mail, and tried to instil a little history into my mind, telling me of the crusades and St. Louis; but I am afraid that mymind soon wandered away to Pluton's gently pricked ears and to the wonders of the woods that surrounded us. We had walks together, too, and went one day to the sea-shore, where there was a famous grotto often visited by strangers. When we arrived at the black arch among the rocks and I heard it was called the Devil's Grot, I was terrified, clinging to M. de Ploeuc's hand and refusing to enter.
"Maman wrote secretly to bon papa in Paris""Mamanwrote secretly tobon papain Paris"
"Mamanwrote secretly tobon papain Paris"
"But why not, Sophie? Why not?" he questioned me. "I am here to take care of you, and there is no danger at all. See, Yann is lighting the torches to show us the way."
"But the devil—the devil will get me," I whispered; "Jeannie told me so."
Jeannie, indeed, was in the habit of punishing or frightening me by tales of the devil and his fork and tail and flames, and of how he would come and carry off disobedient little girls; so it was not to be wondered at that I feared to enter his grot. I imagined that he himself lurked there and would certainly carry me off, for I was well aware that I was often very disobedient. M. dePloeuc sat down on a rock, took me on his knee, and said:
"It is very wrong of Jeannie to fill your head with such nonsense, my little one. Nothing like her devil exists in the whole world, and you must pay no attention to her stories."
He told me that the cavern was filled with beautiful stalactites, like great clusters of diamonds, and was so gentle and merry and reasonable that the devil was exorcised from my imagination forever, and I consented to enter the grotto.
Yann and the guide, a young farmer of Ker-Guélegaan, led us in with their lighted torches, and I suddenly saw before me, strangely illuminated, a somber, yet gorgeous, fairy-land. Diamonds indeed! Pillars of diamonds rose from the rocky floor to the roof, and pendants hung in long clusters, glittering in inconceivable vistas of splendor. I was so dazzled and amazed that I gave the vaguest attention to M. de Ploeuc's explanation of the way in which the stalactites were formed among the rocks. Indeed, that night I could not sleep, still seeing diamond columns andpillars, and my dear old friend was full of self-reproach next day when he heard that during the night the Devil's Grot had given me a fever.
"As a country gentleman he had lived and as a country gentleman he intended to go on living""As a country gentleman he had lived and as a country gentleman he intended to go on living"
"As a country gentleman he had lived and as a country gentleman he intended to go on living"
Sometimes the Marquis de L—— accompanied us on our expeditions, and sometimes I was even left in his charge for an afternoon. I disliked this very much, for he had no amusing stories to tell me and walked very fast, and when my pace flagged, he would pause to look at me reproachfully, tapping his foot on the ground, and crying out, as though I were one of his horses, "Get up! Get up!"
M. de Ploeuc often took me, after lunch, into his little study and played the flute to me. I liked being in the study, but it rather frightened me to see my old friend remove his teeth before beginning to play. Their absence sadly altered his beautiful and stately countenance, and gave, besides, an odd, whistling timbre to his music. Still, I listened attentively, looking away now and then from his rapt, concentrated countenance to thetapis vertoutside, where the cows were cropping the short grass, or glancing around rathershrinkingly at the headless bust of Marie Antoinette that stood on the mantelpiece. The head lay beside the bust, and there was, even to my childish imagination, a terrible beauty in the proud shoulders thus devastated. This was one of two such busts that had been decapitated by the Revolutionists. The other belonged, I think, later on, to the Empress Eugénie. When the marquis had finished his thin, melancholy airs, it was my turn to perform, and that I liked much better. I saw that he loved to hear the old Breton songs sung in my sweet, piping little voice, and it was especially pleasant, our music over, to be rewarded by being given chocolate pastils from a little enamel box that stood on the writing-desk. While I softly crunched the pastils M. de Ploeuc told me about the countries where the plant from which the chocolate came grew. It was not at all common in Brittany at that time, and the pastils much less sweet than our modern bon bons. M. de Ploeuc also carried for his own delectation small violet and peppermint lozenges in a little gold box that he drew from his waistcoat-pocket, and these gavethe pleasantest fragrance to his kiss. I often sat on with him in the study, looking at the pictures in the books he gave me while he read or wrote. He wore on the third finger of his right hand an odd black ring that had a tiny magnifying-glass fixed upon it, and while he read his hand moved gently across the page.
I owe a great deal to this dear old friend. He took the deepest interest in my deportment, andmamanwas specially delighted that he should extirpate from my speech provincial words and intonations. He entirely broke me of the bad habits of shrugging my shoulders and biting my nails.
"Only wicked men and women bite their nails," he told me, and pointed out to me as a terrible warning the beautiful and coquettish Mme. de G——, one of his guests, who had bitten her nails to the quick and quite ruined the appearance of her hands.
"And is she so wicked?" I asked. At which he laughed a little, and said that she must become so if she continued to bite her nails. He made mepractise coming into and going out of a room until he was satisfied with my ease and grace.
"Do you see,ma petite Sophie," he said, "a woman, when she walks well, is a goddess. Walk always as if on clouds, lightly and loftily. Or imagine that you are skimming over fields of wheat, and that not an ear must bend beneath your tread."
And now I must tell of Loch-ar-Brugg, the center of my long life and the spot dearest to me upon earth. It was situated amidst the beautiful, wild, heathery country that stretched inland from Landerneau. I first saw it one day when I drove over from Landerneau with my father, and my chief recollection of this earliest visit is the deep shade under the high arch of the beech avenue and the aromatic smell of black currants in an upper room where we were taken to see the liqueur in process of being made. I was given some to drink in a tiny glass, and I never smell or tastecassisthat the scent, color, warmth, and sweetness of that long-distant day does not flash upon me. The liqueur was being made by the farmer's wife; for part of the house, which, as I have said, papa at that time used only as a hunting-lodge,was inhabited by a Belgian farmer and his family. They were all seated at their midday meal when we arrived, and another thing I remember is that the eldest daughter, a singularly beautiful young creature, with sea-green eyes and golden hair, was so much confused at seeing us that she put a spoonful of the custard she was eating against her cheek instead of into her mouth, greatly to my delight and to papa's.
"Monsieur must excuse her," said the mother; "she is very timid." On which my father replied with some compliment which made all the family smile. I see them all smiling and happy, yet it must have been soon after that a tragedy befell them. News was brought to my father that the farmer had hanged himself. The poor man's rent was badly in arrears, but when he had last spoken to my father about it, the latter, as was always his wont in such circumstances, told him not to torment himself and that he could pay when he liked.Mamanalways suspected that my father's agent had threatened the poor fellow and that he had done away with himself in an access ofdespondency. Papa, overcome with grief, hastened to Loch-ar-Brugg and remained there for a week with the mourning family. He gave them money to return to Belgium, and the beautiful young daughter became, we heard, a very skilful lace-maker.
On the road to Loch-ar-BruggOn the road to Loch-ar-Brugg
On the road to Loch-ar-Brugg
I was too young for this lugubrious event to cast a shadow on my dear Loch-ar-Brugg, but for many yearsmamandisliked the place. We still lived at Quimper or Landerneau, using Loch-ar-Brugg as a mere country resort; but by degrees the ugly walls, nine feet high, that shut in the house from the gardens and shut out the view were pulled down, lawns were thrown into one another, great clumps of blue hydrangeas were planted all down the avenue, on each side, between each beech-tree, and the house, if not beautiful, was made comfortable and convenient. It was when we were really established at Loch-ar-Brugg thatmamanbegan to take the finances of the household into her capable hands. She reproached my father with his lack of ambition, and asked him frequently why he did not find an occupation, towhich he always replied, "Ma chère, I have precisely the occupations I care for."Mamanwrote secretly tobon papain Paris and begged him to find a post for her husband there, and an excellent one was found at the treasury. But when the letter came, andmaman, full of joy, displayed it to him, papa cheerfully, but firmly, refused to consider for a moment any such change in his way of life. As a country gentleman he had lived and as a country gentleman he intended to go on living, and so indeed he continued to the end of his long life. I don't imagine that he made any difficulties as tomamantaking over the financial management. He was quite incapable of saying no to a farmer who asked to have his rent run on unpaid, and realized, no doubt, that his methods would soon bring his family to ruin. So it wasmamanwho received and paid out all the money. I see her now, sitting at the end of the long table in the kitchen, between two tall tallow candles, the peasants kneeling on the floor about her while she assessed their indebtedness and received their payments. She was never unkind, but always strict,and I was more than once the sympathetic witness of an incident that would greatly have incensed her. My father, meeting a disconsolate peasant going to an interview withla Maîtresse, would surreptitiously slide the needful sum into his hand! What wouldmamanhave said had she known that the money so brightly and briskly paid to her had just come out of her husband's pocket!
"My father, meeting a disconsolate peasant, ... would surreptitiously slide the needful sum into his hand""My father, meeting a disconsolate peasant, ... would surreptitiously slide the needful sum into his hand"
"My father, meeting a disconsolate peasant, ... would surreptitiously slide the needful sum into his hand"
I was always a great deal with papa at Loch-ar-Brugg. At first I used to walk with him,—when he did not take me on his horse,—trotting along beside him, my hand in his. Later on, when Tante Rose had given me a dear little pony, I rode with him, and he had secretly made for me, knowing thatmamanwould not approve, a very astonishing riding-costume. It had long, tightly fitting trousers, a short little jacket, like an Eton jacket, with a red-velvet collar,—red was my father's racing color,—and on my long golden curls a high silk hat.Mamanburst out laughing when she saw me thus attired and was too much amused to be displeased. She herself rode a great deal at this time, but it was to hunting- and shooting-parties,from which she would return with her "bag" hanging from a sort of little pole fixed to her saddle; and I remember that one day she brought a strange beast that none of us ever saw in Brittany again, a species of armadillo (tatou) that her horse had trodden upon and killed.
It was at Loch-ar-Brugg, on one of those early walks with papa, that my first vivid recollection of a landscape seen as a beautiful picture comes to me. We had entered a deep lane where gnarled old trees interlaced their fingers overhead and looked, with their twisted trunks, like crouching men or beasts; and as we advanced, it became so dark and mysterious that I was very much frightened and hung to papa's hand, begging to be taken out. He pointed then before us, and far, far away I saw a tiny spot of light. "Don't be frightened, Sophie," he said; "we are going toward the sunlight." So I kept my eyes fixed on the widening spot, holding papa's hand very tightly in the haunted darkness; and when we suddenly emerged, we were on the brink of a great gorge, and beyond were mountains, and below us lay a tranquil,silver lake. I have never forgotten the strange, visionary impression, as of a beauty evoked from the darkness. Papa told me the story of the lake; it was called "le lac des Korrigans." The Korrigans are Breton fairies—fairies, I think, more melancholy than those of other lands, and with something sinister andmacabrein their supernatural activities. They danced upon the turf, it is true, in fairy-rings, but also, at night, they would unwind the linen from the dead in the churchyards and wash it in this lake. I felt the same fear and wonder on hearing this story that all my descendants have shown when they, in their turn, have come to hear it, and my little granddaughter, in passing near the lake with me, has often said, shrinking against me, "Je ne veux pas voir les blanchisseuses, Grand'mère."
Le Lac des KorrigansLe Lac des Korrigans
Le Lac des Korrigans
Unlike the marquis, who filled my mind, or tried to fill it, with the facts of nature and history, papa, on our walks, told me all these old legends, not as if he believed them, it is true, but as if they were stories quite as important in their way as the crusades; and perhaps he was right.
Sometimes, when we were walking or riding, we met convicts who had escaped from the great prison at Brest. I was strictly forbidden ever to go outside the gates alone; but once, at evening, I slipped out and ran along the road to meet papa, who, I knew, was coming from Landerneau on foot. He was very much perturbed when he saw me emerge before him in the dusk, and drew me sharply to his side, and I then noticed that two men were following him. Presently they joined us and asked papa, very roughly, for the time.
"It is nine, I think," said my father, eyeing them very attentively.
"You think? Haven't you a watch, then?" said one of them.
I suppose they imagined that the rifle papa carried over his shoulder was unloaded; but unslinging it in the twinkling of an eye, he said sternly:
"Walk ahead. If you turn or stop, I shoot." They obeyed at once, and as they went along we heard a queer clink come from their ankles.
"Escaped convicts," said papa in a low voice. "Poor devils! And you see, Sophie, how dangerousit is for little girls to wander on the roads at night."
"Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink""Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink"
"Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink"
On another occasion we found a wretched, exhausted man lying by the roadside, and papa stopped and asked him what was the matter. He must have felt the kindness of the face and voice, for he said:
"I am an escaped convict, monsieur. For God's sake! don't betray me. I am dying of hunger." Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink, and then, when we saw that the brandy had given him strength, he put some money into his hand and said:
"It is against the law that I should help you, but I give you an hour before I raise the alarm. Go in that direction, and God be with you!"
The church-bells were rung everywhere, answering one another from village to village when a convict was known to be at large; but on this occasion I know that my father did not fulfil his duty, the poor creature's piteous face had too much touched him. Once, too, when we children were walking with Jeannie along the highroad wecaught sight of a beggar-woman sleeping in the ditch. In peering over cautiously to have a good look at her, we saw huge men's boots protruding from her petticoats, and, at the other end, a black beard, and we then made off as fast as our legs would carry us, realizing that the beggar-woman was a convict in disguise. At an inn not far from Loch-ar-Brugg there was a woman of bad character who sold these disguises to the escaped convicts.
Papa and my little brother and sister (Maraquita was not then born) were not my only companions at Loch-ar-Brugg. The property of Ker-Azel adjoined ours, and I saw all my Laisieu cousins continually, dear, gentle France, domineering Jules, and the rest. There were nine of them. It was Jules who told us one day that he had been thinking over the future of France (the country, not his brother), and had come to the conclusion that we should all soon suffer from a terrible famine. Famines had come before this, said Jules, so why not again? It was only wise to be prepared for them; and what he suggested was that weshould all accustom ourselves to eat grass and clover, as the cattle did. If it nourished cows, it would nourish us. All that was needed was a little good-will in order that we should become accustomed to the new diet. Jules was sincerely convinced of the truth of what he said; but he was a tyrannous boy, and threatened us with beatings if we breathed a word of his plan to our parents. We were to feign at meals that we were not hungry, and to say that we had eaten before coming to the table. I well remember the first time that we poor little creatures knelt down on all fours in a secluded meadow and began to bite and munch the grass. We complained at once that we did not like it at all, and Jules, as a concession to our weakness, said that we might begin with clover, since it was sweeter. For some time we submitted to the ordeal, getting thinner and thinner and paler, growing accustomed, it is true, to our tasteless diet and never daring to confess our predicament; we were really afraid of the famine as well as of Jules. At last our parents, seriously alarmed, consulted the good old doctor, asnothing could be got from us but stout denials of hunger. He took me home with him, for I was his special pet, and talked gravely and gently to me, reminding me that I was now eight years old and of the age of reason, going to confession and capable of sin. It was a sin to tell lies, and if I would tell him the truth, he would never betray my confidence. Thus adjured, I began to cry, and confessed that we had all been eating nothing but grass and clover. The doctor petted and consoled me, told me that it was all folly on the part of Jules, and that he would set it right without any one knowing that I had told him. He kept his promise to me. It was as if by chance he found us all in our meadow next day, on all fours, munching away. Jules sprang up, sulky and obstinate.
"Yes; we are eating grass and clover," he said, "and we are quite accustomed to it now and like it very much, and we shall be better off than the rest of you when the famine comes."
The doctor burst out laughing, and his laughter broke the spell Jules had cast upon us. Hetold us that not only was there no probability of a famine, no possibility even, France being a country rich in food, but that even were there to be a famine, we should certainly all be dead before it came if we went on eating as the cattle did, since we were not accommodated with the same digestive apparatus as they. He described to us this apparatus and our own, and at last even Jules, who was as thin and as weary as the rest of us, was convinced, and glad to be convinced. It was not till many years afterward that we told our parents the story.
One day we children were all in a deep lane—perhaps the same that had frightened me years before—when, at a turning, the most inconceivable monster towered above us in the gloom. We recognized it in a moment as a camel (a camel in Brittany!), and with it came a band of Gipsies, with dark skins, flashing teeth, bright handkerchiefs, and ear-rings. Our alarm was not diminished when we saw that they led, as well as the camel, two thin performing bears. But as we emerged into the light with the chattering, fawningcrowd, alarm gave way to joyous excitement. The camel and the bears were under perfect control, and the Gipsies were not going to hurt us. They asked if they might make the bears dance for us, and we ran to show them the way to Loch-ar-Brugg.Maman, in her broad garden hat, was walking in the beech-avenue, and came at once to forbid the Gipsies to enter, as they were preparing to do; but as we supplicated that we should be allowed to see the bears dance, she consented to allow the performance to take place in the highroad before thegrille. We sat about on the grass; the camel towered against the sky, gaunt, tawny, and melancholy; and the bears, armed with wooden staffs, went through their clumsy, reluctant tricks.Maman, from within thegrille, surveyed the entertainment with great disfavor, and it lost its charm for us when we heard her say: "How wretchedly thin and miserable the poor creatures look! They must be dying of hunger." We then became very sorry for the bears, too, and glad to have them left in peace, and while we distributed sous to the Gipsies,mamanwent to thehouse and returned with a basket of broken bread and meat, which she gave to the famished beasts. How they snatched and devoured it, and how plainly I seemamanstanding there, the deep green vault of the avenue behind her, the clumps of blue hydrangeas, her light dress, her wide-brimmed garden hat, and her severe, solicitous blue eyes as she held out the bread to the hungry bears!
"A woman of bad character, who sold these disguises to escaped convicts""A woman of bad character, who sold these disguises to escaped convicts"
"A woman of bad character, who sold these disguises to escaped convicts"
A great character at Loch-ar-Brugg was the curé. It was he who had baptized me, for I was baptized not at Quimper, but in the little church of St. Eloi that stood at the foot of the Loch-ar-Brugg woods and had been in the Kerouguet family for generations. During my earliest years there he was our chaplain, inhabiting one of thepavillonsin the garden with his old servant; later on he was given the living of Plougastel, some miles away, and my father had to persuade him to accept it, for he was very averse to leaving Loch-ar-Brugg and our family. Still, even at Plougastel we saw him constantly; he drove over nearly every day in his little pony-trap, and officiated every Sunday at the seven o'clock mass at St. Eloi.What a dear, honest fellow he was, and what startling sermons I have heard him preach! Once he informed his congregation that they would all be damned like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Fénélon! This threat, pronounced in Breton, was especially impressive, and how he came by the two ill-assorted names I cannot imagine, for he was nearly as ignorant of books as his flock. He was devoted to my father body and soul, being the son of one of his farmers. They were great comrades. Whenever my father had had a good day's shooting he would go to thepavillonand cry: "Come to dinner! There are woodcocks." And the curé never failed to come. I see him now, with his rustic, rugged face, weather-tanned, gay, and austere. One of my first memories is of the small, square neck ornament (rabat) that the clergy wear,—abavettewe children called them,—stitched round with white beads. I longed for these beads, and when he took me on his knee I always fixed my eyes upon them. Unattainable indeed they seemed, but one day, noticing the intentness of my gaze, he questioned me, and I wasable to express my longing. "But you shall have the beads!" he cried, touched and delighted. "I have tworabats, and one is old and past wearing. Nothing is simpler than to cut off the beads for you, my little Sophie."
His performance was even better than his promise, for he brought me a bagful of the beads, collected from among his curé friends, and for days I was blissfully occupied in making chains, rings, and necklaces. Some of these ornaments survived for many years.
The curé was not at all happy in the presence of fine people. "Je me sauve!" he would exclaim if such appeared, and he would make off to the garden, where he was altogether at home, true son of the soil that he was. Here he would gird up hissoutaneover his homespun knee-breeches, open his coarse peasant's shirt on his bare chest, and prune and dig and plant; and when he took a task in hand it went quickly. One of my delights was when he put me into the wheelbarrow and trundled me off to Ker-Eliane to dig up ferns formaman'sgarden.
He, too, told me many legends. The one of St. Eloi especially interested me. St. Eloi was the son of a blacksmith and helped his father at the forge in the tiny hamlet called after him. One day as they were working, a little child came riding up, mounted on a horse so gigantic that four men could not have held him. "Will you shoe my horse, good friends?" said the child,—who of course wasl'Enfant Jésus,—very politely. "His shoe is loose, and his hoof will be hurt." The father blacksmith looked with astonishment and indignation at the horse, and said that he could not think of shoeing an animal of such a size; but the son, St. Eloi, said at once that he would do his best. Sol'Enfant Jésusslid down, and took a seat on thetalusin front of the smithy, and St. Eloi at once neatly unscrewed the four legs of the horse and laid them down beside the enormous body. At this point in the story I always cried out:
"But,Monsieur le Curé, did it not hurt the poor horse to have its legs unscrewed?"
And the curé, smiling calmly, would reply:
"Not in the least. You see, this was a miracle, my little Sophie."
So St. Eloi was able to deal with the great hoofs separately, and when all was neatly done, the legs were screwed on again; and the child remounted, and said to St. Eloi's father before he rode away:
"You are a little soured with age, my friend. Your son here is very wise. Listen to him and take his advice in everything, for it will be good."
It was no doubt on account of this legend that all the horses through all the country far and near were brought to the church of St. Eloi once a year to be blessed by the curé. This ceremony was calledle Baptême des Chevaux. The horses, from plow-horses to carriage-horses and hunters, were brought and ranged round the church in groups of fours and sixes. At the widely opened western door the curé stood, holding thegoupillon, or holy-water sprinkler, and the horses were slowly led round the church, row after row, seven times, and each time that they passed before him the curé sprinkled them with holy water. After this initial blessing the curé took up his stand within besidethe christening-font, and the horses were led into the church,—I so well remember the dull thud and trampling of their feet upon the earthen floor,—and the curé, with holy water from the font, made the sign of the cross upon each large, innocent forehead. Finally the tail of each horse was carefully cut off, and all the tails hung up in the church together, to be sold for the benefit of the church at the end of the year, beforele Baptême des Chevauxtook place again. This touching ceremony still survives, but the horses are only led round the church and blessed, not brought inside.