"The Duke, still smiling, promised to be a perfect and indignant aristocrat, and our thief entreated us all to look as sorrowful as we could. Of this lesson, my mother, poor lady, had small need; but we boys had recovered our spirits with sight of day, and when the thief besought us and showed us how we were to look, we were seized with such mirth that the Duke at last bade us understand that it was no laughing matter, and we promised to act our parts. Finally we were made to fill our pockets with the most of the gold found in the bag, and the rest the Duke and my mother stowed away, while the thief took the Duke's pistols, and, leaving the others, girded on the dead man's sword."'Now, guard yourselves,' said the thief, as we went out of the catacombs and across the debris of stone, stumbling, still unaccustomed to the light, and so down a slope and around a pond in the middle of the unused quarry. On the far side a road led out between the broken walls of stone. Here the thief halted. 'Have you a handkerchief, Madame?' he said. 'Use it. Weep if ever you did. Never may tears be of so much use again. And you, lads, if you laugh we are as good as dead.'"'What day is it?' said my mother, and the tears were quite ready enough."'It is July the twenty-eighth,' answered the Duke."'Oh, no,' said I. 'Mama, it is the 10th Thermidor.'"'That is better,' said our thief. 'Let us move on.'"The quarry road opened into a lane, and here were market-gardens and rare houses, and a deserted convent or two, and a network of crossways through which François directed the Duke, who walked ahead, as if under arrest. We followed them anxiously beneath the ruddy evening sky, wondering, as we went, to see scarce a soul. The Rue d'Enfer was the first street we came upon as we left the suburban lanes; but still it, too, was deserted. The Duke remarked on this singular absence of people; but as we were now near a small cabaret François called out, 'Get along, aristocrat.' The Duke said some wicked words, and we went on. A man came out of the café and cried after us: 'Family of the guillotine!À bas les aristocrats!' and would François have apetit verre? But our thief said no, he was on duty, and our comedy went on."It was necessary to pass the Barriere d'Enfer, where usually was a guard and close scrutiny. To our surprise, there were but two men. One of them said. 'Ah, Citizen, what have you here?'"'Aristocrats under arrest—aci-devantduke.'"'Have an eye to these,' said the officer to his fellow; 'and you, Citizen, come into the guardroom and register their names.' 'Certainly,' said the thief, and we were set aside while he passed into the room with the guard. After some ten minutes he came out alone very quietly, and said to the other guard, 'It is all correct and in order, Citizen,' waited to tease a black cat on the door-step, asked the hour, and at last, giving the Duke a rude push, cried out, 'Get on there, aristocrat! I have no time to waste.'"At this we moved away, and he hurried us along the Rue d'Enfer past the Observatory. A little further he struck hastily to the left into the Rue Notre Dame des Champs. By the Rue de Cimetière, along past the Nouvelle Foire St. Germain, he hurried us, and hardly gave us leave to breathe until we came out amongst the trampled gardens and tall alleys of box back of the Luxembourg. Never pausing, he wound in and out, until by these roundabout ways he came forth into the Rue Vaugirard. As we went across the great ruined gardens, a few people scattered among the parterres looked at us, as if curious, and whispered to one another. Our thief was still in great haste."'Must I get you a grand carriage to help you?' he cried. 'Get on, aristocrat! Soon the Republic will give you a carriage; come along. Make haste, or we are lost,' he added in a lower voice."'What the deuce is it?' said the Duke. The thief's uneasiness was visible enough."'Mille tonnerres! Duke,' said the thief; 'that child of Satan at the barrier knew me.'"'And what then?'"'Now he does not know me.'"'Mon Dieu!' exclaimed the Duke. 'You are a bravegarçon.'"As we entered the Rue de Varennes, an old woman glared at the false municipal, crying out, 'Thy day is over, accursed!' She shook her fist at him. Not understanding, we hurried on. As I looked back, her gray hair was hanging about her; she stood at the wayside, shaking her upraised hands. I could not comprehend what it meant."Here, as we went on, for the first time we met great numbers of people, all coming from the river. A few were talking in suppressed voices; and some, turning, stared after us as we went by. Most were silent, as folks not often are in France. At one place it was not easy to get on as fast as our thief desired. In place of quickly making way for an officer, as was usual in those days, the people in our path jostled the municipal, or made room sullenly. At last François cried out to some young fellows who blocked our way, 'Let these suspects go by, citizens; they are under arrest.' This was like a spark to powder. A woman cried out, 'Poor children! Are they yours, Citoyenne?' My mother, bewildered, said, 'Yes, yes.' Then a young man near me shouted, 'Down with tyrants!' Our thief was puzzled. 'Hold, there!' he cried. 'What is this?' 'Down with the Terror! Robespierre is dead.' And as if it were a signal, the great crowd, ever increasing, cried out, 'He is dead! Robespierre is dead!'"In a moment we were pushed about and separated. François, our thief, was cuffed and kicked hither and thither. The silence became an uproar of wild cries. 'He is dead! Robespierre is dead!' It was a great madness of release from fear, and a tumult of cries, sharp and hoarse—an outburst of human emotion, sudden and strange to see. Near me a woman fell in a fit. Men ran about yelling, 'He is dead!' All was confusion and tears and mad laughter, any one embracing the citizen next to him. There were others who ran here and there through the crowd, jumping up and down, or catching some woman and whirling her as if in a dance. I lost sight of the Duke, and Mama, and the thief, who kept hold of this my friend; but no one of them all did I see again until late that night."As I was now where I knew my way, I went to and fro, afraid to ask questions, until I got to the quay. There I saw a lad of my own years, and it being by this time quite near to dark, I felt that I had a good chance to run at need. 'Halloa!' I said. 'I am a boy from the country. What is the news?'"'Oh, a fine sight, and you have missed it. They have cut off the heads of Robespierre and Henriot and twenty more. He had nankeen breeches and a blue coat, and my father says that is the end of the Terror. You ought to have got there three hours ago. Chop—chop—like carrots.'"Now I was old enough to have heard much of Robespierre, and to have some idea of the great relief his death might mean. So I thanked my news-teller, and ran as fast as I could go to my home, in this present house. I stood, however, a moment, uneasy, at the opening of the long covered way. Of a sudden I screamed, for a man caught me by the arm.Mon Dieu! It was our neighbor, the charcutier opposite."He said, 'Have no fear, my lad. Fear is dead to-day. Get thee home; they look for thee. Robespierre is dead.À bas les Jacobins!'"'And my father is here?' I heard him cry, 'Yes,' as he caught me up and ran with me along the court, kissing me. And there, at the door, was my mama, and behind her Duke Philip and his son, and, to my joy, the thief in short breeches. There was much to say as to how my father had made believe he was the Duke, to give us a chance to escape a search, and how, long before the miscreant's death, he had been released through the help of Fouquier, and came home to find us all gone. It was, in fact, the day after we fled from the cave that he was put in possession of his house. When the municipal who went with him as a matter of form came into the sitting-room where now we are, my father said, 'Wait and let me give you a glass of good wine. I will fetch it.' So saying, he took a lantern and went across the garden in deadly terror and anxiety, not dreaming but what he would find us in the lower cave. When he saw the trap open in the floor of the plant-house, he was filled with dread, and quickly descended to the upper wine-cellar. There was the municipal the Duke had wounded, lying dead in a great pool of blood and wine; for the ball had gone through him and tapped a great cask of wine, of which, indeed, I think I spoke. My father then opened the trap in the floor of the cellar, and went down the steps. A great wind came through the opening in the wall, to his surprise. He called, but none answered. At the foot of the stone stair lay the naked body of the municipal whom the Duke killed outright with his first pistol. Imagine my father's perplexity on finding the gap in the wall leading into the great dark labyrinth of the catacombs, and the rush of damp, malodorous air, and the black gulf beyond, and the answerless silence when he called."He came up at once with a bottle, and made fast the traps and covered them with rubbish. Then he gave the officer his drink and a handful of assignats, which may have been five francs, and after that sat down to think.Eh bien!it is a long tale, and here comes supper."Another day you shall hear how my father carried the dead officers into the catacombs and left them there, and of two dangerous quests he made in those caves in search of us, and of a strange adventure which befell him. On Sunday week come and dine, and hear it all.""It is most interesting," I said."And this is the house, and we were in the cave," said Pierce."And," said I, "that was your mother's glove we saw moldering on the cask, where she left it?""Yes. A few years ago we found in a corner the baby's rattle. The little fellow died last June, an old man, and the mother and the good, brave Duke are gone. And now you will sup with his son and grandson.""Ah," exclaimed young St. Maur. "Here is François and supper." Upon this the long, lean man who had admitted us said, "Monsieur is served. I shall carry in the wine." And he added, to me, "Monsieur may have let fall his handkerchief," and, so saying, he returned it, lying on a salver. Upon this the Duke and the rest of them laughed outright, but made haste to explain at once."François," said Des Illes, "will you never be old enough to acquire a little virtue? My dear M. Michel, we have had our good thief François with us all these days, ever since that adventure in the cave. He has money in bank, but to steal a handkerchief now and then he cannot resist. I must say, he always returns it.""Monsieur will have his little jest," said François. "The supper waits." With this he left us."What a delightful character!" said Pierce. "And did he really pick my friend's pocket?""Assuredly," said the Duke. "For many years he used now and then to ask a holiday. He commonly came back rather forlorn, and apt for a while to keep the house and be shy of gendarmes. It was our belief that he went off to get a little amusement in his old fashion. I suspect that he got into serious trouble once, but Des Illes is secretive.""And how old is he?" said I."That no man knows," returned our host, rising. "To be asked his age is the one thing on earth known to annoy him. He says time is the only thief without honor among other thieves.""Queer, that," said I, as our host rose. "The old have commonly a strange pride in their age.""I have none," laughed the Duke."This way," said Des Illes, and we followed him into a pretty dining-room, and sat down below a half-dozen canvases of men and women of the days of the Regency.It was a delightful little supper, with clarets of amazing age and in perfect condition. Toward the close, Des Illes retired for a few minutes to add the last charm to what the younger St. Maur called the toilette of the salad. When we had praised it and disposed of it, Des Illes said to me: "Monsieur, our good fortune has brought you here to-night, on the evening when once in each year we sup together in the mourning costume which may have excited your curiosity."To this we both confessed, and Des Illes added: "On this day we, who are among the few who remember the Terror, meet because it is January the twenty-first. On this day died Louis Sixteenth. You will join us, I trust, in a glass of older wine in remembrance of our dead King." Thus speaking, he rose and himself took from the mantel-shelf a bottle. "It is of the vintage of 1793, an old Burgundy. Its name I do not know, but, as you see, each bottle was marked by my father with a black ribbon."Standing beside me, he filled our glasses, the Duke's, that of St. Maur, and last his own. Pierce and I rose with the rest. The Duke said, "The King, to his memory." and threw the glass over his shoulder, that no meaner toast might be drunk from it. I glanced at Pierce, and we did as they had done."It shows its age." said Des Illes, "but still holds its bouquet. Fading—fading!""One would scarce know it for the wine we knew when it and we were young," said the Duke."Know it?" said Des Illes. "Ah me, dear Duke, if you yourself, aged twenty-five, were to walk in just now and say, 'Bon jour, Duke, how is myself,' would you know him, think you?""Pardie, my friend; you have ghostly fancies. Give us some younger wine and a gayer jest.""With all my heart," said Des Illes."Let it be the Clos Vougeot of '20," said the younger St. Maur. "It was with that wonderful vintage that I made my first entry into the highest society of the great wines.""A fine seigneur is that," said Des Illes."It reminds me rather of some grande dame," returned St. Maur. "There is something haughty about the refinement of a high-caste Burgundy: a combination of decisive individual quality with good manners.""How pretty that is!" said Pierce. "The good manners of a wine!""And is n't champagne just a bit like a grisette?" laughed the Duke. "But a Margaux like this, or the Romance I see yonder, are grandees, as my friend has said; and there might be more to say of them, but I leave the rest to your fancy. A little more Burgundy, Monsieur?"As is, alas, true concerning most of the pleasant meals I remember, I can recall but faint reminiscences of the bright talk of that memorable supper.The younger St. Maur told us a pretty story of a vineyard wooing; a thing so delicate and idyllic that I shall not dare to take it out of its social frame for you. Later, Des Illes stood up and in a queer, creaky tenor sang (and by no means ill) the song the girls sing when they trample out the juice of the grapes in the great vats. Upon this Pierce quoted:Pink feet that bruiseThe gold-green grapes of Andalouse.I rashly tried to put it into French, and was much complimented upon what I knew to be a sorry failure.I have a misty recollection of what came after, of old-time jests, of levities as to the Corsican, and, too, a pretty story the Duke told us of the fairy vineyards near to Dijon, which only a woman who loves has ever seen. I seem now, as I write of this delightful night, to see it all again: the little old gentleman; the clear-cut face of the Duke; his son, cynical and handsome; the sheen of jet; the somber, picturesque dresses; thief François behind Des Illes's chair, ruddy, gaunt, not less than ninety, with a smile of the same age. As I try to recall it, I remember—do I remember?—the flavor of that Clos Vougeot, and hear again the courteous voice of the Duke: "A little more Burgundy, Monsieur?"*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKA MADEIRA PARTY***
"The Duke, still smiling, promised to be a perfect and indignant aristocrat, and our thief entreated us all to look as sorrowful as we could. Of this lesson, my mother, poor lady, had small need; but we boys had recovered our spirits with sight of day, and when the thief besought us and showed us how we were to look, we were seized with such mirth that the Duke at last bade us understand that it was no laughing matter, and we promised to act our parts. Finally we were made to fill our pockets with the most of the gold found in the bag, and the rest the Duke and my mother stowed away, while the thief took the Duke's pistols, and, leaving the others, girded on the dead man's sword.
"'Now, guard yourselves,' said the thief, as we went out of the catacombs and across the debris of stone, stumbling, still unaccustomed to the light, and so down a slope and around a pond in the middle of the unused quarry. On the far side a road led out between the broken walls of stone. Here the thief halted. 'Have you a handkerchief, Madame?' he said. 'Use it. Weep if ever you did. Never may tears be of so much use again. And you, lads, if you laugh we are as good as dead.'
"'What day is it?' said my mother, and the tears were quite ready enough.
"'It is July the twenty-eighth,' answered the Duke.
"'Oh, no,' said I. 'Mama, it is the 10th Thermidor.'
"'That is better,' said our thief. 'Let us move on.'
"The quarry road opened into a lane, and here were market-gardens and rare houses, and a deserted convent or two, and a network of crossways through which François directed the Duke, who walked ahead, as if under arrest. We followed them anxiously beneath the ruddy evening sky, wondering, as we went, to see scarce a soul. The Rue d'Enfer was the first street we came upon as we left the suburban lanes; but still it, too, was deserted. The Duke remarked on this singular absence of people; but as we were now near a small cabaret François called out, 'Get along, aristocrat.' The Duke said some wicked words, and we went on. A man came out of the café and cried after us: 'Family of the guillotine!À bas les aristocrats!' and would François have apetit verre? But our thief said no, he was on duty, and our comedy went on.
"It was necessary to pass the Barriere d'Enfer, where usually was a guard and close scrutiny. To our surprise, there were but two men. One of them said. 'Ah, Citizen, what have you here?'
"'Aristocrats under arrest—aci-devantduke.'
"'Have an eye to these,' said the officer to his fellow; 'and you, Citizen, come into the guardroom and register their names.' 'Certainly,' said the thief, and we were set aside while he passed into the room with the guard. After some ten minutes he came out alone very quietly, and said to the other guard, 'It is all correct and in order, Citizen,' waited to tease a black cat on the door-step, asked the hour, and at last, giving the Duke a rude push, cried out, 'Get on there, aristocrat! I have no time to waste.'
"At this we moved away, and he hurried us along the Rue d'Enfer past the Observatory. A little further he struck hastily to the left into the Rue Notre Dame des Champs. By the Rue de Cimetière, along past the Nouvelle Foire St. Germain, he hurried us, and hardly gave us leave to breathe until we came out amongst the trampled gardens and tall alleys of box back of the Luxembourg. Never pausing, he wound in and out, until by these roundabout ways he came forth into the Rue Vaugirard. As we went across the great ruined gardens, a few people scattered among the parterres looked at us, as if curious, and whispered to one another. Our thief was still in great haste.
"'Must I get you a grand carriage to help you?' he cried. 'Get on, aristocrat! Soon the Republic will give you a carriage; come along. Make haste, or we are lost,' he added in a lower voice.
"'What the deuce is it?' said the Duke. The thief's uneasiness was visible enough.
"'Mille tonnerres! Duke,' said the thief; 'that child of Satan at the barrier knew me.'
"'And what then?'
"'Now he does not know me.'
"'Mon Dieu!' exclaimed the Duke. 'You are a bravegarçon.'
"As we entered the Rue de Varennes, an old woman glared at the false municipal, crying out, 'Thy day is over, accursed!' She shook her fist at him. Not understanding, we hurried on. As I looked back, her gray hair was hanging about her; she stood at the wayside, shaking her upraised hands. I could not comprehend what it meant.
"Here, as we went on, for the first time we met great numbers of people, all coming from the river. A few were talking in suppressed voices; and some, turning, stared after us as we went by. Most were silent, as folks not often are in France. At one place it was not easy to get on as fast as our thief desired. In place of quickly making way for an officer, as was usual in those days, the people in our path jostled the municipal, or made room sullenly. At last François cried out to some young fellows who blocked our way, 'Let these suspects go by, citizens; they are under arrest.' This was like a spark to powder. A woman cried out, 'Poor children! Are they yours, Citoyenne?' My mother, bewildered, said, 'Yes, yes.' Then a young man near me shouted, 'Down with tyrants!' Our thief was puzzled. 'Hold, there!' he cried. 'What is this?' 'Down with the Terror! Robespierre is dead.' And as if it were a signal, the great crowd, ever increasing, cried out, 'He is dead! Robespierre is dead!'
"In a moment we were pushed about and separated. François, our thief, was cuffed and kicked hither and thither. The silence became an uproar of wild cries. 'He is dead! Robespierre is dead!' It was a great madness of release from fear, and a tumult of cries, sharp and hoarse—an outburst of human emotion, sudden and strange to see. Near me a woman fell in a fit. Men ran about yelling, 'He is dead!' All was confusion and tears and mad laughter, any one embracing the citizen next to him. There were others who ran here and there through the crowd, jumping up and down, or catching some woman and whirling her as if in a dance. I lost sight of the Duke, and Mama, and the thief, who kept hold of this my friend; but no one of them all did I see again until late that night.
"As I was now where I knew my way, I went to and fro, afraid to ask questions, until I got to the quay. There I saw a lad of my own years, and it being by this time quite near to dark, I felt that I had a good chance to run at need. 'Halloa!' I said. 'I am a boy from the country. What is the news?'
"'Oh, a fine sight, and you have missed it. They have cut off the heads of Robespierre and Henriot and twenty more. He had nankeen breeches and a blue coat, and my father says that is the end of the Terror. You ought to have got there three hours ago. Chop—chop—like carrots.'
"Now I was old enough to have heard much of Robespierre, and to have some idea of the great relief his death might mean. So I thanked my news-teller, and ran as fast as I could go to my home, in this present house. I stood, however, a moment, uneasy, at the opening of the long covered way. Of a sudden I screamed, for a man caught me by the arm.Mon Dieu! It was our neighbor, the charcutier opposite.
"He said, 'Have no fear, my lad. Fear is dead to-day. Get thee home; they look for thee. Robespierre is dead.À bas les Jacobins!'
"'And my father is here?' I heard him cry, 'Yes,' as he caught me up and ran with me along the court, kissing me. And there, at the door, was my mama, and behind her Duke Philip and his son, and, to my joy, the thief in short breeches. There was much to say as to how my father had made believe he was the Duke, to give us a chance to escape a search, and how, long before the miscreant's death, he had been released through the help of Fouquier, and came home to find us all gone. It was, in fact, the day after we fled from the cave that he was put in possession of his house. When the municipal who went with him as a matter of form came into the sitting-room where now we are, my father said, 'Wait and let me give you a glass of good wine. I will fetch it.' So saying, he took a lantern and went across the garden in deadly terror and anxiety, not dreaming but what he would find us in the lower cave. When he saw the trap open in the floor of the plant-house, he was filled with dread, and quickly descended to the upper wine-cellar. There was the municipal the Duke had wounded, lying dead in a great pool of blood and wine; for the ball had gone through him and tapped a great cask of wine, of which, indeed, I think I spoke. My father then opened the trap in the floor of the cellar, and went down the steps. A great wind came through the opening in the wall, to his surprise. He called, but none answered. At the foot of the stone stair lay the naked body of the municipal whom the Duke killed outright with his first pistol. Imagine my father's perplexity on finding the gap in the wall leading into the great dark labyrinth of the catacombs, and the rush of damp, malodorous air, and the black gulf beyond, and the answerless silence when he called.
"He came up at once with a bottle, and made fast the traps and covered them with rubbish. Then he gave the officer his drink and a handful of assignats, which may have been five francs, and after that sat down to think.Eh bien!it is a long tale, and here comes supper.
"Another day you shall hear how my father carried the dead officers into the catacombs and left them there, and of two dangerous quests he made in those caves in search of us, and of a strange adventure which befell him. On Sunday week come and dine, and hear it all."
"It is most interesting," I said.
"And this is the house, and we were in the cave," said Pierce.
"And," said I, "that was your mother's glove we saw moldering on the cask, where she left it?"
"Yes. A few years ago we found in a corner the baby's rattle. The little fellow died last June, an old man, and the mother and the good, brave Duke are gone. And now you will sup with his son and grandson."
"Ah," exclaimed young St. Maur. "Here is François and supper." Upon this the long, lean man who had admitted us said, "Monsieur is served. I shall carry in the wine." And he added, to me, "Monsieur may have let fall his handkerchief," and, so saying, he returned it, lying on a salver. Upon this the Duke and the rest of them laughed outright, but made haste to explain at once.
"François," said Des Illes, "will you never be old enough to acquire a little virtue? My dear M. Michel, we have had our good thief François with us all these days, ever since that adventure in the cave. He has money in bank, but to steal a handkerchief now and then he cannot resist. I must say, he always returns it."
"Monsieur will have his little jest," said François. "The supper waits." With this he left us.
"What a delightful character!" said Pierce. "And did he really pick my friend's pocket?"
"Assuredly," said the Duke. "For many years he used now and then to ask a holiday. He commonly came back rather forlorn, and apt for a while to keep the house and be shy of gendarmes. It was our belief that he went off to get a little amusement in his old fashion. I suspect that he got into serious trouble once, but Des Illes is secretive."
"And how old is he?" said I.
"That no man knows," returned our host, rising. "To be asked his age is the one thing on earth known to annoy him. He says time is the only thief without honor among other thieves."
"Queer, that," said I, as our host rose. "The old have commonly a strange pride in their age."
"I have none," laughed the Duke.
"This way," said Des Illes, and we followed him into a pretty dining-room, and sat down below a half-dozen canvases of men and women of the days of the Regency.
It was a delightful little supper, with clarets of amazing age and in perfect condition. Toward the close, Des Illes retired for a few minutes to add the last charm to what the younger St. Maur called the toilette of the salad. When we had praised it and disposed of it, Des Illes said to me: "Monsieur, our good fortune has brought you here to-night, on the evening when once in each year we sup together in the mourning costume which may have excited your curiosity."
To this we both confessed, and Des Illes added: "On this day we, who are among the few who remember the Terror, meet because it is January the twenty-first. On this day died Louis Sixteenth. You will join us, I trust, in a glass of older wine in remembrance of our dead King." Thus speaking, he rose and himself took from the mantel-shelf a bottle. "It is of the vintage of 1793, an old Burgundy. Its name I do not know, but, as you see, each bottle was marked by my father with a black ribbon."
Standing beside me, he filled our glasses, the Duke's, that of St. Maur, and last his own. Pierce and I rose with the rest. The Duke said, "The King, to his memory." and threw the glass over his shoulder, that no meaner toast might be drunk from it. I glanced at Pierce, and we did as they had done.
"It shows its age." said Des Illes, "but still holds its bouquet. Fading—fading!"
"One would scarce know it for the wine we knew when it and we were young," said the Duke.
"Know it?" said Des Illes. "Ah me, dear Duke, if you yourself, aged twenty-five, were to walk in just now and say, 'Bon jour, Duke, how is myself,' would you know him, think you?"
"Pardie, my friend; you have ghostly fancies. Give us some younger wine and a gayer jest."
"With all my heart," said Des Illes.
"Let it be the Clos Vougeot of '20," said the younger St. Maur. "It was with that wonderful vintage that I made my first entry into the highest society of the great wines."
"A fine seigneur is that," said Des Illes.
"It reminds me rather of some grande dame," returned St. Maur. "There is something haughty about the refinement of a high-caste Burgundy: a combination of decisive individual quality with good manners."
"How pretty that is!" said Pierce. "The good manners of a wine!"
"And is n't champagne just a bit like a grisette?" laughed the Duke. "But a Margaux like this, or the Romance I see yonder, are grandees, as my friend has said; and there might be more to say of them, but I leave the rest to your fancy. A little more Burgundy, Monsieur?"
As is, alas, true concerning most of the pleasant meals I remember, I can recall but faint reminiscences of the bright talk of that memorable supper.
The younger St. Maur told us a pretty story of a vineyard wooing; a thing so delicate and idyllic that I shall not dare to take it out of its social frame for you. Later, Des Illes stood up and in a queer, creaky tenor sang (and by no means ill) the song the girls sing when they trample out the juice of the grapes in the great vats. Upon this Pierce quoted:
Pink feet that bruiseThe gold-green grapes of Andalouse.
Pink feet that bruiseThe gold-green grapes of Andalouse.
Pink feet that bruise
The gold-green grapes of Andalouse.
I rashly tried to put it into French, and was much complimented upon what I knew to be a sorry failure.
I have a misty recollection of what came after, of old-time jests, of levities as to the Corsican, and, too, a pretty story the Duke told us of the fairy vineyards near to Dijon, which only a woman who loves has ever seen. I seem now, as I write of this delightful night, to see it all again: the little old gentleman; the clear-cut face of the Duke; his son, cynical and handsome; the sheen of jet; the somber, picturesque dresses; thief François behind Des Illes's chair, ruddy, gaunt, not less than ninety, with a smile of the same age. As I try to recall it, I remember—do I remember?—the flavor of that Clos Vougeot, and hear again the courteous voice of the Duke: "A little more Burgundy, Monsieur?"
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKA MADEIRA PARTY***