Part 2

I went often with W. to some of the big farms to see the sheep-shearing and the dairies, and cheese made. The farmer's wife in France is a very capable, hard-working woman--up early, seeing to everything herself, and ruling all her carters and ploughboys with a heavy hand. Once a week, on market day, she takes her cheeses to the market town, driving herself in her high gig, and several times I have seen some of them coming home with a cow tied to their wagon behind, which they had bought at the market. They were always pleased to see us, delighted to show anything we wanted to see, offered us refreshment--bread and cheese, milk and wine--but never came to see me at the château. I made the round of all the châteaux with Mme. A. to make acquaintance with the neighbours. They were all rather far off, but I loved the long drives, almost always through the forest, which was quite beautiful in all seasons, changing like the sea. It was delightful in midsummer, the branches of the big trees almost meeting over our heads, making a perfect shade, and the long, straight, green alleys stretching away before us, as far as we could see. When the wood was a little less thick, the afternoon sun would make long zigzags of light through the trees and trace curious patterns upon the hard white road when we emerged occasionally for a few minutes from the depths of the forest at a cross-road. It was perfectly still, but summer stillness, when one hears the buzzing and fluttering wings of small birds and insects, and is conscious of life around one.

The most beautiful time for the forest is, of course, in the autumn. October and November are lovely months, with the changing foliage, the red and yellow almost as vivid as in America, and always a foreground of moss and brown ferns, which grow very thick and high all through the forest. We used to drive sometimes over a thick carpet of red and yellow leaves, hardly hearing the horses' hoofs or the noise of the wheels, and when we turned our faces homeward toward the sunset there was really a glory of colour in wood and sky. It was always curiously lonely--we rarely met anything or anyone, occasionally a group of wood-cutters or boys exercising dogs and horses from the hunting-stables of Villers-Cotterets. At long intervals we would come to a keeper's lodge, standing quite alone in the middle of the forest, generally near a carrefour where several roads met. There was always a small clearing--garden and kennels, and a perfectly comfortable house, but it must be a lonely life for the women when their husbands are off all day on their rounds. I asked one of them once, a pretty, smiling young woman who always came out when the carriage passed, with three or four children hanging to her skirts, if she was never afraid, being alone with small children and no possibility of help, if any drunkards or evilly disposed men came along. She said no--that tramps and vagabonds never came into the heart of the forest, and always kept clear of the keeper's house, as they never knew where he and his gun might be. She said she had had one awful night with a sick child. She was alone in the house with two other small children, almost babies, while her husband had to walk several miles to get a doctor. The long wait was terrible. I got to know all the keepers' wives on our side of the forest quite well, and it was always a great interest to them when we passed on horseback, so few women rode in that part of France in those days.

Sometimes, when we were in the heart of the forest, a stag with wide-spreading antlers would bound across the road; sometimes a pretty roebuck would come to the edge of the wood and gallop quickly back as we got near.

We had a nice couple at the lodge, an old cavalry soldier who had been for years coachman at the château and who had married a Scotchwoman, nurse of one of the children. It was curious to see the tall, gaunt figure of the Scotchwoman, always dressed in a short linsey skirt, loose jacket, and white cap, in the midst of the chattering, excitable women of the village. She looked so unlike them. Our peasant women wear, too, a short; thick skirt, loose jacket, and worsted or knit stockings, but they all wear sabots and on their heads a turban made of bright-coloured cotton; the older women, of course--the girls wear nothing on their heads. They become bent and wrinkled very soon--old women before their time--having worked always in the fields and carried heavy burdens on their backs. The Scotchwoman kept much to herself and rarely left the park. But all the women came to her with their troubles. Nearly always the same story--the men spending their earnings on drink and the poor mothers toiling and striving from dawn till dark to give the little ones enough to eat. She was a strict Protestant, very taciturn and reserved, quite the type of the old Calvinist race who fought so hard against the "Scarlet Woman" when the beautiful and unhappy Mary Stuart was reigning in Scotland and trying to rule her wild subjects. I often went to see her and she would tell me of her first days at the château, where everything was so different from what she was accustomed to.

She didn't tell me what Mme. A. did--that she was a very handsome girl and all the men of the establishment fell in love with her. There were dramas of jealousy when she finally decided to marry the coachman. Our chef had learned how to make various English cakes in London, and whenever he made buns or a plum-pudding we used to take some to her. She was a great reader, and we always kept the Times for her, and she and I sympathised with each other--two Anglo-Saxons married in France.

Some of the traditions of the château were quite charming. I was sitting in the lodge one day talking to Mme. Antoine, when the baker appeared with what seemed to me an extraordinary provision of bread. I said, "Does he leave the bread for the whole village with you?" "It is not for me, madame, it is for the traînards (tramps) who pass on the road," and she explained that all the châteaux gave a piece of bread and two sous to any wayfarer who asked for food. She cut the bread into good thick slices, and showed me a wooden bowl on the chimney, filled with two-sous pieces. While I was there two men appeared at the big gates, which were always open in the day. They were strong young fellows carrying their bundles, and a sort of pitchfork slung over their shoulders. They looked weary and footsore, their shoes worn in holes. They asked for something to drink and some tobacco, didn't care very much for the water, which was all that Mme. Antoine had to give them, but thanked her civilly enough for the bread and sous.

The park wall was a good vantage-ground to see all (and that wasn't much) that went on on the highroad. The diligence to Meaux passed twice a day, with a fine rattle of old wheels and chains, and cracking of whips. It went down the steep hill well enough, but coming up was quite another affair. All the passengers and the driver got out always, and even then it was difficult to get the heavy, cumbersome vehicle up the hill, in winter particularly, when the roads were muddy and slippery. The driver knew us all well, and was much interested in all that went on at the château. He often brought parcels, and occasionally people from the village who wanted to see W.--sometimes a blind piano-tuner who came from Villers-Cotterets. He was very kind to the poor blind man, helped him down most carefully from the diligence, and always brought him through the park gates to the lodge, where he delivered him over to Antoine. It was curious to see the blind man at work. Once he had been led through the rooms, he was quite at home, found the pianos, fussed over the keys and the strings, exactly as if he saw everything. He tuned all the pianos in the country, and was much pleased to put his hands on one that wasn't fifty years old. I had brought down my new Erard.

Sometimes a country wedding passed, and that was always a pretty sight. A marriage is always an important affair in France in every class of life. There are long discussions with all the members of the two families. The curé, the notary, the patron (if the young man is a workman), are all consulted, and there are as many negotiations and agreements in the most humble families as in the grand monde of the Faubourg St. Germain. Almost all French parents give a dot of some kind to their children, and whatever the sum is, either five hundred francs or two thousand, it is always scrupulously paid over to the notary. The wedding-day is a long one. After the religious ceremony in the church, all the wedding party--members of the two families and a certain number of friends--adjourn to the hotel of the little town for a breakfast, which is long and most abundant. Then comes the crowning glory of the day--a country walk along the dusty highroad to some wood or meadow where they can spend the whole afternoon. It is pretty to see the little procession trudging along--the bride in all her wedding garments, white dress, white shoes, wreath, and veil; the groom in a dress coat, top-hat, white cravat and waistcoat, with a white ribbon bow on his sleeve. Almost all the girls and young women are dressed in white or light colours; the mothers and grandmothers (the whole family turns out) in black with flowers in their bonnets. There is usually a fiddler walking ahead making most remarkable sounds on his old cracked instrument, and the younger members of the party take an occasional gallop along the road. They are generally very gay; there is much laughing, and from time to time a burst of song. It is always a mystery to me how the bride keeps her dress and petticoat so clean, but she does, with that extraordinary knack all Frenchwomen seem to have of holding up their skirts. They passed often under the wall of the château, for a favourite resting-place was in our woods at the entrance of the allée verte, where it widens out a little; the moss makes a beautiful soft carpet, and the big trees give perfect shade. We heard sounds of merriment one day when we were passing and we stopped to look on, from behind the bushes, where we couldn't be seen. There was quite a party assembled. The fiddler was playing some sort of country-dance and all the company, except the very old people, were dancing and singing, some of the men indulging in most wonderful steps and capers. The children were playing and running under the trees. One stout man was asleep, stretched out full length on the side of the road. I fancy his piquette, as they call the ordinary white wine of the country, had been too much for him. The bride and groom were strolling about a little apart from the others, quite happy and lover-like, his arm around her waist, she blushing and giggling.

The gendarmes passed also very regularly. They always stopped and talked, had a drink with Antoine, and gave all the local news--how many braconniers (poachers) had been caught, how long they were to stay in prison, how some of the farmers' sheep had disappeared, no one knew how exactly--there were no more robbers. One day two of them passed, dragging a man between them who had evidently been struggling and fighting. His blouse was torn, and there was a great gash on his face. We were wildly excited, of course. They told us he was an old sinner, a poacher who had been in prison various times, but these last days, not contented with setting traps for the rabbits, he had set fire to some of the hay-stacks, and they had been hunting for him for some time. He looked a rough customer, had an ugly scowl on his face. One of the little hamlets near the château, on the canal, was a perfect nest of poachers, and I had continual struggles with the keepers when I gave clothes or blankets to the women and children. They said some of the women were as bad as the men, and that I ought not to encourage them to come up to the house and beg for food and clothing; that they sold all the little jackets and petticoats we gave them to the canal hands (also a bad lot) for brandy. I believe it was true in some cases, but in the middle of winter, with snow on the ground (we were hardly warm in the house with big fires everywhere), I couldn't send away women with four or five children, all insufficiently clothed and fed, most of them in cotton frocks with an old worn knit shawl around their shoulders, legs and arms bare and chapped, half frozen. Some of them lived in caverns or great holes in the rocks, really like beasts. On the road to La Ferté there was a big hole (there is no other word for it) in the bank where a whole family lived. The man was always in prison for something, and his wife, a tall, gaunt figure, with wild hair and eyes, spent most of her time in the woods teaching her boys to set traps for the game. The curé told us that one of the children was ill, and that there was literally nothing in the house, so I took one of my cousins with me, and we climbed up the bank, leaving the carriage with Hubert, the coachman, expostulating seriously below. We came to a rickety old door which practically consisted of two rotten planks nailed together. It was ajar; clouds of black smoke poured out as we opened it, and it was some time before we could see anything. We finally made out a heap of filthy rags in one corner near a sort of fire made of charred pieces of black peat. Two children, one a boy about twelve years old, was lying on the heap of rags, coughing his heart out. He hardly raised his head when we came in. Another child, a girl, some two years younger, was lying beside him, both of them frightfully thin and white; one saw nothing but great dark eyes in their faces. The mother was crouched on the floor close to the children. She hardly moved at first, and was really a terrifying object when she got up; half savage, scarcely clothed--a short petticoat in holes and a ragged bodice gaping open over her bare skin, no shoes or stockings; big black eyes set deep in her head, and a quantity of unkempt black hair. She looked enormous when she stood up, her head nearly touching the roof. I didn't feel very comfortable, but we were two, and the carriage and Hubert within call. The woman was civil enough when she saw I had not come empty-handed. We took her some soup, bread, and milk. The children pounced upon the bread like little wild animals. The mother didn't touch anything while we were there--said she was glad to have the milk for the boy. I never saw human beings living in such utter filth and poverty. A crofter's cottage in Scotland, or an Irish hovel with the pigs and children all living together, was a palace compared to that awful hole. I remonstrated vigorously with W. and the Mayor of La Ferté for allowing people to live in that way, like beasts, upon the highroad, close to a perfectly prosperous country town. However, they were vagrants, couldn't live anywhere, for when we passed again, some days later, there was no one in the hole. The door had fallen down, there was no smoke coming out, and the neighbours told us the family had suddenly disappeared. The authorities then took up the matter--the holes were filled up, and no one was allowed to live in them. It really was too awful--like the dwellers in caves of primeval days.

We didn't have many visits at the château, though we were so near Paris (only about an hour and a half by the express), but the old people had got accustomed to their quiet life, and visitors would have worried them. Sometimes a Protestant pasteur would come down for two days. We had a nice visit once from M. de Pressensé, father of the present deputy, one of the most charming, cultivated men one could imagine. He talked easily and naturally, using beautiful language. He was most interesting when he told us about the Commune, and all the horrors of that time in Paris. He was in the Tuileries when the mob sacked and burned the palace; saw the femmes de la halle sitting on the brocade and satin sofas, saying, "C'est nous les princesses maintenant"; saw the entrance of the troops from Versailles, and the quantity of innocent people shot who were merely standing looking on at the barricades, having never had a gun in their hands. The only thing I didn't like was his long extempore (to me familiar) prayers at night. I believe it is a habit in some old-fashioned French Protestant families to pray for each member of the family by name. I thought it was bad enough when he prayed for the new ménage just beginning their married life (that was us), that they might be spiritually guided to do their best for each other and their respective families; but when he proceeded to name some others of the family who had strayed a little from the straight and narrow path, hoping they would be brought to see, by Divine grace, the error of their ways, I was horrified, and could hardly refrain from expressing my opinion to the old people. However, I was learning prudence, and when my opinion and judgment were diametrically opposed to those of my new family (which happened often) I kept them to myself. Sunday was strictly kept. There was no Protestant church anywhere near. We had a service in the morning in M. A.'s library. He read prayers and a short sermon, all the household appearing, as most of the servants were Swiss and Protestants. In the afternoon Mme. A. had all the village children at the château. She had a small organ in one of the rooms in the wing of the dining-room, taught them hymns and read them simple little stories. The curé was rather anxious at first, having his little flock under such a dangerous heretic influence, but he very soon realized what an excellent thing it was for the children, and both he and the mothers were much disappointed when anything happened to put off the lesson. They didn't see much of the curé. He would pay one formal visit in the course of the year, but there was never any intimacy.

We lived much for ourselves, and for a few months in the year it was a rest and change from Paris, and the busy, agitated life, social and political, that one always led there. I liked the space, too, the great high, empty rooms, with no frivolous little tables and screens or stuff on the walls, no photograph stands nor fancy vases for flowers, no bibelot of any kind--large, heavy pieces of furniture which were always found every morning in exactly the same place. Once or twice, in later years, I tried to make a few changes, but it was absolutely useless to contend with a wonderful old servant called Ferdinand, who was over sixty years old, and had been brought up at the château, had always remained there with the various owners, and who knew every nook and corner of the house and everything that was in it. It was years before I succeeded in talking to him. I used to meet him sometimes on the stairs and corridors, always running, and carrying two or three pails and brooms. If he could, he dived into any open door when he saw me coming, and apparently never heard me when I spoke, for he never answered. He was a marvellous servant, cleaned the whole house, opened and shut all the windows night and morning (almost work enough for one man), lit the calorifères, scrubbed and swept and polished floors from early dawn until ten o'clock, when we left the salon. He never lived with the other servants, cooked his own food at his own hours in his room, and his only companion was a large black cat, which always followed him about. He did W.'s service, and W. said that they used to talk about all sorts of things, but I fancy master and servant were equally reticent and understood each other without many words.

I slipped one day on the very slippery wooden steps leading from W.'s little study to the passage. Baby did the same, and got a nasty fall on the stone flags, so I asked W. if he would ask Ferdinand to put a strip of carpet on the steps (there were only four). W. gave the order, but no carpet appeared. He repeated it rather curtly. The old Ferdinand made no answer, but grumbled to himself over his broom that it was perfectly foolish and useless to put down a piece of carpet, that for sixty years people and children, and babies, had walked down those steps and no one had ever thought of asking for carpets. W. had really rather to apologize and explain that his wife was nervous and unused to such highly polished floors. However, we became great friends afterward, Ferdinand and I, and when he understood how fond I was of the château, he didn't mind my deranging the furniture a little. Two grand pianos were a great trial to him. I think he would have liked to put one on top of the other.

The library, quite at one end of the house, separated from the drawing-room we always sat in by a second large salon, was a delightful, quiet resort when any one wanted to read or write. There were quantities of books, French, English, and German--the classics in all three languages, and a fine collection of historical memoirs.

COUNTRY VISITS

We didn't pay many visits; but sometimes, when the weather was fine and there was no hunting, and W. gone upon an expedition to some outlying village, Mme. A. and I would start off for one of the neighbouring châteaux. We went one day to the château de C, where there was a large family party assembled, four generations--the old grandmother, her son and daughter, both married, the daughter's daughter, also married, and her children. It was a pretty drive, about an hour all through the forest. The house is quite modern, not at all pretty, a square white building, with very few trees near it, the lawn and one or two flower-beds not particularly well kept. The grounds ran straight down to the Villers-Cotterets forest, where M. M. has good shooting. The gates were open, the concierge said the ladies were there. (They didn't have to be summoned by a bell. That is one of the habits of this part of the country. There is almost always a large bell at the stable or "communs," and when visitors arrive and the family are out in the grounds, not too far off, they are summoned by the bell. I was quite surprised one day at Bourneville, when we were in the woods at some little distance from the château, when we heard the bell, and my companion, a niece of Mme. A., instantly turned back, saying, "That means there are visits; we must go back.") We found all the ladies sitting working in a corner salon with big windows opening on the park. The old grandmother was knitting, but she was so straight and slight, with bright black eyes, that it wouldn't have seemed at all strange to see her bending over an embroidery frame like all the others. The other three ladies were each seated at an embroidery frame in the embrasures of the windows. I was much impressed, particularly with the large pieces of work that they were undertaking, a portière, covers for the billiard-table, bed, etc. It quite recalled what one had always read of feudal France, when the seigneur would be off with his retainers hunting or fighting, and the châtelaine, left alone in the château, spent her time in her "bower" surrounded by her maidens, all working at the wonderful tapestries one sees still in some of the old churches and convents. I was never much given to work, but I made a mental resolve that I, too, would set up a frame in one of the drawing-rooms at home, and had visions of yards of pale-blue satin, all covered with wonderful flowers and animals, unrolling themselves under my skilful fingers--but I must confess that it remained a vision. I never got further than little crochet petticoats, which clothed every child in the village. To make the picture complete there should have been a page in velvet cap and doublet, stretched on the floor at the feet of his mistress, trying to distract her with songs and ballads. The master of the house, M. M., was there, having come in from shooting. He had been reading aloud to the ladies--Alfred de Musset, I think. That part of the picture I could never realize, as there is nothing W. loathes like reading aloud except, perhaps, being read to.

They were very friendly and easy, showed us the downstairs part of the house, and gave us goûter, not tea, wine and cake. The house looked comfortable enough, nothing picturesque; a large square hall with horns, whips, foxes' brushes, antlers, and all sorts of trophies of the chase on the walls. They are sporting people; all ride. The dining-room, a large bright room, was panelled with life-size portraits of the family: M. and Mme. M. in hunting dress, green coats, tricorne hats, on their horses; the daughter of the house and one of her brothers, rowing in a boat on a small lake; the eldest son in shooting dress, corduroys, his gun slung over his shoulder, his dog by his side. They were all very like.

We strolled about the garden a little, and saw lots of pheasants walking peacefully about at the edge of the woods. They made me promise to come back one day with W., he to shoot and I to walk about with the ladies. We saw the children of the fourth generation, and left with the impression of a happy, simple family party. M. M. was a conseiller général of the Aisne and a colleague of W.'s. They always stayed at the same hotel (de la Hure) in Laon at the time of the conseil général, and M. M. was much amused at first with W.'s baggage: a large bath-tub, towels (for in small French provincial hotels towels were microscopic and few in number), and a package of tea, which was almost an unknown commodity in those days. None of our visitors ever took any, and always excused themselves with the same phrase, "Merci, je vais bien," evidently looking upon it as some strange and hurtful medicine. That has all changed, like everything else. Now one finds tea not only at all the châteaux, with brioches and toast, but even in all the hotels, but I wouldn't guarantee what we get there as ever having seen China or Ceylon, and it is still wiser to take chocolate or coffee, which is almost always good. We had a lovely drive back. The forest was beautiful in the waning light. As usual, we didn't meet any vehicle of any kind, and were quite excited when we saw a carriage approaching in the distance--however, it proved to be W. in his dog-cart. We passed through one or two little villages quite lost in the forest--always the same thing, one long, straggling street, with nobody in it, a large farm at one end and very often the church at the other. As it was late, the farm gates were all open, the cattle inside, teams of white oxen drinking out of a large trough.

In a large farm near Boursonne there was much animation and conversation. All the beasts were in, oxen, cows, horses, chickens, and in one corner, a flock of geese. The poor little "goose girl," a child about ten years old with bright-blue eyes and a pig-tail like straw hanging down her back, was being scolded violently by the farmer's wife, who was presiding in person over the rentrée of the animals, for having brought her geese home on a run. They wouldn't eat, and would certainly all be ill, and probably die before morning. There is a pretty little old château at Boursonne; the park, however, so shut in by high walls that one sees nothing in passing. W. had shot there once or twice in former years, but it has changed hands very often.

Sometimes we paid more humble visits, not to châteaux, but to the principal people of the little country town near, from which we had all our provisions. We went to see the doctor's wife, the notary's wife, the mayor's wife, and the two schools--the asile or infant school, and the more important school for bigger girls. The old doctor was quite a character, had been for years in the country, knew everybody and everybody's private history. He was the doctor of the château, by the year, attended to everybody, masters and servants, and received a regular salary, like a secretary. He didn't come very often for us in his medical capacity, but he often dropped in at the end of the day to have a talk with W. The first time I saw him W. presented him to me, as un bon ami de la famille. I naturally put out my hand, which so astonished and disconcerted him (he barely touched the tips of my fingers) that I was rather bewildered. W. explained after he had gone that in that class of life in France they never shook hands with a lady, and that the poor man was very much embarrassed. He was very useful to W. as a political agent, as he was kind to the poor people and took small (or no) fees. They all loved him, and talked to him quite freely. His women-kind were very shy and provincial. I think our visits were a great trial to them. They always returned them most punctiliously, and came in all their best clothes. When we went to see them we generally found them in short black skirts, and when they were no longer very young, with black caps, but they always had handsome silk dresses, velvet cloaks, and hats with flowers and feathers when they came to see us. Some of them took the cup of tea we offered, but they didn't know what to do with it, and sat on the edge of their chairs, looking quite miserable until we relieved them of the burden of the tea-cup. Mme. A. was rather against the tea-table; she preferred the old-fashioned tray handed around with wine and cakes, but I persuaded her to try, and after a little while she acknowledged that it was better to have the tea-table brought in. It made a diversion; I got up to make the tea. Someone gave me a chair, someone else handed the cups. It made a little movement, and was not so stiff as when we all sat for over an hour on the same chairs making conversation. It is terrible to have to make conversation, and extraordinary how little one finds to say. We had always talked easily enough at home, but then things came more naturally, and even the violent family discussions were amusing, but my recollection of these French provincial visits is something awful. Everybody so polite, so stiff, and the long pauses when nobody seemed to have anything to say. I of course was a novelty and a foreign element--they didn't quite know what to do with me. Even to Mme. A., and I grew very fond of her, and she was invariably charming to me, I was something different. We had many talks on every possible subject during our long drives, and also in the winter afternoons. At first I had my tea always upstairs in my own little salon, which I loved with the curtains drawn, a bright wood-fire burning, and all my books about; but when I found that she sat alone in the big drawing-room, not able to occupy herself in any way, I asked her if I might order my tea there, and there were very few afternoons that I didn't sit with her when I was at home. She talked often about her early married life--winters in Cannes and in Paris, where they received a great deal, principally Protestants, and I fancy she sometimes regretted the interchange of ideas and the brilliant conversation she had been accustomed to, but she never said it. She was never tired of hearing about my early days in America--our family life--the extraordinary liberty of the young people, etc. We often talked over the religious question, and though we were both Protestants, we were as far apart almost as if one was a pagan. Protestantism in France always has seemed to me such a rigid form of worship, so little calculated to influence young people or draw them to church. The plain, bare churches with white-washed walls, the long sermons and extempore prayers, speaking so much of the anger of God and the terrible punishments awaiting the sinner, the trials and sorrows that must come to all. I often think of a sermon I heard preached in one Protestant church, to the boys and girls who were making their first communion--all little things, the girls in their white frocks and long white veils, the boys with white waistcoats and white ribbons on their arms, making such a pretty group as they sat on the front benches listening hard to all the preacher said. I wondered that the young, earnest faces didn't suggest something to him besides the horrors of eternal punishment, the wickedness and temptations of the world they were going to face, but his only idea seemed to be that he must warn them of all the snares and temptations that were going to beset their paths. Mme. A. couldn't understand my ideas when I said I loved the Episcopal service--the prayers and litany I had always heard, the Easter and Christmas hymns I had always sung, the carols, the anthems, the great organ, the flowers at Easter, the greens at Christmas. All that seemed to her to be a false sentiment appealing to the senses and imagination. "But if it brings people to church, and the beautiful music elevates them and raises their thoughts to higher things--" "That is not religion; real religion means the prayer of St. Chrysostom, 'Where two or three are gathered together in My name I will grant their requests.'" "That is very well for really religious, strong people who think out their religion and don't care for any outward expression of it, but for weaker souls who want to be helped, and who are helped by the beautiful music and the familiar prayers, surely it is better to give them something that brings them to church and makes them better men and women than to frighten them away with such strict, uncompromising doctrines--" "No, that is only sentiment, not real religious feeling." I don't think we ever understood each other any better on that subject, and we discussed it so often.

* * * * *

Mme. A., with whom I made my round of calls at the neighbouring châteaux, was a charming companion. She had lived a great deal in Paris, in the Protestant coterie, which was very intellectual and cultivated. The salons of the Duchesse de Broglie, Mmes. de Staël, d'Haussonvìlle, Guizot, were most interesting and recherchés, very exclusive and very serious, but a centre for all political and literary talk. I have often heard my husband say some of the best talkers in society s'étaient formés dans ces salons, where, as young men, they listened modestly to all the brilliant conversation going on around them.

It was an exception when we found anyone at home when we called in the neighbourhood, and when we did, it was evident that afternoon visits were a rarity. We did get in one cold November afternoon, and our visit was a sample of many others that we paid.

The door was opened by a footman struggling into his coat, with a handful of faggots in his arms. He ushered us through several bare, stiff, cold rooms (proportions handsome enough) to a smaller salon, which the family usually occupied. Then he lighted a fire (which consisted principally of smoke) and went to summon his mistress. The living-room was just as bare and stiff as the others, no trace of anything that looked like habitation or what we should consider comfort--no books nor work nor flowers (that, however, is comparatively recent in France). I remember quite well Mme. Casimir-Périer telling me that when she went with her husband to St. Petersburg about fifty years ago, one of the things that struck her most in the Russian salons, was the quantity of green plants and cut flowers--she had never seen them in France. There were often fine pictures, tapestries, and furniture, all the chairs in a row against the wall.

Our visits were always long, as most of the châteaux were at a certain distance, and we were obliged to stay an hour and a half, sometimes longer, to rest the horses. It was before the days of five-o'clock tea. A tray was brought in with sweet wine (Malaga or Vin de Chypre) and cakes (ladies'-fingers) which evidently had figured often before on similar occasions. Conversation languished sometimes, though Mme. A. was wonderful, talking so easily about everything. In the smaller places, when people rarely went to Paris, it ran always in the same grooves--the woods, the hunting (very good in the Villers-Cotterets forest), the schoolmaster (so difficult to get proper books for the children to read), the curé, and all local gossip, and as much about the iniquities of the republic as could be said before the wife of a republican senator. Wherever we went, even to the largest châteaux, where the family went to Paris for the season, the talk was almost entirely confined to France and French interests. Books, politics, music, people, nothing existed apparently au-delà des frontières. America was an unknown quantity. It was strange to see intelligent people living in the world so curiously indifferent as to what went on in other countries. At first I used to talk a little about America and Rome, where I had lived many years and at such an interesting time--the last days of Pio Nono and the transformation of the old superstitious papal Rome to the capital of young Italy--but I soon realized that it didn't interest any one, and by degrees I learned to talk like all the rest.

I often think of one visit to a charming little Louis XV château standing quite on the edge of the forest--just room enough for the house, and the little hamlet at the gates; a magnificent view of the forest, quite close to the lawn behind the château, and then sweeping off, a dark-blue mass, as far as one could see. We were shown into a large, high room, no carpet, no fire, some fine portraits, very little furniture, all close against the wall, a round table in the middle with something on it, I couldn't make out what at first. Neither books, reviews, nor even a photographic album--the supreme resource of provincial salons. When we got up to take leave I managed to get near the table, and the ornament was a large white plate with a piece of fly-paper on it. The mistress of the house was shy and uncomfortable; sent at once for her husband, and withdrew from the conversation as soon as he appeared, leaving him to make all the "frais." We walked a little around the park before leaving. It was really a lovely little place, with its background of forest and the quiet, sleepy little village in front; very lonely and far from everything, but with a certain charm of its own. Two or three dogs were playing in the court-yard, and one curious little animal who made a rush at the strangers. I was rather taken aback, particularly when the master of the house told me not to be afraid, it was only a marcassin (small wild boar), who had been born on the place, and was as quiet as a kitten. I did not think the great tusks and square, shaggy head looked very pleasant, but the little thing was quiet enough, came and rubbed itself against its master's legs and played quite happily with the dogs. We heard afterward that they were obliged to kill it. It grew fierce and unmanageable, and no one would come near the place.

* * * * *

I took Henrietta with me sometimes when I had a distant visit to pay; an hour and a half's drive alone on a country road where you never meet anything was rather dull. We went one cold December afternoon to call upon Mme. B., the widow of an old friend and colleague of W.'s. We were in the open carriage, well wrapped up, and enjoyed the drive immensely. The country looked beautiful in the bright winter sunshine, the distant forest always in a blue mist, the trees with their branches white with "givre" (hoarfrost), and patches of snow and ice all over the fields.

For a wonder we didn't go through the forest--drove straight away from it and had charming effects of colour upon some of the thatched cottages in the villages we passed through; one or two had been mended recently and the mixture of old brown, bright red and glistening white was quite lovely.