Part 20

There we got out of the carriages, passed through a dark, vaulted chapel and mounted to the platform, where we had a splendid view of the town and the forest.

Viollet-le-Duc, who was with us, is the pet architect of the Emperor; he is working hard to restore these magnificent ruins, and has now been ten years about it, but says that they will never be finished in his lifetime. The Emperor is very proud of showing them as the work of his favorite architect, and Viollet-le-Duc is just as proud of having been chosen for this stupendous undertaking.

We were spared no details, you may be sure, from the smallest of gargoyles to the biggest of chimneys. There is a huge fireplace which reaches to the ceiling in the salle des gardes, with funny little squirrels peering at you with cunning eyes. I wish it had occurred to the great architect to have utilized this fireplace, for he could very well have put a few logs in it and prevented us poor visitors from freezing to death.

We walked (it must have been miles), examining everything in detail. We mounted two hundred steps to see the view, and then descended three hundred steps to see the arched cellars. The castle was first bought one hundred years ago as a ruin by some one, who only paid eight thousand francs for it; then Napoleon I. bought it, and now Napoleon III. is restoring it. It is seven thousand meters square. It has eight big towers, etc. I could go on forever, I am so brimful of statistics, but I spare you.

While the hampers brought from Compiègne were being unpacked we tried to rest our weary limbs in some prehistoric chairs, whose carvings pierced our bones to the marrow. I suppose this is what they call payer de sa personne. I consoled myself, while drinking my tea and eating my cake, with the thought that my personne was paying its little private tax to art.

After this interesting but fatiguing visit, and after the long drive through the cold, misty forest, the dead and dry leaves rustling under the horses' feet as they galloped along, I was glad to rest a moment by my cozy fire before dressing for dinner.

I was a little dismayed when I was told that the famous poet, Théophile Gautier, was to be my dinner companion. I was awed at the idea of such a neighbor, and feared I should not be able to rise to the occasion. Would he talk poetry to me? And should I have to talk poetry to him?

I tried to remember, during our promenade down the hall, Longfellow's "Psalm of Life," in case he should expect anything in this line, and I tried to remember something he himself had written; but for the life of me I could think of nothing but a very improper book called Mademoiselle de Maupéon, which I had never been allowed to read, so that would be of no use as conversation.

I might have spared myself this worry, for, from the time he sat down at the table, he talked of little else than cats and dogs. He loves all animals. I liked him for that, and one could see that he preferred them to any other topic.

I can't remember all the nonsense he talked. In appearance I think he must resemble Charles Dickens. I have only seen the latter's photographs; but had he not rather a skimpy hair brushed any which way and a stringy beard? I fancied him so to myself. At any rate, Gautier looks like the Dickens of the photographs.

He said he had eight or ten cats who ate with him at the table; each had its own place and plate, and never by any chance made a mistake and sat in another cat's place or ate off another cat's plate. He was sure that they had a heaven and a hell of their own, where they went after their death, according to their deserts, and that they had souls and consciences. All his cats had classical names, and he talked to them as if they were human beings. He said they understood every word he said. He also quoted some of his conversation with them, which must have sounded very funny:

"Cleopatra, have you been in the kitchen drinking milk on the sly?

"Cleopatra puts her tail between her legs and her ears back and looks most guilty, and I know then what the cook told me was true."

Then again: "Julius Caesar, you were out extremely late last night. What were you doing?" He said that when he made these reproaches Julius Caesar would get down from his chair and, with his tail high in the air, would rub himself against his legs, as much as to say he would never do it again.

"Depend upon it," he added, "they know everything we do, and more."

I asked, "When Julius Caesar comes from his nocturnal walks is he gris (tipsy)?"

"Gris! Que voulez-vous dire?"

"You once wrote a poem (how proud I was that I had recollected it), 'A minuit tous les chats sont gris.'"

"C'est vrai, mais je parlais des Schahs de Perse."

"Est-ce que tous les Schahs de Perse sont gris à minuit?"

"Madame, tous les Schahs de Perse que j'ai eu l'honneur de voir à minuit ont été gris comme des Polonais."

"But the 'chats' you wrote about go mewing on roofs at midnight. Do the Schahs de Perse do that?"

"Did I write that?" said he. "Then I must have meant cats. You are very inquisitive, Madame."

"I confess I am," I answered. "You see, that poem of yours has been set to music, and I sing it; and you may imagine that I want to know what I am singing about. One must sing with an entirely different expression if one sings of gray cats or of tipsy Persian sovereigns."

He laughed and asked, with an innocent look, "Do you think I could have meant that at midnight nothing has any particular color--that everything is gray?"

"I don't know what you meant; but please tell me what you want me to believe, because I believe everything I am told. I am so naïve."

"You naïve! You are the most blasée person I ever met."

"I blasée! I! What an idea!"