Part 4

Garcia has not the ghost of a voice; but he has the most enchanting way of singing mezzo-voce, and occasionally says, "Sing this so," and sings the phrase for me. It sounds delightfully when he does it; but I do not think he would have liked me to "sing it so" and would probably swear a gentle little Spanish swear under his garlicky breath, because (I say it, though I hate to) the dear master eats garlic--pounds of it, I fear--and his voice is highly scented when it cracks, which it often does.

He once said, "You may imitate my way of singing, but don't imitate my crack."

"Oh," I said, "I love to hear you sing. I don't even hear the crack."

"Ah," he sighed, "if it had not been for that crack I should be in the opera now."

"I am glad," I answered, "that you are not there; for then you would not be here, teaching me." I think this pleased him.

Sometimes he is very nervous. Once, when I was singing "Voi che sapete," the tears rolled down his cheeks, and another time, when he was showing me how to sing it "so," I burst into tears, and the poor man had to order his servant to bring me some sherry to restore my nerves. There is one phrase in this song which I never can hear sung, or never can sing myself, without emotion.

The season is getting so late mama thinks we ought to leave London, especially as Garcia is taking his vacation, and we are going in a few days to Paris.

Garcia has given us a letter to his sister, Madame Viardot (of whom he said she had brains but no voice). He wrote: "I send you my pupil. Do all you can to persuade her to go on the stage. She has it in her."

But Madame Viardot may "do all she can"; I will never go on the stage.

If "it" is in me, it must work out some other way.

PARIS, May, 1861.

DEAR A.,--Mother will have written to you of my engagement to Charles Moulton. I wish you would come and see me married, and that I could present all my future family to the most lovable of aunts.

I think I shall have everything to make me happy. In the first place, my fiancé is very musical, composes charming things, and plays delightfully on the piano; my future mother-in-law is a dear old lady, musical and universally talented; my future father-in-law is a bona-fide American, a dear quixotic old gentleman who speaks the most awful French. Although he has lived in Paris for forty years, he has never conquered the pronunciation of the French language, but has invented a unique dialect of his own. Every word that can be pronounced in English he pronounces in English, as well as all numbers. For instance, a phrase such as La guerre de mille huit cent quinze était une démonstration de la liberté nationale would sound like this: "La gur de 1815 (in English) était une demonstration (in English) de la liberty national." It is almost impossible to understand him; but he will read for hours unabashed, not only to us, the drowsy and inattentive members of his family, but to the most fastidious and illustrious Frenchmen. There are two brothers and a sweet little sister. I shall have a beautiful home, or rather homes, because they have not only a handsome hotel in Paris, but an ideal country place (Petit Val) and a villa in Dinard.

Good-by. Greet all the united family from me, and tell them not to worry over my future, as you wrote they were doing. I have renounced forever the pomps and allurements of the stage, and I trust the leaves on the genealogical tree will cease their trembling, and that the Fays, my ancestors, will not trouble themselves to turn in their graves, as you threatened they would if I did anything to disgrace them.

CHÂTEAU DE PETIT VAL, June, 1862.

DEAREST A.,--I wish I could give you an idea of Petit Val and our life as lived by me. Petit Val is about twelve miles from Paris, and was built for the Marquis de Marigny, whose portrait still hangs in the salon--the brother of Madame de Pompadour--by the same architect who built and laid out the park of Petit Trianon.

There is an avenue of tall poplar-trees leading from Petit Val straight to Choisy-le-Roi, where Madame de Pompadour lived, a distance of ten miles.

Like Petit Trianon, Petit Val has little lakes with shady trees bordering them; it has grottos, waterfalls, winding paths, magnificent greenhouses, fountains, a rivière, pavilions, aviaries, terraces, charmilles, berceaux, enfin tout! One feels like saying, "Mein Liebchen, was willst du mehr?" as the poet Heine says. The park is surrounded by a saut de loup (a sunken wall about twenty feet high like "la Muette" in Paris). There is no need of putting up sign-boards with "No trespassing here" as no one could scale the walls of the saut de loup, so we feel very safe, especially when the five iron gates are locked. Beyond the park are the chasse, the farm, the vineyards, and the potager. We are so near Paris that we have many visitors. The drive out here is a pleasant one, going through Vincennes, Charenton, Alfort, etc., and one can get here in about an hour. Duke de Morny, the Duke de Persigny and the Rothschild family, Prince de Sagan, and different diplomats, not to speak of our numerous American friends who are thankful for a breath of fresh air, are frequent guests. The nearest chateau to us is Montalon, where Madame de Sévigné used to live, and from which she wrote some of her letters. If she ever wrote a tiresome one, it must surely have been from here, as the damp and moldy house, covered with creeping vines and overgrown with ivy, surrounded by melancholy cypress and poplar trees, which shut out the view, could scarcely have inspired her with brilliant ideas.

Petit Val's potager is known far and wide for the best peaches and pears in France, and the gardener takes all the prizes in the shows: if the prizes are in money, he pockets them; if they are diplomas, he allows us to keep them. He is a rare old scamp.

When Mr. Moulton bought the place he had the right to call himself "De Petit Val," and he could have--if he had wished to--been "Moulton de Petit Val." But he turned up his American nose at such cheap nobility as this; still he was obliged, much against his will, to conform to the obligations which belonged to the estate. For instance, he had to give so many bushels of potatoes to the curé, so many bushels of grain to the doctor, so many bushels of vegetables to the postmaster, and to them all so many casks of the awful wine we produce on the estate, known in the vernacular as "le petit bleu."

When this sour wine is in the golden period of effervescing, any sick child in the village ticketed by the doctor can be brought to the wine- presses and dipped in. If labeled "très malade," he is dipped in twice. Don't you think that this is a dreadful custom? I think that it is awful to put such an article as this on the market; but then we know that if a person has tasted it once they never do it again. We try to grow green corn here; but it degenerates unless the seed is brought every year from America. This year, not having been renewed, the corn is a failure; but the American melons ripen here in perfection, and rivalize successfully with the big French melons. The other day an ambassador ate so many of them that he begged us to let him stay all night. We were quite anxious about him, as he had an audience with the Emperor the next morning; but he managed it somehow.

An important member of the family I must not forget! the governess, Mademoiselle Wissembourg, who is very much of a personage. After she has given my sister-in-law and myself our French lessons (for I still go on studying), she gives the cook his orders, gives out the linen, writes the letters, smooths away all annoyances, pays the bills, and keeps the accounts, which she does in an oriental sort of way, with such fantastic summings-up that my poor father-in-law is often on the verge of distraction.

Our stables are well garnished; there are eleven horses (my pair included), fourteen carriages, three coachmen, and no end of stable-boys. My coachman, who was one of the "anciens zouaves"--so renowned for their bravery--generally has cramps when he is told that I am going to drive myself to Paris. And when I drive those twelve miles I do it in double- quick time with Medjé and Hilda, my two "limousin" horses. No wonder Louis offers up a prayer to the saints before starting, and sits, holding with both hands on to his little seat back of me, with an expression on his face of "O Lord, what is going to happen?"

PARIS, January, 1863.

DEAREST MAMA,--I have been expecting letters from you and home for a long time, but nothing has come yet.

The coldest day that Paris has ever known, since goodness knows when, has suddenly burst upon us, and skating is just dawning on the Parisians.

The ice on the little lake of Suresnes has frozen d'emblée, and I was crazy to go there and skate. We had stayed late in the country, having spent Christmas en famille, and only returned to Paris a few days ago. I had just received the skates you sent me for my Christmas present, and I was wild to try them. What beauties they are! My old ones, with their screws and their innumerable straps, seem horribly complicated and clumsy. As you advised, I had very tight-fitting boots with low heels made for them. I drove out to the Bois with baby and his nounou, and to gain time put on my skates in the carriage, and when I arrived, I walked down to the lake. I never saw such splendid ice (and I have seen many ices). No tardy layers, no treacherous holes, just one even mirror of marble. Imagine my surprise at not seeing a person on the ice; but there were masses of spectators gathered on the edge of the lake looking at it. The Emperor and the Empress were there. I knew them by sight; but the only one I knew personally was Prince Joachim Murat, our neighbor in the country. He married Elizabeth Wagram, and they lived with her parents at Gros-Bois, near Petit Val.

Therefore, I stood unknown and unnoticed. I ventured one foot on the indiscreet, reflecting surface, then the other; and while the assembled crowd gazed at me in amazement, I made the tour of the lake on my skates.