AT LOS ANGELES
-.9.
THE ROMANCE OF MY
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
CHILDHOOD
AND YOUTH
MME-EDMOND ADAM
iqoi
D-APPLETON &CO
NE.\V YOKK
COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Published, November, 1902
"**" **
PREFACE
|T the present time, the interest which a writer's
work may have lies greatly m the study of
those first impulses which gave it birth, of the sur-
roundings amid which it was elaborated, and of
the connection between the end pursued and the
achievement.
In former times a writer's personality was of
small importance. His works were deemed suffi-
cient. The duality presented by a study of the
causes of production, and the production itself, was
a matter of interest only to a small minority of
readers.
By degrees, however, with the writer's own con-
sent, indiscreet glances were thrown into the per-
sonal lives of those whose mission it was to direct^
enlighten, or amuse the lives of other people.
Forty or -fifty years ago the public -first read
the book, and judged a writer by his writings, and
then would often base their judgments on the
opinion of some great critic, who had slowly given
proof of his knowledge, and whose ideas were
found worthy of adoption.
To-day it is quite the contrary. A new book
[vii]
304396
PREFACE
is so generally and indiscreetly announced that the
larger portion of the public is quite aware both
of the book and of the process of its production.
A number of small reviews of the volume are read;
they often are, in fact, just so many interviews
with the author, and, under the general impression
thus imparted, the book is read a great favour
for the writer are such notices, for people might
speak of a book and criticise it m that way with-
out ever having read it.
General curiosity is insatiable with regard to the
small details concerning the habits and customs of
an author if he is already celebrated, or is likely
to achieve success.
But, on the other hand, if the present custom
weakens to an infinite degree the elements of per-
sonal appreciation of any work, it adds to knowl-
edge of the author's portrait, which stands out
from all these inquiries and indiscretions, with
traits of physiognomy that possess, perhaps, more
lively interest.
We must obviously submit to the custom, and
ask ourselves whether, by means of much observa-
tion of both the author and his work, we may not
obtain a broader and more enlightened criticism,
uniting the author's intentions with the result
achieved by his book.
PREFACE
Or else is it because, overworked as we are, we
have perhaps become unable to enjoy the delight
of reading a book for itself, containing, by chance,
no anecdotes "which please us nothing, in fact,
outside the actual interest of the book itself, but
forming part of it; or is it that we have no longer
any time for profound or matured reflection, or
judgments expressed in axioms, the terms of which
have long been weighed in the balance of thought?
It requires time to discover the master thought
of any work of real worth, in order to disclose its
high morality, its art tendencies.
The maddening rule of our new mode of life
being the desire to know all things as quickly as
possible, we ask the author, whose motives are
known beforehand, what he meant to say, or do,
or prove, and in this way we think to gain time and
not run the risk of " idle dreaming."
Ah! as to dreams, shall we speak of them?
golden money, no longer current, which we scat-
ter behind us in our haste to pursue what others are
pursuing. If, by chance, we find it again, how
soiled by the road's dust it seems!
The asking of a question or two, and even the
explanation of a phenomenon which is often as
clear as day, can be undertaken as we hurry along,
but simply to examine the " whys and wherefores "
[ix]
PREFACE
of things, or to attempt to discover the laws of
facts, and group them methodically, giving the
logical relation of these laws in general origins
verily, only a few vulgar slang words can express
the impression made on the minds of those who wish
to be considered " modern men," with respect to
these very problems of which we, of the elder gen-
eration, are so fond, and which are called by the
moderns " stuff."
" In writing your memoirs you encourage what
you appear to condemn," people will doubtless say
to me. But I condemn nothing. I simply note a
state of mind and ways of life. I feel sure that if
in " my time " an author's work held the first place,
and that if nowadays the author himself excites
disproportionate interest, the future will establish
an equilibrium between these two extremes.
If the candles of literary people of the present
time are burned at both ends, it is, perhaps, be-
cause there remain few embers of the luminous
torches of the past. The authors of the future
will be obliged to renew their provision of wood,
which must burn itself out, normally, in the middle.
However this may be, it is, perhaps, profitable
to register the facts in a fieeting epoch for the use
of those who are running in pursuit of an epoch
which is to take its place.
PREFACE
Old people are fond of describing -what took
place in former times, and they have a real mission
so to do if only they will refrain from trying to
enforce upon us the superiority of the teaching
of that which has disappeared, and if they will tell
their story simply, leaving a younger generation
to discover its lesson, and from it form conclusions.
Those of the older generation who educated us
thought sentimentalism and humanity, which ap-
peared at first brutally, and then were gloriously
driven back by the Terror and the Empire, had
returned again triumphantly.
Moreover, the Revolution and Bonaparte had
opened our gates to a foreign influx. Our fathers
gave shelter to every Utopian idea brought from
Italy, Germany, Austria, and Russia. The mixt-
ure was so confusing that all manner of extrava-
gant things sprang from it.
The consciences of the " men of progress " were
concentrated around the social conception of the
" suffering classes," and the political conception
involved in the crimes of the " higher classes."
Love and indignation were the food with which
they fed our youthful hearts.
The Bible, the socialism of Christ, and examples
of sublimity of character taken from Greece and
Rome, became the strange mixture that was the
[xi]
PREFACE
guiding spirit of our fathers' action, and inspired
our primal ideas.
People of reason, who possessed solid common-
sense, the Bourgeois, were, naturally, to a much
overrated degree, our enemies.
We are, in all our primal impulses, the children
of the men of 1848; our very reaction was born
of their action.
We have been led on solely by their example;
haunted, just as they were, by the feeling that we
should add to our unlimited dreams what they had
deemed to be the counterpoise to the great love of
humanity, namely, science; but a science which we
thought was to bring relief to the worker, by ma-
chinery, a cheaper rate of living to the poor, and
a more equal distribution of wealth to the un-
fortunate.
" The rights of man," that oft-repeated phrase
which has never been rightly understood by those
who called themselves its defenders, possessed for
them, before, during, and after 1848, only one sig-
nificance, namely : the realisation by society in gen-
eral of the greatest sum of possible happiness for
each individual.
Those who at that time proclaimed themselves
socialists and this tradition exists among the same
class of the present day took no account of gen-
[xii]
PREFACE
eral society, of its affiliations, of its necessary aver-
age existence, or of its " badly cut coats," so to
speak.
They refused to see opposed to the rights of the
socialist man the general social rights, which mean,
in plain words, the rights of each individual man,
and which, summed up, become the rights of all
men.
Religious dogma alone can affirm the absolute
right of an individual soul, because each soul comes
m contact with other souls only in the infinite.
Absoluteness can only be realised in evolutions tow-
ards death. But contact with living men has its
contingencies which society pulverises well or badly,
according as individuals mingle together happily
or not, or according as they disturb society or serve
it well.
Social problems, whether robed m dithyrambic
form or clad in offensive rags, are unable to force
upon society reforms which are laid down in names
unless society has become ready to assimilate them;
otherwise they upset society, agitate it, and throw
it back on reaction.
I am the daughter of a man who was a sincere
sectarian, disinterested even to self-sacrifice, and
who dreamed of absolute liberty and absolute equal-
ity. Until the terrible year of 1870, his mind
PREFACE
mastered my own. For an instant, during the
days of the Commune, he thought his dreams were
about to be realised. Were he alive now, he would
be a disciple of Monsieur Brisson, whose political
ancestor he was. He would have pursued only one
idea: the upsetting of everything.
The revolutionists and the Brissonists are, after
all, only belated and antiquated minds, not yet
freed from sophistries by the terrible vision of
1870; not stimulated by the lamentations heard
from men on French soil, when trodden under foot
by Prussia; not armed with patriotic combativeness
by the sight of the panting flesh of those provinces
which were torn from France, and which, in the
figurative image of our country, occupy the place
of the heart.
JULIETTE ADAM.
[xiv]
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. MY GRANDMOTHER .... 1
II. WHEN THE ALLIES WERE AT THE
GATES OF PARIS . . .26
III. THE MARRIAGE OF MY FATHER AND
MOTHER . . . . .35
IV. BORN IN AN INN . . . .46
V. MY EARLY CHILDHOOD . . .57
VI. FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL . . .68
VII. I Go TO A WEDDING . . .81
VIII. " FAMILY DRAMAS " . . .92
IX. LEARNING TO BE BRAVE . . . 101
X. A THREE WEEKS' VISIT . . .108
XI. A PAINFUL RETURN HOME . . 121
XII. A VISIT TO MY GREAT-AUNTS . . 129
XIII. I MAKE NEW FRIENDS . . .140
XIV. SOME NEW IMPRESSIONS GAINED . 152
XV. THE END OF MY HOLIDAY . . 159
XVI. AT HOME AGAIN . . . .165
XVII. I BEGIN TO MANAGE MY FAMILY . 174
XVIII. I REVISIT CHIVRES . . . .185
[xv]
CONTENTS
PAGE
XIX. I BEGIN MY LITERARY WORK . 191
XX. Louis NAPOLEON'S FLIGHT FROM
PRISON 198
XXI. MY FIRST GREAT SORROW . . 207
XXII. MY FIRST RAILWAY JOURNEY . 219
XXIII. MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE SEA 225
XXIV. I RECEIVE A HANDSOME GIFT . 233
XXV. OUR HOMEWARD JOURNEY . . 240
XXVI. MY FIRST COMMUNION . . 249
XXVII. WE Discuss FRENCH LITERATURE 260
XXVIII. WE TALK ABOUT POLITICS . 271
XXIX. TALKS ABOUT NATURE . . 279
XXX. A SERIOUS ACCIDENT . . 286
XXXI. " LIBERTY, EQUALITY, AND FRA-
TERNITY " 291
XXXII. " VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE ! " . . 299
XXXIII. " OTHER TIMES, OTHER MAN-
NERS " 312
XXXIV. I Go TO BOARDING-SCHOOL . . 319
XXXV. DARK DAYS FOR THE REPUBLIC 333
XXXVI. ANOTHER VISIT AT CHIVRES . 344
XXXVII. I BEGIN TO STUDY HOUSEKEEP-
ING 350
[xvi]
CONTENTS
PAGE
XXXVIII. AN EXCITING INCIDENT . . 357
XXXIX. AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE . . 366
XL. THE " FAMILY DRAMA " AGAIN 382
XLL MY MARRIAGE AND ITS RESULTS 393
[ xvii ]
THE ROMANCE OF MY CHILD-
HOOD AND YOUTH
MY GRANDMOTHER
_ _,S I advance in years, one of the things which
astonishes me most is the singular vividness
of my memories of my childhood.
Some of them, it is true, have been related many
times over to me and these are the most indis-
tinct by the nurse who tended me and by my
grandparents, for whom everything that concerned
their only granddaughter had a primal importance.
However, amid these oft-repeated stories I dis-
cover impressions, acts, that might have been
known to any of my family, which arise before
me with extraordinary precision.
I am the prey, moreover, of a scruple, and I ask
myself whether these impressions really do come to
me strictly in the manner in which I felt and acted
them at the time, or whether, returning to them
after all the experiences of life, I do not uncon-
sciously exaggerate them?
2 [1]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
To reassure my wish to be sincere, which has
many disturbing suggestions, I endeavour to recall
to myself in what terms, at every epoch of my life, .
I have spoken of my childhood, and also to obtain
information from a few notes, too rare, alas! that
I wrote in my youth which have been kept by
my family. It is, therefore, preoccupied with a
jealous desire to be entirely truthful that I begin
this work.
As I was brought up by my grandmother, I
shall speak of her a great deal. Shall I succeed
in making her live again in all her originality, in
her passion for the romantic, which she imposed
upon us all, making the lives of her family, from
the primal and dominating impulsion she gave to
all their actions, a perpetual race towards the
romantic ?
No woman in a gymnasium was ever more closely
imprisoned. I never saw my grandmother leave
her large house and great garden a hundred
times, except to go to mass at eight o'clock on
Sundays; on the other hand, I never perceived in
any mind such a love for adventure, such a horror
for preordained and enforced existence, such a
constant and imperious appetite for written or
enacted romance.
Her affection for me was so absorbing that I
MY GRANDMOTHER
monopolised her life, as it were, from the moment
when she consecrated it to me.
I loved her exclusively until the day when my
father, with his power for argument, in which he
usually opposed the accepted ideas of our sur-
roundings, and, with his kindness of character,
took possession of my mind and led me to accept
his way of thinking.
Between these two exceptional and somewhat
erratic beings, the one possessing admirable gener-
osity of heart, sectarian uprightness, passionately
earnest in his unchangeable exaltations, the other
with true nobility of soul, rigid virtue, but with
an imagination fantastic beyond expression; be-
tween these two, loving them in turn, sometimes
one more than the other, I was cast about to such
a degree that it would have been impossible for me
to find foothold for my original thoughts, amid
these continual oscillations, if I had not constantly
endeavoured to seek for my own true self and to
find it. And yet, in spite of this effort, what a
long time it took me to free myself from the double
imprint given to my character by my beloved rela-
tives !
What shielded me from total absorption by one
or the other of them, what caused me to escape
from the ardent desire of both, to mould me to
[3]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
their image, so dissimilar one from the other, was
the very precocious consciousness I had of the
precious advantages of possessing personal will.
Between my father and my grandmother I ap-
plied myself, instinctively at first, determinedly
later, to be something. Was that the starting-
point of my resolve to be somebody?
In the ceaseless struggle between my father and
grandmother, myself being the coveted prize, there
were three of us.
Many stories are involved in my souvenirs, more
strange, more eccentric, one than the other, of the
marriages of my grandparents and great-grand-
parents in my maternal grandmother's family.
Their adventures interested my youth to such a
degree that I should not hesitate to unfold them
to the surprise of my readers were they not too
numerous.
My grandmother, who talked and who related
stories with a very quick, sharp, and bantering
wit, took much pleasure in telling of the romantic
lives of her grandmothers. She delighted in re-
painting for me all these family portraits on her
side, never speaking to me of my father's family,
which I grew to know later.
She possessed the pride of her merchant and
bourgeoise caste. I learned through her many
[4]
MY GRANDMOTHER
obscure things in the history of the struggles of
French royalty against the great feudal lords, the
internationalists of that time.
She said, speaking to me of her own people:
" We are descended from those merchant families
of Noyon, of Chauny, of Saint-Quentin, so influ-
ential in the councils of the communes, of whom
several were seneschals, faithful to their town, to
their province above all, faithful to royalty, not
always to the king, to religion, not always to the
Pope; liberals, men of progress, of pure Gallic
race, enriching themselves with great honesty and
strongly disdaining those among themselves who,
for services rendered to the sovereign, solicited
from him titles of nobility."
My grandmother's mother, when fourteen years
old, fell madly in love with one of her relatives
from Noyon, who had come to talk business, and
who, after a day's conversation, more serious than
poetical, and continued through breakfast and
dinner, received at his departure the following
declaration from her : " Cousin, when you come
next year it will be to ask me in marriage." They
laughed much at this whim, but, as the young girl
was an only daughter and would have a large dot,
the relatives of Noyon, less well off, did not dis-
dain the offer made to their son.
[5]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
When she was fifteen, the precocious Charlotte
married her cousin Raincourt, a very handsome
youth twenty-two years of age, but she died in
childbed the following year, giving birth to my
grandmother.
The young widower confided little Pelagic to
his wife's mother, now a widow herself, and while
my great-grandfather married again when twenty-
four years of age, and had three daughters, who
were very good, very properly educated Sophie,
Constance, and Anastasie my grandmother grew
up like a little savage and sometimes stupefied the
quiet town of Chauny by the eccentricities of a
spoiled child.
She read everything that fell into her hands,
no selection being made for her, and refused to
allow herself to be led by any one, or for any
reason whatever.
As soon as she was thirteen she announced to
her grandmother that her education was finished.
She left the boarding-school, where during five
years she had learned very little, and devoted her-
self entirely and for the rest of her life to the read-
ing of novels.
Witty, full of life, brilliant, and even sometimes
a little impish, my grandmother had red hair at a
time when " carrotty "-coloured hair had but little
[6]
MY GRANDMOTHER
success. She had superb teeth, a delicate nose
with sensitive nostrils, bright green eyes, and her
very white complexion was marked with tiny yel-
low spots, all of which gave her the physiognomy
of an odd-looking yet very attractive girl.
Romantic, as had been her mother and her
grandmothers, she wished to choose her own hus-
band, and she had not found him when she was fif-
teen. In spite of the sad fate of her mother, who
had died in childbirth, being married too young,
Pelagie was in despair at remaining a maid so
long.
Mile. Lenormant's predictions had given birth
throughout France to a crowd of fortune-tellers,
and my grandmother consulted one, who told her:
" You will marry a stranger to this town."
This did not astonish her, for she knew all those
who could aspire to her hand, and there was not
one among them who answered to all that her
imagination sought in a husband. Not a single
young man of Chauny of good family had as yet
had any romantic adventure.
She took good care not to confide her impatience
to her three half-sisters, their father having de-
clared that Pelagie should not marry before she
was twenty-one. He wished to keep in his own
hands the administration of his first wife's fortune
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
as long as possible for the benefit of the three
daughters born of his second marriage.
These, moreover, continually said that Pelagic
was too eccentric to be marriageable. The eldest,
Sophie, was only fourteen months younger than
Pelagic, but ten years older in common sense and
knowledge.
Pelagic made a voyage to Noyon with her
grandmother to look for a husband. She lived
for a month in a handsome old house on the Cathe-
dral Square, owned by an aged relative who would
have liked to make a second marriage with her
grandmother. The love-affair of these old people
amused her, but she did not find the husband for
whom she was seeking, and she left as she came.
But one fine day a young surgeon arrived at
Chauny in quest of practice.
Here is " the stranger to the town " predicted
by the fortune-teller, thought Pelagic even before
she had seen him, and she spoke of her hope to her
grandmother.
" There is one thing to which I will never con-
sent," replied the latter, " it is that you should
marry any one who is not of a good bourgeoise
family," and her grandmother assumed an air of
authority, at which the young girl laughed
heartily.
[8]
MY GRANDMOTHER
The young surgeon's name was Pierre Seron,
and he could not have been better born in the
bourgeoise class. He was descended from one of
the physicians of Louis XIV. His father was the
most prominent doctor at Compiegne, and his
reputation reached as far as Paris. A cousin
Seron had been a Conventional with Jean de Bien,
and had played a great political role in Belgium,
from whence the first French Serons had come.
" Of good family ! " Pelagie and her grand-
mother repeated in chorus. " If only he has not
had too commonplace an existence," thought
Pelagie.
Pierre Seron went up and down all the streets
of the town, so as to make believe that he had
already secured practice on arriving, and he soon
had some successful cases which gave him a repu-
tation.
He was a superb-looking man, his figure resem-
bling that of a grenadier of the Imperial Guard.
His face was not handsome. He wore his hair
flat a la Napoleon, but his forehead was a little
narrow, and he had great, convex, grey eyes and
too full a nose, but his mouth he was always
clean-shaven wore an attractive, gay, and mock-
ing smile, in spite of very thick, sensual lips.
He was never seen except in a dress coat and
[9]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
white cravat. In a word, well-built, of fine pres-
ence, Pierre Seron had a distinguished air and was
really a very handsome man.
He would have needed to be blind, and not to
have had the necessity of making a rich marriage,
if he had not remarked the interest which Mile.
Pelagie Raincourt took in his comings and goings.
" Why, his father being a doctor at Compiegne,
has this young surgeon come to establish himself
at Chauny? " asked the grandmother often.
" There must be something," she said.
Oh, yes! there was something. And, as Pierre
Seron was rather talkative and as Compiegne was
not a hundred leagues from Chauny, the story was
soon known.
He was simply a hero of romance. " His life
is a romance a great, a real romance," cried
Pelagie one day on returning from a visit paid
to an old relative whom Pierre Seron was attending
and from whom she had heard it all !
Her grandmother, touched by her grandchild's
emotion, listened to the story enthusiastically told
by Pelagie, who was already in love with Pierre
Seron's sad adventure as much as, and perhaps
more than, with himself.
He was the second son of a father who hated
him from the day of his birth. Doctor Seron loved
[10]
MY GRANDMOTHER
only his elder son, his pride, he who should have
been an " only child."
He continually said this to his timid, submissive
wife, who hardly dared to protect the ill-used,
beaten younger son, who was made to live with the
servants.
Poor little fellow! except for a rare kiss, a
furtive caress from his mother, he was a victim to
his family's dislike.
One day, when very ill with the croup, his father
wished to send him to the hospital, fearing con-
tagion for the elder brother. But his mother on
this occasion resisted. She shut herself up with
him in his little room, took care of him, watched
over him, and by her energy and devotion saved
him from death. But she had worn out her own
strength. She seemed half-stunned, and the child
suffered so much during his convalescence that he
was almost in as much danger as while ill.
When he was nine years old, a servant accused
him of a theft which he had committed himself, and
he was driven from his home one autumn night,
possessing nothing but the poor clothes he wore
and a few crowns, painfully economised by his
mother, who slipped them into his hand without
even kissing him.
He lay in front of the door when it was closed
[11]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
upon him, hoping that some one passing would
crush him. He cried, he supplicated. The neigh-
bours gathered around him, pitying him, and say-
ing loudly that it was abominable, that the law
should protect the unhappy little child, but no one
dared to take him to his home.
As soon as Pierre found himself alone again,
abandoned by all, he looked for a last time at what
he called " the great, wicked and shining eyes " of
the lighted windows of the house.
" That," said Pelagic to her grandmother, " was
the very phrase Pierre Seron used in relating his
story, and the poor boy started off, not knowing
whither he went."
Instinctively he turned towards a farm, where
every morning at dawn, and in all weathers, his
father's servants sent him to get milk.
The farmer's wife had felt pity for him many
times before when he was telling her of his suffer-
ings, and he now remembered something she had
one day said to him : " You would be happier as
a cowherd."
He entered the farmhouse, where the farmers
were at supper, and, sitting down beside them, he
burst into tears. He could not speak.
" Have they driven you from your home? "
asked the farmer's wife. He made a sign : " Yes."
[12]
MY GRANDMOTHER
Then the good people tried to console him, made
him eat some supper, and put him to sleep on
some fresh straw in the stable. They kept him
with them, giving him work on the farm by which
he earned his food.
The next year, when he was ten years of age,
though he looked fourteen, so much had he grown,
the cowherd being gone, he replaced him. He did
everything in his power to prove his gratitude to
those who had sheltered him. Being faithful at
his work, devoted to his protectors, and very in-
telligent, he compensated for his youth by his good
will, always on the alert.
The farmer, after the day when Pierre Seron
went to him, refused to sell any more milk to
Doctor Seron, and later he went bravely to express
his indignation to him, thinking to humiliate him
when he should hear that his son had become a
cowherd.
" So much the better," replied his father, harsh-
ly, " it is probably the only work that he will ever
be able to do."
These words, repeated to Pierre, instead of dis-
couraging him, settled his fate.
" I will also be a Doctor Seron one day," he
swore to himself.
His mother had taught him to read Latin-French
[13]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
in a small, old medical dictionary, which never
left him, and by the aid of which he improved his
very imperfect knowledge of the conjunction of
words.
From that day, while he was watching his cows,
not only did he learn to read well and to write with
a stick on the ground, but he learned also the
Latin and French words in the dictionary, one by
one, and his youthful brain developed with this
rude and imperfect method of study.
Whenever he made a little money he bought
books on medicine with it, and studied hard by
day; in the evenings he read under the farmer's
smoky lamp, and at night by moonlight.
He gathered simples for an herbalist whom he
had met in the fields, and received some useful les-
sons from him. This herbalist took an interest
in the poor child, directed his studies a little, and
bought him some useful books.
Pierre invented a pretty wicker-basket in which
to put fresh cheese during the summer, and, as the
farmer's wife sold her cheese in these baskets for a
few cents extra, she shared the profits with Pierre.
Some years passed thus. Pierre tried several
times to see his mother, but she lived shut up in
the house, sequestered, perhaps, and he could never
succeed in catching a glimpse of her.
[14]
MY GRANDMOTHER
His brother, who was five years older than him-
self, and studying medicine at Paris, passed his
time merrily during his vacations at home with the
young men of the town.
Pierre saw him pointed out by a friend one day,
when he came with a troop of young men and
pretty girls to drink warm milk at the farm.
" This milk is served to you by the cowherd of
this place, who is your legitimate brother," said
Pierre to him, presenting him with a frothy bowl
of it.
" My brother is dead," replied he.
" You will find him before many years very
much alive in Paris, sir ! " answered Pierre.
On hearing of this incident there was much talk
at Compiegne over the half -forgotten story of the
exiled and abandoned child.
As the elder son gave very little satisfaction to
his father, they said it was God who was punishing
the latter for his cruelty, but no one paid any
attention to the cowherd's prediction.
When he was nineteen Pierre possessed eleven
hundred francs of savings. One autumn day when
his father took the diligence, as he did every fort-
night to go and see his eldest son at Paris, and
especially to recommend him to his professors, who
could do nothing with this student, an enemy of
[15]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
study, Pierre Seron, the younger, with bare feet,
in order not to use his shoes, and with his knapsack
on his back, started for the capital.
One can imagine in what sort of hovel he lived
in the Latin quarter. Before inscribing himself
at the Faculty, he sought out night-work on the
wharves. His tall figure was an excellent recom-
mendation for him, and he was engaged as an
unloader of boats from eight o'clock in the even-
ing to two o'clock in the morning at the price of
forty-five cents. He needed no more on which to
live, and he even hoped to add to his small hoard,
which he feared would not be sufficient to pay for
his terms and his books.
How many times have I, myself, made my
grandfather tell me of this epoch of his life, which
he recalled with pride.
Pelagie continued her story to her grandmother,
who listened open-mouthed, touched to tears.
Pierre had taken his working clothes with him,
and every night he became, not a dancing costumed
sailor at public balls like his brother, but a boat-
heaver on the Seine wharves.
During the day he followed the lectures with
such zeal, such application, such passionate ardour,
that he was soon remarked by his professors.
His name struck them; they questioned him,
[16]
and one of them whom Doctor Seron had offended
by reproaching him rudely for severity towards his
eldest son, extolled the younger Seron, took special
interest in him, and soon two camps were formed:
that of the hard workers and friends of Pierre,
and that of the rakes, friends of Theophile Seron.
One day they came to blows, and Pierre, taking
his brother by the arms, shook him vigorously.
" I told you that your brother, the cowherd,
would find you again in Paris," he said, letting
him fall rather heavily on the floor.
While his brother was holding high revel, Pierre
was freezing under the roofs in winter, and roast-
ing beneath them in summer, eating and sleeping
badly, and working every night on the wharves.
On Sundays he mended his clothes, bought at the
old clothes-man's, which were far from being good,
and he washed his own poor linen. Pierre wore
only shirt-fronts and wristbands of passable qual-
ity, his shirt being of the coarsest material. His
socks had only tops and no bottoms. He suffered
in every way from poverty and all manner of
privations.
But he had, on the other hand, the satisfaction
of feeling the advantage it was to have had refined
parents. He easily acquired good manners, and
his hereditary intelligence seemed to fit him for the
3 [17]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
most arduous medical studies. He found that he
possessed faculties of assimilation which astonished
himself. To be brief, he passed his examinations
brilliantly, while his brother failed in every one.
Doctor Seron, whom he met from time to time
with his brother, was now an old man, bent down
beneath the weight of troubles; his well-beloved
son was ruining him.
When Pierre Seron had finished his studies and
obtained his degrees, he wrote to his father and
mother, saying that he would return to them like
a son who had only been absent for a time, and
that he forgave everything. He received no an-
swer from his mother, but a letter full of furious
maledictions from his father.
His friend, the herbalist of Compiegne, discov-
ered that there was a chance for him at Chauny,
and lent him some money. He found no help ex-
cept from this faithful protector.
" And so it happens," continued Pelagic Rain-
court, " that Pierre Seron has come to establish
himself in our town, where I have been waiting
for him," and she added : " Grandmother, he must
be my husband."
" Certainly," replied her grandmother, " I love
him, brave heart ! already, but he must fall in love
with you."
[18]
MY GRANDMOTHER
Pelagie had never thought of that.
A friend was commissioned to ask Doctor Seron
they already gave him this title, without adding
his first name, in order to avenge his father's cruel-
ties a friend was asked to question him with
regard to the possible feelings with which Mile.
Pelagie Raincourt had inspired him.
" She is a handsome girl," he replied, " but I
detest red-haired women."
It can be imagined what Pelagie felt when her
grandmother, with infinite precautions, told her
his answer, for she had always thought herself
irresistible.
Her despair and rage were so great that she
threatened to throw herself out of the window.
As she was in her room, on the first story, she
leaned out so suddenly that her frightened grand-
mother caught hold of her, and pulling her vio-
lently backward, caught her foot in Pelagie's long
gown, fell and dislocated her wrist.
They sent for Doctor Seron, who came at once,
and more like a bone-setter, anxious to make an
effect on important patients than like a prudent
surgeon, he reset her wrist.
Pelagie lavished the most affectionate care on
her beloved grandmother, who was suffering
through her fault. She was haughty, almost in-
[19]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
solent to Doctor Seron, who " detested red-haired
women," but she struck him by her extreme grace,
and by her wit, which he was surprised to find so
original, so brilliant in a provincial girl. He
came twice a day, and, cruel though he was, he
pleased Pelagie more than ever with his attractive
Compiegne accent, and that of Paris, a little lisp-
ing.
But she had endured too many emotions. She
was taken with fever and obliged to go to bed.
Pierre took great interest in attending her, and
soon lost his head seeing himself adored by an
attractive, rich young girl scarcely sixteen, and
loved maternally by her grandmother, for he had
always considered family affection as the most
rare and enviable happiness.
One evening Pierre declared his love in as burn-
ing words as Pelagie could desire; and then and
there they both went and knelt before her delighted
grandmother and obtained her consent to their
marriage.
Doctor Seron asked at once that the wedding
day should be fixed, but they were obliged to en-
lighten him on the existing situation of affairs, and
to acquaint him with the obstacles to so prompt
a solution.
Pierre, who was very poor and in no wise insen-
[20]
MY GRANDMOTHER
sible to the advantages of his betrothed's fortune,
found it somewhat hard to abandon to his father-
in-law, as the grandmother advised, all, or the
greater part of, the famous dot of his first wife,
which Monsieur Raincourt did not wish to relin-
quish. He proposed to reflect a few days over
the best measures to take and to see a notary. But
the notary saw no possibility of doing without
the father's consent, or to escape from the con-
ditions which Pelagie's grandmother presumed he
would exact.
" I will double," said the latter, " what I in-
tended to give Pelagie, if her father bargains over
my beloved grandchild's happiness."
Doctor Seron went off to ask Monsieur Rain-
court for his daughter Pelagie's hand, which was
refused until he proposed if he obtained her
hand very pretty, by the way to ask no account
of his tutorship.
The agreement was concluded and the wedding
day fixed.
Pierre Seron wrote again to his mother and
father, persisting in begging some token of their
affection. But he received no word, not a single
line from his mother, only more curses from his
father.
He learned by a letter from his friend the herb-
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
alist, who consented to be one of the witnesses to
his marriage, that his brother was dying at Com-
piegne; that his father, two thirds ruined by hav-
ing lost his practice through his too frequent jour-
neys to Paris to snatch away his son from his de-
baucheries, had been struck with paralysis.
Thus was misfortune overwhelming him who had
.grown hard in injustice and in cruelty, while the
poor boy, so shamefully driven from his home, saw
his situation greatly improved for the better, and
the hour of complete happiness approaching.
He was about to have his dreams realised, to
possess a fine fortune, a captivating wife, of whom
he became more and more fond, and who loved him
madly.
But on the eve of the day so earnestly desired,
Pelagie was determined to provoke her sisters,
already irritated at this marriage which made her
so insolently happy. She wished to take revenge
for all she had endured hearing her youngest sis-
ter, Sophie, say constantly to her : " You are not
marriageable."
And, when the contract was signed, when every-
thing was ready and all obstacles overcome for
the wedding on the morrow, a very violent scene
took place between the future Madame Pierre
Seron and her three sisters.
[22]
MY GRANDMOTHER
Pelagie's stepmother took sides with her daugh-
ters, their father with his wife, and the marriage
was cancelled, Monsieur Raincourt taking back
his consent and disavowing his promises.
Pelagie's grandmother lost patience with her,
Pierre was in despair, and the young girl took to
her bed, furious with herself, weeping, biting her
pillow, haunted in her feverish sleeplessness with
the most extraordinary projects, and making up
her mind to do the most unheard-of things.
At break of day, beside herself, not knowing
what she was doing, she left the house in her
dressing-gown and night-cap, and started on foot
for Noyon, saying to herself she would seek
asylum with her grandmother's old friend and her
relative.
What she wished above all was to escape Pierre's
reproaches, her grandmother's blame, and not to
hear the echo of all the gossip of the town, which
she knew would reach her ears. The humiliation
of being condemned by public opinion, the sorrow
to have made Pierre suffer, who had already suf-
fered so much, was such agonising pain to her that
she felt obliged to fly. She was trying to escape
from her own self-condemnation, which followed
her.
After proceeding some miles, little used to walk-
[23]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
ing, exhausted, she sat down on a heap of stones,
her head in her hands, weeping aloud in despair.
A horseman passed in a dress coat and white
cravat, bare-headed and mounted on a saddleless
horse: it was Pierre, and he saw her.
" Your father has consented again," he said,
jumping off the horse. " Come quickly, I will put
you up behind, and, to be sure that he does not
take back his word again and that you will not
commit any other folly, we will go straight to the
church, where your grandmother has had every-
thing prepared. It was she who divined that
you had taken the road to Noyon, unless you
should have come to my house, for she even sus-
pected you of being capable of that, silly girl that
you are ! "
He lifted her up on the horse, supported her
there with one arm, while with the other hand he
held a simple halter passed round the animal's neck.
" Come, come," said he, " it is high time you
should have a master. You deserve to be
whipped."
" But," she replied, made merry with the roman-
tic adventure ; " I am not going to be married in
a night-cap."
"Why not? It is a penance you deserve, and
you have great need of absolution. You can dress
[24]
MY GRANDMOTHER
yourself as a bride when you have become one, at
the end of the wedding."
And so it was, sitting up behind a bare-backed
horse, that my grandmother made her entrance
into Chauny. It was nine o'clock in the morning,
and all the gossips were at the windows, in the
street, and at the church door.
Pelagic got down from the horse, with hair
dishevelled under her night-cap, and her eyes still
swollen from tears. A woman in the street pinned
a white pink on her night-cap, and she entered the
church on Pierre's arm. There was a general out-
burst of laughter. Never had such a bride been
seen.
The old priest, who was attached to Pelagic on
account of her charity and kindness, could not
keep from laughing himself, and he made haste,
smiling through half of the ceremony.
Pelagic turned and faced the crowd. People
thought her confusion would make her feel like
sinking to the ground. " It is a merry marriage,"
was all she said. And thus was my very romantic
grandmother married, scandalising a great num-
ber of persons and amusing others.
The white pink and the night-cap became family
relics. I have seen and held them in my hand,
knowing their history.
[25]
II
WHEN THE ALLIES WERE AT THE GATES OP PARIS
JWENTY days after his marriage, although
he had drawn one of the first numbers when
the drawing for lots for the army took place, Doc-
tor Seron received orders to leave for the imperial
army as surgeon. He was obliged to find a sur-
geon to take his place, and this cost a very large
sum.
At the end of the year Madame Pierre Seron
became the mother of twin daughters. The young
couple were perfectly happy. The poor, aban-
doned child had become a tender, glad father, who
would return often to the house to rock his daugh-
ters and to amuse them by singing to them.
The children were not eight months old when
the poor young surgeon received new orders to
join the Imperial army in Germany. Pierre Seron
did not look for a substitute this time. His wife's
dot was diminishing too fast, and he was obliged
to think of future dots for his daughters. He left
them with a breaking heart.
Pelagie's grandmother went to live with her,
because it was impossible to leave the young
[26]
AT THE GATES OF PARIS
woman alone, especially as her father, stepmother,
and sisters, to whom Doctor Seron had turned a
cold shoulder, often making them ridiculous by
his witty remarks, and whose lives he had made
quite unpleasant, would seize the young surgeon's
departure as an occasion to revenge themselves;
but Pelagie and her grandmother were upheld by
Pierre's numerous friends, and all the town took
sides with the half -widowed young woman, and
blamed and annoyed Monsieur Raincourt to such
a degree that he finally left Chauny to go and
settle in the department of Soissons, from whence
his second wife had come.
Pelagie breathed freely, for her father had never
ceased to annoy her. But, alas ! misfortune came
to overwhelm her. She lost her grandmother and
was left alone as head of the family, and obliged,
before she was eighteen, to look after her fortune,
and the intervals between the times when she re-
ceived news from her husband became more and
more lengthened.
One morning Chauny awoke threatened with
war. The Allies were at the town's gates, and it
was said they plundered everything on their way,
and, what was worse, the first eight Prussians who
had appeared on the canal bridge had been slain.
Two hours after, the inhabitants of Chauny were
[27]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
apprised that if they did not pay within twenty-
four hours an enormous war indemnity they would
all be put to the sword.
Madame Seron, alone, without protection, was
one of the most heavily taxed, and in order to pay
the share exacted from her, she was obliged to
make ruinous engagements.
She passed a night digging a hole in her cellar
under a large cask which she removed with diffi-
culty, and which the wet-nurse of one of her young
daughters she nursed the other one herself
aided her in replacing. In this hole she hid her
jewels, her silver, and a box containing her most
valuable papers. This done, she decided, like
many others, to abandon her house, very promi-
nent on the square, where the invaders were to
come and be lodged.
The inhabitants lost their heads, they fled and
hid themselves in the woods, where the enemy, they
said, would not venture.
Madame Seron took a few clothes with her and
a little linen, which she put in a bag and carried
on her back like a poor woman. The wet-nurse
carried the two babies, and they set forth on the
road to Viry.
On the way Madame Seron saw a convoy of
mules returning unladen from the town whither
[28]
AT THE GATES OF PARIS
they had carried wood. Each mule had two bas-
kets attached to his pack-saddle. She put the
nurse on one of them and one of the little twins
in each basket. The nurse was a peasant and
knew how to ride a mule, but the young mother
was now afraid of everything, and, instead of
mounting another, she walked by the side of the
one carrying her little ones, resting her hand on
one of the baskets.
She met the Messrs, de Sainte-Aldegonde on
horseback, wearing white gloves, who, the mule-
driver said, had been writing for their " good
friends the enemies " for several days and were
now going to meet them.
The Messrs, de Sainte-Aldegonde were gallop-
ing, and the brisk pace of their horses roused the
mules, which started off in a mad race. The nurse
was thrown off. The little children screamed with
pain; their mother running, frightened, cried and
supplicated for help.
" Never," said she afterward, " did I suffer such
torture."
The mule-driver jumped on one of the hinder-
most mules and galloped towards the one whose
baskets held the twins. He stopped it, and their
mother and the nurse, who was only slightly
wounded on the forehead and cheek, ran and res-
[29]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
cued the babies from the baskets, who, with their
hands and faces covered with blood, had fainted.
The wretched women held them in their arms, look-
ing at them overcome with grief, and, as if dumb-
stricken, uttering not a word, they wept.
Mechanically they turned back on the road to
Chauny, not knowing where they went, nor what
they were doing, with eyes fixed on the motionless
and bleeding little faces. They entered a house,
where they asked for water and washed the wounds.
The poor mother had kept the knapsack and bag
of linen. They undressed the little ones, changed
their blood-stained frocks, rubbed them with vin-
egar and brandy, and almost at the same moment
they opened their eyes and began to sob and
cry.
Their wounds continued to bleed and they were
pitiful to behold. When Madame Seron reached
her house some Cossacks were about to blow open
the closed door; the nurse approached with the
key and opened it. She also had her forehead and
cheek tied up with a bloody cloth. The child she
was carrying was groaning, the other in the moth-
er's arms was crying.
The Cossacks spoke a little French and were
touched with pity at the sight. There were four
of them, two of whom took the babies and held
[30]
AT THE GATES OF PARIS
them in their arms while the mother and nurse
washed their poor little faces and applied court-
plaster to the wounds.
Madame Seron, after a few hours, felt a little
reassured about her children and was completely
at rest regarding the Cossacks, whom she treated
as kindly as she could. The following days they
assisted in doing the housework, the cook having
fled to the woods. They walked with the children,
amused them, and took devoted care of them, for
the little ones had not recovered from the shock
they had suffered; their nurses' milk, disturbed by
fright, gave them fever. The children grew
weaker and, in spite of the energetic care that a
doctor, a friend of their father's, took of them,
he could not save them; they were taken with con-
vulsions and both died on the same day. The
Cossacks wept over them with their mother.
Quite alone now, suffering from her country's
misfortunes, for she was very patriotic, in despair
at her beloved little children's death and that of
her grandmother, at her husband's absence and the
dangers he was incurring, cheated by the men of
business with whom she was struggling, life became
so horribly hard to the young woman that she at-
tempted to kill herself. A Cossack saved her, and
his comrades and he tried to console her in such
[31]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
a simple, touching manner that she sadly took up
life again.
Madame Seron repeated all her life, and in later
years she profoundly engrafted in me, her grand-
child, this axiom : " One must hate the English, fear
Prussian brutality, and love the Russians."
My grandfather returned from the army fol-
lowed by a German woman, who would not leave
him, and who refused to believe in his marriage.
He had great trouble in getting rid of her, and
succeeded in so doing only because his wife took
up arms against her. Wounded to the quick,
Pelagie found courage to counteract this influ-
ence only in her passion for the romantic. She
was enacting a romance and her struggles with her
rival were full of incident. Finally she succeeded,
after having been assailed in her own house by
the German, in having the woman taken to the
frontier.
Doctor Seron had been present at many bat-
tles, among which those of Lutzen and of Bautzen
were the principal. He talked much about them,
as he also did of the arms and legs he had ampu-
tated with his master, Larrey, surgeon-in-chief of
the Imperial armies, the number of which increased
every year.
Pierre's conjugal fidelity, lost during his cam-
[32]
AT THE GATES OF PARIS
paigns, never returned. He became a sort of Don
Juan, about whose conquests the ill-natured tongues
of the town were always wagging. When I grew
up, how many great-uncles were pointed out to me !
Having been deprived of wine in Germany, he
loved it all the more on his return to France. Very
sober in the morning until breakfast hour, at which
time he returned home after having performed
his operations at the hospital or in the town, he
drank regularly every day a dozen bottles of a
light Macon wine, always the same. To say that
this great, portly man got drunk would be an
exaggeration, but in the afternoon he was talka-
tive, full of jokes and braggings to such a degree
that all the white lies, all the jests that were told
at Chauny and its environs were called " sere-
nades."
My grandmother's passion for her husband
faded away> illusion after illusion, in spite of the
prodigious effort she made not to condemn my
grandfather on the first proofs he gave of his
sensual appetites, of his brutal way of enjoying
life. Pierre's strength was so great that in all
physical exercises, hunting, and fishing he wore
out the most intrepid; his love for excitement was
so artless, his gaiety so exuberant that people over-
looked the sensual self-indulgence of his tempera-
4 [33]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
ment, his excesses even, when they would not have
pardoned them in others.
But little by little they wearied of all this at his
home, while his friends could not have enough of
him. His wife saw him depart at dawn and not
return until far into the night without regret. He
was never late for meals, about which great care
had to be taken for him.
" It is elementary politeness," he would say,
drawing out his lisping accent on the word " ele-
mentary," " not to leave the companion of one's
home, if not of one's life, alone at table."
[34]
Ill
THE MARRIAGE OF MY FATHER AND MOTHER
DAUGHTER, Olympe, was born to them
after the German woman's departure; her
mother nursed her, brought her up with loving
care, and you may be sure that the imaginative
Pelagie dreamed at an early hour of the possible
romance of the future marriage of her only child.
Unfortunately Olympe distressed her by the
fantastical turn of her mind. She took great
interest from her earliest age in the details of
housekeeping, was troublesome, humdrum even,
said her mother.
She disliked to read, was much annoyed at her
father's absence from home, whose motives she
loudly incriminated. Urged to this by the ser-
vants' stories, she quarrelled with him, bitterly re-
proached her mother for the number of books she
read; and she introduced into the home, where the
careless indifference of one member, the resigna-
tion of the other, might have brought about peace,
an agitation which fed the constant disputes.
However, the husband and wife, so much dis-
united, were proud of their daughter's beauty.
Her father would often say : " She deserves a
[35]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
prince," while her mother would reply : " A shep-
herd would please her better."
Nothing foretold that this admirable statue
would be animated some day. Olympe was fifteen
years old, and in her family the marriage bells
had always rung at that age. Olympe's parents
were humiliated at the thought that no one had
as yet asked for their daughter's hand.
The romantic Pelagie dreamed of an " unfore-
seen " marriage for Olympe, as she had done for-
merly for herself. But no predictions had been
made concerning it. Madame Seron could never
induce her daughter to go to a fortune-teller with
her. Alas! the way seemed obscure, but just as
it had been impossible for her to find her own hero
among the youths of the town, so did it seem im-
possible to discover another hero for Olympe at
Chauny.
How was it, one would say, that she did not
judge her own experience of the " unforeseen "
lamentable? On the contrary, Pelagie regretted
nothing, and, were it to be done over again, she
would have made the same marriage, taking all its
consequences.
The desired romance had, after all, been written.
How many finalities of marriage resembled hers!
The important thing was to have loved. Her Don
[36]
MARRIAGE OF FATHER AND MOTHER
Juan of a husband did not disgust her. She, the
faithful wife, although living in a manner sepa-
rated from him, still preserved, in the romance of
her life, a role in no wise commonplace. Her hus-
band, obliged to respect her, could not forget the
past either, and he sometimes courteously alluded
to it, adding : " I am always constant to my affec-
tion for my better half, even amid my incon-
stancies."
And this was quite true. He did really love his
wife, and would not have hesitated to sacrifice his
most devoted women friends to her. He never op-
posed any of her plans, and he repeated her words :
" What shall we do, where shall we seek, how shall
we discover a husband for Olympe? "
They lived in the Rue de Noyon, the house on
the square having become hateful to Madame Se-
ron, who had lost, while living in it, her grand-
mother and her twins, and had also suffered there
from the invasion and from scenes with the Ger-
man woman. Now, in this street, opposite to one
of the windows of the large drawing-room where
Pelagic passed the greater part of her days em-
broidering, and especially devouring novels by the
dozen, was the large front door of a young boys'
school. Madame Seron knew every pupil, every
professor.
[37]
304296
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
She had remarked among the latter a young
man of tall stature and handsome presence, who
never left the school without a book in his hand.
He bowed respectfully to her several times a day,
for she involuntarily raised her eyes every time
the door opposite was shut noisily.
One evening, when the master of the school, M.
Blangy, came to consult Doctor Seron, whom he
knew he would find at meal-time, Madame Seron
questioned him about his new professor.
" He has a very romantic history."
" Tell us about him."
" His name is Jean Louis Lambert. His father,
when a baby, was brought one day dressed in a
richly embroidered frock covered with lace by a
midwife to a well-to-do farmer of Pontoise, near
Noyon, who, having no children, consented to
receive the child (who, the midwife said, was an
orphan), and to bring him up. A girl was born
to the farmer five years later, and the two young
persons, who loved each other, were married after-
wards.
" My professor is the eldest of four children.
His father wished to make him a priest and placed
him at the Seminary of Beauvais. On entering
there he was remarked for his intelligence, his
religious ardour, his poetic talent, and for his
[38]
MARRIAGE OF FATHER AND MOTHER
theological science, and they soon endowed him
with the minor orders.
" The archbishop of Beauvais became his pro-
tector and made Jean Louis Lambert his secre-
tary. He was not bigoted, but very pious, even
mystical, and they hastened on for him the mo-
ment when he should be invested with the major
orders.
" On the evening before the day when he was to
pronounce his new sacerdotal vows, he was pres-
ent at a dinner which the archbishop gave to the
members of the high clergy of his diocese, and he
heard these gentlemen talk at table like ordinary
convivial guests. As the dinner went on, they
exchanged witty remarks on things terrestrial and
even celestial, which seemed to Jean Louis Lambert
suggested by the devil himself. A stupid joke
about the pillars of the church confessing idle non-
sense completely revolted the young postulant.
On account of a few jests the young fellow, who
was so artless, so little worldly, felt the whole
scaffolding of his faith fall to the ground. He
wished to speak, to cry anathema to those who
seemed blasphemers to him, but, trembling, he slid
out of the dining-room, went up to his room, took
a valise, in which he packed his books, the manu-
script of his ' Canticles to the Virgin,' his scant
[39]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
wardrobe, and left the archbishop's residence half
wild. Almost running, he walked twenty-four
leagues, and arrived at his father's house ex-
hausted, in despair, and declared he would never
be a priest.
" His excitement, the mad race he had run, gave
him so bad a fever that his life was in danger.
When he was cured he was obliged to suffer the
pious exhortations of the old village priest who
had instructed him; his masters came themselves
to endeavour to win him back and calm his indig-
nation. They succeeded in proving to him that he
had exaggerated things to a ridiculous degree, but
the ideal of his vocation was so shattered that his
disillusions soon made him an atheist.
" I confess to you," added M. Blangy, " that
I am somewhat alarmed at having him as profess-
or of philosophy, and I made some observations
lately which offended him; but he is such a hard
worker, and so intelligent, so full of loyalty and
so conscientious, that in spite of my fears I do
not regret having taken him into my school. His
pupils adore him and make rapid progress with
him, and were it not for his passion for negation,
I think I should take him as my partner."
This was sufficient to inflame Olympe's moth-
er's imagination. A romance was within her
[40]
MARRIAGE OF FATHER AND MOTHER
reach. She would protect this young man, thrown
out of place, who had abandoned his first pro-
posed career and who was without fortune ; she
would make something of him, and induce him to
accept the career she proposed for him, that of a
physician. She would have in him a grateful son,
who should become her daughter's husband, and,
perhaps, the father of a little girl whom she would
love as her grandmother had loved her, and whom
she would bring up as she had been educated.
" As badly ? " asked her husband, laughing, to
whom she at once confided her plans.
One Sunday Madame Seron invited Jean Louis
Lambert to breakfast. He almost lost his mind
with joy, for he was hopelessly in love with
Olympe, his inaccessible star.
After breakfast my grandfather, according to
his habit, hastened to leave the house, understand-
ing besides that he would be in the way. Olympe
also having left home to pass the afternoon with
a friend, the romantic Pelagie, alone with her pro-
tege, whom she already called to herself her " dear
child," experienced one of the sweetest joys of
her life.
She questioned him, and miracle of miracles!
His great ambition was to be a doctor! But he
could not impose upon his parents the expense that
[41]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
would necessitate the taking up of a new career.
They were all so good to him, his sisters so de-
voted; and his young brother had just entered the
army in order that he should not be obliged to per-
form his military service.
Madame Seron waded in complete felicity. She
talked, and appeared to the young professor like
some unreal, beneficent fairy, who, with a touch
of her magic wand, changes a woodcutter into a
prince, a disinherited man into the most fortunate
one in the world.
Jean Louis Lambert's emotion, his gratitude,
were expressed in such noble, almost passionate,
terms that it brought tears to her eyes, and she
at once assumed the role of an ideal mother to
him.
They agreed, approved, and understood each
other in everything. Jean Louis his protectrice
already left off the Lambert during the next
three months would prepare himself for his new
studies, and then, on some very plausible pretext,
would leave the school and go to Paris, where his
future mother-in-law, as an advance on her daugh-
ter's dot, would provide for all expenses until he
should have passed his examinations.
He would study doubly hard, and, as soon as he
should have obtained his degrees, he would return
[42]
MARRIAGE OF FATHER AND MOTHER
and marry Olympe, whom, meanwhile, her mother
would influence favourably towards the match.
Isolated in Paris, with but one friend from
Chauny, Bergeron, who later fired a pistol at
Louis Philippe, Jean Louis worked with passion-
ate ardour. In love for the first time and with the
woman whom he knew would be his wife, infatuated
with his studies, his mystical adoration for the
Virgin transformed into a desire to possess the
object he adored, he lived in a fever, impatient to
deserve the promised happiness, and finding the
reward for all his struggles far superior to the
efforts he made to acquire it.
Doctor Seron completely approved his wife's
romantic plan, considering that it was without
question his place, who had been so cruelly aban-
doned by all save the humble, to protect a young,
hard-working, and virtuous man.
This latter adjective he rolled out with great
emphasis, which much amused Olympe's mother
every time he pronounced it.
" No one more than myself esteems, admires,
and honours purity and virtue," said Pelagie's
amusing husband, " for no one is so conscious of
the rarity, the beauty of these two traits."
A renewal of good feeling flourished between
the husband and wife. Every letter from their
[43]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
future son-in-law was read, commented upon, ad-
mired, and even re-read by them both ; these youth-
ful, exuberant, loving letters, often containing
very good poetry, rejuvenated the parents' hearts,
already extremely proud of him whom they called
between themselves : " Our son."
Olympe, while her parents were enthusiastic,
was perfectly indifferent. One day, when they
were both exasperated at her, they asked whether
or not she would consent to this marriage. The
young girl replied to her anxious mother, and to
her father, revolted at seeing her so prosaic:
" Since you desire it, since you have committed
yourselves so far that you cannot withdraw, I will
resign myself to it. Where you have tied the
goat she will browse."
Ah! that phrase, what a role it played in the
disputes between the Lambert and Seron families,
so frequent in later years.
Olympe's parents were assailed day and night
by these words, which they repeated to themselves
aghast. " Where you have tied the goat she will
browse."
Jean Louis Lambert returned to Chauny and
was married, a little disappointed at his wife's
coldness, but trusting to his passion to inspire her
with the love he himself felt.
[44]
MARRIAGE OF FATHER AND MOTHER
Olympe Lambert was tall, with a handsome fig-
ure like her mother's ; she had an olive complexion,
large, velvety, and luminous eyes, a charming
mouth with small teeth, a delicate nose with pink
nostrils, brown hair with ruddy tints in it, hand-
some arms and hands, and a very small foot. It
was impossible to discover a more fascinating
creature to look at and one of less good-humour.
[45]
IV
BORN IN AN INN
lOCTOR SERON, after the death of his
parents, had renewed acquaintance with one
of his uncles on the maternal side, a physician in
a hamlet in the department of Oise, between
Verberie and Seulis. This uncle, then very old,
had become a widower and, being without children,
he ceded his practice to the son-in-law of his only
remaining relative, and gladly welcomed the young
couple in his house.
Living with his uncle, following his counsels, Jean
Louis Lambert succeeded marvellously well with his
new patients for three years. A son was born to
them, and the young people were happy, he sing-
ing always the praise of love in his letters to his
mother and father-in-law, while she " browsed "
agreeably without wishing to confess it.
Doctor and Madame Seron congratulated them-
selves daily for the happy choice they had made
in their daughter's husband.
But misfortunes came, one after another, to the
young couple. Their great-uncle died suddenly
[46]
BORN IN AN INN
of an attack of apoplexy. Their well-beloved son,
who, even at the age of eighteen months, gave
proof of exceptional intelligence, died after a
three days' illness from the effects of a violent
scolding from his mother, which gave him convul-
sions ; finally, the small borough they inhabited
was entirely burned down, except their grand-
uncle's house which his nephews had inherited, and
which Madame Lambert, with a heroism admired
by everyone, saved from the flames with a small
watering-pump, in spite of the wounds she re-
ceived from the burning brands.
The small borough was completely destroyed,
deserted, ruined; the young physician's patients
were dispersed and captured by competition in an
adjacent town. The uncle's house was sold at a
very bad bargain, the furniture given away, so to
say, and, after some debts had been paid, there re-
mained very little for the young couple, who took
refuge at Verberie at the Hotel of The Three
Monarchs.
The dot, broken into for Jean Louis Lambert's
studies, and wasted afterwards in expensive chem-
ical experiments he had had a laboratory built for
himself dripped away as money always dripped
through the impracticable hands of Olympe's
husband.
[47]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
As he was very intimate with the Decamps,
Alexandre, and the painter, who lived near Verberie
during the summer, Jean Louis hoped to create a
position for himself in new surroundings.
A certain Doctor Bernhardt, a great chemist,
who lived at Compiegne and often went to visit his
friends, the Decamps, struck with the science and
original views of the young physician, proposed
to make him a partner in certain researches which
were to bring about a discovery as extraordinary
as that of the philosopher's stone.
One fine day, influenced by the Decamps, fas-
cinated by a sort of German Mephistopheles, he
left his wife, who was expecting the birth of a
child, at the Hotel of The Three Monarchs; but
he was to receive a large salary and go to see her
every Sunday until the time came when he could
settle her in a home at Compiegne.
Madame Lambert, after her baby son's death,
had wounded her mother cruelly. The latter had
scarcely seen her and her husband more than three
times at Chauny in three years. She invited her
to make her a visit, saying they could mourn over
the child together and adding that only a mother
with her affection could console a daughter for a
son's loss.
Olympe wrote to her mother that her sorrow was
[48]
BORN IN AN INN
too dumb to be understood by her. Madame Seron,
in despair at receiving such a letter, addressed one
to her son-in-law; but as it was at the time when
the fire took place, her letter received no direct re-
sponse. Jean Louis merely related to her in full
the details of the catastrophe of the small borough
and of Olympe's heroism which had saved the
house, and he added unkindly, being ungrateful
for the first time in his life : " Your daughter's
heroism was not expressed merely in words." He
thus accentuated the tone of his wife's letter in-
stead of attenuating it.
He did not wish to have any explanations with
his mother-in-law, neither to have her come to his
house, nor to go to hers, knowing very well that if
circumstances had turned against him he was re-
sponsible for them in part from the manner in
which he had mismanaged his resources.
The sale of the house, the departure for Ver-
berie, his entering Doctor Bernhardt's employ, all
was done without a word from Jean Louis to his
father and mother-in-law.
Doctor Seron heard of these things from his
friend, the herbalist of Compiegne, who came to
warn him about Doctor Bernhardt and to give him
the most alarming information concerning him.
He was worse than an impostor, living a luxurious
5 [49]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
life, and pulling wool over people's eyes; it was
said he was a swindler.
Madame Seron, on hearing this, addressed a su-
preme appeal to her son-in-law, enlightening him
on the danger he was running, but, alas! it was
too late. Jean Louis, completely hypnotised by
Doctor Bernhardt, following his researches with
passion, not only received no salary, but he had
thrown the money received from the sale of the
house and what remained of his wife's dot into
Doctor Bernhardt's crucible, which was like that
of the philosopher's stone.
I was born at the Hotel of The Three Mon-
archs. My father announced the happy event
to my grandmother by this simple note : " Your
grandchild, born on the 4th of October at five
o'clock in the afternoon, is called Juliette."
What! this granddaughter, so much dreamed
of, so much desired, was there, at Verberie, not far
off, and she could not run to embrace her, to take
and hold her for an instant in her arms?
My grandmother did not cease weeping and
my grandfather shed tears with her.
" Think, Pierre, of that little one in an inn, of
Olympe, our daughter, in such a place, with, per-
haps, only a partition separating her from some
drunken brute making a noise. Oh ! it will kill me."
[50]
BORN IN AN INN
" And her husband far from her, and in his
perpetual goings and comings not able to watch
over our only child's health or that of our grand-
daughter," added Doctor Seron, " it is dreadful."
And, with hands clasped together, they sobbed.
What was to be done?
They wrote again several times, but received
only one answer as curt as it was short:
" The mother and child are well."
A commercial traveller, a patient of my grand-
father, had heard at Verberie that my father was
a victim of a miserable fellow, who imposed upon
him, making him work like a labourer, promis-
ing him everything under heaven, and spending
every cent he possessed, and that my mother, still
at Verberie, owed a large sum at the hotel and
might at any moment, together with her daugh-
ter, be turned out of doors without resources.
My grandmother at these revelations wished to
leave immediately for Verberie; my grandfather
prevented her. He sent the commercial traveller
to the proprietor of The Three Monarchs to assure
him that he would be paid by Madame Lambert's
parents, but that he must say nothing of it to her,
and must, on no account, acquaint her husband
about it.
On the commercial traveller's return my grand-
[51]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
mother had all the details she desired, some of
which were lamentable, others consoling.
My mother nursed me herself. I was a very
healthy baby, but Madame Lambert, suffering
from poverty and cold, for she often deprived
herself of fire, the commercial traveller said, was
evidently losing her health. But the hotel pro-
prietor, reassured about his debt, would arrange
things so that the young mother should suffer no
longer.
My grandfather loved his daughter Olympe
more than did my grandmother, because she re-
sembled his own mother. She was submissive to
her husband to the point of sacrificing her child to
her wifely duties, and therefore he suffered about
his child as well as his grandchild, while my grand-
mother suffered especially on my account.
Again, my grandmother wished to leave to come
to us, but her husband calmed her with his oft-re-
peated words:
" You will only upset her, and, as she is nurs-
ing her child, she will give her fever and you will
kill her. Wait at least for nine months, and then
you can wean Juliette, and we will decide what to
do according to circumstances."
Hour by hour, day by day, week by week, the
nine months, sadly counted, passed at last. At
[52]
BORN IN AN INN
the end of the ninth month the commercial traveller
received a letter from the proprietor of The Three
Monarchs, saying that my father had gone to
Brussels with Doctor Bernhardt, who went there
ostensibly to make some final experiments, in real-
ity to escape legal prosecution by flight, and that
my mother and I were abandoned.
As soon as this letter was communicated to my
grandparents there was no longer any hesitation,
and my grandmother left for Verberie.
My mother, clad in a worn-out gown, was shiv-
ering over a small fire of shavings, thin, pale, her
handsome face grown more sombre than ever. She
welcomed her mother with a violent scene, but my
grandmother had come with prepared resolutions
which nothing could move.
" You have not the right, through fidelity to I
know not what wifely duty and which your husband,
it seems to me, is far from reciprocating, to live
here in this wretchedness, and, above all, to impose
it on your child. You shall leave this hotel to-
morrow and return to your parents, and your hus-
band, when he desires to do so, can come to find
you as well at their home as here in this inn."
" Where you have tied the goat she must
browse," she replied.
My grandmother, exasperated at these words,
[53]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
exclaimed : " Your husband doesn't even give you
grass to browse on."
My mother remained obstinate with her habit-
ual sourness, her bad temper, and her motiveless
recriminations which she tried, as usual, to com-
bine together, in order to prove that she was made
unhappy by everyone.
" But, if you are turned out of doors with your
daughter, where will you go? "
" Into the street, and Jean Louis will have the
responsibility of having put me there. I do not
wish that he should be absolved for his conduct
by any one."
It was therefore in order to prove her husband's
wrong-doing that she suffered abandonment and
privations.
My grandmother said nothing more; but she
arranged in her mind a plan for carrying me off.
" Whatever you decide," she said, after the scene
was over, " you must pay your debts, if you have
any here. Do you wish me to give you some
money ? "
" Willingly."
" Well, about how much do you think you
owe? "
My mother named a sum.
" I am going to unpack my bag, have my din-
[54]
BORN IN AN INN
ner served, and send you some wood, and I will
return with the money you need to pay your debt."
My grandmother often told me afterwards that
she did not look at me, nor kiss me, so as not to
betray her emotion.
She went to find the proprietor and arranged
my carrying off with him. A berline would be
ready in a moment to take my grandmother and
me to the town gates. The driver of the dili-
gence which would leave an hour after us would
reserve the coupe seats for us, and would pick us
up at a point agreed upon between the berline-
driver and himself, and we would speed, changing
horses once or twice, to Chauny. The hotel pro-
prietor was to detain my mother discussing the
bill, and to keep her for an hour at least, and he
promised not to furnish her with a carriage to pur-
sue us. Besides, it was agreed that my grand-
mother was to give to him the money necessary for
my mother to join us in a few days.
My grandmother learned from him the amount
of the bill, and it was arranged that she should
give my mother a little less than the amount, so
that the latter should not feel justified in taking
any of the money in order to follow us.
My grandmother returned to her daughter's
room, now well warmed. All was ready in her
[55]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
own room for departure a nursing-bottle full of
warm milk and a large shawl in which to wrap me.
Her heart, she told me later many times, beat
faster than it would have done had she run off
with my grandfather in her youth.
The hotel proprietor had the bill taken to
Madame Lambert, and sent her word that he was
ready to discuss it if she should have any obser-
vations to make concerning it. My grandmother
looked at the bill and told my mother that she had
not quite enough money to pay it all, being
obliged to keep some for her return home, and
that, on glancing at it, it seemed to her that the
proprietor of The Three Monarchs had added to
the actual expenses too much interest for the de-
lay of payment.
My mother was of the same opinion, and said
the sum would suffice, as she should discuss the
point with the proprietor, and no doubt obtain a
reduction.
" Go," said my grandmother in an indifferent
tone. " I will take care of the child."
Everything succeeded marvellously well, and I
was carried off at the rather young age of nine
months old, and weaned in a diligence.
[56]
MY EABiLY CHILDHOOD
WAS pleased, it seems, with the voyage and
with the nursing-bottle. Warmly wrapped
up, I slept in my grandmother's arms. In the
morning everything I saw from the diligence win-
dows amused me greatly. The movement delight-
ed me and made me dance. Every time I asked,
"Mamma?" my grandmother answered: "Yes,
look, see, she is down there." At the relays I
walked a little, for I already walked at that early
age, and was much taken with and curious about
the dogs, the chickens, and people, and was in-
stinctively drawn to my grandmother, whom I
soon grew to love fondly.
My mother, informed by a letter which my
grandmother had left for her, of my being car-
ried off, did not hasten to join us, but grand-
mother knew by frequent letters from the hotel-
keeper at Verberie that she was taking care of
herself and did not suffer, and that, moreover, she
had written several letters to her husband and had
received no answers.
Finally my mother decided one day to take the
[57]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
diligence and come to us, after having borrowed
a sum strictly necessary for her voyage.
The large drawing-room at Chauny, with its
high chimney-place, where a great wood fire burned
constantly, seemed more pleasant to me than the
gloomy room of The Three Monarchs, and I ex-
pressed my admiration for all that it contained
by throwing kisses to the fire, to the clock, and
above all to my grandparents. I had room in
which to trot and amuse myself, and I took an
interest in everything in this large room where they
received visitors, where they dined and lived. I
heard a great many things which I repeated and
understood. My mother did not cease to com-
plain about the education my grandparents were
giving me and on the airs of " a trained dog,"
that I was assuming, but she did not succeed in
troubling the cordial understanding between us
four my grandparents, my nurse Arthemise, and
myself.
My father, very unhappy, repenting of his fool-
ish act, ashamed of the blind faith he had placed
in a cynical impostor, had returned without a
cent to his parents at Pontoise. He begged by
letter for my mother, humiliated and submissive,
but my grandmother replied that she would not
give him back his wife until the day when he
[58]
MY EARLY CHILDHOOD
should have made another position for himself and
could prove that he had the means to support her.
As to his daughter Juliette, she would never be
given back to him.
" I adopt this child which you have abandoned
and given over to dire poverty," wrote my grand-
mother, " and she belongs to me as long as I live."
It was at this time that my father went to live at
the pretty borough of Blerancourt, three leagues
from Chauny and two from Pontoise-sur-Oise,
where his people dwelt. A year after he came and
proved to my grandmother that he was in a posi-
tion to support his wife and to fulfil the conditions
she had imposed upon him before he should be
allowed to take her back.
" Return and browse," said my grandfather to
his daughter, laughing, as he put a well-filled purse
in her hand.
I remained, of course, with my grandparents.
Neither my father nor mother would have dared
at that epoch to question my staying.
It was some years after this that the long series
of dramatic scenes began of which I was the cause,
and which occasioned my being carried off many
times
The effort made by a matured mind to recall its
early impressions is most curious. We evoke them,
[59]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
and they rise before us in the form of a little per-
son whom we succeed in detaching from our pres-
ent selves, but who, however, continues to remain
a part of what we have become. The image, the
vision of ourselves is clear and perfectly cut in our
minds when we say : " When I was a child." We
see ourselves as we were at a certain age, but as
soon as we particularise an event or question a
fact we cannot escape from our present personal-
ity, and it is impossible to rid these facts and events
from connection with it, or from their later conse-
quences.
We should like to write of our childhood with
the childish words we then used, but we cannot, and
memory only suggests some striking traits, some
simple phrases, which make clear the facts regis-
tered in the mind.
How many things more interesting than those
we remember do we doubtless forget!
One day it was not on a Sunday my grand-
mother dressed me in a pretty white gown lined
with pink and embroidered by herself with little
wheels, which I had often watched her making.
Later, overcome with emotion, I dressed my own
daughter in this same gown.
" It is your birthday, the fourth of October, and
you are three years old," said my grandmother.
[60]
MY EARLY CHILDHOOD
Three years ! these words re-echoed in my head :
there was something about them solemn and gay
at once. To be grown up is a child's ambition.
Children create in their minds many surprising
illusions. People said frequently to me, which
made me very proud:
" She is very tall for her age. She looks five
years old." Those two figures, three and five, were
the first I remembered, and I used them on every
occasion. I looked at and compared myself with
children smaller than I, and considered myself very
tall indeed.
On this 4th of October my nurse Arthemise
called me " miss " for the first time. I can hear
her even now. On that day, the first that stands
out distinct in my memory, everyone who saw me
kissed me. I returned my grandparents' caresses,
hanging on their necks, but I remember perfectly
that a number of persons made me angry by kiss-
ing me too hard. However, I allowed myself to
be embraced rapturously by my nurse Arthemise,
who wished to " eat me up," as she said, and also
by my great friend Charles,* who called me his
" little wife."
I told him with a dignified air that now, being
* This friend Charles was a professor in the boys' boarding
school opposite my grandparents' house.
[61]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
three years old, he must call me his " big wife,"
which he did at once, presenting me with a trum-
pet, on which I began to play with all my might.
My grandparents were expecting my mother
and father to dine. They always arrived late, be-
cause the road across the Manicamp prairie was
so bad that they related this story to children
about it : " One day a cowkeeper lost a cow in one
of the ruts, and he tried to find it by plunging
the handle of his whip in the mud, but he could
not succeed."
One should hear this story in Picard patois,
which gives a singular force to the words, espe-
cially when the cowkeeper turns his whip-handle
in the mud and cannot feel the cow, so deeply is
she buried in it.
I ran every few minutes to the front door and
leaned out. I was a little afraid, for the entrance,
with its four steps, seemed very high to me, but I
thought I should be very useful to the kitchen-
folk if I could be the first to cry out : " Here they
are ! here they are ! "
I ran about a great deal, I even fell once, to
Arthemise's great alarm, who feared I should spoil
my pretty gown.
At last my parents arrived from Blerancourt.
They told a long story which I have forgotten.
[62]
MY EARLY CHILDHOOD
The cabriolet and the horse were covered with mud.
Papa and mamma repeated that the road was
execrable. The word struck me and I used it for
a long while on all occasions.
My mother wore a dark blue silk gown, caught
up under her shawl. I can see her now, undoing
her skirt and shaking it. I helped her by tapping
on the silk and I said admiringly : " Mamma is
beautiful ! "
My father took me in his arms and covered me
with kisses, and he also said " that I was very, very
tall, and that he had not seen me for a long time
not for three months." That was the same
number as my age, it must therefore be a long
time, and papa looked so sad that he made me
feel like crying. His own eyes were full of tears.
They sat down to dinner. My grandfather told
stories which made them laugh, but I thought they
would not laugh long, for whenever my parents
came from Blerancourt they always ended by
quarrelling together.
My father said suddenly:
" This time we will take Juliette home with us ! "
I did not dare to say that I did not wish to go.
I was much more afraid of my parents than of my
grandparents.
" No, I shall keep her," replied grandmother. .
[63]
" It is more than two years since you took her
from us," continued my father. " If we still had
her brother, or if she had a sister, I promise you
that I would give her to you, but think, mother, I
have only this little one."
" It is not our affair, but yours, to give her a
brother or sister," my grandfather replied, laugh-
ing.
Certainly, I thought, grandfather was right.
Why did not papa and mamma buy me a little
sister or brother? Then they would not need to
say they would take me from grandmother.
" You must give Juliette back to us," my father
repeated. " I want her."
" Never ! " cried grandfather and grandmother
at once. " She belongs to us ; you abandoned
her."
Then began a scene which is easy to me to
recall, because it was renewed three or four times
every year during my childhood. They dragged
me first to one side, then to the other, they kissed
me with faces wet with tears, they grew very angry
with one another, and they almost made me crazy
by asking and repeating : " Don't you want to
come with your papa and mamma ? " " Don't
you want to stay with your grandfather and
grandmother? "
[64]
MY EARLY CHILDHOOD
I would answer sobbing, not realising my cruelty
to my father, who adored me:
" I want Arthemise, my grandmother and
grandfather."
My father was very unhappy. My mother,
who was jealous of everything and everybody,
suffered less, however, from my grandmother's
passion for me than for my father's; but she
naturally took her husband's part against her
parents.
On that day, as on many subsequent days, my
parents from Blerancourt yielded and grew calm.
My grandmother, by much show of affection and
by all manner of promises, succeeded in making
them leave me at Chauny.
My father said a hundred times to me : " You
love your papa, don't you ? "
" Yes, yes, yes ! "
And it was true. I loved my papa, but not as
I loved grandmother.
" Juliette must begin her education," added
grandmother, " and she can do so only at Chauny.
As soon as the vacations are over she must go to
school."
The next morning they woke me very early. I
was sleepy and rebelled. What grandfather called
" the family drama " had fatigued me. Arthe-
6 [65]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
raise took me in her arms, half asleep, for me to
say good-bye to my parents. My mother was put-
ting on her bonnet as I entered the drawing-room,
my father was wrapping her shawls about her.
They got into the carriage and I waved kisses to
them for good-bye.
" Above all, be good at school," said my mother
to me as she left.
One morning Arthemise carried me half asleep
into the drawing-room. I wanted to be put back
to bed. My grandmother said severely to me that
it should not be done, that Arthemise was to dress
me and that I was to go to school.
I was before the fire in the large drawing-room
with its four windows, which seemed to my child-
ish ideas immense and which has much shrunken
since, nnd I was passed from grandmother's lap
to Arthemise's. They dressed me, after having
washed me, the which I did not like, although it
amounted to but little, only my face and my
hands, and grandfather did not even wish that
they should " clean me " every day they did not
say " wash " in those days water, he declared,
made pimples on the face.
Ah ! how that surgeon cultivated microbes ! He
could not have suffered much from the want of
a dressing-room when in the army. One cannot
[66]
MY EARLY CHILDHOOD
imagine nowadays how little they washed them-
selves in our Picardy in the year of grace 1839.
They soaped their faces only on Sundays in the
kitchen and their hands every morning.
My grandfather, who the barber, Lafosse,
shaved every morning in the drawing-room at
dawn, wiped his face with the towel under his chin
when it was untied, and that was all. And yet
he looked clean, his white cravat and his pleated
shirt-front were always perfectly immaculate, spot-
ted over only with snuff, which he would knock
off with graceful little gestures with his finger and
thumb. As to my grandmother, she was always
handsomely dressed and had her hair arranged
every day by the barber, Lafosse.
In the rooms of the hotels of Picardy, which
had been occupied by travellers, cobwebs would be
found at the bottom of the water-jug long after
the epoch of which I speak.
[67]
VI
FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL
INSTEAD of one of my numerous pretty
gowns, grandmother dressed me in a green
frock which I did not like.
To my surprise my grandfather, after the bar-
ber's departure, did not leave immediately to go to
his hospital. He looked at me and kept repeat-
ing:
" Poor, dear little woman ! "
I burst into tears without knowing why.
They covered my white apron with a frightful
black one. It was for school. I knew what the
school was; I had many big friends who went to
it, I ought to have been proud to be considered a
big girl, but I was in despair. I repeated, weep-
ing : " Grandmother, I will be very good. I don't
want to go to school. Keep me with you."
My grandfather said he thought they might
very well wait until the winter was over before
shutting me up in a prison.
I screamed all the louder at this word, Prison.
Arthemise declared, crying herself, that I was still
too young to go, that it was a murder!
[68]
FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL
" A murder ! a murder ! " repeated grandmother
in anger. " That woman must be mad," she said
to grandfather, who in his turn called Arthemise
" insolent."
Here was another " family drama " ; but they
did not " make up " with each other after being
angry, as they did with my parents.
" I shall send you out of the house ! " said
grandmother to Arthemise ; " you shall make up
your packages to-day, and to-morrow you shall
return to Caumenchon. Leave the room ! "
" You might scold her, but not send her off,"
said grandfather. " That woman loves Juliette
sincerely. And, do you know what I think? She
is right. It is a murder. Leave the little thing
to play for a year or two more, she will make all
the greater progress for it later."
" I wish her to surpass all the others at once,"
replied grandmother ; " and then I'd like to know
what you are meddling yourself with it for? I
know what I am doing. Hold your tongue."
" Ta, ta, ta ! " replied my grandfather, whose
resistance always ended with those three syllables.
My grandmother took me to the school. I real-
ised that it was an extraordinary event to which
I was obliged to submit.
My friend the grocer was at his door. He
[69]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
bowed to grandmother, much surprised to see her
in the street " on a working-day," and told her
so. She answered that she was taking me to
school for the first time.
" You want to make her a learned lady," he
replied.
The butcher's wife was at her desk in her open
shop. She, also, ran to the door astonished, and
asked grandmother where I was going with my
black apron was it a punishment? " Because
for you, Madame Seron, to be out with your Juli-
ette in the street, she must have been very bad, in-
deed," she added, laughing heartily.
I wanted more and more to cry again.
The large door of the school, of the prison,
opened and shut behind us with a noise like thun-
der.
We went into a court where the large and small
pupils were together. Madame Dufey, the school-
mistress, appeared. She had mustaches, I thought
her ugly, and she terrified me.
" I had the mother, I have the daughter now.
I am delighted," she said. But her voice seemed
to roar.
My grandmother made a motion to leave me.
I clung to her skirts. I implored. I rolled on the
floor. I was choking, and I repeated, sobbing:
[70]
FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL
" You don't love your grandchild any more ! "
My grandmother for the first time in her life
remained insensible to my sorrow. She pushed me
away from her. She, who had spoiled me so
greatly until then, thought the moment had come
in which to be severe to excess.
" Be obedient," she said to me, " or you shall
remain here and not return home any more."
I revolted and answered : " I will go to my
parents at Blerancourt."
Madame Dufey intervened.
" I will take her to breakfast with me and an-
other new little pupil," said the school-mistress;
" don't send for her until this evening."
She carried me off in her arms, and my grand-
mother went away.
Nothing had ever seemed to me so frightful as
this abandonment. I felt a poor, miserable, for-
saken little thing. I leaned against the wall of
a corridor under a bell which was ringing, and
from which ear-rending noise I had not the
strength to flee, although it fairly hurt my head.
I was pushed by my new companions into a dark,
gloomy class-room where they obliged me to sit
alone on the end of a bench.
I had a fit of despair ; I cried as loud as I could.
I called for Arthemise and my grandfather.
[71]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
An under-mistress approached me and ordered
me to be quiet, and shook me severely. I did not
stop crying. I defended myself, and struck her
because she had used me so roughly.
They carried me upstairs to a garret and left
me there, I know not for how many hours. Even
yet, to-day, at my age, I recall the impression of
that day and it seems to me that it lasted for an
infinite time. It holds as much place in my mem-
ory as a whole year of other days which fol-
lowed it.
The under-mistress came at breakfast time. I
had not ceased crying. If I had known what it
was to die I should have killed myself.
" Will you hush ? " said the under-mistress to me,
striking me roughly. " Will you be good? "
This wicked woman seemed execrable to me, like
the bad road of which my father had spoken. I
told her so and the word avenged me. She was
my first enemy. It was the first time that I had
been beaten. I repeated, " Execrable, execrable ! "
She placed a piece of dry bread by my side and left
me, saying:
" You shall obey."
Madame Duf ey had forgotten me, as my grand-
mother learned later. I have certainly never in
all my life been so angry as I was at that closed
[72]
FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL
door. I have never found people so implacable
as they were to me that day.
From crying, screaming, and knocking against
the door I fell down on the floor exhausted and
went to sleep.
I awoke in Arthemise's arms, who was weeping
and frightened to see my swollen, tear-stained face.
She had rocked me to sleep every night since I was
three years old, telling me pretty stories of Cau-
menchon, and she kept saying now:
" They don't love you any more, they don't love
you any more ! "
Now, as I clung to Arthemise's neck, I grew
brave again and felt a great desire to return the
harm they had done to me. I said to my nurse:
" Arthemise, do you love me ? "
" My little one, do I love you ! " she exclaimed,
hugging me.
" Then Juliette wants to go to Caumenchon
and you must obey her."
She resisted. " They will say that I have stolen
you and will put me in prison. I cannot, I can-
not. But won't I give a bit of my mind to your
grandmother! Don't you fear! for, if she has
not killed you, it is not her fault."
" Juliette will go to Caumenchon, then, all
alone, at once," I replied, and, as we left the
[73]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
school, I slipped down from her arms, escaping
her, and climbed the steps of the ramparts.
When I got to the top I ran as fast as I could.
Arthemise caught me, took me in her arms, and
besought me to return to my grandmother, but as
I got angry again, she walked off very fast in the
direction of the village, carrying me.
When she grew too tired she put me down, and
I ran, holding her hand, to keep up with her fast
walking. It seemed to me that I was doing some-
thing great, that I was in the right and my grand-
mother in the wrong. Running, or in Arthemise's
arms, I did not cease repeating the two words
which seemed to me the most expressive : " It is
execrable, it is a murder ! "
" Yes, a murder," said Arthemise, " and they
will see what they'll see ! "
We walked in the mud ; it was a very dark night,
and I thought, if I had not been with Arthemise,
how afraid I should have been of the deep ruts in
which they lost cows.
I was very, very hungry, and I thought myself
a very unhappy, cruelly abandoned, but very cour-
ageous little girl.
We arrived at Caumenchon, at my nurse's house.
The door was open. A large fire burned in the
hearth. Arthemise's mother and father looked
[74]
FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL
older than my grandmother and grandfather, but
I did not dare to say so.
They were eating their soup and they rose,
frightened at seeing me.
" Why have you brought the young lady
here? " they exclaimed.
" They were making her unhappy."
"Who?" said the father.
" The masters."
" You are crazy. It is not your business, it's
not your business," repeated her mother.
" I am hungry ; will you give me a little soup ? "
I asked, taking on the tone of a poor little beggar
girl.
The good people both served me.
" Eat, mam'zelle, all that you want," said the
mother to me.
This Caumenchon soup seemed delicious.
When I was warmed and had my fill of apples
and nuts after the soup, Arthemise took me to a
room with a very low ceiling and put me to bed,
only half undressing me. She left a lighted tal-
low candle on a board, saying she would soon
return to sleep with me.
The sheets were very coarse and of a grey col-
our. There were spider-webs and spiders that ran
along the rafters; but I was not afraid of them
[75]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
like a little friend with whom I played and who
screamed when she saw one, even in the garden, on
the trees.
In the room there were bars of wood through
which the small heads of rabbits popped out and in.
My head burned a great deal; I heard a loud
noise in my ears. It seemed to me that the little
rabbits looked at me to ask me my history. I knelt
down on my bed and said to them :
" My good rabbits, I have a grandmother who
doesn't love me."
I do not know what the rabbits were going to
answer me. I often wondered later, for at that
moment I was caught up in my grandfather's
arms, who devoured me with kisses and carried
me to the fire on which they had just thrown an
enormous bunch of fagots.
Aided by Arthemise, he tried to dress me, but he
trembled.
" Bad little girl, your grandmother is nearly
wild with grief."
" I don't love her any more," I cried. " I want
to stay at Caumenchon, in the room with my
friends the rabbits, and not leave my Arthemise."
The old peasants both said to me with rather a
severe air:
" Come, come, mam'zelle, be more reasonable."
[76]
FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL
My grandfather answered them:
* Speak more gently to her. When I think
that her brother, whom she resembles, poor little
thing, died of convulsions after having been
scolded by his mother I do not wish that she
should be spoken to harshly."
" That is what I told you just now, sir," added
Arthemise, who was very red and seemed very
angry, " and I have not told you half the fear I
felt when I found her in that garret. I didn't
think I was speaking so truthfully this morning
in calling the dragging of this poor little one to
the school a murder."
" My Juliette," began my grandfather again,
" I beg of you, let us return to Chauny. Arthe-
mise's papa and mamma want her to come back to
our house and she will not disobey them. Ask her
if she will."
" I want to return," said Arthemise, " if Ma-
dame regrets having turned me out like a thief."
" She regrets it, Arthemise."
" I will go to Chauny, yes, but never again to
the school," I said to grandfather.
" No, no, don't worry about it."
We left in my grandfather's cabriolet. I was
seated, well wrapped up, on my nurse's knees. I
saw the full moon for the first time. I still recall
[77]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
my astonishment and the confused ideas I had
about the great night-sun, so pale and so cold.
When I arrived at the house my grandmother
was at the door, greatly upset. She had cried so
much that I saw how great her sorrow was. She
asked my pardon for all the horrible things en-
dured by her poor little girl. She knew them all,
having obtained the information while my grand-
father went to Caumenchon, where he had felt sure
of finding me.
" My darling, they put you in a garret ! It
was frightful," said grandmother to me. " You
did right to punish me; I will never torment you
again as long as I live, my little one."
I felt a certain superiority which inclined me to
indulgence. I approved my own conduct. Per-
haps that moment decided the way in which my
character was formed.
" Juliette will always act like that when grand-
mother is bad," I said, " and then she does not wish
that Arthemise should ever be sent away like a
thief."
" Yes, yes, yes ! " repeated grandmother, cover-
ing me with kisses. " Arthemise," she continued,
" you must tell me all that she said, all that she
did. It was she, wasn't it, who wanted to go to
Caumenchon and who made you take her there? "
[78]
FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL
" Yes, madame."
" She is like me, the little love. Arthemise,
promise me that you will make her some day like
her school. We must furnish her head with study,
it deserves it."
" No, not furnish my head, not the school ! " I
cried.
" Really, Pelagic, you are mad ; you keep on
exciting the child, who has a fever. Have you
never once thought of her brother's death? " said
grandfather, snatching me out of grandmother's
lap. " Wait until she is as strong as I am, to be
able to support your exaggerations."
Grandmother turned quite white and became
very gentle.
" Arthemise, put her to bed," she ordered in a
calm voice. " You must tell me when she has
gone to sleep."
During the following days it was impossible to
prevent my relating in detail my horrible experi-
ence. I talked of it, I cried over it, and they could
not make me stop. Arthemise, my grandparents,
my friend Charles, were all obliged to listen to the
recital, and I did not become calm until I had the
sure conviction that I had made those who loved
me suffer, the suffering that I myself had en-
dured. I promised my grandmother, however,
[79]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
that I would not relate my history to my parents
at Blerancourt. Arthemise and grandmother to-
gether arranged about my going to school.
I returned there later, influenced to do so by a
little friend of my own age, whom they had made
me know, and who taught me how to amuse myself
with pictures of the letters of the alphabet.
[80]
VII
I GO TO A WEDDING
_. _, FEW months later, in the summer, I went to
Blerancourt with my grandfather to a wed-
ding. I had already seen a great number, Arthe-
mise having a passion for looking at brides, but I
had never participated in person at the ceremony.
A friend of my mother, Camille I cannot recall
her family name was going to marry Monsieur
Ambroise Godin, under-director of the manufact-
ure of glass of Saint Gobain, the head office of
which was at Chauny. My grandfather was to
be her witness, and grandmother took the trouble
to explain to me that the witness to a marriage
acted in place of the bride's father, Camille having
lost her own.
My joy at going to the wedding expressed itself
in all manner of freaks and excessive selfishness.
I neither showed nor felt the least sorrow at leav-
ing grandmother and Arthemise. However, my
absence was to be only for four days.
My grandfather, since my " campaign of Cau-
menchon," as he called it, had conceived such a
passion for me that he stayed for long hours to-
7 [81]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
gether in the house, even after meals. In the
evening, when I so wished it, I would also keep
him at home. His friends at the club could not
believe their eyes.
" He is his granddaughter's slave," would they
say, and he would repeat : " Yes, I am my grand-
daughter's slave."
He was so tall, so big, so noisy, he talked so
much that I would stare at him from his feet up-
ward, my head raised, always laughing, and I
would only play " at making faces " with him,
while I often played with grandmother " at being
good."
He could not contain himself with joy at going
away quite alone with me.
" It is my turn to carry her off," said he on the
day of our departure.
They tied me with two silk handkerchiefs in
grandfather's cabriolet, and they stuffed behind
my back, at my sides, and under my feet a num-
ber of packages well sewn together by Arthemise,
in which, folded and packed carefully, were my
linen, my gowns, and everything that I might need.
They did not make use of valises or trunks at that
time at grandmother's.
I can still remember my three white frocks with
their coloured ribbon sashes, which had to be ironed
[82]
I GO TO A WEDDING
when we arrived and which my mother showed to
her friends at Blerancourt, who came to see me and
to make my acquaintance. I had held my hand-
some Leghorn straw hat, ornamented with white
ribbons, in a box in my hands and had never let
it go once in spite of the jolts of the famous
" execrable " road.
Having left at eight o'clock in the morning to
drive three leagues, we did not arrive until two
o'clock in the afternoon. One cannot fancy what
the road was, going through meadows and along-
side of a river which continually overflowed.
How many times since have I passed over that
road, where one ran the risk of actual danger, and
where the ruts were so deep that people were fre-
quently upset.
My grandfather kept up my courage, for I did
not hide my fears, by saying that Cocotte was a
very good horse, the carriage strong, and that he
knew how to drive very well.
My father kissed me many times when I arrived,
and directly after breakfast took me by the hand
to see all his friends. We went to the chateau
where the Varniers lived and where I found a dear
little girl of my own age, with whom I often later
played at the house of her neighbour, the chemist
Descaines, " nephew of some one whom I shall teach
[83]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
you to know and to love later," said my father,
" but remember his name now Saint-Just."
" Saint-Just," I repeated.
I can perfectly recall the effort I made to please
my father's friends at Blerancourt, and how, after
having gone in quest of compliments about me, he
brought back a great number to my grandfather
and mother.
" How charming she is, how good she was, and
how she talks ! " he said.
My mother had unsewed Arthemise's packages
and she ironed my frocks herself. I took part in
the ironing and the hanging up, and I asked innu-
merable questions about the wedding.
On the morrow, the great day, all the guests
gathered at the bride's house near the church.
The weather was superb. They went on foot, two
by two, in a long file, the bride leading with my
grandfather, of whom they said : " What a hand-
some man he is who is acting as father."
I leaned out from the rank and dragged my
mother's hand so as to see better, and, perhaps,
to be better seen, for there was a row of people
along the length of the cortege.
The gentleman who gave his arm to my mother
was very handsome and he laughed to see her con-
tinually dragged out of file by me.
[84]
I GO TO A WEDDING
All Blerancourt was there to see the fine wed-
ding pass by, and several times I heard, not with-
out pleasure, little boys and girls and even grown
persons say :
" Look, look, it's Monsieur Lambert's little Juli-
ette. How prettily she is dressed."
Some one added:
" Monsieur Lambert is not here. He never goes
to churches."
I asked mamma why they said that. She
drew me brusquely towards her and did not
answer.
We reached the church. I heard the music of
the organ and was going to enter, when my mother,
after having spoken in a low voice to an old lady
with a cap and dressed in black, who was not of
the wedding party, said to her:
" Two ceremonies will tire her too much, please
keep her for me and amuse her in the cure's garden.
Give her some flowers, don't let her soil her frock,
and I will come for her myself."
I protested, I struggled, I wanted to be all the
time at the wedding, but the old lady took me in
her arms, passed through the crowd, opened a door,
shut it, and put me down, laughing.
" You will amuse yourself a great deal more
here than at the church, my darling," she said to
[85]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
me ; " see the lovely garden and the beautiful flow-
ers, they are all for you."
She put a cushion on the doorstep, and gave me
some nasturtium flowers to suck. There was near
the stalk a little bud that I found of a sweet taste.
I see myself still on the doorstep of Monsieur the
Cure's garden, pointing out to his servant the
flowers I wanted, which she went and pulled for
me.
I think I forgot the wedding a little describing
to her my large garden at my grandmother's,
speaking of my plums and apricot tree, of my
strawberries and raspberries, when suddenly my
mother appeared, very pale and excited.
" Quick, quick, come ! " she said to me.
" To the wedding, mamma ? "
" Yes, to the wedding."
I entered the church. The bride was near the
door with the groom, all the wedding party gath-
ered around them. They drew me to a corner
where there was a large stone vase full of water,
like one in our garden at Chauny. I saw that
everybody was looking at me.
The cure was near the vase, the bride and groom
approached, my mother took me in her arms.
" Mamma, what are they going to do to me? "
I asked, rather frightened.
[86]
I GO TO A WEDDING
" Be good, my Juliette, be very good, I beseech
of you," she replied in a very troubled voice, " they
are going to baptise you."
" No, no, not baptise me," I cried in tears.
The bride said smiling to me : " You are going
to cease being a vile heretic and enter the Catholic
Church."
I saw my grandfather and I cried out to him,
thinking the vase full of water was the Catholic
Church.
" Grandfather, come and prevent them from
throwing me into the Catholic Church."
My grandfather not only remained insensible to
my appeal, but looked at me very severely.
" Be still," said the cure to me, " or I will open
your head and put the oil and salt in it."
These threatening words put the finishing touch
to my despair, and I cried and struggled all
through the ceremony of my baptism. Finally
grandfather came and took me from my mother's
arms.
" Juliette, you are a big girl," he said, " listen
to me. I am very pleased you are baptised, your
grandmother will be so happy. You were a poor
little unbaptised child, we did not know it. Your
father forbade you being baptised. He doesn't
like churches."
[87]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" Yes, grandfather, I heard people say so just
now."
" So, you understand, he is not like everybody
else; it is a pity he is a heathen. Your mother
had great courage in making you a Christian with-
out his knowledge. He will be furious, and I
shall not be sorry to be at Chauny. Oh! my
darling, my darling, may the Supreme Being pro-
tect you ! "
My grandmother made me say my prayers night
and morning. She often spoke to me of God,
but my grandfather never spoke except of the
Supreme Being ; I had known for a long time that
the Supreme Being was God.
There was a table for children at the wedding.
It was very amusing. At the end of the repast
some persons rose from their seats and they talked
and talked without any one stopping or answering
them; then there were some others who sang, and
then my grandfather said things which made
everybody laugh, and we little ones laughed also.
And then finally papa read out something in a
loud voice. One of the children said it was like
a fable, and they repeated several times at the
large table that " it was fine, very fine ! "
Papa looked pleased. They danced to the music
of a large orchestra, and I danced also, turning
[88]
I GO TO A WEDDING
around as much as I could. A child older than I
called me Camille Ambrosine. My father was near
me at the moment, amused at seeing me enjoy
myself so much.
" Why do you call her Camille Ambrosine? "
asked my father. " Her name is Juliette."
" I know it, Monsieur Lambert. Her name is
Juliette Camille Ambrosine. Juliette is her every-
day name, Camille is her godmother's, Ambrosine
her godfather's. I say so, because they baptised
her after the wedding. I was there. It is droll,
because she is very old to be baptised."
My father shook me so violently that I screamed
with fright. My grandfather and grandmother
ran up to us and there was another " family
drama."
My father cried out insulting things to the bride
and groom. But they did not get angry. They
only laughed. My father ended by taking my
mother by one hand and me by the other, and
leading us back to the house, grandfather coming
behind us.
My mother wept, grandfather did not say a
word, my father kept repeating :
" You wish that my daughter should not be my
daughter."
A poor woman entered.
[89]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" Quick, come quickly, Monsieur Lambert," she
cried, " my husband Mathieu, the thatcher, you
know him, has fallen off Monsieur Dutailly's roof
and is almost dead."
My father and grandfather left suddenly to-
gether.
My mother undressed me, made up the packages
and sewed them together, and put me to bed very
early.
The next morning, while my father was still
sleeping, because he had watched by Mathieu, the
thatcher, all night, mamma tied me with my silk
handkerchiefs in the cabriolet, together with my
packages, the box with my handsome white hat,
and without my going to the wedding festivities
the next or the third day, without my being able
to wear my two other pretty frocks, grandfather
took me back to Chauny.
As I left, my mother told me to be sure to tell
grandmother that in spite of my father's anger
she would never regret what she had done for me,
and that she ought long ago to have confessed that
I had never been baptised.
Grandmother was astonished to see us returning
so soon.
" What is the matter? what is the matter? " she
cried.
[90]
I GO TO A WEDDING
Grandfather related all the story to her, and I
can hear now her exclamations :
" She had never been baptised, never baptised!
My son-in-law is a dangerous madman with his
democratic, socialistic ideas, without God, good
heavens ! Such ideas mean the end of religion, of
the family circle, of the right of property, of the
world!"
I still have this long phrase with all its terms
ringing in my ears, from " My son-in-law is a dan-
gerous madman," because it never ceased for years
to keep alive my grandmother's political griefs
against my father.
[91]
VIII
" FAMILY DRAMAS "
|HE terms Jacobite, Republican, Socialist, the
names of Robespierre, of Saint Just, of Louis
Blanc, of Pierre Leroux, of Proudhon, and of
Ledru Rollin, pronounced over and over again with
terror by my grandparents and with a manner of
adoration by my father, engraved themselves upon
my memory and still more in my thoughts. The
" My son-in-law is a madman " began the anthem
and the " without God, good heavens ! " ended it ;
the middle part was varied according to circum-
stances, but the same terms, the same words were
interwoven together.
My father, who was extremely eloquent, very
well read, and full of knowledge, delighted and
charmed my grandmother, provided he spoke nei-
ther of politics nor of religion. Being very fond
of Greek, no one could relate the Hellenic legends
better than himself. While still quite a small
child, whenever I saw him I would make him re-
peat to me the stories of old Homer, and I got
to know them as well as little Red Riding Hood
and Cinderella.
[92]
"FAMILY DRAMAS"
My father was a poet, and his verses were al-
ways classical, at least those were which he read
to my grandmother, but we knew, and I, like a
parrot, would repeat indignantly that he also
wrote red verses!
How was it that my relatives were mad enough
to talk politics every time they met? My grand-
mother was a governmental Orleanist, my grand-
father a most passionate Imperialist, and it was
amusing to hear him say with his lisping accent:
" The emperor ! " My father declared himself a
Jacobite.
No one can imagine the scenes which took place
between them. I can well remember my fright at
the first I witnessed; I screamed and sobbed, but
none of them heard me. One day (I was about
four or five years old ) I climbed upon the table and
put one foot in a dish and with the other I rattled
the glasses and plates. The discussion, or rather
the quarrel, ceased immediately as by a miracle,
my grandfather, grandmother, and father being
convulsed with laughter.
My mother alone, of whom I stood greatly in
awe, snatched me off the table roughly and was
going to whip me, but in an instant I was taken
from her by three people, and from that day I
concluded I was very foolish to be afraid of her,
[93]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
as the others would always protect me from her
severity.
The years went by without bringing any great
changes in our habits. I had become used to the
" family dramas " all the more easily because, by
common accord, I was not included in their sulks,
and had no part in their quarrels.
I was about six years old when my grandfather,
my grandmother, and my father each tried in turn
to convert me to his or her own ideas. I am not
exaggerating. It is true that when six and a half
years old I was in the second division of the sec-
ond class of my school, that I knew many things
of the kind one can accumulate in the memory,
which was in my case an exceptional gift. Added
to this, my grandmother and my father crammed
me with everything with which it is possible to
fill an unhappy child's mind.
I remember that often of an evening, after din-
ner, while my grandfather and grandmother were
playing their game of " Imperiale," which they
always did before my grandfather went to his
club, I would prepare my books and papers as
grandmother desired, for since my flight to Cau-
menchon she had never given me an order. As
soon as grandfather had gone I would work with
her until I fell asleep over my books.
[94]
"FAMILY DRAMAS"
Seeing this preparation, grandfather would al-
ways say : " Now, phenomenon, walk to your exe-
cution, pile up your instruments of torture, and
don't forget a single one ! " And, going away, he
would add : " They will kiU the child, they will kill
her!"
When by chance grandfather blamed any act
of grandmother's he never addressed himself di-
rectly to her. The pronouns they or one allowed
him to appear unattacked if she cut him with one
of her words, sharp as a whip-lash, and to reply
without answering her personally.
Whenever my grandparents were angry with
each other these pronouns, they or one, were of
the greatest use. They spoke at, not to, each
other, and so avoided an open quarrel. They
would say, for instance, during one of their sulks,
which would sometimes last for several days:
Grandmother : " Will one be at home at such an
hour?"
Grandfather : " One will do one's best to accom-
plish it."
At table: " Does any one wish for some beef? "
At play : One has this or that.
While I, much annoyed at all this, would say
one to both of them.
Then, suddenly, without any one knowing why,
[95]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
or, perhaps because the quarrel had lasted long
enough, the familiar names were spoken again:
Pelagie, Pierre, Juliette; a general kissing fol-
lowed, and all was over without a word of ex-
planation.
Heavens! how dramatic, and, in turn, how
funny were my dear grandparents.
As I have already said, each member of the
family tried to convert me to his or her own ideas.
Grandmother would try to prove by French
history that the greatness of France was due to
our kings, who had suppressed the " great feudal
lords."
She detested every form of feudal and autocratic
systems. She loved the " First Communes," the
" Tiers-Etat," the " Bourgeoisie," the moderate
ones in everything " the middle course," as she
would say. She made me, at a very early age, pre-
fer Louis XI. to Louis XII., the " Father of his
People," and Louis XIII. to Henry IV., on account
of Richelieu, who had overthrown the great vas-
sals. What the kings had done for the people in-
terested her as little as the people themselves, for
whom she professed the greatest contempt. The
people, the lower classes, were simply to her " those
who worked at gross things, and could have no
idea of anything refined."
[96]
"FAMILY DRAMAS"
For these opinions, expressed at school, I was
often severely remonstrated with by the teachers,
and looked upon with indignation by ray com-
panions.
I professed my grandmother's ideas as if they
were my own, and I upheld them without saying
whence they came. This came from a double feel-
ing of pride for I gloried in thinking differently
from my little schoolmates and also, I recall, in
order not to compromise my grandmother, or,
rather, to avoid having her opinions either dis-
cussed or blamed. I spoke of her with a passion-
ate admiration, which, willingly or unwillingly,
people were obliged to submit to, under penalty of
blows. I strongly denied that any other little
girl could have a mother or grandmother compara-
ble to mine. They could do what they liked with me
by saying that from Chauny to Paris there was
not another mother or grandmother who loved their
daughter and granddaughter as I was loved.
Then my generosity knew no bounds, and would
flow abundantly over the flatterers; usually this
generosity consisted in the offering of certain
sugar-plums made of apples and cherries, red and
yellow, which were delicious, and of which I bought
a daily supply from a grocer on my way to school,
thereby obliging him to renew his stock at least
twice a week.
8 [97]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
These sugar-plums became later a source of re-
proach to me, for through them I established my
dominion over the girls I liked best, probably the
most greedy ones, and really corrupted them. But
my domination, it is true, was also built on more
honourable foundations; for, although I directed
the games, and although my companions obeyed
me at recreations, it was not solely on account
of the sugar-plums, quickly eaten up, but be-
cause I was always inventing new games. Being
both tall and strong also helped me to head the
ranks. It was dangerous to measure forces with
me.
My budget of political opinions was consequent-
ly thus made up: Worship of Louis XL, "the
Father of the Communes," as grandmother called
him; worship of Louis XIII. , who had cut all the
feudal towers in two; worship of Louis Philippe,
" the Liberal King."
Grandfather seized every occasion to try to con-
vince me that the Emperor had carried the glory
of France on the wings of Fame to the uttermost
ends of the earth, that the whirling of his sword
(he would make the movement with his two large
arms, one after the other, inversely, which delight-
ed me) had terrified not only the beheaders of
" Lambert's Jacobite Revolution " (this a shaft at
[98]
"FAMILY DRAMAS"
my father), but had conquered the sovereigns of
Europe as far as Africa and Asia.
How often I heard this speech! But, unfortu-
nately for grandfather, it used to convulse grand-
mother and me with laughter.
" I have had the honour in person of serving the
Emperor, and neither of you can say as much," he
would add with superb dignity (rising if he hap-
pened to be seated), " and I will not allow a word,
a single word, to be spoken which might impair a
hair's-breadth his immortal, his eternal memory."
Grandfather knew all of Beranger's songs, espe-
cially and exclusively those that exalted his Em-
peror ; but he made an exception of the " Old
Vagabond," which saddened him, and brought back
the memory of his own misery " the misery of my
youth," he would say and his philosophy during
that time.
I have already said what a colossally big man
grandfather was, and that he drank copiously.
Towards evening, speaking of the Emperor and
the campaigns he had followed at Liitzen and
elsewhere, he usually made a mistake in the final
triumphant phrase. There I had him.
" Take care, grandfather, not to upset your fine
phrase."
He would begin it, and, invariably being
[99]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
troubled by my interruption, would end it in an
emphatic manner impossible to describe, and with
an outburst of inimitable pride:
" And when Larrey needed me no longer, I
fought on my own account, joining the Grena-
diers' Guards, and I was always the last to fight
and the first to run."
Then I would clap my hands and cry : " Bravo,
grandfather ! " and he would understand by that
that he had made a mistake.
[100]
IX
LEARNING TO BE BEAVE
|F my grandmother, who was not a learned
person, and who acquired much knowledge in
educating me, wished to make me learned, my
grandfather, who as a general rule was lacking in
courage, wished me to become a brave woman.
Early on Sunday mornings, before going to
high mass with my schoolmates, he would take me
with him to the Hospital. I was a friend of Sister
Victoire, who used to aid my grandfather in his
dressing of wounds and his operations. Both of
them were forming me to look on human misery,
they said.
I often assisted at small operations, and grand-
father promised that when, by my good behaviour,
I was worthy of it, I should be present at more
important ones.
He showed me what he called " fine " wounds.
Sister Victoire often taught me, especially if she
were dressing a child's wound, how to roll and place
a bandage. When I was seven years old I knew
a good many things about surgery, and could be
of some help to Sister Victoire and grandfather.
[101]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
I could prepare an arm for bleeding; I learned
how to bleed, myself, and how to bandage an arm
after the operation, and this was most important,
for, in those days, bleeding was an important part
of medical practice.
During the summer grandfather would often
bleed people in the courtyard of our house, near
the garden, under a lilac tree of which I was very
fond, and whose perfume when in flower intoxi-
cated me. It was not a shrub but a real tree, af-
fording shade.
People used to come and, without giving any
explanation or asking for a consultation, say sim-
ply : " I have come to be bled," and they were bled
on the spot.
I was sent to fetch the lancet, basin, and ban-
dages. I held the basin, and, when the operation
was over, I dug a hole at the foot of my lilac tree,
and poured in the blood. Perhaps that was the
reason why it was so beautiful, and why the flowers
were so plentiful and sweet.
Grandmother could not look at a drop of blood.
Had she been obliged to witness a simple bleeding,
she would have fainted.
Grandfather would keep saying all the while to
her : " I am making a brave woman of your grand-
child. She, at least, is not afraid of a few drops
[102]
LEARNING TO BE BRAVE
of blood. The only thing she needs now is to love
war, renown, and the Emperor."
" And to be as brave as you are," grandmother
would add. " I am afraid of the sight of blood,"
she said, " but if France were again invaded, I
feel that I should fear neither Prussians nor
English."
Although grandmother would laugh at grand-
father's want of courage, she was very pleased that
I was not afraid at the sight of blood, and she
often thanked him for having kept me from this
weakness. My schoolmates thought more highly
of me for my courage, and sugar-plums had, in
this instance, nothing to do with their estimation
of me.
In the little school-world, and even in the town,
some traits of my courage were told ; among others
this rather ghastly one:
A notary of Chauny had some time before com-
mitted suicide, and his body had been given to my
grandfather, who had asked for it. He had a very
fine skeleton made from it, which was kept in the
garret, and was called " the notary." Arthemise
was dreadfully afraid of it. I knew the " notary "
very well, being always prowling about the garret
to hunt for the place where grandfather hid his
money, which I always found. I was passionately
[103]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
fond of this special kind of hunting. When I had
found the money, I changed the hiding-place, and
would tease grandfather for days by not letting
him know where I had hidden it, and defying him
to find any hiding-place that would be secret from
me.
When at last I told him where the money was,
I deducted, according to the sum, a small per-
centage for my sugar-plums.
I used then to tell grandmother (when grand-
father did not tell her himself, for there was never
the slightest discussion about money matters be-
tween them), I used to tell her the adventure,
which would greatly amuse her.
" Only," she would say, " do not take any money
from what you find. I do not think it is nice.
Whenever you want money for your sugar-plums,
ask me for it."
" No," I replied, " with grandfather I earn it."
And I really thought I had earned the money by
all the trouble I had taken.
I always fancied that the " notary," whose hor-
rid history I learned only long afterwards, helped
me to find grandfather's money, and consequently
I considered the skeleton my friend. So it did not
strike me as unusual when, one summer evening,
while some neighbours were enjoying the cool air
[104]
LEARNING TO BE BRAVE
with us in our moonlit garden, my grandfather
should have told me to go and fetch the " notary "
from the garret, which, by the way, he would not
have done himself.
Grandmother nodded approvingly, delighted at
the idea that I was about to do something extraor-
dinary, which would the next day electrify the
town. She looked at me with her bright eyes and
her red-gold hair shining in the moonlight. She
was dressed in white, her favourite colour for her-
self and for me, and wore a large bunch of lilacs
I had pinned on her bosom.
" Shall I go ? " I asked her in a low tone.
" They will be frightened they do not know what
the ' notary ' is."
" Yes, go," she said, laughing.
I went up to the garret to fetch the " notary."
He was very large, and I was very small. I put
his head under my left arm, and with my right
hand took hold of the banister. The moon was
shining through the window. I can still hear the
noise his bones made as they rattled on the stairs
behind me.
I entered the garden, and threw the " notary "
on grandfather's knees. There was a general
scream. The children shrieked, and hid their
heads in their mothers' laps. The mothers cried:
[105]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" Oh ! what a horrible thing ! It is frightful !
Monsieur Seron, take it away ! "
Grandfather enjoyed the joke, and laughed with
all his might. One woman fainted, and, while
grandmother was throwing water on her face, he
took the " notary " and placed it at the foot of
the stairs. He did not dare to take it up himself.
We found this out afterwards, because Arthe-
mise, coming into the room which I shared with
grandmother, when we had gone to bed, cried out :
" Madame, Mam'zelle, the ' notary ' has got
downstairs alone. He is at the foot of the stair-
case ! "
Grandfather was obliged to get up and put it
back in the garret, but he made Arthemise go with
him carrying a light.
My grandfather who would believe it? had
very poetical tastes and was fond of pigeons.
We had hundreds of them, and he had made me
share his passion for these pets, and every day
after breakfast he and I would feed them. They
flew all about us, just as later in life I have seen
them do on the Piazza di San Marco at Venice. We
slipped on large linen blouses with hoods, and the
pigeons would cover us entirely, head and shoul-
ders, arms and hands. They clung to us and
picked at us. The flutter of their wings and their
[106]
LEARNING TO BE BRAVE
cooing delighted me, and seemed like music.
When we moved, they followed us with their pretty,
mincing steps.
Grandfather and I were very fond of our pig-
eons, but grandmother, finding that they multi-
plied too fast, had the young ones taken from their
nests, while we were absent, by a man who sold
them, which grieved us very much. I heard of it
through a little schoolmate, whose mother had
bought some, and who told me one day that she
had eaten some of my pigeons.
I scolded grandmother, who asked me if I would
rather have eaten them myself.
" Most certainly not ! "
Grandfather calmed me by saying that we could
not possibly keep all that were born, and that
grandmother did quite right, provided she would
only take the young ones, and leave us the fathers
and mothers. She promised this, and kept her
word, and the old ones became more and more tame.
[107]
A THREE WEEKS VISIT
|N October 4th, when I was eight years old,
my father obtained grandmother's approval
to take me to Blerancourt for a three weeks' visit,
until All Saints' Day, for she felt sure of hav-
ing directed my ideas according to her way of
thinking by that time. We had never before been
separated for so long, and were much grieved I
less than I thought I should be, and she more than
I feared.
My father loved me so tenderly, so passionately,
he took so much trouble with a few words, spoken
here and there, to make his ideas interesting to
me; he treated me so like a woman, desiring, I
could feel, to overcome the repugnance with which
my grandmother had inspired me concerning his
democratic, Jacobite, free-masonic, anti-religious
opinions "without God, oh, heavens!" which,
like a spoiled child, I had often expressed to him,
that this journey with him seemed to me a most
serious thing. I fancied that his companionship
during the next three weeks would do more toward
[108]
A THREE WEEKS' VISIT
drawing me to him, and taking me from grand-
mother, than absence itself.
" Jean Louis," said my grandmother to him,
after kissing him warmly, as he got into the car-
riage where I was already seated, " bring her back
to me the same as I give her to you. You owe it
to me ! "
We were starting. My father answered,
laughing :
" I do not promise any such thing."
I heard grandmother cry out:
" Juliette, stay ! "
A strong cut of the whip started the horse.
I did not turn back my head, but burst into
tears. My father did not attempt to console me,
as my grandmother would have done. She could
never bear to see me cry.
He kissed me violently, repeating : " My daugh-
ter, my child, my own at last, at last ! "
# * *
My mother welcomed me in her usual cold man-
ner. My father's growing passion for me, to
which he now freely abandoned himself, grand-
mother's absence removing all restraint, seemed to
her exaggerated.
" It would seem as if your child were a divinity
on earth," she said to him one day before me.
[109]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" Better than that ; she is my daughter ! " an-
swered my father, and added, laughing : " I should
not be far amiss in thinking her a daughter of
Olympus."
My mother detested witty sayings, which she
classed in the same category with teasings, and
this pun on her name did not please her. Ever
since my father's sojourn at Brussels, she called
him nothing but Monsieur Lamber, although she
still used the familiar thou.
" Oh ! Monsieur Lamber, your speech is in very
bad taste," she answered.
On the contrary, it seemed to me very clear, and
I often laughingly repeated it to father when he
was instructing me about Greece. He had found
my mind open to antique subjects, and I would say
to him:
" Am I not the daughter of Olympus ? "
My father would always take me with him on
foot, on his visits round about to his patients. He
taught me to drive his rather spirited horse, and
we would drive in his two-seated carriage over
good or bad roads to see the rich and the poor,
especially the latter.
I told him of my studies in history, and of
grandmother's opinions, which I shared.
" See, child," he said to me, " you and your
[110]
A THREE WEEKS' VISIT
grandmother have every reason to admire Louis
XI. and Louis XIII., because you both think that
under their reigns the nobles were cast down;
whereas, they only changed their own condition
vis-a-vis to royalty. They became courtiers ; they
were domesticated by the kings, but they remained
much as they were towards the bourgeoisie and the
people ; they kept the same distance between them-
selves and their inferiors as the sovereigns had kept
with them. Before the Revolution equality did
not exist anywhere. That alone began the great
work. Let me tell you of Saint- Just, whom, of
all the makers of the Revolution, I understand the
best. He is to me a friend known and lost. I will
take you to see his sister, and you will see how
sweet and charming she is. You will amuse her.
She speaks so affectionately of her brother that he,
my Saint-Just, will cease to be to you the beheader
and monster that your grandparents have repre-
sented."
" Oh ! papa, I shall never be, like you, the friend
of that dreadful Saint-Just, or that horrible
Robespierre never ! "
" Don't be too sure. You have as yet heard
only one side of the question. You hate all in-
justice, you love the poor and the humble people;
you will therefore absolve those who have eman-
[111]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
cipated them, even at the cost of violence. You
see, there is no moderation in politics. They are
like a swing," he said with a smile. " You are
thrown twice up to the extreme heights, and you
pass the middle line only once out of three times."
" Well, papa, I am for the middle place the
middle, above all. Like grandmother, I hate ex-
tremes."
" Juliette, you are not serious ? "
" But, papa, you began while smiling in your
talk about the swing."
" Well, I am sorry, and I wish to tell you, once
for all, that the great Revolution itself has not
done sufficient work."
" Oh ! papa, for shame ! "
" No. Listen to me. The nobles had op-
pressed the people you know in what manner,
you know all about it, for you speak as one well
informed. Your grandmother and you judge the
* great ones,' as they should be judged. But that
is not everything; you must not stop on the road.
Since the nobles have been cast down, other op-
pressors have sprung up, just as hard, just as
tyrannical, to the poor and humble ones as the
former were, and these are neither as valiant nor
as fine as were the feudal lords, the knights of
chivalry. The * great ones ' of to-day belong to
A THREE WEEKS' VISIT
the upper bourgeoise class. We require a second
Louis XI., a second Richelieu, and another Revolu-
tion, to destroy this new feudal system. We have
found the new formula, my child, to open, at last,
the reign of absolute justice, and we shall achieve
it by a Republic, and by the principles of liberty,
equality, and fraternity. There will be no colossal
fortunes on one side and complete misery on the
other. Suffering and justice will be equitably
distributed."
" That will be a magnificent time, papa, but will
it ever come to pass ? "
I had been so often told that my father was an
absurd and dangerous dreamer that I was doubt-
ful of the perspicacity of his judgment; and still
his words sank into my heart, because I found
them generous and tender towards the unhappy
ones of the earth.
It is easy to explain the fascination such simple
theories would have for a child's mind. Such con-
versation made a deep impression. My father was
of the type of those who were called later on " the
old beards of 1848." An idealist, without any
notion of the probabilities of reality, my father
thought that his political conceptions were abso-
lute truths. As sentimental and as romantic as
was my grandmother, he fostered illusions about
9 [ 113 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
political life resembling those which she fostered
about individual life.
However, some of his conceptions seemed sublime
to me in my childhood.
My father gave a place to nature in all that he
said to me, for he sermonised me continually. The
doctrine of Christ, which had given the formulas
of liberty, equality, and fraternity, was mingled in
his mind with an exuberant, poetical paganism,
and this amalgamation furnished his discourses
with pompous arguments on charity, on the laws
of social sacrifice, and on the divine attributes of
human heroism. My childish imagination, already
initiated in researches for what grandmother called
" superior things," was dazzled and fascinated by
degrees.
My father's professional ability served marvel-
lously well in placing all things of which he spoke
within my mind's reach. He simplified questions
to such a degree that he succeeded in leading me to
converse with him, and in making me feel that he
took an extreme pleasure in our conversations.
This made me very proud. He was prudent in
all that he said to me : " I do not say this to influ-
ence you; you are still too young for me to en-
force any ideas upon you ; I will teach you later,"
etc., etc. I listened to admirable sonorous phrases,
[114]
A THREE WEEKS' VISIT
but could not judge of the gaps in their practical
demonstrations, or of the possibility of the appli-
cation of his ideas. I was touched by his devoted-
ness to the suffering classes, of whom he often
spoke.
I had, however, an instinctive feeling that the
violence of my father's character, of which he gave
too frequent proofs, might make him, like his
friend Saint-Just, cruel towards the fortunate ones
of this world, as his good heart made him kind to
the unhappy. And I wished to know whether I
had guessed rightly. It was a hidden place in his
heart to discover.
" I agree, after all, that your Saint-Just loved
the humble and poor as much as you do," I said
to my father one day, " but you cannot prove to
me that he was not cruel, that he did not kill."
He answered:
" Action changes a man's nature ; you must
judge Saint- Just from his intentions."
" Hell is paved with them, papa," I said.
I had discovered what I wished to know.
" In spite of what your grandmother says," he
added, " I do not love Robespierre, because he was
born a Jacobin. One should not be born a Jaco-
bin. A person may become one, but it is nec-
essary first of all to have been a humanitarian.
[115]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Ferocity is permissible only to defend one's prin-
ciples, or one's country when it is in danger. In
order to legitimatise it, there must be provocation."
He had told me about the leaves of the sensitive
plant, and, when he said something which dis-
pleased me, I would reply :
" Enough, papa, I fold myself up ! " Then he
would call me sensitive, and we would cease talking.
Sometimes it seemed to me that he actually
probed in my brain as with a red-hot poker, as
grandmother, also, too often did. I felt great
pain in my temples, and would say:
" I can't listen to you any longer. I feel ill."
My father took a great journal, La Democratic
Pacifique of Victor Considerant, to which he was
one of the first subscribers. My grandmother did
not read newspapers. She heard the news from
grandfather, who read the Gazettes at his club. I
thought my father admirable because he read four
great pages every day, and knew at Blerancourt
everything that was taking place in the whole
world.
Later, in recalling what I had suffered in my
childhood and the first years of my youth, I re-
membered that at that time it seemed to me that
the " walls " of my brain were too light to sup-
port the pressure of the mass of ideas which my
[116]
A THREE WEEKS' VISIT
father and grandmother strove alternately to force
between them. I felt these " walls " tremble at
times and threaten to fall in.
I often played with the chemist's daughter,
Emilienne Decaisne, great-niece of Saint-Just. I
thought her kind and charming, but my father said
she was not sufficiently proud of her great-uncle.
He often made his friend Decaisne angry " the
too lukewarm nephew of Saint-Just," as he called
him.
I went one day to see Saint-Just's sister, Ma-
dame Decaisne, the chemist's mother, and Emili-
enne's grandmother. She lived at the extreme end
of that beautiful quarter of Blerancourt called the
Marais, where the lines of plane-trees perfumed
the place in the spring, and where the ruins of the
Louis XIV. chateau are so fine. Madame Decaisne
inhabited a well-preserved house of the eighteenth
century, looking on a garden, surrounded by high
walls.
She was a very old lady of extreme elegance, tall
and slight, dressed in the antique fashion. She
made pretty curtsies, and raised her gown with her
two hands very gracefully when she walked in the
garden, and, as my father said, seemed always
about to dance the minuet.
In her large drawing-room, furnished with Louis
[117]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
~
XV. and Louis XVI. furniture, which my grand-
mother had taught me to discern and to admire,
and which my father thought old-fashioned and
horrible, as he cared only for modern furniture
the furniture of " progress " made of mahogany
and ebony Madame Decaisne seemed to me like
an apparition.
There lived with her in her house (although her
son did not like it, my father told me before we
went in) an old friend, the Chevalier de Saint-
Louis, dressed also in old-time fashion, who was
called simply " Monsieur le Chevalier."
Madame Decaisne and the Chevalier had both
remained thorough Royalists and Legitimists, de-
testing the " Egalite branch," but faithful to the
memory of Saint-Just, of whom the Chevalier had
been the friend. " In spite of the crimes they had
made him commit," said Madame Decaisne, " she
and the Chevalier had not ceased to love him."
The Chevalier amused me very much because he
glided and skipped over the waxed floors, and
kissed Madame Decaisne's hand when he left her
only for an instant. He spoke of Saint-Just with
affection.
" Monsieur le Chevalier," my father said, " is it
not true that Saint-Just still strikes you as having
been, above all, a humanitarian and a poet ? "
[118]
A THREE WEEKS' VISIT
" Yes," he replied, and added : " Besides, he,
who was so intelligent, so superior, so full of hope
for the great future, expiated his errors by his
death. One should have seen him in the political
storm to be able to understand how so good and
so noble, but too fanatical, a man could at cer-
tain moments have thought that * blood was nec-
essary.' "
The " necessary blood " remained in my mind
after I heard the Chevalier use the phrase.
I spoke to grandmother about it on my return
to Chauny, and she was not as indignant as I
supposed she would be.
" When the kings protected the people from the
nobles, they caused necessary blood to be shed,"
she said to me, " and the kings grew greater in
spite of their crimes. If the men of the Revolu-
tion had shed only the enemy's blood at the fron-
tiers, and that of traitors of which there were a
few like the Messieurs de Sainte-Aldegonde, who
during the invasion called the invaders of France,
* Our friends, the enemies ' if, I say, the men of
the Revolution had not killed for the desire of so
doing, they would have been absolved, but they
sacrificed innocent persons to their ferocity, and
they will never be forgiven. Your father is
one of those who, like Saint-Just, wishes to purify
[119]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
society more and more, after having shed ' neces-
sary blood.' He is one of those humanitarian
Jacobins, people more cruel than the wickedest,
who think they have the right to be implacable
under the pretext that they have been tender-
hearted in their youth."
But, to return to Saint- Just's sister: She took
a fancy to me. Living with my grandparents,
whom I still considered young, I adored old people.
Madame Decaisne one day read to me some of
Saint-Just's poetry. It was about a little shep-
herd leading his flock to pasture, and the unhap-
piness of roses because they had thorns. She
threw so much feeling into the reading that I shed
tears, and thereby won her heart and that of the
Chevalier.
[120]
XI
A PAINFUL RETUEN HOME
JHE three weeks passed so quickly that I had
written very seldom to my grandmother, not
daring to speak to her about the conversations with
my father, or of the impression they had made
upon me. I said to myself it would be better to
make my confession slowly. In like manner, as
my father had enlightened me with regard to his
ideas, I would enlighten my grandmother concern-
ing mine. Moreover, I had not been converted.
Saint-Just's ferocity was absolved, for reasons I
could not quite remember; my father, so good, so
benevolent, was capable of becoming cruel after
" provocation " I remembered that word all this
aroused a great revolt in me, and overthrew my
first enthusiasm.
There had been several " family dramas " on my
account. I occupied too large a place in my
father's life, and my mother could not overcome
that unfortunate jealousy which caused us all so
much sorrow.
My father loved her passionately for her beauty,
[121]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
which should have given her every right to believe
herself loved ; I looked at her with admiration, and
bestowed upon her a sort of worship; and my
grandparents were very proud of her. But she
had spoiled our mutual affection by her coldness,
and destroyed our confidence in her love for us,
because she constantly doubted our love; none of
our assurances would convince her, whereas a care-
less word, spoken by chance, without any real in-
tention of wounding her, became to her a proof of
all she imagined, and then she became so unjust
it made one believe she was hard-hearted. Where-
as, in truth, her undeserved, cutting reproaches,
her insinuations, her accusations, were only a sort
of despair at not being able to force us to love her
as she wished to be loved, and at not having won
a larger amount of our affection precisely on ac-
count of that conduct which made us love her
My father wished to take me back to my grand-
mother himself. She opposed his wish, and it was
she who accompanied me home. The pain she
caused me during that short journey recalled to
me my first day at school.
We were both mounted on the same donkey, and
had not gone very far on our route when, the
animal becoming fatigued, my mother got down.
A PAINFUL RETURN HOME
She talked as she walked along, while I, very proud,
held the reins and did not wish to think of any-
thing else.
My mother questioned me in a wearisome and
annoying manner about my grandmother's love for
me. She made me impatient, and, not being ac-
customed to control myself, I answered two or
three times:
" Mamma, I beg of you, leave me alone ; you
torment me more than the priest at confession."
" Has your grandmother ever told you she would
find a husband for you and give you a great deal
of money a dot? " she asked me suddenly after
a silence.
Having got up early, with my head drowsy,
and having been tormented for half an hour, I
answered unfortunately :
" Yes, grandmother will give me as large a dot
as she can. Are you satisfied?"
My mother struck the donkey, which was also
half asleep. I was jolted so unexpectedly that I
fell off on the opposite side from my mother on a
heap of stones.
The shock stunned me. I was blinded by blood.
I called " Mamma ! " and found she was no longer
by me. I got up, took my handkerchief and tried
to collect the blood on my forehead; my flowing
[123]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
tears enabled me to open my eyes. I looked for
her, but a turn in the road prevented me from see-
ing how far away she might be. She had disap-
peared in order to punish me. I thought she had
abandoned me, alone and bleeding.
I started to run as fast as I could. My mother
was waiting for me. The sight of the blood which
covered my face, and which came from a wound
under my hair near my temple, and which grand-
father said in the evening might have killed me,
did not touch her heart. She raised me from the
ground by my belt without getting off the donkey,
which she had remounted, placed me on her lap
without saying a word, holding me tightly with
her left arm while she drove the donkey with her
right hand, tapping its head with the reins.
I was very uncomfortably seated, and suffered
much from my position, but I did not complain.
I thought only of getting home, of seeing my
grandmother, whom I would never leave again.
I did not cease sobbing, and the people who met
us could not understand my evident despair nor
my mother's impassibility.
My grandmother, informed of my coming, was
at the window with Arthemise. They ran to the
door on seeing us. When my grandmother saw
the state I was in, she took me into the drawing-
[124]
A PAINFUL RETURN HOME
room, overcome with grief. She could not kiss me,
there was so much clotted blood on my face.
She had begun to question me, anxiously, when
my mother, who had taken the donkey to the stable
followed by Arthemise, came like a bomb into the
drawing-room, and began again the eternal " fam-
ily drama " so angrily that the quarrel became
more and more passionate. Finally I, crying in
despair, was taken with a nose-bleeding, which my
handkerchief, already saturated with blood, could
not stanch, and I was literally covered with blood.
I could understand nothing of my mother's and
grandmother's explanations, they were so mixed
up, and, besides, my head was aching so badly.
I had certainly done wrong to say what I had
said, and I felt myself miserably guilty, but be-
cause of the thoughtless words of a child, did I
deserve to be left in such a state?
" So," said my mother, " you have promised to
give Juliette as large a dot as you can, and, doubt-
less, your fortune also? Am I, then, absolutely
nothing to you? Do you disown me, your own
daughter? I don't care a fig for your money, but
the humiliation of being treated thus by you is
something I will not bear."
When I think of my distress during those not-
to-be-forgotten minutes, I still feel the effect of
[125]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
it, so convulsed was I in all my being, and so keenly
did I realise my mother's cruel jealousy.
My grandfather appeared at one door, Arthe-
mise at the other. He looked at me, listened for
a moment, and understood what was taking place.
I threw myself in his arms, crying, my face bloat-
ed, swollen, and bleeding, in such a misery of aban-
donment and feeling so forsaken that my grand-
father's heart was convulsed with pain.
" You are, each of you, madder, more wicked,
more ferocious than the other," he cried, in a
furious voice. " Your quarrels, your suspicions,
your idiotic, imbecile explanations crush every
atom of maternal feeling in your hearts. You
will kill the child, do you hear? you will kill her!
Olympe, do you not remember that your son died
of convulsions after one of your quarrels? Look,
both of you, at your only child. Don't you feel
any pity for her, shrews that you are? And then
you will dare say to me that you love Juliette ! I
have half a mind to take her from you both, and
to fly with her to the ends of the world. Just
look at her ! "
And grandfather, who was fond of dramatic
scenes himself, placed me standing on a chair. My
sobs redoubled, and I must have been pitiful to
see, for my mother and grandmother threw them-
[126]
A PAINFUL RETURN HOME
selves upon me, frightened. Grandfather pushed
them aside, and put me in Arthemise's arms, who
again began her song : " It is murder ! "
This phrase made me remember, with singular
clearness, my adventure at school, and I cried out
to grandmother:
" This time I will never forgive you ! " My
lips trembled, my throat was on fire, and I was
shivering.
While grandfather washed me, grandmother
made up the fire, weeping. When I was warmed
and calmed, my grandfather, with an anger and
hardness I had never seen him show before, flew at
my mother, seized her by the wrists, and, shaking
her, said:
" It is not enough that her father and grand-
mother should over-excite this child's brain enough
to make it burst, but you must go and give her
such a cerebral commotion that it is enough to
make her crazy."
And as my mother, in excusing herself, began
again to accuse me
" Hold your tongue, and take care ! " cried
grandfather, in a threatening voice. " I thought
until to-day that you resembled my poor mother,
too passive and too ' browsing.' Don't recall my
father to me by your ferocious liard-heartedness !
[127]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
If you go on like this, I will make you kneel and
ask your daughter's pardon."
" You are breaking my wrists," she said, " let
go of me. I have the right "
I thought then that grandfather was going to
beat her. His voice became so terrible that I saw
my grandmother tremble.
" Do you repent of the wrong you have done
to your daughter? "
" Yes ! " she said, falling on a chair, overcome
by her father, whom alone she feared, and who
was never violent, never showed firmness except to
her.
Poor mother ! she suffered, herself, to such a de-
gree from her morbid passion of jealousy that,
when she was stricken with paralysis and confided
her mental tortures to us, we heartily forgave her
for those fits of anger.
[128]
XII
A VISIT TO MY GREAT-AUNTS
WAS ailing all winter. I had attacks of
intermittent fever, followed by the measles,
with delirium.
My father and mother came in turn to help my
grandparents take care of me. For a week they
all feared not only for my life, but for my sanity
fears which re-established for a while perfect ac-
cord between them.
My father, talking one day at my bedside to
grandmother, who was accusing her daughter of
being responsible for my illness, said:
" It seems to me, mother, that you, too, deserve
reproach in this respect, from what my father-in-
law tells me. As to Olympe, I assure you she is
more unhappy from her suspicions than those whom
she suspects. Her jealousy is not her own fault;
it is a malady. If you will look at her during her
fits of anger, you will see that she has already
certain tremblings of her head, too characteristic,
alas! Do not forget that her paternal grand-
father died of paralysis, which is, perhaps, the
explanation of her unconscious cruelties. You
10 [ 129 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
must take care of Olympe, mother, rather than
blame her. I, also, have a great defect in being
too violent, and it comes to me from an affection
of my heart, an inheritance from my father."
My father expressed these words so gently, so
sadly, that I at once forgave my mother, with
whom I had until that moment still been angry,
and I was most unhappy to hear that my father
had a disease of the heart.
During my delirium my grandfather had no
difficulty in discovering the cause of the tension
of my little brain, overheated by the struggle to
understand the contradictions between my father's
and grandmother's ideas. I was endeavouring
with all my might to make the ideas agree, and
could not succeed, which tormented me. In my
fever I did nothing but talk of politics and
socialism.
" She must escape from both of you for a time,"
he said to my father and grandmother, " and I am
going to accept her great-aunt's invitation to her."
My grandmother's half-sisters, Sophie, Con-
stance, and Anastasie, lived with her mother at
a country-seat in the environs of Soissons, at
Chivres. They led a monastic life, having, all
three, refused to marry.
Since their father's death they had, no one knew
[130]
A VISIT TO MY GREAT-AUNTS
why, desired to know me, and this seemed all the
more extraordinary to my grandparents because
they had never taken any interest in my mother.
A friend of my grandmother's having spoken to
them about me, they said to this friend that if
grandmother desired me to be their heiress, instead
of one of their mother's cousins, to whom they were
somewhat attached, she must let me go and visit
them alone every year during the vacation season,
in July and August.
My grandfather said to himself that such a com-
plete separation from my father and grandmother
would put my brain " out to grass," as he expressed
it, and would do me immense good. He induced
grandmother to write to her friend that she would
send me at that time to visit my great-aunts.
The prospect did not please me at first. I was
so weary, so weak, that I asked only to be allowed
to dream, lying in the large drawing-room beside
grandmother, who read or embroidered without
speaking to me.
My brain was hard at work during my con-
valescence. It appeared to me that I was making
a great journey in life, and that I discovered many
new and serious things every day.
I had taken no interest in money affairs until
then, except for the purchase of my sugar-plums.
[131]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
But was it not money which had been the cause of
the great quarrel on my return from Blerancourt?
Was money, therefore, a very great, very impor-
tant thing? And now, again, I heard it spoken
of apropos of these aunts for whom my grand-
parents cared so little, and of whom they thought
so ill.
This money, which had made my mother so cruel
to me, was now going to make my grandparents
more kind to my great-aunts.
I discussed these questions very naively with
myself, although my mind was wide awake with
regard to other things; but there was never any
question of money affairs between my grandfather
and grandmother. My grandfather kept his own
accounts with his patients; my grandmother took
care of her own fortune.
I questioned grandmother about the necessity of
my being my aunts' heiress, asking her why she
considered it so important that I should have
money.
" It is not for the money itself," grandmother
answered, " that your grandfather and I desire
that you should be your aunts' heiress, but for a
certain satisfaction it would give us, and because
it would be creditable to them. You know, for I
have told you so several times, that my father kept
[132]
A VISIT TO MY GREAT-AUNTS
my mother's dot, and that he was obstinate in mak-
ing the keeping of it a condition of my marriage.
If my half-sisters desire to repair the wrong they
have done me, I approve their conduct; if my
step-mother, now very old, wishes to die without
remorse, I understand it. That is why I desire
that you should play a part in this scheme of
reconciliation, more worthy of our family than the
unworthy machinations of former times. It is not
a question of money, but of a triumph for your
grandfather and myself, should your aunts make
you their heiress. You see, Juliette, there is noth-
ing more noble than to repair one's wrong by a
righteous act. Try to help in bringing it about."
I had a mission. I was going to aid in the tri-
umph of justice, and in that of my grandparents.
I was still very weak, incapable of any great effort,
for a fever brought on by growing pains hindered
the progress of my convalescence; but the great
role of ambassadress extraordinary " something
like a diplomatic work of Monsieur de Talley-
rand," said grandfather, not mockingly, but
solemnly that was worth thinking of.
I had, besides, some experience to guide me.
How many times had I not reconciled my grand-
father and grandmother, as well as my parents at
Blerancourt, or all of them together? While still
[133]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
very small, I had often played the part of arbiter.
I gave my personal opinion on all matters and in
all discussions.
I should probably have been insupportable had
not my grandparents, both of whom were very gay
and witty, kept up a spirit of fun between us which
banished all gravity, even in questions of quarrels,
instead of preserving a tone of stiff, solemn, and
stately importance, so that, when I succeeded in
hushing up a quarrel between them, it was usually
because I had made them laugh.
My father, also, submitted to this course of
action on my part, but it exasperated my mother,
who would always say:
" I will never admit that a joke should get the
better of a grief."
Might it not be probable that my great-aunts
would resemble my mother in character? Ah! in
that case I would resign my mission very quickly,
so much the worse for the inheritance! I would
write at once to be taken home.
" My sisters cannot be dull," grandmother said
to me. " Having remained unmarried, they cer-
tainly must have kept their original characters."
The great day for my departure for Chivres
arrived. What an excitement, to be going to pass
two months away from my father and grand-
[134]
A VISIT TO MY GREAT-AUNTS
mother, and with old people whom I had never
seen, and on whom I must make a favourable im-
pression, " or else suffer the humiliation of being
sent home," said grandfather.
I was going to be shut up in a sort of cloister.
My three great-aunts, their mother, and a servant
whom they had had for twenty-five years, lived
alone in an old house, situated in an enormous do-
main surrounded by high hedges and walls. This
was the description my great-aunts' friend gave to
us of " the convent."
My grandfather was to take me, with my pack-
ages sewed up by Arthemise, as far as two leagues
beyond Coucy-le-Chateau. Grandmother told me
to look well at " the monstrous feudal towers of
Coucy." Marguerite, my aunts' servant, would
await us at the village, her native place, at her
mother's house on the Square opposite a cross.
She would meet me there with my aunts' donkey.
I was to dine at her mother's cottage, after which
we would leave Coucy, taking cross-roads, and
would arrive at Chivres late at night.
I had been much sermonised by grandmother be-
fore I left, and on our way grandfather continu-
ally joked me about my " mission a la Talleyrand"
" Your old aunts must die of ennui," he said to
me ; " you will amuse them, and they won't return
[135]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
the compliment, if I remember them rightly.
Sophie will teach you Latin, she knows it very
'well; you will use some of it with Marguerite in
the kitchen, perhaps also with the donkey, and
you must bring back to me what remains of it.
Mind you don't forget, for I have great need
of it."
Grandfather left his carriage at the entrance
of the village, at the only inn of the place, and
as we walked along he continued his jokes.
I laughed so at all the nonsense he said to me
that, when I saw Marguerite and the donkey to
which I was to talk Latin, I forgot to cry.
Grandfather kissed me quickly, more overcome
than myself. After giving Marguerite instruc-
tions concerning my health, and the care to be
taken of me, he handed her a complimentary note
for my aunts, and then flew off so rapidly towards
the entrance of the village where he had put up
his carriage, that when I turned, after caressing
the donkey, I saw no sign of him.
We were to have gone to the inn, on leaving the
village, to get my packages to put on the donkey,
which had a basket hung on his saddle, but a ser-
vant from the inn brought them to us.
My heart was a little heavy at this sudden sep-
aration, but my stomach was very empty, and I
[136]
A VISIT TO MY GREAT-AUNTS
ate with a good appetite for the first time in many
weeks.
Marguerite's mother had announced my passage
to the whole country-side; all the urchins of the
place were grouped around the cross. I smiled at
the little girls and boys, who followed me into the
house to see the " young Miss " who looked like a
little " Parisienne."
My way of speaking, which had no Picardy ac-
cent, struck them all. Neither my grandfather,
who was from Compiegne, nor my grandmother,
which was more extraordinary still, had the least
patois accent.
The little chits gathered around the long oaken
table at which I was eating, and made me talk by
asking questions. I had brought with me some
sugar-plums, a necessary cargo for a great jour-
ney to an unknown country. I distributed my
sugar-plums with the greatest success. I drank
to the health of the troop, who had cried : " Vive !
the young Miss ! " and, a little intoxicated with
the bracing air, I half remember having made a
speech to the young people, a very moral one, con-
cluding by saying one could never love one's grand-
father and grandmother enough, or one's father
and mother.
" Why is it that you don't say first that we
[137]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
should love our mother and father? " asked one of
the little peasants.
" Oh ! that's as you like," I answered, thinking
it would require too many explanations to be un-
derstood.
Marguerite, who took a fancy to me at once,
had her share in my success. The " young Miss "
already belonged to her.
I mounted Roussot, who intoned at his departure
a song so odd for a donkey, with such a ludicrous
search for harmony, that I began to imitate him,
which encouraged him to continue.
My new friends, the children, burst out laugh-
ing. They followed me for a long way, and, on
the thresholds of the houses and huts, which became
farther and farther apart, their mothers saluted
me, waving their hands, wishing Marguerite and
her " young Miss " a good journey.
I tasted the sweets of popularity. It was due
to my sugar-plums, to my Parisian accent, and to
my perfect imitation of the donkey's bray.
Marguerite made me think of Arthemise. She
was full of admiration for everything I did, for
all that I said. She answered all my questions with
the desire to please me, she said.
Roussot found me a light weight. He trotted
along briskly, while Marguerite, holding the bridle,
[138]
A VISIT TO MY GREAT-AUNTS
walked beside us with long strides. I thought the
sunset was beautiful; it shone over an immense
plain, inundating it with its rays, and its reflection
illuminated the sky long after it had set.
We journeyed on under the brilliant stars, not
along a straight road, for we took many turnings,
which by degrees brought us near to Chivres.
The rolling country was so pretty that it pleased
me exceedingly, and I should have liked to gather
all the flowers which a bright moon showed me
along the sides of the road.
" There are flowers in plenty in the close,
Mam'zelle Juliette," said Marguerite. " There
are bachelors' buttons and poppies in the wheat,
and daisies around the wash-house; you shall pick
as many as you like. You are not so cityfied, after
all, if you love the beautiful things in the fields."
[139]
XIII
I MAKE NEW FRIENDS
three aunts and my grandmother's step-
mother, whom I afterwards called great-
grandmother, appeared before me, standing to-
gether on the steps, as soon as the front door was
opened. For a moment I stood aghast, for my
grandmother's three sisters, unlike her, who always
wore such handsome gowns, were dressed as peas-
ants, just like their maid Marguerite, in cotton
jackets, cotton skirts gathered full around the
hips, cotton kerchiefs, large grey linen-aprons with
pockets, and they wore caps on their heads !
The youngest of them, aunt Anastasie, cried
out, " Good-evening, niece ! and welcome here ! " in
a clear, gay voice, and with the pretty accent of
Soissons, the native place of her mother, who had
returned thither with her husband, and from whom
she had inherited it, doubtless. Marguerite took
me off the donkey. My two other aunts and my
" great-grandmother " had such high-bred man-
ners that I concluded they must have disguised
themselves to amuse me.
I went indoors, while Roussot was led off to the
[140]
I MAKE NEW FRIENDS
stable, braying loudly, I accompanying his song,
which sent my aunts into fits of laughter.
The ice was broken; I had my supper, I chat-
tered, and then fell asleep. It was about eleven
o'clock at night.
At noon the next day I was still sleeping, and
aunt Anastasie became frightened, and awakened
me. They had been waiting an hour for break-
fast.
Marguerite appeared, a parcel of clothes in her
arms, and said to me:
" Now, Mam'zelle Juliette, you must dress as a
peasant. We will put all your fine clothes away
in a cupboard, and then you can enjoy yourself
without fear of spoiling anything."
So I tried on jackets and skirts belonging to
aunt Anastasie, who was the most coquettish of
the three! And such coquettishness ! Coarse
print gowns, faded, and washed out; and the old-
fashioned patterns of them all, and the way they
were cut! I was at last equipped in a horrible
fashion. The skirt, being too long, was pulled
over the waist-band, and bulged out all around my
waist; the apron, rolled up in the same way, came
nearly up to my chin. I pulled the sleeves up
above my elbows. My cap I pushed back as they
wear them in Bordeaux, so that it just rested on
my long, braided hair.
[141]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
It was too funny ! I nearly fell over from a
chair on which I had climbed to look at myself in
a mirror. I screamed with laughter, for it is im-
possible to describe how absurdly I looked thus
transformed. Grandmother would have cried out
in holy horror she who was scandalised if my
dress was a little soiled, or my hair " a la quatre-
six-deux," as she would say.
I entered the dining-room with complete success.
I did not know where to place my elbows, because
the rolls of my skirt quite covered my hips. I was
forced to raise my shoulders, and great-grand-
mother, after much laughter, declared that, when
breakfast was over, the hem of the skirt must be
cut off and the skirt made shorter, and all the rolls
taken away, as they deformed my shoulders, and
might make me a hunchback.
" I will look droll as much as you like, dear,
adorably rustic aunts, but not hunchback," said I.
I was less of a child than these five women, in-
cluding Marguerite, who ate at the same table with
us. They were interested in little nothings; my
manner of talking, my funny ways, my assurance
and important air were taken in earnest whenever
any " great questions " were discussed. My aunts
were delighted to feel their minds in constant move-
ment under my impulsion.
[142]
I MAKE NEW FRIENDS
Monsieur de Talleyrand had found his equal,
and I thought how in my turn I could chaff grand-
father.
After breakfast I went out into the garden with
aunt Constance, and no sooner was I on the steps
than I saw Roussot coming along for his daily
piece of bread, his " tit-bit," as we used to say.
As soon as he saw me he began to bray, and I an-
swered. Outside the gate we heard the village
children laughing at Roussot's extraordinary
music, answered by another song.
I went to visit the donkey-stable, Roussot fol-
lowing. He seemed quite at home in it, walking
about and showing us around. Then I went to
the poultry-yard, and saw the cow and her little
calf, the rabbits, the ducks, the fruit-storehouse,
the cellar, and the large garden. It was so large
that it took me a long while to look, one by one,
at all the fruit-trees, laden with fruit, and to
discover at the end a nice little covered wash-
house, in which I promised myself I would often
dabble.
I came back after a while, and little aunt
Anastasie she alone in my mind deserved this en-
dearing epithet showed me the lovely flowers she
had made during the winter to trim the altar, which
was always raised in the garden, on Corpus Christi
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Day, and was admired by the whole country-side.
The large gate was opened wide only on that day.
Aunt Sophie showed me her room, which she al-
ways cleaned herself, and into which not one of
the household, still less an outsider, not even Mar-
guerite, was ever admitted.
To see me in aunt Sophie's room seemed an ex-
traordinary and astonishing event, and the whole
bee-hive was in commotion. Marguerite told me
afterwards of the sensation created by my hour's
stay in aunt Sophie's room.
Her room was much more elegantly furnished
than our rooms at Chauny, only the walls were
simply whitewashed. Opposite each other stood
two old chests of drawers with fine, highly polished
brass ornaments; on the other side of the room
stood a very handsome bed of carved wood, with-
out curtains, but covered with a pale-green cover-
let embroidered in fine wools, the design of which
formed large bouquets of shaded roses, surrounded
with dark-green foliage, which pleased me so much
that when I left she made me a present of it.
The two large windows were draped with small
pink and green muslin curtains, trimmed with
guipure, and sliding on rods. There were books
on shelves and on the chests of drawers, and on a
very handsome consol table were several vases filled
[144]
I MAKE NEW FRIENDS
with field-flowers, so artistically arranged that I
at once said to aunt Sophie :
" You will teach me, won't you, how to make
these lovely bouquets of field-flowers ? "
A large tree in the garden outside threw a cool
shade in the room ; near one window stood a table,
on which were scattered, in graceful disorder,
books, papers, a bowl of flowers; and everything,
in fact, that was needful to study, to read, and to
write in quiet, and amid pretty surroundings.
I thought of grandfather's speech:
" Your aunt Sophie will teach you Latin, which
you can afterwards translate to Marguerite, to the
donkey," etc.
" Is it true, auntie, that you read Latin books? "
I asked.
" Oh ! yes."
" Does it amuse you ? "
" Very much."
" I would like to see one."
She showed me a pretty little old book with gilt
edges, which enchanted me, and told me that it
was Virgil's " Bucolics." She read me a passage
and translated it, and I said to her:
" Why, it is just like the stories of old Homer,
which papa tells so well. In the seventh canto of
the Odyssey, old Homer, in speaking of the four-
11 [ 145 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
acre garden of Alcynous, enumerates the fine trees
which yield such beautiful fruit, and which Ulysses
so admires. Your Virgil is like my Homer, but
he is not so old."
Aunt Sophie kissed me.
" Why ! do you know Homer ? Do you love him,
and like to talk of him ? "
" Certainly, I do, aunt Sophie ; that and the
history of our France are my favourite studies.
Whenever papa comes to Chauny he recites to me
a new canto of the * Iliad,' or the * Odyssey.' I
make him begin over .again those I like the best.
You can question me, aunt Sophie; I know the
names of all the gods and the heroes of Greece.
Ancient Greece and ancient Gaul are my two pas-
sions. But I shall not like your Latin. I hate the
Romans, whose greatest man was Caesar; he put
out the eyes of our Vercingetorix ; the Romans
pillaged Greece and then "
" We shall get on very well, Juliette," said aunt
Sophie, " and I will teach you to love Virgil, who
is the most Greek of the Latin poets. I will teach
you, as he has taught me, to love Nature, and to
find pleasure in a country life. I will repeat to
you the cantos of the ' ^Enei'd,' as your father has
told you those of Homer."
" But, aunt Sophie, I am not so ignorant as you
[146]
I MAKE NEW FRIENDS
suppose. Papa has taught me to know and to
love Nature. I will love it with you, but not with
your Latins. I cannot bear them."
During the next few days the chief thought of
my great-grandmother, of aunt Constance, and
aunt Anastasie, was to know what aunt Sophie
had said to me, and what her room was like. Mar-
guerite even questioned me.
On leaving her room, aunt Sophie had followed
me into the dining-room; then, having taken her
mother into the drawing-room, which was up a few
steps, and seated her near the large window, out of
which she could see the field and her daughters
at their work, she gave her a trumpet to call us
in case of need, and then said to us all :
" To work ! "
A skirt, shortened by aunt Constance, was put
on me, and each of us, with a sickle in our hands,
proceeded to cut fresh grass and clover for the
cow and for Roussot.
My aunts showed me how to use my sickle, and
I was really not too awkward. Marguerite made
small heaps of the grass we cut, and carried them
to the stable in a little low-wheeled cart, which she
drew herself.
They made me wear my cap more forward, and
I overheard my aunts, who were already dear to
[147]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
me, discussing a book which they were in turn read-
ing aloud in the evenings. It seemed to number
many volumes, for they had been reading it for the
last eight months, and still it was not yet finished.
I asked aunt Constance the name of the book, and
she told me that it was " The History of the Italian
Republics," by Sismondi.
My aunts spoke so clearly of things, in such
simple language, their ideas, clearly and precisely
expressed, were so easily comprehensible to me that
I became much interested in their conversations.
I can see them now, on their knees, cutting
clover, and judging of facts, of actions, of ideas
of men in a way that kept my curiosity on the
alert. The conversation was about Savonarola, a
sonorous name that at once struck my memory, and
of his mad attempts to transform society. Many
of Savonarola's ideas resembled my father's, but I
did not dare to say so, nor to uphold any prin-
ciples contrary to those which my aunts seemed to
defend. I might, perhaps, do so at some later
time. I could already have said my say in this
conversation had I wished, and I was inwardly
grateful to my father for having opened my mind
to the comprehension of politics.
So, while cutting away at my clover, I thought
what true ladies, clever and cultivated, were my
[148]
I MAKE NEW FRIENDS
aunts under their peasant garb. They looked as
if they wore a disguise, but the expression of their
faces, their way of speaking, and all their gestures,
were distinguished and elegant.
" We are boring this child ; she is cutting the
clover as hard as she can so as not to fall asleep,"
said Anastasie.
" You are mistaken, auntie," I answered, " I am
listening. Papa wants to make a Republican of
me, grandmother is determined that I shall be a
Royalist, and grandfather tries all the time to
make me love his Emperor. So I am delighted
to hear about the Italian Republics. I learn
things I never knew before, and I love to be in-
structed."
Aunt Constance was the only one who would not
use the " thee " and " thou " to me. She was very
witty and quizzical, her eyes and lips expressed
great fun, and she pretended in a laughing way
to have an exaggerated respect for my very youth-
ful self.
" You are a young lady like few others, I must
confess," said aunt Constance, suddenly laying
her sickle down by her side.
Marguerite came past them and said that suf-
ficient clover was cut. My aunts and I went to
the foot of a tree, and when we were all seated side
[149]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
by side in the shade, I answered aunt Constance
in the same tone she had taken :
" I am, indeed, a young lady like few others,
and this is not the end of my being so. I promise
you, auntie, that I do not mean to stop half-way."
" What do you mean by that? " asked aunt
Sophie.
" You can easily understand," I answered, in a
serious, grave, mysterious tone for I felt that I
must initiate my dear great-aunts in my secret
thoughts, that they were worthy of my confidence,
and that I could repeat to them what my grand-
mother was always saying to me "you can easily
understand that I am not going to live all my
life at Chauny, that I shall go to Paris and become
a woman unlike everyone else."
" Are you going to be a celebrity, dear? " asked
aunt Sophie.
" How long a time do you propose to take be-
fore you render your family illustrious ? " asked
aunt Constance.
" Forty years," I replied.
Aunt Constance and aunt Anastasie burst out
laughing at my answer.
Marguerite, leaning on her little cart, was lis-
tening, open-mouthed. " It is just possible that it
may be," she said.
[150]
I MAKE NEW FRIENDS
" Well, Juliette, I promise you I will live
to see it," said aunt Sophie, solemnly and
seriously.*
*My three aunts all lived till past eighty years of age.
Anastasie, the youngest, said to me in her last illness : "My
niece, pray do not defend me from death. I do not like your
epoch."
[151]
XIV
SOME NEW IMPRESSIONS GAINED
SPENT two full months at Chivres. I
learned from Marguerite and aunt Con-
stance all about the care to be given to animals,
all about fruit-trees from aunt Anastasie, who also
taught me how to make very pretty artificial
flowers.
One of the most enjoyable hours in the day was
the hour when aunt Sophie would give me a lesson
in her room.
I used to sit in a pretty arm-chair, painted white
and covered with some fresh pink-and-green ma-
terial. Aunt Sophie was embroiderer, upholsterer,
painter, carpenter, and locksmith all in one, and
it was she who had painted and covered her arm-
chairs, having first embroidered the material. We
sat in similar arm-chairs, without our caps, which
we took off ; we chatted by the pretty table covered
with books and papers, and it was I now who made
the lovely nosegays of field-flowers.
Aunt Sophie placed before me a large sheet of
paper, and gave me a pencil, and, every quarter of
an hour, that is, four or five times during the
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SOME NEW IMPRESSIONS GAINED
lesson, she would say : " Sum up in a few words
what you have just heard."
It is to aunt Sophie that I owe my tendency
to condense, to simplify, and to store in my
memory a very closely packed supply of knowl-
edge.
She would talk to me, too, of the Paganism of
modern times and of the danger of its encroaching
upon divine things. She would read me a short
Latin sentence, repeating the words several times,
and making me say them over mechanically ; then
she would explain them one by one, making of
them living images, so that I was delighted with
the poetical interpretations. I understood every-
thing that she explained to me. " Juliette," she
would say, " let us look at what we can see in
things, and seek for what is not visible."
" Oh ! auntie, let us look at once for what is
not seen. I can find out for myself, even away
from you, what is visible."
Aunt Sophie explained to me that life exists
in everything, even in what are called inanimate
things. Every object had for her its own peculiar
voice or sound. She taught me to distinguish, with
my eyes closed, the difference between the sound
of wood and of metal. She had a crystal slab on
which she placed balls of various substances, and
[153]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
with a little hammer she would play the strangest
airs.
" If things can so speak to us," she would say,
" I am convinced that flowers look at us. They
all have faces which express something, and most
of them have perfumes which penetrate to our very
souls. We can the more easily understand what is
called the spirit within us, by smelling the perfume
of a flower. I will explain that to you more fully
a few years hence."
Ah! the fairy-like, well-remembered hours I
spent every morning with my aunt!
I was talking to her one day about the wind
and she said : " I do not like it."
"Why?"
" Because the voice of the wind is made up of
borrowed sounds which it gathers on its way.
Wind annoys me, makes me sad or puts me to sleep
just like those authors who borrow ideas from
others."
I feel that I am badly expressing all that my
aunt Sophie told me, that I speak less clearly and
less originally than she, I was only eight years old
and yet I understood all she said. She must have
made herself much clearer than I can. I lived
with aunt Sophie a life of dreams and a life
of action at the same time. Every action
[154]
SOME NEW IMPRESSIONS GAINED
accomplished by me when near her, seemed to
have a fuller significance. If I watered a plant
I seemed to be caring for it, and delivering it from
the horrible pains of thirst; if I cut clover with
a sickle, I seemed to be receiving a present from
the earth, and felt that I must be grateful; if I
plucked a ripe pear, I was easing the overloaded
tree, which seemed to lean and offer it to me, and
still did not let it drop. If I killed any harmful
insect, I fancied I was doing, in person, the work
of Hercules, and could hear around me a kind and
approving murmur.
When Roussot and I sang our duet we were
really having a musical discourse.
I could not stay indoors. The rain-drops, big
and little, called me out.
Since my illness, a very strange thing had taken
place in my young brain. I fancied that I had
just been born or had been born over again.
All that grandmother, who hated Nature, and
thought it cruel and false, had taught me which
teaching had been already greatly counteracted
by my father's influence had so entirely dis-
appeared from my mind that I could not conceive
how it had ever existed there.
All that grandmother believed in on this earth
was love. " The passion of loving alone brings
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
us near to superhuman truths," she said. " All
things that can be reasoned about, and proved, and
weighed, come from what is inert and material,
and ought therefore to have no place in our souls.
It is a kind of knowledge that may be left, like
cumbersome luggage, by the side of the road, that
leads us to the Beyond."
Grandmother seemed to me at that time really
to be the incarnation of what people said of her
" romantic." I loved her just the same as before ;
I paid her in my heart the same tribute of affection
I owed her, and which she deserved, but I was much
more attracted by the minds of my father and of
aunt Sophie, and felt great curiosity about them.
I loved Nature as aunt Sophie loved it, and I was
interested in the past history of Nature according
to the Greek and Latin poets, and I suffered with
my father for the misery of mankind, for the
wretchedness of the poor and the unfortunate in
life.
" Aunt Sophie," I asked her once, " why is it
that all that you show me which is so divine in
Nature, hides from me that God who is so great
and so far off, and whom grandmother taught me
to adore? Why is it that I care no longer for
the sufferings of ' misunderstood souls' " this was
one of grandmother's sayings " and that I care
[156]
SOME NEW IMPRESSIONS GAINED
a great deal more for the welfare of poor miserable
wretches? "
" It is just because God is so great and so far
off that you are too little to understand Him,"
answered aunt Sophie. " When you are as old
as I am " she was forty-six and grandmother a
little over forty-eight " everything will find its
place in your understanding, especially if the basis
of what you know is built on a sure foundation.
You must be able to touch with your feet the
ground you walk on. Mother Goose certainly said
that before I did. You must love intensely all that
lives while you live. I am a child of Nature; I
live in it and for it. Your father loves mankind,
and wishes it to be happy, because he, himself, is so
human."
At Blerancourt I had adopted the habit of writ-
ing down in a little book a summary of the
conversations I had with my father. Aunt Con-
stance, having found the book in one of my
pockets, was always teasing me about the depth
of my reflections. I let her laugh, but, when in
posssession of my " Notes of Blerancourt "
again, I added to them my " Notes of Chivres,"
and the serious thoughts exchanged with aunt
Sophie.
I kept this little book, written in small hand-
[157]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
writing which only I could read, until I came to
Paris, when, to my great regret, it was lost, but
the sense of what was therein written has never left
my memory.
[158]
I
XV
THE END OF MY HOLIDAY
|ARGUERITE was appointed to show me the
environs of Chivres. I put on my pretty
frock, and for a week, the harvest being over,
seated on my friend Roussot's back, I roamed over
the lovely valley through which runs the river
Aisne. I saw the whole country between Soissons
and Chivres, and around Chivres itself.
Marguerite took me to see the Dolmens, the
Druid stones, of which aunt Sophie had told me
the history and legends. On the evening when I
returned from my visit to the Dolmens, I refused
to wear my peasant clothes, and appeared at table
in a white frock, with a wreath of mistletoe and
laurel-leaves on my head, dressed as a Druid
priestess of my Gauls.
Grandmother and my father did not write to me
for fear of tiring me. Had they known that aunt
Sophie was teaching me Latin and other things
beyond my age, they would have grieved at having
been parted from me for so long a time and for
no benefit to my health, as they would have
thought.
[159]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Now, I was in perfect health because I worked
in the fields for hours every day; because I went
to bed and got up early, and because I slept alone
in a large room, where a distant window, protected
by a screen, was left open all night ; whereas at
Chauny I slept in grandmother's room, and she
had the habit of reading in her bed, by the light
of a great lamp, which she often forgot to blow
out, and which many times smoked all night.
I had recovered all my strength; my recent
" growing " fever had left no trace whatever, ex-
cept a slight increase added to my height. I
looked fully ten years old, and was exceedingly
pleased at the fact.
I was almost perfectly happy. To the success
of my mission this pleasure was added: that, al-
though I had been sent to please my aunts, it was
they who had pleased me.
My mind was more at work during the time I
spent with my beloved relatives than at any other
moment of my life, insomuch that I asked questions
on every subject, and that I pondered over all the
" whys and wherefores," and all the answers given
me. What a happy holiday, and what perfect rest
as well !
Ah! if only grandmother and my father were
living at Chivres with my aunts and great-grand-
mother and Marguerite, not forgetting Roussot,
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THE END OF MY HOLIDAY
the cow and the calf, etc., etc., I should then be
perfectly happy!
I was certainly very fond of grandfather, and
my mother's beauty, as I looked at her, effaced
any trace of unjust scoldings and of the sadness
I felt at seeing her so frequently pain both my
father and grandmother ; but I could not but think
that my mother and grandfather could very well
live at Chauny quite contentedly, while my four
aunts, my great-grandmother, Marguerite, father,
grandmother and I would be so unspeakably happy
living at Chivres.
The time for departure, however, drew near. I
had only a few days left. Grandfather had writ-
ten (grandmother not being as yet in harmony
with her sisters) that he would come for me on
the following Monday, at the same place where
he had given me into Marguerite's care. This was
Friday.
Neither my aunts nor myself dreamt of prolong-
ing my stay. We felt that it might compromise
the possibility of any future visits.
At my age, a year seemed a century. With their
gentle philosophy and their equal tempers, my
aunts told me that July and August would come
quickly around again, and that now that they
knew me, they could both think of and talk of me.
12 [
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" You will leave us with perhaps more pain than
we shall feel at losing you, Juliette," said my teas-
ing aunt Constance, when I was lamenting our
separation, " but you will as certainly sooner for-
get the pleasure of our society than we shall forget
the pleasure of yours."
" You are naughty," I answered. " You know
very well it is just the other way. Have I left off
thinking of my father and grandmother, and wish-
ing they were here? I have, perhaps, talked of
them too much; well, that is how I shall talk of
you."
Tears were shed at my departure, and aunt
Constance was not the least sad of them all; but
I was too grieved to bring it up to her notice.
Aunt Sophie had prepared some short exercises
which she made me promise to go over for a
quarter of an hour every day. On every Sunday
I was to know seven new Latin words, without for-
getting a single one of those learned before. I
was to return to Chivres with two hundred and fifty
Latin words in my mind, placing them as I chose,
as all the first Latin words aunt Sophie had taught
me were words in common use.
The day I showed my father the exercises pre-
pared for me by my aunt, he exclaimed :
" Why ! this is a bright thought ! Your seven
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THE END OF MY HOLIDAY
words put together have a general meaning. They
form a little story, and each word is necessary in
daily life."
" Good-bye, good-bye, dear aunts ! " I waved
kisses to them until I was out of sight, for, a fact
commented on by the whole of Chivres, my three
aunts and great-grandmother were standing out-
side the big gate, so as to watch me as far as the
end of the village.
Marguerite was crying and blowing her nose;
Roussot most certainly understood the situation,
for he held his head low and made a noise resem-
bling a moan.
I tried to console Marguerite by talking fast,
but did not succeed.
" There's nothing to be done, Mamzelle Juliette,
you are going away, and I can think of nothing
else. The only thing that will help me to bear it
until next summer, when you are coming back, is
that now that the ladies have told me that the
money is to be yours, I shall work harder and econ-
omise more than ever."
I again found myself in full popularity on
entering Marguerite's village. The whole band
of children was waiting for me.
Alas ! I had no more sugar-plums. Why, yes, I
had! my dear grandfather had brought me a
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
large parcel of them. His joy at seeing me look
so full of health quite touched Marguerite. I
thanked the dear woman for all her care of me,
and begged her so warmly to assure my aunts of
all my gratitude, that she said:
" Perhaps, after all, you do love us as much as
we love you."
And she added, turning to my grandfather:
" you will take great care of her, Monsieur? "
From Marguerite's tone, when she said these
words, you might have supposed that it was she
and my aunts who were giving me to grandfather,
and not he who was taking me home.
After we had eaten some luncheon at Margue-
rite's home, I kissed and kissed the old servant, I
kissed Roussot, who I thought moaned more sadly
under my embrace, and jumped into grandfather's
carriage.
I turned around to look back as long as I could.
Marguerite waved her arms, the children shouted:
" Come back soon ! " and Roussot went on braying.
[164]
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AT HOME AGAIN
ILL?" asked grandfather, as we drove
away, " has everything really gone off well ?
Have you made a conquest of your aunts and great-
grandmother ? They dote on you, don't they?
Answer ! they really dote on you ? "
" Grandfather, they love me dearly ; they really
do. And I love them; you can't think how nice
and amusing they are, and good and tender, and
not solemn a bit."
" But do you think they realised what a won-
derful niece we sent them ? "
I remained unembarrassed, being accustomed
from my earliest days to the broadest compliments.
I answered simply :
" Yes, grandfather, they found your grand-
daughter wonderful."
" You must tell us everything in detail. Your
grandmother and I wish to know all that happened
hour by hour, day by day, word for word, all, in
fact, and even what you thought."
"And dreamed?" I asked. "What an effort
of memory I shall have to make ! "
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" We have been so lonely. Your father came
once a week to talk you over with your grand-
mother."
" And did the usual * family drama ' happen
every time? "
" Of course, but it always ended happily, because
when your father rose to take leave, either your
grandmother or I would always say : * Dear me !
how we must love that little woman, to be always
quarrelling about her,' and then we all said good-
bye with a laugh."
" I shall have to take seriously in hand the
matter of reconciling my grandmother's and my
father's ideas concerning me," I answered so
gravely that grandfather began to laugh mock-
ingly.
" Nonsense ! " said he, moving so suddenly that
he dropped the reins. When he had picked them
up, I grew angry.
" Who reconciled my aunts and my grand-
mother, if you please ? Was it not I ? "
" Beg pardon, my Emperor! " answered grand-
father cracking his whip, " I forgot that we are all
only simple soldiers."
Then a rain of amusing jokes began. I was
seized with grandfather's contagious gaiety. He
laughed so heartily and unaffectedly at his own
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jests, that no one could help laughing with
him.
Both my father and mother had come from
Blerancourt to welcome me on the evening of my
return; all were loud in admiration of my tanned
face and hands, and were delighted to see me
plumper, as well as much taller and stronger.
My mother, I suppose, was pleased, although
she did not show it in her manner. I perceived that
in her presence I should have to reduce consider-
ably the report of the success of my mission, and
I took good care not to repeat Marguerite's say-
ing : " Now that the ladies have told me that the
money is to be yours, I shall have more courage
to work and economise." I knew from experience
that it was best in any conversation with my
mother to leave out the money and legacy ques-
tion. Marguerite's saying had touched me only
in so much as it proved her love and devotion for
me.
The moon shone clear, and as the weather was
very dry, my father and mother did not fear the
fog on Manicamp Common, so they started for
home that same evening after dinner, having ar-
rived much earlier than I.
The story of my transformation into a peasant
the day after my arrival at Chivres, of the way my
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
aunts worked out-of-doors, greatly amused my
relatives during dinner. It was supposed then they
had remained cockneys, for at Chauny they were
always called " the fine ladies."
" They really used to be most affected," said
grandmother. " They took no interest in house-
hold matters and would spend their time in the
drawing-room, reading, doing fancy-work, and
quarrelling among themselves."
Just then I made a most unlucky speech which
very nearly provoked the inevitable " drama."
" Well," I said, " I am glad to say that they
have improved in every way. They take part in
all that goes on, and I never heard a single quar-
rel or dispute during my two months' stay ; it was
a change for me."
" You are really very amiable to us," replied
my mother in a sharp tone. " If it was you who
brought about this miracle, you can repeat it
here," said grandmother, who had no idea of losing
her temper.
" Why, Juliette, how can you have such ex-
cessive, scandalous, dreadful, criminal audacity as
to dare to imply that you have ever heard a single
quarrel or witnessed a single dispute in your
family either at Chauny or Blerancourt? In truth,
you baby, your health is only skin deep; you
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are still suffering. Go to bed, my child, go to
bed."
You should have heard grandfather say all this
in his shrill, lisping voice. He was perfectly se-
rious and solemn, and irresistibly funny.
" I was wrong, I was wrong, a hundred times
wrong, Sir Grandfather," I answered, " I humbly
beg pardon, I repeat. I collapse ! "
I imitated grandfather's tone so perfectly that
even my mother smiled.
When my parents had left, grandmother instead
of questioning me as I had expected, said kindly:
" Go and rest, darling, Arthemise will put you
to bed, while we have our game of Imperiale. To-
morrow, and the following days, you shall tell us
all you have said, all you have done and seen."
And so it was, for days and days I talked of
nothing but Chivres. Grandmother was quite
surprised that I should have so enjoyed myself
in a place where she would have been bored to
death.
During the last remaining month of my holidays
I was much oftener in our large garden than in
the drawing-room reading stories with grand-
mother.
A gardener was in the habit of coming three
times a week, and, guided by Arthemise, he ar-
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
ranged the garden as he pleased. It was I now
who looked after all the crops, and from that time
he obeyed my orders. I had some autumn sowing
done, and I began to read books telling about the
culture of vegetables and the raising of fruit.
The garden was admirably stocked with both. I
chose one of the empty rooms for a fruit-store and
had some shelves put up by the carpenter. Grand-
mother took no interest in these things; so she let
me do as I chose with the gardener and Arthemise.
During the whole of that winter we had ripe fruit
on the table every day, and my grandparents were
much pleased.
I suffered greatly in not having a room to myself
and being obliged to share grandmother's. I tried
to keep it neat and clean, but grandmother upset
it as soon as it was tidy. She cared nothing for
the elegance of the frame, although she was so par-
ticular about the portrait, that is, herself.
When I was kept indoors by rain or bad weather,
I tried to put a little order into the arrange-
ment of the house. I ransacked certain drawers and
cupboards, and left them more orderly than they
had ever been before. To the rag-bag with all the
rubbish ! to the poor all that we could no longer use !
Neither grandfather nor grandmother made any
objections, for they were convinced that my ac-
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tive life at Chivres had benefited me much, and
that, provided I could create for myself a field
of physical activity, they could all the better,
and with scarcely any danger, set my head to
work.
My grandparents' house underwent a complete
change in a fortnight. Fresh air, which was never
allowed to enter the hermetically closed rooms, now
blew in abundantly, and even broke a few windows.
Arthemise and I scrubbed and rubbed and beat
from top to bottom. I discovered in the garret
some old vases and china, rather soiled by our dear
pigeons, which I filled with prettily arranged
flowers, and placed about the rooms.
Grandmother at last took some interest in the
beautifying of our house. She would sometimes
help us not to clean, for that would have spoiled
her beautiful hands, but to arrange.
She opened a cupboard for me on the first floor,
and we found it full of beautiful gowns of dead
grandmothers. Out of these I made table and
bureau covers, to which grandmother added em-
broidery.
Grandfather enjoyed this luxury. The house
seemed much more attractive to him. I owed it
to his influence that grandmother allowed me to
have a room to myself on the first floor, next to
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Arthemise. A communicating door was made
between the two rooms.
I selected from the garret, which was full
of furniture, the pieces that I liked. I stole from
grandfather a pretty Louis XV. chiffonier, in
which I had always kept my dolls and their clothes.
So far as I was able, I copied the arrangement of
aunt Sophie's room.
I discovered a large table on which I set out
my school books and papers, and many times
grandmother left her beloved drawing-room and
brought her embroidery to my room while she gave
me my lesson.
I would sometimes send her away, saying,
" Grandmother, I want to collect my thoughts."
This made her smile and she would sometimes
tease me by staying; at other times she would go,
saying to herself that, after all, for a child to
think, even of nothing as it were, was still thinking,
and that in my father's mind and her own, their
chief desire, as they had said when I was away, was
to create in me an individuality, even supposing
that individuality might be contrary to their own
ideals.
These desires of thinking out my thoughts
seldom occurred, however, and I was at that time
so active and full of play that grandmother was
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not at all distressed at my occasional love of
solitude.
My dreams were explained later on when I be-
gan to write poetry.
Thus my dual character was formed. I have
always remained very full of life when with other
people ; yet at times I am eager for solitude.
[173]
XVII
I BEGIN TO MANAGE MY FAMILY
ENDEAVOURED most seriously to put into
practice what I had once told my grand-
father, who had laughed at me, namely: to make
my grandfather's ideas concerning me agree with
my grandmother's. I fancied myself born to con-
ciliate. I talked of grandmother to my father,
and still oftener of my father to grandmother,
having more opportunities for so doing. I sought
in every way to make them more indulgent and
loving towards one another, and I perceived how
a word said at the proper time, and thrown into
ground already prepared, could bring forth a
good harvest.
I determinedly stood between them in their quar-
rels. I forbade any " talking at " each other and
greeted such speeches with blame and derision. I
forced any misunderstanding between my beloved
grandparents to be explained away instantly, and
I would not allow ill-humour. I proved on the
spot what had caused either the misunderstanding
or the rancour. I pleaded a double cause and
won it.
" You surely could not mean that, grandmother?
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I BEGIN TO MANAGE MY FAMILY
You have not understood, grandfather. It is very
wrong of you to imagine such an unkind meaning !
Say you are wrong. You know very well that
1 With these few sentences, interroga-
tive or affirmative, which I repeated one after
the other, very quickly, and also through tender-
ness and entreaties, I managed to smooth over the
quarrels, and by this means we all three kept sad-
ness at bay for a few days.
Whenever I had cleared away all the black
clouds, I fancied the sky would always remain
serene.
You can imagine how important I felt myself,
and how I persevered in my peace-makings. My
reflections were certainly absurdly profound in
the circumstances, but they taught me to study
my grandparents' characters with kindness, and
by that means to turn my arguments to good ac-
count. I noted certain words spoken when one or
the other was absent, and I noticed that whenever
I could add to my wish of convincing them fa-
vourably : " She or he told me so the other day,"
my triumph was complete. At times and according
to circumstances, I ventured some slight embel-
lishments, but I do not think any one could blame
me, when the feeling which dictated my little ex-
aggerations was so praiseworthy.
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
I learned that no matter how young we may be,
we can be kind and useful to those we love. I
was born with such a cheerful disposition, I was
so naturally happy, that I might easily have be-
come selfish, had I not, from my childhood, thought
a great deal about the happiness and peace of those
belonging to me, and especially because of their
tendency to make themselves miserable, and to dis-
turb their lives by scenes of violence. I formed
in my heart an intense desire to care always for
the peace and welfare of others.
At nine years of age my character was formed,
and I have since then perceived no essential change
in my intercourse with others. My first interest
in life was centred in my relatives, later, in the
people of mark with whom I lived; and I have
developed my own personality only so far as it
could serve my ardent wish to love, to admire, and
to devote myself to others, or to be useful to any
cause I espouse and uphold, so long as I deemed it
worthy to be fought for and upheld.
My real vocation, in fact, would have been that
of an apostle preaching the " good word " and
reconciling men among themselves. I was much
more ardent in play hours than in study, because
I was busy amusing my schoolmates or settling
their quarrels. I hated anything clannish, and I
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I BEGIN TO MANAGE MY FAMILY
especially sought after those girls who stood apart
from my group. I led in everything, but I was
never captain. When it so happened that there
were two camps, I called myself the chief staff
officer of the two commanders, and I rode from
one to the other giving advice to each.
I was much fonder of being guide than captain,
and it was usually owing to me that there were
never any defeats, and that neither side got the
better of the other. What unmixed joy I used to
feel when, after some particular play hours in
which I had given myself a great deal of trouble,
I was surrounded by a group of little girls say-
ing to me : " What fun you have made for us ! "
On rainy days we were obliged to content our-
selves in a barn, in which no running about was
possible, so I amused my young companions by
talking politics to them. I demanded absolute
sworn secrecfy concerning the things I was going
to tell them, and of which they had never heard
in their own families. Their ears were wide open
to hear my stories about King Louis Philippe.
These were the stories my father never lost an op-
portunity of relating to grandmother in order to
make her angry.
At the time of which I speak so very few news-
papers found their way into the country, that
13 [177 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
politics and the government were topics rarely dis-
cussed at table by grown people, so I acted as
a newspaper, and informed my little friends of
what was going on in the world.
My father, whenever he saw me, gave me cut-
tings from the Democratic Pacifique, and kept me
so well posted that events often justified my
speeches, and I was asked for " the news."
We all made up our minds that when we were
grown up, we should have a hand in government,
and would state our opinions frankly, and that
our future husbands should be obliged to be inter-
ested in politics.
I read every book I could lay my hands on,
and among them I found a volume on the Fronde
which delighted me, because the women of those
days played leading parts. I told my " dis-
ciples " about the book, and, to my delight, they
soon came around to all my ideas. I easily per-
suaded them that we were all " Frondeuses."
How proud we felt at having ideas of our own,
and to belong to a " secret society," for we bound
ourselves not to reveal to anyone the opinions we
shared. And then, who knew? Things were
going so badly that perhaps one day France might
have need of our devotion and our capacities, and
we loved France. We fancied ourselves to be " the
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I BEGIN TO MANAGE MY FAMILY
staves of this dais which covered the sacred
reliquary of our country." One of the girls dis-
covered this metaphor and was much applauded.
These childish things, at which one can but
smile, made us very patriotic little persons, how-
ever ready, as we thought, at least, to give our
lives for France. We no longer learned history in
our former way. Everything in it interested us.
We spoke of our France, at such and such an
epoch, and we discussed at length the conse-
quences of a reign, a fact, a victory or a defeat.
If a professor had heard us, he would certainly
have found in our conversations often very silly,
to be sure elements of emulation to make young
pupils love studies which usually bore them mor-
tally.
However, after a time we grew tired of the
Fronde; we should be obliged to find something
new. I promised to do so. The Easter vacations
were at hand, and I was to pass them at Bleran-
court.
When I arrived there, it so happened that one
of my father's friends, a Fourierite, came to visit
him. I had heard of Fourier, of whom I knew
but little, while I had for a long time been familiar
with Victor Considerant and the Democratie
Pacifique.
[179]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
My father's friend explained to him a complete
plan for a phalanstery, wishing to interest him
in it, and I remembered what was necessary for my
purpose, in order to make use of this new idea with
my schoolmates during our future recreations, for
we were always eager for new things.
After the departure of the Fourierite my father
explained to me all that I wished to learn, and I
soon understood what a phalanstery was. But my
father said, and I agreed with him, that, being only
nine and a half years old, I was still incapable of
understanding the depth of Fourier's theories, his
social criticisms, and the elements of reform.
But he talked to me of Toussenel, and delighted
me with stories taken from his L' Esprit des Betes,
a book that had just appeared, and about which
my father was enthusiastic. We had long conver-
sations about my pigeons, whose habits I had stud-
ied a little, but I knew nothing of their intelligence
and feelings. Ah! what interesting things my
father, through Toussenel, revealed to me concern-
ing bees and ants. In our walks, when we came
upon an anthill, we would lie down flat, and I saw
and learned many things about the tiny workers,
those that laid eggs and the warriors. What my
father objected to was that there should be a queen
among the bees and the ants.
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I BEGIN TO MANAGE MY FAMILY
" You can't get over it, papa," I said, " and
though you may talk for ages on ages, you cannot
change the government of bees and ants."
All these histories of animals were like fairy-
tales, and I took the greatest pleasure in them, say-
ing : " Tell me more, more ! "
However, my father found in the study of these
creatures, despite their royalism, proofs of the
beauty of his own doctrines. Making everything
revert to his desire to induce me to love nature and
detest bourgeoise society, he tried to persuade me
that the associations, the community of work and of
fortune, as practised by the bees and the ants,
would be the means of adding more generous per-
fection to human lives than mere selfish individual-
ism.
" Besides," he said, " at this epoch the chain
which has enclosed man in a middle-class position
during a century is expanding, and will soon
break."
My father was fond of their rather cabalistic
formula. I used it on all occasions, and I also
thought I heard the breaking of the chain of
" middle-class positions," and was glad.
When I returned to Chauny I spoke to grand-
mother of Fourier, of the phalanstery, and of
U Esprit des Betes, of the royalism of the ants and
[181]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
the bees, which was in sympathy with her ideas, but
at the idea of the communism of work and of fort-
une, which we approved, she laughed merrily.
" Your father needed only that, poor fellow, to
complete him! To receive inspiration from in-
sects, to take lessons in social organisation from
animals it is really enough to make sensible peo-
ple laugh," said grandmother. And she related
to my grandfather and to my friend Charles, with
her mischievous wit, the news of Jean-Louis Lam-
bert's new social theories, developing them and put-
ting them into action in such a droll manner that,
in spite of the effort I made to defend these
theories, I could not help bursting out laughing
with the others.
" You see, my darling," said grandmother to me
one day, " I like ' middle-class positions,' and find it
very pleasant to occupy one, and do not wish at
all that they should be broken, for I myself hold
such a position. The best trick I could play your
father would be to give him a ' middle-class posi-
tion ' as householder. The house in which he lives,
and which he likes very much, belongs to me, and
I'll wager he would care for it a great deal more
if I should give it to him. We should see, then, if
he would ask his gardener to come and share it
with him! I will make my son-in-law a house-
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I BEGIN TO MANAGE MY FAMILY
holder before a week, and we shall soon know if
through him I have tightened by a link in his
chain the man of ' middle-class position,' the
bourgeois."
My grandmother did as she said, and my father
declared that he was delighted with his mother-in-
law's gracious gift, but he did not change his ideas
an iota on account of it.
My father, although a householder, proclaimed
himself, as usual, and with even more authority, a
Proudhonian. I knew who Proudhon was, be-
cause all French persons, even the youngest, had
heard of his famous saying : " Property is theft."
My father said he shared Proudhon's opinions
concerning the principle of the rights of man and
of government. The pamphlet addressed by Proud-
hon to Blanqui, Qu'est que la propriete, never left
my father's work-table. I had read it over, on the
sly, without much understanding, but I pretended
to have comprehended it, and I spoke of it, not in
approval, but to say that, after all, there was some
truth in it.
How my father decided between the conflicting
ideas of Proudhon and Considerant the latter
having defended the right to possess property I
do not know.
There were great discussions in my family on all
[183]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
the questions raised apropos of the association of
insects, and of their life in common ; but my father,
full of gratitude for my grandmother's generous
gift, would have found it difficult to speak of
bourgeoise selfishness, therefore he let us joke
about his " theories of animal socialism and his in-
sects' minds," as grandmother said.
But my grandfather abhorred revolutionary
ideas to such a degree that he scarcely tolerated the
mention of Proudhon, even in a joking way.
" Revolutionary speeches are pure gangrene,"
he said. " They propagate themselves in the
social body and oblige us some fine day to cut
off a member of it. Who will give me back my
Emperor to silence all these agitating reformers?
Oh! yes, to silence them, for they say even more
than they do."
" My dear father-in-law," my father answered,
" one is often obliged to say much more than he
can do, for action follows words slowly. The ele-
ments of resistance to progress are always powerful
enough to hold it back, at least half way. It is
like the two hundred thousand heads Marat asked
for, adding : ' They will always diminish the num-
ber enough.' '
One simultaneous cry escaped us all :
"Oh! the horrible man!"
[184]
XVIII
I REVISIT CHIVRES
| HE phalanstery and L 'Esprit des Betes had
a great success at my school, and it may be
imagined what were our attempts at social reform ;
but our love of animals increased, and sometimes
the observations of many of my schoolmates about
them were interesting.
The summer came, and with it my return to
Chivres for the months of July and August.
To say what was Marguerite's delight at seeing
me again, and Roussot's (whom they had made
remember me by singing to him a daily song like
mine), to tell of the welcome of Marguerite's old
mother, and that of the village children, who had
grown a year's size taller, would be impossible.
Grandfather left me this time without sadness,
being sure of the warm welcome I should receive.
The journey seemed much shorter this time. I
was delighted to find my dear aunts again, and
they were most happy at seeing me once more.
They said I looked like a young lady now, which
flattered me extremely.
But they were far from congratulating me on
my ideas of reform according to those comprised
[185]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
in L' Esprit des Betes, or on my interest in the
Fronde, which they thought must have prevented
my studying seriously; neither did they approve
of my father's formula concerning " middle-class
positions which were about to break."
There were explosions of indignation against
my father, who would injure my mind with such
insanities, they declared.
My aunt Constance made fun of me in such a
droll way she much resembled my grandmother
in wit that I lowered my arms before her. The
bees, the ants, U Esprit des Betes, often men-
tioned in our conversations, gave my merry great-
aunt such opportunities for comical criticisms, in
which my father's ideas, upheld by me, were so
ruthlessly pulled to pieces, that I gave them up.
As to my aunt Sophie, whom I took aside and
endeavoured to convince of the necessity of re-
forms, she made me the same answer, variously
expressed.
" I do not belong to this age ; I find it prepos-
terous," she said. " Everything that is happen-
ing comes from this cause: that people now think
only of rushing to cities, where they develop pov-
erty. Believe me, my dear little niece, happiness,
peace, and true riches are found only in the coun-
try."
[186]
I REVISIT CHIVRES
My revolutionary ideas were put away with my
city clothes, and declared good only for Chauny.
Even Marguerite said to me one day:
" Your ideas, Mam'zelle Juliette, turn poor peo-
ple's heads. They talk about them in villages.
Workmen declare that their friend, Monsieur
Proudhon, says that the bourgeoise have stolen
property from the nobility, and that poor people
should now steal it from the bourgeoise. It is piti-
ful to hear such things ; those who have to work
should work and believe that it is only God who
can give them an income in Heaven."
I knew my two hundred and fifty Latin words
well. I had determined to understand and re-
member aunt Sophie's lessons, and thought in
consequence that I should soon be able to read
Latin, which was my dear teacher's desire. I was
very enthusiastic about it and made real progress.
During our work in the fields, which began
monotonously again and took much time, aunt
Sophie would tell me the Latin names of every-
thing about us.
When I found an analogy between the Picardy
patois which I had acquired the habit of speak-
ing with my maid Arthemise and Latin, it
pleased me so much, that aunt Sophie asked one of
our relatives, a Raincourt of Saint Quentin, to
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
send her an almanac in the Picardy tongue, called
The Plowman. She then devoted herself to a veri-
table monk's work in adding to my stock all the
Latin words to be found in Picardy patois. The
Plowman, in speaking of work in the fields,
enabled me to step over a new frontier in my com-
prehension of the bucolics.
My aunt Sophie's marvellous aptitude for
teaching made her derive profit from everything,
and one could really say of her that she taught by
amusing.
There was only one new thing in our order of
life: My aunt Constance, who suffered from
anaemia, had need of cold douches, and the doctor
ordered her to go and take them by the side of the
mill-wheel. Cold baths were excellent for me, and
I took one every day in the pretty wash-house of
the close, so my aunt Constance took me with her
every afternoon. She was as gay and as much of
a child as I, and we would amuse ourselves so much
that we laughed till we cried. The bathing hour
at the mill became a regular frolic, and aunt An-
astasie, seduced by my descriptions of it, came
with us once or twice and finally always accom-
panied us. Soon the miller's wife joined our
party, and then Marguerite. Aunt Sophie alone
resisted. She had not left the house or the close
[188]
I REVISIT CHIVRES
for twenty years. Great-grandmother moved with
difficulty from her arm-chair, so there was no hope
of bringing her, and, besides, one of her daughters
was always obliged to stay with her.
Roussot, therefore, alone remained to be asked
to join us, and I invited him one day after break-
fast, when he had his daily bread, by a well-turned
speech intermingled with songs.
While we were laughing, Roussot answered, if
not my speech at least my song, and we concluded
he had accepted the invitation.
That afternoon Marguerite led him by the
bridle into the little river. I was mounted on him
and was going to take my plunge from his back;
but the bath made him so merry that he threw me
off disrespectfully into the water. He even dared
to kick about and splashed us all over so much
that we could not see clearly enough to drive him
out of the water.
We laughed more that day than on any other,
but we did not propose, however, to try again the
experience of a bath in company with Roussot the
next day, for he was really too free and easy in his
manners.
The two months spent with my aunts seemed like
two weeks. I had never until then fully realised
how rapidly time can pass.
[189]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
But my annual visit to Chivres was so dear to
me, it had become such a joy in my life, that I
should have thought myself wrong to have sor-
rowed over its short duration.
[190]
XIX
I BEGIN MY LITERARY WORK
DO not know whether it was from my aunt
Sophie's influence, or my contact with nature,
living amid it, or whether it was the slow, clever
training of my mind by my father, that made my
brain swarm with poetical, mythological, and
classical images. I dreamed in turn of Homer
and of Virgil, whom I called his great-nephew,
in order to give him the same degree of relation-
ship to Homer as that which I possessed towards
aunt Sophie.
In September and October of that year, after I
had returned to Chauny, I thought I had become a
poet. I wrote rhymes about everything I saw:
the sun, the moon, the heavens, birds, flowers, fruit,
and even about the vegetables in my large garden
at Chauny, in which I lived all day during the last
months of my vacation.
I confided with trembling my first " poem " to
grandmother, and she criticised it with deep emo-
tion. I criticised it myself later with extreme
humiliation and contrition. I was already a well-
instructed girl, and I might have done far better,
but my grandparents found this poetry so beauti-
[191]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
ful that they read and re-read it to all comers, and
grandfather took it with him to his club.
The idea of writing some day most certainly
came to me at this time, for I did not cease to
cover paper with verses and prose from that day.
I said to myself what was a curious thing for a
girl of my age to think: that one must feel deep
emotion in order to write and to move others, and
I sought all manner of pretexts to arouse my
emotions.
There was at the end of our large garden, at the
foot of a very high wall, a plot of currant-bushes,
too much in the shade to yield much fruit ; so they
were allowed to grow at will, mixed with raspberry
bushes and brambles.
I had a circular place made for me in this un-
derwood. I carried some garden chairs and a
table to it, and I called this corner " my temple of
verdure." No one but myself was allowed to en-
joy it. I lived there, during my vacations, from
breakfast to dinner time, dreaming, when the
weather permitted, and, above all, telling myself
stories in which I took extreme delight.
I put so much emotion into my voice that it
made my heart ache. I would often cry bitterly
over the unhappiness, the sufferings, the vicissi-
tudes of the misery I invented.
[192]
I BEGIN MY LITERARY WORK
I can hear myself even to-day, and see myself
sitting amongst my brambles, with the shadow of
the high wall falling upon me, and beginning my
story in this wise:
" There was once upon a time a poor little boy,"
or little girl, or a poor animal, chosen from
among those I loved the best, whom I made most
unhappy on account of this or that, and my sor-
row for them always increased, for I had no
pity, either for my own feelings or for those of
my heroes. Their sufferings became so poignant
that I sobbed. How many victims I invented !
The distant noise of the garden gate, announcing
Arthemise coming to call me to dinner, alone de-
cided me to make my victims happy, especially if
they had been obliged to suffer privations. I
could not have gone to the table and carried with
me the anguish of letting them die of hunger !
After some days of this sorrowful exercise, I
selected the story which seemed to me the most
touching and dramatic; I put it into rhyme or
wrote it in prose on a large sheet of paper in my
best handwriting to read to grandmother.
On Sundays, as soon as vespers were over, I shut
myself up in my room and composed a review of
the week's events. This composition was a bar-
gain between my grandparents and myself. They
14 [ 193 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
gave me a cake made of puff -paste called frangi-
pane, which I loved, and which grandfather went
to get himself at the confectioner's at dinner-
time, so as to have it hot, and cooked to the right
degree. I regaled my dear " ancestors " this
was the new name I bestowed upon them with my
writings, and they regaled me with frangipane,
cut into three parts.
Ah ! if I had never had other hearers and read-
ers save my grandparents, how much criticism
would have been spared me, and how much en-
thusiastic success I would have had! No public,
no admirers were ever so convinced as they that
they were listening to chefs d'ceuvres.
My friend Charles, the professor, often invited
to our table on Sundays, was obliged to proffer
his share of praise. He did so most willingly, for
his affection for me blinded him. How many
times did I hear him say :
" There is something of worth in what that child
writes ; she will make her mark."
My grandmother drank in my praise as if it
were the nectar of the gods.
Was my friend Charles half sincere? I be-
lieved so, but another person, a newcomer, who
soon took possession of all our hearts, was surely
and entirely so.
[194]
I BEGIN MY LITERARY WORK
His name was Monsieur Blondeau. He was a
State Recorder, and had taken an apartment on
the ground floor of our house, on the opposite side
of the hall from us, which looked out on our blos-
soming courtyard and the street at once. His
apartment comprised an office, a drawing-room,
bedroom, and kitchen, and on the first story a room
for his old servant, who served him as maid-of-all-
work.
Blondeau I never called him Monsieur from
the first week after his arrival was an old bach-
elor, very ugly, his face all seamed and scarred,
because when he was a child this same old servant
had let him fall out of a high window on a heap of
stones; but his kindness, his constant desire to de-
vote himself to others and to be useful to them, to
love them, and to make himself beloved, made him
adorable.
I soon gave him the title of friend, and, as he
was tired of table d'hote life, and, as his old ser-
vant, whom he had brought with him from Lons-
le-Saulnier, was capable only of cooking his break-
fast passably well, I obtained grandmother's per-
mission to have him dine with us every evening,
knowing it was his dream and ambition. He was
another one fanatically devoted to me rather let
me say, one of my slaves.
[195]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Although he had much work to do, having no
clerk, I enlisted him to aid me in doing my arith-
metic exercises and in copying out my week's com-
positions. He read admirably, far better than
grandmother, and he became my habitual reader.
It would not have been strange had I been per-
suaded by all these flattering opinions that my
talents, which Blondeau said " grew as fast as
grass," surpassed those of all known prodigies.
Even my father, who was a lettered man, and
whose good taste should have enlightened him con-
cerning his daughter's lucubrations, considered
my writings marvellous.
But my mother, with her usual lack of indul-
gence, rendered me the service of sobering me re-
garding all this praise. She put things in their
proper place, even exaggerating them in a con-
trary sense. She declared that what I wrote was
inept, and that they would make me a mediocre
person by fostering in me a phenomenal pride.
I alone was not vexed with her. She helped me
to criticise myself, although sometimes I thought
her criticisms as excessive as the admiration of my
flatterers was exaggerated.
Having a sufficient company at home on Sun-
days, my friend Charles included, I determined to
put my weekly reviews into dialogues. Each one
[196]
I BEGIN MY LITERARY WORK
of us read his personal pages in turn, or we replied
to one another
When I think of all I made my grandparents
and Blondeau read and say, I am abashed. More-
over, everyone kept the name I had given him, and
the character of the role assigned to him, through-
out the evening. They allowed themselves to be
questioned by me, and answered " attentively," as
my friend Charles said. Had they at least
been amused with this child's play, it would
have been tolerable, but on the contrary, they were
obliged to rediscuss the weekly discussions, the
wherefores of the most subtle questions I had laid
before myself, which must often have been rare
nonsense and silliness.
My heart is full of gratitude and tenderness for
my four sufferers, and, as these recollections bring
them before me, perhaps I love them to-day even
more than I did at that time.
[197]
XX
LOUIS NAPOLEON'S FLIGHT FROM PRISON
|Y godmother Camille, of whom I was very
fond, and whom I used to visit every Thurs-
day at the glass manufactory at Saint-Gobain
not to amuse myself, but to talk with her, for she
conversed with me on serious subjects had left
Chauny two years previously, but she came every
two or three months to pass a week with us. She
lived at Ham, where my godfather was the mana-
ger of a sugar-refinery. She was very intimate
with Prince Louis Napoleon, and my grandfather
joked with her frequently about the honour of
having inspired a Napoleon and, he doubted not,
a future Emperor with " a sentiment " for her,
and he went, moreover, himself to assure the Pre-
tender about his hope of seeing him an Emperor
some day.
It annoyed my grandfather to hear that this
Bonaparte was called a socialist. But he declared
that it could not be it was a calumny.
My godmother repeated to my grandfather
something that the " Prince " had said to her be-
fore he wrote it, and which she thought admirable :
[198]
LOUIS NAPOLEON'S FLIGHT
" With the name I bear, I must have either the
gloom of a prison-cell, or the light of power."
" We shall have him one day for Emperor," said
my grandfather. It was from his lips that I
heard for the first time : " We shall have Napo-
leon," which was so often repeated later.
" But the Republic is his ideal," said my god-
mother, who knew by heart everything that Louis
Napoleon wrote. " He does not know whether
France is ' republican or not, but he will aid the
people, if he is called to power, to find a govern-
mental form embodying the principles of the
Revolution.' Those are his exact words," said my
godmother. She added : " He formulates his am-
bition thus:
" ' I wish to group around my name the parti-
sans of the People's Sovereignty.' '
" You are crazy about your Prince, Camille,"
answered my grandmother, " and you see him with
the prestige of all you feel for his misfortunes as
a prisoner, coupled with the greatness of his name.
But was there ever a more ridiculous pretender?
Remember his rash attempt at Boulogne, with his
three-cornered hat, the sword of Austerlitz, and
the tamed eagle. He is grotesque."
If my father came while Camille was with us he
was much amused at my grandfather's exaspera-
[199]
tion when he and Camille would declare that Louis
Napoleon was more of a socialist than themselves,
for had he not written :
" What I wish is to give to thirty-five millions of
Frenchmen the education, the moral training, the
competency which, until now, has been the ap-
panage only of the minority."
" The proof that he is a socialist," added my
father, " is that one of our party, Elie Sorin,
swears by him; he is always saying to me:
' Louis Napoleon is not a Pretender in our eyes,
but a member of our party, a soldier under our
flag. The Napoleon of to-day, a captive, per-
sonifies the grief of the people, in irons like
himself.' "
Sometimes my grandfather, after having been
angry, laughed at this kind of talk.
" He is a sly fellow," he replied. " He is mak-
ing fools of you all. A Bonaparte is made to be
an Emperor, you will see, and we shall have Na-
poleon ! "
My godmother adored my grandmother, and she
should have been her daughter instead of my
mother. They wrote to each other every week and
sympathised on all subjects. My grandmother,
apropos of Camille, put on mysterious airs even in
my presence. They were constantly whispering
[200]
LOUIS NAPOLEON'S FLIGHT
secrets together, especially since my godmother
lived at Ham.
One day I unintentionally surprised them with a
boot placed on grandmother's work-table, at which
they were gazing with tender eyes. They looked
so droll contemplating this boot that I could not
help asking to what fairy prince this precious thing
had belonged?
My godmother answered:
" To Prince Louis."
" Did you steal it from him, godmother, to keep
as a relic? "
" He gave it to me."
"His boot?"
" Yes."
" For what? "
" For a bouquet-holder."
I burst out laughing.
" But look, dear scoffer, how small it is. Can
you not understand that he is vain of it? "
" Ah ! no, to send a bouquet in his boot is not
good manners. Has he worn it, or is it new? "
" He has worn it, of course. If he had not, it
would be a boot like any other boot. But he has
worn it, Juliette, he has worn it ! "
And my godmother reassumed the admiring air
she had worn when I entered the drawing-room.
[201]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" Really, godmother, I must tell you that you
seem to me to be a little crazy ! "
One day our Camille arrived suddenly from Ham
in a state of extraordinary agitation.
She threw herself on grandmother's neck,
where she remained a long while, sobbing. She
whispered in her friend's ear, who uttered many
exclamations, many " Ohs ! " and " Ahs ! " inter-
mingled with : " Camille, how happy you must
be ! " alternating with " Camille, how unhappy
you are ! "
Blondeau and I were present at this scene, of
which, of course, we understood absolutely nothing.
My grandfather arrived. There were the same
whisperings in his ear, the same exclamations, the
same embraces, and again : " Camille, how happy
you must be ! Camille, how unhappy you are ! "
" May the Supreme Being be blessed ! " suddenly
exclaimed my grandfather, in a solemn tone, for
he never invoked the Supreme Being except on
stormy days, when the thunder recalled the noise
of cannon.
Something phenomenal was certainly happen-
ing. Not being curious, I had great respect for
secrets, especially as my family kept few from me.
I did not try to discover this secret, therefore, but
I could not help thinking that some important
[202]
LOUIS NAPOLEON'S FLIGHT
person had been saved after great peril, and,
strangely, that my godmother was at once happy
and unhappy about it.
After dinner I said to Blondeau :
" Does this mystery interest you ? Are you try-
ing to understand something about it? "
" I understand it perfectly," he replied.
"What is it?"
" Parbleu! it is that the Prince, who is cracked
about your crazy godmother " (Blondeau was an
Orleanist, of my grandfather's way of thinking),
" has escaped from prison. I think she has helped
him in his flight, and that, as she adores him and
is now separated from him, she must feel, as your
grandparents say, at once very happy and very
unhappy ; that is all the mystery."
The next morning at breakfast they foolishly
continued to keep up their mysterious airs before
me; so I said to my godmother, Blondeau not be-
ing present :
" Why do you try to hide what every one knows,
that Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte has es-
caped from his prison at Ham ? "
" How can it be known already ? When was it
discovered? " exclaimed my godmother. " He had
just escaped when I left yesterday afternoon, and
they could not have known it before evening."
[203]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" Tell me the beginning of the story, god-
mother," said I, " since I know the end."
She hesitated.
My grandmother, happy at having a chance to
relate an adventure, asked Camille if she would
allow her to tell it to me.
Godmother made a sign of assent.
" Well, imagine that Prince Louis pretended to
be ill, and to have need of taking a purge, and
shut himself up in his room."
" Oh ! grandmother, that is not poetical," I in-
terrupted.
" Be quiet ! you must think of the end pursued
and achieved. Well, then, as some workmen for
several days had been going in and coming out of
the citadel making repairs, he cut his beard and
disguised himself as a carpenter, and passed out
before the guard with a plank of wood on his
shoulder."
" Grandmother, don't you think it rather com-
monplace for a prince to disguise himself as a car-
penter? "
" I think it very clever of him to have got the
better of his jailers, in spite of all their surveil-
lance. Doctor Conneau, who had been set free
several months previously, arranged and prepared
it all, aided by Camille. Yesterday he drove out
[204]
LOUIS NAPOLEON'S FLIGHT
of the town in a tilbury with your godmother, who
got out and hid herself at a certain point, and
gave her place to the prince, who had doffed his
workman's clothes; and with well-prepared relays,
Doctor Conneau and the Prince reached the
frontier. Meanwhile your godmother came to us
in a carriage she had hired at a village, after hav-
ing walked a long way."
Was the Prince saved ? No one knew as yet, since
no one except Blondeau, who knew nothing about
it, had spoken of it. However, at dinner, Blon-
deau absolved me of my untruth, by announcing
that he had heard that morning of the Prince's
successful escape.
" All the same," he added, as I had previously
said, " to disguise one's self as a carpenter is not
irreproachable good form."
" A Napoleon elevates every one of his acts. A
Bonaparte could not remain the prisoner of an
Orleans," replied my grandfather. " He has es-
caped. That is everything."
" The romantic part of it," added my grand-
mother, " lies in the fact that he has escaped from
his jailers, that his prison doors, so strongly barred,
have been opened by a stratagem that no one fore-
saw nor discovered. It is those who imprisoned
him I regret to say it who have been tricked
[205]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
and made ridiculous. I love King Louis Philippe,
as Caraille knows, more than this Bonaparte, who
seems to me in his character of pretender a plotter
and an intriguer. But as a man, from all Camille
has told me of him, I confess he is charming; and
as he was her friend, I think she did right in aiding
him in his flight. If I had been in her place I
would not have hesitated either."
My godmother remained with us for a fortnight,
but was not consoled for the absence of her Prince,
for I saw her weeping more than once.
[206]
XXI
MY FIRST GREAT SORROW
lOTHING in particular happened to occupy
or disturb my life until the winter of 1847.
Things repeated themselves monotonously. The
collisions between my relatives were multiplied, the
divergence between their reciprocal opinions be-
came more and more intensified. My grand-
mother became somewhat embittered, and occasion-
ally blamed her dear King Louis Philippe; my
grandfather declared himself more certain of the
future triumph of his Prince Louis Napoleon Bona-
parte. He was a member of several Bonapartist
committees. My father thought he was nearer
to his democratic-socialist republic; my aunts
mourned more and more over the imbecility of the
people in believing in those who deceived them;
over political immorality, and the madness of all
parties.
I had at that time one of the most violent, most
despairing revolts, and one of the most inconsolable
sorrows of my life.
The winter was particularly cold. My large
garden was filled with snow, but I had discovered
[207]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
that it still possessed beauty. My grandmother,
who felt the cold severely, did not move from her
room, which opened into the drawing-room, or from
the drawing-room itself. She kept up a large
wood fire in it, which she excelled in making.
Grandfather often said to her that she proved
the untruth of the proverb which said that " one
must be in love or be a philosopher to know how
to make a good fire." " Now, you are neither the
one nor the other," he added one day.
Grandmother replied:
" I am a philosopher because I bear with you,
and am not angry with you in spite of all you have
made me endure. I am no longer in love with
you, but is it not because my passion for my hus-
band was destroyed at a very early hour that I
remain in love with love, and that I console or dis-
tract myself in reading of the romantic happiness
or unhappiness of others ? "
Blondeau loved the snow as much as I. Well-
shod with Strasburg woollen socks and thick sabots,
we would go after breakfast to make enormous
heaps of snow in which we would dig galleries, or
else we would mould figures with it. The trees,
the plants, the borderings of box, the walled-fruit,
were prettier one than the other, under their snowy
garments.
[208]
MY FIRST GREAT SORROW
Along the high wall, overtopping the trees of
my temple of verdure, at the end of the garden,
whose branches were all powdered with brilliant
hoar-frost shining on a carpet looking like white
wool, huge stalactites hung, superb and glittering.
It was a fairy scene when at sunset these stalactites
would light up, shining under the last rays of the
sun, when drops like diamonds would hang on the
extreme end of their delicate points.
" Blondeau, my dear Blondeau, look at this,
look at that, how pretty, how beautiful, how splen-
did and brilliant it is ! " I would cry.
My admiration was inexhaustible as was Blon-
deau's pleasure at listening to me and seeing me
so delighted, so merrily happy.
But one day in this same snowy and fairy-like
garden, where everything was so dear and precious
to me, Blondeau seized me by the hand and began
to walk rapidly. Although I asked him what it
meant, he did not answer me.
" Let us walk around the garden," he replied to
all my questions.
" Walk around it, Blondeau ! We have already
done so four times, and you want to begin again.
Ah ! no, indeed ! you must tell me what is the mat-
ter with you."
He was so agitated I was afraid he had become
15 [ 209 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
mad, and I was worried more than can be imagined.
My heart stood still to see him like this and I could
neither breathe nor walk. I drew my hand sud-
denly from his, and, planting myself before him,
I said :
" Speak to me, Blondeau, for I think you are
crazy."
" I wish I were," he replied, despairingly, " so
as not to make you suffer the dreadful sorrow I am
going to cause you. Ah! your grandmother has
given me a nice errand to perform. I was too
stupid, truly, to take upon myself the duty of tell-
ing you such news. I wish I were a hundred feet
underground."
" Well, what is it, Blondeau ? You are killing
me!"
He seized my hand again and went around
the garden almost running, then he stopped sud-
denly, having at last found the courage to say
to me:
" Juliette, my darling child, you know that
Madame Dufey has sold her boarding-school to
the Demoiselles Andre, your mother's friends, who
knew them in the hamlet that was burned down in
the first days of your parents' marriage the ham-
let where your grandfather's uncle lived."
" Yes, I know, and those ladies are very nice. I
[210]
MY FIRST GREAT SORROW
have seen them. They told me they cherished a
very dear memory of my mother, and would be
happy to extend their faithful affection to her
daughter. I thought the phrase very pretty and
have remembered it. What sorrow do you think I
can feel from them ? "
Instructed by my grandmother, Blondeau had
certainly prepared a long speech, but, carried away
by haste after all his hesitations, he said to me in a
brutal way:
" Well, your grandmother has sold the garden
to the Demoiselles Andre to build a boarding-school
in it."
" What garden? "
" This one, ours, hers, yours ! "
" You are telling an untruth ! "
" Alas, I am not. Your grandmother did not
dare to tell you until the contract was signed ; she
knew that you would beg her not to do it, and
would prevent her; now the thing is irrevocable.
Everything was finished this morning."
" It is abominable. I wish to keep my trees, my
temple of verdure, my brambles. I don't want I
don't want them to be taken from me ! Blondeau,
buy back my garden, you have money. We will
make a house in it for our two selves ; you, at least,
cannot abandon me."
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
And I threw myself in his arms, weeping.
It seemed to me that all my trees raised their
branches heavenward, and that they wept with me
under the sunshine.
What! my vines, with their bunches of muscat
grapes, of which I was so fond ; what ! my immense
apricot tree, which I had had measured and which
was the largest one in Chauny, and which people
came to see, with its five yards of breadth and ten
yards of height; what! my box, which I had cut
myself into balls and borders; was all this to be
pulled up, cut, destroyed?
" Blondeau, why has grandmother caused me
this great grief, for which I shall never be con-
soled?"
" Because she could never find such a chance
again, and it is for your dot."
Then I burst forth.
" Oh ! yes, again for money that money which
makes the misery of my life. It is like the inheri-
tance for which mamma would have let me die!
Grandmother is going to kill me that I may have
a dot! "
This time it was I who provoked the " family
drama," and what a drama it was ! I showed my-
self on this occasion the passionate child of my
violent-tempered father. My anger and my hard-
[212]
MY FIRST GREAT SORROW
ness towards my grandmother made her suffer ter-
ribly.
I shut myself up in my room for more than a
fortnight. Arthemise brought me my meals. I
would open my door only to her. Neither Blon-
deau, grandfather, nor my friend Charles were
allowed to enter. My grandmother did not even
dare to come upstairs. I wrote her every day a
letter filled with cruel reproaches, to which she had
not the courage to reply.
Her great fear was that my father would ar-
rive and that I would wish to leave her forever.
However, to tranquillize her on that score, there
was a serious quarrel pending between herself and
my father at that time, the latter having wished to
borrow money from her to pay the debts of his
soldier-brother, who led a wild life ; and as she had
refused, they had not seen each other for two
months.
I thought of Blerancourt, where the garden was
small, to be sure, but was separated from other
gardens only by hedges, where I should have my
father, who I certainly loved as much as grand-
mother; but my mother's coldness, compared with
grandfather's exuberance and gaiety, frightened
me. And then at Blerancourt there was no Blon-
deau nor friend Charles. Besides, I knew very well
[213]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
that, although my mother was jealous of grand-
father's affection for me, she would blame me for
abandoning her, would say I was ungrateful, and,
moreover, I could not think of explaining to her
grandmother's reason for selling the garden and
her anxiety regarding my dot.
These reflections following one another in my
mind, at times made me indulgent toward grand-
mother, but, as soon as I thought of the destruc-
tion of my garden, I suffered so acutely that I
listened no longer to justice.
I thought also of asking my aunts to take me,
of writing to Marguerite to come with Roussot
some night, when I would give her rendezvous in
the little street des Juifs on which our garden
opened, so that she could steal me away ; but I had
the secret instinct that if my aunts were very
happy to have me two months in the year, at the
time when they lived out of doors, my turbulence,
my superabundance of gaiety, of life, my passion
for movement, would tire them during a whole year
through.
After all, there were only my grandparents,
Blondeau, my friend Charles, and Arthemise to love
and really understand me, and I added to myself
to put up with me.
I had missed going to school for two weeks.
[214]
MY FIRST GREAT SORROW
Grandmother said I was ill and it was believed,
because no one saw me about.
However, grandmother finally invoked the aid of
the dean, whom I liked very much, because he
wished me to make my first communion when I was
ten and a half years old, and not to wait another
year. He feared my father's influence over me,
which fact, of course, they did not tell me, so I
was very flattered to be the youngest and the most
remarked in the catechism class. I was as tall as
the tallest girls in it.
Grandmother told the dean the truth about my
passionate love of my garden, of my extreme de-
light in nature, and of her sudden resolve to sell
the garden on account of the exceptional price she
received, and for the benefit of my dot, etc., etc.
The dean came and knocked at my door, but I
did not open it, in spite of the touching appeal he
made to me. I heard grandmother sobbing out-
side. From that moment my heart was softened
and my rancour fled, but a bad feeling of pride
prevented me from calling them back. I repented,
however, and when Arthemise came to bring me
some ink for which I had asked, I opened my door
and found myself face to face with the dean.
The moment for an amiable solution had come,
but in order to save my dignity I pretended to let
[215]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
myself be overcome by the dean's arguments, and
to be influenced by his threats not to receive me
any longer at the catechism class and to delay
my first communion until the following year, in
1848.
" Come," he said to me, " and ask your grand-
mother's pardon."
" No, your reverence, do not exact that I should
ask pardon. I cannot do it. I am too unhappy
to think that my grandmother has sold my garden,
and that I have lost it forever. Besides, it is not
necessary. You will see that my grandmother will
be only too glad to kiss me."
Grandmother was waiting for me in the draw-
ing-room, knowing that the dean had gone into my
room and having learned from Arthemise that I
had listened to him and had yielded.
That night, at dinner, they had a festival in my
honour without saying anything to me about my
misbehaviour. It was not the time to scold me. I
was not at all consoled for the loss of my garden,
for my flowers and fruit, for all its greenery, or
even for its snow.
I did not see the first flowers blossom, I did not
gather them for grandmother's table, nor for the
little white vase in which I was wont to arrange
artistically the first Bengal roses.
[216]
MY FIRST GREAT SORROW
As soon as the fine weather came, and during all
that spring, the workmen were pulling down the
rampart behind the high garden-wall, and every-
thing fell in together. They cut a new street, on
which the large principal door of the school was
to open. The buildings were to be raised only
twenty yards from our courtyard; the green
wooden lattice was at once replaced by an ugly
wall.
All the noise of the demolition of the garden
broke my heart. During the night, the moaning
of the wind made me think that I heard the death-
sighs of my trees.
One Thursday afternoon, when I was playing
sadly in the courtyard, I heard a sharp cry, a
whistling, and a sort of tearing apart. Some-
thing was certainly being torn up and was resist-
ing and groaning with all its power. I felt it
must be the death-torture of my apricot tree.
Formerly, at this time of the year the sap would
rise to the smallest twigs on its branches, and
I could see its first buds. Now they were tor-
turing it.
This uprooting of my apricot tree revived all
my sorrow. Behind that odious wall its agony was
taking place.
I imagined that I could see devastation ending
[217]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
its cruel work. They were digging up the last
vestiges of the life of my trees their roots and
they were levelling the ground. I suffered from it
all so much that I was nearly ill.
[218]
XXII
MY FIRST RAILWAY JOURNEY
JHE reconciliation between my father and my
grandmother was brought about by a friend
of my uncle Amedee (an uncle whom none of us at
Chauny knew, because he never left Africa ) . This
friend had paid my uncle's debts in time to pre-
vent his being obliged to resign his commission as
an officer.
It was my grandfather's opinion that uncle
Amedee was much too fond of amusement, al-
though very brave and intelligent. In saying this,
however, he hastened to add :
" Campaign life impairs the most rigid private
virtue."
" As it impaired yours," said grandmother.
And Blondeau ended the conversation by saying :
" Peace be with those who are no more ! "
One day when we were not expecting him, my
father arrived, looking very happy, and said to
grandmother before me :
" Will you give me Juliette ? I wish to take her
on a long journey."
" From Chauny to Blerancourt? "
[219]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" No, no, much farther."
" Where, dear Jean-Louis ? "
" To Amiens, Abbeville, and Verton. I will
show her the sea, which I wish to behold myself, for
I have never seen it. And better still, we shall
travel to it on the railway."
" Ah, no ! Not in the railway coaches ! " cried
my grandmother. " I am afraid of those mon-
strosities, for they say that every day, every time
people get into them, there are accidents persons
killed and wounded. Juliette is not yet old enough
to guarantee herself from danger by making her
will. But how has this great plan come about? "
" You remember, dear mother, that young work-
man, Lienard, who was so wonderfully intelligent,
in whom I was so interested, and whom I had edu-
cated to be an engineer? "
" Yes, yes, and that was one of your good works.
To elevate a poor man from a low position, is meri-
torious and useful, in a different manner from that
of torturing one's mind to discover a way to ruin
the middle classes, and to make poverty universal."
"Do you hear that, Jean-Louis?" said my
father, laughing.
" Well," he continued, " Lienard has made his
way brilliantly. He is now the head of a division
of the Boulogne-sur-Mer railway. He has six
[220]
MY FIRST RAILWAY JOURNEY
hundred employes and workmen under him to-day,
and he wishes me to see him in the exercise of a
function of which he is proud, and which he owes
to me. He has invited me to pass a fortnight,
together with Juliette, at Verton. Madame
Lienard is devoted to our daughter, whom she al-
ways comes to see when she knows she is at Bleran-
court, doesn't she, Juliette? "
" Grandmother," I replied, " if you will permit
it, I should be delighted to take a long journey
with papa. It is my dream to travel. I am very
fond of Madame Lienard." And stooping down to
her ear, I added : " And besides, grandmother, it
will distract me from my great sorrow."
" Yes, Juliette, I think so, too," she answered.
" Your father must leave you with me for two
weeks to prepare your wardrobe, for I wish you to
have everything you may need, and then you shall
go to see the sea."
When my father had left, grandmother said to
me : "I must obtain a dispensation from the cure
so that you may leave the catechism class without
having your first communion delayed in conse-
quence. But I think there will be no difficulty
about it."
The entire town of Chauny was interested in
this journey. My grandfather told how it had
[221 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
come about to all who wished to hear it. At school
I was much questioned, and in the same degree that
I had been humiliated at having the girls say to
me : " It seems that your grandmother has sold
your famous garden which you thought as fine as a
kingdom," just so proud was I in thinking of all
the interesting things that I should have to relate
to my little friends on my return.
The journey from Paris to Amiens was, of
course, by diligence.
We stopped an entire day at Saint-Quentin to
see my relatives, the Raincourts, to whom I talked
of my dear aunts and my grandmother, and who
were happy to know that their cousins were recon-
ciled.
At Amiens we stopped again to see other Rain-
courts. I visited the cathedral, and the impression
I received of its power and grandeur remains with
me still. My cousins took us to the opera. They
played Charles VI. I was somewhat bewildered at
the immensity of the amphitheatre, but I remember
the scenes represented, the ballet, and, above all,
the extraordinary noise of the mad applause of the
entire audience when they sang the air, " No, no,
never in France, never shall England reign ! "
Like all good Picardines, I detested the English,
and I clapped my hands with as much enthusiasm
[000 "i
<%<v/v J
MY FIRST RAILWAY JOURNEY
as the other spectators, at the three repetitions of
" No, no, never in France ! "
I had a headache for three days from the effects
of that evening. The sound of the orchestra had
bruised my temples.
I saw a railway for the first time at Amiens.
Young people of eleven of the present day cannot
imagine what it was then to a girl ten and a half
years old, to hear the ear-splitting whistle, the
groaning of the machine, to get into high, fragile-
looking boxes, to see the smoke, the blackness of the
machinist and his aid, looking, I thought, like
devils. I was very much frightened.
Lienard came to meet us at Amiens, and, thanks
to him, we had a coach to ourselves. My father
was obliged to scold me, for I became very pale as
the train started. Contrary to my usual habit, I
was silent for a long time, not curious and asking
no questions.
I held on with both hands to the seat, so little did
I feel secure with the odd movement. But after a
time I grew bolder, and kneeling on the seat I tried
to look out of the window to see the houses and
trees flying behind us so quickly.
" Juliette ! " Lienard cried to me, " don't lean
out in that way. This morning, under the tunnel
which we are going to enter, a lady did what you
[223]
were doing and she had her head cut off by a cross
train."
I threw myself back in the seat, and when we
entered the tunnel a great chill shook me. I
thought I saw the body of the headless lady thrown
into the coach!
Decidedly, I preferred diligences to railways.
[224]
xxm
MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE SEA
|T Abbeville we found another relative, the
daughter of our cousin at Amiens. In ten
minutes I was the best of friends with her two chil-
dren, and I would have liked to continue playing
with them there, or to take them with me to Verton,
to the house of Madame Lienard, who had no chil-
dren.
The railway between Abbeville and Verton was
not yet completed. At Verton was the branch
that our friend Lienard was finishing. I said
good-bye to my cousins, very sadly, as I got into
the carriage, but I forgot them immediately, as
my mind was distracted by the route over which
we were travelling. I breathed for the first time
the tonic air of the sea, and it intoxicated me. My
father was in ecstasies over everything, and I took
a noisy share in his delight.
Verton, the object of our great journey, had
been described to us by our friend Lienard.
" Verton is situated," he said, " between Mon-
treuil, built on an eminence, and the hamlet of
Berck, which is on the downs quite near the sea-
16 [ 225 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
shore, and it is the prettiest village in Pas-de-
Calais. Along its straight, well-laid-out, sloping
streets, which the rain cannot soak into, are dainty
houses, rivalling one another in cleanliness and
brightness. Berck is a miserable place, inhabited
solely by j>oor fisher folk, but I am sure the rail-
way will make it eventually a popular seaside re-
sort, and I have bought land there which certainly
will become very valuable. You should buy some,
Lambert, for Juliette's dot"
" Good Heavens ! With what could I buy
land ? " said father, laughing.
" Why, your mother-in-law has just sold "
" Be quiet, Lienard," I cried, " don't speak of
my dot, you make me unhappy. Let me forget
it."
My father and Lienard, puzzled at my words,
wished to know what they meant. They obtained
only this answer:
" I don't want any dot! I don't want any ! "
" You have commendable principles," said fath-
er. " A girl should not be forced to give money
in order to be married."
Suddenly Lienard exclaimed:
" There is the sea ! "
Papa and I looked, holding each other's hands.
It was a superb day, but a high wind came from
[226]
MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE SEA
the sea, which seemed borne in by the rising
tide.
The seemingly endless, swelling flood we gazed
upon advanced towards us, the waves looking like
swaying monsters, ever growing larger. The foam
alone reached us ; the sea was held back by the im-
movable shore.
" I made you take this great journey so that
you should see this as soon as possible," said Lin-
ard, delighted at our wonderment. " Well, Ju-
liette, you, who are astonished at nothing, what
do you say of it ? "
I had no desire to speak. Enormous waves,
with movements like serpents, broke into snowy
foam on the beach, at first with a colossal crash,
striking the pebbles, then with a soft roaring of
the water as it rushed over the round stones.
The sea was so immense, it extended so far be-
neath the sky, that I asked myself how it was that
all that mass of heavy water did not capsize the
earth ; but I realised that it was infantile to think
this, and that I must not say it aloud, because then
I should probably receive a very simple answer
which would prove my stupidity or my ignorance.
I had never thought of the sea as a phenomenal
thing. I had not imagined it very large, but now
it appeared to me immense and limitless. I was
[227]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
lost in contemplating it, dominated by it to such a
degree that I could not express the astonishment
I felt.
" Papa," I said, as we were leaving the sea, " I
seem to see the shaggy manes of Neptune's horses
on the crests of the waves."
" And I am thinking of Homer all the while,"
father answered me.
We left the seashore, talking of it on our
way, and at last we saw Verton, with the old castle
overlooking it. We entered the village, where the
people, curious at our coming, were on their door-
steps. Lienard was the most important person of
the place, excepting the owner of the castle, who
lived on the second story.
" The Comte de Lafontaine, my landlord,"
Lienard said to my father, " is a former cavalry
officer. I do not know a more charming man. To
be sure, he is not a republican, like you and my-
self, my dear Lambert, but with that exception, he is
perfect."
Lienard was my father's devoted pupil, and fol-
lowed his teaching in everything.
The castle was reached by the principal street
of Verton, as one came from Abbeville a street
which ended directly at the park gates, the largest
one of which was surmounted with the heraldic
[ 228 ]
escutcheon of the Lafontaine family. The inscrip-
tion on the escutcheon interested my father so
much, and was the subject of such a long discus-
sion between himself and Lienard that I found it in
my notes of travel which I kept for grandmother.
Oh! they were very succinct notes, of which I
can give an example:
" Verton, on a hill gay little houses old castle
overlooking it two stories written above princi-
pal door in a circle Tel fieri qui ne tue pas. Very,
very large park and a farm, where I amuse myself
all the time."
With my memory to aid me, and the long, oft-
repeated recitals of the events of my journey, the
impressions of that time were deeply engraved in
my mind, enabling me now to recall the details of
this experience with all the more facility because
one of Lienard's employes, placed with him by my
father, still lives, and, through him I have been
able to verify the accuracy of my recollections.
The park belonging to the castle seemed to me
very large, and I amused myself, with my different
friends in the household, by walking and playing
in it for hours.
The castle of Verton is situated on the highest
point of the park, and fronts the sea. The view
from the second story is admirable. At night one
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
can see the lighthouse of Berek. I never went to
bed without looking at the great lantern lighting
up the sea.
Madame Lienard did everything to please me,
and spoiled me as if I belonged to her. The Comte
de Lafontaine inspired me with sudden affection,
for he took me seriously and wished to be my
friend. I made several morning rendezvous with
him in the park, and confided to him the great se-
cret of my life my inconsolable sorrow at the
loss of my large garden. I talked to him of my
trees with tears in my eyes; he seemed touched,
and I remember how grateful I was to him when
he answered:
" Love my trees a little during your stay here,
as if they were your own."
I had loved Monsieur Lafontaine's trees before
he said this. They were the brothers of my own
trees. When I shut my eyes in certain paths, I
seemed to see my lost ones. They grew warm and
shone in the sun like mine; they made the same
noise in the wind. How very unhappy I was, to
be sure, to have my great garden no longer !
The cows, the sheep, the horses and dogs of the
farm interested me greatly. I wanted them all to
grow fond of me, to know and love me. I was, as
a child, as desirous to please animals as people.
[230]
MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE SEA
There were several donkeys, but they did not bray
like Roussot, and they disdained my advances, de-
voted as they were to the farm children.
Our first long excursion was to Berck. After
having left the Abbeville road and entered that of
Berck, we saw scarcely any more cultivated fields.
It looked to me like the desert, as I imagined it.
There were hillocks of shifting sand, amid which
were very small hamlets. Berck came last, and
was the most lamentable of all. The village was
composed of miserable huts, inhabited by poor
sailor-fishermen, whom Lienard called " primitive
men," and who lived solely by the product of their
fishing. These huts, spread out at distances, were
in a forlorn condition and falling to pieces.
One thing struck me at Berck: the market, like
that at Blerancourt, where the weavers of the
neighbourhood brought for sale the rolls of linen
they had woven.
My father thought the beach of Berck magnifi-
cent, and he said that hospital refuges could cer-
tainly be built there, for the gentle and regular
slope of the sands down to the sea would be an ex-
cellent place for children to play.
" The people of the place, although very rude
and ignorant, are good and are hard workers,"
Lienard said. " They are excellent workmen. We
[231 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
are blessed and loved as benefactors in all the re-
gion except at Montreuil, because we bring more
wealth here. They curse us," he continued, " at
Montreuil, the principal town of the country, for
the making of the railway will deprive it of its ani-
mation. Crossed by the Calais route, as it is now,
all the traffic passes through it; but before six
months have passed, nothing will go that way,
neither travellers nor merchandise. Its triple line
of fortifications alone will remain, isolating it more
than ever."
[232]
XXIV
I BECEIVE A HANDSOME GIFT
|HE end of your journey must not be Ver-
ton, my dear Lambert," said Lienard one
morning to my father. " I wish you to inspect
the whole line. We will go to Boulogne-sur-Mer,
and travel over a certain portion of the route in
trucks. Then you will have shown to Juliette,
Amiens the most beautiful town of our Picardy
and Boulogne, one of its finest sea-ports."
My father made no objection. The thought of
seeing big ships delighted me. We were to return
to Verton after visiting Boulogne and leave from
there for Chauny. The railway train, with its little
coaches open overhead, pleased me marvellously,
but the large, locked-up coaches from which one
could not get out except at the employes' will,
seemed like prisons to me, and I was honestly afraid
of the tunnels, in which heads were sometimes cut
off.
All the great cities I have seen later in my nu-
merous travels over Europe have interested me in
a different manner, and I have admired them for a
thousand complex reasons, but none has left in my
[233]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
memory a more deeply engraved impression than
B oulogne-sur-Mer .
We were Lienard's guests, and he treated us like
lords, in one of the best hotels of the place. I saw
the sea all day long, and I, who was so fond of
sleeping, would get up to look at it under the star-
light. I saw it one night by full moonlight.
" Drops of gold shrank and expanded, crackled,
leapt in playful sparkles on the water's surface, as
if to encircle, in a frame of moving gold, Phoebe's
beautiful face as she looked at herself in the sea."
I found these metaphors in one of my poems
written at that time, and, incredible as it may
seem, I still remember these unformed verses, which
I did not dare to repeat to my father, and which I
kept for the enraptured admiration of my grand-
parents, Blondeau, and my friend Charles.
The movement of the boats around the pier de-
lighted me so much I wished never to leave the
place, and my father was obliged to scold me some-
times and to drag me after him to the house.
I ate my first oyster at Boulogne. All my fam-
ily were extremely fond of the fat oysters that
came from the North. In winter, when my mother
and father came to Chauny, they usually selected
the day on which the fish-wagon arrived. This
wagon, driven at full speed, and which had relays
[234]
I RECEIVE A HANDSOME GIFT
like the post-wagon, brought to Chauny, on Fri-
day mornings, the fish caught on the night of
Wednesday to Thursday.
Every Friday during the oyster season, a bas-
ket containing twelve dozen oysters was brought to
my grandmother's. My grandfather and father
each ate four dozen. My grandmother and mother
would eat two dozen, and Blondeau, when he was
present, would take his dozen, here and there, from
the portions of the others. Was it because I saw
them eat such quantities that I could never swal-
low one? My reluctance absolutely grieved my
family.
Lienard and I went shopping while my father
talked with some democratic-socialist republicans
whom he had discovered. I wanted to take to all
my friends many of those little souvenirs one finds
at seaside places, things utterly unknown at
Chauny, and I had with me, in order to gratify
this wish, all the money given to me by grand-
parents and Blondeau to spend on my journey. My
purse, confided to Lienard's care, who bargained
and paid for all my purchases, must, I thought,
after calculating the amount expended, be very
nearly empty. So, when my father promised me
one morning a louis if I would eat an oyster, I did
my best to please him, and at the same time to
[235]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
earn four large crowns. I swallowed one oyster,
and afterwards others followed in great numbers,
for I grew to like them.
I picked up quantities of shells, and I would
have liked to carry many more away. I bought
an immense covered basket, which I took with me
wherever I went, and never left it for a moment
during my return voyage, in spite of the supplica-
tion of my father, who tried every persuasive
means possible to rid himself of the trouble of
looking after it.
I went on the beach at Wimereux, where Prince
Louis Napoleon landed in such grotesque fashion.
I saw the great Emperor's column, and thought of
my grandfather and my godmother.
My father spoke to Lienard and to me of " the
man of Strasburg and Boulogne," and of his an-
cestor, " the man of the Brumaire." He was more
indulgent towards the nephew than towards the
uncle, whom he thus defined:
" The political juggler of the Revolution,
whose final number of conquests, after the sacrifice
of millions of men, was inferior to the conquests
won by the fourteen armies of the Republic."
Napoleon I. was my father's special aversion.
He spoke of him with hatred, as of a criminal. I
knew some scathing and virulent poems written by
[236]
I RECEIVE A HANDSOME GIFT
my father on the " Modern Caesar," and when I
recited them, I ended by naming their author:
Jean-Louis Lambert.
My father had bought a tilbury as we passed
through Amiens, the carriage-makers of the capi-
tal of our province being " renowned," as they
then expressed it.
What was his astonishment, as we left the rail-
way station on our return to Amiens, to see a very
handsome horse harnessed to his tilbury, instead of
the hired one which was to take it to Chauny.
Lienard had accompanied us there.
" My dear friend," he said to my father, accent-
uating these words with feeling, " I beg of you
to accept the little horse, as a small proof of my
eternal gratitude."
My father, who delighted to give, but hated to
accept things, refused bluntly; but Lienard's dis-
appointment was so great, and I saw his eyes so
full of tears, that I sought for a way to make my
father yield.
" Will you give me your horse, Lienard? " I said.
" I think it very pretty and I will take it."
Mutually embarrassed and grieved a moment
before, my father and Lienard were much amused
at my intervention.
" Ah, yes ! I will give it to you," replied Lien-
[237]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
ard. " It is yours, and I am not afraid now that
your father will take it from you."
I adored the feeling of being important. But
to have overcome this difficult situation did not
suffice me.
" Now, since I have a horse and papa has a til-
bury, I wish to return to Chauny in it and not in
the diligence," I added.
" But it will take us three days instead of one,"
said father.
" Oh ! papa, shall you really find three days quite
alone with your daughter too long? You will tell
me a lot of things, and I, also, will tell you as
many. It will be so amusing to travel in a carriage,
like gipsies."
" Do as she wishes, dear Lambert," said Lienard.
" Come, get into your carriage and start. I will
send you your packages by the diligence."
" Papa ! papa ! do, I beg of you, let us be
off!"
" Has the horse eaten ? " Lienard asked the
groom.
" Yes, sir, he can go for five hours without need-
ing anything more."
" Be off ! be off ! " our friend cried gaily, as he
lifted me into the tilbury after kissing me.
My father and Lienard kissed each other, like
[238]
I RECEIVE A HANDSOME GIFT
the loving friends they were, and father got into
the carriage.
" Where is the state high-road ? " he asked the
groom.
Lienard replied:
" This boy will take one of the carriages at the
station and accompany you until nightfall, to see
that Juliette's horse behaves itself. I will go to-
morrow morning to his master's, and will get news
of you there. Good-bye, good-bye; a pleasant
journey! "
A small valise bought by my father at Boulogne,
held our toilet articles. My famous basket was at
our feet, our luggage ticket given to Lienard, and
off we started.
[239]
XXV
OUR HOMEWARD JOURNEY
detail of that delightful journey is
still present to me. It seemed to me that I
was undertaking something tremendous, which
was going to last for an indefinite time.
The young, spirited horse delighted my father
and me. He took up all our attention at first.
We looked at nothing else. Ah! what was his
name?
The groom told us it was Coq or Cock. He
didn't know whether it was " Coq " or the English
name.
" * No ! no, never in France, never shall England
reign ! ' " I cried, recalling the air I had heard in
Charles VI. " It shall be Coq."
Coq almost flew along the road. After a while
the groom left us, telling us the names of the vil-
lages and the post-relays where we were to stop
during the day, or were to sleep at night.
My father and I recalled our longest drives
around Blerancourt, but they were not like this one
a real journey. He laughed at all my observa-
tions and reflections, and said often to me : " Ah !
[240]
OUR HOMEWARD JOURNEY
you are, indeed, my daughter. You resemble me
more than anyone else."
We had left Amiens at eleven o'clock in the
morning, and had not yet, at five o'clock in the
afternoon, thought of making our first halt. We
had brought some fruit and cakes, and so long as
our handsome Coq was not tired we determined to
continue our way.
" Juliette," said father to me, at a time when
Coq was going slower, " have you never asked your-
self whether I could indefinitely submit to our sep-
aration, if I could always bear the pain of seeing
your mind fashioned by others than myself? My
greatest ambition is to make your mind the off-
spring of my own. It will come some day ; it must
be so."
I answered nothing. I said over to myself my
father's phrase : " Make your mind the offspring
of my own," and I thought to myself that as I was
his daughter, my whole self should be his also ; but
then, being grandchild of my grandmother, whom
I adored, how could I be at once all my grand-
mother's and all my father's? The feeling I had
of the difficulty brought about by my double love
for my grandmother and my father, the thought
of sharing myself between them, filled me with
sadness, and my heart ached as I thought I should
17 [ 241 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
feel in the future, more and more deeply, the sor-
row I might cause each when I left either of them,
because each would feel when I returned that I
would come back with my heart and mind filled
with the one whom I had left. I was still angry
at my grandmother for having sold my garden.
The large house at Chauny, which formerly
pleased me more than the small one at Blerancourt,
seemed like a prison now. The yard, full of
flowers, had been gay only because it preceded
the garden; cut off from it, it would look, under
the shadow of the great wall they were build-
ing, like a little plot resembling those in the
graveyards.
My father thought also of many sad things;
our gaiety now ran away from us, and we could
not regain it. All my childhood spent in that be-
loved garden came back to me: the springtime,
with the rows of violets along the walls at its end ;
the summer, with the baskets of strawberries that
I would run to pick myself, as we were sitting
down at table ; fruits of all kinds, whose growth I
watched with such interest, and which I kept tast-
ing apples, pears, plums, cherries, and apricots,
enjoying the greatest delight a child can have
that of eating to its fill all kinds of fruit through-
out the whole year.
OUR HOMEWARD JOURNEY
" Papa, do you approve grandmother's having
sold her garden ? " I asked him suddenly, deter-
mined all at once to confide my sorrow to him, with-
out speaking of the dot.
" Why, yes, because she received a good price
for it."
" So, in your opinion she has done well ? "
" Without doubt she would never have found
such a good chance again. Perhaps, besides the
question of money, she decided to do it a little for
your sake."
"Oh! that is too much!"
" Why ? You will have only a few steps to
take to go to your school. She will even be
able to see you play from a wing she wishes to
build."
" Then grandmother is going to make the little
yard still smaller? Well, papa, I cannot tell you
the pain all this gives me. They have taken away
the paths where I used to walk and play, my trees,
all that I loved in immaterial things; they have
deprived me of the happiness of looking at grow-
ing leaves, of studying how plants bud, how blos-
soms become fruit; they have prevented me from
listening to the stirring and putting forth of all
that has life in it, and from hearing the sigh, fol-
lowed by cold silence, of that which dies. To me,
[243]
papa, the sun is a divine being to whom I speak
and who answers me in written signs, which I see
in the rays of its light. I will make you half close
your eyes at midday, and will show you the shin-
ing signs, the golden writing. The moon follows
me as I walk, and I feel that it is a friend. I as-
sure you, papa, I have heard the earth burst with a
little sound above the asparagus heads, or when the
seeds that have been sown sprout forth. I do not
know how to express all this to you, or how to ex-
plain these things, but if I love to read, if books
instruct me so greatly above all, if travels make
the world larger to me I think, papa, I have
learned a great deal in my garden about all small
things."
My father listened to me, his eyes fixed on mine ;
he held the reins so loosely in his hands that sud-
denly, feeling gay, or perhaps made nervous by
fatigue, Coq began to behave badly for the first
time. A stroke of the whip calmed him.
" This Coq," said my father, " is unworthy of
too much confidence." Then he added :
" Go on talking, Juliette, dear, go on. You do
not know the pleasure you give me. You love nat-
ure as I love it ; you feel it, you poetise it as I do.
Ah ! old Homer is giving back to me to-day what
I gave to him in teaching you to love him. It is
[244]
OUR HOMEWARD JOURNEY
he who has given you the love of immaterial things.
You will be a heathen some day, I am certain of
it."
" Oh, papa ! what an abominable thing to say !
Don't repeat it, especially before grandmother
it would give her too much pain, and, besides, it
isn't true; it was not the dryads, the nymphs, the
homodryads, that I saw and listened to in my gar-
den; it was really the trees, the plants, and the
fruits."
" Well, well," said father, " I have promised
your grandmother and your mother to let you
make your first communion as they desire. They
have taken your childhood from me, let them keep
it; but your youth shall belong to me, and we
will talk again about all this. I have now, to calm
me and to make me wait patiently, the anticipation
of the happy days that I foresee, and the result
of all that you, my dear Juliette, have just been
saying to me."
" Having my garden no longer, I must forget
all that I loved and learned in it, so as not to suffer
too much in having lost it," I replied. " I have
so many dead things to weep over," I continued,
" I have heard so many trees sigh and utter their
last cry when they were cut down, that in think-
ing of it, I seem to hear them again and my heart
[245]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
aches, for it is dreadful to have destroyed so many
of those old companions that gave us such delicious
fruit to make us love them, and it is a crime to
have covered with gravel the good earth which
would always have brought forth the seeds planted
in it and borne harvests."
On the evening of that day my father stopped
at a post-relay at a large, clean, and bright-look-
ing inn, where I went to see a dozen chickens roasted
on a spit in the kitchen. The travellers by dili-
gence dined there.
When my father put me to sleep in one of the
huge beds in our room, I was feverish, and talked
all night of my garden. He prevented me from
speaking of it the next day, and told me some
lovely stories of Greece which he had not yet re-
lated to me.
Our journey ended without further incident,
and I found grandmother wildly happy at seeing
me again ; but as we had arrived late at night, and
as I was tired, they put me to bed at once. Grand-
mother wished that I should sleep near her that
night, as my father had spoken of my fever, and
the door having been left open, I heard him say to
my grandparents:
" I don't think she can ever be consoled for hav-
ing lost her garden."
[246]
OUR HOMEWARD JOURNEY
" As it is clear that she will marry a country
gentleman," said grandfather, laughing, " and,
as the education she is receiving from her aunts
will probably incline her to marry some perfect
Roussot, she will be able after her honeymoon to
treat herself to some trees and grounds, so we need
not pity her present unhappiness in an exagger-
ated manner."
My grandparents had quarrelled, as usual, dur-
ing my absence. I had the proof of it in grand-
mother's answer. The " they " and " one " which
I had nearly banished, had returned to their con-
versation.
" One is always joking," she said, " even about
what touches me the most Juliette's sorrow. Since
I have seen how much she suffers from being de-
prived of her garden, I reproach myself bitterly
for having taken it from her. One should under-
stand that, and not laugh, when one knows that
I would not have run the risk of giving pain to
Juliette without having been moved by a feeling
which was in her interest, but which I cannot ex-
press to everybody."
" Well, well," grandfather replied, " one has no
need of a lesson; one loves one's grandchild as
much as mother and father and grandmother. One
only jokes about Juliette's sorrow, and one will
[247]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
continue to do so for the simple reason that one
thinks it will be the best way to console her."
My grandmother's regrets calmed my grief, but
my poor grandfather was snubbed many times for
his way of " consoling " me.
[248]
XXVI
MY FIRST COMMUNION
|T is impossible to imagine to-day the impor-
tance of a railway journey in the time of my
childhood. All Chauny talked of it when I start-
ed; all Chauny questioned me concerning it on
my return. When I went out with grandfather,
people stopped me in the street to ask me if a rail-
way journey was very frightful.
Truth to tell, the horrible whistles, the deafen-
ing threatening noise of the locomotives, the tun-
nels ( oh, those tunnels ! ) , the frightful black
smoke that made one look like a coal-man in a few
hours, had filled me with apprehension, and every-
thing connected with it seemed to me like some-
thing coming straight from hell.
" It splits your ears, it blinds you if you put
your nose out of the window, it shakes you so that
you tremble, it is ugly and makes you ugly," I re-
plied to everyone who questioned me.
At school I had a great success. All the big
girls asked me about it, to satisfy their own curios-
ity and that of their families. All the little girls
[249]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
wished to know the entire history of the railway
journey, and all about the sea and the ships.
My large basket of shells was emptied in a few
days. The numberless presents I had brought
disappeared quickly. A week after my return I
had nothing left. " Those," I said, speaking of
my shells, " were not bought. I picked them up
myself by the sea, the real sea ! "
These words produced an immense sensation.
At recreations I held forth, surrounded by numer-
ous listeners with eager eyes and open mouths.
Questions came from all sides. They never tired
of hearing my stories told over and over again.
The history of the woman beheaded in the tunnel
made them all tremble.
" Why did she look out of the window ? " asked
the big girls. " One should take great care in
travelling, for there is always great risk. One has
only to read about it to know it."
The little girls asked especially whether the be-
headed woman had children and whether they were
with her. When I answered, " yes," there was a
general panic, and the whole brood scattered, with
frightened " ohs ! "
If a schoolgirl of to-day had passed the winter
at the North Pole, and should relate to her school-
mates that she had seen a mother crushed to death
[250]
MY FIRST COMMUNION
by an iceberg before her children's eyes, she would
not produce a greater sensation than I did with
my story of the railway and the unfortunate
woman in the tunnel. They were beginning to
build the railway from Paris to Saint-Quentin,
which was to pass through Chauny, and everyone
was wildly excited over the matter. I had, with
great art, planned a course of entertainment to
be given at home. Every evening, after din-
ner, I related to my grandparents, to Blondeau,
and to my friend Charles who would not have
missed it for anything in the world the his-
tory of one of my days of travel never more
and never less than one; and the number of
my stories just covered the number of days of the
journey.
I had missed a whole month of the catechism
class, but the vicar was indulgent. He was, him-
self, much interested in my excursion, and asked
me, like everyone else, to give him my impressions
about the railroad and the sea.
My reflections pleased him, and he spoke of them
to the dean, who also questioned me. I told him
that the railroad was an abominable, whistling in-
vention it seemed like hell, with its fire and its
diabolical blackness.
This journey gave me a decided pre-eminence.
On account of it, I was considered at Chauny su-
[251]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
perior to the other young girls of my age. As the
time for first communion approached, the dean in-
terested himself especially in me. He selected me
to pronounce the baptismal vows, and to head one
of the files of communicants to the Holy Table.
The Bishop of Soissons came that year, as he did
every two years, to administer confirmation, and I
was selected to make him the complimentary speech
of welcome at the parsonage.
I was the youngest and the tallest of the com-
municants. My grandparents, Blondeau, and my
friend Charles, when the history of my journey
was finished, busied themselves exclusively about
my first communion. Grandmother had ordered
the finest muslin for my gown and veil. They said
white was very becoming to me, and that I should
be the prettiest girl of all. My friend Charles
taught me how to say my baptismal vows and my
complimentary speech to the Bishop, in a manner
rather more theatrical than pious.
I had then as an intimate friend a strange girl
of my own age, as small as I was tall, witty, sharp-
tongued, and mischievous, whose influence over me
was anything but good. Whenever she saw me
enthusiastic or admiring anything, she did her best
to spoil what I admired. Her name was Maribert.*
* The final syllable only is correct.
[252]
MY FIRST COMMUNION
We had been friends for four years, but we had
had very serious quarrels and reconciliations, which
interested the whole school.
Maribert was to make her first communion at the
same time as myself. She was a boarder at the
school and was very strictly watched because she
criticised the catechism in a way which shocked the
least devout. She often argued with the vicar,
contending with him in discussing the articles of
faith he was explaining to us.
" You will be cast out of the church if you do
not submit," the vicar said to her one day. " You
have a renegade's mind."
And she dared to reply:
" I am a philosopher, I am strong-minded ! "
I went to board at school during the month pre-
ceding my first communion, the dean, finding I was
not preparing myself well for the ceremony at my
grandparents', induced them to let me absent my-
self from home until the great day. Maribert had
succeeded in having me for neighbour in the dor-
mitory, and she kept by me at recreations. Dur-
ing class hours, by the means of little notes, which
she would slip into my hands, she tried to influence
my mind to unbelief. She endeavoured to prove
to me that the dean was in no wise evangelical ; that
the vicar, who instructed us, preferred a good din-
[253]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
ner to a good mass; that the Miles. Andre, our
mistresses, were much more interested in not losing
their pupils than in teaching and improving
them.
" Now, as to myself," she said, " they should
send me away ; they know very well that I change
all the ideas I wish to change; that I am a dis-
turber; that I shall not make my first communion
seriously ; that I will prevent others you, first of
all from making it with the necessary unction
and devotion ; and yet they keep me here me, the
black sheep of the flock ! "
I was badly influenced by Maribert, and they
would have done better to have me with grand-
mother, who, although at this time too occupied with
the things of this world to give me great spiritual
help, would have done all she could to increase my
faith.
The morning of the day of my first communion
I was sad, discontented, I did not feel as I should
have felt, and I envied the happiness of those who,
having had the strength to resist Maribert's diabol-
ical'influence, wore on their faces an expression of
beatitude. As we were leaving for the church,
Maribert slipped a piece of chocolate into my hand,
saying, with her shining, demoniacal eyes looking
at me: "Eat it!"
[254]
MY FIRST COMMUNION
And, at the same time, I heard her crunching
the half of the piece she had given to me.
I threw the chocolate in her face. Ah, no ! that
was too much! I, too, wanted to be strong-
minded, but I did not wish to commit a sacrilege,
to lie, to receive communion after having eaten.
I suddenly realised my friend's evil-doing, and I
struggled instantly to wrench out from my mind
the ideas she had implanted in it; they were not
numerous, however, for we possessed but few tastes
in common. However, a great sadness took pos-
session of me ; had I not broken with a confidante,
a friend of four years' standing? (Years are so
long in childhood!)
Maribert, alas! had made me lose enthusiasm
for prayer, and that enthusiasm alone, on such a
day as this, could have consoled me for the heart-
ache I suffered. I was overcome to such a degree
that my tears fell without my knowing it.
" You are sillier than the silliest," Maribert said
to me. " I will never speak to you again as long
as I live."
" You are more wicked than the wickedest," I
replied, " and I shall reproach myself as long as
I exist for having loved one so accursed as you."
The hour came for leaving for the church. Our
mothers were waiting for us in the drawing-room.
[255]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
My mother and my grandmother were there. I
threw myself in their arms and kissed them fer-
vently. They were much edified in seeing my pal-
lor and my red eyes. My grandmother wore a
white woollen gown, a black bonnet, and a black
silk scarf trimmed with fringe. I thought her
very well dressed. My mother looked very hand-
some, although her toilette was extremely simple.
She wore a large Leghorn straw bonnet, tied with
black velvet ribbons, a puce-coloured silk gown
with a train, and on her shoulders a scarf beauti-
fully embroidered by herself, fastened with tur-
quoise pins. I could not cease from admiring
her.
" How beautiful mamma is," I said in a low tone
to grandmother. " Just look at her."
" Yes," grandmother replied aloud, " and it
would be well if she would take pleasure in her
beauty, if she would be grateful to God for it ; but,
alas! I am sure she imagines people look at her
maliciously."
My mother shrugged her shoulders.
" Juliette," added grandmother, " this is a hap-
py day for you, my little girl ; may it govern your
whole life; may you understand its religious sig-
nificance. I shall pray to God with my whole
soul that it may be so."
[256]
MY FIRST COMMUNION
We left the school, I at the head of the proces-
sion, my schoolmates following me one by one. We
formed a file and walked through the streets to the
church. The organ ushered us in with a peal of
gladness. My heart beat so hard it hurt me. But
by degrees a great calmness came over me. I ab-
jured evil; I banished Maribert from my heart. I
saw her farther down in the file, her face made
ugly by a wicked smile. I looked at her coldly
and proudly, and I raised my eyes to Heaven to
prove to her that I was no longer under the in-
fluence of her wicked teaching. I felt as it was
proper I should feel in the holy place and in view
of the ceremony in which I was to take part.
I recited my baptismal vows simply, in a loud
voice, feeling sincerely what I said. I thought
of grandmother, who was listening to me and to
whom I would that very night confess all that I
had hidden from her about Maribert. I made my
communion in peace, I returned to grandmother's
house happy in being at home again, freed from
Maribert, whom I felt I would never miss again
when absent from her.
The next day I was to recite my complimentary
speech to the bishop at the parsonage. Grand-
father had said that Monseigneur de Garsignies
had been a former cavalry officer, and grandmother
18 [ 257 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
had added that he had had a very adventurous,
romantic life. My grandparents' remarks about
him at table took away all my fear of him.
I repeated my address, smiling and looking at
him unembarrassed. He smiled, too, and kissed
me.
At the church, during the ceremony of confirma-
tion, when I kissed the paten and Monseigneur ap-
proached his fingers to my face, Maribert's influ-
ence suddenly took possession of me again, and I
said, without being conscious of the words I pro-
nounced, words which froze with horror my school-
mates, kneeling near me, and which made Mari-
bert laugh:
" Lightly, Monseigneur, I beg of you ! "
He tapped my cheek harder than he tapped
those of my schoolmates. Why did I say it? I
do not know, but I felt that I had resisted a diabol-
ical desire to say something worse. The sacred
gesture suddenly seemed to me like a slap in my
face. Maribert was kneeling at a short distance
from me. Was it her wicked spirit which had in-
spired me with this act of revolt?
The dean called me to the sacristy after the
confirmation, and scolded me in a severe but
fatherly manner, and gave me a penance to per-
form.
[258]
MY FIRST COMMUNION
A few years afterwards, at an evening party
given at Soissons, where I had arrived as a young
bride, Monseigneur de Garsignies, as I entered the
room and bowed to him, exclaimed :
" The little girl whom I confirmed ! "
[259]
XXVII
WE DISCUSS FRENCH LITERATURE
| HE school-house in our old garden had been
built during the summer months. It was
now being finished with all possible haste. The
school was to be reopened in October in the new
building. One could see the odious structure above
the high wall, for which I felt a violent hatred. In
the evening large fires were lit in it, which I could
see from the hall leading to my room on the first
story, and they looked to me like the mouth of the
infernal regions.
I continually declared that I would never, never,
go to that school, and it was in vain that grand-
mother and my mother, at the family dinner given
on the day of my first communion, endeavoured to
make me promise I would go to the new school in
October. My father was not present at the din-
ner, for he disapproved of, although he submitted
to, what he called the continuation of my baptism.
I literally lost my head when I thought that I
might be obliged to repeat my lessons over the de-
stroyed ground of my garden, or play over the
place where my " temple of verdure " had been.
[260]
WE DISCUSS FRENCH LITERATURE
Grandmother was distressed at my obstinacy, and
perhaps was even more irritated by it. Our affection
suffered from all this, and we hurt each other's
feelings often in spite of the deep love we bore
each other. I took no more interest in my dear
grandparents' happiness ; I stood between them no
longer; I kept silence when a discussion arose; the
impersonal pronouns were frequently used again.
Blondeau was sad over my grief, and I was all the
more unhappy because Maribert excited ill-feeling
against me at school, keeping up a relentless fight.
There were two hostile camps. The girls were
either on her side or on mine. Her party was full
of activity, tormenting us, playing us all manner
of bad tricks; mine resisted indolently, because I,
their head, was discouraged, and worked no longer.
I was constantly scolded and punished. I became
ill-tempered, I, whom my companions had loved
until then especially on account of my good hu-
mour. I could no longer, as formerly, bring them
fruit from my garden. The sugar-plums were a
thing of the past ; in a word, I was undone and did
not care for anything.
My visit to my aunts at Chivres, where I recov-
ered a little serenity, was shorter than usual that
year. My vacation was to be no longer than that
given by the school, and my father claimed his
[261]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
share of it. I had hardly finished the story of my
journey, day by day, to my aunts, I had scarce-
ly told all about my first communion, when I
should have been obliged to leave, had I not ob-
tained a prolongation of my stay for a month
more, by writing to my father imploring him to
keep me when the school opened in October, and to
spare me the grief of going into the new building
at that time.
Aunt Sophie scolded me a great deal for my
laziness and negligence regarding the study of
Latin. But she accepted my excuses, and I began
again to work with good will.
I found my aunts much excited over politics.
They read Le National, and all three, as well as my
great-grandmother, were Liberals. They talked
continually of Odilon Barrot, and with the great-
est respect for him. They had their individual
opinions about each member of the royal family.
They mourned the death of the Duke of Orleans ;
loved the Duke d'Aumale and the Prince de Join-
ville; esteemed Queen Amelie, but judged King
Louis Philippe severely, and raised their arms to
heaven when speaking of the corruption of the
times. If they had been less afraid of the revo-
lution, they would have dethroned the King, pro-
claimed the Duchess of Orleans as the Regent, and
[262]
WE DISCUSS FRENCH LITERATURE
prepared the reign of the little Count of Paris,
with Odilon Barrot as President of the Council.
My aunts considered Odilon Barrot " the model
representative." They were enthusiastic about
the reformist banquets, of which he was at once the
promoter and the hero.
But they were irritated over the " doings " of
Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, and others, who altered
the nature and changed the object of the reformist
banquets ; they were anxious about Pierre Leroux's
revolutionary ideas concerning work, and Proud-
hon's insane theories about property. Apropos of
these two individuals and their opinions they would
exclaim :
" It is the end of the world ! "
When my aunts were discussing these matters,
they declared themselves faithful to " immortal
principles." They were enemies of Napoleon I.,
less, however, than of Jacobites and Socialists, but
they could not forgive him for the entrance of the
allies into France, nor for the terrors of the inva-
sion.
They taught me Auguste Barbier's famous iam-
bic : " O Corse a cheveux plats, que la France
etoit belle," so that I might repeat it to grand-
father.
" Bonaparte," my great-grandmother at Chivres
[263]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
said, as my father had also said, " gave us back
France smaller than he took it."
They were not fond of Beranger, and when I
sang his songs which grandfather had taught me
they listened, but made protestations against the
poet and the song. M. Thiers seemed dangerous
to them, with his worship of Napoleon, who Bona-
partised the bourgeoisie, while Beranger Bona-
partised the people.
" And," said aunt Sophie, " whatever may be
the form of government we shall have after this of
Louis Philippe, authoritative ideas, I am afraid,
will triumph. Liberalism, which can alone save
France, which can give her her political existence,
and make her benefit by the intelligence of her
race, seems to exist only in Odilon Barrot's mind
and in de Lamartine's writings."
They read and re-read his Les Girondms, and
the manner in which they spoke of it remains inef-
faceably in my memory.
" The old provincialism of France must be re-
awakened, the country must be governed by a
great number of administrative seats; there must
be decentralisation; France must return to the
Girondist programme and struggle against the ex-
clusive influence of the capital, against the autoc-
racy of new ideas, more oppressing, more tyranni-
[264]
WE DISCUSS FRENCH LITERATURE
cal than the tyrants themselves " this was my
aunts' and my great-grandmother's political pro-
gramme, which they made me write out in order to
communicate it to my parents and grandparents.
" You will keep it, Juliette," aunt Sophie said
to me one day, " for there will come a moment in
your life, I am certain, when, after Jacobite and
Bonapartist experiences, after probable revolu-
tions, you will remember how wise and truly French
and nationalist were your old aunts' ideas. France
should act from her centres of action, and not re-
volve like a top, in her capital."
My aunts had never talked politics together be-
fore me so much as during my vacation in 1847.
" You are wearying that child," great-grand-
mother would say, to which one or the other of her
daughters would reply : " She is old enough to
listen and to understand."
" It will not be useless to you should you have to
listen not with your ears, but with your mouth
yawning to know what such persons of high com-
petency as your aunts think of public affairs,"
said aunt Constance, with her habitual mockery.
" So listen, Juliette, listen ! "
I listened without yawning, for my mind was
open to all political and literary things. My
aunts were the personification of that bourgeoise
[265]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
class, of whom my father spoke, who admitted only
the medium way in social experiments, who cared
only for average impressions " natures insupport-
ably equibalanced," he would say.
My aunts found Victor Hugo too sonorous, too
resounding for their calm minds. Aunt Sophie
said he was " not sufficiently bucolic." They
detested Quasimodo's ugliness, criticised the Ode
a la Colonne Napoleon II., which seemed to
make Victor Hugo a Bonapartist; they found his
plays too intense, too pompously improbable, too
wordily humanitarian. Lucrece Borgia, Marie
Tudor, Les Burgraves, Ruy Bias, put them out of
patience. Their classicalism was revolted. They
blamed his political conduct, too oscillating and
too diverse. Aunt Anastasie implored grace for
his Les Rayons et les Ombres, in which she de-
lighted.
They spoke of Mme. George Sand with reserve.
I heard more exclamations than approbation about
her novel, Leila, whose pretty name I remembered,
as I had seen the book in grandmother's hands.
But they liked many of Mme. George Sand's writ-
ings, especially those on peasant life. La Petite
Fadette they considered a chef-d'oeuvre.
" We are very bourgeoise" said aunt Sophie,
when speaking of Mme. George Sand, " although
[266]
WE DISCUSS FRENCH LITERATURE
our minds are emancipated by liberalism more than
by education, and from regarding public acts more
than private actions. Juliette, remember the name
of this writer, George Sand," she added. " She
will have a great influence on your genera-
tion, and you will certainly be enthusiastic about
her when you are of age. No matter what is said
of her, Mme. George Sand has remained very wom-
anly, and she will never really be understood except
by women; but the greater part of the things she
has written, outside of her stories of peasant life,
are suited to younger minds than ours, which she
must delight, and which she certainly reflects. It
is easier for us to understand Mme. de Stael and
her Corinne" And my aunts initiated me in the
beauty, so dissimilar, of Mme. de Stael's Corirme
and Mme. George Sand's La Petite Fadette. I
found, to their delight, the two books equally ad-
mirable, though in a different way. It is true
they read them aloud to me, pointing out what I
should admire ; but my aunts, in spite of my affec-
tion for them, and the great confidence I felt in
their intelligence, would never have made me en-
thusiastic about them if I had not myself felt their
power.
My grandmother, who adored Balzac, used fre-
quently to read to me long extracts from his works,
[267]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
which I found tedious. She had finally renounced
trying to make me like her dear, her great, her
unique novel-writer. I sometimes vexed her by
saying :
" He is neither Homeric nor Virgilian enough."
My aunts detested Balzac.
" He is a creator of unwholesome characters,"
said aunt Anastasie ; " the heroes of Monsieur de
Balzac can easily enter into one's life and lead one
to live in the same manner in which they live them-
selves. They are so real that you think you have
known them; they take possession of me when I
read one of his novels. I cannot free my mind of
people whom I do not like, whose acts I blame, and
who impose themselves on my judgment, as an
ugly fashion is sometimes imposed on well-dressed
women. I am convinced that Balzac will form
even more characters than those he has painted. I
fear that my sister Pelagie acts under his influence
oftener than she is aware. If you let yourself be
captured by that man's power, he possesses you,
and he is an ill-doer who leads you to doubt, to
be sceptical about people and things."
" Take care, my niece, of Monsieur de Balzac,
later in life," added aunt Constance, " he is the
most dangerous of all writers of the present day.
He will create contemporaries for you, whom I do
[268]
WE DISCUSS FRENCH LITERATURE
not envy you; egoists, people athirst for position.
Remember what your old aunt has said to you
even write it down : Balzac will engender brains, but
never consciences nor hearts. To Balzac, virtue is
an imbecility. Eugenie Grandet and Le Pere Gar-
lot revolt me. I do not even make an exception of
the Lys dans la Vallee."
Ah! if grandmother, who was a fanatic about
him, had been there, what passion she would have
thrown into those discussions about Monsieur de
Balzac with her sisters. I told my aunts that
when I left Chauny grandmother was reading Les
deux Jeunes Mariees for the fifth time.
Aunt Sophie dictated to me a criticism of de
Balzac's works, which I read to grandmother on
my return. She became angry and made me reply
to her sister in her name. I had thus two contra-
dictory lessons on de Balzac and I remember them
both.
De Balzac was a whole world to grandmother.
Through him, and with him, one could exclude the
banality of social intercourse from one's existence.
One lived with his heroes as if they were friends;
they were flesh and blood. One talked with them,
saw them ; they peopled one's existence, they came
and visited one.
I wrote pages on pages to aunt Sophie about de
[269]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Balzac. She replied to grandmother, and then
began a correspondence between the two sisters on
the literature of the day, which was communicated
to me whenever it could be, and which instructed
me about many works of the time that were vibrat-
ing with interest.
My aunt and grandmother agreed in disapprov-
ing of the writings of Eugene Sue, who taught the
people to hate priests by his portrayal of the char-
acter of Rodin.
Grandmother sought distraction in her read-
ings ; aunt Sophie sought reflection. The one was
interested only in lovers' adventures, the other in
the elegant forms in which thought was clad, in
descriptions of nature, in the philosophy of life.
They never understood each other nor agreed
about any work whatever.
[270]
XXVIII
WE TALK ABOUT POLITICS
|AVING reached my eleventh year, I was quite
convinced that I had become a young lady.
Many persons thought me older than I really was
on account of my height and my serious demean-
our. My ideas at this time were very pronounced,
but not always matured ; my imagination ran wild ;
I was as simple as a child and I reasoned like a
young woman. Nearly all of those who hereto-
fore had treated me like a child, now called me
" Mademoiselle," and grandmother, desirous to
justify the name, lengthened my skirts considera-
bly, and I wore them almost quite long.
I stayed with grandmother nearly a week between
my return from Chivres and my sojourn with my
father, and my head was full of the literature of
the day, and I now had my own opinions on Mme.
de Stae'l, Mme. George Sand, Victor Hugo, de Bal-
zac, and Eugene Sue. I had a book full of inter-
rogative notes for my father, who had talked to
me only of the ancient or " democratic and social
authors," as he called them. While I was at
Chauny I put all these notes in order, and they
[271]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
were interesting from the fact that the greater
part of them had been gathered from my aunts'
conversation.
I wondered whether my father would consent to
discuss the literature of the day with me. My
knowledge would assuredly surprise him, but did
he even know the authors about whom I wished to
talk with him? But as aunt Sophie, in spite of
her love for Virgil and the Latin writers, was still
much interested in the celebrities of the day, I
thought that my father, too, might perhaps unite
a taste for literature with his love of politics.
As soon as I arrived at Blerancourt I bombarded
him with questions. What did he think of Mme.
de Stael, of Mme. George Sand, of Victor Hugo,
of de Lamartine, of de Balzac? My mother
thought it scandalous that I should be allowed
to read and criticise authors of whom she knew
scarcely anything. Really, our family was quite
crazy ; even my aunts, whom she had always heard
spoken of as sensible women, were more old-fash-,
ioned than modernised. My mother used to say that
if she had brought me up she would have made a sim-
ple housewife of me, educated to live in her circle
and to think like other people, and not a pedantic,
unbearable child, already thrown out of her sphere
by the training of her mind, and with her intelli-
[272]
WE TALK ABOUT POLITICS
gence overheated at an age when it should have
been set on calm foundations.
My father quite looked down on the literature
of his own day. He answered my questions with
commonplaces. Lamartine alone excited him, in
the way of blame, not in his character of poet, but
as a historian, and he declared that Les Girondins
was the work of a " malefactor." His admiration
of Eugene Sue was so exaggerated that it would
have made aunt Sophie repeat one of her favourite
sayings : " There are some opinions which are
crimes."
" Eugene Sue," said my father, " is a genius ;
he will deliver France from all the Rodins ; a new
epoch will begin from his influence, an epoch when
our country will at last be delivered from the
church; Eugene Sue has moulded the soft clay of
which the people are still made; some other man
will obtain hard marble from this same people on
which to sculpture his ideas. Events in our day
move rapidly forward. The great renovators
have prepared all which they intend to renovate,
definite freedom." He added solemnly : " We
are at last at liberty to speak of things of which
you are as yet ignorant, and which I can now dis-
close to you. No one now can hinder me from
forming your understanding on the same pattern
19 [ 273 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
as my own. You have been instructed concerning
the religion of your grandmother and your moth-
er; I can now talk to you of mine without hin-
drance; teach you and show you from whence
comes light to the minds and hearts of men. It
comes from nature ; it is real because we can see it ;
it is ideal from the vast expanse it illuminates."
The next day my father began to teach me what
he called my new catechism, and gave me in dic-
tation the principal articles. Here are a few of
the pages which I have kept:
" The worship of nature, which we have re-
ceived from the Greeks, the only people who ever
penetrated the depths of its mystery a worship
transmitted to us through uninterrupted centuries,
which Jean Jacques Rousseau has taught us in his
admirable language to understand, and of which
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre has given us the senti-
mentality is the only true worship.
" Nature, Science, Humanity, are the three
terms of initiation. First comes nature, which
rules everything; then the revelations of nature,
revelations which mean science that is to say,
phenomena made clear in themselves and observed
by man; and lastly, the appropriation of phe-
nomena for useful social purposes.
" The times are moving fast, the dawn is becora-
[274]
WE TALK ABOUT POLITICS
ing light. Nature reveals herself more and more
to us; the future is bright. A general spirit of
fraternity prevails. Nature, which Christianity
calls our enemy, gives herself wholly to man to aid
him in his efforts to traverse the world by steam,
to question the stars, and to discover intact the ves-
tiges of by-gone times, which she has preserved
for him.
" If Christianity has endeavoured to break the
bonds between man and nature, Jesus, the immortal
Christ, has drawn men together. He said to
them : ' You are brethren ; there is no caste, no
race, no religion, no history, no art, no morals,
that are not the universal patrimony of human-
ity.'
" It seems to me," said my father, " when I
think of the beauty of things, of the harmony one
can discover, where blinded persons see only an-
tagonism, that my enjoyment of life is increased
five-fold. One single epoch can alone be compared
to our time, that of the birth of Christianity.
Christ, who brought with Him the republican
formulas of equality and fraternity, preached the
* good word ' to the people as we preach it. Soon
we too shall become apostles. Jesus freed what
He called souls; we shall free the social person by
adding liberty to equality and fraternity.
[275]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" A Ledru-Rollin, a Louis Blanc, are the con-
tinuators of Christianity. The poor man who has
won his rights by the great revolution, must be the
one to impose duty on the higher classes ; the work-
er must have a right to his work, and the rich man
must be bound to furnish him with work.
" The right to work is the most absolute of all
rights, but by no means the only one. The most
miserable creature, because he is a man, has a right
to education and to his share of government.
There is no error in nature, no perversity in man ;
evil comes only from society, which piles up er-
rors and wicked sophisms. The renovating forces
of the future will therefore attack society and the
middle class, which governs society for its own ex-
clusive benefit. Juliette ! Juliette ! I intend to
make you an ardent advocate for the general good
and happiness of humanity. I cannot tell why,
but I fancy that your heart, like my own, will be
able to desire passionately the elevation of the
masses; for even now you speak to a workman, to
a peasant, or to a poor man, as if he were your
equal.
" I, you see, love the humble, those who are on
the lower steps of life, more than I do myself; the
sight of those who suffer, those who struggle, and
are overcome by everything, simply tortures m^
[276]
WE TALK ABOUT POLITICS
heart. We must give all of ourselves to those who
have nothing. If many people felt in this way,
there would be far fewer ills to comfort and less
misery to be helped. The poor have only the vice
of their poverty, the inferiority of their social
standing.
" A rich and superior man who has defects is
culpable, and those who are vicious are monsters;
whereas the destitute who are faulty and vicious,
have every excuse and every right to be absolved.
" Real piety consists in giving one's indul-
gences, one's help, and one's love to the wretched,
not in limited charity, circumscribed to material
relief, but with a broad humanity."
My heart melted at these words, and, as my
father's acts were always in accordance with what
he said, he moved every fibre of sensibility I pos-
sessed.
" A republic alone can give to men the greatest
of all precious things: the liberty of their rights
and their duties," said my father, " allowing them
the free expansion of their faculties for human
benefaction. It alone can distribute instruction
unreservedly and impose education by example.
" Socialist - republican principles endow every
man, every citizen, with a dogma of pride which
assures his moral value. If a man be a socialist-
[277]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
republican, he finds within himself the exact level
of his scope of faculties, which in no wise oppress
the scope of other person's faculties."
And then came endless preaching. My father's
conviction, sincere faith, and absolute certainty of
the truth of his ideas, gave him such persuasive elo-
quence that no child of eleven could resist, espe-
cially one whom he treated as a beloved disciple.
One evening my father solemnly gave me a
small guide entitled, " Twenty-one short precepts
on the duties of a sincere Socialist-republican,"
which Saint Paul would not have disavowed. He
had composed it for me and for his peasant and
workingmen proselytes.
[278]
XXIX
TAI^KS ABOUT NATUEE
WAS very fond of play, but, as I took my
role of socialist-republican disciple so much
in earnest, I seized every opportunity, like my
father, of preaching its doctrines.
In the evenings, after dinner, which we took
rather early, the children of the neighbourhood
used to gather under the lime trees, in the large
square, which was situated near our house. Our
elders sat and chatted with one another, while the
boys and girls, myself at the head, played at revo-
lution. The sons and daughters of the parents
whom my father had " converted " were all on
my side, while the lukewarm, or ignorant, usually
received chastisement, or finally came over to our
party.
While my father crammed my mind with poli-
tics, he did not forget to foster my passion for
nature, the smallest manifestations of which he
deified. He delighted in proving to me that it
was useless for man to seek beyond nature for un-
attainable chimeras, for the infinite which our
[279]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
finite conception was unable to understand, and for
the immaterial, which our materiality can never
satisfactorily explain. He laid particular stress
on this point; he unveiled to me all the great and
small laws of life and movement, both those which
rule the motion of the universe so splendidly, and
those which govern the world of ants, whose ways
and manners he had already taught me. But the
great demonstrations furnished by ants, however
much they impressed my mind, always made me
laugh, for this reason : An old neighbour of ours,
Madame Viet, seemed to have but one occupation
in life, that of destroying ants, and but one sub-
ject of conversation, the " frumions " (as she
called them, in patois) which she had scalded dur-
ing the day, and whose dead bodies she kept, when-
ever she could, to count them at night, either in
imagination or in reality. As soon as she would
appear outside her door, after a very curt " good-
morning " to her neighbours, she would start a
long conversation about the ants. In all the
neighbourhood and at home we all joked about
Madame Viet and the quantity of ants she de-
stroyed.
Her granddaughter, whose father was a large
farmer in the adjacent country, was one of my
schoolmates at Chauny; she spent a few days of
[280]
TALKS ABOUT NATURE
each week during the holidays with her grand-
mother, and was the first to laugh about the ants.
Whenever I went to see Saint-Just's sister,
Madame Decaisne and the Chevalier, I was al-
ways asked for news of our friend and her " fru-
mions." The more she killed the more they re-
appeared in greater numbers; it really seemed as
if they were brought by someone during the night
into her courtyard.
We had some beehives, and I delighted in watch-
ing their daily, never-varying work, about which
my old Homer had sung thousands of years before.
My father, desiring to convince me that men and
animals are what we make them by kindness and
education, taught me, little by little, how to tame
my bees. I used to take them sugar and flowers,
and they never stung me.
" It is because you love them," said my father,
" and they know it well."
I was as fond of my Blerancourt bees as of my
Chauny pigeons, and came to know their ways,
their work, their tastes, and their organisation. I
used to talk to them, and they understood me as
well as did my pigeons.
" You see," said my father, " nature amply suf-
fices for the need of observation, of sociability and
love which exists in man. He is, himself, the con-
[281]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
scious reflection of the whole life of the universe.
If you wish to worship something, worship the sun,
the God that gives you life, that surrounds you
with heat, that illuminates all things, and, under
whose rays, everything grows, everything comes
to life and palpitates."
Under the powerful and incessant pressure of
my father's mind, I gradually came to see every-
thing from his point of view. Anyone mention-
ing the words " apostleship " or " holiness," would
at once have made me think of my father, whose
charity and kindness were without bounds.
I was unwilling to return to Chauny and to the
school, now occupying the place of my beloved
lost garden. I begged my father to delay my de-
parture from Blerancourt, under pretext of my
studying with him. He had begun with me a
course of Greek history which he desired to finish.
He was perfecting me as a " poetess," and the
verses I sent to grandmother, who was very fond
of poetry, were considered much superior to my
first attempts, both by Blondeau and my friend
Charles. In this way I reached Christmas, and
the impress of both republicanism and paganism
became more and more developed in my mind. My
father's ideas fell into ground already prepared
for them by heredity. And then, who could have
TALKS ABOUT NATURE
resisted so much warmth of heart, such a passion-
ate love of the beautiful and the good?
Winter set in very severely at the end of October,
and we met so many poorly clad people on the roads
that my father and I felt ashamed of our warm
clothing, and it often happened that we returned
home without wraps or shoes. My mother, who
was also charitable, but in a sensible way, gave
away only warm clothing; and she would abuse
my father and scold me for being as foolish as he
was.
Lienard had given back to me my large travel-
ling-purse, and begged to be allowed to offer me
the little things we had bought together at Bou-
logne-sur-Mer. This money was of the greatest
use to us for our poor, but it was soon exhausted.
My father would have spent millions had he pos-
sessed them. He could not be trusted with money,
for he gave it instantly away.
My mother, who had carefully saved up the
money for the tilbury, sent it to Lienard, know-
ing well that if she confided it to my father he
would without fail give it to the poor, and not re-
place his worn-out carriage. He was, however,
most desirous of having a new one, the old carriage
being much too heavy when the wheels were cov-
ered with mud, which was the case eight months
[283]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
out of the year, on the badly kept roads around
Blerancourt at that time.
My mother never allowed my father any loose
money; but if his patients' bills were small at De-
caisne's, the chemist, a nephew of Saint-Just, when
the end of each month came, there were painful
surprises for my mother's slender purse, when the
butcher, the baker, and grocer had to be paid.
Added to this, my father often found that people
were too poor to pay for his visits. If he did not
grow rich, he at least grew in influence, and his
republican proselytes numbered hundreds. Bler-
ancourt was now becoming a centre of violent agi-
tation. The most revolutionary pamphlets were
read there ; a large fair was held in the town every
month, and my father's ideas reached all the sur-
rounding villages; the propaganda became more
and more active. Nothing was talked of but re-
forms, progress, the lowering of the census, the
accession to political life, not only of the educated
class, but also of the lower classes.
In my letters to grandmother I told her, of
course, as cleverly as I could, of my new opinions,
but only of those of republican tendency and touch-
ing upon nature. Without discussing them, she
answered that she was anxious about me, that, be-
coming republican first, I would surely become a
[284]
TALKS ABOUT NATURE
socialist, and, from being a worshipper of nature,
turn pagan and atheist, like my father; that it
was the logical outcome of such an education, and
that there was no escaping it. She added that my
father was disloyal to her in destroying in my mind
what she had implanted there.
[285]
XXX
A SEEIOUS ACCIDENT
HURING the first days of December an ex-
cited correspondence about me began between
my father and my grandmother, which increased
in violence. She declared she would not consent
to my staying away until Christmas ; that she had
been deprived of my presence too long ; that I was
her sole reason for living, and that she insisted on
my returning to her at the end of the week we had
just begun.
" If you do not send her back to me," wrote
grandmother, " I shall alter my will ; you will have
nothing, and Juliette can wait for the dot you will
save up for her."
This was my father's answer :
" I am preparing her to marry a workman ! "
When my father told me his answer, I said to
him:
" That is a joke, is it not? "
" No," he answered, " it is my dearest wish."
"It is not mine!" I answered curtly. "I
would give up my life for our cause, but I have no
taste for the slow torture of married life out of
my own sphere."
[286]
A SERIOUS ACCIDENT
" Juliette ! "
" It is true, papa, and I will never, never marry
a man who is my inferior."
"Well, where is your theory of equality?"
" Equality of rights yes, papa, I believe in
that with all my heart, but equality in manners
and ways of life no, never ! "
My father was angry and I was sulky.
During the day a cartload of wood was brought
to the door, and, fearing a fall of snow, my father,
my mother, and myself helped to carry in the logs.
As I stooped to pick some up in my arms, my
father, taking up one of the logs, gave me such a
blow that I screamed with pain. I stood up and
found the blood flowing from my temple and left
eye. My father, under the impression that he had
destroyed my eye, had one of his fits of madness.
His only fault was his extreme violence of temper.
In one of his rages he had killed a dog of whom
he was very fond. In another, because his broth-
er-in-law, a man as tall and as strong as himself,
had somewhat roughly treated his wife, my fath-
er's sister, he would have killed him also, if they
had not been separated.
He brandished his log of wood furiously, and
cried out:
" I would rather see my daughter dead than liv-
[287]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
ing with only one eye ! I shall kill her and myself
afterwards ! "
My mother tried in vain to hold him back. The
gardener endeavoured to wrest the log from him.
I suffered intensely. I was half blinded, and I,
too, thought my eye was gone. I was not afraid
of death ; I was only afraid that my father would
commit the crime of killing himself and me.
It was a horrible moment. I was paralysed,
but, seeing that my father was on the point of es-
caping from my mother and the gardener, I rushed
into the house, and with all my might held the
door shut which separated my father from the
crime he was about to commit.
My mother kept crying out to him that he
would end on the scaffold and dishonour his fam-
ily. Blattier, the gardener, besought him, say-
ing : " Monsieur Lambert, as good as you are,
you are surely not going to do such a dreadful
thing!"
I mastered myself, and said to my father in
calm tones, through the door:
" Very well, papa, you mean to kill me, but let
me first go upstairs for a minute to wash my eye
and see whether it is really gone."
I let go the door it did not open. My father,
who was struggling against their terrified suppli-
[288]
A SERIOUS ACCIDENT
cations, was dumfounded at the sound of my
calm voice. He let fall his log of wood, and
leaned against the wall, and, from my little room,
where I was bathing my eye, I could hear his sobs
and cries of grief.
My heart stood still when I turned up my eyelid.
My eyebrow was cut open, but I could see. I
folded a wet handkerchief over the wound with one
hand, and ran to my father. I looked angrily at
him. I was furious with him for not knowing
how to master his violent temper, and I felt that
but for my calmness, the presence of mind of a
mere child, he would have killed me.
" You see," I said, coldly, " my eye is not put
out. It would have been useless to kill me. Only
my eyebrow is cut, and I am going to Decaisne's
to have it dressed."
" Juliette ! " cried both of my parents. I did
not heed them, but ran to Decaisne. I told him I
had hurt myself and that my father was so ner-
vous about it he was unable to treat the wound.
Grandmother arrived next day to take me away.
I had not spoken a single word to my father, or
answered any of his questions, for I thought that
he deserved severe blame.
Grandmother never guessed anything of the
truth about this lamentable event, but she thought
20 [ 289 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
me feverish. I told her quite naturally before my
father, how I had hurt myself, and she never gave
a second thought to such a simple fact as the
sudden shutting of a door on me, which was the
version I gave her. My father winced under my
protecting lies. I think he would have much pre-
ferred a scene of violent reproach to my calm in-
dulgence.
I kissed him coldly as I left. Tears ran down
his face, which induced grandmother to give him
a passionate embrace.
" Come, my son," she said, " we will divide her,
and each take half, for she belongs solely to us."
My mother at these words grew angry with me.
" You are clever enough to make yourself be-
loved," she said in my ear, kissing me coldly, " but
I do not see what you gain by the exaggerated
love you inspire. Remember the log of wood ! "
Grandmother got into the carriage. My father
heard my mother's last words, and was about to
give way once more to his violent temper, but
calmed himself, and said to me, kissing me with all
his heart :
" Juliette, my darling child, forgive me ! "
[290]
XXXI
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, AND FRATERNITY "
|HEN I stayed with my father I missed my
grandmother her liveliness, her fancies, her
caprices, her gracious tenderness, and her ma-
ternal feeling. Grandfather's wit amused and
rested me, and to be without Blondeau's devotion
and my friend Charles's admiration was a great
deprivation. But as soon as I returned to grand-
mother I felt myself an orphan. I was nervous,
my mind was empty, I was stupefied, and became
more childlike, more enervated, less fit for " the
struggle for life," a phrase which grandfather in-
dulged in too frequently and used on all occasions.
These allusions to the " struggle for life " some-
times came up in such a droll manner in conver-
sation that they made us all laugh, but I often
thought that these same struggles did really
exist, and were anything but droll. Had I not
already experienced them? The memory of that
scene of my father's violence rose so tragically in
my mind that it seemed to impress me much more
when I invoked it than at the time when I endured
the pain. Then, too, my father's strange, insane
[291]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
idea of marrying me to a workman never left my
mind.
I had sometimes dreamed of a cottage or a
farm, with a gentleman for a husband, but never
of a " lodging," with a weaver's loom or a car-
penter's block in the centre of the room, waiting
for " my man " to return from taking his work
home, having " finished his day."
I could have no doubts about my deep and
growing love for the people a love which in my
days of enthusiasm seemed capable of enabling me
to sacrifice my very life for their cause; I wished
to help them and to serve them, but to form a
part of them, I, whom generations of ancestors
had elevated above them that I could never
do.
I recalled Saint-Just's words, which his sister
often repeated to me in speaking of the elegance
of the young Jacobite, " the people's friend." He
said:
" I wish to raise the people up to me, and desire
to see them one day dressed as I am myself, but
I will never lower myself to them nor wear their
blue blouse."
My father, on the contrary, delighted to wear
the sayon of the Gauls, the peasant's blouse, and
workman's smock-frock. He failed, however, to
[292]
"LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY"
induce my mother to dress herself as a woman of
the people.
To be sure, when I stayed with my aunts I
gladly wore the peasant costume, which they had
worn for years, but then they saw no one they
had retired from the world but had always re-
mained gentlewomen. They had not chosen that
mode of dress to become one of the lower class.
Their ways, their conversation, their lives, showed
the refinement of their caste. The contrast be-
tween their refinement and the peasant garb pleased
them, because it was rustic and made them think
of Trianon; whereas the contrast sought by my
father would have made one think rather of the
women who sat and knitted by the guillotine, the
" tricoteuses " of the Revolution.
One day I had a discussion with my father on
this subject, and told him I would much rather
see the " white caps " (the name given in Picardy
to the peasant women) wearing hats like mine
although at that time such a thing was not dreamed
of, though doubtless they would have been pleased
to don them than I should care to wear their
caps.
Notwithstanding reservations of this kind, or
rather in spite of our different ways of interpret-*
ing the idea of equality, which I wished to be
[293]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
elevating and not lowering, I agreed entirely with
my father as to the forms of republican principles
and as to the social and democratic programme
which I had accepted. I neither laid aside nor
disowned my little book, wherein were inscribed
the twenty-one principles of the future.
My mother and grandmother both reproached
my father for forcing my young mind and caus-
ing it to ripen too soon, to which he replied :
" She can think what she pleases later. Either
what I have taught her will satisfy her, as it satis-
fies me and I think it will, for she resembles me
more than any other member of the family or she
will throw off my ideas, as I threw off, in one night,
the teachings of the seminary."
The end of 1847 fixed in my mind the political
convictions which I have kept, without modifica-
tion, for more than thirty-five years. My father's
great abilities, his immense goodness, his love of
the people, his disinterestedness, all of which filled
up the void in his conceptions, made me for many
years his disciple.
He believed, and made others believe, that the
people possessed, in a latent degree, all the virtues,
and that it would be necessary only to put them
in possession of all their social and political rights
for them to be worthy of both.
[294]
"LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY"
In my father's enthusiasm for " the masses "
there was both the affirmation of a strong ideal and
also a great deal of ingenuousness. I see it now,
alas! Our sentimentality was not made of false
sentiment, but of a valiant faith in the necessity
of justice and in a proper proportion of social
benefits. For us of the " middle class " to con-
tribute to the happiness of the people involved a
certain sacrifice which was not lacking in generos-
ity or grandeur.
The belief in universal fraternity, the hope that
each nation might participate in the freedom of
other nations, developed the finest of all qualities
abnegation and heroism in the men who filled
prominent roles in 1848.
It could not be truthfully said, however, that
practical, feasible ideas possessed the minds of
the revolutionists of 1847, since a young girl,
eleven and a half years old, as I was at that time,
could be initiated into all the revolutionary plans,
could understand them, be enthusiastic about them,
and strive for their accomplishment. These plans
were undoubtedly somewhat infantile.
Grandmother, to whom I had talked a great
deal, was quite taken with the sentimentality of the
idea of regeneration and with the honest appear-
ance of character of the Liberals and the Repub-
[295]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
licans, at that time united. She began to think
that the " hirelings of royalty " were corrupted,
and that Louis Philippe was too unyielding to re-
form and to progress. Little by little she was
being brought around to my father's way of
thinking. Blondeau, although an office-holder,
thought as I did.
Grandfather had received orders from his Bona-
partist committee not to fear socialism, but, on the
contrary, to encourage it, and he approved and
supported my most eccentric ideas.
My father, to my great surprise, was not pleased
with grandmother's half conversion. I had thought
he would rejoice in it.
" If the middle class, who yesterday were still
royalists, become republicans, why, then, when we
do have a republic they will spoil the country and
turn it royalist. We shall do much better to go
slowly and to form new generations according to
our principles than to rally elements which will
create a selfish and middle-class republic instead
of a democratic-socialist otherwise, generous re-
public. I see already," my father added, " all the
harm that Odilon Barrot is doing."
He expressed ideas entirely opposite to those of
my aunts, who accused Ledru-Rollin of misleading
the campaign of the reformists, while he accused
[296]
"LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY"
Odilon Barrot of turning this campaign aside from
its end.
My father became every day more fanatical in
his ideas. His opinions became more and more in-
tolerant. Was this the reason of the violence of
his character? Whenever he spoke, either to
friends or to myself, of the future, he always spoke
of the rising tide which it would soon be impossible
to stem.
" Our principles clash, all things are as yet in
conflict; we ourselves are powerless to be logical,
and our country is bringing forth monstrous
things," said my father. " Everything is abnor-
mal, because too many things are being elaborated
at the same time. There is such a thirst for re-
form that when the first one is made others will
follow which will overstep all we have ever imag-
ined. That is the reason why King Louis Philippe,
very sensibly, for the sake of his own security, will
have none. As to myself," added my father,
" would an electoral reform satisfy me, would the
combination of other intellects satisfy me, either?
What do I desire? To undermine everything, ac-
cording to my master, Proudhon, in his ' Econom-
ical Contradictions,' or to renew everything, ac-
cording to my other master, Victor Considerant,
as he teaches in his ' Principles of Socialism : A
[297]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Manifesto of Democracy in the Twentieth Cen-
tury ' ? What I do desire with all my heart, and
that which is absolutely necessary, and without
which we shall lose our heads, and exact from the
revolution reforms on which no thought has been
bestowed, and which are neither ripened nor likely
to live what I do desire is to make somewhere,
anywhere, an experiment of socialism, of associa-
tion, and of life in common, a phalanstery. Then,
indeed, the possibilities of a social change might
be proved."
[298]
XXXII
VIVE JL.A REPUBLIQUE!
I >
RETURNED to school, in spite of the pain
it gave me. Happily for me, Maribert had
not come back. By degrees I regained my influ-
ence. Stirring political events were following each
other in quick succession, and drew the attention
of my young friends whom I had interested in the
importance of what was going on.
Even in the provinces public opinion was irri-
tated by the obstinacy of King Louis Philippe and
of Monsieur Guizot, and by the insufficiency of a
servile House, whose majority was bought. Every-
one said and we also, the young female politicians
of the Mesdemoiselles Andre's school, especially,
declared that " the hour for reforms had
sounded ! "
It was affirmed that King Louis Philippe pre-
tended to fear nothing and to laugh at Odilon
Barrot and Ledru-Rollin.
Much was said concerning a banquet about
to take place in the First Arrondissement of
Paris, and of seditious cries already heard. We
called them " cries of deliverance." When we
[299]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
shook hands with one another every morning we
murmured, in low tones : " Long live Reform !
Down with Guizot ! "
We knew, and kept saying among ourselves, that
the people, the great people, " were stirring in their
deep masses."
And, lo ! one day we heard that many of these
inoffensive people had been massacred for making
a purely legal demonstration ; that King Louis
Philippe, after trying twice to form a ministry,
and that the Duchess of Orleans, after a semblance
of regency, were in flight ; then we heard, in quick
succession, that the people had erected barricades,
that the National Guard had behaved like heroes,
and that the Republic was proclaimed!
The Republic! and what a grand Republic!
My father's and mine, one that began by recog-
nizing the people and their right to work !
The Republic had just ratified this privilege,
and the people's delegates had said, in words worthy
of ancient Greece:
" The people have three months of misery to
give to the service of the Republic."
" The people," said the Democratic Pacifique,
" have behaved admirably and have shown them-
selves worthy of every liberty. They have proved
their moral maturity. Not a single robbery, nor
[300]
"VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE!
a single attack on private property has been com-
mitted." The ragged poor who guarded the Pal-
ace of the Tuileries had put placards along the
corridors, reading : " Death to all thieves ! " They
had also protected the bank treasure.
France once again was at the head of nations,
and gave a new example of her national grandeur.
My father arrived on the 26th of February. He
could not stay quiet at Blerancourt, and felt that
he must share his joy with me.
Grandmother did not appear over-anxious about
the revolution.
Grandfather raged. He had thought that the
overthrowing of the Orleans dynasty could be but
to the sole advantage of Louis Napoleon. He fell
upon the first triumphant Republican, his son-in-
law, who came under his hands, and also upon his
stupidly democratic Republic, and none of us
could force him to beat a retreat. My father
laughed, grandmother smiled, and I said :
" Ah ! poor grandfather, with our Republic
I am afraid your Bonaparte is in a bad way,
however socialistic he may have pretended to
be."
I can remember that at the end of dinner on that
26th of February, grandfather, who, to console
himself for his disappointment, had added a few
[301 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
bottles of his old Macon wine to his usual allow-
ance, said to us, with eyes rounder than ever:
" Well, I can see as clear as daylight into the
future."
" Grandfather, it is eight o'clock in the even-
ing."
" I see your Republic do you hear, Lambert?
do you hear, Juliette? thrown to the ground by
my Bonaparte. I repeat it, so that you may hear :
revolutions always end in empires."
Grandmother, Blondeau, and especially my fa-
ther and I, laughed heartily at him.
At school, how excited and curious and fright-
ened they all were ! Half the pupils were missing
and were shut up at home, as it was thought the
revolution might spread in the provinces. The
workmen of the glass manufactory were all for the
Republic. They would doubtless proclaim it at
Chauny, make a revolution on their own account,
and perhaps commit pillage.
Mademoiselle Andre and her younger sister sent
for me as soon as I arrived at school. They had
long known of my father's opinions and guessed
at mine. They wished to put themselves under
our protection.
" Well, Juliette, how pleased your father must
be at the news, as he has always been a republican.
Have you seen him ? "
[302]
"VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE!
" Yes, Mademoiselle, he came yesterday, and he
is overjoyed. He says that France is now, at last,
worthy of her history ; that she will govern her-
self ; that all the European nations will admire us,
and perhaps imitate us; that it is now the coming
to power of the people, of the real people, not the
corrupted middle class, and that "
" That will do," said the elder Mademoiselle
Andre, sharply. " Please keep to yourself these
beautiful opinions of your father. I forbid you
to speak of them here."
" In the class-room, Mademoiselle ? "
" In the class-room or at recreation."
I looked Mademoiselle Andre straight in the
face. I was nearly as tall as she was. I an-
swered :
" I cannot promise that, Mademoiselle, for we
number a good many republicans in school. And
no one can forbid us to speak of, and to love, the
Republic."
" But France has not accepted your Republic,"
said Mademoiselle Sophie.
" She will accept it, Mademoiselle, for now the
people can vote."
The Mesdemoiselles Andre were torn by conflict-
ing feelings the imperative desire to hush me,
which I perfectly understood from the tone in
[303]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
which Mademoiselle Sophie said : " Ah ! Juliette,
how sad it is to be divided between being obliged
to be harsh to the daughter of a friend and the
fear of irritating republican sentiments. When
you next see your father, Juliette, you can tell him
from us how sincerely we hope that his Republic
will calm France instead of disturbing her."
I made my curtsey and went into the class-room.
Curious glances followed me. I answered by signs
that an important affair had happened. All my
schoolmates were aware of my having been called
into the drawing-room by " Mesdemoiselles."
I had a tri-coloured cockade pinned inside my
bodice. I took it out and held it in the palm of
my hand, under the half-raised cover of my desk.
I showed it to my neighbour, and slipped it into
her hand; she did the same to her neighbour. In
an instant my cockade went the round of our long
table, unperceived by our governess. My friends
knew then that " Mesdemoiselles " had spoken to
me about the Republic!
The class became highly excited; we were all
restless and inattentive. Not one of us had learned
her lessons or written her exercises, and there
seemed to be but one answer:
" Mademoiselle, I have had no time for my les-
sons on account of the Republic."
[304]
"VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE!
" Mademoiselle, I have had no time to study, on
account of the Republic ! "
" I wonder what interest the Republic can have
for you? " said our governess, in a most disdain-
ful tone, and shrugging her shoulders.
A voice was heard to answer, amid general
silence. It was mine:
" Why, Mademoiselle, the Republic is most ex-
citing to us ! "
An approving murmur upheld me. Mademoi-
selle was silent, and looked amazed at me, and I
saw it struck her that if I had dared to answer her
as I had, it was because I thought I had the right
to do so.
The exit of the class was something like a small
riot.
It was our Republic, and we, the Frondeuses,
owned it! The King in exile, republicans and
democrats in power, it was simply a triumph ! Sur-
rounded and questioned, I did not know which of
my friends to answer first.
" What did Mesdemoiselles say to you ? " was
the general query.
I told them what had passed, and, if it had been
possible, they would have crowned me with laurels.
" That was right ! That is what I call brave and
firm; that was just the thing to say; your true
21 [ 305 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
republican answer was what it should have been ! "
was the approving comment on my action.
I repeated for my friends' benefit every word
my father had said : " The Republic was marvel-
lous; we were to have complete liberty and no
authority." Doubtless, and especially now, in the
beginning of things, we were not to be impertinent
to our governesses, but we should very soon be able
to make them feel that, although younger and less
clever than they, the Republic considered us their
equals !
What discussions, what plans, what different
ways of understanding Government there were!
" I would do this ! I would act thus ! " we said.
We each of us wanted so many different things,
that it was agreed at last that we, the initiated, the
Frondeuses, should each make out a programme,
which should be read in recess next day, and that
which seemed to us the best form of government
should be decided upon by vote. Our young
minds were filled with the current words of the
day.
The uniting of " abilities " was decidedly quite
insufficient as a reform; on that point everyone
agreed; everybody must vote, men, women, and
especially schoolgirls. We had conceived in our
minds a foreshadowing of true universal suffrage,
[306]
VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE!"
and later we were firmly convinced that we had
invented it.
The opening of national workshops pleased my
father greatly. He wrote to me that at last the
people were to be happy; that one hundred thou-
sand citizens were fed by the State and worked
for it. He thought at that time, with many
others, that Louis Blanc was secretly at the
head of the founding and organizing of the na-
tional workshops, and his confidence in them grew
thereby.
" All other nations admire us, and all will later
imitate us," added my father at the end of his
long letter. " The Republic is to arm every
Frenchman, so that all shall be prepared to join
in delivering other nations."
My father came to see us again in March.
Alas ! he seemed already very uneasy. The na-
tional assembly was full of reactionists. The
Montagne had no authority. True, the estab-
lishing of the Republic had taken everyone by
surprise. Nothing was ready ; certain reforms had
been pushed through, certain measures had been
too hurried, but the feelings of all the republicans
were so noble, so proud, so disinterested, there was
such a belief among them in right, in justice, in
the divine voice of the people, that it was better
[307]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
not to be disquieted with their indecision, nor to be
too hard on mistakes already committed.
In my father's opinion, the worst of it was the
fact that the whole world had its eyes upon us,
and that the dream of a Republic and universal
fraternity could be realised only by the Republic
of France giving definitely, and at once, the ex-
ample she owed to the world.
My father had just been elected Mayor of
Blerancourt. His friends and disciples would
never have allowed another to hold power there,
however small that power might be, nor that he
should not be able to possess the possibility of
realising all that his enthusiasm and generosity
promised for the Republic.
Grandmother and I went to Blerancourt to see
them plant the tree of Liberty, but it displeased
us to behold my father attending this ceremony
dressed in a blue blouse. His tri-coloured scarf
was tied so as to show the red only. Already my
father declared : " Of the three colours, we like only
the red." White seemed to him too Legitimist, and
blue too Organist.
" Juliette," asked grandmother, in my ear, as
we were starting for the ceremony, " do you like
that blouse? does it not shock your taste? "
" It is partly blue, at any rate, grandmother,**
[308]
VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE!
I answered, laughing; " and, with papa's ideas, it
might have been all red ! "
A young poplar tree was brought and planted
in a large hole prepared for it in the market-place.
My father, since the Republic had been declared
in the name of liberty, had become reconciled with
the priest, who now blessed the tree of Liberty.
In his speech the priest declared that if the
Republic realized the evangelical ideals of its pro-
gramme, incarnated in the names of liberty, equal-
ity, and fraternity, it would be the finest form of
government existing; but, in order to accomplish
this, it was necessary that all republicans should
be as sincere, as generous, and, he cleverly added,
as Christian in heart, if not in form, and as devoted
to the poor as the new Mayor.
In a speech full of ardour, which carried me
away, and with a fiery eloquence which fascinated
grandmother, my father answered the priest that
no one could deny that the Republic, and its prin-
ciples of liberty, equality, and fraternity, was born
from the Gospel; that Christ was the first of all
socialists and republicans; that a true republican
should possess all the Christian virtues, and that
Christianity was the finest human formula ever
conceived.
I was amazed. My father added : " All that has
[309]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
reference to the temporal power of the Church is
admirable. It is more advanced than we socialists
in the understanding and the practice of associa-
tion. We have a great deal to learn from her, but
it is time that she herself should learn from us the
worship of nature, and allow herself to be pene-
trated by the truth of science ! "
" My dear Mayor," said the vicar to my father
after the ceremony, " you would accept the Chris-
tian religion with your eyes shut under the condi-
tion that it should be heathenish."
" In return," said my father, laughingly, to the
vicar, " accept my heathen religion, springing
from the love of nature, under the condition that
it inspires Christian virtues."
" Never ! never ! " replied the vicar, smiling.
" You have said that we are in advance of you in
the conception of association and of life in com-
mon ; we are also in advance of you from a religious
point of view. Christianity represents the present
and the future ! " And he added, mockingly :
" Paganism will continue to be more and more a
thing of the past."
" So be it ! " the Mayor replied, gaily, leading
off the vicar, who came to breakfast with us.
" I believe," said my father, in the manner of
one proposing a toast, at the end of the repast,
[310]
VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE!
" in an absolute, undeniable way, that the Republic
is the consecration of liberty, of conscience, and of
tolerance, and I, as Mayor, will prove to you,
reverend vicar, with what largeness, what eleva-
tion of ideas, with what grandeur we democratic-
socialist republicans understand liberty ! "
[311]
XXXIII
" OTHEE TIMES, OTHER MANNERS "
j|Y progress as a student suffered considerably
from my serious political preoccupation.
My father came to see us every week, most
anxious to keep me well advised of all passing
events. He gave me cuttings, selected and clev-
erly classified, from the Democratic Pacifique, and
brought me books, pamphlets, and proclamations.
One would have thought that it was very necessary
that I should be instructed about the acts of the
members of the Provisionary Government and with
the writings of those who showed themselves the
most ardent among the reformers. The study of
the French language, of history, geography, and
literature, were secondary things to the author of
my being.
Besides, in truth, who knew whether the French
tongue might not become universal; whether the
history of kings would be able to keep its footing
amid the events of the great revolutionary out-
burst ; whether the geography of our planet was
not going to be changed in such a way by the fra-
ternity of peoples that it would be almost useless
"OTHER TIMES, OTHER MANNERS"
to learn it under the form given to it by the odious
past ?
The future meant progress, light, new things!
All the old forms were to be banished. But, by a
strange contradiction, which, however, seemed to
strike no one, this progress, this light, these new
things continued to be based on the evangelical
principles of liberty, equality, and on the morality
of Christ, " the Precursor," the first Socialist.
In the jargon of the epoch, the Republic of
Pericles, of Socrates, of Plato, mingled its history
with that of the great French Revolution. The
beauty of Athenian art alternated with the por-
ridge of Sparta; the naked feet, or the sabots, of
the soldiers of the fourteen armies with the mag-
nificence of the festivals of the Goddess of Reason.
There was no escaping the qualifications given
to all men and to all things what we call " saws "
to-day. The integrity of Saint- Just's character,
Robespierre's austerity, Danton's power, Ledru-
Rollin's love of the people, Proudhon's overwhelm-
ing courage, the sublime social theories of Pierre
Leroux, of Cabet, of Louis Blanc, woman's superi-
ority as shown by Tousseuel in his Esprit des
Betes, and by Fourier in his Phalanstere, and by
George Sand all this kind of talk studded the
speeches of orators in small towns and villages to
[313]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
such a degree that many orations were almost
identical, no matter what subject was treated. To
improvise was easy; the speakers simply wove
phrases together, and the sonority of the words
lulled their listeners as a well-known air will do.
The oratorical art of the Republic of 1848 in
the provinces was analogous to the music of the
hand-organs which delighted the whole land at
that time.
When grandmother or grandfather begged my
father to lay aside his fine phraseology and do them
the honour of initiating them into the details of
such of his governmental conceptions as could pos-
sibly be realised, he answered :
" Anything is better than what existed before !
we are about to take a plunge into the unknown;
no matter what happens, we shall at least come out
of the ruts in which the chariot of State has stuck
in the mud for centuries. The French Revolution
made a grand effort to urge the horses of the
chariot to gallop, but Bonaparte bestrode them
and drove them back. It is for us to drive them
forward again."
In spite of his increasing reservation of opinion
on certain men whom he began to suspect of being
lukewarm, my father's optimism was as sincere as
my own. Illusions, the love of the unforeseen, of
[314]
the romantic, the absolute ignorance of the possi-
bility of the realisation of an idea, the most infan-
tile simplicity held sway in my father's mind as it
possessed the minds of the greater number of the
men of 1848 whom I have known ; but what a pas-
sion of devotedness moved them, what thirst for sac-
rifices to be made for the holy cause of the people,
what generosity, what loyal abandonment of the
privileges of their caste, what sincere fraternity,
what conviction that " the humble class " was ripe
for equality, what indignation against the appetite
for enjoyment, against egotism, against Guizot's
celebrated formula, " Grow rich ! "
The men of 1848 were apostles and saints. At
no other epoch has there been more honesty, more
virtue, more noble simplicity. They were not po-
litical men, they were souls in love with the ideal.
They were all as sincere as my father; all have
a right to absolute respect, and no one could have
lived beside them without honouring and cherish-
ing their memory.
They were old-fashioned, if you like. All parties
become old-fashioned in time, but how few men,
before and since 1848, have possessed their youth-
ful hearts, their high inspirations, their love of
devotedness and of sacrifice!
My memory preserves their noble faces crowned
[315]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
with laurels, while the lucky, the rich, opportunists,
men of business and of politics, whose aim was per-
sonal gain, those who, victorious, said to one an-
other: "It is our turn to enjoy!" who repeated
among themselves : " The most important attribute
of power is the spoils " such men are as vile in my
mind as is the vileness of their disciples.
Not one among the republicans of 1848 thought
of obtaining a better position from his passage to
power, not one grew richer. If they did not ac-
complish what they dreamed for the people, it was
not because they threw their principles overboard
when they obtained possession of the great city of
Paris ; it was because their conception of social and
human happiness was too beautiful to be realised,
and because the people, first of all, refused to make
a trial of their theories.
Later, I knew the greater part of these " im-
beciles," as Ernest Picard called them. They re-
sembled my father. Their doubts and they had
many! were of too recent date to have dried up
their souls; they no longer believed in a divine
Christ; they still believed in a human one. They
worshipped that mysterious Science which replaced
for them the supernatural, and which had not then
brought all its brutality to light in crushing man
under machinery.
[316]
"OTHER TIMES, OTHER MANNERS"
They were internationalists, not foregoing by
so being their legitimate pride of race, not accept-
ing without resistance being conquered by an
enemy, not admitting or imitating the utilitarian
ideas of national groupings morally inferior to
themselves, but in order to infuse into other nations
their principles of love and of regeneration.
My father said to me, towards the end of April,
that he saw the distance grow wider every day be-
tween his hopes and the actual events taking place.
" I am afraid," he added, " that our Republic
will be only a rose-water Republic, of the kind
which some day will be dyed with blood. The
' yellow gloves ' of the National are the masters,
and are delivering the Republic over to ambitious
men."
My grandmother, on the contrary, declared her-
self quite satisfied with the Republic, which she
found in no wise frightful, as she had feared it
would be.
" Jean-Louis, I am getting on very well with
your Republic ! " she would say to my father.
At first my father answered : " Wait a little,
mother ; " later he replied : " You are more satis-
fied than I am." One day he burst forth: "By
Heaven ! if the Republic suits you, it is because it
is made for your benefit ! The Orleanists might as
[317]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
well return; they will have nothing to change in
favour of the middle class."
My father became soon, in the most bitter sense
of the word, a malcontent. Of course I became a
malcontent also.
[318]
XXXIV
I GO TO BOARDING-SCHOOL,
WAS a very aggressive malcontent moreover.
My discussions with grandmother became so
violent that grandfather several times was angry
with me, and even Blondeau blamed me. My
friend Charles, who would probably have upheld
me for he was a revolutionist, as well as my
father and myself had left Chauny to become the
secretary of one of his boyhood friends, a high
functionary of the Republic, at Paris.
My father soon became greatly excited. " They
are lying to us, they are deceiving us, they are
trying to put us to sleep," he said, much grieved,
feeling his Christian-heathen-socialist-scientific Re-
public escaping him.
My grandmother felt more and more secure.
" Order is maintained, and therefore the form of
government matters little, after all," she said.
Grandfather, when my father and I became more
hopeless, said:
" Come, come, things are going very well for
the Empire."
But I made my grandparents very unhappy with
[319]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
my sorrow, my recriminations, my imprecations.
Life became insupportable, intolerable, to all of us.
It must have been the same, at that time, in every
family where there were idealists and sincere Re-
publicans, those who believed they could bring down
the moon for the people, worthy, as they thought
them, of all miraculous gifts.
The national workshops, which had interested
me so much, now made me despair. Alas! they
were going wrong. What! that admirable con-
ception the State creating workshops to give em-
ployment to those who needed it, to feed those who
were dying of hunger; that benevolent, protecting
institution, a social safeguard against poverty, an
admirable example held up to all nations was it
to be dissolved?
Emile Thomas, who was at the head of these
workshops, did not follow Louis Blanc's ideas, al-
though he often said to the contrary. They were
beginning to suspect him of being the agent of
" the man of the Strasbourg and Boulogne riots."
Instead of organising the national workshops, he
disorganised them.
" The reactionists," said my father to me, " en-
deavour to make it believed that fimile Thomas is
acting according to Louis Blanc's ideas, when, on
the contrary, he is the worst enemy of those ideas.
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I GO TO BOARDING-SCHOOL
They wish to render pure socialism guilty of the
crimes they are committing in its name. Trelat,
the Minister of Public Instruction, cannot suffer
the national workshops; the Executive Committee
abhors them, the middle class has a horror of them,
because it is afraid of them. What will happen
if, as the National Assembly, composed of reac-
tionists, desires, they abolish the workshops? A
hundred thousand men thrown suddenly out of
work, on the streets of Paris, will cause terrible
riots; there will be a bloody revolution, in which
reforms will be drowned, and that is their aim."
Ah! those hundred thousand men threatened
with being turned into the streets! I saw them
unhappy, wandering about, without work, despair-
ing, while their wives and children were dying of
hunger at home. I wept over them. My heart
was full of an immense pity for them, and, day by
day, I felt obliged to be kept informed of all that
was taking place. My grandmother, who had re-
cently subscribed to the National, wished to prevent
my reading it, but I insisted on seeing it, and,
while I was revolted at the hatred of the " yellow
gloves " for my national workshops, I kept myself
informed about events until my father's visits.
When I learned that Monsieur de Falloux was
commissioned by the National Assembly to furnish
22 [
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
a plan of dissolution of the national workshops, I
knew that everything was falling to pieces.
My father said to me : " They are organising
butchery; they wish to dissolve the national work-
shops from one day to another. Trelat himself
sees the danger. He proposes to replace the work-
men successively, little by little. He has destituted
Emile Thomas, seeing at last the disorganising
work he was accomplishing; he has given his son-
in-law, Lalanne, the place, and Lalanne is reor-
ganising the workmen, but it is too late, for the
wolves of the National Assembly wish carnage."
This nearly killed me. The people, the good
people, so patient, so generous, who had behaved so
admirably in the fateful days of February, were be-
ing urged to yield to the evil instincts of plunder
from the poverty imposed upon them.
I was so unhappy at all I felt, and my suffering
came so much into contradiction with my grand-
parents' and Blondeau's excessive hardness of heart,
who said : " Let them finish at once with the beg-
gars ! " that I begged grandmother to allow me to
return to Blerancourt with my father on his next
visit.
" You can do as you please," she said. " But
I warn you, my poor Juliette, that in your present
state of aberration of mind, the little good sense
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I GO TO BOARDING-SCHOOL
remaining to you will be imperilled if you live with
your father. He will destroy it, and your mar-
riage with a workman will be an appropriate end-
ing to your follies. Now, I must confide to you
that young X. has already expressed great ad-
miration for you. He is seventeen years old, and
his father, half seriously, half laughingly, on ac-
count of your youth, has made overtures to me re-
garding a possible alliance, a few years hence, be-
tween our two families. Certainly, this is not what
I had hoped for you, for I should like you to be
married in Paris, where I would go and live part
of the year with you, in order to direct your steps
in the path of that destiny which, until lately, I
had foreseen for you. But you have such insane
notions that perhaps a good middle-class marriage
in the country would be better for you than all
I had desired for my only grandchild. Here is
what I propose : Will you go to school as a boarder?
The school is so near that I shall feel you still with
me. You can lecture your schoolmates as much as
you please, and then your grandfather and I and
Blondeau, having to bear with you only once a
week, will be better able to endure your outbursts
of passion. But if we must see you weep or be
angry, either suffering or in a rage every day be-
cause this good Republic does not suit you, why,
[323]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
then, ray darling grandchild, the situation will be
untenable."
I realised then, from this proposition, the
amount of annoyance I had caused my grandpar-
ents. Could it be possible that grandmother, who
until lately had found the hours I spent at school
too long, and our separation, while I was at Chivres
or Blerancourt, unbearable could she wish that I
should go to boarding-school? I was stunned;
however, my foolish pride prevented me from
throwing myself on grandmother's neck and ask-
ing pardon for my folly, for I realised at that
moment how absurd I had been; and then, what
she had told me of X., a handsome young man,
whom I found charming and witty, raised me in
my own estimation so much that I thought a young
person like myself, nearly twelve years old, could
not ask pardon like a little girl, so I replied, al-
though with an aching heart:
" Very well, grandmother, it is agreed ; I will
go to boarding-school as soon as you wish."
" To-morrow," she replied.
I nearly burst into tears, but it was class-hour,
and I left for school, saying to myself it would be
the last day that I would have my own room all
to myself, where, from morning until night, I was
surrounded by evidences of my grandmother's pas-
[324]
I GO TO BOARDING-SCHOOL
sionate tenderness and my grandfather's gay af-
fection. I could see only from afar my pigeons
fly down, cooing and pecking in the courtyard.
I should miss the friendship of Blondeau, to whom
I could no longer confide my sorrows, or experi-
ment upon with my father's startling theories,
which I had fully adopted, but which he accepted
only with certain modifications.
* * *
The next day I went as a boarder to the Miles.
Andre's school. My grandfather accompanied me
there, and it needed all my courage, when I bade
him good-bye, not to beg him to allow me to return
home at night. I breakfasted and dined with my
schoolmates. At class, at recreations, and all the
day long, I saw no one but them. The absolute
silence at table was a veritable torture. When I
had gone to bed, I was so unhappy and wept so
much that I could not sleep, and this was the first
sleepless night I had ever passed in my life. I was
frightened to think of the next night, for this had
seemed to me as terrible as the infernal regions,
and I imagined I could never sleep again; this
caused me great anxiety, but of course I did not
confide it to any of my friends, the most intimate
of whom were boarders like myself.
One of my political enemies who knew me well,
[325]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
said to herself that some disaster, some great quar-
rel between my grandmother and myself, could
alone have caused our separation, and she amused
herself maliciously by passing to and fro before
me, sneering, as she spread about a fantastic story
concerning my coming as a boarder. My red eyes,
my discomposed face, gave credence to her tale,
which was circulated about during the mid-day
recreation. They said that my grandmother loved
me no longer, that she did not wish to see me any
more, that I had done all manner of disobedient
things; and, of course, I was at once informed of
all this gossip.
At the afternoon recreation several of my
schoolmates suddenly ran to me and said:
" Your grandmother is on the top of the wall
in the back courtyard. She wishes you to go and
say good-night to her."
Being aware of the stories spread about me by
my political enemy, I went to the foot of the wall,
which I would not otherwise have done, most cer-
tainly, for I was so angry with grandmother that
I did not wish to answer her summons.
" How are you, my grandchild ? " she asked,
perched on the top of a ladder, her head alone ap-
pearing above the wall. " Have you slept well? "
" No, grandmother, I have not slept at all, and
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I GO TO BOARDING-SCHOOL
most surely I shall never sleep again. But what
does that matter to you? You are happy, you
sleep well ; that is all that is necessary. Say good-
night to grandfather and to Blondeau for me.
Good-night, grandmother, but let me warn you
that, if you call for me again to-morrow from the
top of that horrid wall, I won't come ! " and I ran
away.
The following days I worked only by fits and
starts, when my pride was at stake, or when I wished
to surpass a political adversary. Being the head
of my party, I could not allow myself to be con-
quered.
My heart was saddened by the sorrow of living
no longer under my beloved grandmother's wing,
and I continued to feel grievous distress of mind
in connection with my fears concerning the work-
men of the national workshops.
To understand rightly the sum of love contained
in the words, " The poor people," or to comprehend
to what a degree those who were sincere socialist-
republicans believed themselves its friends, one must
go back to quite another epoch.
We socialist-republicans had no longer the cour-
age to play at recreations. The National Assem-
bly was treating our workmen of the memorable
February days, those who had written on the walls
[327]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
of the Tuileries, " Death to thieves ! " as if they
were bandits and plunderers !
How we suffered with the poor people ! It was all
over with them. We knew it was only a question
of days and hours before one hundred thousand
men would be given over to hunger and want. Not
one of my schoolmates had allowed herself for a
long time to spend one cent on delicacies or sweets.
We counted up our resources constantly. By com-
bining them we should be able to feed one man of
the national workshops, but no more. I decided
that we would write a touching letter to the Min-
ister Trelat, whom we detested, who, according to
our thinking, was the cause of all the trouble, pro-
posing to him that we should take charge of one
workman of the national workshops. Certainly,
one was not much out of a hundred thousand, but
if in every boarding-school they would do as much,
there would be, at all hazards, a certain number
saved.
The planning of this letter was most difficult,
and took a great deal of time. Each separate
group, having made out its draught, communicated
it to the other groups. We numbered eleven
groups, secretly bound together, each one of which
had its partisans, and all our partisans wished to
share in the drawing up of the letter. At last the
[328]
I GO TO BOARDING-SCHOOL
final result, compiled from all the other draughts,
received the approbation of the united groups, and
the important letter was despatched. I addressed
it to my friend Charles, in Paris, for him to take
and deliver it from us to the Minister in person.
At that same moment the National Assembly
cruelly decided that the workmen from seventeen
to twenty-five years of age should be incorporated
in different regiments, and also to send to the de-
partment of Sologne a country desolated by
fever, and whose climate was deadly a certain
number of workmen of the national workshops ; and
that the remainder should be distributed in the
provinces, to build roads and do other work, which
should be planned by the municipalities.
Thinking that our " national workman " would
be sent to us some day, not only did we stop eating
cakes, and economise in every possible way, but we
begged and collected everything we could from our
relatives under all sorts of pretexts. One girl
had obtained a suit of clothes from one of her
brothers, and had cleaned and mended it with care.
No one was to be allowed even to suspect our plot,
for we knew that we should be excommunicated by
all our families if they should imagine that we were
thinking of protecting one of the " monsters " of
the national workshops.
[329]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
So we had specified in our letter to Minister Tre-
lat that our national workman was to present him-
self at the boarding-school of the Miles. Andre of
Chauny as a pensioner of Juliette Lambert!
My father had written to me that things were
worse than had been reported ; that the authorities
occupied themselves no longer to find any sort of
place for the workmen ; that the National Assembly
was odious, criminal ; that it wished to dissolve the
national workshops immediately, without caring
what became of the hundred thousand men turned
adrift. " There will be great misfortunes," he
added.
I went for a vacation the next day, a Sunday, to
grandmother's ; and Blondeau talked politics before
me without my saying a word, for I had determined,
since my entrance at the boarding-school, not to
speak of anything but commonplaces when I went
to visit my grandparents.
Blondeau related what seemed incredible that
Trelat, the Minister of Public Instruction, had
asked that some pity should be shown to the bandits
of the national workshops, and had begged the Na-
tional Assembly, with trembling voice, not to throw
a hundred thousand men on the streets, and to allow
him to discover some way of finding places for
them; that he had proposed incorporation, sending
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I GO TO BOARDING-SCHOOL
them to the department of Sologne, road-building,
and other work to be decided upon by the munici-
palities.
" Your news is a week old, Blondeau," I could
not help saying to him. " And you can add that
the National Assembly laughed at Trelat's tardy
outbursts of feeling, and that it decided . . ."
I related the decision, and there was silence.
My grandfather, provoked, and scarcely able to
control his anger, asked me :
" Are you for the insurgents? "
" I am, grandfather, for the hundred thousand
wretched men, to whom, perhaps imprudently, they
promised to give work, and whom, suddenly, with-
out pity, they wish to deprive of it."
" But they are assassins ! "
" Whom have they assassinated ? "
" They are thieves ! "
" From whom have they stolen ? "
" They terrify the country."
" Oh ! yes, they make them out bugbears. They
say they are madmen, in order to kill them; per-
haps, finally, they will, indeed, make them terrify-
ing, grandfather."
Blondeau and grandmother looked at each other
bewildered. Neither the one nor the other breathed
a word.
[331]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" It is time that Prince Louis should occupy him-
self with it," replied grandfather, " or else such
ideas as yours, Juliette, will drive us all crazy."
" Alas ! your Prince Louis occupies himself too
much with it. It is he, through Emile Thomas,
who has made the national workshops fail."
" Prince Louis could never occupy himself too
much with the affairs of France, do you hear, little
insurgent? He must save us by a good Empire,
securely founded, and which must last, at least, until
my death."
[332]
'XXXV
SNE of our schoolmates brought us the next
day a clipping from a newspaper containing
an article applauding the measures taken by the
Government after the following facts had oc-
curred.
Under the threat, voted by the National Assem-
bly, of an immediate disbanding, the workmen had
sent delegates to the Luxembourg, who had begged
Monsieur Marie, a man high in the Government,
to delay the Assembly's decision.
Monsieur Marie had answered, so said the news-
paper, " as a Cesar might have done " :
" If the workmen will not leave, we will make
them do so by force; do you understand? "
That night armed bands had gone through the
streets of Paris, singing : " On n'part pas! on
n'part pas! " to the tune of the Lampions.
Groups of workmen had been heard to say : " We
have been betrayed, and we must begin the revo-
lution of February over again." Other groups
had cried out : " We must have Napoleon ! " and
they had been the most clamorous of all. The
[333]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
workmen were indignant with de Lamartine, Gar-
nier-Pages and Arago, who had failed in all their
promises.
The poor people were in revolt. There was dan-
ger of a massacre. The anger of the wretched
had burst forth.
It seemed to us that petitions might prevent all
this. Was it possible to understand, we said, that
the members of the Government, or others, had not
placed themselves at the head of a manifestation
for conciliation? How could it be that they had
driven a hundred thousand men, all bearing the
arms of the National Guards, to desperation ? Did
they wish to bring about the end of the Republic?
We thought of nothing but these terrible things.
At the least allusion to similar events in our lessons
of history, we exchanged sorrowful notes with one
another during class hours.
What was taking place? What was going to
happen ?
I received a letter from my friend Charles, ad-
dressed to Blondeau, commissioning him to give it
to me. I should not have received it until a week
later, when I was to leave school for my day at
home, if Blondeau had not come at the mid-day
recreation and asked to see me in the parlour. He
said to me:
[384]
DARK DAYS FOR THE REPUBLIC
" Here is a letter from Charles, and I come to
tell you at the same time that since the day before
yesterday, the 23d of June, the insurrection has
broken out in Paris; that they are killing one an-
other by thousands, and that blood is flowing like
water. Are you contented, dreadful little revolu-
tionist?"
" Blondeau ! " I said, crying, " that was what I
feared. They have exasperated those poor,
wretched men beyond endurance at last."
" Now you are beginning again ! But open
your letter from Charles. You see I have not un-
sealed it; Charles has told me, doubtless, the same
thing that he has written to you."
This was what I read:
" At last, my dear Juliette, the Government has
seen that it must defend society energetically
against the miserable creatures in whom you are
interested. All the partisans of order, from the
Monarchical party of the Rue de Poitiers to my
friend and patron, Flocon, have united to crush
those who have been brought over here and hired by
foreigners.
" I kiss you good-bye, Juliette, until we meet
again. Your friend, Charles."
I held out the dreadful missive to Blondeau.
" He is perfectly right. He says what is true!"
[335]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
exclaimed Blondeau, giving the letter back to me
after having read it.
I left him without even saying good-bye, and
ran to my schoolmates and partisans, who were
gathered together, and anxious about the visit I
had received.
" The revolution has broken out again," I said,
and I read to them my ex-friend Charles's letter.
I emphasised the ex, for I had already torn him
from my heart.
I was in such a state of excitement that I felt
as if I were intoxicated. My faithful friends, af-
ter a half-hour of unanimous expressions of indig-
nation, thought as I did.
" I am of the opinion," I said to them, " that
we should do something. We cannot remain inert
while they are massacring innocent people in Paris.
I have hidden at the bottom of a little bag, in my
linen-closet, a large handkerchief which my father
gave me, in the centre of which is printed : ' Long
live the Democratic and Socialistic Republic ! ' Find
me a long stick in the wood-house, a ribbon or a
string, and we will arrange a flag out of it, and
will make a manifestation. Will you follow me? "
" We will ! " they cried.
" If we could add a few recruits, some partisans,
to our united groups, so that our manifestation
[336]
DARK DAYS FOR THE REPUBLIC
would be more imposing, don't you think it would
be better? "
" We will all try to get some," said my comrades.
We then dispersed. I soon returned with my
large blue, white, and red handkerchief, and I
fastened it to a long stick in such a manner that
the words, " Long live the Democratic and Socialist
Republic " should be plainly visible.
With my heart ready for battle, I placed myself
at the head of my battalion, crying : " Long live
the Democratic-Socialist Republic ! Long live the
insurgents ! * On n'part pas! on n'part pas! '
A certain number of my schoolmates followed
us; the others looked at us, terrified. The Miles.
Andre came running, and snatched my handker-
chief-flag out of my hands. I defended it hero-
ically. Several of my schoolmates supported me.
But a troop commanded by my political enemy
came up, crying : " Down with the Democratic-
Socialist Republic ! " and, lending aid to the Miles.
Andre and the under-governess, got the better of
us. I received some well-directed blows, and I suf-
fered at once from physical pain and from the
humiliation of defeat. I was dragged to the draw-
ing-room, held by both arms, and much jostled
about. My valiant comrades followed me.
The Miles. Andre sat down in their two largest
23 [ 337 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
arm-chairs to give me trial. Mile. Sophie, the
younger, questioned my partisans and allies.
" It was Juliette Lambert, was it not, who in-
cited you to this act of scandalous folly ? " she
asked them.
Alas ! out of twenty -two, seventeen answered :
" Yes, mademoiselle."
The five others clung close to one another. Mile.
Sophie could drag nothing from them but one and
the same answer:
" Both she and ourselves wished to make a mani-
festation ! "
" Oh ! yes, you are brave and faithful friends,"
Mile. Sophie replied, who did not really wish to
punish anyone but me. " It is a noble sentiment,
for which I give you praise. Was it one of you
now, don't lie who furnished the handker-
chief? "
" No, mademoiselle."
" You see, the premeditation came alone from
Juliette Lambert."
I had not said a word, nor made a gesture, wish-
ing to keep up my dignity, though accused, and
to force my judges, my faithful friends, and even
the traitors, to admire me.
" Do you deny what you have done ? " Mile.
Sophie asked me.
[338]
DARK DAYS FOR THE REPUBLIC
" No, mademoiselle, I am an insurgent,
but"
At this moment the mother of one of my faithful
friends entered, exclaiming:
" My daughter I wish my daughter where
is she? The insurgents are marching on
Chauny ! "
There was a general panic. They allowed my
friend and her mother to depart, and they barri-
caded the front door.
" Don't be frightened ! " I cried, going from one
to another of my schoolmates, making no discrim-
ination between friends and enemies, " I will pro-
tect you. They are my friends, and we will go
and mount guard."
We picked up our unfortunate and much dam-
aged flag, and my corporal, my four " insurgents "
and I, went and placed ourselves by the barricaded
front door. We heard a battalion of the National
Guard passing by, crying : " Down with the in-
surgents ! Death to them ! "
Frightened people in the streets talked together,
saying :
" The Guards have gone to bar the way to the
insurgents."
The Miles. Andre closed all the doors and shut-
ters of the house, and they left us where we were
[339]
from half-past one o'clock in the afternoon until
nightfall. One of us tried to open a door at din-
ner-time. It was impossible, and we were obliged
to remain there very hungry.
We were boarders, all five of us, and could not
think of returning to our families. Besides, the
padlocked door and the high walls prevented any
hope of flight. We said to one another:
" After all, those who are fighting suffer much
more than we. They also are hungry; they are
wounded, they are dying for their cause, and what
are our sufferings compared with theirs ? "
Finally, after what seemed interminable hours,
they came to fetch us, and sent us to bed without
supper. We were too proud to ask for any; but
the traitors had kept a little of their bread for us,
and, with some chocolate they gave us, by slipping
it under our sheets, we were able to satisfy our
hunger a little, which sleep finally pacified.
The next day, in the morning, I was again called
to the drawing-room, but this time alone. My
faithful friends, cleverly influenced, had agreed to
beg pardon, and had made their submission.
The elder Mile. Andre asked me whether I re-
pented.
I tried to prove to her that I had not acted like
a child; that I was convinced of my right to have
[340]
DARK DAYS FOR THE REPUBLIC
my own opinions, and that I had defended ideas
about which I had seriously reflected.
" Disturbing, dangerous, and wicked ideas ! "
replied the elder Mile. Andre.
" They are ideas of conciliation, of peace, and
of justice, mademoiselle, but they are not under-
stood by those who find present things excellent,
or by those who are afraid of all reform."
" This is my sentence," said Mile. Andre, curtly.
" You will take breakfast in the refectory, and I
shall announce at the end of the meal that I am
going to send you home to your parents. Such
scandals cannot end without an example being
made."
I breakfasted with good appetite, and when I
heard the sentence delivered I was neither ashamed
nor remorseful. My only fear was that I might be
severely blamed by my grandmother.
I said to myself that in any case I would have
recourse to my father, who could but uphold me
for having defended our common cause, and for
having suffered for our opinions.
I rose proudly and replied, at least with appar-
ent calmness, for in reality my heart was almost
strangling me, so fast did it beat :
" I am delighted to leave ; I stifle under oppres-
sion, and I am going to be free at last ! "
[341]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
I said good-bye to no one. I went and put on
my hat and waited for Mile. Sophie, who was to
take me back to grandmother.
My friends considered me an heroic victim to my
cause, but were not sorry, so one of them told me
later, to be relieved from the excitement I caused
them.
My grandmother was at first disturbed on hear-
ing the story of my escapade ; but, seeing my reso-
lute attitude, she thought more of winning me back
than of scolding me, for, during her last days of
fright, fearing the insurgents would come, she was
all the more unhappy at not having me with her
in the danger threatening the town. She had
thought continually of sending for me. Since I
had returned, why should she be angry ? So, with
quickly recovered calmness, she replied to Mile.
Sophie :
" As you consider Juliette's action an act of in-
subordination toward you, you are quite right to
bring her back to me. But, permit me to tell you
that I think her conduct unusual. It shows me
Juliette as I love to see her giving proof of a
strong will and a courage that everyone does not
possess. Although the child returns to me without
my having sent for her, neither she nor I will suffer
from it, and, mademoiselle, I have a greater desire
[342]
DARK DAYS FOR THE REPUBLIC
to thank you for having brought her back to me
than to ask pardon for her."
I threw myself into grandmother's arms, and all
trace of ill-feeling between us disappeared.
Panic was on the increase during the following
days. They said that the insurgents, driven out
of Paris, were coming to sack the town; the Na-
tional Guard went to bar the way against the plun-
derers. Grandmother, in spite of my reassuring
words, was terrified. She hid at night, in a large
hole which grandfather dug in our courtyard, her
silver, her jewels, all the valuable things she pos-
sessed. Blondeau also buried his money-box in the
hole, which they covered with earth and gravel.
My father, to whom grandmother had written,
sent me a letter of congratulation at having left a
school where they taught nothing but inane middle-
class ideas.
[343]
XXXVI
ANOTHER VISIT AT CHIVRES
THEN had a long vacation, which began the
1st of July and did not finish until the 1st
of October.
I remained three months with my aunts at
Chivres, to their great delight.
I took intense pleasure in the study of Latin,
and made real progress in the reading and trans-
lating of the " bucolics."
My aunts, however, sermonised me severely on
the reason for my having been sent away from
school. The National had inspired them with a
holy horror of the plunderers, of those who had been
" bought up by the foreigner," and the twelve
thousand men who had been killed in the June riots.
The twenty thousand prisoners and exiles did not
soften their hearts for a moment. My harangues
interested them as ill-sustained paradoxes, but did
not convince them in any way.
The citizen Louis Blanc, with his project of a
conciliatory proclamation; the citizen Caussidiere,
with his extraordinary motion to have the Deputies
go into the streets, to send them to the barricades
and to the insurgents with a flag of truce, had
exasperated them. They were merciless. The
[344]
ANOTHER VISIT AT CHIVRES
stories of the cruelties of the National Guards in
the provinces, and of the Mobile Guard firing on
the insurgent prisoners through the vent-holes of
cellars, did not revolt them. It was necessary to
kill as many as possible of those " mad dogs," they
said. And it was gentle Frenchwomen, faithful
Liberals or believing themselves such who spoke
thus ! Marguerite knew nothing of the truth con-
cerning it. To her the insurgents were savages,
devils, etc. ; and I could not make any feeling of
clemency, any pity, enter into the minds or hearts
of Marguerite or my aunts. They had all been too
frightened.
While my father was alarmed, and cried out
against the abomination of seeing men who for
long years had defended liberty, who had called
themselves its soldiers, condemn and persecute the
people to whom they had made public and solemn
promises to act for their good, and who had only
asked them to keep those promises within the meas-
ure of possibility, my aunts spoke of Pascal Du-
prat, a Democratic-Republican, as a sublime man,
who, while pretending to wish to save the Republic,
had been the first man to demand a Dictatorship.
The death of General Brea, killed by two ac-
knowledged Bonapartists, Luc and Lhar; that of
Archbishop Affre, due to an accident and not to
[345]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
ah assassination, were, to my aunts, premeditated
crimes, whose expiation demanded the death of
thousands of men belonging to " the most ignoble
and abject populace."
My aunt Constance still trembled as she told me
of her emotion when she had read the words of the
President of the Chambers, mounting the tribune
to say : " All is finished ! "
It would have been folly to endeavour to convert
my aunts to a more enlightened feeling of human-
ity. I gave up trying to do it. I read the Na-
tional in secret, Marguerite giving it to me after
my aunts and great-grandmother had read it in
turn, and I suffered every day with renewed sor-
row at the violence of the reaction, the sentences of
the Council of War, at the persecutions, the de-
nunciations, the state of the public mind, which my
father wrote to me had become so Caesarian that
it would throw us into the arms of Napoleon, who
had been too delicately brought up by England
to subdue us.
The night session, when the prosecution of Louis
Blanc and Caussidiere was voted, delighted my
aunts. They would not even read Louis Blanc's
justification, much changed though it was in the
National, for I compared it later with the text of
the Democratic Pacifique, which my father sent to
[346]
ANOTHER VISIT AT CHIVRES
me. In my aunts' opinion, and in that of all the
middle class, Louis Blanc was " the founder, the
responsible author of the monstrous national work-
shops."
Now, Louis Blanc proved in court, what his par-
tisans had known for a long time, that the national
workshops had been established not only without
his participation, but against his will, and that he
had not visited them even once.
The obstinacy of holding to a preconceived
opinion against absolute proof, admitting no dis-
cussion, seemed to me at that time the most ex-
traordinary thing in the world. I endeavoured
several times to read Louis Blanc's protestation to
my aunts ; they would not listen to it, not wishing
to hear it, or to be convinced by it, and they con-
tinued to call him the " sinister man of the national
workshops."
I confess that this obstinacy irritated me, and
that my affection for my dear aunt's suffered from
it.
Louis Napoleon was elected in five departments
at the supplementary elections. The terms he used
in thanking his electors, for different reasons, pro-
voked both my father and my grandmother, and
my aunts as well, whose disgust for " Badinguet "
increased daily.
[347]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" The Democratic-Republic shall be my relig-
ion," said Louis Napoleon, " and I will be its
priest."
My grandfather would certainly have made a
wry face at this speech, had he not always had the
habit of saying, concerning all the manifestations
of him whom he called his " beloved Pretender " :
" He is admirable, in the way he scoffs at the
republican birds."
They talked of nothing but " Badinguet " at my
aunts' all through September and October of
his oath of gratitude and devotion to the National
Assembly, of the repeal of the law of 1832, which
gave the Bonapartes liberty to live in France. I
heard my aunts continually discussing the good
faith of pretenders.
" Certain republicans are absurdly simple when
they believe that an oath cannot be violated," said
aunt Sophie. " One must know one's Roman his-
tory very little not to see that ' Badinguet ' is play-
ing the eternal game of the Caesars."
" When once they have voted to have a Presi-
dent of the Republic, and have chosen ' a man of
the Brumaire,' when men of moderate opinions up-
hold this proceeding, what can possibly enlighten
them? How can de Lamartine uphold such aber-
ration of mind with his authority? Unless he de-
[348]
ANOTHER VISIT AT CHIVRES
ceives himself to the extent of thinking he will be
named President of the Republic, his conduct is
inexplicable," said aunt Constance.
Politics still interested me a little in conversa-
tion, but when I did not talk of them, I thought
no more about them.
" Men are worth nothing, nothing at all," said
aunt Anastasie one day ; " I do not know a single
man who has a just mind."
" You know so many ! " replied aunt Constance,
with her habitual scoffing. " I never knew you to
have but three masculine friends: the miller, his
mill-keeper, and Roussot ! "
I worked happily with aunt Sophie, who found
me very desirous to learn Latin, and less occupied
with explaining or contradicting everything. I
no longer sought for eccentricities in ideas or opin-
ions. I studied methodically, realising how much
time I had lost.
I felt for the first time in my life, perhaps, that
I had only a very youthful mind; that I had for
a long while really learned but little, but, like a
parrot, had remembered a good deal. I condemned
myself as pretentious, insupportable, and I re-
solved that I would begin to be quite a different
person, desirous solely to learn, and to be very stu-
dious and proper.
[349]
XXXVII
I BEGIN TO STUDY HOUSEKEEPING
|HEN I returned to Chauny my grandmother,
whom I found more affectionate, more lov-
able than ever, said to me:
" Now, my dear Juliette, you shall do what you
choose; you shall learn only what pleases you, or
nothing at all, if you prefer it; but I ask you to
take an interest in housekeeping. You shall have
entire charge of ours for six months. You shall
order, you shall spend as if you were absolute
mistress. I reserve for myself only the right of
giving you advice. As you love order, to arrange
things, and to ornament a house, it will be easy
for you to do all this with taste. If you de-
sire to have lessons in cooking, you have only to
tell me. I should like you to realise how much an
art embellishes life that of music especially.
The new organist is a remarkably good professor.
I know you do not care for the piano, but I should
like you to cultivate your voice, and I should be
glad if you would try the violin ; but, I repeat, you
shall do just as you choose in everything."
" I shall be delighted to keep house, grand-
[350]
I BEGIN TO STUDY HOUSEKEEPING
mother, it will amuse me a great deal; and I will
try the violin, it is original; I will cultivate my
voice also, and, since you leave me absolutely free
to do as I please with regard to my ordinary stud-
ies, that will give me time, grandmother, to reflect
about the little I know of elementary things."
I reflected so seriously that, after a few days, I
told grandmother that I would ask my father to
draw me up a plan of study, so that while becoming
the prospective mistress of a house which idea
fascinated me more and more I could improve
myself somewhat in spelling, arithmetic, geogra-
phy, and French literature, of which I knew but
little.
I suggested to grandmother an idea that pleased
her to have M. Tavernier, the master of the
school where my father had been professor, give
me lessons, as he was particularly clever, it was
said, in inspiring his pupils with a love of study.
My father approved all my plans, especially
that of having chosen for my professor a man
whose merits he had heard praised.
He began by telling me I must copy five pages
of Racine every day, and he read to me the first
five pages, pointing out to me the beauty of the
phrases, the musical sonority of the words. It
was curious that my father, with his exaggerated,
[351]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
ardent political opinions, should be purely classical
in his literary tastes, having an admiration only
for the literature of the ancient Greeks and their
imitators.
What admirable lessons I received from him
during the few hours he spent at Chauny! We
both worked in my pretty, well-ordered room, al-
ways full of flowers, whose old furniture he dis-
liked, calling it " trumpery," but where he was
happy, all the same.
" Literature is the great consolation," my father
said to me ; " everything else fails us, that alone
remains. At Epidaurus the doctors of ancient
times declared that the last traces of an illness did
not disappear until the convalescent person had
felt his mind enlarge with admiration on listening
to the verses of Sophocles and of Euripides."
My father's dearest dream was to travel in
Greece. " No one would enjoy it more than I,"
he said, and added : " Be a Greek, Juliette, if you
wish to live a privileged life in the worship of what
is eternally beautiful, of that which elevates man
above his epoch."
Always deeply distressed about politics, execrat-
ing General Cavaignac, who had, he said, more
than anyone else, opposed all attempts at concilia-
tion " in order to plant his banner in ground sod-
[352]
I BEGIN TO STUDY HOUSEKEEPING
den with blood," my father, alarmed at the progress
Bonapartism was making in the country, and who
until now had talked to me only of public events,
scarcely ever mentioned them any more.
One day, when I asked him the reason for this
silence, he said to me : " Since the love of politics
is the most grievous of all passions when one is sin-
cere, the most deceptive when one is loyal, the most
despairing when one loves justice, leave politics
alone. Perhaps better days will be born from our
present sufferings. Await them. We, the old,
enlisted combatants, cannot leave the field of battle,
but why should you enter it? "
The proclamation of Louis Napoleon : " If I am
made President, I promise to leave to my successor,
at the end of four years, strengthened power, lib-
erty intact, and real progress accomplished " this
shameless lie alone reawakened my political indig-
nation. Grandfather, who read it to us, burst out
laughing. The five million votes which had elected
Louis Napoleon President of the Republic seemed
to me an insane act of the French people. From
having heard grandfather say that all Bonapart-
ists made game of Republican riff-raff, I believed
it, and was not surprised when he said to us one
Jay:
" My Pretender has sworn to be unfaithful to
24 [ 353 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
the democratic Republic, and not to defend the
Constitution. The fools believe he has pledged his
faith to the contrary ! Well ! I'll wager my life
that Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, simple Prince
Louis, a simple Bonaparte, will be, before the ex-
piration of his Presidency, the Emperor Na-
poleon III."
" Alas ! he is right," said my father, who was
listening to grandfather, and when talking to me
one day later of his sadness, his heart-sickness, re-
proaching himself for having preached his beloved
doctrines so earnestly to me, for having initiated
me too young in the disillusions of life, he said:
" I implore you, Juliette, banish from your memory
this lamentable year. Your youth must not be fed
on doubt, your faith in the future must not be
shadowed by death. I have weighed men, and I
despise and hate them. As to the principles in
which I believed, they have received so many blows
that I no longer know what I wish or what I do
not wish. The Liberals are no sooner in power
than they become cynically authoritative. The
Republicans have scarcely left the ranks of the
governed, to become governors themselves, -before
a touch of madness seems to enter their minds, and
they become Caesarian. All my beautiful edifice
has fallen down, stone by stone. I am crushed be-
[354]
I BEGIN TO STUDY HOUSEKEEPING
neath it. If, for a short moment, I knew the joy
of building it, its ruin has soon followed. I would
not at any price impose upon your young life the
pain of living amid its destruction. I will not
speak to you again of politics, I will not write to
you about them. You must take note only of
facts, and feel compassion that each one will be a
fresh torture to your father."
My grandmother felt much pity for her son-in-
law's sorrows and disillusions. " He exaggerates,
but he is sincere," she said, " and he has a heart of
gold."
My father's only consolation was to occupy him-
self a great deal with me. He advised that, as I
had not studied primary branches, I should go back
to the sources of our literature. He read me
numerous passages from Homer in the text, to fa-
miliarise me with the admirable sonorities of our
" initiative tongue," as he called it. He dictated
to me, word by word, entire chapters from the Iliad
and from the Odyssey, those which he thought the
most beautiful, saying to me that we had years
before us, and that he would take charge of my
instruction in Greek.
" You shall learn with me the history of that
nation in which nature incarnated herself to such
a degree that she made it supernatural. Your
[355]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
aunt Sophie will teach you as much Latin as is
necessary for a cultivated woman to know. She
loves and understands Roman literature, and I do
not fear that she will reap for Rome's benefit the
admiration I shall have sown in your mind for
Athens. At Chauny you will have an exception-
ally good professor of literature, who will teach you
many things you will never forget, and who will
interest your grandmother in your studies, which
will take her somewhat away from her novels. All
this seems excellent to me, and I do not doubt that,
if you desire it, you will succeed in knowing more
than all the schoolmates you left behind in your
monotonous boarding-school ! "
[356]
XXXVIII
AN EXCITING INCIDENT
JOME months of 1849 passed, during which I
acquired much serious elementary knowledge;
but all my ardour was spent on the study of Gre-
cian, Latin, foreign, and French literature. I
identified myself with the characters of certain
works, and acted their parts. My grandparents and
Blondeau lived happily, occupied with me, inter-
ested in all that I did, amused by the superabun-
dance of vitality which I put into everything, and
lent themselves to taking part, as they had pre-
viously done, in my most fantastic caprices. When
a book pleased me, they were obliged to assume the
characters of the principal personages of the book,
to speak their language, to discuss their acts, and
to take part in imaginary conversations which
these persons might have held among themselves.
I began to write poetry again perhaps rather bet-
ter than my first attempts and poems naturally
were my chief delight, those of Homer above all.
When I was at Blerancourt, my father would con-
sent to be called Ulysses, and my mother Penelope,
[357]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
although she sometimes rebelled against the role I
gave her.
I was Nausicaa. I had a passion for washing,
and dabbled in water with delight. My father
found me many times before a tub filled with soap-
suds, and would address me as " Nausicaa with
white arms." He would recite to me the words of
the seventh canto of the Odyssey:
" * It seems to me best to implore you by caress-
ing words, keeping afar from you, for fear of irri-
tating your heart ; ' " and he would add :
" ' I compare you in height and in presence to
Diana, daughter of great Jupiter; but if you are
a mortal, inhabiting earth, thrice happy are your
father and mother. I am seized with admiration
on seeing you. So did I see one day at Delos near
Apollo's altar a young sprig of a growing palm-
tree!'"
And he would continue, going from one verse to
another, as it pleased him to select them, and I
would answer him, for I knew he loved the poems,
so many times repeated by heart.
During my visit to him that summer, my father
had a great sorrow, in which I took part and from
which he suffered so deeply that it touched even
my mother's heart. His last hopes were cruelly
taken from him.
[358]
AN EXCITING INCIDENT
On the 15th of June, he informed me that Ledru-
Rollin had, on the 13th, asked the new Assembly,
which had just been elected, and whose majority
was reactionary, for a bill of indictment against
the Prince-President and his Ministers, who were
found guilty of having violated the Constitution.
Under the false pretext of saving Italian liberty,
our intervention had culminated by the entrance of
French troops into Rome, re-establishing the Pope.
What overwhelmed my father, and made him des-
pair the most, was not so much the failure of their
motion, as the hesitating, ridiculous part played by
the last two champions of his opinions Ledru-
Rollin and Victor Considerant in their attempted
appeal to the people with what was called " the
affair of the Arts and Trades," and their rather
pitiable flight through the back doors of the school.
Were they also worth nothing as heads of the op-
position party ? Had they no courage ? "
In July all the trees of liberty were dug up,
and my father, who had accepted the function of
Mayor in order to plant one of these trees, re-
signed his office on the day the tree was thrown
down.
He then began to condemn, in equal measure, the
monarchists and the reactionary republicans.
He was destined to suffer blow after blow.
[359]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Since the insurrection of June, 1848, secret so-
cieties had been formed, some of which were to
fight against reaction, others to prepare the Em-
pire, as the insurrection of the 10th of December
had done, and all these societies kept watch upon
one another. The Bonapartists denounced, above
all, those called " Marianne."
Perquisitions took place, and were called " domi-
ciliary visits." The reactionists affirmed that the
obj ect of certain of these societies was to overthrow
the Republic, which was only a pretext for hunting
down Republicans.
The pleasure I had taken in searching for my
grandfather's hiding-places for his money had
caused me to remark my father's goings and com-
ings to the garret, which I concluded must arise
from his hiding something there. So I determined
to find out what it was, and I discovered a hole be-
tween two rafters, which held a large package of
papers, lists of names, proofs of the organisation
of a society, the members of which had taken oath
to fight against the tyrants, to answer the first call
to insurrection, etc.
One day my mother said to my father : " You
should burn the papers of the ' Marianne,' which
are so compromising to many persons. Since you
do not dare to meet any longer, it would be better
[360]
AN EXCITING INCIDENT
to rid yourself of the official reports and the lists,
which seem to me dangerous to keep."
" I have thought about it," my father replied,
" and I will begin to-morrow to convoke our
brothers and friends, two by two, to ask their con-
sent to destroy our archives."
That same evening I made myself a large pocket
attached to a string which I could tie around my
waist, and which I put on the next morning.
It was time! My father had not gathered to-
gether ten of the associated members of the " Ma-
rianne " (were there traitors among " the brothers
and friends" convoked separately?) before an
agent of the Republic, at the head of a commis-
sion, came to our house one morning at breakfast-
time, and, showing his papers of authority, he be-
gan to ransack in my father's writing-desk, aided
by two policemen. My father was overwhelmed;
my heart seemed turned into stone. I watched our
visitors doing their work, concocting the while a
plan in my mind. I even helped them by pointing
out things in an amiable way, and I went so far
as to say, laughingly, to the agent of the Republic :
" What you are doing is not very nice, Mon-
sieur; it might even be called indiscreet."
The agent and his colleagues were amused at my
conversation.
[361]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Then I said suddenly to my mother :
" Mamma, will you let me go and tell Blatier
(the gardener, who was looking, frightened,
through the window) to place some cider to cool,
so that you can offer some to these gentlemen ? It
is so hot ! "
My mother made a sign of assent. She had
wished a moment before to go into another room,
but one of the policemen had stopped her. They
allowed me to go out, however. I told Blatier to
draw some water from the well, and I went with him,
feeling myself followed by the eyes of a policeman,
who was looking out of the window. While the gar-
dener drew the water, I went down into the cellar,
and came up with some bottles, which I placed in
the pail of cold water. Then I dallied over several
things, went down in the cellar again, looked for
another pail for more bottles, which I brought up,
and I then pretended to enter the house slowly.
Then I flew with a bound to the garret-door, and
with another bound entered it, after having taken
off my shoes, so as not to be heard, for the house
had but one story. I put the papers in my
pocket, slid down the staircase and entered my par-
ents' room tranquilly, where the police were rum-
maging into everything.
My mother, trembling, gave them the keys of
[362]
AN EXCITING INCIDENT
the drawers. My father, seated, did not move. I
prepared a tray myself, and went outside to have
the water in the pails changed. I soon returned
and offered some cold cider to our visitors, who
were delighted.
They ransacked the stable, the carriage-house,
the cellar, and the garret.
When my father heard them go upstairs, he rose,
his face convulsed, and I saw from my mother's
expression that she was saying to herself : " The
papers must be up there we are lost ! "
I took a glassful of cider and approached my
father, always watched by the policeman. He
pushed my glass away. I leaned over him' as
if urging him to drink, and whispered these words
to him:
" Don't let your face change. I have the pa-
pers ! "
I kissed him, which seemed to touch the police-
man's heart, and my father clasped me in his
arms.
Thanks to me, these men had discovered nothing
of any importance.
The agent of the Republic said to me : " Made-
moiselle, I am glad to announce to you that we
have found nothing compromising to your father.
It would have been serious for him if we had been
[363]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
obliged to state certain facts which we had been
informed existed, for your father's name figures on
the list for arrest, and he might have been impris-
oned, even exiled. He has the reputation of being
a dangerous revolutionist, and, besides, he is ac-
cused of making proselytes."
" Thank you, Monsieur," I replied. " You
must have a daughter yourself, to act in such fa-
therly fashion to me."
The agent smiled, but did not answer me. He
bowed to my mother and father, and left.
I accompanied him to the door, and I watched
" the domiciliary commission " for some minutes ;
then I bolted the door, locked it, and went into the
dining-room, where I found my father prostrated.
" From the expression of your face," said my
mother to him, " it is lucky they did not find the
papers, which must be in the garret."
My father answered:
" Juliette has them ! "
" How did she get them ? "
I raised my skirt, and cried, victoriously:
" This is how one can fool those who make per-
quisitions ! "
I told my parents that I had learned the impor-
tance of the papers from what my mother had
said, and of my fondness for finding hiding-places.
[364]
AN EXCITING INCIDENT
My father recovered from his emotion, and felt
great indignation.
" Such a republic," he said one day, soon after
the famous visit, " is more odious to me than the
monarchy has ever been. May I see before long
those who pretend to serve this Republic of lies,
and who, really, only try to persecute Republicans,
grovel before one and the same tyrant, and all be
crushed together under his heel ! "
[365]
XXXIX
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
PITIED my father for all he was suffering
from the bottom of my heart, but had not,
in truth, his own Utopian ideas brought about
what he called " the lawless reaction " ? Grand-
mother said to me : " Juliette, how can you expect
a country to consent to be guided politically by
good people as mad as your father? They make
public opinion fly to the extreme opposite of
their quixotic ideas." And I agreed with her at
last.
During all the latter part of that year and the
beginning of the next, I studied very hard, and
I recall with pleasure one of my first literary suc-
cesses. My professor, Monsieur Tavernier, the
master of the boys' school situated opposite to our
house, in order to create a double emulation among
his pupils, proposed for me to compete with them
for a prize.
The entire town was talking at that time of a
terrible storm that had occurred in April, and had
made several victims, and of which the quiet people
of Chauny could not yet speak without fright.
[366]
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
My professor gave the narration of the events
of this storm to his pupils and to me as our theme
for competition. I had followed and observed
every detail of the storm, and had even noted down
my observations at the time: the fright of the
birds, the trembling of the leaves, the moaning of
the trees, shaken by the blast; the terror of the
people who passed by, the disturbed heavens, the
near or distant sonority of the claps of thunder,
the jagged streaks of lightning, the terrible noise
of a thunderbolt which I thought had nearly
killed me. Thinking the storm over, and stifling
with heat, I had sat down in a current of air be-
tween two open windows, opposite to each other.
The deafening thunderbolt burst and traversed
the two windows, throwing me off my chair on to
the floor. I described all this with much feeling.
Among the pupils at the school were a good
many young men whom I knew, brothers or rel-
atives of my former schoolmates. They were all
aware of the cause of my having been sent away
from the Miles. Andre's school, and admired me
as a " valiant " young girl, an expression fre-
quently used in my behalf in my family, and with
which grandmother always endowed me.
I copied and recopied my composition. I de-
voted myself to it with such intense interest that it
[367]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
gave me a fever, and I was proclaimed the winner
by my rivals themselves. One of them came to
bring me the news and to congratulate me. I was
about to kiss him, when grandmother made me an
imperious sign, so I simply thanked him, with
warm gratitude.
" What ! " grandmother said to me afterward,
" were you going to kiss that boy ? Why, look
at yourself, you are a young girl; you are no
longer a child."
" But, grandmother, I shall not be fourteen be-
fore six months."
" Everyone takes you for sixteen," she said.
Grandmother sent my father, my aunts, and my
father's family, copies of my famous composition,
which she wrote out herself, keeping the original,
which I found twenty years after.
From that moment I thought of nothing but
literature, and my imagination became intensely
excited.
A chiromancer came to Chauny at that time, and
my grandmother greatly desired that he should
read my hand. He declared that he distinctly saw
" the star of celebrity near Jupiter " in my hand,
and he added : " I shall see that hand again some
day ; " and he did, in fact, recognise it twenty
years afterward one day on the Riviera, when it
[368]
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
was not possible for him to suspect who I was.
From that day my grandmother never doubted
about my future destiny.
At that time I made my family act the parts of
Camoen's Lusiades. Each one of us had his or her
role ; and, for more than a year, my grandparents,
Blondeau, even my father, who had become " Mous-
shino d' Albuquerque," preserved the character of
the heroic personages we had chosen. We inter-
mingled, to our great amusement, fiction with
daily life, and laughed heartily when commonplace
events compromised the dignity of " Vasco da
Gama," whom I represented.
My grandfather, the " giant Adamastor," called
his pigeons by reciting a passage of the Lusiades
to them. We knew the admirable poem literally
by heart. And how amusing it was when a cart
passing in the street would shake our house, which
had become our vessel ! What sorrowful reflections
we had on the dangers we were running! My
dramatis persona revolted against my demands
sometimes, especially at table, where we were all
gathered together. I would, on such occasions,
quiet my rebels by draping my napkin around my
body to recall the flag scene. The mixture of our
admiration for the poem and the absurdities of our
interpretations was so amusing that it was difficult
25 [ 369 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
for us to lay aside the Lusiades to take up Walter
Scott's Ivanhoe, with which I was delighted.
My father, just then, thought of leaving Ble-
rancourt. Grandmother's entreaties and mine pre-
vented him from accomplishing another folly
which would have caused him to lose the position
he had acquired.
He wished to join the phalanstery at Conde-sur-
Vesgres. The deputy, Baudet Dulary, having
given a large portion of his fortune to Victor Con-
siderant, to make an experiment of Fourier's doc-
trines, my father desired to take part in this trial,
which later failed lamentably, but to which one of
his friends, of whom I have spoken, lent his active
aid.
During the spring of 1850 a theatrical troupe
came to Chauny. I had never been to the theatre,
except to hear the opera of Charles VI. at Amiens,
at the time of my first railway journey. I had
read a great many plays of all kinds, for I de-
voured books like my grandmother, but I had never
seen a play acted in reality.
Blondeau decided that he would take me to see
the drama, Marie Jeanne, ou, La Fille du Peuple.
Grandmother disliked so much to go out that
grandfather accompanied Blondeau and me.
The wife of my grandfather's barber, Lafosse,
[370]
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
who came to shave him every day, and who lived
in the Chaussee quarter, was a milliner. Grand-
mother commissioned Mme. Lafosse to make me a
pretty blond lace cap, trimmed with narrow pink
ribbon. They wore bonnets when they went to the
theatre at Chauny, but a pretty cap was more ele-
gant than a bonnet.
People looked at me a great deal, and grand-
father and Blondeau kept whispering together,
and I knew they were talking of me, but Marie-
Jeanne interested me more than my own appear-
ance.
I heard people say several times : " How old is
she?"
The young men looked at me more boldly at the
theatre than in the street, and I saw they were
talking together about me, and I soon knew they
were not making fun of my cap with narrow pink
ribbons, which I feared they might do before I
went to the theatre.
I cried so much over Marie-Jeanne that I re-
turned home with my eyelids swollen. Grand-
mother, who was waiting for me, said I was
very silly to have disfigured my eyes in that way.
But grandfather and Blondeau calmed her by
whispering to her as they had whispered to each
other.
[371]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
All grandmother's friends, men and women, came
to see her during the week following the represen-
tation of Marie- Jeanne, and told her I had made a
" sensation."
Grandmother could not contain her joy, and she
committed the error of writing about it to my
father, who also came to see her, very angry. The
" family drama " assumed tragical proportions on
this occasion. My father spoke of his rights, and
said it was his place to watch over me and preserve
me from my grandmother's follies.
Was it possible that she had sent me to the the-
atre with a comparative stranger and with grand-
father, whose eccentric habits, to speak mildly of
them, forbade his assuming the role of chaperon?
Was it not the most ridiculous absurdity to dress
up a child not yet fourteen in a young woman's
cap? All the town must pity me and ridicule
grandmother, he said, and if she acted in this man-
ner I should never find a husband !
" You are mistaken, my dear Jean-Louis, in this
as in everything else," grandmother replied an-
grily ; " for not only has the demand of Juliette's
hand in marriage, that was made to me a year ago,
been renewed, but just now, before you arrived, I
received another."
" You cannot say from whom ? "
[372]
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
Grandmother showed my father a letter, and
mentioned a person's name.
" One and one make two," she said.
My father was silent for an instant, -and then
replied in a vexed tone :
" So you wish to marry Juliette as you were
married yourself, and as you married your daugh-
ter? "
" No," she answered, cruelly ; " I do not wish
to make my grandson-in-law's position for him.
He must have one himself."
" I shall take Juliette home with me ; she be-
longs to me ! " cried my father, in anger.
" I shall keep the child you abandoned, and
whom I rescued from the poverty in which you had
thrown her ! "
" I will send policemen for her ! "
" Try it ! I will leave you all, and take Juliette
off to a foreign country."
Then followed terribly sad days for me. As-
sailed by letters from my father, who did not come
to grandmother's any more; by the visits of my
mother, who always found a way of irritating me
against my father and my grandmother, my life
became insupportable.
I did not see my father for several months. All
the family blamed him. During the time I passed
[373]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
with my aunts, they, who never had written to him,
sent him a letter approving grandmother's actions,
and telling him he had no right to influence my
mind with his eccentric ideas; that the majority
of those who loved me possessed certain rights from
the affection they felt for me.
In one of my letters to grandmother I spoke
of this letter my aunts had written to my father,
and she was deeply grateful to them for it.
Strangely, their intervention calmed her, and
she began from that time to speak less bitterly of
my father.
By degrees the quarrel was again patched up.
I wished to see my father again. I suffered from
my separation from him in my heart, and in the
development of my mind. Becoming more and
more attached to my studies on Greece, I needed
a guide, and no one could replace my father. I
told my grandmother how much I missed him, how
my progress in the study of literature was ar-
rested, and I laughingly added that she was
hindering my future career as a writer by her
spite.
One day in the autumn grandmother told me
that she would permit me to pass Christmas and a
part of January at Blerancourt.
My father's sorrow was to be consoled, and mine
[ 374 ]
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
also. I rejoiced at it with all my heart, and it
was with transports of joy that we met again.
My father evinced so much love for me, he was so
tender, so occupied with everything that could
please, amuse, or instruct me, that my mother,
overcome by one of her outbursts of morbid jeal-
ousy, became openly hostile to my father, and con-
tinually tortured me.
I was nattered by every one at grandmother's;
I was humiliated unceasingly at my mother's. If
my father spoke of my intelligence, or my beauty,
my mother said I was as stupid as I was ugly.
It seemed to me at that time that I was overes-
timated in both ways by them, and I began to
criticise myself, as I have always since done not
with extreme indulgence nor with determined
malice. I am grateful to my mother, after all,
for having kept me from acquiring too much self-
complacency.
I began my study on Greece again, with delight.
My father was not only a professor, he was a
poet.
" How can you be such a red republican, with
such a love for Marmorean Greece? " I asked him.
" With the Greeks, marble was only the skele-
ton of architecture and sculpture," my father re-
plied, " and in Grecian colours red predominates.
[375]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Besides, there is no question of art in republican
conceptions, but only of politics. Art is eternal;
politics is the science of an impulse toward prog-
ress. I may be classical in my taste in art, and
worship what is antique. In politics I desire only
new things. When the people shall have heard
the vivifying good word, they will understand
beauty and art as we understand it. They already
appreciate them better than the middle class."
I cannot describe how my father spoke of the
people ; the very word was pronounced by him with
fervour, almost religiously.
" Papa," I replied, " I want a white republic,
an Athenian republic, with an aristocracy which
shall arise from out the masses and which shall
be the best portion of those masses. I wish a su-
perior caste, which shall govern, instruct, and en-
lighten."
" And I wish only the people, nothing but the
people, in which we shall be mingled and melted
as if in a powerful crucible," said my father.
" The mass of the people has sap which is ex-
hausted in us ; it has a vitality which we no longer
possess. The humble class is not responsible for
any of its faults, which no one ever endeavoured
to correct usefully and intelligently during its
youth. How admirable it is in its natural quali-
[376]
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
ties, which so many elements strive to mislead!
Why are the upper classes so vicious? Why have
they not given the people some elementary instruc-
tion before they tried to educate them? They
would not then have allowed themselves to be specu-
lated with by wicked and ambitious men."
The President, Prince Louis Napoleon, passed
reviews; made proselyting journeys; the "Or-
leans," as they then said, intrigued at Clermont,
the Legitimists at Wiesbaden; what remained of
the republican form of government suffered assault
on all sides.
My father said : " We still have the people with
us ! " But his conviction disagreed with the proof,
constantly made more evident, that the govern-
ment was eliminating the people by all possible
means from taking part in national questions.
The patriotic workmen were influenced by those
who said they had suffered from the diminished
part played by France in Europe under King
Louis Philippe, and who did not cease to recall the
glorious epoch of Napoleon I.
When I was with my father I was obliged to
hear politics spoken of, willingly or not; as I no
longer took any personal interest in them, as I
looked upon political events with indifference, I did
not allow myself to be carried away by them, nor
[377]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
did I enter into discussions, and our life might
have been peaceful, or nearly so, but for my
mother's embittered nature, and my father's fre-
quent outbursts of anger.
The same interminable disputes took place,
though differing in character from those between
my grandparents. I do not know whether similar
disputes occurred in all households at the time of
my youth. But I believe people were then more
sensitive, more susceptible, more dramatic than
they are to-day.
Many years later my life was again mingled
with my mother's and father's, and it seemed to
me that in the reconciliations following these per-
petual disputes there entered a sort of excitement
of the senses. To weep, to be angry, to accuse
each other, even to hate for a moment, and then
to grow calm, to pardon, to be reconciled, to em-
brace and love each other this all seemed to be
a need in their lives and to animate their exist-
ence.
My father could not master his terrible par-
oxysms of anger; he would be in despair every
time after he had given way to them, and then
would yield to them again whenever he was irri-
tated.
My mother would provoke these paroxysms by
[378]
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
cold comments or criticisms, ironical and stinging,
such as these, for example:
" Monsieur Lambert's temper is going to be
stormy. We shall not be spared the dancing of
the plates and glass at breakfast or dinner." Or:
" The republican gentleman sees things with a bad
eye to-day ; we shall be in danger," etc., etc.
As my character so much resembled my father's,
I often felt anger rising within me; but the ex-
ample of my father, who was naturally so good
and so tender, but who when blinded by passion
became bad, even cruel, taught me to hold myself
in check, and I never, in my long life, have allowed
myself to give way to violent temper, except in
moments of indignation and strong hatred against
wicked people, or against my country's enemies.
The proverb : " An avaricious father, a prod-
igal son," or the contrary, is often used, and
there is truth in it; for children, witnessing their
parents' example, take note of their daily actions,
which are engraved and imprinted on their young
minds, never to be forgotten, and forcing them to
criticise and to condemn those dearest to them.
From hearing my father and his numerous
" friends and brothers " talk violent, " advanced "
politics, as they then expressed it, I had become
entirely moderate in my opinions. How many
[379]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
plans for " Republican Defense " were formed in
my presence! Some men wished to assassinate the
Prince-President; others to blow up the Chamber
of Deputies; still others to make the people rise
up against the traitors.
There came one day to breakfast with my
father a very " advanced " republican, who was,
moreover, a " Comtist," a name that my father
was obliged to explain to me, for it was the first
time I had ever heard of Auguste Comte. Our
guest was a lawyer of the Court of Appeals at
Paris, but lived at Soissons for the time being,
taking charge of a series of very important law-
suits of a relative. His name was Monsieur La-
messine, and he had the reputation of being a
man of talent. His brilliant conversation pleased
me, but his scepticism displeased me. He said that
right had no other interest than that of being the
counterpart of wrong; that morality appeared to
him as only forming the counterpoise to immo-
rality. He endeavoured to persuade my father
that society must become more corrupted than it
was in order that a new growth should spring
from it. He was of the type of an Italian of the
South, with very sombre eyes, a pallid complex-
ion, lustrous blue-black, curling hair. His grand-
father, who came from Sicily, was named de la
[380]
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
Messine; he had naturalized himself as a French-
man at the time of the great Revolution and sim-
plified his name.
As usual, I took part in the discussions, and
grew excited over them. Monsieur Lamessine did
the same, and our joust was amusing. He be-
lieved in nothing. I believed in everything. When
I would hesitate, my father furnished me with ar-"
guments, sometimes contrary to his own ideas; but
he wished to see me come off victorious against an
unbeliever.
Monsieur Lamessine left us laughing, and said
to me:
" Don't bear me malice, Mademoiselle the
fighter."
I replied:
" My best wishes, Monsieur, that Heaven may
shed upon you a little knowledge of what is right
and what is beautiful."
[381]
XL
THE '* FAMILY DRAMA " AGAIN
JY great-grandmother at Chivres, who was
very ill in March, thought her end approach-
ing, and wished to see me. Happily, it was only an
alarm, and our joy was soon complete at seeing
her entirely recovered.
Under the pretext that he was called by busi-
ness to Conde, Monsieur Lamessine, who lived at
Soissons, came to visit my aunts, as my father's
friend, while I was staying with them. He was
rather badly received, and he saw me in my
peasant's costume, which I had improved a little,
however, as grandmother would not permit me to
be badly dressed, even when away from her.
Attired in gingham, with a printed cotton ker-
chief, and a Bordeaux cap, I was not uglier in
this than in other costumes. Monsieur Lamessine
complimented me on my picturesque peasant dress.
But the coolness of his reception prevented him
from coming again.
Aunt Constance teased me about my suitor, but
I grew angry, and told her I had other suitors
younger than he, and begged her to leave me alone.
[382]
THE " FAMILY DRAMA " AGAIN
Two months later I saw Monsieur Lamessine
again at my father's. It was in June, 1851. The
republicans were plotting a great deal. The Pres-
ident had just made a speech at Dijon, in which
he had said that if his government had not been
able to realise all desired ameliorations, it was the
fault of the factions.
In Monsieur Lamessine's mind and in my
father's this speech contained the threat of a coup
d'etat.
They gathered together some friends in the
evening to deliberate; I, of course, was not pres-
ent at these deliberations. My father only said to
me the next morning:
" The moment is serious ; but we have a man
with us who has the blood of a ' carbonaro ' in his
veins. He will do something." He meant Mon-
sieur Lamessine.
On the 1st of December M. Lamessine came to
plead a cause at Chauny. He brought a letter
from my father to my grandmother, to whom he
was extremely courteous.
Asked to remain to dinner, he showed himself
much less sceptical, and pretended that my argu-
ments and my wishes had produced a great influ-
ence on his mind. I did not believe him. I thought
this was simply flattery, the motive for which I
[383]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
could not explain to myself, but it seemed to me
hypocritical. I felt a sort of uneasiness, an inex-
plicable pain, that evening, and I left the draw-
ing-room early.
The next day grandmother said to me trium-
phantly :
" Monsieur Lamessine has asked for your hand !
He pledges his word to live in Paris in three years'
time. My dream is realised. His aunt has given
him a certain sum of money to compensate him for
having left the capital, and for protecting her
fortune, of which he has already recovered a part ;
I, also, will give you a dowry; but I will not say
how much it will be, on account of your mother and
her jealousy. It is agreed that I shall spend every
winter with you in Paris."
I was stunned, bewildered, crazed.
"What? What? You are going to marry me
in that way ! You have promised my hand to that
man, who is double my age? I won't have him, I
won't have him ! "
" Juliette, you are absurd. We shall never find
another such opportunity at Chauny, far from all
Parisian acquaintances. He is sent to us by Provi-
dence. Besides, he is very good-looking. He re-
sembles one of my heroes in Balzac, feature by
feature. You shall see."
[384]
THE "FAMILY DRAMA" AGAIN
And she went to get one of her favourite nov-
els, which she knew nearly by heart, and read me
several passages from it, which I have always re-
membered.
I took grandfather and Blondeau to witness the
folly of my grandmother's plan. It was useless.
It was already too late. Early in the morning she
had persuaded them, if not of the happiness I
should find in this marriage, at least of the pos-
sibility of my living in Paris and " conquering
celebrity " there.
My father and mother, who had been sent for,
arrived a few days later. My father was in an
extraordinary state of excitement. The coup
d'etat which he had foreseen had taken place.
My mother at once declared that she shared
grandmother's views regarding my marriage. My
father flew into one of his rages. He said, in a
loud voice, that he would never consent to the
union of his only daughter with " an old man "
that was to say, a husband double the age of his
wife. He raved, he overstepped all bounds in his
objections, and finally left the drawing-room,
swearing at and insulting everybody. He reap-
peared a few moments later, and, half-opening the
door, called me, took me in his arms, after having
wrapped me up in a shawl of my mother's, bore
26 [ 385 ]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
me to his carriage, standing outside, and, whip-
ping his horse, carried me off, while my mother
and grandmother, screaming in the street, ordered
him to leave me.
He was literally mad, and spoke in violent terms
against Monsieur Lamessine, telling me things of
which I had never heard about the life of " an old
bachelor."
However, the evening I passed alone with my
father at Blerancourt touched my heart more than
I can describe. He depicted the despair of a father
who adored his daughter, who had scarcely ever
had her to himself, and who was urged to give
her, still a child, to an unworthy man. Tears ran
down his face. He told me how unhappy he was,
and related his whole life to me.
" The more I have loved, the more have I been
crushed by what I loved," he said. " At first,
crushed in my faith, then in my affection for my
wife, my first, my only love, crushed by friend-
ship, deceived by my best friend, Doctor Bern-
hardt, for whom I abandoned everything, my small
means, my happiness, and my child; am I now
to be crushed in my affection for my idolised
daughter, just at the moment when my love for
the Republic and liberty is betrayed? "
Terror had reigned for several days. All the
[386]
THE "FAMILY DRAMA" AGAIN
heads of the party of liberty were exiled. Twen-
ty-six thousand were sent out of the country ; the
republican leaders were despatched to Noukahiva;
their soldiers could not reassemble.
Scarcely had Louis Napoleon Bonaparte as-
sured the country of the purity of his intentions,
in November, before he took possession of France
by fraud.
" France has understood," he said at that time,
" that I infringed the law only to enter into my
rights."
" All is over with the Republic, and through
the fault of republicans themselves," my father
said, despairingly. " I hate in the same way those
who have let themselves be conquered through
weakness, and those who have conquered by bru-
tality. And now they wish to sacrifice my daugh-
ter to I know not what idiotic dream of future
celebrity. Juliette, Juliette, my child ! " he cried,
" I will protect you. You are my last refuge, my
last hope I cling to you ! "
And my father wept like a child. I consoled
him almost maternally, and said to him:
" Father, calm yourself; they cannot marry me
against my will."
The next morning my mother, who had' been
left behind, and who never knew how to hide a
[387]
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
grievance, arrived, very angry, and had a quar-
rel with my father, during which never-to-be-for-
gotten words were said, wicked words, which my
parents should never have used to each other before
me, for they suggested to me for the first time the
desire to escape from so much violence, and from
the sight of so many cruel wounds opened under
my eyes.
" Nothing more they have left me nothing
more ! I have lost everything ! " cried my father.
" I am a shipwrecked man, struggling amid
wreckage. I would like to die! Do not let them
take my daughter from me, for pity's sake ! "
" Your daughter cannot remain here," replied
my mother ; " her grandmother is waiting for her,
for it was she who brought me home ; she is at the
Decaisne's. Juliette will now be always tossed
about between us; it is she who will be the ship-
wrecked one. Besides, I do not want her! Her
grandmother has taken her, brought her up ac-
cording to her ideas ; let her keep her, marry her,
arrange her happiness according to her will; it is
not our place to meddle with it. The responsibility
of it all remains with you, who forgot your
fatherly duty years ago."
And my mother took me away, vanquished, feel-
ing myself reduced to powerlessness. And I was
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THE " FAMILY DRAMA " AGAIN
again wrapped up in the same shawl and returned
to Chauny, this time in a closed carriage, for the
night was dark and the rain fell in torrents.
My father wrote me a letter, which I had the
misfortune to keep, and which later occasioned one
of the most sorrowful crises in my life, which had
already begun to number a good many.
" My beloved daughter," wrote my father, " do
not allow yourself to be doomed to unhappiness.
The man whom they wish you to marry is a scep-
tic; he desires to unite the attraction of your
person to his own, to advance him in society, and
to better a position to which he aspires. He is
not a man to love you, or whom you will ever
love. They cannot marry you without my con-
sent, do not forget it. Should I be obliged to
lose forever what tranquillity remains to me, on ac-
count of this, I will not sacrifice you. If you
should let yourself be led astray, and should ask
my consent to this marriage, I should only have to
add the despair of my private experience to the
hopelessness of my public life."
How shall I relate my struggles, which lasted
for long months? They can be imagined. My
grandmother and my mother desired this marriage
for different, but equally selfish motives, which
blinded their eyes. The former wished not to lose
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
me entirely, Monsieur Lamessine having promised
her that she should live with us during the win-
ter, in Paris, so soon as we should be settled there ;
my mother desired the match in order to remove
me from my father.
Poor father! He was often a prey to his wild
fits of anger, and threw himself again headlong
into politics, making himself conspicuous, com-
promising himself, thinking only of falling on
some enemy, no matter whom it might be, of giv-
ing battle, of fighting, and of escaping from his
present sufferings by other sufferings.
He succeeded, and his name soon figured at the
head of a new list of convicts to be sent from the
Aisne department. When they came to arrest
him, in 1852, he was so seriously ill in bed that he
could not be removed. This delay gave my grand-
mother time to write to my friend Charles, who,
after having left Flocon, to rally himself to
Bonapartism, had become an influential man. He
succeeded in having my father's name erased from
the list of convicts, but implored my grandmother
to make him keep quiet, for he would not be able
to save him a second time, he wrote, " if his demo-
cratic-socialistic follies pointed him out again as
dangerous."
Alas! when this letter reached grandmother my
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THE " FAMILY DRAMA " AGAIN
father had brain fever, which endangered his life
for a week. As soon as my grandfather heard the
news of his illness he hurried to Blerancourt, in-
stalled himself by his son-in-law's bedside, and by
devoted care snatched him from death.
When my father was out of danger my mother
and my grandmother dared not refuse the poor
convalescent his desire to see me again.
I went, but how sad we both were, and in what
suspicion did we feel ourselves held ! Grandmother
accompanied me there, and neither she nor my
mother would leave me alone with my father for
a moment.
I said to him, before my two stern guardians:
" Dear father, I think it would be better, after
all, for me to consent to this marriage, because
when I am married I shall be at liberty to ask
you to come to me, and to talk with you a little
alone, heart to heart."
" No, no ! " he replied ; " I would rather see you
dead than delivered over to certain unhappiness ! "
And yet it was he who delivered me over to
the unhappiness he foresaw.
In a moment of violent anger, which my mother
had finally succeeded in provoking, he signed a
paper, which until then she had endeavoured in
vain to make him sign.
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
I felt myself abandoned even by my aunts, who,
at the idea of having me live for three years at
Soissons, near to them, and then at Paris, whence
I should be glad to come to pass some months in
the country, told me that after having seen Mon-
sieur Lamessine again, who had gone several times
to make them a visit, they approved of the mar-
riage.
" Besides," said aunt Constance, with her cus-
tomary banter, " if you should be unhappy and
abandoned, my dear Juliette, Chivres is here to
give you asylum. If you should have a numerous
family, Roussot alone would become insufficient,
and, to compensate you for your husband's ab-
sence, we would buy another donkey ! "
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XLI
MY MARRIAGE AND ITS RESULTS
MARRIED Monsieur Lamessine. My father
was not present at my wedding. He con-
fessed to me later that he was so unhappy on
that day that he wished to blow out his brains;
but he thought, perhaps, I might have need of his
protection some day, and he resigned himself to
living.
Alas! I ought to have claimed his protection
from the very first hours of my marriage, but I
felt that if I spoke a word it would be a new an-
guish for my father, whose fears it would have
confirmed; to my grandmother, whose scaffoldings
of dreams it would have cast down, and to my
dear aunts, whose peace it would have disturbed.
I did not say a word until after my confinement,
for which I went to Blerancourt, and where I was,
so to speak, forced to confidences by my father,
who divined all that I must have suffered.
When she knew herself a great-grandmother
and that she could embrace her granddaughter's
child, my grandmother hoped to extend the agree-
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
ment of living with me every winter at Paris to
the house at Soissons, which we were to inhabit for
eighteen months longer.
One day, when she had come to see me, to com-
plete the secret dowry, the last installment of
which she had engaged herself to pay only so
soon as we should be settled in Paris, but which
she anticipated, she said to my husband when
breakfast was over:
" Do you know why I have brought such
a large trunk ? "
" Why, no, madame."
" It is because I expect to pass the winter with
you and Juliette."
" Impossible, my dear madame."
" What do you mean by impossible ? "
" I made a mistake ; I meant to say, you will
never come."
" Never, do you say ? "
" You will never live in my house with your
grandchild."
" You are joking, monsieur."
" No, I am speaking most seriously. You think
Juliette is happy, she is not; we agree in noth-
ing, nor about anything. If you should be a
third party in our household, what would our un-
happiness be then? "
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MY MARRIAGE AND ITS RESULTS
" Is it true, my Juliette, that you are un-
happy ? " asked my grandmother.
" Yes," I answered, choking with sobs, " I am
as unhappy as one can possibly be."
My grandmother rose from her seat suddenly,
but she was obliged to lean against a chair to
keep from falling. She tottered like a tree that
is being uprooted.
" But your promises ? " she said to my husband.
" They were necessary, my dear madame," he
replied, " only until you had finished keeping
yours integrally."
My grandmother opened the dining-room door
without saying a word, took her cloak from the
hall, and left our house. I went up to my room
to put on my bonnet, and followed her. I did not
know where to look for her. A man had come to
get her trunk, which I saw put on the diligence.
I learned later that a lady had taken a place for
herself in it ; that she had left the village in a car-
riage and was to take the diligence outside of the
town. She had done likewise when she carried me
off from Verberie.
I could not leave my daughter, whom I was
nursing. I returned, and implored my husband to
take the diligence, to rejoin my grandmother, and
bring her back to me.
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
" Ah ! no, indeed ! " he said to me ; " it has gone
off too well! No drama, no quarrel. I am de-
lighted."
I could do nothing but give the driver of the
diligence a letter for my poor grandmother, in
which I told her all my sorrow. I added : " I am
* tied ' in my turn, and I ' browse ' ; but I shall un-
tie myself as soon as I possibly can."
And so my grandmother's last and dearest ro-
mance ended cruelly. On returning to Chauny
she starved herself to death. Knowing she had
but a few days more to live, she sent for my father
and asked him to pardon her for the harm she had
done to him and to me, in marrying me against
his wishes and mine.
My father forgave her, and implored her to do
all that she could to live (alas! had she wished it,
there was no longer time!), saying that I had need
of all those who loved me, more than ever now.
Knowing I was nursing my child, she had not
let me suspect anything about her tragical deter-
mination; on the contrary, in each one of her let-
ters she reassured me, saying she did not take my
husband's words seriously. I did not even imagine
that she was ill.
One night, about ten o'clock, I had just put my
daughter in her crib, had returned to bed, and was
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MY MARRIAGE AND ITS RESULTS
about to go to sleep, when, by the light of a night
lamp that was always burning, I saw my grand-
mother come into my room.
" Ah! grandmother, is it you? " I cried.
With a slow gesture, she put her hand up to her
eyes. The sockets were empty! I jumped out of
bed and went toward her she had disappeared!
I rushed into my husband's study, where he was
writing.
" My grandmother, my grandmother, where is
she? I have just seen her, with empty eyes, in my
room ! "
" You are crazy," Monsieur Lamessine said ;
" your grandmother cannot be here. Your mother
writes me that she is ill, and begs me, on account
of your nursing, not to inform you of it."
The next day I heard that my grandmother had
died at the very hour she had appeared to me.
* * #
When I began to believe in religion again, this
apparition of my grandmother was to me one of
the strongest proofs of a hereafter.
The movement of her hand carried up to her
eyes, whose sockets were empty, seemed to me to
signify : " Blindness is death ! "
I had remained blind too long, and always in
my dreams I saw my grandmother again with the
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MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
frightful gesture of her hand raised to her empty
eyes.
I have never seen her again with this gesture
since I wrote my Reve sur le Divvn, which, with my
reborn soul, I dedicated to the newly born soul of
my granddaughter, Juliette. It was a book writ-
ten with deep feeling, the inspiration of which I
believe to have come from my beloved grand-
mother.
* * *
The day after this strange apparition I left for
Chauny with my daughter.
My mother, profoundly moved by her mother's
death and by the causes which had determined it,
received me with tenderness and with tears of re-
pentance. When my grandmother was dying, and
when she implored my father's forgiveness, she had
exacted from her daughter a promise that she
would at the same time ask her husband's pardon
for the harm she had done by her jealousy.
I passed some sad but peaceful weeks with my
parents. My grandfather obtained my father's
and mother's consent to come and live with them.
" It will not be for long," he said to them ; " for
I can never live without my dear scolder, and you
will bury me before this year is over." He died
eleven months after my grandmother.
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MY MARRIAGE AND ITS RESULTS
From the day my grandmother left us, my
father's one thought was to replace her in my life,
and he bestowed a double affection upon me. He
encouraged me to work, aided me with his advice,
and said to me:
" When your married life becomes even more in-
tolerable to you than it is now, your mother and
I will dedicate our lives to you. We will follow
wherever you may lead us. Work, work, and be-
come known. There is no other way by which a
woman can gain her liberty than by affirming her
personality."
I worked while nursing and bringing up my
daughter. I completed my education, very much
developed in certain matters, very insufficient in
others.
Then, one day, after some insignificant literary
attempts, revolted at the insults Proudhon had
thrown at Daniel Stern and George Sand in his
book, La Justice dans la Revolution, I wrote my
Anti-Proudhonian Ideas, and my real literary life
began, with the record of which I shall some day
continue these memoirs.
[399]
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below
Form
A.3Z5E
my childhood
and youth.
