_May 23rd._--As we expected French young ladies to be very elegant,
mamma was most anxious that we should go as day scholars to a French
school; she thought, besides, that it would be a change, as we were
all sufficiently tired of Versailles. We therefore enquired of several
people, and were told that the pension of Madame Crosnier de Varigny,
Boulevard de la Reine, No. 55, was the best at Versailles: they said
it was not indeed the largest, but the best and the most select.
We thought that so near the capital there must be good schools; we
therefore set out this day to go and speak about it. In our way, as
we passed the Church of Notre Dame, we observed it was all hung with
black; we walked in, and enquired of some people the cause. They
answered, 'On va faire un enterrement; c'est une dame forte à son
aise.' We walked round the church, which is plain and dirty. A number
of priests, boys, and beggars went out to meet the corpse with candles
in their hands. After waiting till we were almost tired, the funeral
at last made its appearance. There first came in the beggars bearing
lighted candles in their hands; then a priest carrying a crucifix;
then a number of priests, and boys that attend the priests, in black
and white; then two priests who held a sort of black pipe, a serpent
through which they blew; after that came the coffin, covered with white
silk and bordered with black velvet: it was placed on a bier elevated
on a platform covered with black near the altar. A great many candles
were lighted around it. A priest chanted the whole way up the church
and during mass. Mass lasted half an hour. After it was finished they
made a collection, after which the procession left the church in the
same order as when it entered. The old beggars also went out, taking
their candles along with them. There were forty of them, the most
frightfully ugly creatures that can be imagined. Their skins were like
brown leather; they had on old patched petticoats; they were blind
and lame; one had a nose as big as her face, and the next no nose at
all: they were altogether the most frightful set I ever beheld. There
were not many people at the church, except some old women, a number
of whom are generally standing about the churches. (Some of them take
care of the chairs. Every person that takes one chair pays two liard,
or on great fêtes two sous.) These old women were likewise very ugly.
As the French women (except the ladies) do not wear bonnets, their
faces get sunburnt, and the old women's skins look like leather. Some
grow excessively fat. They wear a curious kind of cap, and generally
a red gown and a dark-blue apron with pockets, and a kind of large
chintz handkerchief. After leaving the church we proceeded to Madame
Crosnier's. There were two or three queerly-dressed, vulgar-looking
girls standing at the window. We were shown up into a bedroom.
Madame Crosnier is a good-looking woman, genteel, and altogether
the nicest-looking woman I saw in France: she had on a neat cotton
gown (which is more worn in France than in England) and a pelerine.
Mademoiselle Allemagne, her _sous-maîtresse_, was not near so
nice-looking. The terms were for day-scholars, who did not get their
meals there, 10 francs a month, drawing 10 francs, music 18 francs,
harp 36, dancing 9, and Italian 10 francs. School hours were from nine
to twelve, and from one to three. Thursday was a half-holiday. Madame
Crosnier showed us some of the young ladies' work: it was principally
little figures embroidered with coloured silks on white silk. Catherine
went to this school the next day; Euphemia and I not till above a
fortnight after.
[Illustration: PART OF THE FUNERAL PROCESSION]
_May 25th._--We took a walk in the forest. It is full of paths, so
that one might easily lose one's way: the wood is very pretty. It
was evening when we walked in it, and we saw one moth, the only one
I saw in France, except the cinnabars and some brown midges. We met
the King's gamekeeper, whom papa spoke to: a little further on a
drunken man passed us: drunken people were by no means a rare sight
here, although we had been told the contrary. When we got home it was
quite dark, and they were lighting the lamps, which are hung on ropes
stretched across the street.
[Illustration: OLD WOMAN OF VERSAILLES]