She is at her full, and even as I write rising red and heavy in the
south-west. All night long she will look down upon at least one corner
of the earth satiate with the good things of life. I don't remember
such a September as this has been for many years past. Misty,
gossamered mornings, a day all blue and pale gold, bees in the
ivy bloom, sprawling overblown flowers, red apples, purpling
vine-clusters, clear evenings: then this smouldering moon to go to
bed by! It is all like a great Veronese wall-picture, or the Masque
in _The Tempest_--"Rich scarf to my proud earth!"--and summons from
me more adjectives than I have needed this twelvemonth. It is indeed
adjectival weather; for Nature is still adding, not discarding stores.
The last act of the "maturing sun" is to ingerminate the flowers and
fruit which will bless or tantalise us next year.
Now is the time when maids get up at six and hunt for mushrooms in
the dew; now the good wives of the village make wine of all sorts of
unlikely fruits, blackberries, elderberries, peaches, pears, and, of
all things in the world, parsnips. I have lately been given of this
wine to taste. It is a cordial rather than a wine and on the good
rather than the bad side. The addition of spices is admitted;
nevertheless out of a particularly mawkish vegetable is made a
palatable drink. "Out of the strong come forth sweetness." After it I
shall be prepared to find a potable in the banana, which is favoured
by many people, of whom I am not one. But I don't find it nastier than
the parsnip, and it is evident that fermentation can work miracles.
In such a year as this I, too, shall have a vintage. For the first
time in my life I shall tread my own winepress, vat my own must,
and (I hope) need no sugar for it. I don't know why it is, but I can
conceive no more romantic rural adventure than that of growing and
drinking your own wine. But there are yet many things to happen. The
grapes must get ripe and the wasps be kept off; and then there are
problems connected with vinification which I have not yet solved. The
Marquis of Bute could tell me all about it, and I wish he would.
He has made wine at Castle Coch these many years, and of the most
excellent. Unfortunately I have not his acquaintance, so I invite
advice, and shall be grateful for it. The chief of my perplexities are
concerned with the beginning of fermentation and the end of it. For
the first, should I use yeast? My neighbours here say, yes; the French
tell me that I don't need it, the grapes having enough of their own.
Pass that and consider the second point. Having started your ferment,
how do you stop it?[A] Fermentation in Italy goes on in the barrel,
after the liquor has left the vat. That gives you a peculiar prickly
wine which the Italians call "Frizzante" and profess to like. Our word
for it is "beastly."
[Footnote A: Since that was written I have learned the answer. It
stops itself--why, I don't know, unless by the grace of God.]
My village gossips tell me that fermentation will stop of itself when
I draw the wine off the lye; but the French practice certainly seems
to be to burn sulphur matches in the vat and so kill the vinegar germs
there latent. And then _plâtrage_? You sprinkle the must with plaster
of Paris before fermentation begins. Is that done in England? It is
not done in this part of England at least. Nor do I know why it
is done in France. Probably before I have solved my problems by
stomach-ache and other experiences of a biliary kind, prohibition
will be in the air over here, wafted upon some newspaper breeze from
America. There will be no difficulty in starting a fermentation out of
that sweeping doctrine, that's for certain. I don't say that we need
take prohibition seriously; but we think about it, naturally, and talk
about it out here.
If it were put to the local vote in this village, it would be lost.
We have many total abstainers, yet one of them, I know, and several of
them, I believe, would vote against it. Says the one I am sure of:
"If I abstain from strong drink, as I do, it is my own doing; and if I
were tempted to a fall and withstood it, that is to my credit. But if
the law cuts me off it, and I am a criminal if I drink, it cuts me off
a good part of my credit too--and I am against that." My friend has
there put his finger upon a sharp little dilemma. If alcohol is a bad
thing, then prohibition is a good thing. But if temperance is a good
thing, then prohibition is a bad thing. You cannot be temperate in the
use of alcohol if you have none. Nor is sobriety a virtue in you if
you lock up the wine-cellar and throw the keys down the well. Very
well; then will you do without alcohol or without temperance? There is
the choice; and I have made mine.
Besides, we are all for liberty down here, individualists to a man.
Give us a loophole to avoid compulsion and we use it. One of the
most frequently exercised of my magisterial functions is to certify
conscientious objections to the Vaccination Act. I do it against the
grain. A doctor told me the other day that he believed smallpox had
reached the end of its tether, and was on the ebb. I am sure I hope
so, lest there should be one day a bad outbreak among these liberty
men. I must have signed away the chances of hundreds of children, who,
by the way, are not of an age to consent. I never fail to point out
the risk; but the Court awards it and the law allows it; so I sign.
There is much to be said for Anarchy in the abstract, nothing at all
in the concrete. Mr. Smillie, however, appears to favour it, raw,
rough and ready. In that he is precocious, and, like the rathe
primrose, will "forsaken die." He will rend the Labour party in twain
from the top to the bottom, and will see the agricultural vote drop
off his industrials just as it had begun to adhere to them. I know the
peasantry. They will never strike for political ends, for though they
are not quick to see the consequences of hypothetical actions, they
do see that if you make Parliamentary government impossible you make a
Labour majority not worth having.
And another thing: Mr. Smillie and his friends may want a revolution,
but Hodge and his most certainly do not. They want to earn their
livelihood, pay their way, and dig their plots of ground. No more
warfare for them. I dare say I shall be sorry for Mr. Smillie when
the time comes; but I may have to be still more sorry for my country
first. I can't help hoping, however, when it comes to the point that
his feet will be a little colder than his head seems to be just now.
_LA PETITE PERSONNE_
No letter-writer's stage can at any time be called empty, because upon
it you necessarily have at all times two persons at least: the mover
of the figures and the audience, the puppeteer and the puppetee, the
letter-writer and the letter-reader. The play presented is, therefore,
a play within a play: like the _Mousetrap_ in _Hamlet_, like _Pyramus
and Thisbe_ in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, like the romantic drama
of _Gayferos and Melisandra_ which Don Quixote witnessed with a select
company of acquaintance at an inn. The temperament of this presented
spectator, himself or herself a person of the scene, is always
reflected in the entertainment when the letter-writer is a sensitive
artist. So Horace Walpole's comedy varies according as it goes before
Sir Horace Mann in Florence or Lady Upper-Ossory at Ampthill; so, more
delicately, does Madame de Sévigné's. There are blacker strokes in
the dialogue when Bussy is to see the play; there is always idolatry
implied, and sometimes anxiety, if the spoilt child of Provence is the
audience. It is this _chère bonne_, this Madame de Grignan, nine times
out of ten, who is queen of the entertainment. You have to reckon with
her upon her throne of degrees, set up there like Hippolita, Duchess
of Athens, to be propitiated and, if possible, diverted. For her sake,
not for ours, her incomparable mother beckons from the wings character
after character, and gives each his cue, having set the scene with
her exquisite art. In a few cases her anxiety to please spoils the
effects. As we should say, she "laboured" the Cardinal de Retz. The
sour-faced beauty would have none of him. But that is a rare case, one
in which predilection betrayed her. Madame de Sévigné had a weakness
for the Cardinal. It is very seldom that the lightest hand in the
world fails her at a portrait. Her great successes are her thumb-nail
sketches: she will be remembered by Picard in the hayfield so long
as the world knows how to laugh. One of her best, because one of her
tenderest, is the _petite personne_.
The name is Charles de Sévigné's, but his mother takes it up after
him, and makes better play with it. Charles writes from Les Rochers in
December, 1675--Madame being really ill for once in her life with "a
nice little rheumatism," and Charles her amanuensis--"in the room of
la Plessis," that striving lady, too, was ill, or thought she was--"we
have had lately a very pretty young party (_une petite personne fort
jolie_) whose good looks don't at all remind us of that divinity. At
her instigation we have started _Reversis_: now, instead of knaves,
we talk about jacks." He adds a stroke too good to be lost, though his
mother might have left it out. "To give you a notion of her age and
quality, she has just confided to us that the day after Easter Eve was
a Tuesday. She thought that over, then said, 'No--it was a Monday!'
Then, judging by the look of us that that wouldn't do either,
'Heavens, how stupid! Of course--it was a Friday!' That is the kind
of party we are. If you wouldn't mind sending us word what day of the
week you believe it to have been, you will save us a great deal of
discomfort." The stage is the brisker for the coming in of this pretty
_soubrette_.
Madame de Sévigné, meantime, is in a discomfort of her own. It takes
her some ten days to absorb the _petite personne_, but then she fixes
her for ever. Nobody can wish to know more about a young party than
this:
"_Christmas Day_ (1675).... I still have that nice child here.
She lives on the other side of the park; her mother is the
good-wife Marcile's daughter--but you won't remember her. The
mother lives at Rennes, but I shall keep her here. She plays
_trictrac, reversis;_ she is quite pretty, quite innocent, and
called Jeannette. She is no more trouble than Fidèle."
Quite pretty, quite innocent and called Jeannette! _Quid Plura?_ Need
I say who Fidèle was? Fidèle is a shrewd touch of Madame's, put in,
as I guess, to placate the hungry-eyed Goddess of Grignan; but it
does clinch the portrait. All that one needs to know of the nature,
parentage, and upbringing of a _petite personne_ is in these two
letters.
Immediately upon her entry the comedy begins, with Mademoiselle du
Plessis in a leading part. "... La Plessis has a quartan fever. It is
pretty to see her jealous fury when she comes here and finds the
child with me. The fuss there is to have my stick or muff to hold! But
enough of these nothings...."
It was of nothings that the vexed days of Mlle. du Plessis must exist.
An elderly virgin, evidently; stiff, gauche, full of _guinderie_, says
Madame, "_et de l'esprit fichu_." Everybody made game of her at Les
Rochers. As we shall see, the servants knew that very well. Charles is
always witty at her expense. Madame de Grignan once slapped her.
Meanwhile, here's another vignette, a Chardin picture--you will find
nothing by Greuze of this _petite personne_. "... What do you think
of the handy little lady we were telling you of, who couldn't make out
what the day after Easter Eve was? She is a dear little rosebud of a
thing who delights us."
"'In six years to come she'll be twenty years old!' I wish you could
see her in the mornings, eating a hunk of bread-and-butter as long as
from here to Easter, or, after dinner, crunching up two green apples
with brown bread...."
But now the clowns come tumbling in, to turn over the poor du Plessis.
"... Mlle. du Plessis will die of the _petite personne_. Being more
than half dead of jealousy already, she is always at my people to find
out how I treat her. Not one of them but has a pin ready. One says
that I love her as much as I do you; another that I have her to sleep
with me--which would assuredly be a notable sign of affection! They
swear that I am taking her to Paris, that I kiss her, am mad about
her; that the Abbé is giving her 10,000 _livres_; that if she had but
20,000 _écus_ I should marry her to my son. That is the sort of thing;
and they carry it so far that we can't help laughing at it. The poor
lady is ill with it all."
To the same letter Charles adds his scene in the farce: "La Plessis
said to Rahuel (he was the concierge) yesterday that she had been
gratified at dinner to find that Madame had turned the child out of
her seat and put herself in the place of honour. And Rahuel, in his
Breton way: 'Nay, Miss, there's no wonder. 'Tis an honour to your
years, naturally. Besides, the little girl is one of the house, as
you might say. Madame looks on her almost as she might be Madame de
Grignan's little sister.'"
La Plessis, in fact, agonised, and the way was made for the great
scene--so good a scene that I think it must have been bagged for
the theatre. Labiche must surely have lifted it. It is Charles de
Sévigné's masterpiece.
"The young party here, when she saw how my mother's pains
increased towards night, thought that the best thing she could
do for her was to cry--which she did. She is that sort, and
always the focus of jealousy for la Plessis, who tries to
recommend herself to my mother by hating her like the devil.
This is what happened yesterday. My mother was dozing quietly
in bed; the child, the Abbé and I were by the fire. In came La
Plessis. We warned her to come quietly, and she did, and was
half across the room when my mother coughed, and then asked
for her handkerchief to get rid of some phlegm. The child and
I jumped up to get it, but La Plessis was too quick for us,
rushed to the bed, and instead of putting the thing to my
mother's lips, caught hold of her nose with it, and pinched
it so hard that the poor dear cried out with the pain. She
couldn't help being sniffy with the old fuss who had hurt
her so--nor laughing at her afterwards. If you had seen this
little comedy you would have laughed too."
I should like to know who wouldn't have laughed to tears, after it was
over. The scene is priceless.
But all the same, it is not Madame de Sévigné's _genre_. She is
mistress of the chuckle, not of the _fou rire_; and La Plessis is not
one of her best characters. The _petite personne_, however, is; and I
must give a very pretty scene, quite in her own manner, where she is
half laughing at the child and half in love with her too.
"The _petite personne_ is still here, and always delightful.
She has a sharp little wit of her own, too, as new as a young
chick's. We enjoy telling her things, for she knows nothing
at all, and it makes a kind of game to enlighten her on
all sides--with a word or two about the Universe, or about
Empires, or countries, or kings, or religions, or wars, or
Fate, or the map. There's a pretty jumble of facts to put
tidily away in a little head which has never seen a town, nor
even a river, and has never really supposed that the world
went any farther than the end of the park! But she is
delicious. I was telling her to-day about the taking of
Wismar; and she understands quite well that we are sorry about
it because the King of Sweden is our ally. See how wildly we
amuse ourselves."
The last sentence is for the _chère bonne's_ benefit, who was very
capable herself of being jealous of the _petite personne_. I fancy
the touch about Fidèle was put in with the same object. She had to be
infinitely careful with the _chère bonne's_ black dogs.
In another month the _petite personne_ is so far advanced that she
can be secretary to her patroness, whose poor hand is too swollen to
write. Elaborate perambulations introduce her to the _chère bonne_.
"My son has gone to Vitré on some business or other. That is why I
give his functions of secretary over to the little lady of whom I
have often told you, and who begs you to be pleased to allow her, with
great respect, to kiss your hands." That, I should think, was courtesy
enough even for the pouting great lady of Provence. In a later letter
she kisses Madame de Grignan's _left_ hand; so it is written--by
herself, but to dictation. Thus the proper distances were kept by one
as humane as Madame de Sévigné when she was dealing with her daughter
on the other side of idolatry.
But she herself and the child are on better terms than such discipline
would imply. In February: "... My letters are so full of myself that
it bores me to have them read over. You have too much taste not to be
bored too. So I shall stop: even the child is laughing at me now." And
then in March: "... My son has left us--we are quite alone, the child
and I--reading, writing, and saying our prayers." A jolly little
picture of still and gentle life. No Greuze there.
The idyll ends in tears, but not just yet. Two days before she leaves
Brittany, having "neither rhyme nor reason in my hands," she makes use
of the _petite personne_ for the last time: "the most obliging child
in the world. I don't know what I should have done without her. She
reads me what I like--quite well; she writes as you see; she is fond
of me; she is willing; she can talk about Madame de Grignan. In fact,
you may love her on my assurance." And then the poor little dear puts
in her little word for herself to propitiate this formidable Countess
in Provence:
"That would make me very happy, Madame, and I am sure that you must
envy my joy to be with your mother. She has been pleased to make me
write all that praise of myself, though I was rather ashamed to do it.
But I am very unhappy that she is going away."
Madame resumes the pen: "... The child, desired to converse with you
..."--which one may or may not believe. If, as I feel sure, she was
bidden to the task, I don't see how she could possibly have brought it
off better than in those demure phrases. But is she not a dear little
creature?
Then came the dreadful day, the 24th of March, and Madame's coach and
six horses carry her to Laval on her way to Paris. She stays there
for the night and writes, of course, to her _chère bonne_: "... They
carried off the _petite personne_ early this morning to save me the
outcries of her grief. They were the sobs of a child, so natural that
they moved me. I dare say she is dancing about now, but for two days
she has been in floods, not having been able to learn restraint from
me!" Madame, as we know, had abundantly the gift of tears, and was
assuredly none the worse for it.
In Paris, Corbinelli was secretary for a time; but she regretted the
_petite personne_. "... I don't like a secretary who is cleverer than
I am.... The child suited me much better."
And there the happy little figurine, having danced her hour at Les
Rochers, leaves the stage. Other _petites personnes_ there are--one
the sister of _La Murinette Beauté_, who got on so well with M. de
Rohan, and was a lady of Madame de Chaulnes', and presently married
a respectable gentleman, a M. de le Bedoyère of Rennes. But these are
too high levels for the granddaughter of the good-wife Marcile. That
_petite personne_, moreover, was a rather sophisticated young lady.
One would never have seen her, in the mornings, munching a hunk of
bread-and-butter "as long as from here to Easter." No; Jeannette has
fulfilled her part, providing a whiff of marjoram and cottage flowers
for the castle chambers. She has read, written and said her prayers.
She has the firm outline, the rosy cheeks, the simplicity of a Watteau
peasant-girl--nothing of the Greuze languish, with its hint of a
_cruche cassée_. She is as fresh as a March wind. Let us believe that
she found a true man to relish her prettiness and sharp little wits.