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 Arthémise, 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. Arthémise’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 Arthémise, “if Madame regrets having turned me
out like a thief.”
“She regrets it, Arthémise.”
“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 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 endured by her poor little
girl. She knew them all, having obtained the information while my
grandfather 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. Perhaps that moment decided the way in which
my character was formed.
“Juliette will always act like that when grandmother is bad,” I said,
“and then she does not wish that Arthémise should ever be sent away
like a thief.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” repeated grandmother, covering me with kisses.
“Arthémise,” 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?”
“Yes, madame.”
“She is like me, the little love. Arthémise, 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, Pélagie, 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.
“Arthémise, 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 experience. I talked of it, I cried over it, and
they could not make me stop. Arthémise, 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 endured. I promised my
grandmother, however, that I would not relate my history to my parents
at Blérancourt. Arthémise and grandmother together 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.
VII
I GO TO A WEDDING
A few months later, in the summer, I went to Blérancourt with my
grandfather to a wedding. I had already seen a great number, Arthémise
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
manufacture 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 leaving grandmother and Arthémise. However, my absence was to be
only for four days.
My grandfather, since my “campaign of Caumenchon,” as he called it, had
conceived such a passion for me that he stayed for long hours together
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 granddaughter’s slave.”
He was so tall, so big, so noisy, he talked so much that I would stare
at him from his feet upward, 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
number of packages well sewn together by Arthémise, 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 when we arrived and which my mother
showed to her friends at Blérancourt, who came to see me and to make my
acquaintance. I had held my handsome 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 alongside 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
frequently 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
château 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 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 Blérancourt, 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 Arthémise’s packages and she ironed my frocks
herself. I took part in the ironing and the hanging up, and I asked
innumerable 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 handsome 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 cortége.
The gentleman who gave his arm to my mother was very handsome and he
laughed to see her continually dragged out of file by me.
All Blérancourt was there to see the fine wedding pass by, and several
times I heard, not without pleasure, little boys and girls and even
grown persons say:
“Look, look, it’s Monsieur Lambert’s little Juliette. 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 curé’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 me; “see the lovely garden and the beautiful
flowers, 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 Curé’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 gathered 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 curé 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.
“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 curé 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.”
“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
without 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 protect
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 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.
“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 together.
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.
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 dangerous madman,” because it never ceased
for years to keep alive my grandmother’s political griefs against my
father.
VIII
“FAMILY DRAMAS”
The 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
circumstances, 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
neither 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 repeat to me
the stories of old Homer, and I got to know them as well as little Red
Riding Hood and Cinderella.
My father was a poet, and his verses were always 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 grandmother was a governmental Orléanist, my
grandfather 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, 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 second 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 dinner, 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
Caumenchon 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.
Seeing this preparation, grandfather would always say: “Now,
phenomenon, walk to your execution, pile up your instruments of
torture, and don’t forget a single one!” And, going away, he would add:
“They will kill the child, they will kill her!”
When by chance grandfather blamed any act of grandmother’s he never
addressed himself directly 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 accomplish 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, or, perhaps because the
quarrel had lasted long enough, the familiar names were spoken again:
Pélagie, Pierre, Juliette; a general kissing followed, and all was over
without a word of explanation.
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, prefer 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 vassals. What the kings had done for the
people interested 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.”
For these opinions, expressed at school, I was often severely
remonstrated with by the teachers, and looked upon with indignation by
my companions.
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
feeling 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
discussed or blamed. I spoke of her with a passionate 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 comparable 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.
These sugar-plums became later a source of reproach 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 because 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 consequently thus made up: Worship
of Louis XI., “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 convince 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 delighted me) had terrified not only the beheaders of
“Lambert’s Jacobite Revolution” (this a shaft at my father), but had
conquered the sovereigns of Europe as far as Africa and Asia.
How often I heard this speech! But, unfortunately for grandfather, it
used to convulse grandmother 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
happened 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 Béranger’s songs, especially and exclusively
those that exalted his Emperor; 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 Lützen 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.”