Letter from my father to General Brune on my birth--The postscript--My
godfather and godmother--First recollections of infancy--Topography of
the château des Fossés and sketches of some of its inhabitants--The
snake and the frog--Why I asked Pierre if he could swim--Continuation
of _Jocrisse._
As I mentioned at the beginning of these Memoirs, I was born on the 5th
Thermidor, year X (24th of July 1802), at 4.30 a.m.
I came on the scene with a great show of strength and vigour, judging
from a letter my father wrote to his friend, General Brune, the day
after my birth.
It is an odd letter, and possesses a _post scriptum_ of a still more
eccentric nature; but those who have had the patience to read these
Memoirs so far will have become acquainted with some of my father's
whimsical and vivacious characteristics, and should understand his
nature. Others, who take no interest in any details such as those given
by my father to Brune, can skip this letter, without reading either it
or its postscript. However that may be, here it is:--
"_6th Thermidor, Year X._
"MY DEAR BRUNE,--I am glad to tell you my wife gave birth
yesterday morning to a fine boy, who weighs nine pounds
and is eighteen inches long. So you will see that if he
continues to increase in the outside world at the rate he
has done inside, he bids fair to attain to a pretty fine
stature.
"And another thing you should know too: I rely on you to be
his godfather. My eldest daughter, who sends you a thousand
kisses from the tips of her little black fingers, will be
your fellow-godparent. Make haste and come, although the
new arrival into this world does not seem to wish to leave
it in a hurry; come soon, for it is long since I saw you,
and I want to see you very much.--Your friend, AL. DUMAS.
"_P.S._--I open my letter to tell you that the young dog has
just eased himself all over his head. That's a good sign,
surely! Eh?"
We must make allowances for my dear father's pride; he had much wanted
a boy all the ten years he had been married, and he fancied that the
birth should be preceded, accompanied, and followed by auguries of
great import to the world, as in the case of Augustus.
However, although these omens seemed so satisfactory to my father,
Brune apparently was not so positive about them. This is what he wrote
by return of post:--
"COUNCIL OF STATE, PARIS,
"_10th Thermidor, Year X of the French Republic._
"To GENERAL DUMAS.
"MY DEAR GENERAL,--A superstition prevents my complying
with your request. I have been godfather five times, and my
five _godsons_ have all _died_! When the last died I vowed
I would never name another child. You will probably think
my superstition fanciful, but it would make me wretched to
change my mind. I am an old friend of your family, therefore
I feel sure I can count on your indulgence. My resolution
must indeed be firmly fixed to refuse to act with your
charming daughter. Offer my sincerest regrets to her and to
your charming wife, and accept the assurance of my sincere
attachment.
"BRUNE.
"_P.S._--I have despatched various parcels for the little
godmother and her mamma."
Nevertheless, my father insisted, in spite of this refusal and the
superstitious fears it implied. I never saw the second letter, but I
presume the omens were even more propitious and more convincing than
in the first instance, for, at my father's urgent entreaties, a _mezzo
termine_ (half-way house) was arranged, and Brune agreed to stand, but
he was to have a proxy in the person of my father, who was to hold me
at the font in his stead.
No change was made with regard to my godmamma, who had no feelings of
repugnance whatever towards her part in the ceremony, since it had
already brought her so many bonbons, and promised more. For her it was
a fête.
Brune, by proxy, and Aimée-Alexandre Dumas, my sister, aged nine years,
were, therefore, my godfather and godmother.
It will be remembered that just before the Egyptian campaign it had
been settled that if my mother bore a son, the godparents of this said
son were to be Bonaparte and Joséphine. But things had changed greatly
since then, and my father had no inclination to remind the First Consul
of the general-in-chief's promise.
Bonaparte cruelly proved to my mother that he was not a Louis XII., who
forgave the injuries he had received when duc d'Orléans.
The first glimmering of recollection in the darkness of my infant life
would be about the year 1805. I can faintly remember the arrangements
of the small country house we lived in, which was called _les Fossés._
My topographical recollections stop short at the kitchen and
dining-room, the two parts of the house I doubtless frequented with
most sympathy.
I have not seen this house since 1805, but I can still recollect
that there was a step down into the kitchen and a big block opposite
the door; that the kitchen table came directly behind it; and, in
front of this kitchen table, to the left, was the chimneyplace. This
chimneyplace was an immense one, and inside it nearly always lay my
father's favourite gun, a silver-mounted one, with a pad of green
morocco at the butt-end. I was forbidden ever to touch this gun, under
penalty of the most severe punishment, but I was always touching
it, and my mother, in spite of her fears, never carried her threats
into execution. Then, farther on, beyond the chimneyplace, was the
dining-room, up three steps: the floor was parqueted in deal, and the
wooden wainscoting was painted grey.
Our household comprised, besides my father and mother, the following
members, whom I will enumerate in the order of importance they filled
in my own mind:--
_1st._ A large black dog called _Truffe_, who was privileged to be
welcomed everywhere, because he allowed me to ride him regularly.
_2nd._ A gardener named Pierre, who used to provide me with frogs and
grass snakes, reptiles I was extremely inquisitive about.
_3rd._ A negro, my father's valet, named Hippolyte, pretty much a black
simpleton, whose queer sayings became family bywords, which my father
treasured up, I believe, to use in a series of stories meant to rival
the tomfooleries of Brunet.
_4th._ A guardsman called Mocquet, for whom I had a profound
admiration, because every evening he would relate magnificent stories
of his deeds of prowess, stories which were immediately interrupted if
the general appeared on the scenes--the general not having such a great
opinion of these deeds as the narrator had himself.
_5th._ A kitchen girl named Marie. This last creature is totally lost
in the twilight mists of my memory. She is just a name which I heard
given to some indistinct figure, now a mere blurred form in my memory;
so far as I can remember, she was in nowise a sylph.
Truffe died of old age towards the end of 1805, and Mocquet and Pierre
buried him in a corner of the garden. This was the first funeral I had
seen, and I wept very bitterly over the old friend of my early days.
My next recollections are confused half flashes in the semidarkness of
early memories, and quite dateless.
One day when I was playing in the garden Pierre called me, and I ran
to him. Whenever Pierre called me it always meant that he had found
something worthy of my notice. Indeed, he had just discovered a snake
in a meadow by the roadside, and it had a great lump in its stomach.
With one blow of his spade he cut the snake in half, and out of the
reptile hopped a frog, a trifle dazed by the beginning of the digestive
process of which it had been the victim. It soon revived, stretched
out its legs one after the other, yawned prodigiously, and began to
leap; slowly at first, then more quickly and, at last, as fast as
though nothing whatever had happened to it.
This phenomenon, which I have never again seen, impressed me so much,
and remains in my mind so vividly, that if I close my eyes I can see
as I write these lines the two wriggling portions of the snake, the
frog still motionless, and Pierre leaning upon his spade, smiling at my
astonishment, just as clearly as though Pierre, the frog, and the snake
were still before my eyes--only Pierre's features are almost effaced by
time, like a badly-taken photograph.
I remember also that, about the middle of the year 1805, my father, who
was suffering from very bad health, left our château des Fossés for
a house or château at Antilly,--I have not a single recollection of
that sojourn beyond being taken there on Pierre's back. It had rained
a great deal for two nights previously, and I was filled with surprise
to see Pierre walk unconcernedly through the puddles of water which
intersected the road.
"Do you know how to swim, Pierre?" I asked him. The impression Pierre's
courage in crossing these puddles made upon me must have been very
strong, for these words are the first I remember speaking, and, like
those of M. de Crac, which froze in winter and thawed in spring, I can
hear them ringing in my ears with the distant and faint accents of my
childish voice. The question, "Pierre, can you swim?" was suggested
to me by an event that happened at our house which deeply impressed
my youthful imagination. Three young men, one called Dupuis, whom I
have since seen as a jeweller in Paris--all of Villers-Cotterets--came
to the château des Fossés, which was surrounded by water, to ask
permission to bathe in the kind of moat which ran round it. My father
gave them leave, and asked them if they could swim; they replied in the
negative, and he showed them a place where they could touch the bottom
safely without running any risk of drowning. The bathers kept to this
spot at first, but, little by little, they grew bolder; and all at
once we heard loud cries from the moat and ran to see,--there were the
three bathers all on the point of drowning.
Fortunately, Hippolyte was there, and he could swim like a fish. In an
instant he was in the water, and when my father reached the edge of the
moat he had already almost saved the first of the three. My father, who
was a splendid swimmer, like most Colonials, threw himself into the
water and saved the second; and Hippolyte saved the third.
They were all pulled out in less than five minutes' time, but one of
the three bathers had already lost consciousness, and, seeing him lying
with his eyes shut and not breathing, I thought he was dead. My mother,
who knew he had only fainted, as she had been reassured by my father
that he was in no danger, turned the occasion, which had impressed me
profoundly, to good account by giving me an eloquent sermon on the
dangers of playing on the banks of the stream. No sermon ever had a
more attentive listener; nor preacher a more fervent convert!
From that moment no one could ever persuade me to gather a single
flower from the sides of the stream, not had they bribed me with all
the coveted treasures of childhood--with rocking-horses, bleating
lambs, or barking dogs.
Yet another thing had struck me: my father's grand form (which looked
as though it might have been made in the same mould as that which
formed the statues of Hercules or Antinous) compared with Hippolyte's
poor small limbs.
It was my father's naked form I saw, dripping with water; he smiled an
almost unearthly smile, as a man may who has accomplished a god-like
act, the saving of another man's life.
And that was why I asked Pierre if he could swim; I remembered the
fainting youth on the grass by the stream, as I saw Pierre venturing
through puddles of water two inches deep, and I realised that neither
my father nor Hippolyte were near at hand to save us.
Hippolyte was an excellent swimmer, a clever runner, and quite a good
horseman, but, as I have before implied, his intellectual faculties
were far from corresponding to his physical abilities. Two instances
will give an idea of the state of his intelligence.
One evening, my mother fearing a frost in the night, and wishing to
shelter some beautiful autumn flowers which were under a little wall
breast high, and which brightened our outlook from the dining-room
windows, called Hippolyte.
Hippolyte ran up, and stood listening to her orders with his big eyes
and thick lips wide open.
"Hippolyte," said my mother, "you must carry those pots into the house
this evening and put them in the kitchen."
"Yes, madame," replied Hippolyte.
In the evening my mother indeed found the pots in the kitchen, but
piled up one on top of the other, so as to take up as little room as
possible in the domains of Marie the kitchenmaid.
A cold perspiration broke out on my poor mother's face, for too well
did she understand what had happened. Hippolyte had obeyed her to the
letter. He had emptied out the flowers and taken the pots inside.
Next morning my mother found the flowers broken, heaped on top of one
another, glistening with frost, at the foot of the wall.
Pierre, the plant-doctor, was called in, and managed to save a few, but
most of them were destroyed.
The second thing was more serious in its nature. I have offered it to
Alcide Tousez to incorporate in his _Soeur de Jocrisse_; but he dared
not use it.
I possessed a delightful little sparrow Pierre had caught for me. The
poor little bird could scarcely fly, and had tried to go on a voyage of
discovery after its father, like Icarus. It had passed from its nest
into a cage, where it had grown and developed its wings properly.
Hippolyte had the special charge of feeding my sparrow and cleaning out
its cage.
One day I found the cage open, and my sparrow had gone. Much weeping,
lamentation, and woe followed, and finally maternal intervention.
"Who left the door open?" she asked Hippolyte.
"I did, madame," he replied, with as much glee as though he had done
the cleverest thing imaginable.
"What did you do that for?"
"Oouf! the poor little beast's cage smelt as though it needed fresh
air."
There was nothing to say in reply. Did not my mother herself open
the doors and windows of rooms which needed fresh air, and order the
servants always to do the same under similar circumstances?
They gave me another sparrow, and instructed Hippolyte to keep its cage
cleaner, and so prevent any smell.
I do not remember if he obeyed properly; for another event took up the
attention of our household.