Yes, the life at Nid de Merle was very peaceful. Just as exquisitely
happy it was in spite of alarms, anxieties, perplexities, and
discomforts, so when I contemplate my three years in Anjou I see that
they were full of peace, though the sunshine of my life was over and
Cecile had never come.
We had our children about us, for we took little Maurice d’Aubepine home
as soon as possible; we followed the course of devotion and study traced
for us by the Abbe; we attended to the wants of the poor, and taught
their children the Catechism; we worked and lived like sisters, and I
thought all that was life to me was over. I forgot that at twenty-two
there is much life yet to come, and that one may go through many a
vicissitude of feeling even though one’s heart be in a grave.
The old Marquis did not long remain with us. He caught a severe cold in
the winter, and had no strength to rally. Tryphena would have it that
he sank from taking nothing but tisanes made of herbs; and that if
she might only have given him a good hot sack posset, he would have
recovered; but he shuddered at the thought, and when a doctor came from
Saumur, he bled the poor old gentleman, faintings came on, and he
died the next day. I was glad Tryphena’s opinion was only expressed in
English.
The poor old man had been very kind to me, and had made me love him
better than I should have supposed to be possible when we crossed
from Dover. The very last thing he had done was to write to my mother,
placing his hotel at Paris at her disposal in case she and her son
should find it expedient to leave England; and when his will was opened
it proved that he had left me personal guardian and manager of the
estates of his heir, my little Gaspard, now M. de Nidemerle, joining no
one with me in the charge but my half-brother the Baron de Solivet.
I had helped him, read letters to him, and written them for him, and
overlooked his accounts enough for the work not to be altogether new
and strange to me, and I took it up eagerly. I had never forgotten
the sermon by the holy Father Vincent, whom the Church has since
acknowledged as a saint, and our excellent Abbe had heightened the
impression that a good work lay prepared for me; but he warned me to be
prudent, and I am afraid I was hot-headed and eager.
Much had grieved me in the six months I had spent in the country, in the
state of the peasantry. I believe that in the Bocage they are better
off than in many parts of France, but even there they seemed to me
much oppressed and weighed down. Their huts were wretched--they had
no chimneys, no glass in the windows, no garden, not even anything
comfortable for the old to sit in; and when I wanted to give a poor
rheumatic old man a warm cushion, I found it was carefully hidden away
lest M. l’Intendant should suppose the family too well off.
Those seigniorial rights then seemed to me terrible. The poor people
stood in continual fear either of the intendant of the king or of the
Marquis, or of the collector of the dues of the Church. At harvest time,
a bough was seen sticking in half the sheaves. In every ten, one sheaf
is marked for the tithe, tow for the seigneur, two for the king; and the
officer of each takes the best, so that only the worst are left for the
peasant.
Nay, the only wonder seemed to me that there were any to be had at all,
for our intendant thought it his duty to call off the men from their own
fields for the days due from them whenever he wanted anything to be done
to our land (or his own, or his son’s-in-law), without the slightest
regard to the damage their crops suffered from neglect.
I was sure these things ought not to be. I thought infinitely more good
might be done by helping the peasants to make the most of what they
had, and by preventing them from being robbed in my son’s name, than by
dealing out gallons of soup and piles of bread at the castle gates to
relieve the misery we had brought on them, or by dressing the horrible
sores that were caused by dirt and bad food. I told the Abbe, and he
said it was a noble inspiration in itself, but that he feared that one
lady, and she a foreigner, could not change the customs of centuries,
and that innovations were dangerous. I also tried to fire with the
same zeal for reformation the Abbess of Bellaise, who was a young and
spirited woman, open to conviction; but she was cloistered, and could
not go to investigate matters as I did, with the Abbe for my escort, and
often with my son. He was enchanted to present any little gift, and it
was delightful that the peasants should learn to connect all benefits
with Monsieur le Marquis, as they already called the little fellow.
I think they loved me the better when they found that I was the
grandchild of the Madame Eustace who had been hidden in their cottages.
I found two or three old people who still remembered her wanderings when
she kept the cows and knitted like a peasant girl among them. I was even
shown the ruinous chamber where my aunt Thistlewood was born, and the
people were enchanted to hear how much the dear old lady had told me of
them, and of their ways, and their kindness to her.
I encouraged the people to make their cottages clean and not to be
afraid of comforts, promising that our intendant at least should not
interfere with them. I likewise let him know that I would not have men
forced to leave their fields when it would ruin their crops, and that
it was better that ours should suffer than theirs. He was obsequious in
manner and then disobeyed me, till one day I sent three labourers back
again to secure their own hay before they touched ours. And when the
harvest was gathered in the Abbe and I went round the fields of the
poor, and I pointed out the sheaves that might be marked, and they were
not the best.
I taught the girls to knit as they watched their cows, and promised
to buy some of their stockings, so that they might obtain sabots for
themselves with the price. They distrusted me at first, but before
long, they began to perceive that I was their friend, and I began to
experience a nice kind of happiness.
Alas! even this was too sweet to last, or perhaps, as the good Abbe
warned me, I was pleasing myself too much with success, and with going
my own way. The first murmur of the storm came thus: I had been out all
the afternoon with the Abbe, Armantine’s bonne, and the two children,
looking at the vineyards, which always interested me much because we
have none like them in England. In one, where they were already treading
the grapes, the good woman begged that M. le Marquis and Mademoiselle
would for once tread the grapes to bring good luck. They were frantic
with joy; we took off their little shoes and silk stockings, rolled them
up in thick cloths, and let them get into the trough and dance on the
grapes with their little white feet. That wine was always called ‘the
Vintage of le Marquis.’ We could hardly get them away, they were so
joyous, and each carried a great bunch of grapes as a present to the
little boy at home and his mother.
We thought we saw a coachman’s head and the top of a carriage passing
through the lanes, and when we came home I was surprised to find my
sister-in-law in tears, thoroughly shaken and agitated.
Mademoiselle de Gringrimeau had been to see her, she said, and had told
her the Count was in Paris, but had not sent for her; and I thought that
enough to account for her state; but when the children began to tell
their eager story, and hold up their grapes to her, she burst again into
tears, and cried: ‘Oh, my dear sister, if you would be warned. It is
making a scandal, indeed it is! They call you a plebeian.’
I grew hot and angry, and demanded what could be making a scandal, and
what business Mademoiselle de Gringrimeau had to meddle with me or my
affairs.
‘Ah! but she will write to my husband, and he will take me from you, and
that would be dreadful. Give it up. Oh, Marguerite, give it up for MY
sake!’
What was I to give up? I demanded. Running about the country, it
appeared, like a farmer’s wife rather than a lady of quality, and
stirring up the poor against their lords. It was well known that all the
English were seditious. See what they had done to their king; and here
was I, beginning the same work. Had not the Count’s intendant at
Chateau d’Aubepine thrown in his teeth what Madame de Bellaise did and
permitted? He was going to write to Monseigneur, ay, and the king’s own
intendant would hear of it, so I had better take care, and Mademoiselle
had come out of pure benevolence to advise Madame la Comtesse to come
and take refuse at her husband’s own castle before the thunderbolt
should fall upon me, and involve her in my ruin.
I laughed. I was sure that I was neither doing nor intending any harm;
I thought the whole a mere ebullition of spite on the duenna’s part to
torment and frighten her emancipated victim, and I treated all as a joke
to reassure Cecile, and even laughed at the Abbe for treating the matter
more seriously, and saying it was always perilous to go out of a beaten
track.
‘I thought the beaten track and wide road were the dangerous ones,’ I
said, with more lightness, perhaps, than suited the subject.
‘Ah, Madame,’ he returned gravely, ‘you have there the truth; but there
may be danger in this world in the narrow path.’
The most effectual consolation that I could invent for Cecile was that
if her husband thought me bad company for her, he could not but fetch
her to her proper home with him, as soon as peace was made. Did I really
think so? The little thing grew radiant with the hope.
Days went on, we heard nothing, and I was persuaded that the whole had
been, as I told Cecile, a mere figment of Mademoiselle de Gringrimeau’s.
I had written to beg my mother, with my brother and sister, to come
and join us, and I as already beginning to arrange a suite of rooms
for them, my heart bounding as it only can do at the thought of meeting
those nearest and dearest of one’s own blood.
I remember that I was busy giving orders that the linen should be aired,
and overlooking the store of sheets, when Gaspard and Armantine from the
window called out: ‘Horses, horses, mamma! fine cavaliers!’
I rushed to the window and recognized the Solivet colours. No doubt the
baron had come to announce the arrival of my mother and the rest, and
I hastened down to meet him at the door, full of delight, with my son
holding my hand.
My first exclamation after the greeting was to ask where they were, and
how soon they would arrive, and I was terribly disappointed when I found
that he had come alone, and that my mother, with Eustace and Annora,
were at the Hotel de Nidemerle, at Paris, without any intention of
leaving it. He himself had come down on business, as indeed was only
natural since he was joined with me in the guardianship of my little
Marquis, and he would likewise be in time to enjoy the chase over the
estates.
He said no more of his purpose then, so I was not alarmed; and he seemed
much struck with the growth and improvement of Gaspard. I had much to
hear of the three who were left to me of my own family. M. de Solivet
had never seen them before, and could hardly remember his mother, so he
could not compare them with what they were before their troubles; but I
gathered that my mother was well in health, and little the worse for
her troubles, and that my little Nan was as tall as myself, a true White
Ribaumont, with an exquisite complexion, who would be all the rage if
she were not so extremely English, more English even than I had been
when I had arrived.
‘And my brother, my Eustace. Oh, why did he not come with you?’ I asked.
And M. de Solivet gravely answered that our brother was detained by a
suit with the Poligny family respecting the estate of Ribaumont, and,
besides, that the rapidity of the journey would not have agreed with his
state of health. I only then fully understood the matter, for our letter
had been few, and had to be carefully written and made short; and though
I knew that, at the battle of Naseby, Eustace had been wounded and made
prisoner, he had written to me that his hurt was not severe, and that
he had been kindly treated, through the intervention of our cousin Harry
Merrycourt, who, to our great regret, was among the rebels, but who had
become surety for Eustace and procured his release.
I now heard that my brother had been kept with the other prisoners in
a miserable damp barn, letting in the weather on al sides, and with no
bedding or other comforts, so that when Harry Merrycourt sought him out,
he had taken a violent chill, and had nearly died, not from the wound,
but from pleurisy. He had never entirely recovered, though my mother
thought him much stronger and better since he had been in France, out
of sight of all that was so sad and grievous to a loyal cavalier in
England.
‘They must come to me,’ I cried. ‘He will soon be well in this beautiful
air; I will feed him with goat’s mild and whey, and Tryphena shall nurse
him well.’
M. de Solivet made no answer to this, but told me how delighted
the Queen of England had to welcome my mother, whom she had at once
appointed as one of her ladies of the bedchamber; and then we spoke of
King Charles, who was at Hampton Court, trying to make terms with the
Parliament, and my brother spoke with regret and alarm of the like
spirit of resistance in our own Parliament of Paris, backed by the mob.
I remember it was on that evening that I first heard the name Frondeurs,
or Slingers, applied to the speechifiers on either side who started
forward, made their hit, and retreated, like the little street boys with
their slings. I was to hear a great deal more of that name.
It was not till after supper that I heard the cause of M. de Solivet’s
visit. Cecile, who always retired early, went away sooner than usual to
leave us together, so did the Abbe, and then the baron turned to me and
said: ‘Sister, how soon can you be prepared to come with me to Paris?’
I was astounded, thinking at first that Eustace’s illness must be more
serious than he had led me to suppose, but he smiled and said notre
frere de Volvent, which was the nearest he could get to Walwyn, had
nothing do with it; it was by express command of the Queen Regent, and
that I might thank my mother and the Queen of England that it was no
worse. ‘This is better than a letter de catche,’ he added, producing a
magnificent looking envelope with a huge seal of the royal French arms,
that made me laugh rather nervously to brave my dismay, and asked what
he called THAT. He responded gravely that it was no laughing matter, and
I opened it. It was an official order that Gaspard Philippe Beranger de
Bellaise, Marquis de Nidemerle, should be brought to the Louvre to be
presented to the King.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I must go to Paris. Ought I to have brought my boy
before? I did not know that he ought to pay his homage till he was
older. Was it really such a breach of respect?’
‘You are a child yourself, my sister,’ he said, much injuring my
dignity. ‘What have you not been doing here?’
Then it came on me. The intendant of the King had actually written
complaints of me to the Government. I was sewing disaffection among the
peasants by the favours I granted my own, teaching them for rebellion
like that which raged in England, and bringing up my son in the same
sentiments. Nay, I was called the Firebrand of the Bocage! If these had
been the days of the great Cardinal de Richelieu, my brother assured
me, I should probably have been by this time in the Bastille, and my son
would have been taken from me for ever!’
However, my half-brother heard of it in time, and my mother had flown to
Queen Henrietta, who took her to the Queen-Regent, and together they had
made such representations of my youth, folly, and inexperience that the
Queen-Mother, who had a fellow-feeling for a young widow and her son,
and at last consented to do nothing worse than summon me and my child to
Paris, where my mother and her Queen answered for me that I should live
quietly, and give no more umbrage to the authorities; and my brother De
Solivet had been sent off to fetch me!
I am afraid I was much more angry than grateful, and I said such hot
things about tyranny, cruelty, and oppression that Solivet looked about
in alarm, lest walls should have ears, and told me he feared he had done
wrong in answering for me. He was really a good man, but he could not in
the least understand why I should weep hot tears for my poor people
whom I was just hoping to benefit. He could not enter into feeling for
Jacques Bonhomme so much as for his horse or his dog; and I might have
argued for years without making him see anything but childish folly in
my wishing for any mode of relief better than doles of soup, dressing
wounds, and dowries for maidens.
However, there was no choice; I was helpless, and resistance would have
done my people no good, but rather harm, and would only have led to my
son being separated from me. Indeed, I cherished a hope that when the
good Queen Anne heard the facts she might understand better than
my half-brother did, and that I might become an example and public
benefactor. My brother must have smiled at me in secret, but he did not
contradict me.
My poor mother and the rest would not have been flattered by my
reluctance to come to Paris; but in truth the thought of them was my
drop of comfort, and if Eustace could not come to me I must have gone to
him. And Cecile--what was to become of Cecile?
To come with me of course. Here at least Solivet agreed with me, for he
had as great a horror of Mademoiselle de Gringrimeau as I had, and knew,
moreover, that she wrote spiteful letters to the Count d’Aubepine
about his poor little wife, which happily were treated with the young
gentleman’s usual insouciance. Solivet was of my opinion that the old
demoiselle had instigated this attack. He thought so all the more when
he heard that she was actually condescending to wed the intendant of
Chateau d’Aubepine. But he said he had no doubt that my proceedings
would have been stopped sooner or later, and that it was well that it
should be done before I committed myself unpardonably.
Madame d’Aubepine had been placed in my charge by her husband, so that
I was justified in taking her with me. Her husband had spent the last
winter at Paris, but was now with the army in the Low Countries, and
the compliments Solivet paid me on my dear friend’s improvement in
appearance and manner inspired us with strong hopes that she might not
attract her husband; for though still small, pale, and timid, she was
very unlike the frightened sickly child he had left.
I believe she was the one truly happy person when we left the Chateau
de Nid de Merle. She was all radiant with hope and joy, and my brother
could not but confess she was almost beautiful, and a creature whom any
man with a heart must love.