CHAPTER VIII

LE MARQUIS DE PLOEUC

In the Château de Ker-Guélegaan, near Quimper, lived an old friend of my family's, the Marquis de Ploeuc. The château was one of the oldest in Finisterre, an immense weather-beaten pile with a moat, a drawbridge, a great crenellated tower, and a turret that, springing from the first story, seemed, with its high-pointed roof, to be suspended in the air. Tall, dark trees rose in ordered majesty about the château, and before it a wide band of lawn, called a _tapis vert_, ran to the lodge-gates that opened on the highroad. From the upper windows one saw the blue Brittany sea. Along the whole length of the front façade ran a stone terrace with seven wide steps; the windows of the _salle d'honneur_ opened upon this, and the windows of the _petit salon_ and the dining- and billiard-room. The furniture in the _salle d'honneur_ was of Louis XV white lacquer, court chairs, and _tabourets de cour_. There were tall mirrors all along the walls, and in the corners hung four great crystal chandeliers. The curtains and portières were of a heavy, white silk that had become gray with time; they were scattered with bouquets of faded flowers, and caught up and looped together with knots of ribbon that had once been rose-colored. This glacial and majestic room was seldom used; it was in the _petit salon_, leading from it, that guests usually sat. Here the chairs were carved along their tops with garlands of roses and ribbons so delicate that we children were specially forbidden to touch them. The walls were hung with tapestries, at which I used often to gaze with delight. One saw life-sized ladies and gentlemen dancing in stately rounds or laughing under trees and among flowers and butterflies. The great dining-room was paneled with dark wood carved into frames around the portraits of ancestors that were ranged along it. The coffers and the sideboards, where the silver stood, were of the same carved wood. I remember once going down to peep at the kitchen in the basement, and the dark immensity, streaming, as it were, with cooks, servants, kitchen-boys, and maids, so bewildered and almost frightened me that I never ventured there again.

The old marquis was a widower, and his married daughters, the Marquise de L---- and Mme. d'A----, usually lived with him and his unmarried daughter Rosine, who became a nun. He was a splendid old gentleman, tall, with a noble carriage and severe, yet radiant, countenance. In the daytime he dressed always in gray coat and knee-breeches, with gray-and-black striped stockings and buckled shoes. At night his thick, white hair was gathered into a _catogan_,--a little square black-silk bag, that is to say,--tied with a bow, and he wore a black-silk suit. On festal occasions, Christmas, Easter, or his fête-day, he became a magnificent figure in brocaded coat and white-satin waistcoat and knee-breeches; he had diamond shoe- and knee-buckles, diamond buttons on his waistcoat, and golden _aiguillettes_ looped across his breast and shoulder.

The diamond buckles he left to me, to be given to me on my first communion, and in his lifetime he had made for me a beautiful missal bound in white parchment and closed with a diamond and emerald clasp; inside were old illuminations.

In his youth M. de Ploeuc had been an officer of the Chouans, and he was, of course, a passionate royalist. He always wore the Croix de St. Louis, a fleur-de-lis, with the little cross attached by blue ribbon. I asked him once if it was the same sort of decoration as my Grandfather de Rosval's, which, I said, was larger and was tied with red, and I remember the kindly and ironic smile of my old friend as he answered, "Oh, no; that is only the Légion d'honneur."

Brittany had many marquises, some of them also old and distinguished; but he was the _doyen_ of them all, and was always called simply _le_ marquis. Any disputes or difficulties among the local _noblesse_ were always brought to him for his decision, and on such occasions, if the discussions became heated, he would say, "_Palsan bleu, mes seigneurs, il me semble que vous vous oubliez ici_," using the dignified oath already becoming obsolete. His French was the old French of the court. He never, for instance, said, "_Je vous remercie_," but, "_Je vous rends gráce_."

Guests at Ker-Guélegaan arrived with their own horses and carriages to stay a month or more, and open house was kept. Breakfast was at six for those who did not take communion at the mass that was celebrated every morning in the chapel adjoining the château; these breakfasted on returning. It was permissible for ladies, at this early hour, to appear very informally in _peignoirs_ and _bigoudics_. _Bigoudics_ are curl-papers or ribbons. The marquis almost always took communion, but he usually appeared at the six o'clock breakfast. After mass, once his correspondence dealt with, he played billiards with Rosine, the beautiful girl who became a nun in the order of the Carmelites, an order so strict that those who entered it died, to all intents and purposes, since their relatives never saw them again, and at that time were not even informed of their death. I see Rosine very clearly, bending over the billiard-table under her father's fond gaze, and I can also see her kneeling to pray in a corner of the _petit salon_. It was with such simplicity that any suspicion of affectation or parade was out of the question. In the midst of a conversation she would gently ask to be excused and would go there apart and pray, sometimes for an hour. The ladies quietly gossiping over their embroidery-frames took it quite as a matter of course that Rosine should be praying near them.

_Déjeuner_ was at ten, and it was then that one saw how strongly feudal customs still survived at Ker-Guélegaan. The marquis sat at the head of the table, and behind his chair stood his old servant Yvon, dressed in Breton mourning-costume in memory of his defunct mistress; that is to say, in blue, black, and yellow. The other servants wore the livery of the house. Half-way down the table the white cloth ended, and the lower half had a matting covering. Here sat all the farmers of Ker-Guélegaan and their families, taking their midday meal with their master, while M. de Ploeuc and his guests and family sat above. We children were usually placed at a little side-table. The meal aways began by M. de Ploeuc rising and blessing the company with two outstretched fingers, like a bishop, and he then recited a benediction. He was always served first, another survival of patriarchal custom, forced upon him, rather, for I remember his protesting against it and wishing my mother, who sat next him, to be served before him; but she would not hear of it. During the repasts a violinist and a _biniou_-player, dressed in his Breton costume, played to us.

After luncheon the ladies drove or rode or walked as the fancy took them, or, assembled in the _petit salon_, talked over their work. On hot days the blinds would be drawn down before the open windows, but in the angle of each window was fixed a long slip of mirror, so that from every corner one could see if visitors, welcome or unwelcome, were driving up to the _perron_. _Goûter_, at three, consisted of bread, fruit, and milk, and dinner was at five. After that the ladies and gentlemen assembled in the _petit salon_ and talked, told ghost-stories and legends, or played games till the very early bedtime of the place and period.

This was the _train de vie_ at Ker-Guélegaan; but my memories of the place center almost entirely around the figure of my old friend. I was his constant companion. When he rode out after luncheon to visit his farms, I would sit before him on his old horse Pluton. He never let Pluton gallop for fear of tiring him. "Do you see, _ma petite_," he would say, "Pluton is a comrade who has never failed me. He has earned a peaceful old age." We passed, in the wood behind the château, a monument of a Templar that frightened and interested me. He lay with his hands crossed over his sword, his feet stayed against a couchant hound, and I could not understand why he wore a knitted coat. My old friend burst out laughing when I questioned him, and said that I was as ignorant as a little carp, and that it was high time I went to the Sacré Coeur. He told me that the knitted coat was a coat of mail, and tried to instil a little history into my mind, telling me of the crusades and St. Louis; but I am afraid that my mind soon wandered away to Pluton's gently pricked ears and to the wonders of the woods that surrounded us. We had walks together, too, and went one day to the sea-shore, where there was a famous grotto often visited by strangers. When we arrived at the black arch among the rocks and I heard it was called the Devil's Grot, I was terrified, clinging to M. de Ploeuc's hand and refusing to enter.

"But why not, Sophie? Why not?" he questioned me. "I am here to take care of you, and there is no danger at all. See, Yann is lighting the torches to show us the way."

"But the devil--the devil will get me," I whispered; "Jeannie told me so."

Jeannie, indeed, was in the habit of punishing or frightening me by tales of the devil and his fork and tail and flames, and of how he would come and carry off disobedient little girls; so it was not to be wondered at that I feared to enter his grot. I imagined that he himself lurked there and would certainly carry me off, for I was well aware that I was often very disobedient. M. de Ploeuc sat down on a rock, took me on his knee, and said:

"It is very wrong of Jeannie to fill your head with such nonsense, my little one. Nothing like her devil exists in the whole world, and you must pay no attention to her stories."

He told me that the cavern was filled with beautiful stalactites, like great clusters of diamonds, and was so gentle and merry and reasonable that the devil was exorcised from my imagination forever, and I consented to enter the grotto.

Yann and the guide, a young farmer of Ker-Guélegaan, led us in with their lighted torches, and I suddenly saw before me, strangely illuminated, a somber, yet gorgeous, fairy-land. Diamonds indeed! Pillars of diamonds rose from the rocky floor to the roof, and pendants hung in long clusters, glittering in inconceivable vistas of splendor. I was so dazzled and amazed that I gave the vaguest attention to M. de Ploeuc's explanation of the way in which the stalactites were formed among the rocks. Indeed, that night I could not sleep, still seeing diamond columns and pillars, and my dear old friend was full of self-reproach next day when he heard that during the night the Devil's Grot had given me a fever.

Sometimes the Marquis de L---- accompanied us on our expeditions, and sometimes I was even left in his charge for an afternoon. I disliked this very much, for he had no amusing stories to tell me and walked very fast, and when my pace flagged, he would pause to look at me reproachfully, tapping his foot on the ground, and crying out, as though I were one of his horses, "Get up! Get up!"

M. de Ploeuc often took me, after lunch, into his little study and played the flute to me. I liked being in the study, but it rather frightened me to see my old friend remove his teeth before beginning to play. Their absence sadly altered his beautiful and stately countenance, and gave, besides, an odd, whistling timbre to his music. Still, I listened attentively, looking away now and then from his rapt, concentrated countenance to the _tapis vert_ outside, where the cows were cropping the short grass, or glancing around rather shrinkingly at the headless bust of Marie Antoinette that stood on the mantelpiece. The head lay beside the bust, and there was, even to my childish imagination, a terrible beauty in the proud shoulders thus devastated. This was one of two such busts that had been decapitated by the Revolutionists. The other belonged, I think, later on, to the Empress Eugénie. When the marquis had finished his thin, melancholy airs, it was my turn to perform, and that I liked much better. I saw that he loved to hear the old Breton songs sung in my sweet, piping little voice, and it was especially pleasant, our music over, to be rewarded by being given chocolate pastils from a little enamel box that stood on the writing-desk. While I softly crunched the pastils M. de Ploeuc told me about the countries where the plant from which the chocolate came grew. It was not at all common in Brittany at that time, and the pastils much less sweet than our modern bon bons. M. de Ploeuc also carried for his own delectation small violet and peppermint lozenges in a little gold box that he drew from his waistcoat-pocket, and these gave the pleasantest fragrance to his kiss. I often sat on with him in the study, looking at the pictures in the books he gave me while he read or wrote. He wore on the third finger of his right hand an odd black ring that had a tiny magnifying-glass fixed upon it, and while he read his hand moved gently across the page.

I owe a great deal to this dear old friend. He took the deepest interest in my deportment, and _maman_ was specially delighted that he should extirpate from my speech provincial words and intonations. He entirely broke me of the bad habits of shrugging my shoulders and biting my nails.

"Only wicked men and women bite their nails," he told me, and pointed out to me as a terrible warning the beautiful and coquettish Mme. de G----, one of his guests, who had bitten her nails to the quick and quite ruined the appearance of her hands.

"And is she so wicked?" I asked. At which he laughed a little, and said that she must become so if she continued to bite her nails. He made me practise coming into and going out of a room until he was satisfied with my ease and grace.

"Do you see, _ma petite Sophie_," he said, "a woman, when she walks well, is a goddess. Walk always as if on clouds, lightly and loftily. Or imagine that you are skimming over fields of wheat, and that not an ear must bend beneath your tread."