Part 22

Julia, who stood in awe of her mother, usually behaved pretty well in company. One day, however, when two or three of her schoolfellows had come to dine at Madame de Vallonay's, the Curé of the Vallonay estate, being in Paris on business, dined there also. He was a very worthy and sensible man, who said many excellent things, though in a rather more tedious manner than other people, while he introduced into his conversation old proverbs, very useful to remember, but which appeared to Julia excessively ridiculous, because she was unaccustomed to this style of speaking. Moreover, she had never before seen the Curé, and it was her habit always to discover something extraordinary in persons whom she saw for the first time. Her companions were as foolish as herself. Before dinner they amused themselves by mimicking the gestures of the Curé, whom they saw from an adjoining apartment, walking up and down the drawing-room with M. de Vallonay; this had put them into such a mocking humour, that during the whole of dinner, there was a constant succession of whisperings and laughings, for which they sought a thousand frivolous pretexts. Sometimes it was the dog who scratched himself in a droll manner, or who, in putting his paw upon Julia's knee to beg for something to eat, pulled her napkin, or else Emily had drunk out of her glass, or had taken her fork or her bread. Madame de Vallonay, though excessively annoyed, was nevertheless fearful of allowing her displeasure to be visible, lest the Curé should suspect its cause, but in the evening, when the company had departed, she scolded her daughter very seriously, and made her feel the rudeness, and even absurdity, of such conduct, and assured her that if such a thing occurred again, she would not allow her to associate with companions, who encouraged her in such disagreeable habits. Finally, as she was anxious to accustom her to reflect upon the motives of her actions, she asked her what there was so very remarkable in the conversation of the Curé de Vallonay.

"Oh! mamma, he said everything so oddly."

"As, for example:"--

"Well, mamma, he took the trouble of telling me that more flies were to be caught with a spoonful of honey than with a barrel of vinegar."

"And, it appears to me, Julia, that this maxim was never better applied; and it would have been a fortunate thing had it recalled to your mind at that moment, that love is gained by doing what is pleasing to others, not by mockery and disagreeable behaviour."

"And then he recited to papa, who apparently knew it very well beforehand, that verse of La Fontaine--

"Plus fait douceur que violence." Gentleness does more than violence.

"Which means...?" asked Madame de Vallonay.

"Which means ... which means...." And Julia, probably rather annoyed by the conversation, was entirely taken up with pulling with all her strength the string of her bag, which had become entangled with the key of her work-box.

"Which means," continued Madame de Vallonay, "that you would do much better, were you gently to untie the knot in that string, instead of tightening it as you are doing, by pulling it in this irritable manner. I see, Julia, that you will often require to be reminded of the Curé's proverbs."

"But, nevertheless, mamma, they are things which everybody knows, and it was that which wearied me, and made me laugh with those girls."

"Which everybody knows? which you, Julia, know, do you not?"

"I assure you I do, mamma."

"You, who might learn something from every one! You, who might find something instructive in the story of Madame Croque-Mitaine, if indeed, you were capable of understanding it!"

"The story of Madame Croque-Mitaine!" exclaimed Julia, very much piqued: "that story for babies, which my cousin brought the other day for my little sister?"

"Exactly so, the one he made for her, when I showed him that bad engraving which I had given her, and which represented Madame Croque-Mitaine, with her bag and stick, threatening all the little children that she will take them away, if they are not good."

"What, mamma! and you really believe that I should learn something from that story?"

"No, because I am not sure that you have penetration enough to understand its utility. Come, let us see, here is the paper, read it..., come, read on."

"Oh! mamma."

"Oh! my child, you will have the kindness to read it aloud to me; if my dignity is not hurt by hearing it, surely yours need not be so by reading it."

Julia, half-laughing, half-pouting, took the manuscript, and read aloud the following story:

MADAME CROQUE-MITAINE: A TALE.

"Come away! come away, Paul," said little Louisa to her youngest brother, "we have more time than we want; the shop where they sell flowers and toys is at the end of the next street; mamma is dressing, and before she has finished we shall be back again, you with your whip, and I with my nosegay, and we will bring back one for mamma too, which will please her."

Taking Paul by the hand, she walked off with him as fast as their little legs could carry them. Louisa was nine years old, and Paul only seven, and they were two of the prettiest children imaginable. Louisa was dressed in a frock of snow-white cambric, and a rose-coloured sash encircled her little waist. As she walked along, she admired her red shoes, while her fair hair fell in ringlets over her shoulders. Paul's hair was neither less fair nor less beautiful; he wore a nankeen dress, quite new, an embroidered waistcoat, and an open worked shirt; but all these were nothing in comparison with the pleasure which awaited them. Their mother had promised to take them to the fair of Saint Cloud, and they were to set out in an hour. In the country, where, up to the present time, they had resided, they had been permitted to run about in the park, and sometimes even into the village; since they had come to Paris, however, they had been forbidden ever to venture beyond the carriage-gate, but the habit of attending to these injunctions was not yet confirmed, and besides, Louisa wanted to have a bouquet to take with her to Saint Cloud, and Paul wanted a whip, that he might whip his papa's horses, for he had promised to take him by his side in front of the calèche, and they hastened to buy these things unknown to their mother, with the money that she had just given them for their week's allowance.

All the passers-by stopped to look at them: "What pretty children!" they said, "how can they be allowed to go in the streets alone at their age?" And Louisa pulled Paul by the hand, in order to walk faster, so as not to hear them. A cabriolet which was coming very quickly behind them, made them redouble their haste. "Let us run fast," said Louisa, "here comes a cabriolet," but the cabriolet also ran, and Louisa, in her fright, turned to the right instead of to the left, and passed the flower-shop without perceiving it. The cabriolet still followed them, every instant drawing nearer; the noise of the wheels so bewildered Louisa, that thinking it was upon her heels, she rushed into another street. The vehicle took the same direction, and in turning round, the horse trotting in the middle of the gutter, sent up such a shower of mud and water, that our two terrified children were completely covered by it.

Paul instantly burst into tears: "My embroidered waistcoat is spoiled," he exclaimed.

"Be quiet," said Louisa, "we shall be observed," and she cast an anxious and melancholy look, sometimes around her, and sometimes on her cambric dress, which was even more splashed than Paul's waistcoat.

"Shall we soon reach the toy-shop?" asked Paul, still crying, though in a lower tone.

"We have only to go back," said Louisa, "for I think we have come too far; if we take the same way back, we shall soon be there," and she pulled Paul still more forcibly, while she kept close up to the wall, in the hope of not being seen; nevertheless, she did not know how she could venture to enter the toy-shop, or return home to her mother, with her dress in this condition.

All the streets seemed alike, and a child knows only the one in which it lives. Louisa did not return through the same streets by which the cabriolet had followed her. The farther she went, the more uneasy did she become, at not reaching the shop, and she dragged Paul's arm, who, not being able to walk so fast, said to her, "Don't go so fast, you hurt me." They went down a little street, which somewhat resembled one in the neighbourhood of their own house through which Louisa had sometimes passed, but at the end of it they found no passage, and instead of their road, they beheld ... Madame Croque-Mitaine, rummaging with her crook in a heap of rags.

You know Madame Croque-Mitaine. You have seen her humped back, her red eyes, her pointed nose, her dark and wrinkled face, her dirty and withered hands, her petticoat of all colours, her sabots, her bag, and that long stick with which she turns up and examines every heap of rubbish she meets with.

At the noise made by the two children in running, she raised her head, looked at them, and guessed, without much difficulty, from their frightened looks, and by the tears which still flowed down Paul's cheeks, and the sobs which swelled the bosom of Louisa, that they ought not to be where they were.

"What are you doing here?" she asked of them.

Louisa, without replying, leaned against the railing, holding Paul still more firmly.

"Have you a tongue?" continued Madame Croque-Mitaine. "You have at all events very good legs to run with," and she took Louisa by the hand, saying, "Hold up your head, my little one, what has happened to you?"

Louisa was so unaccustomed to speak to persons whom she did not know; the stories which her nurse had been foolish enough to repeat to her about old women who take away little children; the wrinkles, the ill-tempered look, the costume, and the first words addressed to her by Madame Croque-Mitaine, had so much terrified her, that notwithstanding the softened tone in which she now spoke to her, Louisa did not dare either to raise her eyes, or to reply.

"Well," said the old woman, "I see that I shall not get a word from them, nevertheless, I will not leave the poor children here. Will you," she said, addressing Paul, "will you tell me where you come from, and where you are going to? Are you also dumb like your sister?"

"We are going to the toy-shop," said Paul.

"And we have lost our way," rejoined Louisa, who began to feel a little less afraid of Madame Croque-Mitaine.

"Your mamma, surely, did not allow you to go out?" continued the old woman.

Louisa cast down her eyes.

"Well! well! you must first come to my house, in order that I may get rid of some of this mud for you; you are almost as dirty as I am."

"No! no!" exclaimed Louisa, who began again to be frightened at the recollection of the stories of her nurse.

"What do you mean by '_No_?' Are you afraid that I shall eat you? Oh! I see they have made you afraid of Madame Croque-Mitaine; but make yourself easy, she is not so bad as they have told you."

And, indeed, this Madame Croque-Mitaine was only what they all are; that is a poor old woman, who had no other means of gaining a living, than by picking up rags here and there, and selling them afterwards to persons as poor as herself.

She threw her stick into her bag, took the two children by the hand, who still walked with hesitating steps, and went down one of the narrow streets.

Every one looked with astonishment, both at the conductor, and those whom she conducted; their pretty dresses, all splashed as they were, nevertheless formed a singular contrast with hers, and it was quite evident, by their looks of shame, that they had met with some accident, occasioned by their own fault.

"I verily believe," said a man, "that those are the two children I met some time since, and who were walking along so gaily, holding each other by the hand."

"What has happened to them?" asked another.

Louisa wished, notwithstanding the fear which she had not yet entirely overcome, to hasten the steps of Madame Croque-Mitaine, in order to escape from the looks of the curious.

"Stop! stop!" said the old woman, "do not pull me so much, I have my sack to carry, and I cannot go so fast."

At last they arrived in front of a dirty little house, into which they entered, through a door half-mouldered away. Madame Croque-Mitaine opened it, and made the children go in before her. She followed them, put down her sack, and called her daughter, saying, "Charlotte, bring some water and a cloth here, to wash these poor little creatures." Charlotte came out of a corner where she was spinning some coarse hemp; her clothes were as ragged as those of her mother, and she was only two or three years older than Louisa; but when the latter saw her, she felt a little more confidence. Charlotte washed Louisa, while the old woman did the same service for little Paul. The cloth was very coarse, and the maids not very careful. Paul cried, and said they rubbed him too hard, but Louisa was too much ashamed to venture any complaint.

When this operation was over, "Now," said the old woman, "you will tell me where you live, that I may take you home."

"In the Rue d'Anjou," said Louisa, immediately.

"Ha! ha! You can speak now without waiting to be pressed; come along, then; it is not very far from here," and she set off with the two children, who were now quite comforted.

As she had left her sack at home, they could walk faster. When once they had reached the Rue d'Anjou, Louisa went direct to her own door. They found, on entering, the whole house in commotion. They had been sought for ever since they had left. All the servants had dispersed themselves in different directions in search of them; and their mother, in great anxiety, had also gone out to look for them. The moment the portress saw them, she uttered a cry of joy, and ascended with them to the apartments. "Here they are! here they are!" she cried out from a distance, to the nurse, who was quite in despair at not having watched them more carefully; and Louisa ran and threw herself into her arms, crying with shame, fear, and pleasure. At the same moment their mother returned, a prey to the deepest anguish. Transported with joy at finding them again, she never thought of scolding them as they deserved. "What has happened to you? What have you done?" she asked, taking them upon her knees, and covering them with tears and kisses.

"They lost their way, madame," said Madame Croque-Mitaine, for Louisa did not dare to reply. "I met them in a _cul-de-sac_, at some distance from here: the little girl told me that she was going to buy nosegays for herself and you, and a whip for her brother; but surely it must have been without your permission."

"Good heavens, yes!" replied the mother, still trembling, "and is it you, good woman, who have brought them back to me?"

"Yes, madame, but I first went and washed them at my house. No doubt they must have been splashed by a coach; if you had only seen the state they were in!" And Louisa, greatly ashamed, would have been glad to hide her dress, which was covered with mud; while Paul, on the contrary, showed his waistcoat to his mother, saying, "But, mamma, I shall want another waistcoat to go to Saint Cloud."

"Oh, my dears," said their mother, "no Saint Cloud for this day. I am still trembling with the fright you have caused me. It is already late, and your papa is still seeking for you. If you had not ventured out alone, and without my permission, you would neither have been splashed nor lost, and we should now have been on our way to Saint Cloud; it is right you should be punished for your fault; go then and change your clothes."

Paul was very much disposed to cry and pout; but Louisa, feeling the justice of her mother's words, took his hand, and left the room with him, followed by her nurse.

Their mother remained with Madame Croque-Mitaine. "These poor children were very much afraid of me, madame," said the old woman. "They would scarcely go with me, and I had great difficulty in inducing them to enter my hovel."

"How much I am indebted to you!" replied the mother. "Had it not been for you, they would not now be here, and God only knows what might have happened to them. Oh, how much I owe you!"

"Oh, nothing at all, madame; if my daughter had lost herself, and you had chanced to find her, you would have done as much for her."

"Have you a daughter, my good woman?"

"Yes, one twelve years old, may it please you, madame; Charlotte is very pretty, though I say so."

Louisa returned at this moment.

"Louisa," asked her mother, "did you see little Charlotte?"

"Oh yes, mamma, it was she who washed me."

"Well, shall we go and pay her a visit?"

"Oh yes, mamma, I should like that very much."

"Come, then, with me, my child."

Louisa followed her mother into her room, and, at her suggestion, hastily made up a packet containing two dresses, still very good; some underclothing, a cap, two handkerchiefs, and two pair of stockings.

"Come, then, let us take these things to Charlotte," said her mother; and Louisa, greatly delighted, exclaimed, "Oh, mamma, I think they will just fit her; she is not much bigger than I am."

"Will you conduct us to your house, my good woman," said the mother to Madame Croque-Mitaine, who was greatly rejoiced by this visit.

"Charlotte will not have gone out, will she?" demanded Louisa, blushing.

"No! certainly not," replied the old dame, "she never goes out without my permission;" and they quickly descended.

Their walk did not occupy much time. Louisa almost ran. As they entered the house, Madame Croque-Mitaine made numberless apologies for the dirty floor, and the worn-out door. Louisa had already gone to look for Charlotte, in the corner where she was spinning. The little girl was rather ashamed of coming so badly dressed into the presence of such a grand lady.

"Come forward, miss," said her mother. "Make a courtesy; this is the mamma of Mademoiselle Louisa, whom you washed a short time since. Oh, I assure you, madame, she did it very cheerfully," and Charlotte, not daring to look up at such a great lady, glanced at Louisa, and smiled. The latter wanted immediately to dress her in her frock, to put on her white stockings, a handkerchief, and a cap, in order that she might have the pleasure of looking at her.

"Let her do that, herself," said her mother; "she will dress herself when she likes. Tell me, my little girl, would you like to come and live near Louisa?"

Charlotte looked at her mother, as if to ask her what she ought to reply.

"Answer, child," said the latter.

"You shall not leave your mother," continued the lady, "for I have a proposition to make to her. My doorkeeper is going away, and I have not yet engaged another in her place. Would you like to take the lodge, my good woman? We do not keep late hours at my house, and you will not have much trouble."

Madame Croque-Mitaine was overjoyed at this offer; it was a good and secure situation, and she accepted it with the most lively gratitude. It was agreed that she should enter upon her duties on the following day, and Louisa returned home with her mother. Her father, who had just come in, scolded her a little for what she had done, a fault of which she had not at first felt the full extent; and Louisa, while acknowledging her fault, said, nevertheless, that her nurse ought not to have told her bad stories about Madame Croque-Mitaine, and that she was much better pleased at having had an opportunity of doing a service to Charlotte than if she had gone to St. Cloud.

* * * * *

"Well, my child," said Madame de Vallonay to Julia, when she had finished reading, "what useful reflections do you deduce from the story of Madame Croque-Mitaine?" Julia smiled, but said nothing, as if she imagined that her mother was laughing at her. But Madame de Vallonay having pressed for an answer, she said, with a contemptuous expression, "Indeed, mamma, if you made me read it, in order to teach me not to be afraid of old women, who go about picking up rags in the streets, I think I knew that much before."

"And do you see nothing else in it?"

"What! mamma, that we ought not to be disobedient? this is a thing one scarcely needs to learn at my age."

"I am very glad," said Madame de Vallonay, smiling, with a slight tinge of sarcasm, "that this lesson has become quite useless to you. But cannot you see any others?"

"What others can there be?"

"As for that, my child, I will not point them out to you. You might then find that I was only repeating what all the world knows. Look for them yourself."

With these words, Madame de Vallonay went to her husband's study, as she wished to speak with him, and left Julia with her work, her books of history, and her sonata to practise. When she returned, it was ten o'clock, and as she opened the door, Julia screamed and started from her chair greatly frightened.

"What is the matter, my dear?" said her mother.

"Oh! nothing, mamma, I was only frightened."

"Frightened at what?"

"Because you startled me."

"What childish nonsense! Come, it is late, you must go to bed."

"Are you coming, mamma?"

"No, I have a letter to write."

"Well, mamma, I will wait until you have finished it."

"No, I wish you to go to bed."

"But, mamma, if you will let me, as I pass by, I will carry your desk and lamp into your bedroom, you will be able to write there more comfortably."

"No, my dear, I shall write much more comfortably here. Cannot you go to bed without me?"

Julia did not move. She looked at the wax taper, which her mother told her to take, with an expression of dismay, and without lighting it, and seemed from time to time, to listen anxiously in the direction of the door. Her mother could not conceive what was the matter with her.

"Indeed, my dear," she said, smiling, "I think you must be afraid of meeting Madame Croque-Mitaine by the way."

Julia smiled too, though with some embarrassment, and confessed that she had been reading in a book which lay upon the table, a story of robbers and assassins, which terrified her so much that she had not courage to go alone to her room, which was separated from the boudoir by the drawing-room and her mother's bedroom.

"We had agreed, Julia, that you should not read anything without my permission. I think it would not have been quite so useless if Madame Croque-Mitaine had taught you not to disobey."

"Mamma, I did not think I was doing much harm, because it was a book for young people, and you had already allowed me to read some of the tales."

"You should have waited until I had given you permission to read the whole, and the story of Madame Croque-Mitaine ought to have taught you, that children should not undertake to interpret the wishes of their parents, as they can seldom understand the reasons on which they are founded. Louisa and Paul, like you, thought they were doing no great harm, and like you, too, they fell into the very inconvenience from which it was intended to preserve them. Go, my child, go to bed, and if your fear prevents you from sleeping, you can reflect on the moral contained in the story of Madame Croque-Mitaine."

Julia saw she had no alternative; she lighted the taper as slowly as she could, and as she went out, left the door of the boudoir open; but her mother called her back to shut it. Then, seeing herself alone, she began to walk so fast that the taper went out at the door of her room. She was obliged to retrace her steps. When she reached her room a second time, her heart beat violently; she started at every creaking of the floor, nor could she go to sleep, until her mother came. These absurd fears tormented her for two or three days, though she did not dare to speak of them, for fear of being again reminded of Madame Croque-Mitaine; but she had not yet escaped from her.