CHAPTER II

The two snakes--M. de Valence and Madame de Montesson--Who little Hermine was--Garnier the wheelwright and Madame de Valence--Madame Lafarge--Fantastic apparition of Madame de Genlis.

I had a great fright one day in that beautiful garden. At one corner stood a kind of ruined and roofless tower; in August, the sun's rays concentrated inside this tower and made it as hot as a furnace. It was a curious sight then to watch the flies buzzing there, and the butterflies dancing, the beautiful grey and green lizards gliding along its walls. One day when I was playing near the tower, I heard a sharp hissing noise, and, on going to look what it was, I saw through the opening which had once been a door, two long snakes sitting on their tails, with their bodies coiled round in spirals, darting out their long black tongues at one another, and hissing either with love or rage. Such as these must have been the two serpents to whom Mercury threw his wand, for they looked just like the two that have for ever coiled round that rod.

But I was not Mercury, I had not the magic wand that pacified the bitterest hatreds; I took to flight, as Laocoon would have done if he had seen the two serpents of Tenedos rolling in with the tide of the Dardanelles, had he known they had left their island on purpose to strangle himself and his children.

As I fled I met M. Deviolaine, who, seeing me in such a fright, asked me what was the matter: I told him, and to my great amazement he did not in the least share my fears; he merely tore up from the ground a pole which propped up a young tree and walked towards the tower, whence, after five minutes' fight, he came out, having conquered the two hydras.

From that moment I looked upon M. Deviolaine as a Hercules, the tamer of monsters.

I shall often return to M. Deviolaine, for he had great influence over my life; I was more afraid of him than of any man, but at the same time I loved him next after my father.

We will now proceed to M. Collard.

M. Collard was as good-natured as M. Deviolaine, his most intimate friend, was ill-tempered: his smiling face was as great a contrast to his friend's forbidding aspect. M. Collard was the head of a family to which the terrible and mysterious Glandier law-suit has since given such a sinister notoriety.

M. Collard, who occupied the delightful little château of Villers-Hellon, about three leagues from Villers-Cotterets, was of aristocratic descent; but he had dropped the name of Montjouy and simply kept that of Collard, to give less offence to democratic ears. He had formerly been acquainted with M. de Talleyrand in the Legislative Assembly, and, in 1795 or 1796, he had married a young girl named Hermine, who lived with Madame de Valence.

One day the duc d'Orléans unexpectedly called on Madame de Montesson, who was then his wife, and found M. de Valence at her feet, with his head on her lap. The situation was embarrassing, but Madame de Montesson was a great lady not easily put to confusion: she turned laughingly to her husband, who stood petrified in the doorway, and she said to him:

"Come and help me, my dear duke, to get rid of Valence: he has fallen in love with Pulchérie, and insists on marrying her."

Pulchérie was Madame de Genlis's second daughter; the first was called Caroline, and had married M. de Lawoestine.

After the fright he had just had, the duke was ready enough to give Pulchérie to M. de Valence. He settled 600,000 francs on the bride, and they were married. Now how came little Hermine to the house of Madame de Valence, and who was she? I am going to explain.

Madame de Montesson was aunt to Madame de Genlis. Madame de Genlis had been placed with the duchesse d'Orléans (Mademoiselle de Penthièvre) by Madame de Montesson, in the position of maid of honour. While with the duchess, Philippe-Joseph (since Philippe-Égalité) had met her, fallen in love, made her his mistress, and had had a daughter by her.

That daughter was little Hermine.

She was brought up in England, and when Madame Adélaïde, sister to King Louis-Philippe, was seven or eight years old, they wished to give her a young English companion, with whom she could do her lessons and learn to talk English. Here was an opportunity to bring Hermine near her parents. She therefore left London and came to Paris.

After the emigration of the duc de Chartres, of MM. de Beaujolais, de Montpensier, and the Princess Adélaïde, Hermine, then about fourteen or fifteen years of age, took refuge with her sister, Madame de Valence; but Madame de Valence herself was soon arrested and thrown into prison, and Philippe-Égalité lost his head on the scaffold.

So Hermine then lived with the children of Madame de Valence; Félicie, who married M. de Celles, and Rosamonde, wife of Marshal Gérard.

These poor children were only saved by a miracle from becoming orphans.

A wheelwright named Garnier living in the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins was in love with her; he was a member of the Town Council, and at the peril of his life he twice burnt the despatches sent by the governor of the prison to the Revolutionary Tribunal, in which Madame de Valence was denounced as the most aristocratic prisoner there. This devoted act saved Madame de Valence, for it tided her over till the 9th Thermidor.

Every New Year's Day for years after the wheelwright Garnier paid a visit to Madame de Valence. It should be borne in mind that she owed her precious life to him, and the whole family welcomed him as he deserved to be welcomed for his heroism.

On the death of my father, M. Collard had been appointed my guardian; and I therefore saw Madame Collard when she was still young, not more than thirty or thirty-two. It would have been difficult to find more perfectly distinguished manners, with such dignity of movement and actions, or more graceful hospitality, than were blended in Madame Collard's character.

She had one son and three daughters: Maurice, who became a country squire; Caroline, who married Baron Capelle, whose daughter Marie, under the name of Madame Lafarge, was the heroine in one of the most touching dramas that ever was played before a Court of Assize; Hermine, who married the baron de Martens, the Prussian ambassador in Portugal,--she inherited her mother's wit, aristocratic bearing, and never-failing youthfulness of spirits; lastly, Louise, who married Garat, whose commercial signature carries more weight than that of any other man. Louise was, and is still, one of the prettiest women in Paris.

I have spoken of M. Deviolaine's town and country gardens; but they were nothing when compared with those near the park of Villers-Hellon, with their grand trees, their fine groves, and the little stream of green water winding through the gardens like a necklace of emeralds. And therefore, with the selfishness of childhood, of the three houses I preferred M. Collard's. The Darcourts' house contained a most beautiful copy of Buffon, but it had nothing of a garden. The Deviolaine house had a fine situation, and even two very beautiful gardens; but M. Deviolaine had a scowling face, whilst M. Collard had a fine garden, a kind face, and, furthermore, a splendid Bible.

From that Bible I learnt my sacred history so thoroughly that I have never needed to study it since.

I have spoken of two great alarms I had already experienced in my life--the third happened at Villers-Hellon.

One evening, when I was as usual busy turning over the pictures in my fine Bible (I was between four and five years old at the time), we heard a carriage draw up in front of the porch, then loud shrieks in the dining-room. Everyone rushed towards the door, and when it opened it gave entrance to the strangest Meg Merrilies that the imagination of any Walter Scott could ever conceive. This witch--and at first sight her appearance was such as to justify one in calling her so--was dressed in black, and, as she had lost her bonnet, her mass of false hair had taken advantage of its freedom from restraint to fly in all directions, so that her own grey hairs fell down on each side of her face and floated over her shoulders.

The vision was entirely different from the famous snake of Amiens and the two serpents at St. Remy; moreover, the Amiens snake I had only seen in imagination, and the two serpents of St. Remy I had had time to escape from; but this sorceress I beheld with my very eyes, and we met in the same room.

I threw down my Bible, and, under cover of the tumult occasioned by this apparition, I fled to my room, hid in my bed, dressed as I was, and drew the bed-clothes well over my head.

Next day I learnt that the cause of my fright was the illustrious Madame de Genlis, who, coming to visit her daughter, Madame Collard, had lost her way in the forest of Villers-Cotterets through the fault of her coachman, and had given way to panic, being in profound dread of ghosts: she had not even then recovered from her fright, although she had communicated the greater part of it to me.

It was in these three houses that the first portion of my childhood was passed,--those early years studded with sunny memories as soft and as fresh as the dawn; for, indeed, with the exception of M. Deviolaine's surly countenance, and the grotesque apparition of Madame de Genlis, everything connected with those two houses was sunny. The gardens were full of green trees and brilliantly-coloured flowers; the walks were peopled by fair and dark young girls, with rosy, smiling faces--nearly all rosy and sweet, even when they were not pretty.

Then, from time to time, some woman noted for her beauty in the days of the century about to close would appear in the midst of this laughing, younger generation; some woman who, having retained somewhat of the fashions of the days of the Directory, looked like a glorious statue of Summer amidst that budding Spring.

These ladies were Madame de Valence, Madame Menin, or Madame Dusauloy.

I have already spoken of the Princess Pauline Borghèse and the impression she left on my mind. And now we must return to my own story.