I can scarcely recall my grandmother Labouret; neither do I remember any particulars relative to her life or her death. She was a worthy soul, who lived and died blamelessly.
But I remember my grandfather quite distinctly, with a pipe in his mouth and his solemn walk, which he had acquired when he was maître d'hôtel. He died of a liver complaint, in 1808.
He was a great domino-player, and was renowned for his very great skill at that game. Every evening he went to play in a café where a good portion of my infancy was spent. This café was kept, I remember, by two people of opposite sex, who were both devoted to me; one was Mademoiselle Wafflart and the other M. Camberlin.
As my grandfather spent all his evenings there I often joined him. I used to watch billiards being played, a game I was passionately attracted to, and one for which I possessed the greatest possible aptitude. Unluckily, billiards, no matter whether played by day or by night, was quite beyond my means; so I was compelled to look on at the play of others and to count the points;—but nothing further.
Every night at ten o'clock a scratch was heard at the door; it was my grandfather's dog come to fetch him home,—her jaws empty on moonlit nights, but filled by a stick bearing a lantern at each end when there was no moon. Her name was Charmante, and she was indeed charmingly intelligent. For eight or ten years, until her death, she performed this trick, and she was never known to have scratched at the door either ten minutes too soon or ten minutes too late, or to have taken the longest way instead of the shortest, or to have broken a single lantern.
One day my grandfather complained of violent pains in his side, took to his room and then to his bed. Finally, one evening, they sent me away from the house as they had done when my father died. They took me to the house of one of our neighbours, named Lepage, who was a glazier. There I spent the night, and on the morrow my grandfather died.
My mother inherited the famous thirty acres of land I have already spoken of, and the house for which we paid the life-annuity. But it was the obligation to pay the annuity, that she inherited really, and not the house.
Had my mother only given up all hope of obtaining a pension, and of being paid the arrears of 28,500 francs due to my father, she would have sold the thirty acres of ground for the 30,000 or 35,000 francs which it was worth, she would have waived her rights to M. Harlay's house for 5000 or 6000 francs, and, with these 40,000 francs she would have had 2000 livres income, on which with care we could have lived perfectly well.
On the contrary, however, she began borrowing on the land by mortgaging it, ever hoping to repay herself by the unlucky arrears.
It was quite out of the question to live out of the revenue from the land; it scarcely paid two per cent.