I do not know whether we had moved before or after my grandfather's death: I think, however, it must have been before.
We lived then in the rue de Lormet, quite close to the house where I was born.
Shortly after this time we lost in this house the cousin whom I used to call Mamma Zine.
So death had fallen heavily on our family circle; in four years four relatives had gone to eternity, one after the other, and were laid in the little cemetery of which I have already spoken.
But, with the exception of my father's, none of the other deaths made any lasting impression on my mind. They only meant a daily walk to the cemetery, and one more mound added to the rest, which my mother called her garden; a fresh cypress was planted near the old cypresses; new roses blossomed by the old rose; my mother shed more tears; and that was all.
Our graves were near that of Demoustier; and his epitaph was the first memorial inscription I had deciphered; it had been composed by Legouvé, and ran thus:—
"Beneath this stone rests, in the sleep of the just,
"CHARLES-ALBERT DEMOUSTIER,
"Associated Member of the National Institute, who was born at Villers-Cotterets, March 31st 1760, and whose peaceful spirit entered upon its immortal rest, on the 11th Ventôse, year IX of the Republic.
(2 March 1801)
"En ces mots l'amitié consacra son histoire;
Il montra les talents, aux vertus réunis;
Son esprit lui donna la gloire.
Et sa belle âme des amis.
"Rest in peace, beloved one!"
And indeed if any soul should rest in peace it ought indeed to be that of the good and religious-minded Demoustier, whose memory was venerated by all Villers-Cotterets. My mother often used to tell me that a gentler, more sympathetic, more delightful man never breathed. He died at the same age as my father—forty-one—and faced his end with the gentle and pious resignation of all good souls. The day before his death, my mother sat beside his bedside and, though hopeless herself, she tried to instil hope into him. He smiled sweetly at her, and looked out upon a gleam of beautiful spring sunshine, the sunshine that comes more like nature's first smile than the sun of summer.