Crespy, being situated two leagues north of the road from Laon to Paris, leads nowhere, and might be overlooked.
So we made for Crespy.
My mother knew an old lady there, named Madame de Longpré—the widow of an old valet de chambre of Louis XV.
Concerning her I only remember that she was addicted to the terrible habit of brandy-drinking, and that in order to procure her brandy she sold every single article of a collection of magnificent china such as I have never seen since.
And at what price do you think she sold them? Thirty or forty sous the piece!
True, at that time Chinese porcelain was not so highly valued as is the fashion to-day.
We drew up at her house, but she had not enough room to take us in; and the sight of her perpetual drinking would have been repulsive.
She took us to a lady—Madame Millet—who had, she said, a spare room quite ready that she could let us have.
It was soon settled;—Crespy is so near Villers-Cotterets that my mother was perfectly well known there, and we installed ourselves that same day.
Madame Millet had two sons and two daughters:—one of these two daughters, Amélie, would have been very pretty had she not lost one eye, through an accident—it was always closed, and she hid it by a great mass of beautiful black hair.