[CHAPTER VIII]
Segovia—M. de Tilly—The Alcazar—The doubloons—The castle of M. de la Calprenède and that of a Spanish grandee—The bourdaloue—Otero—The Dutchmen again—The Guadarrama—Arrival at Madrid—The palace of Masserano—The comet—The College—Don Manoël and Don Bazilio—Tacitus and Plautus—Lillo—The winter of 1812 to 1813—The Empecinado—The glass of eau sucrée—The army of merinoes—Return to Paris
At length they reached Valladolid; then, after a few days' stay there, they proceeded from Valladolid to Segovia across steep mountains, sometimes sharp peaked, sometimes leading by gentler slopes to high summits from which they could see vast plains basking in the June sunshine.
The Count of Tilly was governor of Segovia. He belonged to the old court, was page to Louis XVI. and left Memoirs which are not wanting in a certain picturesqueness of their own—a much rarer quality at that epoch than the quality of arousing interest. He came to the door of Madame Hugo's carriage to welcome her, installed her in a palace and looked after her and her children during their stoppage at Segovia.
The event that struck the young poet most and remained most vividly in his memory during his sojourn in this town was his visit to the Alcazar—that splendid fairy palace, less famous but as beautiful as those of Granada and Seville, with its gallery containing portraits of all the Moorish kings painted in the trefoils and on backgrounds of gold. We need not explain to our readers that these pictures are later than Arabian times, the religion of the Arabs forbidding them to paint images. The Alcazar at that time was also used as the Mint. M. de Tilly took Madame Hugo and her children into the coining-room, where he had a doubloon struck specially for each child to keep. One of the greatest of Hugo's youthful troubles was the losing of his coin in Madrid by letting it fall through the crack of a carriage door.
They waited eight days for reinforcements; for they dared not risk setting ont for Madrid without a fresh escort; when this new escort arrived, they resumed their journey to rejoin the convoy party on the Madrid road. At Segovia, Madame Hugo, as we know, had, through the intervention of Count Tilly, been lodged in the palace of a Spanish grandee. As in M. de la Calprenède's palace, everything was of silver, chandeliers, plates, basins, washing-bowls, everything, even to the chamber articles. One of the pieces of furniture that especially charmed Madame Hugo with its beauty and originality of shape was a delightful little bourdaloue.
Here I shall be pulled up and asked why a night commode should have been associated with the name of the celebrated pupil of the Jesuits and why a chamber utensil should have been named after a preacher. I will explain, after I have done with Madame Hugo's fascination for this little article of furniture and the consequences that ensued.