"Because, if I do not satisfy you, you will go elsewhere."
"But there is nowhere else to go!"
"Which is as good as to say that you will put up with what I have got, my good friend.... Come, off to your room!"
I began to adapt myself to the manners of Mother Oseraie: it was what is called in the morale en action and in collections of anecdotes "la franchise villageoise" (country frankness). I should much have preferred "l'urbanité parisienne" (Parisian urbanity); but Mother Oseraie was built on other lines, and I was obliged to take her as she was. I went up to my room: it was quadrilateral, with lime-washed walls, a deal floor, a walnut table, a wooden bed painted red, and a chimney-piece with a shaving-glass instead of a looking-glass, and, for ornament, two blue elaborately decorated glass vases; furthermore there was the spray of orange-blossom which Mother Oseraie had had when she was twenty years of age, as fresh as on the day it was plucked, owing to the shade, which kept it from contact with the air. Calico curtains to the window and linen sheets on the bed, both sheets and curtains as white as the snow, completed the furnishings. I went into the adjoining room; it was furnished on the same lines, and had, besides, a convex-shaped chest of drawers inlaid with different coloured woods which savoured of the bygone days of du Barry, and which, if restored, regilded, repaired, would have looked better in the studio of one of the three painters Mother Oseraie had just mentioned. The view from both windows was magnificent. From mine, the valley of the Touque could be seen sinking away towards Pont-l'Évêque, which is surrounded by two wooded hills; from my companion's, the sea, flecked with little fishing-boats, their sails white against the horizon, waiting to return with the tide. Chance had indeed favoured me in giving me the room which looked on to the valley: if I had had the sea, with its waves, and gulls, and boats, its horizon melting into the sky always before me, I should have found it impossible to work. I had completely forgotten the dinner when I heard Mother Oseraie calling me—
"I say, monsieur poet!"
"Well! mother!" I replied.
"Come! dinner is ready."
I offered my arm to my neighbour and we went down. Oh! worthy Mother Oseraie! when I saw your soup, your mutton cutlets, your soles en matelote, your mayonnaise of lobster, your two roast snipe and your shrimp salad, how I regretted I had had doubts of you for an instant! Fifty sous for a dinner which, in Paris, would have cost twenty francs! True, wine would have accounted for some of the difference; but we might drink as much cider as we liked free of charge. My travelling companion suggested taking a lease of three, six, or nine years with Mother Oseraie; during which nine years, in her opinion, we could economise to the extent of a hundred and fifty thousand francs! Perhaps she was right, poor Mélanie! but how was Paris and its revolutions to get on without me? As soon as dinner was finished we went back to the beach. It was high tide, and the barques were coming into the harbour like a flock of sheep to the fold. Women were waiting on the shore with huge baskets to carry off the fish. Each woman recognised her own boat and its rigging from afar; mothers called out to their sons, sisters to their brothers, wives to their husbands. All talked by signs before the boats were near enough to enable them to use their voices, and it was soon known whether the catch had been good or bad. All the while, a hot July sun was sinking below the horizon, surrounded by great clouds which it fringed with purple, and through the gaps between the clouds it darted its golden rays, Apollo's arrows, which disappeared in the sea. I do not know anything more beautiful or grand or magnificent than a sunset over the ocean! We remained on the beach until it was completely dark. I was perfectly well aware that, if I did not from the beginning cut short this desire for contemplation which had taken possession of me, I should spend my days in shooting sea-birds, gathering oysters among the rocks and catching eels in the sand. I therefore resolved to combat this sweet enemy styled idleness, and to set myself to work that very evening if possible.
I was under an agreement with Harel; it had been arranged that I should bring him back a play in verse, of five acts, entitled Charles VII chez ses grands vassaux. M. Granier, otherwise de Cassagnac, published, in 1833, a work on me, since continued by M. Jacquot, otherwise de Mirecourt, a work in which he pointed out the sources whence I had drawn all the plots for my plays, and taken all the ideas for my novels. I intend, as I go on with these Memoirs, to undertake that work myself, and I guarantee that it shall be more complete and more conscientious than that of my two renowned critics; only, I hope my readers will not demand that it shall be as malicious. But let me relate how the idea of writing Charles VII. came to me, and of what heterogeneous elements that drama was composed.