A maid servant came to meet them, a quick-witted mountaineer’s woman in the service of an old priest formerly in charge of parishes in the neighborhood, who dwells in Château Bayard with the proviso that tourists may enter freely. When a visitor is announced the priest goes up to his bed-chamber in a very dignified way, unless indeed it is a question of personages of note; but the Minister, sly fellow, took good care not to give his title, so that it was in the guise of ordinary visitors that they were shown by the servant—with her phrases learned by heart and the canting tone of people of this sort—all that is left of the old manor of the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, whilst the driver laid out breakfast under an arbor in the little garden.
“Here you have the antique chapel where our good chevalier morning and evening.... Ladies and gentlemen will kindly notice the thickness of the walls.”
But they didn’t notice anything at all. It was very dark and they stumbled against the broken bits of wall which were dimly lit from a loophole, the light of which fell through a hay-loft established above the beams of the ceiling. Numa, his little girl’s arm under his own, made some fun of the Chevalier Bayard and of “his worthy mother,” dame Hélène des Allemans. The odor of ancient things bored them to death, and actually, at one time, in order to try the echo of the vaulted ceiling in the kitchen, Mme. Bachellery started to sing the last ballad composed by her husband, but really a very naughty one—
J’tiens ça a’papa ... j’tiens ça d’maman....
(That’s me legacy from Popper ... that’s me legacy from Mommer....)
and yet nobody was scandalized; quite the contrary.
But outside, when breakfast was served on a massive stone table, and after their first hunger had been appeased, the valley of the Graisivaudan, Les Bauges, the severe buttresses of the Grande-Chartreuse and the contrast made by that landscape full of tremendous lines with the little terrace grass-plot where this solitary old man dwelt—given up entirely to prayer, to his tulip-trees and to his bees—affected little by little their spirits with something sweet and grave which was akin to reflection. At dessert the Minister, opening his guide-book to refresh his memory, spoke about Bayard “and of his poor dame mother who did tenderly weep” on that day when the child, setting out for Chambéry to be page at the Court of the Duke of Savoy, caused his little bay nag to prance in front of the north gate, on that very place where the shadow of the great tower was lengthening itself, slender but majestic, like the phantom of the old vanished castle.
And Numa, exciting himself, read to them the fine sentiments of Madame Hélène to her son at the moment of his departure:
“Pierre, my friend, I recommend to thee that before everything else thou shalt love, fear and serve God without in any wise doing Him offence, if that be possible.”
Standing there on the terrace, sweeping off a gesture which carried as far as Chambéry: