"This province and the duke's treatment of it will serve as a capital example to all others. It will teach those rascals," Madame de Kerman continued, in lower tones, "to respect their governors, and not to throw stones into their gardens!"
"Fancy that—the audacity of throwing stones into their duke's garden! Why, did you know, they actually—those insolent creatures actually called him—called the duke—'gros cochon?'"
All three ladies gasped in horror at this unparalleled instance of audacity; they threw up their hands, as they groaned over the picture, in low tones of finished elegance.
"It is little wonder the duke hangs right and left! The dear duke—what a model governor! How I should like to have seen him sack that street at Rennes, with all the ridiculous old men, and the women in childbirth, and the children, turned out pêle-mêle! And the hanging, too—why, hanging now seems to me a positively refreshing performance!" And Madame de Sévigné laughed with unstinted gayety as at an excellent joke.
The picture of Rennes and the cruelty dealt its inhabitants was a pleasant picture, in the contemplation of which these ladies evidently found much delectation. They were quiet for a longer period of time than usual; they continued silent, as they looked into the fire, smiling; the flames there made them think of other flames as forms of merited punishment.
"A curious people those Bas Bretons," finally ejaculated Madame de Sévigné. "I never could understand how Bertrand Duguesclin made them the best soldiers of his day in France!"
"You know Lower Brittany very well, do you not, dear friend?"
"Not so well as the coast. Les Rochers is in Upper Brittany, you know. I know the south better still. Ah, what a charming journey I once took along the Loire with my friend Bien-Bon, the Abbé de Coulanges. We found it the most enchanting country in the world—the country of feasts and of famine; feasts for us and famine for the people. I remember we had to cross the river; our coach was placed on the barge, and we were rowed along by stout peasants. Through the glass windows of the coach we looked out at a series of changing pictures—the views were charming. We sat, of course, entirely at our ease, on our soft cushions. The country people, crowded together below, were—ugh!—like pigs in straw."
"Was Bien-Bon with you when you made that little excursion to St.
Germain?" queried the duchesse.
"Ah, that was a gay night," joyously responded Madame de Sévigné. "How well we amused ourselves on that little visit that we paid Madame de Maintenon—when she was only Madame Scarron."