One of bon papa's poetic works I can still remember, of a very different and more endearing character. I was taken ill one morning while we were living with him in Paris and had been given to console me by a cousin of ours staying with us, the Duchesse de M——, a delicious little purse in white, knitted silk, embroidered with pale blue forget-me-nots. I told maman that I wished very much to show this purse to bon papa, and that he should be informed of my illness. So I wrote him a note, and it was taken, with the purse, to his room. Presently the little parcel, much heavier, was brought back to me, and on opening my purse, I found inside it a centime, a liard, a sou—every coin, in fact, up to and including a golden twenty-franc piece. And this is the poem that was sent with the purse:
"Vous voulez jeune Princesse
Que je me rends près de vous?
Que je baise de votre altesse
Les pieds, les mains, et les genoux?
Dans un instant je vais me rendre
A vos désirs et à vos vœux,
Mais vous me permettrez de prendre
Deux baisers sur vos beaux yeux bleus."
Such a grandfather, it must be admitted, had advantages as well as charms, yet our memory of him was always clouded by the one or two acts of cruel severity we had witnessed and of which I could not trust myself to speak.