A Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago

by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

"Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink"

On another occasion we found a wretched, exhausted man lying by the roadside, and papa stopped and asked him what was the matter. He must have felt the kindness of the face and voice, for he said:

"I am an escaped convict, monsieur. For God's sake! don't betray me. I am dying of hunger." Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink, and then, when we saw that the brandy had given him strength, he put some money into his hand and said:

"It is against the law that I should help you, but I give you an hour before I raise the alarm. Go in that direction, and God be with you!"

The church-bells were rung everywhere, answering one another from village to village when a convict was known to be at large; but on this occasion I know that my father did not fulfil his duty, the poor creature's piteous face had too much touched him. Once, too, when we children were walking with Jeannie along the highroad we caught sight of a beggar-woman sleeping in the ditch. In peering over cautiously to have a good look at her, we saw huge men's boots protruding from her petticoats, and, at the other end, a black beard, and we then made off as fast as our legs would carry us, realizing that the beggar-woman was a convict in disguise. At an inn not far from Loch-ar-Brugg there was a woman of bad character who sold these disguises to the escaped convicts.

Papa and my little brother and sister (Maraquita was not then born) were not my only companions at Loch-ar-Brugg. The property of Ker-Azel adjoined ours, and I saw all my Laisieu cousins continually, dear, gentle France, domineering Jules, and the rest. There were nine of them. It was Jules who told us one day that he had been thinking over the future of France (the country, not his brother), and had come to the conclusion that we should all soon suffer from a terrible famine. Famines had come before this, said Jules, so why not again? It was only wise to be prepared for them; and what he suggested was that we should all accustom ourselves to eat grass and clover, as the cattle did. If it nourished cows, it would nourish us. All that was needed was a little good-will in order that we should become accustomed to the new diet. Jules was sincerely convinced of the truth of what he said; but he was a tyrannous boy, and threatened us with beatings if we breathed a word of his plan to our parents. We were to feign at meals that we were not hungry, and to say that we had eaten before coming to the table. I well remember the first time that we poor little creatures knelt down on all fours in a secluded meadow and began to bite and munch the grass. We complained at once that we did not like it at all, and Jules, as a concession to our weakness, said that we might begin with clover, since it was sweeter. For some time we submitted to the ordeal, getting thinner and thinner and paler, growing accustomed, it is true, to our tasteless diet and never daring to confess our predicament; we were really afraid of the famine as well as of Jules. At last our parents, seriously alarmed, consulted the good old doctor, as nothing could be got from us but stout denials of hunger. He took me home with him, for I was his special pet, and talked gravely and gently to me, reminding me that I was now eight years old and of the age of reason, going to confession and capable of sin. It was a sin to tell lies, and if I would tell him the truth, he would never betray my confidence. Thus adjured, I began to cry, and confessed that we had all been eating nothing but grass and clover. The doctor petted and consoled me, told me that it was all folly on the part of Jules, and that he would set it right without any one knowing that I had told him. He kept his promise to me. It was as if by chance he found us all in our meadow next day, on all fours, munching away. Jules sprang up, sulky and obstinate.

"Yes; we are eating grass and clover," he said, "and we are quite accustomed to it now and like it very much, and we shall be better off than the rest of you when the famine comes."

The doctor burst out laughing, and his laughter broke the spell Jules had cast upon us. He told us that not only was there no probability of a famine, no possibility even, France being a country rich in food, but that even were there to be a famine, we should certainly all be dead before it came if we went on eating as the cattle did, since we were not accommodated with the same digestive apparatus as they. He described to us this apparatus and our own, and at last even Jules, who was as thin and as weary as the rest of us, was convinced, and glad to be convinced. It was not till many years afterward that we told our parents the story.

One day we children were all in a deep lane—perhaps the same that had frightened me years before—when, at a turning, the most inconceivable monster towered above us in the gloom. We recognized it in a moment as a camel (a camel in Brittany!), and with it came a band of Gipsies, with dark skins, flashing teeth, bright handkerchiefs, and ear-rings. Our alarm was not diminished when we saw that they led, as well as the camel, two thin performing bears. But as we emerged into the light with the chattering, fawning crowd, alarm gave way to joyous excitement. The camel and the bears were under perfect control, and the Gipsies were not going to hurt us. They asked if they might make the bears dance for us, and we ran to show them the way to Loch-ar-Brugg. Maman, in her broad garden hat, was walking in the beech-avenue, and came at once to forbid the Gipsies to enter, as they were preparing to do; but as we supplicated that we should be allowed to see the bears dance, she consented to allow the performance to take place in the highroad before the grille. We sat about on the grass; the camel towered against the sky, gaunt, tawny, and melancholy; and the bears, armed with wooden staffs, went through their clumsy, reluctant tricks. Maman, from within the grille, surveyed the entertainment with great disfavor, and it lost its charm for us when we heard her say: "How wretchedly thin and miserable the poor creatures look! They must be dying of hunger." We then became very sorry for the bears, too, and glad to have them left in peace, and while we distributed sous to the Gipsies, maman went to the house and returned with a basket of broken bread and meat, which she gave to the famished beasts. How they snatched and devoured it, and how plainly I see maman standing there, the deep green vault of the avenue behind her, the clumps of blue hydrangeas, her light dress, her wide-brimmed garden hat, and her severe, solicitous blue eyes as she held out the bread to the hungry bears!