Mes yeux ne verront que toi,
Et mon cœur n'aimera que toi."
While I sang I looked up at bonne maman's window, for I knew how fond she was of hearing me. The window was shut, and this was unusual; so I sang the louder, that she should hear me, of Fleurette and le Roy. Then France and one of the servants came running out of the house, and I saw that both had been crying, and France put his arm about me while the servant said, "Mademoiselle must not sing." And France whispered: "You will wake bonne maman. Go into the orchard, dear Sophie. There you will not be heard." In the evening papa came for us in the nursery, and I saw that he, too, had been crying. I had never before seen tears in his dear eyes. He took us up to maman's room. All the blinds were drawn down, but I could see her lying on her bed, in her white woolen peignoir, her arms crossed behind her head, her black jet rosary lying along the sheet beside her. We kissed her, one after the other, and I saw the great tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Maman—is bonne maman very ill?" I whispered. I felt that something terrible had happened to us all.
"My little girl," said maman, "your poor bonne maman does not suffer any more. She is very happy now with the angels and le bon Dieu," but maman was sobbing as she spoke.
We children had a splendid picnic breakfast
I knew death only as it had come to one of my little birds that lived in the round cage hung in the nursery-window, and I was very much frightened when papa said: "I am going to take Sophie to your mother's room, Eliane. She is old enough to understand." But I went with him obediently, holding his hand. Outside bonne maman's door he paused and stooped to kiss me and said: "I know how much you loved your bonne maman, Sophie, and I want you to say good-by to her, for you will never see her again. She loved you so much, my little darling, and you shall be the last one to kiss her." The room was all black, and in the middle stood the bed. Beside it, on a table, a little chapelle had been made with a great silver cross and candelabra with lighted tapers. A bunch of fresh box stood in a goblet of holy water. Bonne maman lay with her arms stretched out before her, the hands clasped on her black wooden crucifix with a silver Christ that had always hung upon her wall. Her hair was not dressed, but drawn up from her forehead and covered with a mantilla of white silk Spanish lace, which fell down over her shoulders on each side. I stood beside her holding papa's hand. Her profile was sharply cut against the blackness, and I had never before seen how beautiful it was. Her eyes were closed, and she smiled tranquilly. I felt no longer any fear; but when papa lifted me in his arms so that I might kiss bonne maman and my lips touched her forehead, a great shock went through me. How cold her forehead was! O my poor bonne maman! Even now, after all the lusters that have passed over me, I feel the cold of that last kiss.
CHAPTER XII
THE JOURNEY FROM BRITTANY
It was not long after bonne maman's death that we left Brittany and went to Paris to live with bon papa. I remember every detail of this my first long journey. The day began with a very early breakfast, which we all had together in the dining-room and at which we had the great treat of drinking chocolate. Then came the complicated business of stowing us all away in our capacious traveling-carriage. It was divided into three compartments. First came what was called the coupé, with windows at the sides and a large window in front from which we looked out past the coachman's red-stockinged legs and along the horses' backs to where the postilion jounced merrily against the sky in a red Breton costume like the coachman's, his long hair tied behind with black ribbon, a red jockey's cap on his head, and black shoulder-knots with jet aiguillettes. After the coupé, and communicating with it by a tiny passage, though it had doors of its own, was another compartment for maids, nurses, and children, and behind that another and larger division for all the other servants. On the top were seats beside the coachman, and papa spent most of the day up there smoking. The luggage, carried on the top, was covered by a great leather covering, buckled down all over it, called a bache. The horses were post-horses, renewed at every post. It was decided that I was to go in the coupé with maman, papa, and little Maraquita, as I should get more fresh air there. I wore, I remember, a red cashmere dress made out of a dress of maman's. The material had been brought from India and was bordered with a design of palm-leaves. Indeed, this red cashmere must have provided me with a succession of dresses, for I remember that when I made my entrée at the Sacré Cœur years afterwards, the bishop, visiting the convent, stopped, smiling, at my bench, and said, "Why, this is a little Republican, is it not?" Eliane and I both wore capulets on our heads. These were squares of white cloth that fell to the shoulders and that folded back from the forehead and fastened under the chin with bands of black velvet, a Spanish head-dress. Our cloaks were the full cloaks, gathered finely around the neck and shoulders, that maman had made for us, copied from the peasants' cloaks, of foulard for summer and wool for winter. Little Maraquita, who spent most of the three days' journey on maman's knees, wore, as always until she was seven or eight, white and pale blue, the Virgin's colors, as she had been vouée au bleu et au blanc after a terrible accident that had befallen her in infancy. She had fallen into the fire at Landerneau, and her head and forehead had been badly burned, and maman had thus dedicated her to the Virgin with prayers that she might not be disfigured—prayers that were more than answered, for Maraquita became exquisitely beautiful. Papa, I may add here, had many friends and connections in Spain; hence my little sister's name, and hence our capulets.