At other times my father played strange, melancholy old Breton tunes to me on a violin, which he held upright on his knee, using the bow across it as though it were a 'cello. He was, though untaught, exceedingly musical, and played by ear on the clavecin anything he had heard. It must have been from him that I inherited my love of music, and I do not remember the time that I was not singing.
I see myself, also, at the earliest age, held before my father on his saddle as we rode through woods. He wore an easy Byronic collar and always went bareheaded. He spent most of his time on horseback, visiting his farms or hunting.
My father was of a wealthy bourgeois family of Landerneau, and it must have been his happy character and love of sport rather than his wealth—he was master of hounds and always kept the pack—that made him popular in Quimper, for the gulf between the bourgeoisie and the noblesse was almost impassable. Yet not only was he popular, but he had married my mother, who was of an ancient Breton family, the Rosvals. One of the Rosvals fought in the Combats de Trente against the English, and the dying and thirsty Beaumanoir to whom it was said on that historic day, "Bois ton sang, Beaumanoir," was a cousin of theirs.
We played in the garden at Quimper
My mother was a beautiful woman with black hair and eyes of an intense dark blue. She was unaware of her own loveliness, and was much amused one day when her little boy, after gazing intently at her, said, "Maman, you are very beautiful." She repeated this remark, laughing, to my father, on which he said, "Yes, my dear, you are."
My mother was extremely proud, and not at all flattered that she should be plain Mme. Kerouguet, although she was devoted to my father and it was the happiest ménage. I remember one day seeing her bring to my father, looking, for all her feigned brightness, a little conscious, some new visiting-cards she had had printed, with the name of Kerouguet reduced to a simple initial, and followed by several of the noble ancestral names of her own family.
"What's this?" said my father, laughing.
"We needed some new cards," said my mother, "and I dislike so much the name of Kerouguet."
But my father, laughing more than ever, said: