We all exclaimed in surprise.
“Riquelle,” continued my father, “was at that time eighteen years old. A handsome, well-grown girl, one of the most admired in all the country. I was about the same age. Her father was Mayor of Maillane and by trade a shoemaker—he made me a pair of shoes I remember wearing when I joined the army. Well, imagine it—I saw this same Riquelle in the garments, or rather the lack of garments, of a heathen goddess, a red cap on her head, seated on the altar of the church.”
All this my father recounted at supper one evening about the year 1848.
Some eleven years after, I, finding myself in Paris just after the publication of Mireille, was dining at the house of the hospitable banker Milland, he who delighted to assemble every week at his board a gathering of artists, savants, and men of letters. We were about fifty, and I had the honour of sitting on one side of our charming hostess, while Méry was on the other. Towards the end of dinner an old man very simply attired addressed me in Provençal from the further end of the table, inquiring if I came from Maillane. It was the father of my host, and I rose and sat down beside him.
“Do you happen to know the daughter of the once famous Mayor of Maillane, Jacques Riquelle?” he inquired.
“Riquelle the goddess? Aye, indeed,” I answered; “we are right good friends.”
“Well, fifty years ago,” said the old man, “when I went to Maillane to sell horses and mules——”
“You gave her a topaz ring!” I cried with a sudden inspiration.
The old fellow shook his sides with laughter and answered, delighted: “What, she told you about that? Ah, my dear sir——”
But at this moment we were interrupted by the banker, who, in accordance with his custom, after every meal came to pay his respects to his worthy father, whereupon the latter, placing his hands patriarchal fashion on his son’s head, bestowed on him his benediction.