He was so tall, so big, so noisy, he talked so much that I would stare at him from his feet upward, my head raised, always laughing, and I would only play “at making faces” with him, while I often played with grandmother “at being good.”
He could not contain himself with joy at going away quite alone with me.
“It is my turn to carry her off,” said he on the day of our departure.
They tied me with two silk handkerchiefs in grandfather’s cabriolet, and they stuffed behind my back, at my sides, and under my feet a number of packages well sewn together by Arthémise, in which, folded and packed carefully, were my linen, my gowns, and everything that I might need. They did not make use of valises or trunks at that time at grandmother’s.
I can still remember my three white frocks with their coloured ribbon sashes, which had to be ironed when we arrived and which my mother showed to her friends at Blérancourt, who came to see me and to make my acquaintance. I had held my handsome Leghorn straw hat, ornamented with white ribbons, in a box in my hands and had never let it go once in spite of the jolts of the famous “execrable” road.
Having left at eight o’clock in the morning to drive three leagues, we did not arrive until two o’clock in the afternoon. One cannot fancy what the road was, going through meadows and alongside of a river which continually overflowed.
How many times since have I passed over that road, where one ran the risk of actual danger, and where the ruts were so deep that people were frequently upset.
My grandfather kept up my courage, for I did not hide my fears, by saying that Cocotte was a very good horse, the carriage strong, and that he knew how to drive very well.
My father kissed me many times when I arrived, and directly after breakfast took me by the hand to see all his friends. We went to the château where the Varniers lived and where I found a dear little girl of my own age, with whom I often later played at the house of her neighbour, the chemist Descaines, “nephew of some one whom I shall teach you to know and to love later,” said my father, “but remember his name now—Saint-Just.”
“Saint-Just,” I repeated.