Grandfather: “One will do one’s best to accomplish it.”
At table: “Does any one wish for some beef?”
At play: One has this or that.
While I, much annoyed at all this, would say one to both of them.
Then, suddenly, without any one knowing why, or, perhaps because the quarrel had lasted long enough, the familiar names were spoken again: Pélagie, Pierre, Juliette; a general kissing followed, and all was over without a word of explanation.
Heavens! how dramatic, and, in turn, how funny were my dear grandparents.
As I have already said, each member of the family tried to convert me to his or her own ideas.
Grandmother would try to prove by French history that the greatness of France was due to our kings, who had suppressed the “great feudal lords.”
She detested every form of feudal and autocratic systems. She loved the “First Communes,” the “Tiers-Etat,” the “Bourgeoisie,” the moderate ones in everything—“the middle course,” as she would say. She made me, at a very early age, prefer Louis XI. to Louis XII., the “Father of his People,” and Louis XIII. to Henry IV., on account of Richelieu, who had overthrown the great vassals. What the kings had done for the people interested her as little as the people themselves, for whom she professed the greatest contempt. The people, the lower classes, were simply to her “those who worked at gross things, and could have no idea of anything refined.”
For these opinions, expressed at school, I was often severely remonstrated with by the teachers, and looked upon with indignation by my companions.