A BONNE AND CHILDREN
COLD
June 4th.—Our long-expected and much-dreaded hot weather has never arrived, but instead of it cold, wet weather. The French said it was an unusually bad season; they were quite en colère. It was this day quite a storm; from the quantity of rain which had fallen there was a little canal before the door; and as the dining-room was across the yard, we could hardly get to it in wet weather without getting our feet wet. I never felt anything so cold as it was in France. We used to sit shivering, wrapt up in shawls to try and keep ourselves warm. There were no grates; the fire was lighted on the hearth between two dogs, and we used to sit round it blowing the wood to try and make it burn: to make matters worse there were two holes, one on each side of the fireplace, apparently made to let the smoke into the room; these we were obliged to stuff with paper. It was as bad in bed, and though we had sent repeatedly, we could not get any quilts and only one cotton blanket to each bed. There were no carpets in the rooms; only bare stone floors, from which, besides being very cold, all the red came off on to our gowns. We were most of us sufficiently tired of France. I would have given anything in the world to get back to England, but we thought there was no chance of that for a long time. Every person was dismal: one got the rheumatism, another had a cold, another was ill, another had chilblains, and another was melancholy; and all said they would not grumble if they did not see other people grumble. I went from room to room, and could get no consolation. In spite of their spectacles and processions, there was a dulness in the streets and a want of life in the people: everything seemed to be creeping along and looking like oysters. The boys amused themselves with a swing; when the soldiers were exercising they used sometimes to look in at the garden gate to watch them. The servants were very dismal: they used often to say how much they had been mistaken in France, and what fine stories they would tell about it when they got back to Cumberland.
FRENCH SCHOOL
June 11th.—This day Euphemia and I went for the first time to Madame Crosnier's. Catherine had gone for some time, and given us a very strange account of it; but notwithstanding all she had said, it was far worse than we had expected. There were twelve or fourteen English girls, three Miss Stephens whom we had formerly seen at Bath, where they did not look at all nice—they were here very well dressed and genteel-looking; Miss Fuller, a daughter of General Fuller, who had a French mamma, a complete little dandy; Miss Fitzgerald, who was a little plague; Miss Molyneux, a nice little girl who had been left there; Miss Julia Carpenter, and several others. The nicest were two Miss Wergs. The eldest was scarcely nine years old. They were sweet, pretty little girls, with good colours; they were a great contrast to the French girls beside them. Ellen Werg told me that they had come to France for their education, and that their papa liked it so much that they were never going home again; but that they and their mamma hated it. They used sometimes to cry when they heard the other girls talk of going home, and say, 'Oh, I wish I was going too!' We used often to see them at church; their papa was very crabbed-looking. They could not speak a word of French: they left school about the same time as I did without knowing a word more than when they came. Their mamma said it was such a ruinous school they should stay no longer. The French girls were the dirtiest, rudest set I ever saw. They wore very coarse dark cotton frocks or black petticoats, dirty blue or red aprons with pockets, spotted with ink, black worsted stockings, and listen shoes. Some of them had large bunches of keys hung by their sides, and others sashes and braces of broad scarlet galloon. One girl—Mademoiselle Rose—was so dirty, that even Madame Crosnier used to speak to her about it. She had on an old cotton frock bedaubed with ink, that did not meet by three or four inches; through the gap one saw a pair of dirty stays and an old striped worsted petticoat, and on the top of a frock there was a gauze frill hanging in rags. Her hair was matted with dirt. Some of the girls had pieces of green glass in their ears for earrings, black velvet round their head, and gilt combs with the teeth broken out stuck in their dirty, black, uncombed hair, which hung over their faces. Their skins were dirty and yellow. The neatest of these young ladies was a Mademoiselle Sélina—who was conceited-looking, and Mademoiselle Joséphine. The girls' manners were as elegant as themselves—they called each other names, and used the most vulgar words. If in school-time any of them were speaking, and their teacher reproved them, they answered, 'Vous mentez, Mademoiselle, vous êtes menteuse, je ne parle pas.' Indeed, if they were doing a thing all the time they were spoken to, they did not scruple to say they were not. There were, beside Madame Crosnier, Mademoiselle Allemagne, the first teacher; Mademoiselle Croissé, the drawing mistress, who also taught in the schoolroom; and Annette, a kind of half teacher, who had been one of the young ladies. I certainly never saw an English kitchen-maid dressed in the way she was. A dirty cap without a border, a black petticoat, a coarse blue gown tucked up like a bed-gown, a very coarse kind of linen apron, and shoes down at the heels, completed her dress. She used to go about with a broom sweeping the rooms. The girls took it by turns to clean the schoolrooms once every week. They used to tuck up their frocks, sweep the dirt into the cabinet noir (or closet into which the litters were swept), and then throw a pail of water on the floor and mop it up. Miss Stephens used to call it her malheureuse semaine. The first morning we went earlier than usual, school had not begun, and a number of dirty girls were sitting or rather lying on the floor about the passages, looking like a set of gypsies. We went upstairs to the salle de dessin. Mademoiselle Croissé taught drawing. She was tall and sallow, and was reckoned pretty. She had a pair of staring black eyes, and a great deal of long black hair, which she seemed to admire very much, and used to bring in pieces of butter in a curl-paper and grease it beside us. She had done two very pretty drawings, which she kept to show. We sat down to our drawing. Mademoiselle Croissé drew us an eye for a copy and left us; we might do it or not, just as we pleased, she never looked near us. Little Miss Fitzgerald had been learning drawing for a great many months, but she had only drawn two or three sheets full all the time. Nearly every day that I was there she did not even get out her paper, but sat playing, talking, or running out of the room. Mademoiselle Croissé used sometimes to stand at the window, and if she happened to see a cat, she had such a dislike to the sight of cats that she was obliged to send one of the girls from their drawing to drive these animals away. At other times she was out of the room, or employed with her own drawing, so that she had hardly time to tell us how our drawings looked when we had done them. Once when we had just settled to our drawings (Mademoiselle Croissé absent as usual), in came two of the maids—'Mademoiselle, il faut sortir, car je vais baller la chambre'; we were therefore obliged to decamp. The servants were the rudest set I ever saw. Catherine had a music mistress, Mademoiselle Pascal; but she begged to have her no longer. One of the pianos would hardly sound, and they had no additional keys. The mistress did not seem to understand music very well, and she used to like heavy playing. I do not think it is any credit in the French masters being cheap; at least, from the specimens we saw here they got their money very easily. Monsieur le Chevalier, the writing master, came once or twice a week; he used to sit down at one end of the table, and never move; he had a curious squeaking voice. I could never find out what he did except mending pens, and those were so bad that we were obliged to get Madame Crosnier to mend them afterwards;-she also gave us the copies: he never saw what I had written the whole time. Euphemia one day said to one of the English girls, 'Pray, is that man sitting there, mending pens, called a writing master?' As for the dancing, it was quite a farce. We heard a great deal about the salle de danse, so we imagined it to be quite a fine place; but what did this beautiful salle turn out to be, but a passage leading to the schoolroom, in which we hung up our hats, etc. There was not a chair in the place. It was to my astonishment that they could dance at all in such a hole as it was. Monsieur Bréton taught here. The girls dressed in the same elegant dresses as they generally wore, and we used often to hear them laughing, crying, and romping. Of course we did not learn.
FRENCH SCHOOL
June 11th.—After we had finished drawing, we went downstairs into the schoolroom. It was a long room; in it there were two tables, which seemed originally to have been white, but they were now almost black with ink-stains and dirt; at the top of one of the tables sat Madame Crosnier, and at the other Mademoiselle Allemagne. We none of us did anything but write and copy one another's writings; Madame Crosnier sat reading the newspapers, every now and then looking up and saying 'travaillez,' or 'paix.' The girls stained all their frocks and aprons with ink; if the rulers were inky they wiped them on their aprons, and if there were not inkstands enough, they had a very short expedient; they made an inkstand of the table, by pouring some ink on it into which they dipped their pens. The paper of the room was torn off, so that in many places one could see the canvas that covered the walls. Round the room were hung several maps, which looked as if they had been nibbled away by mice. The girls jumped over the stools, spirted ink at one another, tossed about the books, and danced upon the tables;[19] it did not seem to be in the teachers' power to make them be quiet, though they sometimes gave them verses to write; but the most common punishment was either making them kneel down (which the girls seemed to think good fun), or else sending for the bonnet de nuit, which they put on and laughed. Soon after we had come down, one of the girls brought in Madame Crosnier's breakfast. She used to have such a variety; one day fish, another asparagus and oil, another dressed eggs, another pease, another minced beef, etc., along with this she had bread, and wine and water; and afterwards she had a cup of coffee and some more bread, so that she did very well. Soon after Madame Crosnier had finished her breakfast, they had prayers; the girls knelt down, while one of them gabbled over a prayer as quick as she could; the only words we could distinguish were, 'C'est ma faute, c'est ma faute, c'est ma grande faute, par St. Jean, et St. Paul, et St. Pierre' (then all the French girls crossed themselves). Madame Crosnier and Mademoiselle Allemagne very seldom knelt down; they used to be employed mending pens or correcting exercises. After prayers were finished, the girls got up and wrote as before. Madame Crosnier's two children used to come running in, or squealing at the door most of school-time. The youngest was quite an infant, a miserable-looking little thing, wrapt up in a woollen cloth, daubed with dirt: the servants used to sit in the kitchen with it on their knees, and stuff its mouth full of curd. The other child was liked by some of the girls, but I thought it a most disagreeable little brat: it had on a dirty, ragged, little brown pinafore, and its face looked as if it was never washed. At twelve o'clock Madame Crosnier rang a bell, and then all the girls left off school, and went into the luncheon-room. The day-scholars brought their own luncheon, mostly bread and cherries, and capillaire or sorbet to drink; two little French girls brought a bottle of wine, or wine and water, which they drank between them. Those that did not bring their luncheon got the sour French bread and curds, or apples. Mademoiselle Allemagne or Mademoiselle Croissé helped the luncheon. The girls used to eat one, and sometimes two, half slices off the flat loaves a foot in breadth, cut very thick, and sour curd as thick as the bread; the girls used to take dirty knives out of their pockets and spread the curd on the bread. The English girls told us that they got for breakfast, broth or radishes, or apples and bread; for dinner, bouilli or roast mutton, and instead of pudding, vegetables dressed with butter; and for supper nearly the same as at luncheon. After luncheon they used to go into the garden (which was more like a wilderness) and skip or run, or sit and talk, or else they used to amuse themselves in the house, in making little baskets, fishes, crosses, birds, etc., of beads; which was very agreeable work.[20] At one o'clock the bell rang again, and we employed ourselves much the same as in the morning, till two o'clock, when school was over. Annette taught in a different room, principally the little ones. We once looked in: all the little girls were sitting dawdling and scribbling round the table up to their elbows in ink; Annette was walking round rapping the table with a short ruler and saying 'travaillez, travaillez.' The youngest of her scholars, who was only five years old, used to walk up and down the passages most of schooltime, and if any of the English girls spoke to her she used to say, 'Moitié Anglaise, moitié Anglaise.' She could, however, speak nothing but French. Notwithstanding the number of English, not one of the French girls could speak a word of English except Mademoiselle Selina, who used to say 'Good nih, good morning.'[21]