One of them—a son of the famous Maréchal de S, brought up in the last years of the reign of Louis XV—carried his youthful ardour and dreams of liberty to America and took part, as did so many of the young French nobles, in the great struggle for independence that was being fought out on the other side of the Atlantic. Soon after his return to France he was named Ambassador to Russia to the court of Catherine II, and was supposed to have been very much in the good graces of that very pleasure-loving sovereign. He accompanied her on her famous trip to the Crimea, arranged for her by her minister and favourite, Potemkin—when fairy villages, with happy populations singing and dancing, sprang up in the road wherever she passed as if by magic—quite dispelling her ideas of the poverty and oppression of some of her subjects.
Among the portraits there is a miniature of the Empress Catherine. It is a fine, strongly marked face. She wears a high fur cap—a sort of military pelisse with lace jabots and diamond star. The son of the Maréchal, also soldier and courtier, was aide-de-camp to Napoleon and made almost all his campaigns with him. His description of the Russian campaign and the retreat of the "Grande Armée" from Moscow is one of the most graphic and interesting that has ever been written of those awful days. His memoirs are quite charming. Childhood and early youth passed in the country in all the agonies of the Terror—simply and severely brought up in an atmosphere absolutely hostile to any national or popular movement.
The young student, dreaming of a future and regeneration for France, arrived one day in Paris, where an unwonted stir denoted that something was going on. He heard and saw the young Republican General Bonaparte addressing some regiments. He marked the proud bearing of the men—even the recruits—and in an explosion of patriotism his vocation was decided. He enlisted at once in the Republican ranks. It was a terrible decision to confide to his family, and particularly to his grandfather, the old Maréchal de S. a glorious veteran of many campaigns and an ardent Royalist. His father approved, although it was a terrible falling off from all the lessons and examples of his family—but it was a difficult confession to make to the Maréchal. I will give the scene in his own words (translated, of course—the original is in French).
"I was obliged to return to Châlenoy to relate my 'coup-de-tête' to my grandfather. I arrived early in the morning and approached his bed in the most humble attitude. He said to me, very sharply, 'You have been unfaithful to all the traditions of your ancestors—but it is done. Remember that you have enlisted voluntarily in the Republican army; serve it frankly and loyally, for your decision is made, you cannot now go back on it.' Then seeing the tears running down my cheeks (he too was moved), and taking my hand with the only one he had left, he drew me to him and pressed me on his heart. Then giving me seventy louis (it was all he had), he added, 'This will help you to complete your equipment—go, and at least carry bravely and faithfully, under the flag it has pleased you to choose, the name you bear and the honour of your family.'"
The present Count, too, has played a part in politics in these troublous times, when decisions were almost as hard to take, and one was torn between the desire to do something for one's country and the difficulty of detaching oneself from old traditions and memories. People whose grandfathers have died on the scaffold can hardly be expected to be enthusiastic about the Republic and the Marseillaise. Yet if the nation wants the Republic, and every election accentuates that opinion, it is very difficult to fight against the current.
When I first married, just after the Franco-Prussian War, there seemed some chance of the moderate men, on both sides, joining in a common effort against the radical movement, putting themselves at the head of it and in that way directing and controlling—but very soon the different sections in parliament defined themselves so sharply that any sort of compromise was difficult. My host was named deputy, immediately after the war, and though by instinct, training, and association a Royalist and a personal friend of the Orléans family, he was one of a small group of liberal-patriotic deputies who might have supported loyally a moderate Republic had the other Republicans not made their position untenable. There was an instinctive, unreasonable distrust of any of the old families whose names and antecedents had kept them apart from any republican movement.
We had pleasant afternoons in the big drawing-room. In the morning we did what we liked. The Maîtresse de Maison never appeared in the drawing-room till the twelve o'clock breakfast. I used to see her from my window, coming and going—sometimes walking, when she was making the round of the farm and garden, oftener in her little pony carriage and occasionally in the automobile of her niece, who was staying in the house. She occupied herself very much with all the village—old people and children, everybody. After breakfast we used to sit sometimes in the drawing-room—the two ladies working, the Comte de S. reading his paper and telling us anything interesting he found there. Both ladies had most artistic work—Mme. de S. a church ornament, white satin ground with raised flowers and garlands, stretched, of course, on the large embroidery frames they all use. Her niece, Duchesse d'E., had quite another "installation" in one of the windows—a table with all sorts of delicate little instruments. She was book-binding—doing quite lovely things in imitation of the old French binding. It was a work that required most delicate manipulation, but she seemed to do it quite easily. I was rather humiliated with my little knit petticoats—very hot work it is on a blazing July day.
III
THE HOME OF LAFAYETTE
La Grange was looking its loveliest when I arrived the other day. It was a bright, beautiful October afternoon and the first glimpse of the château was most picturesque. It was all the more striking as the run down from Paris was so ugly and commonplace. The suburbs of Paris around the Gare de l'Est—the Plain of St. Denis and all the small villages, with kitchen gardens, rows of green vegetables under glass "cloches"—are anything but interesting. It was not until we got near Gréty and alongside of Ferrières, the big Rothschild place, that we seemed to be in the country. The broad green alleys of the park, with the trees just changing a little, were quite charming. Our station was Verneuil l'Etang, a quiet little country station dumped down in the middle of the fields, and a drive of about fifty minutes brought us to the château. The country is not at all pretty, always the same thing—great cultivated fields stretching off on each side of the road—every now and then a little wood or clump of trees. One does not see the château from the high road.