Chateau and Country Life in France

by Mary King Waddington

We had one delightful day at Cherbourg. The Préfet Maritime invited us to breakfast with him at his hotel. We went by rail to Cherbourg, about half an hour, and found the admiral's carriage waiting for us. The prefecture is a nice, old-fashioned house, in the centre of the town, with a big garden. We took off our coats in a large, handsome room upstairs. The walls were covered with red damask and there were pictures of Queen Victoria and Louis Napoleon. It seems the Queen slept in that room one night when she came over to France to make her visit to Louis Philippe at the Château d'Eu. We found quite a party assembled—all the men in uniform and the women generally in white. We breakfasted in a large dining-room with glass doors opening into the garden, which was charming, a blaze of bright summer flowers. We adjourned there for coffee after breakfast. The trees were big, made a good shade, and the little groups, seated about in the various bosquets, looked pretty and gay. When coffee and liqueurs were finished we drove down to the quay, where the admiral's launch was waiting, and had a delightful afternoon steaming about the harbour. It is enormous, long jetties and breakwaters stretching far out, almost closing it in. There was every description of craft—big Atlantic liners, yachts, fishing boats, ironclads, torpedoes, and once we very nearly ran over a curious dark object floating on the surface of the water, which they told us was a submarine. It did not look comfortable as a means of transportation, but the young officers told us it was delightful.

[Illustration: Market women. Valognes.]

We got back to Valognes to a late dinner, having invited a large party to come over for tennis and dinner the next day. The Florians are a godsend to Cherbourg. They are most hospitable, and with automobiles the distance is nothing, and one is quite independent of trains. Yesterday four of our party went off to Cherbourg to make a cruise in a torpedo-boat. The ladies were warned that they must put on clothes which would not mind sea-water, but I should think bathing dresses would be the only suitable garments for such an expedition. They were remarkable objects when they came home, Mademoiselle de Nadaillac's hat a curiosity, also her white blouse, where the red of her hat-ribbons and cravat had run. However, they had enjoyed themselves immensely—at least the girl. Countess de Nadaillac was not quite so enthusiastic. They got into dry clothes and played tennis vigorously all the afternoon.

We had a pleasant family evening. Mademoiselle de Nadaillac has a pretty voice and sang well. Florian and I played some duets. I joined in the dowager's game of dominoes, which I don't seem to have mastered, as I lose regularly, and after she left us, escorted by her faithful old butler (a light shawl over his arm to put on her shoulders when she passed through the corridors), we had rather an interesting conversation about ways and manners in different countries, particularly the way young people are brought up. I said we were a large family and that mother would never let us read in the drawing-room after dinner. If we were all absorbed in our books, conversation was impossible. We were all musical, so the piano and singing helped us through. Madame de Florian, whose father, Marquis de Nadaillac, is quite of the old school, said they were not even allowed to work or look at pictures in the salon after dinner! Her father considered it disrespectful if any of his children did anything but listen when he talked. They might join in the conversation if they had anything intelligent to say. She told us, too, of some of the quite old-fashioned châteaux that she stayed in as a girl, and even a young married woman. There was one fire and one lamp in the drawing-room. Any one who wanted to be warm, or to work, was obliged to come into that room. No fires nor lamps allowed anywhere else in the house; a cup of tea in the afternoon an unheard-of luxury. If you were ill, a doctor was sent for and he ordered a tisane; if you were merely tired or cold, you waited until dinner-time.

We have also made a charming expedition to Quinéville, a small seaside place about an hour and a half's drive, always through the same green country, our Norman posters galloping up all the hills. We passed through various little villages, each one with a pretty little gray, square-towered church. There was plenty of passing, as it was market day. We met a good many peasant women carrying milk in those curious old brass bowls one sees everywhere here. Some of them are very handsome, polished until they shine like mirrors, with a delicate pattern lightly traced running around the bowl. They balance them perfectly on their heads and walk along at a good swinging pace. They all look prosperous, their skirts (generally black), shoes, and stockings in good condition, and their white caps and handkerchiefs as clean as possible. Quinéville is a very quiet little place, no hotel, and rows of ugly little houses well back from the sea, but there is a beautiful stretch of firm white sand. To-day it was dead low tide. The sea looked miles away, a long line of dark sea-weed marking the water's edge. There were plenty of people about; women and girls with stout bare legs, and a primitive sort of tool, half pitchfork, half shovel, were piling the sea-weed into the carts which were waiting on the shore. Children were paddling about in the numerous little pools and making themselves wreaths and necklaces out of the berries of the sea-weed—some of them quite bright-coloured, pink and yellow. We wandered about on the beach, sitting sometimes on the side of a boat, and walking through the little pools and streams. It was a lonely bit of water. We didn't see a sail. The sea looked like a great blue plain meeting the sky—nothing to break the monotony. We got some very bad coffee at the restaurant—didn't attempt tea. They would certainly have said they had it, and would have made it probably out of hay from the barn. The drive home was delicious, almost too cool, as we went at a good pace, the horses knowing as well as we did that the end of their day was coming…. We have been again to market this morning. It was much more amusing than the first time, as it was horse day, and men and beasts were congregated in the middle of the Cathedral Square. There was a fair show—splendid big carthorses and good cobs and ponies—here and there a nice saddle-horse. There were a good many women driving themselves, and almost all had good, stout little horses. They know just as much about it as the men and were much interested in the sales. They told me the landlady of the hotel was the best judge of a horse and a man in Normandy. She was standing at the entrance of her court-yard as we passed the hotel on our way home, a comely, buxom figure, dressed like all the rest in a short black skirt and sabots. She was exchanging smiling greetings and jokes with every one who passed and keeping order with the crowds of farmers, drivers, and horse-dealers who were jostling through the big open doors and clamoring for food for themselves and their animals. She was the type of the hard-working, capable Frenchwoman of whom there are thousands in France.

Some years ago I was on the committee for a great sale we had in our arrondissement in Paris for the benefit of "L'Assistance par le Travail," an excellent work which we are all much interested in. I was in charge of the buffet, and thought it better to apply at once to one of the great caterers, Potel and Chabot, and see what they could do for us. We made an appointment, and Mme. de B. and I drove down to the place. The manager was out, but they told us that Madame was waiting for us in the back shop. We found rather a pretty woman, very well dressed in velvet, with diamond earrings, and I was put out at first—thought that didn't look like business. However, we talked a few minutes; she said her husband was obliged to go to the country, but would certainly come and see me the next day. Then she stepped up to her desk, where there was a big book open, said she understood we wished to give an order for a buffet for a charity sale, and was at once absorbed in sandwiches, tea and coffee, orangeade, and all the requirements for such an occasion. She was perfectly practical and gave us some very useful hints—said she supposed we wanted some of their maîtres d'hôtel. We thought not—our own would do. That, she said, would be a great mistake. They weren't accustomed to that sort of thing and wouldn't know how to do it. One thing, for instance—they would certainly fill all the glasses of orangeade and punch much too full and would waste a great deal. Their men never filled a glass entirely, and consequently gained two on every dozen. She told us how much we wanted, made out the estimate at once, and ended by asking if we would allow them to present the tea as their contribution to the charity. It didn't take more than twenty minutes—the whole thing. She then shut up her book, went to the door with us, thanked us for giving them the order, and hoped we would be satisfied. That business capability and thriftiness runs through almost all Frenchwomen of a certain class, and when I hear, as of course I often do, the frivolous, butterfly, pleasure-loving Frenchwoman spoken of, that energetic, hard-working bourgeoise comes into my mind. We all who live in France know the type well.

The whole nation is frugal. During the Franco-German War, my husband, who had spent all the dreary months of the invasion at his château in the country, was elected a member of the Assemblée Nationale, which met at Bordeaux. They were entirely cut off from Paris, surrounded by Prussian troops on all sides, and he couldn't get any money. Whatever he had had at the beginning of the war had been spent—sending off recruits for one of the great army corps near his place. It was impossible to communicate with his banker or any friends in Paris, and yet he couldn't start without funds. He applied to the notary of La Ferté-Milon, the little town nearest the château. He asked how much he wanted. W. said about 10,000 francs. The notary said, "Give me two days and I will get it for you." He appeared three days afterward, bringing the 10,000 francs—a great deal of it in large silver five-franc pieces, very difficult to carry. He had collected the whole sum from small farmers and peasants in the neighbourhood—the five-franc pieces coming always from the peasants, sometimes fifty sewed up in a mattress or in the woman's thick, wadded Sunday skirt. He said he could get as much more if W. wanted it. It seems impossible for the peasant to part with his money or invest it. He must keep it well hidden, but in his possession.

… We had a pretty drive this afternoon to one of Florian's farms, down a little green lane, some distance from the high-road and so hidden by the big trees that we saw nothing until we got close to the gate. It was late—all the cows coming home, the great Norman horses drinking at the trough, two girls with bare legs and high caps calling all the fowl to supper, and the farmer's wife, with a baby in her arms and another child, almost a baby, pulling at her skirts, seated on a stone bench underneath a big apple-tree, its branches heavy with fruit. She was superintending the work of the farm-yard and seeing that the two girls didn't waste a minute of their time, nor a grain of the seed with which they were feeding the chickens. A little clear, sparkling stream was meandering through the meadows, tall poplars on each side, and quite at the end of the stretch of green fields there was the low blue line of the sea. The farmhouse is a large, old-fashioned building with one or two good rooms. It had evidently been a small manor house. One of the rooms is charming, with handsome panels of dark carved wood. It seemed a pity to leave them there, and almost a pity, that the Florians could not have made their home in such a lovely green spot, but they would have been obliged to add to the house enormously, and it would have complicated their lives, being so far away from everything.

[Illustration: Old gate-way. Valogues.]

… We have had a last walk and flânerie this morning. We went to the Hospice, formerly a Benedictine convent, where there is a fine gate-way and court-yard with most extraordinary carving over the doors and gate—monstrous heads and beasts and emblems alongside of cherubs and beautiful saints and angels. One wonders what ideas those old artists had; it seems now such distorted imagination. We walked through some of the oldest streets and past what had been fine hotels, but they are quite uninhabited now. Sometimes a bric-à-brac shop on the ground-floor, and some sort of society on the upper story, but they are all neglected and half tumbling down. There is still splendid carving on some of the old gate-ways and cornices, but bits of stone and plaster are falling off, grass is growing between the paving stones of the court-yards, and there is an air of poverty and neglect which is a curious contrast to the prosperous look of the country all around—all the little farms and villages look so thriving. The people are smiling and well fed; their animals, too—horses, cows, donkeys—all in good condition.