In those Rousseau days one took much thought for one’s dairy, and Madame de Genlis tells of one built by the Duke, and to which she had the pleasure of leading a charming milk-maid, after having married her to the young German gardener.
Rousseau and Madame de Maintenon are both in her mind when she tells us of the economy with which she managed the establishment—“such a remarkable economy that it has been much talked about,” she adds with complacence. “My first principle was to make up my account every day, and to know the price of things, and especially the quantities of food-stuffs given out every day in the kitchen for the different meals.... I knew exactly how much rice or vermicelli was needed for soup for four, eight, twelve persons. I knew the exact quantities required of sugar, jam, cream, oil, butter, milk, cheese, eggs, etc. I sent to the markets every week a man I could trust: he inquired in great detail about the price of all provisions, and brought me back the information in writing.” Details like these, constantly occurring in the Letters of Madame de Maintenon to her brother and young sister-in-law, gave Madame de Genlis the greatest pleasure.
She goes on to tell of the “delicious life” she leads at Bellechasse. She is relieved by her position from the “fag” of paying visits, but she can receive them very much at her ease. Men were received, this being a privilege of Princesses of the Blood Royal, but they had to leave at ten o’clock.... But, like Bourdalone going to preach at Saint Cyr, it is to be hoped that they took their dinner before they went, for, “to avoid useless expense, I had decided that none of my friends should dine at Bellechasse, except my husband, my brother, and my two sisters-in-law.” And these dined here but rarely.
She had hardly been installed when she got permission for her mother, and her two daughters to come and live with her, and we may feel sure that she early cast about in her mind for a reasonable pretext for introducing on the scene poor little Pamela, who was being brought up like a fisherman’s child in a little village in England.
In the meantime something really important and remarkable happened. The Duke came one evening to Bellechasse, and announced to Madame de Genlis that he should have to provide immediately a “gouverneur” for the two young Princes, whose manners were getting atrocious. He instanced the little Duke of Valois complaining of having to “tambourine” too long at his father’s door, and quoted a pun of the same little Prince, which was certainly not in the style of a Salon of the period. Their father came to consult Madame de Genlis on the choice of a “gouverneur.” She proposed several, and each met with an objection. M. de Schomberg would make the boys little pedants; the Chevalier de Durfort would pass on to them his own faults of over-emphasis and exaggeration; Monsieur de Thiars was too frivolous. “What about myself, then?” “Why not?” replied the Duke seriously. “His air and tone struck me greatly. I saw the possibility of something extraordinary and glorious, and I desired its realisation with all my heart.” As a matter of fact, before the Duke left the matter was settled, and Madame de Genlis had an honour and a title that no woman in France ever had before. Now the Ladies of the Palais Royal would know what was behind her retirement!
She was so much afraid of any contretemps, that she even arranged the details before the Duke left. The boys’ tutors, M. de Bonnard and the Abbé Guyot and M. Le Brun, were to be kept on, and one of them was to escort the Princes from the Palais to Bellechasse every day at twelve, and escort them home again to the Palais at ten o’clock at night. “A country house was to be bought, in which we should spend eight months of the year; and I was to have complete control of their education. Knowing that I myself was to teach them history, mythology, literature, etc., which, together with the lessons I gave to the Princesses, would leave me not a moment’s leisure, the Duke offered me 20,000 francs. My reply was that no money could pay for such a charge, that only friendship could be its recompense. He insisted. I positively refused. It is therefore quite gratuitously that I have educated these Princes.”
The arrangement, as far as the boys went, was that they were to get up at seven and have their Latin lesson, and religious instruction from the Abbé; they were then to have an arithmetic class with M. Le Brun, who was to bring them to Bellechasse at twelve. The Abbé and M. Le Brun could stay there, or go away as they pleased until the dinner-hour, two o’clock. “After dinner, I took complete charge of the boys until nine, when the masters returned to supper and to bring the boys away. I asked M. Le Brun to keep a detailed journal of the way the boys spent their mornings, leaving a wide margin for my observations. I myself wrote the first pages. These pages contained particular instructions for M. Le Brun on the education of the Princes. M. Le Brun brought me this journal every morning; I read it immediately; I scolded or praised, punished or rewarded the boys, according to what I saw in it.”
She next gives a portrait of the Duke of Valois, the future Louis Philippe, at the age of eight. It appears his want of application was the most noticeable thing about him. “I commenced by making them read history. M. le duc de Valois paid absolutely no attention. He stretched, and yawned, and you can imagine my astonishment when I saw him sprawl back on the sofa on which we were sitting and settle his feet on the table! I put him in penance on the spot.”
It would appear that the young Prince bore no grudge when the reason of the thing was explained to him. “He loved reasoning, as other children like nursery-tales.” In spite of his “natural good sense,” it seems, however, that he had a most unreasoning aversion to two of the oddest things, dogs and the smell of vinegar. It was the business of his “gouverneur” to rid him of these aversions, and this was happily accomplished. Among his gifts was a most remarkable memory. “I flatter myself that I have succeeded in developing and cultivating this gift of nature.”
Languages were to be taught at Bellechasse, and as far as possible by the direct method. The “second Valet de Chambre” was a German, who not only played the piano very well, but understood the principles of his native language thoroughly. It was he who taught the Duke German. He had an Italian valet who was supposed to speak nothing but Italian to his young master, and an English tutor, “who gave him lessons in my own room.” But, and it is here that Madame de Genlis shows herself so astonishingly modern, what about utilising their play hours, too, for learning English by getting a little English-speaking child to play with them? Mr. Forth, who is buying horses for the Duke in England, receives the commission to look for one, and finds her in little, nameless, five-year-old Pamela, who, after a short delay, is installed at Bellechasse, and made to share the education of the Princes and Princesses of the Blood Royal!