"Justement," said our hostess, "Is this your tour de noces?"
The negative reply grieved her. While I paid for the coffee, Madame cast an eye upon the retreating figure of my wife;
"Comme Madame est grande," she said, "Et bien belle!"
A few yards away, in the Rue de l'Hôpital, we came to a little inn with the pretty sign "Au Point de Jour," and the inscription on a board, in capital letters:
"Avan le jour commence ta journée De l'Eternel le sainct nom bénissant Loue le encore et passe ainsy lannée Ayme Dieu et ton procchain. 1672."
A little girl, who had been sitting before the inn, approached. Pointing to the inscription, she said scornfully:
"That's not French."
"Pardon, mon enfant," I said, "But it is most certainly French." The little maid looked rather guilty for a moment. Then she cheered up. This French that puzzled her must be a local patois.
"Oh, well then," she said. "C'est que je ne suis pas d'ici." (I am not from this part of the country) and she trotted off up the street.
The landlady and coffee had so fully monopolized our attention that we had bestowed no more than a passing glance upon the statue of Greuze, opposite to which we had been sitting. I doubt whether it deserved more. Surely the most satisfactory monuments to the famous Burgundian painter are the house in which he was born,[133] the studies from his brush and pencil, to be seen in the local musée, and the rich meadows by the Saône. All these complete a setting that enables us better to sympathize with Greuze's fresh and delicate art.