[80] Just before returning the proof-sheet of this chapter I heard one French peasant describing his landlord to another in these terms:—
“Monsieur le Comte is one of the best landlords in this neighbourhood. He thoroughly understands agriculture, he looks after everything on the estate, but he never presses his tenants, never asks them for rent. On the contrary, he is always ready to help a tenant in any reasonable outlay.”
The landlord in question is a rich nobleman, living on his own land, and not by any means regarded with “the most savage enmity,” though he happens to be a Frenchman. I have seen his château and estate, a fine property, beautifully situated.
[81] Probably her chief reason, unexpressed, was that to have been asked in marriage for her good looks would have implied a deficiency of dowry, or, at least, left room for the supposition that there had not been dowry enough, of itself, to attract an offer of marriage.
[82] I was permitted to read a letter from the young lady’s father, in which he said, “The offer was quite beyond anything that my daughter could have hoped for, but after full consideration she decided to decline it, and I think she acted wisely, as money is not everything in this world.” The girl was left entirely free, as if she had been in England.
[83] A girl with £200 a year will expect, in marriage, a household expenditure of £800 a year. I proposed this theoretical proportion to a French gentleman of much experience, and he said that the estimate was moderate.
[84] Of course I mean with reference to aristocratic rank. A duke who has talent of his own is likely to recognise it in others.
An Artist in Goodness.
The public knows something of Madame Boucicaut’s acts of public beneficence (though they were so numerous that it is impossible to remember such a list), but I have learned through several different private channels how thoughtful her kindness was to individuals. By long practice she had become quite an artist in goodness, having cultivated her talent in that way as another might have learned to paint or to sing. There was an inventiveness about her beneficence that made it as original as poetry, and as beautiful in its originality.