Seated in an arm-chair, now feebly turning over the leaves of his “Souvenirs of Forty Years,” now letting his dimmed eyes wander listlessly over the broad expanse of fields and woodlands outside the windows, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the great Frenchman, drags out the agony of his old age.
The visitor to him in his retreat arrives at La Chesnaye to some extent attuned to melancholy, for the long diligence ride from the nearest railway station, twenty-four kilometres away, is across a most desolate country. This part of the ancient duchy of Berry is one of the districts in France which has most suffered by the ruin of the vine-culture; the lands seem deserted and abandoned; the roads are neglected, and little life is seen anywhere till the sleepy burgh of Vatan is reached. From Vatan, which is a market-town on the old and now disused high-road from Paris to Toulouse, to the chateau of La Chesnaye, there are four more kilometres of road across an equally desolate country to be taken. The buildings of the home farm are the first human habitations that one sees all the long way. An oppressive sense of desolation imposes itself on even the casual wayfarer, and prepares for the sorrowful sight that awaits him who goes to La Chesnaye to salute the fallen greatness of the old man who but two years ago was the greatest Frenchman in France.
The chateau of La Chesnaye, a modest country-house of irregular shape and flanked at the angles with towers, has been in the possession of M. de Lesseps for fifty years. Except for a large modern wing, it stands just as Agnes Sorel, its first occupant, left it. In her days it had served as a hunting-box for her royal patron and the Berry squires, and at present is still surrounded with fields scantily timbered. There is no well-kept lawn, but the fields of grass are full of violets, and there is a trim look about the stables. On a bright day the white of the stone, contrasted with the green of the grass, gives a cheerful look to the scene, but it is indescribably mournful of aspect in the days of rain and snow and wind.
About half a mile on the road before the chateau is in sight, an avenue of trees is reached. “Those trees were planted by M. de Lesseps himself, forty years ago, and every time that he passes this way he relates the fact.”
So spoke to me the English governess 84 of the De Lesseps children, whom Madame de Lesseps had despatched to meet me with the pony-carriage at Vatan.
“The countess is terribly busy to-day with her papers, for she is expecting a barrister from Paris, who is to receive some instructions in view of the new trial; but she will manage to give you an hour, and wants you to drive to church with her, so that you can talk on the way.” As we entered the courtyard the countess’s carriage was in waiting at the front entrance. It was the landau of the days of triumphant drives in the Champs Élysées, and the horses were the same pair which excited the admiration and envy of the connoisseurs of the Avenue des Acacias, “Juliette” and “Panama,” which latter is now never called by that name. It is talked about as “the other,” for the ill-fated word, Panama, is never even whispered, lest any echo of it should reach the ears of him to whom this word has meant ruin and disgrace and a broken heart. I waited for the countess at the bottom of the spiral stair-case, and presently saw a lady descending, who greeted me in a familiar voice, but whom I failed to recognize. “But, yes,” she said, holding out her hand, “I am Madame de Lesseps. I have changed, have I not?”
