THE CHATEAU DE LA CHESNAYE.
When I last met Madame de Lesseps in Paris, though at that time the shadow of the present was already upon her, she was in the full of her matronly beauty, large, ample, and flourishing. It was a wasted woman who addressed me, pinched and thin. “If I were to remove my veil,” she added, “you would see an even greater change.”
“It is a sad moment that you have chosen to visit us, and you find us in terrible circumstances,” she said as we drove away. Then turning to the lady who accompanied her, she remarked, “This is the first time I have been out for three weeks, and I ought not to have gone out to-day, except for the fact that I can’t miss going to church again. It is the only comfort I have left to me. All my days and most of my nights, when not attending on my husband, are taken up answering letters and telegrams which keep pouring in upon me from all parts of the world. And then I am in constant correspondence with the lawyers in Paris as to the prosecution of my son for corruption, and the revision of the last judgment of the Court of Appeal.”
The church which is attended by the La Chesnaye party is situated in a village about three miles off, which is called Guilly, “the mistletoe hamlet,” as all the trees around are covered with this parasite. We were passing a fine old oak tree, the upper part of which was loaded with mistletoe, when the lady who was with us laughed scornfully, and, pointing, said: “One would say Herz, Arton, and the rest,” referring to the Panama parasites. “Would you believe me,” said Madame de Lesseps, “that until these recent revelations I had never even heard the names of 85 either Arton or Herz or the Baron de Reinach?”
COUNT DE LESSEPS IN 1869.
Outside the church was standing a char-à-banc drawn by two horses, and it was in this that, after service, I returned to La Chesnaye with the children and the governesses. It was interesting to see how devoted the people of Guilly seem to be to the De Lesseps family, and how the men and women bowed and courtesied as the countess came out of church. Here, as at Vatan and in all the district, the love and respect for “Monsieur le Comte” have been increased rather than diminished by the persecutions to which he has been subjected. It was on the great fair-day at Vatan that the news of his condemnation was made public, and at once the villagers, in sign of mourning, stopped the public ball which is a fête to which the young people of the district look forward for months beforehand. Sturdy Berrichon lads have been seen to flourish their sticks and heard to say that the Parisians had better keep their hands off “Monsieur le Comte.” Nor is it surprising that in his own country M. de Lesseps should be loved and venerated. Always delighting in acts of kindness, his generosity towards his poor neighbors throughout the district has been constant and large-handed. Never a marriage takes place in any of the surrounding villages but that a handsome present from La Chesnaye is thrown into the bride’s corbeille. The children are dressed for confirmation at the expense of the chateau; layettes are found for poor mothers, and no case of distress is allowed to pass unrelieved. Since the heavy losses which the Panama failure has entailed on the family, no change nor diminution in these liberalities has been made. But perhaps what the people in the district like the best in the La Chesnaye folk is their extreme simplicity. Chateau folk are not generally very popular in France, and certainly not in republican circumscriptions, because republican electors of the peasant class have inherited prejudices about them; and if the De Lesseps family is so very popular, it is because of the extreme simplicity of their manners and of the way in which they live the lives of the people around them. For instance, not the children alone, but even the elegant Madame de Lesseps herself, are dressed in clothes purchased and made in Vatan. Nothing is got from Paris, and the Vatan people are highly pleased with the unusual compliment thus paid to them. By the church at Guilly is 86 an orphanage, which was founded by the De Lesseps, and is entirely kept up at their expense. It is a rule with Madame de Lesseps to pay a visit to this orphanage each Sunday after mass, and, accordingly, as she left church she asked me to return home with the children. Of these there are now seven at home; Matthew, who has just returned on sick leave from the Soudan, being in Paris near his stepbrother Charles. Ismail is serving in the army as a soldier in a regiment of chasseurs at St. Germain; and the eldest daughter, the Comtesse de Gontaut-Biron, is in Nice, whither she has been sent by her doctors. Lolo, aged eighteen, is the eldest girl at home; and Paul, a handsome lad of twelve, with long ringlets down his back, is the eldest boy. The youngest children are mere babies. There is Zi-Zi, a tiny little boy, with fair curls and dark eyes; and Griselle, a charming little mite, who on that Sunday was dressed in a Kate Greenaway bonnet and gown, and looked sweetly pretty. The char-à-banc, spacious as it was, was quite filled. Besides all the children from Lolo down to Zi-Zi, there were the English and German governesses, Paul and Robert’s tutor, the niece of Madame de Lesseps who for many years past has lived with the family, and an intimate friend, Mademoiselle Mimaut.
It was a merry party, and yet whenever the name of the poor old father at home was mentioned, silence came over the prattle of the children. “They all feel it deeply,” said Madame de Lesseps to me later on, “though their youth often gets the better of their feelings. And what grieves them all most is, to know that their brother Charles, whom they all love and respect like a second father, is in prison, whilst they can run about. Zi-Zi and Griselle write to him every day at Mazas or the Conciergerie, and send him violets, and little stories which they compose for his amusement, spending long hours inking their fingers over their paper.”
About half-way home the carriage passed the rural postman trudging along on his daily thirty-mile round. The children would have the carriage stopped, and, though it was quite full, place was made for him. Father Pierre seemed quite a favorite with the children, for is it not he, as little Griselle said, who brings letters from brother Charles? Charles, it seems, writes every day, and his letters, to judge by what every member of the family told me, are admirable in their manly unselfishness. There is never a word of complaint about the wretchedness of his position; his only anxiety is about his father, and he is ready to undergo everything so that the old man may be spared a moment’s pain. Ruined, disgraced, though not dishonored, having to face a long period of imprisonment, which at his age and in his physical condition may kill him, he affects in his letters the greatest cheerfulness. Nor is his heroic unselfishness without its reward. He is the idol of everybody at La Chesnaye and for miles around. Only one complaint has escaped him since his confinement, and that was when, during his hurried visit, under guard, to his father, he went with the children for a favorite walk to a neighboring wood. Here, as he was walking along the avenue which runs through some magnificent timber, he looked around at the detectives behind him, and said with a sigh: “And to-morrow I shall be again within four gray walls.” But immediately he added, that if he could only be allowed to come and pass an afternoon in the wood with his brothers and sisters every month, he would not mind his confinement in the least, and could resign himself to the prospect of imprisonment for the rest of his days. Yet he is past fifty-three, and his health has suffered terribly from what he has undergone.