Passing before the farm, we cast a glance at the other side of the valley. Facing us, this mass of green is the Bois du Pigimbert, with the hamlet of Pausadon, where Vialarette lived, that poor woman whom Marie and her sister used to visit. More to the left, on the heights, is the village of Mérix, and below, toward the north, Leutin, where Eugénie went so frequently to hear Mass.
The road from the warren of the north skirts the base of the hill, which extends itself in the rear of the old castle. Here, as elsewhere, all is full of souvenirs.
"Every tree has its history, every stone a name."
Here Maurice played with his sisters among the branches of the Treilhon, that old vine-stalk which twines itself round the trunk of an oak-tree. "Mimi" smiled at the recollection of the slides they used to take down the side of the ravine. She pointed out a little underwood of maples; they were small trees about the thickness of one's arm, and which have nothing in common with the king of our forests.
A sudden storm coming up obliged us to seek shelter in the mansion. A few moments before, the sky was serene and blue; now all was obscured by clouds, the rain came down in torrents, and it began to thunder and lighten. This southern sky always reminds me of a great child, changing from smiles to tears with a wonderful facility.
At half-past seven, supper was announced, at which was served the excellent wine of Cayla. At the side of its father, was little Mâzuc de Guérin, a child of eighteen months. Oh! that Eugénie could have caressed this child of "Caro's."
The evening passed delightfully; anecdotes were told, reminiscences of Cayla, of America, of Algeria, and episodes related by M. Mâzuc of the wars in Africa, in the mountains of Kabylia. "Mimi" then brought us back to our present surroundings by relating some interesting details of the widow of Maurice. She returned from India after the death of her husband, and died at Bordeaux in 1861.
And the good M. Bories is still living, but struck with a cruel malady, and is but a mere wreck.
At bedtime I was conducted to my room. A spiral staircase ascends to the principal story, and leads into the great hall. This is the stately and solemn apartment of the manor. In it a vast fireplace, whose mantel is sustained by caryatides in stone; on either side are the figures of two cavaliers in their armor, rudely sketched. In former days these walls were covered with the armor of the seignors of this house; this inlaid floor, to-day so silent, resounded to the footsteps of armed knights, carrying on the points of their lances standards and pennons on which the ladies of the castle had embroidered the proud device of the sires of De Guérin. Omni exceptione majores. It was in this saloon, now so deserted, that they armed themselves to fight against the Moors and the ferocious Albigenses, or where they donned their richest armor, their brilliant helmets of finest steel, and their gilded breast-plates, to cross their lances in the tournament. At the time of Eugénie, all this antique splendor had long since passed away. Here as elsewhere, the Revolution had reaped its harvest of destruction, and the rich Seignors de Guérin "were now," said she, "only poor squires, striving to keep the wolf from the door."
On the right side of the hall is a door opening into the chamber of "Mimi;" on the left, one opening into that of Maurice. At the extreme end, away back, retired like a cell, hidden like the nest of a bird, is the little room of Eugénie. It is in this room, and on her table, that I am now writing to you, surrounded by the same silence, and lit by the same modest light of her lamp. Before me is her little chapel in miniature, her crucifix, her étagère of books. Nothing besides this, neither ornaments nor luxury; nothing except the most commonplace. But these valueless nothings have become relics; this little room a chapel, this table an altar. 'Twas from this white and peaceful cage that the dove of Cayla flew away to the land of dreams, gathered the celestial flowers of poetry, conversed with the angels, and sang with her heart. It is here that she prayed, read, wrote her Journal, and those admirable letters to Louise de Bayne, Madame de Maistre, and Maurice; 'tis here that she wrote her heart's history, that she lived, that she died; from here that she went to rejoin Maurice.