When I heard our guests speak of Paris and the Court, I became sad; I tried to imagine what society was: I discovered a confused and distant something; but soon I turned giddy. Casting my eyes upon the world from the tranquil region of innocence, I had a swimming in the head, as when one looks down upon the earth from the top of a tower lost in the sky.
One thing, nevertheless, delighted me: the parade. Every day the soldiers going on guard marched past, to the sound of the drum and band, at the foot of the steps in the Cour Verte. M. de Causans offered to show me the camp on the coast: my father gave his leave. I was taken to Saint-Malo by M. de La Morandais[100], a gentleman of very good family, whom poverty had reduced to accept the stewardship of the Combourg property. He wore a coat of grey camlet, with a little silver lace at the collar, and a helmet-shaped peaked cap with flaps. He set me astride behind him, on the crupper of his mare Isabelle. I held fast by the belt of his hunting-knife, which he wore outside his coat: I was delighted. When Claude de Bullion and the father of the Président de Lamoignon, as children, went to the country, "they were both carried by the same donkey, in panniers, one on one side, the other on the other, and a loaf of bread was placed on Lamoignon's side because he was lighter than his fellow, to keep the balance." (Mémoires du président de Lamoignon[101].)
M. de La Morandais took cross-roads:
Moult volontiers, de grand' manière,
Alloit en bois et en rivière:
Car nulles gens ne vont en bois
Moult volontiers comme François[102].
We stopped for dinner at a Benedictine abbey which, for want of a sufficient number of monks, had just been incorporated in one of the chief communities of the order. We found only the father procurator, who had been left behind to dispose of the chattels and sell the timber. He ordered an excellent fish dinner to be served for us, in what was formerly the prior's library: we ate a quantity of new-laid eggs with huge pikes and carps. Through the arch of a cloister, I saw tall sycamores at the edge of a pond. The woodman's axe struck at their feet, their tops trembled in the air, and they fell to make a show for us. Carpenters, come from Saint-Malo, sawed off green branches, which dropped to the ground like the hair of a child cut for the first time, or squared the felled trunks. My heart bled at the sight of those impaired woods and that dismantled monastery. The general sack of the religious houses has since called up to my mind the spoliation of the abbey which was to me an omen.
The Camp at Saint-Malo.
I found the Marquis de Causans at Saint-Malo, and went through the streets of the camp under his escort. The tents, the stacked arms, the picketed horses made a fine spectacle in conjunction with the sea, the ships, the walls, and the distant steeples of the town. I saw gallop past me at full speed, in an hussar's uniform and mounted on a Barbary horse, one of those men who marked the end of a world, the Duc de Lauzun[103]. The Prince de Carignan[104] had come to the camp, and married the daughter of M. de Boisgarein, a charming creature, though a little lame: this caused a great sensation and gave rise to a law-suit in which' M. Lacretelle[105] the Elder is pleading to this day. But what have these things to do with my life? "It is pitie," says Montaigne; "I have assayed by the trial of some of my private friends: according as their memory hath ministered to them a whole and perfect matter, who recoil their narration so farre-backe, and stuff it with so many vaine circumstances, that if the story bee good, they smoother the goodnesse of it: if bad you must needs either curse the good fortune of their memorie, or blame the misfortune of their judgement.... I have heard some very pleasant reports become most irkesome and tedious in the mouth of a certaine Lord[106]." I am afraid of being that certaine Lord.
My brother was at Saint-Malo when M. de La Morandais set me down there. One evening he said to me:
"I am taking you to the play: get your hat."
I lost my head; I ran straight to the cellar to fetch my hat which was in the garret. A company of travelling play-actors had just arrived. I had seen a Punch and Judy show, and presumed that the puppets at the theatre were much finer than those in the street. With beating heart I reached a wooden building in an unfrequented street in the town. I went through dark passages, not without a certain movement of dread. A small door was opened, and I found myself with my brother in a half-full box.