*
On my return from Lyons I found letters from M. Joubert: they informed me that it was not possible for him to be at Villeneuve before September. I replied:
Lyons and M. Saget.
"Your departure from Paris is too remote and distresses me; you well know that my wife will never consent to arrive at Villeneuve before you: she has a head of her own, and since she has been with me, I find myself at the head of two heads very difficult to govern. We shall remain at Lyons, where they make us eat so prodigiously that I hardly have the courage to leave this excellent town. The Abbé de Bonnevie is here, back from Rome; he is wonderfully well; he is merry, he preachifies, and no longer thinks of his woes; he embraces you and will write to you. In short, everybody is in high spirits, except myself; you are the only one to grumble. Tell Fontanes that I have dined with M. Saget."
This M. Saget was the providence of the canons; he lived on the hill of Sainte-Foix, in the district of the good wine. The way to his house led up near the spot where Rousseau had spent the night on the banks of the Saône:
"I remember," he says, "spending a delightful night outside the town, on a road which skirted the Saône. Gardens raised terrace-wise bordered the road on the opposite side: it had been very warm that day; the evening was charming, the dew moistened the parched grass; no wind, a quiet night; the air was cool without being chill; the sun after setting had left red vapours in the sky, and their reflection made the water rose-coloured; the trees on the terraces were laden with nightingales which replied one to the other. I walked along in a sort of ecstasy, abandoning my senses and my heart to the enjoyment of all this, and only sighing a little with regret at enjoying it alone. Absorbed in my sweet reverie, I prolonged my walk well into the night, without perceiving that I was tired. I perceived it at last: I lay down voluptuously on the shelf of a sort of niche or false door, sunk into a terrace-wall; the canopy of my bed consisted of the tops of the trees, a nightingale was exactly over my head; I fell asleep to its singing: my slumbers were sweet, my awakening even more so. It was broad day-light: my eyes on opening beheld the water, the verdure, an admirable landscape."
*
With Rousseau's charming itinerary in one's hand, one arrived at M. Saget's. This ancient and lean bachelor, formerly married, wore a green cap, a grey camlet coat, nankeen pantaloons, blue stockings and beaver shoes. He had lived long in Paris, and had been intimate with Mademoiselle Devienne[679]. She wrote him very witty letters, scolded him, and gave him very good advice: he ignored it, for he did not take the world seriously, believing apparently, like the Mexicans, that the world had already used four suns, and that at the fourth (which is lighting us at present) men had been changed into maggots. He did not trouble his mind about the martyrdom of St. Pothin[680] and St. Ireneus[681], nor of the massacre of the Protestants drawn up side by side by order of Mandelot[682], the Governor of Lyons, all of them having their throats cut on the same side. Opposite the field of the shooting at the Brotteaux[683], he would tell me details of it, while strolling among his vines, mingling with his narrative verses of Loyse Labbé[684]: he would not have missed a single mouthful during the last misfortunes of Lyons, under the Charte-Vérité.
On certain days a certain calf's head was served up at Sainte-Foix, after being soused for five nights, boiled in madeira, and stuffed full of exquisite things; very pretty peasant-girls waited at table; they served excellent homegrown wine out of demi-johns the size of three bottles. We swooped upon the Saget banquet, I and the cassocked chapter: the hill-side was quite black with us.