My father and mother entered into their neighbor's idea with an eye to
my interests so soon as they discovered that Renee de Maucombe would
be acceptable without a dowry, and that the money the said Renee ought
to inherit from her parents would be duly acknowledged as hers in the
contract. In a similar way, my younger brother, Jean de Maucombe, as
soon as he came of age, signed a document stating that he had received
from his parents an advance upon the estate equal in amount to
one-third of whole. This is the device by which the nobles of Provence
elude the infamous Civil Code of M. de Bonaparte, a code which will
drive as many girls of good family into convents as it will find
husbands for. The French nobility, from the little I have been able to
gather, seem to be divided on these matters.
The dinner, darling, was a first meeting between your sweetheart and
the exile. The Comte de Maucombe's servants donned their old laced
liveries and hats, the coachman his great top-boots; we sat five in
the antiquated carriage, and arrived in state about two o'clock--the
dinner was for three--at the grange, which is the dwelling of the
Baron de l'Estorade.
My father-in-law to be has, you see, no castle, only a simple country
house, standing beneath one of our hills, at the entrance of that
noble valley, the pride of which is undoubtedly the Castle of
Maucombe. The building is quite unpretentious: four pebble walls
covered with a yellowish wash, and roofed with hollow tiles of a good
red, constitute the grange. The rafters bend under the weight of this
brick-kiln. The windows, inserted casually, without any attempt at
symmetry, have enormous shutters, painted yellow. The garden in which
it stands is a Provencal garden, enclosed by low walls, built of big
round pebbles set in layers, alternately sloping or upright, according
to the artistic taste of the mason, which finds here its only outlet.
The mud in which they are set is falling away in places.
Thanks to an iron railing at the entrance facing the road, this simple
farm has a certain air of being a country-seat. The railing, long
sought with tears, is so emaciated that it recalled Sister Angelique
to me. A flight of stone steps leads to the door, which is protected
by a pent-house roof, such as no peasant on the Loire would tolerate
for his coquettish white stone house, with its blue roof, glittering
in the sun. The garden and surrounding walks are horribly dusty, and
the trees seem burnt up. It is easy to see that for years the Baron's
life has been a mere rising up and going to bed again, day after day,
without a thought beyond that of piling up coppers. He eats the same
food as his two servants, a Provencal lad and the old woman who used
to wait on his wife. The rooms are scantily furnished.