Chateau and Country Life in France

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Chateau and Country Life in France

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Title: Chateau and Country Life in France
Author: Mary King Waddington
Release Date: November 12, 2004 [eBook #14029]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CHATEAU AND COUNTRY LIFE IN FRANCE
by
MARY KING WADDINGTON
Author of _Letters Of A Diplomat's Wife_ and _Italian Letters of a Diplomat's Wife_
Illustrated
1909

[Illustration: A country wedding]

CONTENTS
I. CH?TEAU LIFE II. COUNTRY VISITS III. THE HOME OF LAFAYETTE IV. WINTER AT THE CH?TEAU V. CEREMONIES AND FESTIVALS VI. CHRISTMAS IN THE VALOIS VII. A RACINE CELEBRATION VIII. A CORNER OF NORMANDY IX. A NORMAN TOWN X. NORMAN CH?TEAUX XI. BOULOGNE-SUR-MER

ILLUSTRATIONS
A COUNTRY WEDDING A FINE OLD CH?TEAU I LOVED TO HEAR HER PLAY BEETHOVEN AND HANDEL THERE WERE ALL SORTS AND KINDS FERDINAND "MERCI, JE VAIS BIEN" LONG PAUSES WHEN NOBODY SEEMED TO HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY THEN HE LIGHTED A FIRE I SUGGESTED THAT THE WHOLE CHASSE SHOULD ADJOURN TO THE CH?TEAU SOME RED-COATED, SOME GREEN, ALL WITH BREECHES AND HIGH MUDDY BOOTS PEASANT WOMEN A VISIT AT THE CH?TEAU SOLDIERS AT THE CH?TEAU THE MAYOR AND A NICE, RED-CHEEKED, WRINKLED OLD WOMAN WERE WAITING FOR US THERE WAS ONE HANDSOME BIT OF OLD LACE ON A WHITE NAPPE FOR THE ALTAR THEY WERE ALL STREAMING UP THE SLIPPERY HILL-SIDE ALL THE CHILDREN IN PROCESSION PASSED THERE WAS ONE POOR OLD WOMAN STILL GAZING SPELL-BOUND L'ETABLISSEMENT, BAGNOLES DE L'ORNE IN DOMFRONT SOME OF THE OLD TOWERS ARE CONVERTED INTO MODERN DWELLINGS CH?TEAU DE LASSAY ENTRANCE TO H?TEL OF THE COMTE DE FLORIAN MARKET WOMEN, VALOGNES OLD GATE-WAY, VALOGNES
[Illustration: A fine old chateau.]

I
CHATEAU LIFE
My first experience of country life in France, about thirty years ago, was in a fine old chateau standing high in pretty, undulating, wooded country close to the forest of Villers-Cotterets, and overlooking the great plains of the Oise--big green fields stretching away to the sky-line, broken occasionally by little clumps of wood, with steeples rising out of the green, marking the villages and hamlets which, at intervals, are scattered over the plains, and in the distance the blue line of the forest. The chateau was a long, perfectly simple, white stone building. When I first saw it, one bright November afternoon, I said to my husband as we drove up, "What a charming old wooden house!" which remark so astonished him that he could hardly explain that it was all stone, and that no big houses (nor small, either) in France were built of wood. I, having been born in a large white wooden house in America, couldn't understand why he was so horrified at my ignorance of French architecture. It was a fine old house, high in the centre, with a lower wing on each side. There were three drawing-rooms, a library, billiard-room, and dining-room on the ground floor. The large drawing-room, where we always sat, ran straight through the house, with glass doors opening out on the lawn on the entrance side and on the other into a long gallery which ran almost the whole length of the house. It was always filled with plants and flowers, open in summer, with awnings to keep out the sun; shut in winter with glass windows, and warmed by one of the three calorifères of the house. In front of the gallery the lawn sloped down to the wall, which separated the place from the highroad. A belt of fine trees marked the path along the wall and shut out the road completely, except in certain places where an opening had been made for the view.
We were a small party for such a big house: only the proprietor and his wife (old people), my husband and myself. The life was very simple, almost austere. The old people lived in the centre of the chateau, W.[1] and I in one of the wings. It had been all fitted up for us, and was a charming little house. W. had the ground-floor--a bedroom, dressing-room, cabinet de travail, dining-room, and a small room, half reception-room, half library, where he had a large bookcase filled with books, which he gave away as prizes or to school libraries. The choice of the books always interested me. They were principally translations, English and American--Walter Scott, Marryat, Fenimore Cooper,