Sons of the Soil | Page 8

of bombasticising in
newspapers brings you to. Here am I writing a downright article. Does
the mind have its ruts, like a road? I stop; for I rob the mail, and I rob
myself, and you may be yawning--to be continued in our next; I hear
the second bell, which summons me to one of those abundant
breakfasts the fashion of which has long passed away, in the dining-

rooms of Paris, be it understood.
Here's the history of my Arcadia. In 1815, there died at Les Aigues one
of the famous wantons of the last century,--a singer, forgotten of the
guillotine and the nobility, after preying upon exchequers, upon
literature, upon aristocracy, and all but reaching the scaffold; forgotten,
like so many fascinating old women who expiate their golden youth in
country solitudes, and replace their lost loves by another,-- man by
Nature. Such women live with the flowers, with the woodland scents,
with the sky, with the sunshine, with all that sings and skips and shines
and sprouts,--the birds, the squirrels, the flowers, the grass; they know
nothing about these things, they cannot explain them, but they love
them; they love them so well that they forget dukes, marshals, rivalries,
financiers, follies, luxuries, their paste jewels and their real diamonds,
their heeled slippers and their rouge,--all, for the sweetness of country
life.
I have gathered, my dear fellow, much precious information about the
old age of Mademoiselle Laguerre; for, to tell you the truth, the after
life of such women as Florine, Mariette, Suzanne de Val Noble, and
Tullia has made me, every now and then, extremely inquisitive, as
though I were a child inquiring what had become of the old moons.
In 1790 Mademoiselle Laguerre, alarmed at the turn of public affairs,
came to settle at Les Aigues, bought and given to her by Bouret, who
passed several summers with her at the chateau. Terrified at the fate of
Madame du Barry, she buried her diamonds. At that time she was only
fifty-three years of age, and according to her lady's-maid, afterwards
married to a gendarme named Soudry, "Madame was more beautiful
than ever." My dear Nathan, Nature has no doubt her private reasons
for treating women of this sort like spoiled children; excesses, instead
of killing them, fatten them, preserve them, renew their youth. Under a
lymphatic appearance they have nerves which maintain their
marvellous physique; they actually preserve their beauty for reasons
which would make a virtuous woman haggard. No, upon my word,
Nature is not moral!
Mademoiselle Laguerre lived an irreproachable life at Les Aigues, one

might even call it a saintly one, after her famous adventure,--you
remember it? One evening in a paroxysm of despairing love, she fled
from the opera-house in her stage dress, rushed into the country, and
passed the night weeping by the wayside. (Ah! how they have
calumniated the love of Louis XV.'s time!) She was so unused to see
the sunrise, that she hailed it with one of her finest songs. Her attitude,
quite as much as her tinsel, drew the peasants about her; amazed at her
gestures, her voice, her beauty, they took her for an angel, and dropped
on their knees around her. If Voltaire had not existed we might have
thought it a new miracle. I don't know if God gave her much credit for
her tardy virtue, for love after all must be a sickening thing to a woman
as weary of it as a wanton of the old Opera. Mademoiselle Laguerre
was born in 1740, and her hey-day was in 1760, when Monsieur (I
forget his name) was called the "ministre de la guerre," on account of
his liaison with her. She abandoned that name, which was quite
unknown down here, and called herself Madame des Aigues, as if to
merge her identity in the estate, which she delighted to improve with a
taste that was profoundly artistic. When Bonaparte became First Consul,
she increased her property by the purchase of church lands, for which
she used the proceeds of her diamonds. As an Opera divinity never
knows how to take care of her money, she intrusted the management of
the estate to a steward, occupying herself with her flowers and fruits
and with the beautifying of the park.
After Mademoiselle was dead and buried at Blangy, the notary of
Soulanges--that little town which lies between Ville-aux-Fayes and
Blangy, the capital of the township--made an elaborate inventory, and
sought out the heirs of the singer, who never knew she had any. Eleven
families of poor laborers living near Amiens, and sleeping in cotton
sheets, awoke one fine morning in golden ones. The property was sold
at auction. Les Aigues was bought by Montcornet, who had laid by
enough during his campaigns in Spain and Pomerania