The International Weekly Miscellany - Volume I, No. 5 | Page 8

her confidence, and by one or
two questions assisted her in opening the conversation she seemed both
to wish for and to fear."
[This girl is Reine-Garde, a peasant woman, attracted by a passionate
love of his poetry to visit Lamartine. She unfolds to him much that is

exquisitely reproduced in Genevieve. The romance bids fair to be one
of the most interesting this author has yet produced.]
"Madame ----," said I to her. She blushed yet more.
"I have no husband, Monsieur. I am an unmarried woman."
"Ah! Mlle, will you be pleased to tell me why you have come so far,
and why you waited so long to speak with me? Can I be useful to you
in any manner? Have you any letter to give me from any one in your
neighborhood?"
"Ah, Monsieur, I have no letter, I have nothing to ask of you, and the
last thing in the world that I should have done, would have been to get
a letter from any of the gentlemen in my neighborhood to you. I would
not even have suffered them to know that I came to Marseilles to see
you. They would have thought me a vain creature, who sought to
magnify her importance by visiting people who are so famous. Ah, that
would never do!"
"What then do you wish to say?"
"Nothing, Monsieur."
"How can that be? You should not for nothing have wasted two days in
coming from Aix to Marseilles, and should not have waited for me here
until sunset, when to-morrow you must return home."
"It is, however, true, Monsieur. I know you will think me very foolish,
but ... I have nothing to tell you, and not for a fortune would I consent
that people at Aix should know whither I am gone."
"Something however induced you to come--you are not one of those
triflers who go hither and thither without a motive. I think you are
intellectual and intelligent. Reflect. What induced you to take a place in
the diligence and come to see me? Eh!"
"Well, sir," said she, passing her hands over her cheeks as if to wipe

away all blushes and embarrassment, and at the same time pushing her
long black curls, moist as they were with perspiration, beyond her ears,
"I had an idea which permitted me neither to sleep by day nor night; I
said to myself, Reine, you must be satisfied. You must say nothing to
any one. You must shut up your shop on Saturday night as you are in
the habit of doing. You must take a place in the night diligence and go
on Sunday to Marseilles. You will go to see that gentleman, and on
Monday morning you can again be at work. All will then be over and
for once in your life you will have been satisfied without your
neighbors having once fancied for a moment that you have passed the
limits of the street in which you live."
"Why, however, did you wish so much to see me? How did you even
know that I was here?"
"Thus, Monsieur: a person came to Aix who was very kind to me, for I
am the dressmaker of his daughters, having previously been a servant
in his mother's country-house. The family has always been kind and
attentive, because in Provence, the nobles do not despise the peasants.
Ah! it is far otherwise--some are lofty and others humble, but their
hearts are all alike. Monsieur and the young ladies knew how I loved to
read, and that I am unable to buy books and newspapers. They
sometimes lent books to me, when they saw anything which they
fancied would interest me, such as fashion plates, engravings of ladies'
bonnets, interesting stories, like that of Reboul, the baker of Nimes,
Jasmin, the hairdresser of Agen, or Monsieur, the history of your own
life. They know, Monsieur, that above all things I love poetry,
especially that which brings tears into the eyes."
"Ah, I know," said I with a smile, "you are poetical as the winds which
sigh amid your olive-groves, or the dews which drip from your fig
trees."
"No, Monsieur, I am only a mantua-maker--a poor seamstress in ...
street, in Aix, the name of which I am almost ashamed to tell you. I am
no finer lady than was my mother. Once I was servant and nurse in the
house of M.... Ah! they were good people and treated me always as if I
belonged to the family. I too thought I did. My health however, obliged

me to leave them and establish myself as a mantua-maker, in one room,
with no companion but a goldfinch. That, however, is not the question
you asked me,--why I have come hither? I will