In the Days of My Youth Part 31

"Shall it be Versailles?" suggested Josephine.

"Heaven forbid!"

Josephine opened her large eyes.

"_Mon Dieu!_" said she. "What is there so very dreadful in Versailles?"

I made no reply. I was pa.s.sing all the suburbs in review before my mind's eye,--Bellevue, Enghien, Fontenay-aux-Roses, St. Germains, Sceaux; even Fontainebleau and Compiegne.

The grisette pouted, and glanced at the clock.

"If Monsieur is as slow to start as he is to answer," said she, "we shall not get beyond the barriers to-day."

At this moment, I remembered to have heard of Montlhery as a place where there was a forest and a feudal ruin; also, which was more to the purpose, as lying at least six-and-twenty miles south of Paris.

"My dear Mademoiselle Josephine," I said, "forgive me. I have planned an excursion which I am sure will please you infinitely better than a mere common-place trip to Versailles. Versailles, on Sunday, is vulgar. You have heard, of course, of Montlhery--one of the most interesting places near Paris."

"I have read a romance called _The Tower of Montlhery"_ said Josephine.

"And that tower--that historical and interesting tower--is still standing! How delightful to wander among the ruins--to recall the stirring events which caused it to be besieged in the reign of--of either Louis the Eleventh, or Louis the Fourteenth; I don't remember which, and it doesn't signify--to explore the picturesque village, and ramble through the adjoining woods of St. Genevieve--to visit..."

"I wonder if we shall find any donkeys to ride," interrupted Josephine, upon whom my eloquence was taking the desired effect.

"Donkeys!" I exclaimed, drawing, I am ashamed to say, upon my imagination. "Of course--hundreds of them!"

"_Ah, ca_! Then the sooner we go the better. Stay, I must just lock my door, and leave word with my neighbor on the next floor that I am gone out for the day,"

So she locked the door and left the message, and we started. I was fortunate enough to find a close cab at the corner of the _marche_--she would have preferred an open one, but I overruled that objection on the score of time--and before very long we were seated in the cushioned fauteuils of a first-cla.s.s compartment on the Orleans Railway, and speeding away towards Montlhery.

It was with no trifling sense of relief that I found the place really picturesque, when we arrived. We had, it is true, to put up with a comfortless drive of three or four miles in a primitive, jolting, yellow omnibus, which crawled at stated hours of the day between the town and the station; but that was a minor evil, and we made the best of it.

First of all, we strolled through the village--the clean, white, sunny village, where the people were sitting outside their doors playing at dominoes, and the c.o.c.ks and hens were walking about like privileged inhabitants of the market-place. Then we had luncheon at the _auberge_ of the "Lion d'Or." Then we looked in at the little church (still smelling of incense from the last service) with its curious old altar-piece and monumental bra.s.ses. Then we peeped through the iron gate of the melancholy _cimetiere_, which was full of black crosses and wreaths of _immortelles_. Last of all, we went to see the ruin, which stood on the summit of a steep and solitary rock in the midst of a vast level plain. It proved to be a round keep of gigantic strength and height, approached by two courtyards and surrounded by the weed-grown and fragmentary traces of an extensive stronghold, nothing of which now remained save a few broken walls, three or four embrasured loopholes, an ancient well of incalculable depth, and the rusted teeth of a formidable portcullis. Here we paused awhile to rest and admire the view; while Josephine, pleased as a child on a holiday, flung pebbles into the well, ate sugar-plums, and amused herself with my pocket-telescope.

"_Regardez_!" she cried, "there is the dome of the Pantheon. I am sure it is the Pantheon--and to the right, far away, I see a town!--little white houses, and a steeple. And there goes a steamer on the river--and there is the railway and the railway station, and the long road by which we came in the omnibus. Oh, how nice it is, Monsieur Basil, to look through a telescope!"

"Do me the favor, _ma belle_, to accept it--for my sake," said I, thankful to find her so easily entertained. I was lying in a shady angle of old wall, puffing away at a cigar, with my hat over my eyes, and the soles of my boots levelled at the view. It is difficult to smoke and make love at the same time; and I preferred the tobacco.

Josephine was enchanted, and thanked me in a thousand pretty, foolish phrases. She declared she saw ever so much farther and clearer with the gla.s.s, now that it was her own. She looked at me through it, and insisted that I should look at her. She picked out all sorts of marvellous objects, at all sorts of incredible distances. In short, she prattled and chattered till I forgot all about the washing-tub, and again began to think her quite charming. Presently we heard wandering sounds of music among the trees at the foot of the hill--sounds as of a violin and bagpipes; now coming with the wind from the west, now dying away to the north, now bursting out afresh more merrily than ever, and leading off towards the village.

"_Tiens_! that must be a wedding!" said Josephine, drumming with her little feet against the side of the old well on which she was sitting.

"A wedding! what connection subsists, pray, between the bonds of matrimony, and a tune on the bagpipes?"

"I don't know what you mean by bagpipes--I only know that when people get married in the country, they go about with the musicians playing before them. What you hear yonder is a violin and a _cornemuse_."

"A _cornemuse!_" I repeated. "What's that?"

"Oh, country music. A thing you blow into with your mouth, and play upon with your fingers, and squeeze under your arm--like this."

"Then it's the same thing, _ma chere_," said I. "A bagpipes and a _cornemuse_--a _cornemuse_ and bagpipes. Both of them national, popular, and frightful."

"I'm so fond of music," said Josephine.

Not wishing to object to her tastes, and believing that this observation related to the music then audible, I made no reply.

"And I have never been to an opera," added she.

I was still silent, though from another motive.

"You will take me one night to the Italiens, or the Opera Comique, will you not, Monsieur Basil?" pursued she, determined not to lose her opportunity.

I had now no resource but to promise; which I did, very reluctantly.

"You would enjoy the Opera Comique far more than the Italiens," said I, remembering that Madame de Marignan had a box at the Italiens, and rapidly weighing the chances for and against the possibility of recognition. "At the first they sing in French--at the last, in Italian,"

"Ah, bah! I should prefer the French," replied she, falling at once into the snare. "When shall it be--this week?"

"Ye--es; one evening this week."

"What evening?"

"Well, let me see--we had better wait, and consult the advertis.e.m.e.nts."

"_Dame_! never mind the advertis.e.m.e.nts. Let it be Tuesday."

"Why Tuesday?"

"Because it is soon; and because I can get away early on Tuesdays if I ask leave."

I had, plainly, no chance of escape.

"You would not prefer to see the great military piece at the Porte St.

Martin?" I suggested. "There are three hundred real soldiers in it, and they fire real cannon."

"Not I! I have been to the Porte St. Martin, over and over again. Emile knew one of the scene-painter's a.s.sistants, and used to get tickets two or three times a month."

"Then it shall be the Opera Comique," said I, with a sigh.

"And on Tuesday evening next."

"On Tuesday evening next."

At this moment the piping and fiddling broke out afresh, and Josephine, who had scarcely taken the little telescope from her eye all the time, exclaimed that she saw the wedding party going through the market-place of the town.

"There they are--the musicians first; the bride and bridegroom next; and eight friends, all two and two! There will be a dance, depend on it! Let us go down to the town, and hear all about it! Perhaps they might invite us to join them--who knows?"

"But you would not dance before dinner?"

"_Eh, mon Dieu_! I would dance before breakfast, if I had the chance.