“My mother-in-law solemnly installed us in the rooms she and her deceased husband had formerly inhabited. The scene was a touching one. ‘I lived all my married life here,’ said she, ‘quite happy. May that be a happy omen for you, my dear children!’
“And she has taken Calyste’s room. The saintly woman seemed to wish to divest herself of her memories and her admirable life as a wife to endow us with them.
“The province of Brittany, this town, this family with its antique manners—the whole thing, in spite of the absurdities, which are invisible to any but a mocking Parisian woman, has something indescribably grandiose, even in its details, to be expressed only by the word sacred. The tenants of the last estates of the du Guénics, repurchased, as you know, by Mademoiselle des Touches—whom we are to visit in the convent—all came out to receive us. These good folks in their holiday dresses, expressing the greatest joy at greeting Calyste as really their master once more, made me understand what Brittany is, and feudality, and old France. It was a festival I will not write about; I will tell you when we meet. The terms of all the leases have been proposed by the tenants themselves, and we are to sign after the tour of inspection we are to make round our lands that have been pledged this century and a half. Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoël tells us that these yeomen have assessed the returns with an accuracy that Paris folk would not believe in. We are to start three days hence, and ride everywhere.
“On my return I will write again, dear mother; but what can I have to say to you, since my happiness is already complete? So I must write what you know already, namely, how much I love you.”
II
From the same to the same
“After playing the part of the Lady of the Castle, worshiped by her vassals as though the revolutions of 1830 and 1789 had never torn down our banners; after riding through woods, halting at farms, dining at old tables spread with cloths a century old, and groaning under Homeric dishes served in antediluvian plate; after drinking delicious wine out of goblets like those we see in the hands of conjurors; after salvos fired at dessert, and deafening shouts of ‘Vive les du Guénics!’ and balls, where the orchestra is a bagpipe, which a man blows at for ten hours on end! and such bouquets! and brides who insist on having our blessing! and healthy fatigue, cured by such sleep as I had never known, and a delicious waking to love as radiant as the sun that shines above us, twinkling on a myriad insects that hum in genuine Breton! Finally, after a grotesque visit to the Castle of du Guénic, where the windows are open gates, and the cows might pasture on the grass grown in the halls; but we have vowed to restore it, and furnish it, so as to come here every year and be hailed by the vassals of the clan, one of whom carried our banner.—Ouf! here I am at Nantes.
“What a day we had when we went to le Guénic! The priest and all the clergy came out to meet us, all crowned with flowers, mother, and blessed us with such joy! The tears come into my eyes as I write about it. And my lordly Calyste played his part as a liege like a figure of Walter Scott’s. Monsieur received homage as if we had stepped back into the thirteenth century. I heard girls and women saying, ‘What a handsome master we have!’ just like the chorus of a comic opera.
“The old folks discussed Calyste’s likeness to the du Guénics whom they had known. Oh! Brittany is a noble and sublime country, a land of faith and religion. But progress has an eye on it; bridges and roads are to be made, ideas will invade it, and farewell to the sublime. The peasants will certainly cease to be as free and proud as I saw them when it has been proved to them that they are Calyste’s equals, if, indeed, they can be brought to believe it.
“So after the poetry of this pacific restoration, when we had signed the leases we left that delightful country, flowery and smiling, gloomy and barren by turns, and we came here to kneel before her to whom we owe our good fortune, and give her thanks. Calyste and I both felt the need to thank the novice of the Visitation. In memory of her he will bear on his shield quarterly the arms of des Touches: party per pale engrailed or and vert. He will assume one of the silver eagles as a supporter, and place in its beak the pretty womanly motto, ‘Souviègne-vous.’—So we went yesterday to the Convent of the Ladies of the Visitation, conducted by the Abbé Grimont, a friend of the Guénic family; he told us that your beloved Félicité, dear mamma, is a saint; indeed, she can be no less to him, since this illustrious conversion has led to his being made vicar-general of the diocese. Mademoiselle des Touches would not see Calyste; she received me alone. I found her a little altered, paler and thinner; she seemed extremely pleased
