PREFACE

AN OLD TOWER

One evening in the winter of 1868 or 1869, my father-in-law, Moisson, with whom I was chatting after dinner, took up a book that was lying on the table, open at the page where I had stopped reading, and said: 

“Ah! you are reading Mme. de la Chanterie?”

“Yes,” I replied.  “A fine book; do you know it?”

“Of course!  I even know the heroine.”

“Mme. de la Chanterie!”

“——­ By her real name Mme. de Combray.  I lived three months in her house.”

“Rue Chanoinesse?”

“No, not in the Rue Chanoinesse, where she did not live, any more than she was the saintly woman of Balzac’s novel;—­but at her Chateau of Tournebut d’Aubevoye near Gaillon!”

“Gracious, Moisson, tell me about it;” and without further solicitation, Moisson told me the following story: 

“My mother was a Brecourt, whose ancestor was a bastard of Gaston d’Orleans, and she was on this account a royalist, and very proud of her nobility.  The Brecourts, who were fighting people, had never become rich, and the Revolution ruined them completely.  During the Terror my mother married Moisson, my father, a painter and engraver, a plebeian but also an ardent royalist, participating in all the plots for the deliverance of the royal family.  This explains the mesalliance.  She hoped, besides, that the monarchy, of whose reestablishment she had no doubt, would recognise my father’s services by ennobling him and reviving the name of Brecourt, which was now represented only in the female line.  She always called herself Moisson de Brecourt, and bore me a grudge for using only my father’s name.

“In 1804, when I was eight years old, we were living on the island of Saint-Louis, and I remember very well the excitement in the quarter, and above all in our house, caused by the arrest of Georges Cadoudal.  I can see my mother anxiously sending our faithful servant for news; my father came home less and less often; and at last, one night, he woke me up suddenly, kissed me, kissed my mother hastily, and I can still hear the noise of the street door closing behind him.  We never saw him again!”

“Arrested?”

“No, we should have known that, but probably killed in flight, or dead of fatigue and want, or drowned in crossing some river—­like many other fugitives, whose names I used to know.  He was to have sent us news as soon as he was in safety.  After a month’s waiting, my mother’s despair became alarming.  She seemed mad, committed the most compromising acts, spoke aloud and with so little reserve about Bonaparte, that each time the bell rang, our servant and I expected to see the police.