How deeply your letter moved me;above all,when I compare our widely different destinies!How brilliant is the world you are entering,how peaceful the retreat where I shall end my modest career!
In the Castle of Maucombe,which is so well known to you by deion that I shall say no more of it,I found my room almost exactly as I left it;only now I can enjoy the splendid view it gives of the Gemenos valley,which my childish eyes used to see without comprehending.A fortnight after my arrival,my father and mother took me,along with my two brothers,to dine with one of our neighbors,M.de l'Estorade,an old gentleman of good family,who has made himself rich,after the provincial fashion,by scraping and paring.
M.de l'Estorade was unable to save his only son from the clutches of Bonaparte;after successfully eluding the conion,he was forced to send him to the army in 1813,to join the Emperor's bodyguard.
After Leipsic no more was heard of him.M.de Montriveau,whom the father interviewed in 1814,declared that he had seen him taken by the Russians.Mme.de l'Estorade died of grief whilst a vain search was being made in Russia.The Baron,a very pious old man,practised that fine theological virtue which we used to cultivate at Blois--Hope!
Hope made him see his son in dreams.He hoarded his income for him,and guarded carefully the portion of inheritance which fell to him from the family of the late Mme.de l'Estorade,no one venturing to ridicule the old man.
At last it dawned upon me that the unexpected return of this son was the cause of my own.Who could have imagined,whilst fancy was leading us a giddy dance,that my destined husband was slowly traveling on foot through Russia,Poland,and Germany?His bad luck only forsook him at Berlin,where the French Minister helped his return to his native country.M.de l'Estorade,the father,who is a small landed proprietor in Provence,with an income of about ten thousand livres,has not sufficient European fame to interest the world in the wandering Knight de l'Estorade,whose name smacks of his adventures.
The accumulated income of twelve thousand livres from the property of Mme.de l'Estorade,with the addition of the father's savings,provides the poor guard of honor with something like two hundred and fifty thousand livres,not counting house and lands--quite a considerable fortune in Provence.His worthy father had bought,on the very eve of the Chevalier's return,a fine but badly-managed estate,where he designs to plant ten thousand mulberry-trees,raised in his nursery with a special view to this acquisition.The Baron,having found his long-lost son,has now but one thought,to marry him,and marry him to a girl of good family.
My father and mother entered into their neighbor's idea with an eye to my interests so soon as they discovered that Renee de Maucombe would be acceptable without a dowry,and that the money the said Renee ought to inherit from her parents would be duly acknowledged as hers in the contract.In a similar way,my younger brother,Jean de Maucombe,as soon as he came of age,signed a document stating that he had received from his parents an advance upon the estate equal in amount to one-third of whole.This is the device by which the nobles of Provence elude the infamous Civil Code of M.de Bonaparte,a code which will drive as many girls of good family into convents as it will find husbands for.The French nobility,from the little I have been able to gather,seem to be divided on these matters.
The dinner,darling,was a first meeting between your sweetheart and the exile.The Comte de Maucombe's servants donned their old laced liveries and hats,the coachman his great top-boots;we sat five in the antiquated carriage,and arrived in state about two o'clock--the dinner was for three--at the grange,which is the dwelling of the Baron de l'Estorade.
My father-in-law to be has,you see,no castle,only a simple country house,standing beneath one of our hills,at the entrance of that noble valley,the pride of which is undoubtedly the Castle of Maucombe.The building is quite unpretentious:four pebble walls covered with a yellowish wash,and roofed with hollow tiles of a good red,constitute the grange.The rafters bend under the weight of this brick-kiln.The windows,inserted casually,without any attempt at symmetry,have enormous shutters,painted yellow.The garden in which it stands is a Provencal garden,enclosed by low walls,built of big round pebbles set in layers,alternately sloping or upright,according to the artistic taste of the mason,which finds here its only outlet.
The mud in which they are set is falling away in places.
