Year: 1864




man miseries so little calculated to divert
even the most philosophical, in that vast
and-bill of which the great Partisan socl-
ETY. is composed.


And we had encountered precisely
what we wished to avoid we were, with
out having suspected it, the guests of
Death; our garden was but cemetery,
our villa funeral lodge standing in the
midst of it, like those inhabited by the
hired guardians of our burying grounds.
When our child, trying his newborn pow
ers, was rolling about this thick turf, so
green, so studded with white daisies, O
horror Q sacreligious proclamation it was
over sepulchre, over cold corpse that,
with his rattle in his hand, this dear little
creature was playing! You will imagine
that nothing more was necessary, not to
speak of the water of the we'll from which
we drank, and for the suspicious taste of
which [ thoguht l could now account, to
induce US to remove Immediately.


"But this is an act of bad faith on the
part of the proprietor" said to Madame
Gilbert. at is sufficient to cancel the
bargain, for people will not endure such
impositions. Who is buried there ?"
added "a criminal, suicide miscre,
ant who died without confession and could
not be buried in consecrated ground 2"


"Not exactly" replied my interloCutOr,
''lt is the former proprietress Of the pa
villion, Madame v, the aunt of the
famous painter, l have been told, whose
fine battle pieces Gilbert saw at the mu-
scum at Versailles one day when the
grand fountains were playing"


HAS this person been dead longW


about FIVE years, l think. Yes, five
years at the approaching plum season"


"And why was she not buried, like
other people, in the village cemetery ?"
Madame Gilbert turned, and casting a
| sly glance to the right and left as if to see
whether any one could hear what she was
about to say, replied -


MADAME v was strong minded
woman, philosopher, l have been told.
! You know there are often such in artists
families. She died at the age of eighty
SIX. In her youth, before the first revo-
luton, she had been acquainted with
many celebrated writers whom she often
quoted and whose works she knew by
heart Que NJ. Voltaire, who was a native
of the village of Chatenay, near here; a
certain Rosseau, Messieurs Dident, DIAL
embert, and many others whose names
do not remember, although they were in
cesseDtly in her mouth. An amiable lit
tie woman she was, too, lively, witty,
agrees bic; charitable to the poor, and
much beloved by our peasants, whom she
never hesitated to assist by her counsels
or her purse. But when she died, scarcely
bent by age, still coquettish, reading the
newspaper daily without spectacIes, it was
yonder, there, beneath that arbor of hon.
ey-suckles, that she seated herself every
morning aud | see her still, with her
white sun bonnet and farthlngaIe of puce.
colored silk, she wished to remain faithful
to her principles, and as she did not be.
lieve IN much of anything, never went to
mass, entertained the curate only, as she
laughingly said, in hopes to convert him,
left a will in which, by formal clause,
she requested to be buried in her own gar
den, beside these eglantines which she had
herself set out and whose roses she loved
to cultivate. Her heirs fulfilled her last
wishes, and when NJ. Roux bought the
property the obligation was imposed on
him that he should respect this little
nook of land"


"Well, it is a disagreeabe condition,
and if the house and garden were to be
sold again | would not buy them at any
price. Meanwhile 1 enjoin it upon you
Dot to say a word of all this to my wife.
| know her; if she should ever learn the
least thing which could confirm her in
her suspicious, she would not remain at
Verrieres one hour As for me, am 90
ing to Paris to have talk with the pro-
pretor."


As I was going without even returning
to the house to engage place in the car
rige of Barbu,a stage with ten seats which
then made regular trips to the city, chance
willed it that I should encounter on the
way Father Michel, our baker, the dep
uty- mayor of the commune. [ naturally
related to him my dissatisfaction and the
step | was about to take.


Father Michel was an excellent man
he held me in great esteem, because that
before having established myself at Yer
rieres, had often made him present of
the game | had killed in that vicinity.


"It is useless for you to go to Paris"
said he to me; son Saturday last, at the
request of Nj Roux himself, the munei-
pal council decided to exhume Madame
v, and transfer her remains to the
neighboring cemetery. You will imagine