my reception which I did not feel. It seemed to me that a
rate-collector, presenting a demand note, could have boasted a more
graceful errand. The door opened and an old lady in a black silk gown
inquired, "Qu'est-ce que vous voulez, M'sieu'?" I presented my
billeting-paper with a bow. Her waist was girt with a kind of
bombardier's girdle from which hung a small armoury of steel implements
and leather scabbards: scissors, spectacle case, a bunch of keys, a
button-hook, and other more or less intimidating things. "Jeanne," she
called in a quavering voice, and as the _bonne_ appeared, tying her
apron-strings, they read the billeting-paper together, the one looking
over the shoulder of the other, Madame reading the words as a child
reads, and as though she were speaking to herself. The paper shook in
her tremulous hands, and I could see that she was very old. It was
obvious that my appearance in that quiet household was as agitating as
it was unexpected. "Et votre ordonnance?" she asked, with a glance at my
servant. "Non, il dort dans la caserne." "Bien!" she said, and with a
smile made me welcome.


It was soon evident that, my credentials being once established, I was
to be regarded as a member of the household, and nothing would satisfy
Madame but that I should be assured of this. Having shown me my bedroom,
with its pompous bed draped with a tent of curtains, she took me on a
tour of her _ménage_. I was conducted into the kitchen, bright with
copper pans and the _marmite_--it was as sweet and clean as a dairy; the
resources of the still-room were displayed to me, and the confitures and
spices were not more remarkable than the domestic pharmacy in which the
herbs of the field had been distilled by Madame's own hands to yield
their peculiar virtues, rue for liver, calamint for cholera, plantain
for the kidneys, fennel for indigestion, elderberry for sore throat, and