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Page 4
This ought to cement the affections.
* * * * *
[Illustration: COMMON IDEALS.
BRITISH FOOD PROFITEER (_to German ditto_). "ALAS! MY POOR BROTHER.
YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN AN ENGLISHMAN. ENGLAND IS A FREE COUNTRY."
[The Berlin _Vossische Zeitung_ states that about four thousand cases
of profiteering are dealt with monthly in Germany.]]
* * * * *
THE FUNERAL OF M. DE BLANCHET.
"Never let your husband have a grievance," said Madame Marcot,
stirring the lump of sugar that she had brought with her to put into
her cup of tea. "It destroys the happiness of the most admirable
households. Have you heard of the distressing case of the de
Blanchets--Victor de Blanchet and his wife?"
We had not.
"Very dear friends of mine," said Madame Marcot vivaciously, delighted
at the chance of an uninterrupted innings, "and belonging to a family
of the most distinguished. They were a truly devoted couple, and had
never been apart during the whole of their married life. As for
him, he was an excellent fellow. If he had a fault, it was only that
perhaps he was a little near; but still, a good fault, is it not? When
he was called to the Front his wife was desolated, simply desolated.
And then, poor M. de Blanchet--_not_ the figure for a soldier--of a
rotundity, Mesdames!" And Madame Marcot lifted her eyes heavenwards,
struck speechless for a moment at the thought of M. de Blanchet's
outline. "However, like all good Frenchmen, he made no fuss, but went
off to do his duty. He wrote to his wife every day, and she wrote to
him.
"All at once his letters ceased, and then, after a long delay, came
the official notice, 'Missing.' Imagine the suspense, the anxiety! For
weeks she continued to hope against hope, but at last she heard that
his body had been found. It had been recognised by the clothes, the
identity disc (or whatever you call it), and the stoutness, for, alas,
the unfortunate gentleman's head had been nearly blown away by a shell
and was quite unrecognisable. Poor Madame de Blanchet's grief was
terrible to witness when they brought her his sad clothing, with the
embroidered initials upon it worked by her own hand. One thing she
insisted on, and that was that his body should be buried at A----, in
the family vault of the de Blanchets, who, as I have said before, are
very distinguished people. "This meant endless red tape, as you may
imagine, and endless correspondence with the authorities, and delays
and vexations, but finally she got her wish, and the funeral was the
most magnificent ever witnessed in that part of the world. You should
have seen the '_faire part_,'" said Madame Marcot, alluding to the
black-bordered mourning intimations sent out in France, inscribed with
the names of every individual member of the family concerned, from the
greatest down to the most insignificant and obscure. "Several pages, I
assure you; and everybody came. The cort�ge was a mile long. M. l'Abb�
Colaix officiated; there was a full choral mass; and she got her
second cousin once removed, M. Aristide G�rant, who, as you know,
is Director of the College of Music at A----, to compose a requiem
specially for the occasion; and he did not do it for nothing, you may
believe me. In fine, a first-class funeral. But, as she said, when
some of her near relations, including her stepmother, who is not of
the most generous, remonstrated with her on the score of the expense,
'I would wish to honour my dear husband in death as I honoured him in
life.'
"After it was all over she had a magnificent marble monument erected
over the tomb, recording all his virtues, and with a bas-relief of
herself (a very inaccurate representation, I am told, as it gave her
a Madonna-like appearance to which she can lay no claim in real life)
shedding tears upon his sarcophagus."
Madame Marcot paused for breath, and, thinking the story finished, we
drifted in with appropriate comments. But we were soon cut short.
"Ten months afterwards," continued the lady dramatically, "as Madame
de Blanchet, dressed of course in the deepest mourning, was making
strawberry jam in the kitchen and weeping over her sorrows, who should
walk in but Monsieur?"
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