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Page 11
The foundation charter bears date 1145. Subsequent charters show that the
abbey of Rozel was in possession, in the thirteenth century, of a sort of
patriarchate over all the institutions of the order of Saint Benedict that
were then in existence in the province of Normandy. A general chapter of
the order was held there every year, presided over by the Abbot of Rozel,
and at which some ten or a dozen other convents were represented by
their highest dignitaries. The discipline, the labors, the temporal and
spiritual management of all the Benedictines of the province were here
controlled and reformed with a severity which the minutes of these little
councils attest in the noblest terms. These scenes replete with dignity,
took place in that Capitulary Hall now so shamefully defiled.
Aside from the archives, this library is very rich, and this is apt to
divert attention. Moreover, the vortex of worldly dissipation that rages
in the chateau is not without occasionally doing some prejudice to my
independence. Finally, my worthy hosts frequently take away with one hand
the liberty they have granted me with the other; like many persons of the
world, they have not a very clear idea of the degree of connected
occupation which deserves the name of work, and an hour or two of
reading appears to them the utmost extent of labor that a man can bear
in a day.
"Consider yourself wholly free," Monsieur le Malouet tells me every
morning; "go up to your hermitage; work at your ease."
An hour later he is knocking at my door:
"Well! are we hard at work?"
"Why, yes, I am beginning to get into it."
"What! the duse! You have been at it more than two hours! You are killing
yourself, my friend. However, you are free. By the way, my wife is in the
parlor; when you have done you'll go and keep her company, won't you?"
"Most undoubtdedly I will."
"But only when you have entirely done, of course."
And, he goes off for a hunt or a ride by the seaside. As to myself,
preoccupied with the idea than I am expected, and satisfied that I shall
be unable to do any further work of value, I soon resolve to go and join
Madame de Malouet, whom I find deeply engaged in conversation with the
parish priest, or with Jacquemart (of Bordeaux). She has disturbed me, I
am in her way, and we smile pleasantly to each other.
Such is the manner in which the middle of the day usually passes off.
In the morning, I ride on horseback with the marquis, who is kind enough
to spare me the crowd and tumult of the general riding-parties. In the
evening, I take a hand at whist, then I chat a while with the ladies, and
I try my best to cast off at their feet my bear's skin and reputation; for
I dislike to display any eccentricity of my own, this one rather more so
than any other. There is in a grave disposition, when carried to the point
of stiffness and ill-grace toward women, something coarsely pedantic, that
is unbecoming in great talents and ridiculous in lesser ones. I retire
afterward, and I work rather late in the library. That's the best of my
day.
The society at the chateau is usually made up of the marquis' guests, who
are always numerous at this season, and of a few persons of the
neighborhood. The object of these entertainments on a grand scale is,
above all, to celebrate the visit of Monsieur de Malouet's only daughter,
who comes every year to spend the autumn with her family. She is a person
of statuesque beauty, who amuses herself with queenly dignity, and who
communicates with ordinary mortals by means of contemptuous mono-syllables
uttered in a deep bass voice. She married, some twelve years ago, an
Englishman, a member of the diplomatic corps, Lord A----, a personage
equally handsome and impassive as herself. He addresses at intervals to
his wife an English monosyllable, to which the latter replies
imperturbably with a French monosyllable. Nevertheless, three little
lords, worthy the pencil of Lawrence, who strut majestically around this
Olympian couple, attest between the two nations a secret intelligence
which escapes the vulgar observer.
A scarcely less remarkable couple comes over to us daily from a
neighboring chateau. The husband is one Monsiuer de Breuilly, formerly an
officer in King Charles X's body-guards, and a bosom friend of the
marquis. He is a very lively old man, still quite fine-looking, and
wearing over close-cropped gray hair a hat too small for his head. He has
an odd, though perhaps natural, way of scanning his words, and of speaking
with a degree of deliberation that seems affected. He would be quite
pleasant, however, were it not that his mind is constantly tortured by an
ardent jealousy, and by a no less ardent apprehension of betraying his
weakness, which, nevertheless, is a glaring and obvious fact to every one.
It is difficult to understand how, with such a disposition and a great
deal of common sense, he has committed the signal error of marrying, at
the age of fifty-five, a young and pretty woman, and a creole, I believe,
in the bargain.
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