Page:Madame Rolland (Blind 1886).djvu/43

Rh life. To live on your plot of ground, to grow your own fruits and vegetables, to taste the living sweetness of the air, seemed to her the most exquisite lot; and whenever there was any question as to where the family should go for their Sunday excursion, she pleaded for Meudon. One of the most charming passages in her Memoirs is the description of such a trip:—

We went often to Meudon, it was my favourite walk; I preferred its wild woods, its solitary ponds, its avenues of pines, its towering trees, to the crowded paths and monotonous groves of the Bois de Boulogne, to the ornamental gardens of Bellevue, or the clipped alloys of St. Cloud. "Where shall we go to-morrow?" quoth my father, on the Saturday evenings during summer-time; "the fountains are to play; there will be a world of company." "Oh, papa! If you would only go to Meudon, I should like it so much better." At five o'clock on a Sunday morning, everybody was astir. A fresh simple muslin frock, a few flowers and a gauze veil, showed the plans of the day. The Odes of Rousseau, a play by Corneille, or some other author, formed my only baggage. Then the three of us set off and embarked at the Pont Royal (which I could see from my window) on board a little boat, which carried us with delightful rapidity to the shores of Bellevue, not far from the glassworks, the dense black smoke of which is seen from a great distance. Thence by a steep ascent we proceeded to the avenue of Meudon, about the middle of which we had noticed a little house on the right, which became one of our halting places.

One day, after having rambled about for a long time in an unfrequented part of the wood, we reached an open and solitary spot, at the end of an avenue of tall trees, where promenaders were but rarely seen; a few more trees, scattered on a charming lawn, seemed to screen a prettily-built cottage, two stories high.—Ah! What have we here? Two pretty children were playing before the door. They had neither a town-bred air, nor those signs of misery so common to the country; on drawing nearer we noticed a kitchen-garden, where an old man was at work. To walk inland enter into conversation with him was the affair of an instant. We learned that the place was called Ville Bonne; that its inhabitant was the water-bailiff of the Moulin-Rouge, whose office it was to see that the canals conveying water to the different parts of the park were kept in repair; that the slender salary of this place helped to support a young couple, the parents of