The Spell of the Heart of France

paternal grandmother, Marie des Moulins, the wife of Jean Racine, controller of the salt warehouse; he was thirteen months old when his mother died and three years old at the death of hi

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d united; Racine handled the interests of his brother-in-law at Paris; the Rivières sent Racine skylarks and cheeses; and when Racine's childre

g at La Ferté-Milon today will awaken remin

he opposite bank, the little old town with its little old houses clambers up the abrupt slope of a hill which is crowned by the formidable ruin of the stronghold. Here

ng; but, notwithstanding his great wig, he is half naked, holding up with his hand a cloth which surrounds his body and forms "harmonious" folds. It is Racine at the bath. Near hi

will come here April 23.... Racine had two boys and five girls.... There was a swan in his coat of arms; the swan is the symbol of purity. Fénelon, Bishop of Cambrai, has been compared to a swan. Fénelon, born in 1651 and dead in 1715, is the author of Télémaque and of the Maximes des Saints. This last work embroiled him with Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, in Latin Jacobus Benignus, Bishop of Meaux, who wrote Oraisons funèbres and the Discours sur V histoire universelle, which he was unfortunately unabl

bove a door in the garden of the new house. But, in the same street, there stands another house (No. 14) which belonged to the paternal grandparents of Jean Racine; it is here, according to other conjectures, that the author of Athalie was born. And these two houses are not the only ones at La Ferté which dispute the honor of having seen the birth of Racine.... I will not get mixed up

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an old bust more or less roughly repaired; at its foot has been placed a tawdry cast-iron hydrant. This is called the Rac

able fa?ade of the old castle of Louis of Orleans, an enormous crenelated fortress, flanked with towers, whose naked grandeur is set off by sculptures, marvelous but mutilated, alas! There are statues of armed champions framed in elegant foliage, and, above the arch of the great door, the celebrated Coronation of the Virgin, one of the masterpieces of French sculpture; a cast of it can be studied at the Trocadero, and the

ng at all the curiosities which amuse our eclectic taste. I imagine, however, that a man of the seventeenth century, a contemporary of Racine, would have been stupified to think that any one could enjoy the verses of Bérénice and at the same time be sensitive to the charm of the old Gothic images, carved upon the wall of this "barbarous" donjon. Time has done its work; it has effaced the prejudices of centuries; it has allowed us to perceive that the sculptor of the Coronation

lls of the Ourcq valley, and, as I contemplate the soft and beautiful undulations cover

er more than groves.... Little brooks wound among bunches of alders with gracious smiles.... All is medium-sized here, tempered, inclined rather toward delicacy than toward strength." How exact all this is! There is a perfect concordance between the genius of La Fontaine and th

e grace and nobleness. The fines of the different planes intermingle without ever breaking one another. The undulations unfold with a caressing, almost musical, slo

a doci

which turns a

e aid of its wat

whole fiel

sovereign mast

kings he thus

nd the meadows; and we must follow upon the horizon the elegant sinuosity of the low hills, to appreciate the mysterious an

rsed of good things. They never spoke to anybody; but when they returned at nine o'clock, walking in single file and telling their beads, the townsfolk, seated before their doors, rose in respect and kept silence as they passed. (It is still easy to imagine this admirable scene in the little streets of La Ferté; the architecture has changed so little!) The good odor, as Lancelot calls it, which was spread by the three Jansenists, remained as a living influence in the little town. And this sojourn of the hermits brought Port-Royal near to the Racine family. The sister of the poet's grandmother was already cellaress at the abbey; his aunt will later take the veil; his grandmother will end her life at Port-Royal

AUX AND

eting the notes collected in the course of a stroll which I undertook on a warm and charming day last

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her at the episcopal residence or in Bossuet's country ho

Rebelliau, those pages which are so vivid and in which is sketched with so much relief and truth the figure "of an everyday Bossuet, sweet and simple." 1 It seemed to me that nowhere could

erent from that of Bausset. This cardinal, although he composed his book from the manuscripts of Abbé Le Dieu, could not resign himself to the simplicity of the faithful secretary. He has doubtless

of tiring the people." This is the phrase reported by Abbé Le Dieu. And this is how Cardinal de Bausset translates the expression to make it more suitable to the gravity of the author of the Oraisons funè

mage by a visit to th

is talents to their instruction. He promised to preach on every occasion when he should pontificate; and that no business, however pressing, should ever prevent him from coming to celebrate the high, feasts with his people and to preach the word of God to them. He never failed

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y sermons no longer exists. Its panels have b

the emotions or to speak to the imagination. Externally and internally, a

told that the authorities have not yet selected the place which this monument will occupy in the cathedral. How admirable! The monument has been conceived and executed for an undet

Madame Bossuet. His family had undertaken the management of the household; he was a spendthrift and gave little attention to the cares of daily life, devoting all his

ity to take care of his income. She had become mistress of the episcopal mansio

the Bishop of Troyes, Madame de La Briffe, the dowager, Madame Amelot, President Larcher, and other male and female company, to the number of eight. There was a magnificent repast for those who were fasting and those who were not, w

and quiet necessary for his immense labors. He had to find a retreat where he coul

s a sure and austere asylum for meditation. This was, it is said, the bishop's promenade. At the very end, upon the platform of a former bastion, a little pavilion served

leep. He found his desk in readiness, his armchair in position, his books piled upon chairs, his portfolio of papers, his pens, his writing pad and his lighted lamp; and he

em, armed himself for the eternal combat and worked for the welfare of the souls which w

s diocese during the twenty-two y

n his country house at Germigny r

andscape has the grace and freshness which is characteristic of the whole valley of the Marne: a horizon of tiny hills, humble and smiling, a fertile and regularly cultivated plain, an old mill lost among the willows, a line of great poplars, a sluggish, grassy rivulet, resigned

unt in the neighboring forests. Bossuet's predecessor, M. de Ligny, spent fifty thousand crowns in transforming the old house into a veritable chateau. The do

t are still standing, and the wreckers have respected the long terrace whose foot was formerly bathed by the Marne; it is today separated from the river by a highway

came to his country house to realize that dream of his youth which he had ingenuously expressed in a sermon: "What an agreeable diversion to contemplate how the works of nature advance to perfection by insensibl

field and the flowers which pass in a day. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory and with that beautiful diadem with which his mother crowned his head, was not arrayed like one of these.' See these rich carpets with which the e

stial whiteness which spread on all sides; the stars had disappeared and the moon had arisen as a crescent, of a silver hue so beautiful and so lively that the eyes were charmed by it.... In proportion as he approached, I saw her disappear; the feeble cr

ble and courteous fashion, the illustrious personages who came to visit him. The Great Condé, the Duc de Bourbon, the Prince de Conti, the Comte de Toulouse, the Duc de Maine, Cardinal Noailles, Marshal de Villars, Madame de Mo

aux, "you will tell us of the marvels of spring at Germigny. Ours commences to be beautiful: if you do not wish to believe it, Monsignor, come to see it." (April 25, 1692.) And on another occasion, Fénelon sent to Bossuet verses upon his countryside which are, alas!-verses by Fénelon! Nine years later the springtimes of Germigny were forgotten. The Maximes des Sain

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who commenced in this country house the portrait of Bossuet which today may be found in the Louvre; Santeul, "the gray-haired ch

evoke the "sweet and simple" Bossuet! When we see that he has so many friends and know this taste for retreat and country life, the man l

theless, however little we may wish to recall the vicissitudes of the dispute, we must admit that the excess of shiftiness of the crafty Perigordian sufficiently justified the excess of hardness of the impetuous Burgundian. But, in addition, we are not dealing here with Bossuet as a polemist. The profundity as well as the ingenuousness of his faith would excuse the vehemence of

g simple and awkward which brought him nearer to the people than to the great ones among whom he h

ondemned violence and constraint, and there was only a single military execution in the diocese of Meaux. It would be childish to reproach a Catholic bishop of the seventeenth century for not having criticized the Revocation, of the Edict, especially since this bishop, the author of Politique tirée de l'Ecriture sainte, should have been, more than any other, impressed by the perils which the republi

ggestiveness, and when we have seen the beautiful garden of the bishop's house at Meaux and the charming country about Germigny, we are more disposed to believe that the Bossuet

le and the best informed of guides in my promenade: the Abbé Formé, pr