--some of it
from the Opera--some of it from the Conservatoire, and they brought
their voices and their fiddles with them and played and sang for him for
days, in exchange for his feudal hospitality--more than that, the
painter Paul Deschamps covered the ceiling of his music room with chubby
cupids playing golden trumpets and violins--one adorable little fellow
in the cove above the grand piano struggling with a 'cello twice as high
as himself, and Carin painted the history of love in eight panels upon
the walls of the old ballroom, whose frescoes were shabby enough, so I
am told, when de Savignac purchased them.

There were times also when the chateau was full to overflowing with
guests, so that the late comers were often quartered in a low two-story
manor close by, that nestled under great trees--a cosey, dear old place
covered with ivy and climbing yellow roses, with narrow alleys leading
to it flanked by tall poplars, and a formal garden behind it in the
niches of whose surrounding wall were statues of Psyche and Venus, their
smooth marble shoulders stained by rain and the drip and ooze of
growing things. One of them even now, still lifts its encrusted head to
the weather.

During the shooting season there were weeks when he and his guests shot
daily from the crack of dawn until dark, the game-keepers following with
their carts that by night were loaded with hares, partridges, woodcock
and quail--then such a good dinner, sparkling with repartee and good
wine, and laughter and dancing after it, until the young hours in the
morning. One was more solid in those days than now--tired as their dogs
after the day's hunt, they dined and danced themselves young again for
the morrow.

And what do you think they did after the Commune? They made him mayor.
Yes, indeed, to honour him--Mayor of Hirondelette, the little village
close to his estate, and de Savignac had to be formal and dignified for
the first time in his life--this good Bohemian--at the village fetes, at
the important meetings of the Municipal Council, composed of a dealer in
cattle, the blacksmith and the notary. Again, in time of marriage,
accident or death, and annually at the school exercises, when he
presented prizes to the children spic and span for the occasion, with
voices awed to whispers, and new shoes. And he loved them all--all those
dirty little brats that had been scrubbed clean, and their ruddy cheeks
polished like red apples, to meet "Monsieur le