I was born at Quimper in Brittany on the first of August, 1833, at four o'clock in the morning, and I have been told that I looked about me resolutely and fixed a steady gaze on the people in the room, so that the doctor said, "She is not blind, at all events." The first thing I remember is a hideous doll to which I was passionately attached. It belonged to the child of one of the servants, and my mother, since I would not be parted from it, gave this child, to replace it, a handsome doll. It ha

An important event in my child life was the birth of my sister Eliane. I remember coming in from the garden one day with a little basket full of cockchafers that I had found, and running to show them to maman . She was lying in her large bed, with its four carved bedposts and high canopy, and, smiling faintly, she said: "Oh, no, my little girl; take them away. They will creep and fly over everything." I was, however, so much disappointed at this reception of my gift that maman , bending from her

It was shortly after Eliane's christening, and to celebrate my mother's recovery, that my father gave a great entertainment at Ker-Eliane, near Loch-ar-Brugg. Loch-ar-Brugg, which means Place of Heather, was an old manor and property that my father had bought and at that time used as a hunting-lodge, and Ker-Eliane was a wild, beautiful piece of country adjoining it, a pleasure resort, called after my mother's name. To reach Loch-ar-Brugg we all went by the traveling carriage to my father's nati

During these early years of my life our time, though mainly spent with bonne maman at Quimper, was also given for many months of the year to Landerneau, and a little later on was divided between these two houses and Loch-ar-Brugg. At Landerneau we lived in a vast old house that had been part of my mother's marriage dowry. The family house, equally old and vast, of the Kerouguets was also at Landerneau, and the house of dear Tante Rose, my father's eldest sister. Landerneau was a picturesque old

Over the way lived Tante Rose. We children liked best to go to her house by means of the subterranean passage. It was pitch-dark, and we felt a fearful delight as we galloped through it at full speed, and then beat loudly upon the door at the other end, so that old Kerandraon should not keep us waiting for a moment in the blackness. In the salon, between the windows, her tame magpie hopping near her, we would find Tante Rose spinning at her wheel. There were pink ribbons on her distaff, and her

Across the way from our house in Landerneau lived two old maiden ladies, the Demoiselles de Coatnamprun. The Marquis and Marquise de Coatnamprun, their father and mother, had died many years ago, and most of the small fortune had been filched from them in some iniquitous lawsuit. I remember them very clearly, for I often went to see them with maman and Tante Rose, who watched over them and protected them; gentle, austere figures, dressed always in threadbare black, almost like nuns, with long, w

My most vivid recollections of Grandfather de Rosval place him at Landerneau, where he would stop with us on his way to Quimper during his tours of inspection. His arrivals in the sleepy little town were great affairs and caused immense excitement: post-chaise, postilion, whips cracking, horns blowing, and a retinue of Parisian servants. We children never had more than a glimpse of him at first, for he withdrew at once to his own rooms to rest and go through his papers. When he made his entry in

In the Château de Ker-Guélegaan, near Quimper, lived an old friend of my family's, the Marquis de Ploeuc. The château was one of the oldest in Finisterre, an immense weather-beaten pile with a moat, a drawbridge, a great crenellated tower, and a turret that, springing from the first story, seemed, with its high-pointed roof, to be suspended in the air. Tall, dark trees rose in ordered majesty about the château, and before it a wide band of lawn, called a tapis vert , ran to the lodge-gates that

And now I must tell of Loch-ar-Brugg, the center of my long life and the spot dearest to me upon earth. It was situated amidst the beautiful, wild, heathery country that stretched inland from Landerneau. I first saw it one day when I drove over from Landerneau with my father, and my chief recollection of this earliest visit is the deep shade under the high arch of the beech avenue and the aromatic smell of black currants in an upper room where we were taken to see the liqueur in process of being

I was taken while I was a child at Loch-ar-Brugg to the famous Pardon de Folgoat , to which people came from all Brittany. In Folgoat was the summer residence of Anne de Bretagne, and in the vast hall of the château she had held her audiences. The château is now the presbytery, and is opposite the church, of which there is a legend. A poor child, Yann Salacin, who was devoid of reason, spent hours every day before the altar of the Virgin, which he decorated with the wild flowers that he gathered

We were at Quimper when bonne maman died. She had been failing for some time, and her character, until then so gentle, had altered. Mere trifles disquieted her, and she became fretful, alarmed, and even impatient. She seemed so little in her big bed, and, when I wanted to climb up beside her, after my wont, she signed to Jeannie to take me away and said that it tired her too much to see children and that the air of a sick-room was not good for them. "Tell my daughter—tell her. They must not come

It was not long after bonne maman's death that we left Brittany and went to Paris to live with bon papa . I remember every detail of this my first long journey. The day began with a very early breakfast, which we all had together in the dining-room and at which we had the great treat of drinking chocolate. Then came the complicated business of stowing us all away in our capacious traveling-carriage. It was divided into three compartments. First came what was called the coupé , with windows at th