Perhaps, rather too much the 'wife of a La Roche-sur-Yon physician', but one cannot blame her for that.
She is the daughter of what we still call at home a landed proprietor, a man who owns a certain number of farms and who lives in the city on his income. I am not sure if he belongs to the real nobility or if, like most of the country squires of the Vendée, he simply thought fit to add a de to his name. In any case, he calls himself Hilaire de Lanusse.
Did you think she was beautiful? I have heard it repeated so often that I no longer know what to think. And I am quite ready to believe it. She is tall, she has a good figure, now on the stout rather than the thin side.
Mothers at La Roche-sur-Yon are always telling their daughters:
'You should learn to walk like Mme Alavoine ...'
She glides, you noticed that. She moves, as she smiles, with such ease and naturalness that you think it must be a secret.
At the beginning Mama used to say:
'She carries herself like a queen ...'
You saw what a profound impression she made on the court, on the jury, and even on the reporters. While she was on the stand, I saw people looking me over curiously and it wasn't difficult to guess what they were thinking: 'How could such a lout have a wife like that?' It is the impression we have always given people, she and I. I should say that it is the impression she has always given me as well, and I have been a long time getting rid of it.
Have I really got rid of it? I shall probably come back to this later on. It is very complex, but I think that I have finally come to understand.
Do you know La Roche-sur-Yon, if only from having passed through it? It is not a real city, not what in France we call a city. Napoleon created it from scratch for strategic reasons, so it lacks that character which the slow contributions of centuries have given to our other cities, the vestiges of numerous generations.
On the other hand, we lack neither space nor sunlight. In fact there's rather too much of both. It is a dazzling city, with white houses along the wide - too wide - boulevards, and right-angle transverse streets eternally swept by breezes.
As monuments, first of all there are the barracks - and they are everywhere. Then the equestrian-statue of Napoleon in the centre of the vast esplanade, where men look like ants; the Prefecture, so harmonious in its shady park ...
That's all, your Honour. One business street to supply the needs of the peasants who come to town for the monthly fairs, a tiny theatre flanked by Doric columns, a post office, a hospital, thirty or so doctors, three or four lawyers, notaries, real estate agents, dealers in farm machinery and fertilizer, and a dozen insurance salesmen.
And two cafés, each with its habitués, opposite the statue of Napoleon and a few steps away from a Palais de Justice with its inner courtyard like a cloister; a few bistros, abounding in good smells, on the market-place, and you've made the rounds of the town ...
We settled down there in May in a house that was practically new, separated from a quiet street by a lawn and clipped hedges. A locksmith came and fastened a handsome brass plate to the iron gate, bearing my name and the information 'General Practitioner' and my office hours.
For the first time we had a formal drawing-room, a real drawing-room with white wainscoting more than shoulder-high and decorative panels over the doors, but it was several months before we could afford to furnish it. Also, for the first time, we had an electric buzzer in the dining-room to ring for the maid.
And this time we engaged a maid right away, for it would have been improper for my mother to be seen doing the housework. Naturally, she did it anyway, but, thanks to the maid, honour was saved.
It is curious that I can scarcely recall that first maid. She must have been very nondescript, neither young nor old. My mother affirms that she was devoted to us and I have no reason for thinking otherwise.
I have a
She is the daughter of what we still call at home a landed proprietor, a man who owns a certain number of farms and who lives in the city on his income. I am not sure if he belongs to the real nobility or if, like most of the country squires of the Vendée, he simply thought fit to add a de to his name. In any case, he calls himself Hilaire de Lanusse.
Did you think she was beautiful? I have heard it repeated so often that I no longer know what to think. And I am quite ready to believe it. She is tall, she has a good figure, now on the stout rather than the thin side.
Mothers at La Roche-sur-Yon are always telling their daughters:
'You should learn to walk like Mme Alavoine ...'
She glides, you noticed that. She moves, as she smiles, with such ease and naturalness that you think it must be a secret.
At the beginning Mama used to say:
'She carries herself like a queen ...'
You saw what a profound impression she made on the court, on the jury, and even on the reporters. While she was on the stand, I saw people looking me over curiously and it wasn't difficult to guess what they were thinking: 'How could such a lout have a wife like that?' It is the impression we have always given people, she and I. I should say that it is the impression she has always given me as well, and I have been a long time getting rid of it.
Have I really got rid of it? I shall probably come back to this later on. It is very complex, but I think that I have finally come to understand.
Do you know La Roche-sur-Yon, if only from having passed through it? It is not a real city, not what in France we call a city. Napoleon created it from scratch for strategic reasons, so it lacks that character which the slow contributions of centuries have given to our other cities, the vestiges of numerous generations.
On the other hand, we lack neither space nor sunlight. In fact there's rather too much of both. It is a dazzling city, with white houses along the wide - too wide - boulevards, and right-angle transverse streets eternally swept by breezes.
As monuments, first of all there are the barracks - and they are everywhere. Then the equestrian-statue of Napoleon in the centre of the vast esplanade, where men look like ants; the Prefecture, so harmonious in its shady park ...
That's all, your Honour. One business street to supply the needs of the peasants who come to town for the monthly fairs, a tiny theatre flanked by Doric columns, a post office, a hospital, thirty or so doctors, three or four lawyers, notaries, real estate agents, dealers in farm machinery and fertilizer, and a dozen insurance salesmen.
And two cafés, each with its habitués, opposite the statue of Napoleon and a few steps away from a Palais de Justice with its inner courtyard like a cloister; a few bistros, abounding in good smells, on the market-place, and you've made the rounds of the town ...
We settled down there in May in a house that was practically new, separated from a quiet street by a lawn and clipped hedges. A locksmith came and fastened a handsome brass plate to the iron gate, bearing my name and the information 'General Practitioner' and my office hours.
For the first time we had a formal drawing-room, a real drawing-room with white wainscoting more than shoulder-high and decorative panels over the doors, but it was several months before we could afford to furnish it. Also, for the first time, we had an electric buzzer in the dining-room to ring for the maid.
And this time we engaged a maid right away, for it would have been improper for my mother to be seen doing the housework. Naturally, she did it anyway, but, thanks to the maid, honour was saved.
It is curious that I can scarcely recall that first maid. She must have been very nondescript, neither young nor old. My mother affirms that she was devoted to us and I have no reason for thinking otherwise.
I have a
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