I thought Charles’ father the most exquisite, perfect nobleman in all the world. In the days before we were married, he came to the house in a ‘royal’ carriage, had his gates opened and shut by an old flunkey absolutely decked out in gold braid, and bearing a great golden wig on his old head, like a bonfire of money; even his shoes seemed dipped in gold, so much the better to scurry after his master Baudelaire, pulling his chair, or wiping the soup from his lip without imperiling his pronunciations on the current politics of the day–the dratted revolution, of course. I remember standing at his knees, my white veil giving a weird halo to the candles in the stifling room; his head was full of large beautiful grey curls, and his eyebrows were as exact and black as mama’s. I did not know then that one day I would keep his house, or maintain myself in his bed as his lawful wife. I was only nine at the time.
Years later, laughing at me in his dashing way, Joseph-Franscios corrected my misimpression, declaring that he had not only to tip his flunkey at his house just as if he had taken a cab, but he had to thank him for his pains as well!
His manners were always kept to the ‘perfect pitch,’ and he was well known to have a brilliantined mind, and also additionally the naive vigor; good bold shoulders, you know. And the bonhomie of La Fontaine, the fabulist.
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