My Memoirs Part 1

My Memoirs.

by Marguerite Steinheil.

CHAPTER I

CHILDHOOD

(_"Monsieur et Madame Edouard j.a.py have the honour to inform you of the birth of a daughter." Beaucourt, April, 16th, 1869._)

Beaucourt is a village in the "Belfort Territory," not far from the Swiss and German frontiers. It was in that village, at the "Chateau Edouard"--all large mansions in that region are called "chateaux," and the name of the owner is added to the word--that I was born some forty years ago.

Beaucourt and nearly all of the surrounding country belongs to, or is dependent upon, the j.a.py family, whose vast factories and mills give a living to thousands of workmen.

After a family quarrel, my father, Edouard j.a.py, had severed his connection with "j.a.py Bros." some time before my birth. Having resigned his directors.h.i.+p of the Company, he busied himself exclusively with his huge estate, devoting his days to the farm and woods, to his beloved park and the picturesque cascades which he had designed himself, to his flowers and orchards, to his family and to music.

My mother was the daughter of the innkeeper of the Red Lion, the chief inn of Montbeliard in those already distant days. Edouard j.a.py had married Mlle. Emilie Rau in spite of the opposition of his family, who had declared that such a marriage would be a _mesalliance_. He had married her--as he often told me when, as a young girl, I became more than his child: his friend and confidante--because "she was very beautiful and very good." My mother had dark eyes, large and very tender, and her raven-black hair, when loosed, streamed down to her feet. She was of a quiet and sunny nature, kind, serene, and smiling.

She ignored evil, was exquisitely artless, and never understood a great deal of the realities of life, because she did not see them. She gave away and spent without counting, was indulgent in a manner as touching as it was unconscious, and went through life a simple and happy being, knowing neither great exultation nor deep depression, incapable of sustained effort or serious worry. Edouard adored Emilie, Emilie adored Edouard, and all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

The man who was to be my father having decided--and he had both will and charm--that Mlle. Rau should be his wife, managed to have her sent to a boarding-school at Stuttgart, so that she might complete her education.

Mlle. Rau was then fourteen years old. Two years later she became Madame j.a.py. Her husband was then twenty-five.

I do not intend to sketch here the history of the j.a.pys of Beaucourt; but after having given a few details about my parents, I may add a few about my grandparents, if only to satisfy the curiosity of those who believe as much in atavism as in heredity.

The first j.a.pys who "matter" were two brothers, the grandfather and great-uncle of my father. The one, an inventor of genius, at first turned his attention to clocks and then to all kinds of machine tools--s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, planing, riveting, bolting, boring, and so on. He created; his brother organised. The first had ideas; the second rendered them practical and profitable. I will not say any more about the financier and company-promoter, but the following story about the inventor is well worth telling: He had built for himself a small house, "on stilts," as it were. Below the floor of the large and only room, there was nothing but--air, and then the gra.s.s of the meadow. The inventor reached his retreat with the help of a rope ladder, which he withdrew when he had climbed up to his famous "idea-room." There, safe from intrusion, he worked, day after day, and for his meals was satisfied with a little bread and cheese. It was generally dark before he returned to earth and joined his wife, who, I have been told, was strikingly beautiful.

Later, the children of those two brothers, developed the already important undertaking of their fathers, and gradually the firm j.a.py Freres became what it is to-day, one of the largest and strongest industrial concerns in France.

I was educated by resident governesses and professors. One of the governesses, questioned thirty-five years later, was to declare that at the age of five, I used to lie a good deal but that I succeeded in being forgiven, thanks to my "talents as an actress."

At my trial in the Paris a.s.size Court, the Public Prosecutor made a great deal out of this evidence, and saw therein a sure sign of my precocious depravity.

Personally, I believe that all normal children tell fibs, more or less, and I am delighted to think that I was a normal little girl. As for my talent as an actress, I have since seen too many little girls of five to believe seriously in it. I smile, and I proceed....

My father looked after my education with charming care. My brother and my sisters were brought up in boarding-schools, but my school was at home, in a large room on the first floor. I still see that light and beautiful room, overlooking our park, the trees of which, alive with birds, were so often the cause of much inattention to my work. I see the two blackboards, the one covered at regular intervals with detested figures and the other written over with words and sentences or the names of places and people. My father, wearing a stern expression, kept entering the room to see "how the little one was getting on," and invariably had some recommendation to make: "Since you are telling her about the Odyssey, make her follow Ulysses' travels on a map," or "I see you are reading the Iliad, pray insist on Andromache, Hector, Achilles, but skip whenever you come to Nestor; he was a fool and a bore."...

"Promise to take her to Domremy if she learns to love Joan of Arc."...

"You are studying Napoleon.... Wait one moment, I'll fetch an alb.u.m of Raffet's drawings for her."... "What, you are drawing in this room, in this weather! Run down into the garden: that's the ideal place where to draw"... and I always thought my father was absolutely right.

There was a large globe in my schoolroom, and quite a library of travel-books. Ah! the tropics, the flowers, the birds! Ah! to see the birds of Paradise in Borneo, or humming-birds in Brazil! To gather orchids in Central Africa or in Queensland... I adore two rivers: the Orinoco and the Brahmaputra, and two mountains: Kilimanjaro and Popocatapetl, because of their extraordinary names! My favourite heroes were Hannibal and--Napoleon, of course.

My father began to teach me the violin when I was four, and the piano and the organ the following year. He had his own ideas on the education of girls, but applied them to me only. When I was a mere child, he taught me to bow, to arrange flowers, and to recognise and appreciate things beautiful, ancient or rare--old furniture, old tapestries, old china, old pewter. He showed me the hall-marks on silver, he made me caress cameos and enamel-work and touch embroideries and old lace reverently. He made me go up and down a staircase ten, twenty times in succession: "You see, darling, any one can go down steps without being ridiculous, but to go up a staircase, that's another matter. Now then, come down--that's it--raise your head--go slowly--like a queen in books of long ago. Look as though you came down from Heaven and had wings, and didn't press upon the carpet!" And he added gaily, "when I go down a staircase, I feel as if I were an emperor descending towards his loving people! You ought to imagine a long train behind you, held by two little eighteenth-century negroes, twenty steps above." And the lessons went on again: "Now walk upstairs. Lightly, lightly, little one! Don't move your arms. Now turn your head round... Ah! there's a pretty picture! By the way, you must dress your hair in another way. And what is that gold bracelet round your wrist! A flower, that's the only jewel you may wear at present, Mademoiselle!"

He designed my dresses, and later on he insisted that I should learn to make them myself. He gave me a riding-master, a violin teacher and a piano teacher, besides the various governesses who taught me the "other things," but it was with him and through him that I learned the little I have learned. His was a beautiful life, and there sang in my young heart those words which my father often whispered in my ear: "I love you every day more than yesterday and less than to-morrow." I looked upon my father as a kind of marvellously beneficent Deity. Sometimes I heard it said that he was "not practical," but I pitied those who criticised him.

If he hated to calculate, that was his own affair, after all! Though warned of the catastrophe which never befell him, he remained cheerful, kind and generous. Our house was known as "_La Maison du Bon Dieu_."

Every one was welcome there, and my father, who was a gourmet, and had a remarkable chef, treated his guests to feasts worthy of Lucullus, and to the best wines in his cellars--under one condition, invariably the same: that they should listen to the concert in the drawing-room, afterwards.

My father kept my mother's whole family, paid the debts of his friends, and did his utmost to a.s.sist any one and every one. Whenever he pa.s.sed through a village round Beaucourt, men, women, and children would appear at the windows or doors of their cottages, and greet him with a sign, a word, or a smile of grat.i.tude. And I used to sit as close to him as possible, in the trap; I was proud and happy and felt like shouting to the good villagers: "You know, he is my daddy!"

Dear father! they were to slander him, too, at my trial. A member of his own family a.s.serted that he was a brute and a drunkard. And when I revolted against such an abominable statement, my counsel tried to appease me. "Don't take any notice," he muttered. "The statement, it seems, has been made to save you at any cost. Being the daughter of a drunkard, you could be considered, to some extent, as irresponsible. It was tactics, not an insult!"

In my memory I can see next to my father the lovable figure of M.

Doriand, my parents' "old" and my "great" friend.

M. Doriand was a professor in the Empress's College for girls at Moscow, and his conversation was a rare delight. He came every year to spend his holidays with us. He remained three months at Beaucourt, and during the rest of the year sent us a long letter every week. In the summer, when he was with us, he made me read over again all the lessons I had taken since the previous summer, and he discussed them so wittily and opened up to me such new horizons, retold me history in such a fascinating and personal manner, and managed to render mathematics so interesting, that I never thought of complaining of the unusual way of making me spend my holidays.

Then he painted very well, and gave me lessons in watercolours. He developed in me such a keen taste for art that later on my father decided I should attend an art school.

My "great friend" or my "grandpapa from Russia," as I often called him, had exquisite manners. When, many years later, I became what is called a "woman of the world," and even a Paris "Society Queen," if I may quote a term so often applied to me, I was able to judge the various types of people who composed that Society and their manners, and I realised then that M. Doriand did not belong to his time. He had the exquisite politeness of the "honest" people of the _grand siecle_. I still see him bowing with easy grace whenever he met my mother, my sisters or me.

Never did a vulgar or trivial word pa.s.s from his lips. He loved what he called, not "beautiful" French, but "good" French. He had for the most humble the same little attentions and the same gentle and old-time courteousness as for his peers. He addressed his aged sister, who resided near Beaucourt, as he would have a queen, for he believed that nowhere more than in the home were perfect manners and courteous speech more becoming, and that to no one more than to his own people did a man owe respect. He took off his hat when he met the women about the farm, and never kept it on in a shop. He spoke slowly and softly, and cultivated the _mot propre_ (the exact word). It was a joy to hear him, as much to the ear as to the mind. As long as I remained under his influence, I tried to speak as he did; but destiny took me to Paris, where, alas! they speak Parisian, not French.

My grandpapa from Russia seemed to know everything and to be able to do anything. He would, for instance, talk to me for an hour about a tragedy of Voltaire, which he afterwards compared with a tragedy of his beloved Racine; or perhaps a book by some little known Russian author, whom he placed far above the work of many celebrated writers--German, French or English. Then he would suddenly tell me the life of a plant at our feet or the story of the stone on which he sat. Afterwards, we would go to the kitchen, and there he taught me how to prepare some kind of soup or sweet dish _a la Russe_. When this was over we would go to the music-room and there I had to sing or play to him an air by Mozart, Gluck, Lulli, or Rameau. He used to say: "You will play the music of Beethoven and Wagner (he, like my father, had already recognised Wagner's genius) when you are older. One must have suffered and loved to understand these geniuses." He taught me to sculpture, to bind books, to solder....

My father joined us and said: "My dear Doriand, you are monopolising my daughter. You have had her to yourself the whole morning."

"How dare you complain," the other retorted; "you have her the whole of the year."

How delightfully they spoiled me, those two dear souls, and how coquettish they made me! I recall them sitting on an old rustic bench in the large avenue of chestnut-trees. I felt that they were talking about me, and I ran into the house to put on my most becoming dress, and then went out and walked up and down slowly, with a book in my hand, and not too far from them, and knowing all the while that their eyes were following me! There did not seem to be any harm in this, but one day, my mother catching me at my little game, scolded me and my father and his old friend much more.... As a rule, when my dear mother scolded them, my father went to the organ and improvised a war-march and M. Doriand, standing near him, turned imaginary pages. My mother could not help laughing and we guilty three did the same, of course.

I had two sisters, Juliette, the eldest--who, when I was a little girl, became the wife of M. Herr, an engineer then residing in Bayonne, where, later, I met M. Steinheil--and Mimi, younger than I by four years, who was my mother's favourite, just as I was my father's. I had also a brother, Julien, who enlisted in an infantry regiment at Belfort and became there the friend of M. Sheffer, who was to be my _fiance_ of a few months.

We rose early at Beaucourt. After a quick breakfast and an hour given to recreation in the park, or to the care of my flowers--like my parents, I had a pa.s.sion for flowers, especially hydrangea and roses--I went to the schoolroom for my lessons. The afternoon was divided between study, games and household duties. In the evening, after dinner, we had music in the large _salon_, the very one which during the war, the Germans sacked and threw into confusion.... Ah! it was awe-inspiring to hear my father describe their stay at the "castle" and tell us how this splendid drawing-room had been turned by those "Prussians" into a kitchen, the grand piano into a larder and the precious curtains of antique red damask into horse blankets and dish-cloths....

There was always a large number of guests at home. The three-storied house had forty rooms and they were more often occupied than empty. Our evening concerts were my father's great joy. He sat at the organ, the enormous and rubicund Mme. Koger, my piano teacher, settled down at the piano, I took my violin and three or four musicians from Belfort, violinists and 'cellists, completed our little orchestra.

During the winter--and the winter is extremely sharp in that part of France--we used to skate on the Rhone-Rhine Ca.n.a.l, or we went for long rides in a sleigh, on the roads deep in snow. And then, we tobogganned.

A "train" of tobogganners was formed at the top of a hill with a "captain" at its head; we rushed at break-neck speed down the hill-side, the train broke up, the toboggans overturned and hurled us into the snow, when a free fight ensued over the responsibility for the accident.

I generally triumphed over my cousins, both boys and girls, and was rather proud of it!

Had the examining magistrate in charge of my case known this detail, he would no doubt have come to the conclusion that, since, as a child, I was strong enough to be victorious, with s...o...b..a.l.l.s, over my playmates, it was clear that, as a woman, I must have been strong enough to commit the horrible crimes of which he accused me!

Winter also brought with it an increased number of visits, to the sick and poor, and as my mother never allowed me to give them anything that I had not worked at myself, not a day pa.s.sed without our devoting at least one or two hours to preparing warm clothes for the needy. As for my father, he had a wonderful knack of saying and doing the right thing whenever he called on the people he looked after, and this made it one of my happiest occupations to accompany him on this round of mercy.

Christmas was a great day to us. The Christmas tree, which my father always uprooted himself--it was almost a ceremony with him--was first lit up for the family, then for the servants and farmhands, and a third time for the poor people who came in crowds from the neighbouring villages, and whom my parents received one after another with a word of welcome and a pleasant personal remark which at once put them at their ease.

On January 1 we paid "morning" calls until 2 P.M. In all the houses where we went, the hosts and hostesses wished to detain my father for "at least an hour," for he was gay and charming, good to look upon and his kindness was proverbial... but he refused: "No, no--I must go, my dear friends; I have still so many visits to pay--for instance, I must call on this rascal here (and he laughingly dealt a blow at a friend close to him) whom I have already pa.s.sed three times on the road and met in five drawing-rooms this morning. But there you are, I must, mustn't I, you rogue, express my good wishes for a happy New Year to him in his own house--and to think that afterwards I shall meet him again in half a dozen places and that, to cap it all, I will have to go home to receive him, so that he may return my good wishes. Ah! the old traditions!..."

Then came the family dinner, which lasted till the evening and the day ended with... music, of course. While we played, my mother slumbered peacefully in a fine old arm-chair, where once had sat my great-grandmother, the beautiful wife of the inventor.... But we went to bed early, for on the previous night we had hardly slept at all.

In fact, a few minutes before midnight, on December 31, songs rose under the windows of the "castle"--beautiful songs, simple, broad-winged, with words which varied a little from year to year, but with music centuries old, and always the same, for it could not have been improved upon.

Then, surrounded by their children and their servants, my parents received the singers on the threshold of their house. The singers shook the snow from their coats and their fur caps, took off their wooden shoes, shook hands with us all, and the feast began. My father distributed among them baskets of apples and walnuts, whole hams, strings of sausages, sacks of potatoes, and Alsatian cakes. And when the good people had gone and their voices could no longer be heard--my father wrapped me up in furs and we went together to look at the snow.

And somehow, it always seemed more wonderful and more blue to us on New Year's night. My father told me marvellous tales and I did not feel sleepy at all. But an hour later, a.s.suming a gruff voice, he exclaimed: "What does this mean, Mademoiselle? Still up at three in the morning at your age." When he had gently carried me in his arms to my room, he said: "Go quickly to sleep, 'Puppele' (an Alsatian expression meaning 'little doll'), mother would be angry if she knew."

Mother knew perfectly well, for she had been waiting by the fireside in the dining-room and she never retired without having seen me in my bed and kissed me. But she was not angry on this occasion, and with her sweet, indulgent philosophy she said: "After all, there is but one First of January in the year."

On Sundays we attended service in the Temple of Beaucourt. The district is a Protestant one, a very Protestant one indeed. My first pastor was old M. Cuvier, a descendant of the great naturalist Baron Cuvier, who died in 1832.

He was very handsome and impressive, was Pastor Cuvier, with his mane of white hair and his gleaming eyes under the bushy eyebrows. My father used to tell me that he looked like Liszt, whom he had met on several occasions in Germany and Hungary, and in Paris. The old clergyman was a great orator, and although I did not always understand what he said, I loved to listen to him. He often called on us, and, in order to tease him, my father, a staunch Huguenot but broad-minded and endowed with a sense of humour, made him sit at the table next to the Catholic priest of Beaucourt. At the beginning of the dinner the two men hardly dared look at one another, and could hardly eat, much to my mother's alarm....