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As a child I could speak French as easily as English, and even after eight years of French lessons at school, my French was still tucked away in some corner of my head; but I had, of course, only a child's vocabulary, sufficient for a child's simple wants. Under Madame Ducros' skilful tuition I soon began to acquire an adult vocabulary, and it became no effort to me whatever to talk.
With the exception of one friendly visit to the Ducros, I have never seen pleasant Nyons again. Of late years I have often meditated a pilgrimage to that sunny little cup in the Dauphine hills, but have hesitated owing to one of the sad penalties advancing years bring with them; every single one of my friends, man or woman, must have passed away long since.
The Ducros made their own olive-oil, and their own admirable wine. In that sun-drenched cup amongst the hills, roses bloomed all the year round.
The standard of material comfort appeared far higher in Brunswick than in a French provincial town. The manner in which the Spiegelbergs' house was fitted up seemed very elaborate after the simple appointments of the Ducros' farm-house, though nothing in the world would have induced me to own one single object that this Teutonic residence contained.
M. Ducros invited me to accompany him, the President, and the "Substitut" on one of these enquetes, and these three, with their tremendous spirits, their perpetual jokes, and above all with their delightful gaiete francaise, amused me so enormously, that I jumped at a second invitation.
People of the type of M. Ducros, and of the President of the Nyons Tribunal, viewed the possible return of a Legitimist Bourbon Monarchy with the gravest apprehension. Given the character of the Comte de Chambord, they felt it would be a purely reactionary regime. Traditionally, the elder branch of the Bourbons were incapable of learning anything, and equally incapable of forgetting anything.
On Sundays, no sooner had he ascended the pulpit than his faculties seemed to return to him, and he would preach interminable but perfectly coherent sermons with a vigour astonishing in so old a man, only to relapse into childishness again on returning home, and to remain senile till the following Sunday. The Ducros lived in a large farm-house on the outskirts of the town.
Every foot of the Ducros' property was carefully cultivated, with vineyards above on the terraced hillside, olive-yards below, and mulberry trees on the lower levels. Our black mulberry, with its cloying, luscious fruit, is not the sort used for silkworms; it is the white mulberry, which does not fruit, that these clever little alchemists transmute into glossy, profitable cocoons of silk.
Laronciere is said to have swept the peninsula of Gennevilliers and compelled a Saxon regiment to lay down its arms, and Vinoy is said to have destroyed the Prussian works beyond Bougival. As to Ducros, he has crossed the Marne, taken and retaken Montedy, and almost holds Villiers-sur-Marne. What one experiences on hearing the cannon is a great desire to be there.
After the Revolution, the term was only applied to Supreme Courts, without administrative powers. M. Ducros was Assistant Judge of the Nyons Tribunal, and the Ducros were rather fond of insisting that they belonged to the old noblesse de robe.
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