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Updated: June 20, 2025
It was Julien, Comte de Bergerac, who rediscovered Notre Dame des Eaux, and by his picture of its dreamy interior in the Salon of '86 brought once more into notice this forgotten corner of the world.
In this inferno, amongst the pungent odours, musty smells and 'acrid exhalations from the shops where fried fish and potatoes hissed in boiling grease, blossomed a pure white lily, as radiant amid mean surroundings as Gemma in the poor Frankfort confectioner's shop of Turgenev's Eaux Printanières.
Half a dozen peasants, bronzed and sweaty and trudging in a group, meeting him, took off their hats. One of them said in his hearing: "Baptiste, there is one of the white-wigs." The carriage rolled through the forest, then out into the open country, and shortly after turned under a stately gate of gilded ironwork, and the grounds of Eaux Tranquilles were entered.
The "eaux noire, brun, et châtain, which dyes the hair any shade in one minute;" the "kohhl for the eyelids;" the "blanc de perle," and "rouge de Lubin" which does not wash off; the "bleu pour les veines;" the "rouge of eight shades," and "the sympathetic blush," which are cynically offered for the use and adoption of our mothers and daughters, find their chief patroness in the femme passée who makes herself up the middle-aged matron engaged in her frantic struggle against time, and obstinately refusing to grow old in spite of all that nature may say or do.
Should the name reach him through the Gazette as being worn by you, it might lead to the Bastille. That I would not willingly see befall you, dear boy." Germain was touched with the kindness in his friend's voice. "What should I do?" he asked, faltering. "Remain at Eaux Tranquilles, resume your own name, and enjoy life quietly, with all I possess yours." Tears rose in the young man's eyes.
He died in the latter part of the month of February, and a letter from the intendant of his estates informed Germain both of the sad event and at the same time that the veteran had bequeathed him Eaux Tranquilles and his fortune. The intendant, a local attorney named Populus, quoted the clauses of the will, and asked instructions from his new master.
Eight or nine days after the event, the time arrived when it was customary at Eaux Tranquilles for the tenants to pay their feudal dues, and Germain was alone in the office of the château, looking over the ancient titles of de Bailleul's inheritances, preparatory to receiving the "faith and homage" of his subjects. "I must go no farther," he was saying to himself.
Then, realizing how this "population pullulante des petits animaux marins" must have impressed the observing ancients, he goes on to touch ever so lightly! upon those old local arts of ornamentation whereby sea-beasts and molluscs and aquatic plants were reverently copied by master-hand, not from dead specimens, but "pris sur le vif et observes au milieu des eaux"; he explains how an entire school grew up, which drew its inspiration from the dainty ... apes and movements of these frail creatures.
The first few days by Germain and Cyrène, after the death of de Bailleul, were spent in genuine sorrow. Their thoughts were recalled to those dear and delicious weeks at Fontainebleau, and they decided that Germain should revisit Eaux Tranquilles and prepare it for their bridal.
If you like hunting, you will find plenty to amuse you; I have a license from the Eaux et Forets; and we hunt over twelve thousand acres of forest, not counting our own domain." Oscar, the painter, and Mistigris, all more or less subdued, exchanged glances, but Mistigris, faithful to himself, remarked in a low tone, "'Veni, vidi, cecidi, I came, I saw, I slaughtered."
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