This mound is called La Hoguette and is surmounted by an old gibbet: we contended with the birds for possession of the uprights, on which we used to play puss in the corner. But it was never without a kind of fear that we lingered in this spot.

There too are the Miels, dunes where sheep used to graze; on the right there are some meadows, lying at the foot of Paramé, the road to Saint-Servan, the new cemetery, a calvary, and some windmills on hillocks, like those which stand on Achilles’s grave at the entrance to the Hellespont.

When I had almost attained the age of seven, my mother took me to Plancoët to be released from my wet-nurse’s vow; we stayed with my grandmother. If I have ever known happiness, it was certainly in that house.

My grandmother lived in the Rue du Hameau-de-l’Abbaye, in a house with terraced gardens leading down to the bottom of a little valley where there was a spring surrounded by willows. Mme de Bedée could no longer walk, but apart from that she suffered from none of the disadvantages of her age: she was a charming old lady, plump, white, and neat, with a distinguished appearance and fine aristocratic manners, who wore old-fashioned pleated dresses and a black lace cap tied under the chin. Her wit was mannered, her conversation solemn, her temperament serious. She was looked after by her sister, Mlle de Boisteilleul, who resembled her in nothing but her kindness. The latter was a thin little creature, sprightly, gay, and talkative. She had been in love with a certain Comte de Trémignon who had promised to marry her but had broken his promise. My aunt had found consolation in singing of her love, for she was a poet. I remember often seeing her embroidering double cuffs for her sister, with her spectacles perched on her nose, and singing in a nasal voice an apologia about a sparrow-hawk which loved a warbler, which has always struck me as a strange thing for a sparrow-hawk to do.

My grandmother relied upon her sister to run the house. She had dinner at eleven o’clock in the morning, followed by her siesta; at one o’clock she would wake up; she would then be carried to the bottom of the garden terraces and installed under the willows by the spring, where she would sit knitting, surrounded by her sister, her children, and her grandchildren. In those days, old age was a dignity; today it is a burden. At four o’clock my grandmother was carried back into her drawing-room; Pierre, the servant, put out a card-table; Mlle de Boisteilleul knocked with the tongs on the fire-back, and a few minutes later there entered three other old maids who came from the house next-door in answer to my aunt’s summons. These three sisters were called the Demoiselles Villedeneu; the daughters of an impoverished noble, instead of dividing up his meagre fortune, they had enjoyed it in common, had never separated, and had never left their native village. Closely acquainted with my grandmother since childhood, they lived next-door and came every day, at the agreed signal on the fire-back, to play quadrille with their friend. The game began; the good ladies quarrelled; this was the only event in their lives, the only moment when the evenness of their tempers was altered. At eight o’clock supper restored peace. Often my uncle De Bedée, with his son and his three daughters, would join my grandmother at supper. The latter told countless stories of the old days; my uncle in his turn recounted the Battle of Fontenoy, in which he had taken part, and topped off his boasting with some rather outspoken anecdotes which made the good ladies almost die with laughter. At nine o’clock, when supper was over, the servants came in; everybody knelt down, and Mlle de Boisteilleul said the evening prayers aloud. At ten o’clock the whole house was asleep, except for my grandmother, who was read to by her maid until one o’clock in the morning.

The Comte de Bedée’s château was situated two or three miles from Plancoët, in a lofty and pleasant position. Everything about it breathed joy: my uncle’s joviality was inexhaustible. He had three daughters, Caroline, Marie, and Flore, and a son, the Comte de la Bouëtardais, a counsellor in the High Court, who all shared his high spirits. Monchoix was full of cousins from all around; there was music, dancing, hunting, and general merry-making from morning to night. My aunt, Mme de Bedée, seeing my uncle gaily squandering his capital and his income, would not unnaturally get angry with him; but nobody listened to her, and her bad temper only added to her family’s good humour, especially as my aunt herself was addicted to a good many fads and fancies: she always had a big, fierce hunting dog lying in her lap, and a tame boar following her around which filled the château with its grunting. When I came from my father’s house, so dark and silent, to this house of gaiety and noise, I found myself in a veritable paradise. This contrast became more striking when my family had settled in the country: going from Combourg to Monchoix was like going from the desert into the world, from the keep of a medieval baron to the villa of a Roman prince.

On Ascension Day 1775 I left my grandmother’s house for Notre-Dame de Nazareth with my mother, my aunt De Boisteilleul, my uncle De Bedée and his children, my wet-nurse, and my foster-brother. I was wearing a white gown, a white hat, white shoes and gloves, and a blue silk sash. We reached the abbey at ten o’clock in the morning. The monastery, standing at the roadside, looked older than it was on account of a quincunx of elms planted in the time of Jean V of Brittany.