Is this not our dream,--the dream of all lovers of the beautiful, under whatsoever form it comes; the seraphic beauty that Luini put into his Marriage of the Virgin, that noble fresco at Sarono; the beauty that Rubens grasped in the tumult of his "Battle of the Thermodon"; the beauty that five centuries have elaborated in the cathedrals of Seville and Milan; the beauty of the Saracens at Granada, the beauty of Louis XIV.at Versailles, the beauty of the Alps, and that of this Limagne in which I stand?
Belonging to the estate, about which there is nothing too princely, nor yet too financial, where prince and farmer-general have both lived (which fact serves to explain it), are four thousand acres of woodland, a park of some nine hundred acres, the mill, three leased farms, another immense farm at Conches, and vineyards,--the whole producing a revenue of about seventy thousand francs a year.Now you know Les Aigues, my dear fellow; where I have been expected for the last two weeks, and where I am at this moment, in the chintz-lined chamber assigned to dearest friends.
Above the park, towards Conches, a dozen little brooks, clear, limpid streams coming from the Morvan, fall into the pond, after adorning with their silvery ribbons the valleys of the park and the magnificent gardens around the chateau.The name of the place, Les Aigues, comes from these charming streams of water; the estate was originally called in the old title-deeds "Les Aigues-Vives" to distinguish it from "Aigues-Mortes"; but the word "Vives" has now been dropped.The pond empties into the stream, which follows the course of the avenue, through a wide and straight canal bordered on both sides and along its whole length by weeping willows.This canal, thus arched, produces a delightful effect.Gliding through it, seated on a thwart of the little boat, one could fancy one's self in the nave of some great cathedral, the choir being formed of the main building of the house seen at the end of it.When the setting sun casts its orange tones mingled with amber upon the casements of the chateau, the effect is that of painted windows.At the other end of the canal we see Blangy, the county-town, containing about sixty houses, and the village church, which is nothing more than a tumble-down building with a wooden clock-tower which appears to hold up a roof of broken tiles.
One comfortable house and the parsonage are distinguishable; but the township is a large one,--about two hundred scattered houses in all, those of the village forming as it were the capital.The roads are lined with fruit-trees, and numerous little gardens are strewn here and there,--true country gardens with everything in them; flowers, onions, cabbages and grapevines, currants, and a great deal of manure.
The village has a primitive air; it is rustic, and has that decorative simplicity which we artists are forever seeking.In the far distance is the little town of Soulanges overhanging a vast sheet of water, like the buildings on the lake of Thune.
When you stroll in the park, which has four gates, each superb in style, you feel that our mythological Arcadias are flat and stale.
Arcadia is in Burgundy, not in Greece; Arcadia is at Les Aigues and nowhere else.A river, made by scores of brooklets, crosses the park at its lower level with a serpentine movement; giving a dewy freshness and tranquillity to the scene,--an air of solitude, which reminds one of a convent of Carthusians, and all the more because, on an artificial island in the river, is a hermitage in ruins, the interior elegance of which is worthy of the luxurious financier who constructed it.Les Aigues, my dear Nathan, once belonged to that Bouret who spent two millions to receive Louis XV.on a single occasion under his roof.
How many ardent passions, how many distinguished minds, how many fortunate circumstances have contributed to make this beautiful place what it is! A mistress of Henri IV.rebuilt the chateau where it now stands.The favorite of the Great Dauphin, Mademoiselle Choin (to whom Les Aigues was given), added a number of farms to it.Bouret furnished the house with all the elegancies of Parisian homes for an Opera celebrity; and to him Les Aigues owes the restoration of its ground floor in the style Louis XV.
I have often stood rapt in admiration at the beauty of the dining-
room.The eye is first attracted to the ceiling, painted in fresco in the Italian manner, where lightsome arabesques are frolicking.Female forms, in stucco ending in foliage, support at regular distances corbeils of fruit, from which spring the garlands of the ceiling.
Charming paintings, the work of unknown artists, fill the panels between the female figures, representing the luxuries of the table,--
boar's-heads, salmon, rare shell-fish, and all edible things,--which fantastically suggest men and women and children, and rival the whimsical imagination of the Chinese,--the people who best understand, to my thinking at least, the art of decoration.The mistress of the house finds a bell-wire beneath her feet to summon servants, who enter only when required, disturbing no interviews and overhearing no secrets.The panels above the doorways represent gay scenes; all the embrasures, both of doors and windows, are in marble mosaics.The room is heated from below.Every window looks forth on some delightful view.
This room communicates with a bath-room on one side and on the other with a boudoir which opens into the salon.The bath-room is lined with Sevres tiles, painted in monochrome, the floor is mosaic, and the bath marble.An alcove, hidden by a picture painted on copper, which turns on a pivot, contains a couch in gilt wood of the truest Pompadour.The ceiling is lapis-lazuli starred with gold.The tiles are painted from designs by Boucher.Bath, table and love are therefore closely united.
After the salon, which, I should tell you, my dear fellow, exhibits the magnificence of the Louis XIV.manner, you enter a fine billiard-