It was his particular ambition, in these early days as a young man, to design for the Paris market, and for the American continent too, scientific instruments to be used in chemistry and astronomy—for it was the start of an age when new ideas were spreading fast. Because he was ahead of his time he succeeded in inventing, during this period at la Brûlonnerie, certain pieces of an entirely new form. These instruments are now made in bulk and used by doctors and chemists all over France, while my father’s name is forgotten, but a hundred years ago the “instruments de chimie” designed at la Brûlonnerie were sought after by all the apothecaries in Paris.
The demand spread to the perfumery trade. The great ladies at Court wished for bottles and flasks of unusual designs to place on their dressing tables—the more extravagant the better, for this was the moment when the Pompadour had such sway over the King, and all luxury goods were very much in fashion. Monsieur Brossard, bombarded on all sides by tradesmen and merchants eager to make their fortune, implored my father to forget for a moment his scientific instruments, and design a flask to please the highest in the land.
It began as a jest on my father’s part. He told my mother to stand up before him while he drew the outline of her figure. First the head, then the square shoulders—so singular in a woman—then the slim hips, the long straight body. He compared his drawing with the last apothecary’s bottle he had designed; they were almost identical. “You know what it is,” he said to my mother. “I thought I was working to a mathematical formula, when all the while I’ve been drawing my inspiration from you.”
He put on his blouse and went over to the furnace house to see about his molds. No one to this day will know whether it was the apothecary’s bottle he shaped into a new form or my mother’s body—he said it was the latter—but the flask he designed for the perfumeries of Paris delighted the merchants, and the buyers too. They filled the flask with eau de toilette, calling it the perfume of “la Reyne d’Hongrie” after Elizabeth of Hungary, who had remained beautiful until she was past seventy, and my father laughed so much that he went and told everybody in the glass-house. My mother was very much annoyed. Nevertheless, she became la Reyne d’Hongrie from that moment, and was affectionately known as this throughout the glass trade until the Revolution, when she became la citoyenne Busson, and the title was prudently dropped.
Even then it was revived, from time to time, by my youngest brother Michel, when he wished to be particularly offensive. He would tell his workmen, within earshot of my mother, that all Paris knew that the odor emanating from the corpses of those ladies whose heads had but recently rolled into the basket was none other than that of a famous eau de toilette, distilled by the mistress of the glass-house some forty years before, and bottled by her own fair hands for the use of the beauties of Versailles.
2
One of Monsieur Brossard’s associates was the marquis de Cherbon, whose family had, in the previous century, constructed a small glass-house in the grounds of their château of Chérigny, only a few miles from my father’s native village of Chenu and my mother’s home at St. Christophe. This little foundry was at present in a poor state, through indifferent supervision, and the marquis de Cherbon, who had lately married and succeeded to his estate at the same time, was determined to put his glass-house to rights and make a profit from it. He consulted Monsieur Brossard, who at once recommended my father as director and lessee, the idea being that my father would thus have his first chance to prove himself a good organizer and businessman, as well as a fine craftsman.
The marquis de Cherbon was well satisfied. He already knew my father, and my mother’s uncle Georget of St. Paterne, and felt sure that the administration of his glass-house would be in capable hands.
My mother Magdaleine and my father moved to Chérigny in the spring of 1749, and it was here in September that my brother Robert was born, and three years later my brother Pierre.
The setting was very different from la Brûlonnerie. Here at Chérigny the glass-house was on a nobleman’s private estate, and consisted of a small furnace house, with work buildings attached, and workmen’s cabins alongside, only a few hundred yards distant from the château itself. There was barely a quarter of the men employed here compared with la Brûlonnerie, and it was truly a family affair, with the marquis de Cherbon taking a personal interest in all that went on, though he never interfered with the work.
My uncle Déméré had remained at la Brûlonnerie, but my father’s brother Michel Busson had moved to Chérigny with my parents, and about this time another sister, Anne, married Jacques Viau, the melting master at Chérigny. All the members of this small community were closely related, but the differences in status were still strictly kept, and my father and mother lived apart from the others in the farmhouse known as le Maurier, about five minutes’ walk from the glass-house. This gave them not only privacy, which had been lacking at la Brûlonnerie, but the necessary degree of importance and privilege which was so strictly adhered to in the glass trade.
It meant more hard work for my mother, though. Besides keeping the records and writing to the merchants—for she had taken upon herself this part of the business—she had to manage the whole of the farm, see that the cattle were milked and put to pasture, the chickens reared, the pigs killed, and the few acres of ground about the farmstead tilled. None of this dismayed her. She was capable of writing three pages disputing the amount paid for a consignment of goods to Paris—and this at ten o’clock at night after a long day’s work in the house and about the farm—of walking across to the glass-house and brewing coffee for my father and those on night shift, returning and snatching a few hours of sleep, and then rising at five to see that the cows were milked.
The fact that she was carrying my brother Robert, and later nursing him, made no difference to her activities. Here, at le Maurier, she was free to organize her own day as she pleased. There were no watchful eyes about her, no one to criticize or accuse her of breaking with tradition; and if any of my father’s relatives should venture to do so, she was the wife of the director, and they never did so twice.
One of the pleasantest things about life at the glass-house of Chérigny was the relationship between my parents and the marquis and marquise de Cherbon. Unlike many aristocrats at that time they were seldom absent from their property for long periods, never went to Court, and were respected and loved by their tenants and the peasantry. The marquise, in particular, made a great favorite of my mother Magdaleine—for they were about the same age, the de Cherbons having been married two years before my parents—and when my mother could spare the time from the farm she would go across to the château, taking my brother with her, and there in the salon the pair of them, my mother and the marquise, would read together, or play and sing, with my brother Robert crawling about the floor between them or taking his first unsteady steps.
It has always seemed to me significant that Robert’s first memories, whenever he spoke of them, should not be of the farmhouse le Maurier, or of the lowing of cattle, the scratching of hens and other homely sounds, or even of the roar of the furnace chimney and the bustle of the glass-house; but always of an immense salon, so he described it, filled with mirrors and satin-covered chairs, with a harpsichord standing in one corner, and a fine lady, not my mother, picking him up in her arms and kissing him, then feeding him with little sugared cakes.
“You cannot imagine,” he used to tell me in after years, “how vivid is that memory still. The sensation of perfect delight it would be to sit upon that lady’s lap, to touch her gown, to smell her perfume, and then for her to set me down upon the floor and to hear her applaud me as I walked from one end of that seemingly immense salon to the other. The long windows gave onto a terrace, and from that terrace paths stretched into the infinite distance. I felt that it was all mine—château, park, harpsichord, and the fine lady too.”
If my mother had known what small seed of longing she was sowing in my brother’s being, to develop into a folie de grande
ur that nearly broke my father’s heart, and certainly was partly responsible for his death, she would not have taken Robert so often to the château at Chérigny, to be fed and fondled by the marquise. She would have put him to play among the hens and pigs in the muddied farmyard of le Maurier.
My mother was to blame, but how could she foresee that her indulgence then would help to destroy this first-born son of hers whom she so fiercely loved? And what more natural than to accept the grace and hospitality of so gentle a lady as the marquise de Cherbon?
It was not solely for the pleasure of her society that my mother prized the friendship of the marquise, but also because it gave her the opportunity, when occasion favored, to speak about my father and his ambitions; how he hoped in time to become just such another as Monsieur Brossard—who was, of course, Robert’s godfather—and direct a glass-house, or glass-houses, which should be among the finest in the land.
“We know this will take time,” my mother told the marquise, “but already, since Mathurin has been director here at Chérigny, we have doubled our consignments to Paris and have taken on more workmen, and the foundry itself has had a favorable mention in the Almanach des Marchands.”
This was no boast. It was all true. The little glass-house at Chérigny had now established itself as one of the foremost “small houses,” as they were known, in the trade, specializing in glass for the table, goblets and wine decanters.
The marquis de Cherbon and Monsieur Brossard united in developing further glass-houses, not only la Brûlonnerie, where my uncle Déméré was now director in partnership with my father—who alternated between there and Chérigny—but also at la Pierre, Coudrecieux, situated in the midst of the forests of la Pierre and Vibraye, an immense property belonging to a widow, Madame le Gras de Luart. Here, for a time, the marquis de Cherbon installed as director my uncle Michel Busson, who had married a niece of my uncle Déméré, but uncle Michel, though a fine engraver of crystal, was no use as an administrator, and the foundry at la Pierre began to fall away and lose money.
Sometime between the birth of my brother Pierre in 1752 and my brother Michel in ’56 the marquise de Cherbon died in childbirth, to my mother’s great distress. The marquis married a second time—for which she never forgave him, though she never failed in civility towards him—choosing his wife from a neighboring parish to Coudrecieux. His new father-in-law’s land adjoined Madame le Gras de Luart’s extensive property at la Pierre, and the marquis had, therefore, no wish to see the glass-house there run at a loss. After many months of discussion between all parties, my father dared a very great venture. He, my uncle Déméré, and a Monsieur Eloy le Riche, a Paris merchant, entered into partnership, taking on the lease of la Pierre from the marquis de Cherbon and dealing direct with Madame le Gras de Luart, who fortunately for my parents, with their growing family, did not inhabit her late husband’s property.
The lease, which was to enter into force on All Saints’ Day, 1760, gave the partners the full rights for nine years to develop the glass-house on the domain and everything belonging to it, with the use of timber for the furnace, and to retain the château for their own use. For this they were to pay yearly the sum of 880 livres, and in addition to supply Madame le Gras de Luart with eight dozen crystal glasses for her dining table. The fact that my uncle Déméré would continue to live at la Brûlonnerie, and Monsieur Eloy le Riche in Paris, meant that my parents, on their own, became tenants of the immense château of la Pierre. Here was a change from the farmhouse le Maurier, and from the master’s lodging at la Brûlonnerie!
I believe the shade of the first marquise de Cherbon must have been with my mother when she took possession of la Pierre and surveyed the great staircase and the enormous rooms opening out from one to the other, over which she would now have complete jurisdiction. She chose for herself and my father the big bedroom with its view of the park and the forest beyond, and she knew that her children would grow up here, free to roam wherever they pleased, having the right to do so, just as the children of previous seigneurs had done through the centuries. They would have an added freedom, too. For there were no cooks and scullions here, no powdered footmen and lackeys, but only my mother herself to keep order, and those few wives of the glass-house workmen whom she cared to employ. Half of the château remained dust-sheeted and shuttered, but not always silent; for here my brothers romped and shouted, chasing one another in and out of the great rooms stacked with furniture, hallooing along the corridors, finding their way to the attics under the massive roof.
To Robert, now ten years old, la Pierre was an enhancement of his dream. Not only did he live in a château that was larger and grander than Chérigny, but our parents possessed it—or so it seemed to him. He would manage somehow or other to obtain the key of the grande salle from my mother’s key ring, and creep into the room alone. Lifting a corner of a dust sheet, he would seat himself on one of the brocaded chairs and make believe that the shrouded, silent room was full of guests, and he the host.
Pierre and Michel had no such fancies. The forest lay outside their windows, and this was all they asked for, Pierre especially. Unlike the pleasant woodlands and paths of Chérigny, the forest here was deep and even dangerous, stretching farther than the eye could see from the turret windows of the château; it was the haunt of wild boars, perhaps of robbers. Pierre was always in trouble. Pierre climbed highest and fell furthest. Pierre tumbled into streams and soaked his clothes. He was the collector of all wild things, bats, birds, voles, foxes, and would try to tame each one of them in turn, hiding them in the disused rooms of the château, to my mother’s fury.
Here, at la Pierre, she was mistress of the glass-house and châtelaine as well. She was responsible, not only for the well-being of the workmen and their wives—and there must have been well over a hundred of them, not counting the charcoal burners in the forest—but for any damage done in the precincts of the château. The presence of her three lively sons did not make this any easier for her, although Robert, thanks to the recommendation of Monsieur Brossard and the marquis de Cherbon, was being instructed in French and Latin grammar by the curé at Coudrecieux, who had also taught the son of Madame le Gras de Luart.
My mother lost two babies in infancy, a girl and a boy, before I was born in November of ’63, followed by my sister Edmé three years later. Our family was now complete, and a very united one at that, with the two youngest members of it, the girls, alternately teased and petted by the older brothers.
If there was any difference of opinion between children and parents, the cause was generally my brother Michel’s stammer. Edmé and I grew up with it—we never heard him speak otherwise, and we thought nothing of it—but my mother told us that it came about after the birth of the two babies Françoise and Prosper, who had followed closely upon each other and died as infants, when Michel himself was between four and five years old.
Whether it bewildered him to see these unfortunates come into the world, be nursed by my mother, and as suddenly depart, causing her great grief, nobody ever discovered. Children do not speak of these things. Perhaps he thought that he too would disappear, and so lose all he knew. In any event, he began to stammer badly about this time, soon after my parents came to la Pierre, and there was nothing they could do to cure him. Michel was exceptionally bright and intelligent, apart from this defect, and it exasperated my parents, especially my father, to see the boy struggle with his words, fighting, as it were, for breath, almost as though in this very effort he imitated the convulsions of the poor babies who had died.
“He does it on purpose,” my father would say sternly. “He can pronounce his words perfectly well if he chooses to do so.” He would send Michel from the room with a book, from which he must learn a page and then repeat it aloud afterwards, but it never did any good. Michel would turn sullen and rebellious, and sometimes he would run off for hours at a time and seek out the charcoal burners in the forest. They did not mind how much he stammered, for it amused them to teach him t
heir own rough speech and see what he made of it.
Naturally, Michel was punished for this. My father was a great disciplinarian, and then my mother would intervene, and ask forgiveness for him, and he would be allowed to go with my father to the glass-house and watch the men at work, for this was what he liked to do most of all. Edmé and I were so much younger than our brothers that our lives were quite different from theirs. To us, the little girls, our father seemed a most gentle, tender parent, taking the pair of us upon his knees, bringing us presents after his visits to Paris, laughing with us, singing and playing with us, and in every way treating us as though we were his one relaxation from daily cares.
It was very different for the boys. They must all stand up when he entered the room, wait to sit until he seated himself, never speak at table unless spoken to. When their turn came to be apprenticed at the glass-house they were obliged to obey the rules more rigidly, and were given more menial work to do, sweeping the furnace-house floors, and so on, than the apprentice sons of my father’s workmen.
My brother Robert, despite his fine education at the hands of the good curé at Coudrecieux, did not object to this harsh treatment. He wished to be a master glass-maker like his father, or, better still, like his godfather Monsieur Brossard, who had so many friends among the aristocracy; and to achieve this end he knew he must start at the bottom.
Michel too, although he rebelled against his father in other ways, never minded hard work; indeed, the rougher and dirtier the work, the better it was for him. He liked to mix with the workmen and share their worst duties, and he was never in so good a humor as when he came back from the furnace house, his blouse scorched and bespattered, for it meant that he had taken his shift beside his comrades, and had fared as well or ill as they.