It was Pierre who gave my father the biggest problem—good-tempered, a perfect sans-souci, impossible to train to anything. He was apprenticed, of course, to the glass-house, but was forever slipping away and playing truant—gathering wild strawberries in the forest, or merely wandering at will, and then returning when fancy pleased him. Beating him did no good at all. He accepted punishment or praise with equanimity.
“He is an eccentric,” my father would say, dismissing his second son with a shrug of the shoulders. “He will never make anything of himself. Since he seems to prefer life in the open he had best go off to the American colonies and settle there.”
This was when Pierre was about seventeen years old, and my father, whose business dealings now ranged far and wide, arranged for Pierre to be shipped off to a rich planter in Martinique. I was about six years old at the time, and I well remember the tears and consternation at home—for the three brothers were devoted to one another—and my mother’s tight-lipped silence as she packed a trunk for Pierre, wondering in her heart if she would ever see her son again. Even my father appeared remorseful now that the actual moment of departure had arrived, and himself escorted Pierre to Nantes, where my brother was to embark, and shipped a large consignment of glass of inferior quality abroad with him, which, he told Pierre, he could sell to the colonists and make his fortune.
It seemed very dull at the château without Pierre. His cheerful ways and original antics had enlivened the atmosphere, which was sometimes rather solemn for Edmé and myself, two small children left on our own to play, with our brothers at work at the glass-house next door and our mother continually preoccupied, either with my father’s business or with the management of the château itself. We were soon to forget him, though, in the months that followed, for two events stand out in my memory as markers to that time.
The first was when my brother Robert became a master glass-maker, after his three years’ apprenticeship. The second was the visit of the King to the glass-house of la Pierre. Both events took place during the year of 1769.
The first happened on a Sunday afternoon in June, with every craftsman and workman assembled in his holiday clothes by two o’clock to await the arrival of the musicians. The previous day my mother, and the other masters’ wives, had prepared the long trestle tables in the furnace house—it was between heats, as we termed it, the fires having been allowed to go out—and the tables were now laden with food for all the workers at the glass-house, and for the guests as well.
Numbers of people were invited. All our relatives, of course, and those merchants and tradesmen with whom my father did business, but besides these were the mayor of Coudrecieux, the bailiff, the curé, and the keepers and foresters on the estate, with every woman and child in the district.
A procession was formed, headed by the musicians, and then the two senior masters—in this case my uncle Michel and another engraver—led the master-to-be, my brother Robert, between them, with all the members of the glass-house following behind in strict order of precedence. First the masters, next the journeymen and carriers, then the stokers, apprentices, and so on, and finally the women and children. They processed from the glass-house, through the great park gates, and so to the steps of the château itself, where my father and mother, with the curé, the mayor, and other officials, waited to receive them.
A short ceremony followed. The new master was sworn in and blessed by the priest, and then there were speeches. After this the whole procession turned round and marched back to the glass-house. I remember glancing up at my mother and seeing the tears come into her eyes as she watched my brother Robert take his oath.
Both my father and mother had powdered their hair for the occasion—perhaps they felt they were representing the absent family of le Gras de Luart—and my mother wore a brocade gown and my father satin breeches.
“He’ll make a fine man,” I heard the curé murmur to my father as they waited for the procession to stop in front of them. “I have every confidence in his ability, and I hope you have the same.”
My father did not reply immediately. He too was moved by the sight of his eldest son taking the same oath as he had done some twenty-five years before.
“He’ll do well enough,” he said at last, “providing he keeps his head.”
These words were lost on me. I had eyes only for Robert, who, to his six-year-old sister, was the outstanding figure in the whole procession. Tall, slim, fair-haired (my mother had stopped him from powdering it at the last moment), he did not appear to me to be in danger of losing anything. He carried himself erect, and walked as proudly to the steps of the château as though he were to be made a marquis, and not merely a master glass-maker.
A great burst of cheering followed the swearing-in. Robert bowed to the assembled company, the guests and the whole crowd of craftsmen and their families gathered there, and I noticed that he threw a quick glance up at my mother Magdaleine, impetuous, proud, as though to say, “This is what you expected of me, isn’t it? This is what both of us wanted?” It seemed to me that she bowed in return, half to my brother, half to herself, and as she towered above me, magnificent in her brocade gown, her whole aspect strangely changed with the powder in her hair, I felt, child as I was, that she was more than my mother; she was some sort of deity, more powerful than the gentle statue of the Blessed Virgin standing in the church at Coudrecieux, the equal of God himself.
The second event gave me a very different impression, and this was, I think, because my parents were relegated to a minor role. My father came in one evening and announced in solemn tones, “We are to be much honored. The King is hunting in the forest of Vibraye next week, and intends paying a visit to the glass-house of la Pierre.”
Everyone was at once in consternation. The King… What would he say, what would he do, how was he to be fed, to be entertained? My mother at once began preparing the great rooms that were never used, and every woman on the estate and in the glass-house precincts was summoned to scrub, to polish, to sweep. And then, within a few days of the King’s visit, Madame le Gras de Luart and her son arrived to do the honors themselves.
“Naturally,” she said to my mother—I was there at the time and heard every word—“it is only right that my son and myself should be in residence on this great occasion. No doubt you and your family will find quarters in the glass-house.”
“Naturally,” replied my mother, who, to tell the truth, had been secretly looking forward to acting châtelaine. “I hope you will find the rooms prepared as they should be. We did not have much warning.”
“Oh, as to that, don’t concern yourself,” replied Madame le Gras de Luart. “The servants will see to it.”
Then from carriage, coach, and every sort of vehicle tumbled a great crowd of footmen, lackeys, cooks, scullions, all marching through the château as though the place belonged to them, turning the kitchen upside down, stripping the beds of covers and spreading others they had brought with them, speaking rudely to my mother as if she were a lower-paid servant who had been dismissed. We, the family, were turned out of doors and sent packing, with only time enough to thrust our own belongings into one room and turn the key in the lock, and then make our way across to the glass-house to beg shelter from my uncle Michel and his wife.
“It was only to be expected,” said my father quietly. “Madame le Gras de Luart is perfectly within her rights.”
“Her r-r-rights,” stammered my brother Michel, who would then have been about fourteen years old. “What r-r-rights has an old r-r-raddled woman like that to t-t-turn us out of our home?”
“Hold your tongue,” commanded my father sharply, “and remember that the château of la Pierre is held on lease only. It never can be, and never will be, ours, any more than the glass-house itself.”
Poor Michel looked dumbfounded. He must have believed, as I did, that la Pierre was ours forever. He turned very white, as he always did when he was angry and unable to express himself, and went off to the furnace house t
o try and explain the situation to his friends the stokers.
The only member of the family who looked forward to the King’s visit with all his heart was my eldest brother Robert. He was to be on show for the occasion, and act as glass-blower beside the other masters, for the King had expressed a wish, so my father said, to see every part of the work at the foundry, from the moment when the liquid first formed in the blowpipe to the engraving of a finished glass by my father and my uncle Michel.
The great day dawned. We were all of us astir early, myself and my sister Edmé prinked out in our best white frocks. Then, to my great disappointment, my mother did not put on her beautiful brocade gown, but wore her ordinary dark Sunday dress, with the addition of a lace collar. I was about to protest, but she silenced me. “Let those who wish to be peacocks do as they please,” she said. “I feel more dignified as I am.”
I did not understand why she should put on a brocade gown for my brother and wear nothing but her Sunday dress for the King. My father must have approved, though, for he nodded his head when he saw her, and said, “It’s better so.” For my part, I thought otherwise. Then, almost before we were aware of it, the party from the château was upon us. Madame le Gras de Luart had driven to the entrance gates of the park in her coach, and her son was on horseback, and there were a lot of other noblemen on horseback too, and several ladies, all in hunting costume, and, to my critical eye, rather disordered too. There were grooms and keepers all around, and barking dogs; it was not at all my idea of a royal party.
“The King,” I whispered to my mother, “where is the King?”
“Hush!” she murmured. “That is he there, dismounting now, talking to Madame le Gras de Luart.”
I was almost in tears with disappointment, for the elderly gentleman to whom Madame le Gras de Luart made a great sweeping curtsey looked just like anybody else, in hunting coat and breeches, with his wig not even curled—perhaps, I consoled myself, because he had been hunting all morning he kept his best one in a box. Then, as he looked about him, and the great crowd of craftsmen and workmen’s wives gathered to applaud him, he waved his hand in a half salute and said wearily to his hostess, “My party is famished, we breakfasted early. Where do we eat?”
So instead of the glass-house being visited first, the program had to be changed. Orders were quickly given and the work rearranged in the glass-house at great inconvenience, and the royal party went off to the château to dine a full three hours before they were due to do so. We were told afterwards that Madame le Gras de Luart was so flustered that she had to be given restoratives, and I thought it served her right for having been discourteous to my mother. Then, later in the day, when all the workmen at the glass-house had been kept waiting for hours, the royal party returned, their stomachs well lined when ours were empty. They were laughing and talking and in great humor, the ladies exclaiming at everything they saw but quickly turning aside to examine something else, giving the impression that they understood nothing.
My mother was presented to the King, who said something over his shoulder to one of the gentlemen attending him—I think it was a reference to her height, for she certainly dwarfed the pair of them—and then they passed on, and we followed, and they stood and watched my brother Robert use his blowpipe. He managed it with infinite grace, turning it this way and that, manipulating the long rod with his hands, just as though no one was looking at him, while I knew very well he could see that the King was standing a short distance away, and all the ladies admiring him.
“What a beauty,” one of them said, and even at six years old I knew that they were not referring to the blowpipe but to my brother Robert. Then a dreadful thing happened. My brother Michel, who had been standing in the background amidst a crowd of apprentices, leaned forward to get a better view of the royal party, and he slipped and measured his length before the very feet of the King himself. Scarlet with shame he picked himself up, and the King, good-naturedly, patted him on the shoulder.
“Better not do that when you become a glass-blower,” he said. “How long have you worked in the glass-house?”
The inevitable happened. Poor Michel tried to speak, but instead one of his worst attempts at speech followed.
He gasped and spluttered, his head jerking at every sound just as it always did when he was nervous, and everyone in the royal party burst out laughing.
“There is a lad who must save his breath for his blowpipe,” said the King, moving on amidst great merriment, and I saw one of the older apprentices, a comrade of Michel’s, pull my brother back into line and hide him from view.
After this, it was all spoiled for me. Even the sight of my uncle Michel engraving the glass, which generally was so great a treat, could not make amends for my brother’s shame, and when my father presented the King with a goblet taken from the finished batch they had worked upon for the occasion, with the royal initials and the fleur-de-lys upon it, I almost wished it would shiver to fragments at his feet.
It was over. The royal party left the glass-house and remounted outside the château gates close by, and we watched them disappear into the forest in the direction of Semur. Weary and dispirited, I trailed after my mother to my uncle’s house. Edmé was already asleep upon her shoulder. We were soon joined by my father, my uncle, and my brothers, the grown men looking much relieved that the great ordeal was over.
“It went well,” my father said, with satisfaction. “The King was most gracious. He seemed very pleased with all he saw.”
“I never thought to engrave a goblet for the King himself,” said my uncle, a shy man, who thought only of his work. “This is a day to remember all my life.”
“Very true,” rejoined my father, turning to his sons. “We have been greatly honored today, and we must never forget it.” He took one of the goblets in his hand and examined it. “We’ll never do finer work than this, Michel,” he said to my uncle. “We should be well content. If you can ever equal it, Robert, you will have good reason to be satisfied. I suggest we preserve this goblet as a family symbol, and if it does not bring us fame and fortune it shall serve as a reminder of high craftsmanship through succeeding generations. When you marry, Robert, you may pass it on to your sons.”
Robert examined the goblet in his turn. He seemed much impressed. “To anyone who was ignorant,” he observed, “the royal insignia might be taken for a family device, and our own at that. I suppose we can never aspire to such an honor.” He sighed, and gave the goblet back into my father’s hands.
“We have no need of insignias,” replied my father. “What we Bussons create with our brains and with our hands is proof of our honor. Here, Michel, don’t you want to touch the goblet for luck?” He made as though to hand the precious glass to my youngest brother, but Michel shrank back from him, shaking his head violently.
“It’s b-b-bad luck it would bring me,” he stammered, “b-b-bad luck, not good. I d-d-d-don’t want to touch it.”
He turned suddenly and ran out of the room. I immediately began to cry and would have followed him, but my mother prevented me.
“Let him alone,” she said quietly, “you will only irritate him further.” She then told my father and my uncle of the incident in the glass-house, which they had not seen.
“A pity,” observed my father. “Nevertheless, he must learn self-control.”
He turned to my uncle and began discussing other matters, but I heard Robert whisper to my mother, “Michel is an idiot. He should have cut some caper and made the King laugh with him, instead of against him. By acting so he would have delighted everyone, including himself, and been the crowning success of the royal visit.”
My mother was not impressed. “Not all of us,” she said, “have your capacity for turning a situation to his own advantage.”
She must have noticed his striking pose with the blowpipe, and heard the gasps of admiration from the ladies of the Court party. In any event, despite poor Michel’s misfortune the goblet did bring us luck. I was convinced of th
at the very next day.
Madame le Gras de Luart departed from the château with her retinue of servants, and the mud from her carriage wheels had barely settled in when we saw a very different equipage approaching the iron gates from the direction of Coudrecieux. It was a peddler’s cart, strung about with pots and pans, the kind of cart that would roam the countryside, plying between la Ferté-Bernard and Le Mans, and seated beside the driver, or rather standing and waving his hand joyously, was a familiar figure in a multicolored jacket and a crimson waistcoat, with—unbelievably—a squawking parrot on either shoulder. It was my brother Pierre. My father, who was with us, stood rooted to the ground.
“Where in the world have you come from?” he called sternly, as my brother jumped from the peddler’s cart and ran towards us.
“From Martinique,” said Pierre. “It was much too warm, I could not endure it. I have decided, after all, I would rather work in the glass-house.” He bent to embrace us, and, happy as we were to see him, we all stepped back a pace, for fear of the squawking parrots.
“I take it,” said my mother, “that you have not made your fortune with the packages of glass your father gave you?”
Pierre smiled. “I sold none of it,” he said. “I gave it all away.”
The peddler handed down his trunk, which Pierre, despite my father’s remonstrances, insisted on opening upon the spot. It contained nothing from Martinique of any value, only quantities of gaudy colored waistcoats, woven in the native bazaars, which he had brought as presents for each member of his family.
3
By the time I was twelve or thirteen years old my father Mathurin Busson had control of four glass-houses. He had obtained an extension of his lease of la Pierre and was still associated with la Brûlonnerie and Chérigny, and now he added the glass-house of le Chesne-Bidault, between Montmirail and le Plessis-Dorin. Here, as at la Pierre, the owner, Monsieur Pesant de Bois-Guilbert, simply leased the foundry to my father, having no say in the management, living himself in his château at Montmirail.