CHAPTER VI.

_Winter in Pau--I Hire a Perfect Villa for $800 a year--Luxury at

Small Cost--I Learn How to Give Dinners--Fraternizing with the

Bordeaux Wine Merchants--The Judge’s Wild Scheme--I Get Him up a

Dinner--General Bosquet--The Pau Hunt--The Frenchmen Wear Beautiful

Pink Coats but their Horses Wont Jump--Only the General Took the

Ditch._

After you have been a little while in Europe you are seized with a

desire to have a house of your own, to enjoy home comforts. Your loss of

individuality comes over you. In Paris you feel particularly lost, and

as this feeling increased on me I resolved to go to Pau, take a house,

and winter there. The Duchess of Hamilton had abandoned the idea of

passing the winter in Pau, so that many lovely residences were seeking

tenants. For eight hundred dollars a year I hired a beautiful villa,

looking on the Pyrénées, directly opposite the _Pic du Midi d’Ossau_,

with lovely grounds filled with camelia bushes, and I then felt that I

had all a man could desire,--a perfect home made to one’s hand, a

climate where the wind never blows hard enough, even in winter, to stir

a leaf on the trees, the best cooks in the world, and where people

appeared to live but to eat well and sleep. A country of beautiful

women; the peasantry a mixture of Spanish and French blood; the climate

so soft and genial as to take away all harshness or roughness from their

faces--rich Titian-like women, with fine coloring and superb

figures--what more could man desire? I was, I may say, a pioneer

American there.

A member of a distinguished New York family, who had been our Secretary

of Legation at Madrid, had preceded me; he had a lovely English wife,

was the master of the hounds, and gave me a cordial reception. I lived

there two winters, with a luxury I have never since enjoyed, and

literally for nothing, comparing one’s expenses there to living in New

York. The desire to entertain took possession of me and I gratified it;

such dinners and such wines! I ran down to Bordeaux, made friends with

all the wine fraternity there, tasted and criticised, and wormed myself

into the good graces of the owners of those enormous Bordeaux _caves_,

learned there for the first time what claret was, and how impossible it

was to drink out of Bordeaux, what a Bordeaux connoisseur would call a

perfect wine. There I learned how to give dinners; to esteem and value

the _Coq de Bruyère_ of the Pyrénées and the _Pie de Mars_ (squab

Magpie).

Pau was filled with sick English people. I was one of the few sound men

physically in the place. I dashed into society with a vim. My Louisiana

friend, the Judge, followed me there, and I had my hands full in

establishing him socially. Shrewd, and immensely clever, he came to me

one day and said, “My friend, I am going to make a name for myself in

this place; wait and you will see.” Some little distance from Pau,

there was a large tract of worthless land, utterly valueless, called

_Les Landes_. Shepherds on stilts tended a few sheep on it. The judge at

once had an interview with the Prêfet of the Basses Pyrénées (an officer

similar to the governor of one of our States), and assured him of the

feasibility of reclaiming all this land and making fine cotton fields of

it. This scheme, wonderful to relate, was seized upon with avidity by

the Prêfet, and my friend, the Judge, was asked to submit his views.

This was all he wanted. Of course he never perfected his plans for such

work. The Prêfet, however, was at once his friend and admirer, and he

was made the distinguished and sought-after stranger of that winter. He

then came to me to get up a dinner for him, to be given to his newly

acquired friend, which he charged me to make the most brilliant and

superb dinner ever given in that place. I well remember his order to the

florist; “Furnish me for my table such a display of flowers as you would

provide for your Emperor; spare no expense.” I telegraphed to Paris and

exhausted all my resources to give him what he wished. When his guests

were all assembled in his _salon_, my friend could not remember who was

to take in who to dinner; so with great coolness he walked over to me,

and to distract the attention of his assembled guests, said, in a loud

voice, “Your horses, I am told, have run away, upset your carriage, and

killed the coachman.” Instantly the French people sprang up, exclaiming,

“What! what is it! is it possible!” while the Judge, in a low voice,

whispered, “Tell me quick who is to take in Madame J., and who goes in

with Count B.?” I told him, when he quietly said, “All made up, my boy,

let them believe it.” The dinner was a success, such a success that I

resolved to give a ball myself on the arrival from Paris of one of our

New York merchant princes, to whom I was much indebted.

The French papers gave a glowing account of this ball, and I was fairly

launched into the French society of the Basses Pyrénées. It is hard to

convince an old business man, who has had large experience and amassed a

fortune, that any one can do anything in his line better than himself.

Therefore, when I gave my merchant prince exquisite Bordeaux wines that

I knew were incomparable, and extolled them, he quietly replied:

“Why, my young friend, these wines are all from the house of Barton &

Guestier. Now, you must know, that the house of Johnson can alone

furnish what I class as the best clarets. I have for forty years been in

correspondence with that house, and will guarantee to produce here in

Pau, from them, clarets and sauternes better than any your house of

Barton & Guestier can send you.” I took him up at once, and the wager

was a fine dinner of twenty covers. All I had to do was to write the

above statement to Mr. Guestier, who at once sent me his own butler to

serve the wines, and sent with him a “Haut Brion” and a Chateau Latour

of 1848. As he termed it, _mise en bouteille tout à fait speciale hors

de ligne_, whose smoothness, bouquet, and flavor surpassed anything I

had ever dreamt of tasting. My merchant prince with his Johnson wines

was beaten out of sight, and so mortified was he that the day after the

dinner he sent me as a present all the wines Johnson had sent him.

The hunt was then really the feature of Pau life, for those who could

not follow in the saddle would, after attending the meet, take to the

roads and see the best of the run. General Bosquet, returning then to

Pau, his native city, was fêted by both French and English. He had so

distinguished himself in the Crimean War that all regarded him as a

great hero. The English particularly wanted to express their admiration

of him, so they asked him to appear with his friends at the next Meet,

and follow in the hunt, promising him rare sport and a good run after a

bagged fox. To do him honor, the French, to a man, ordered new hunting

suits, all of them turned out in “pink,” and being in force made indeed

a great show.

My Irish doctor was by my side, in great good humor, and a wicked

twinkle in his eye. Turning to me he said:

“You will soon see some fun; not one of these Frenchmen can take that

jump; it is a _rasper_. Not a man of them will clear that bank and

ditch.”

I smiled at this, and felt that to the end of time it would always be

English against French. It was cruel; but men should not pretend to ride

after hounds when they cannot take the jumps.

“Look at those chaps,” he said, “in spotless pink; not a man among them

who can jump a horse to any purpose.”

They were the nobility of the Basses Pyrénées, a splendid, gallant set

of fellows; all prepared “to do or die.” The master of the hounds raised

his hat, the fox was turned out of the bag; he was given ten minutes’

law; then the huntsman with his pack dashed away, clearing both bank and

ditch. It was the severest jump they could find in any part of that

country, purposely chosen for that reason. My doctor’s little Irish boy,

a lad of sixteen years, went at it, and cleared it at a bound. I saw the

master of the hunt (an American, a splendid looking fellow, superbly

mounted, and a beautiful rider), with General Bosquet at his side, turn

to the General (who was riding one of his horses), and shout:

“General, dash the spurs into her; lift her head a bit, and follow me.”

The General did not hesitate; he plunged the spurs into the beast,

dashed ahead, and cleared bank and ditch. All his friends followed him.

Forward they went, but only for a few rods, when every horse, as if

shot, came to a full stop, planted his forefeet in front of him, and

neither whip nor spur could budge him. None would take the jump; every

Frenchman’s face became ashey pale, and I really felt sorry for them.

Not a Frenchman, with the exception of the General, took that jump.

After this, the mere mention of fox hunting would set the Frenchmen

wild. It was cruel, but it was sport.

_Moral_: Men should not attempt to do what is not in them.

Passing two winters at Pau and the summers at Baden-Baden, keeping four

horses at the former place, following the hounds at least once a week,

giving all through the winter from one to two dinners a week, with an

English housekeeper, and living as well as I could possibly live, with

the cost of my ball included, I did not spend half the amount in living

that I am compelled to in New York. The ball cost me but eight hundred

dollars.

HOME AGAIN.