he lets furnished. They are by many degrees the best houses that
are so let near our French watering-place; we have had the honour
of living in both, and can testify. The entrance-hall of the first
we inhabited was ornamented with a plan of the estate, representing
it as about twice the size of Ireland; insomuch that when we were
yet new to the property (M. Loyal always speaks of it as ‘La
propriete’) we went three miles straight on end in search of the
bridge of Austerlitz – which we afterwards found to be immediately
outside the window. The Chateau of the Old Guard, in another part
of the grounds, and, according to the plan, about two leagues from
the little dining-room, we sought in vain for a week, until,
happening one evening to sit upon a bench in the forest (forest in
the plan), a few yards from the house-door, we observed at our
feet, in the ignominious circumstances of being upside down and
greenly rotten, the Old Guard himself: that is to say, the painted
effigy of a member of that distinguished corps, seven feet high,
and in the act of carrying arms, who had had the misfortune to be
blown down in the previous winter. It will be perceived that M.
Loyal is a staunch admirer of the great Napoleon. He is an old
soldier himself – captain of the National Guard, with a handsome
gold vase on his chimney-piece presented to him by his company –
and his respect for the memory of the illustrious general is
enthusiastic. Medallions of him, portraits of him, busts of him,
pictures of him, are thickly sprinkled all over the property.
During the first month of our occupation, it was our affliction to
be constantly knocking down Napoleon: if we touched a shelf in a
dark corner, he toppled over with a crash; and every door we
opened, shook him to the soul. Yet M. Loyal is not a man of mere
castles in the air, or, as he would say, in Spain. He has a
specially practical, contriving, clever, skilful eye and hand. His
houses are delightful. He unites French elegance and English
comfort, in a happy manner quite his own. He has an extraordinary
genius for making tasteful little bedrooms in angles of his roofs,
which an Englishman would as soon think of turning to any account
as he would think of cultivating the Desert. We have ourself
reposed deliciously in an elegant chamber of M. Loyal’s
construction, with our head as nearly in the kitchen chimney-pot as
we can conceive it likely for the head of any gentleman, not by
profession a Sweep, to be. And, into whatsoever strange nook M.
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Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
Loyal’s genius penetrates, it, in that nook, infallibly constructs
a cupboard and a row of pegs. In either of our houses, we could
have put away the knapsacks and hung up the hats of the whole
regiment of Guides.
Aforetime, M. Loyal was a tradesman in the town. You can transact
business with no present tradesman in the town, and give your card
‘chez M. Loyal,’ but a brighter face shines upon you directly. We
doubt if there is, ever was, or ever will be, a man so universally
pleasant in the minds of people as M. Loyal is in the minds of the
citizens of our French watering-place. They rub their hands and
laugh when they speak of him. Ah, but he is such a good child,
such a brave boy, such a generous spirit, that Monsieur Loyal! It
is the honest truth. M. Loyal’s nature is the nature of a
gentleman. He cultivates his ground with his own hands (assisted
by one little labourer, who falls into a fit now and then); and he
digs and delves from morn to eve in prodigious perspirations –
‘works always,’ as he says – but, cover him with dust, mud, weeds,
water, any stains you will, you never can cover the gentleman in M.
Loyal. A portly, upright, broad-shouldered, brown-faced man, whose
soldierly bearing gives him the appearance of being taller than he
is, look into the bright eye of M. Loyal, standing before you in