CHAPTER I
home is the resort |
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where, |
Supporting and supported, polish’d friends |
And dear relations mingle into bliss. |
THOMSON |
ON the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony,
stood, in the year 1584, the chateau of Monsieur St. Aubert. From
its windows were seen the pastoral landscapes of Guienne and
Gascony stretching along the river, gay with luxuriant woods and
vine, and plantations of olives. To the south, the view was bounded
by the majestic Pyrenées, whose summits, veiled in clouds, or
exhibiting awful forms, seen, and lost again, as the partial vapours
rolled along, were sometimes barren, and gleamed through the
blue tinge of air, and sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy
pine, that swept downward to their base. These tremendous preci-
pices were contrasted by the soft green of the pastures and woods
that hung upon their skirts; among whose flocks, and herds, and
simple cottages, the eye, after having scaled the cliffs above,
delighted to repose. To the north, and to the east, the plains of
Guienne and Languedoc were lost in the mist of distance; on the
west, Gascony was bounded by the waters of Biscay.
M. St. Aubert loved to wander, with his wife and daughter, on
the margin of the Garonne, and to listen to the music that floated
on its waves. He had known life in other forms than those of pastoral
simplicity, having mingled in the gay and in the busy scenes of the
world; but the flattering portrait of mankind, which his heart had
delineated in early youth, his experience had too sorrowfully cor-
rected. Yet, amidst the changing visions of life, his principles
remained unshaken, his benevolence unchilled; and he retired
from the multitude ‘more in pity than in anger,’ to scenes of simple
nature, to the pure delights of literature, and to the exercise of
domestic virtues.