There are five daughters, each prettier than the
others, the youngest a tiny _filette_, the eldest twenty at most; and
the mother in looks an elder sister. When the war broke out they were
living in Paris, the father in some high political post: but he was by
ancestry a man of Lorraine, and his first thought was to help defend the
home of his forbears. The Meurthe-et-Moselle, with Nancy as its centre
and capital, was a terrible danger zone, with the sword of the enemy
pointed at its heart, but the lover of Lorraine asked to become prefet
in place of a man about to leave, and his family rallied round him.
There at Nancy, they have been ever since those days, through all the
bombardments by Big Berthas and Taubes. When houses and hotels were
being blown to bits by naval guns, thirty-five kilometres away, the
daily life of the family went on as if in peace. As a man, the Prefet
longed to send his wife and children far away. As a servant of France he
thought best to let them stop, to "set an example of calmness." And if
they had been bidden to go, they would still have stayed.
The Prefet's house is one of the eighteenth-century palaces of the Place
Stanislas; and in the story I'd like to write, I should put a
description of their drawing room, and the scene after dinner that
night.
Imagine a background of decorative walls, adorned with magnificent
portraits (one of the best is Stanislas, and better still is Louis XVI,
a proud baby in the arms of a handsome mother); imagine beautiful Louis
XV chairs, tables, and sofas scattered about, with the light of
prism-hung chandeliers glinting on old brocades and tapestries: flowers
everywhere, in Chinese bowls and tall vases; against this background a
group of lovely girls multiplied by many mirrors into a large company;
be-medalled officers in pale blue uniforms, handing coffee to the
ladies, or taking from silver dishes carried by children the delicious
macaroons which are to Nancy what Madeleines are to Commercy.
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