Annette Delarbre was the only daughter of one of the higher order of
farmers, or small proprietors, as they are called, who lived at Pont
l'Eveque, a pleasant village not far from Honfleur, in that rich
pastoral part of Lower Normandy called the Pays d'Auge. Annette was
the pride and delight of her parents, and was brought up with the
fondest indulgence. She was gay, tender, petulant, and susceptible.
All her feelings were quick and ardent; and having never experienced
contradiction or restraint, she was little practised in self-control:
nothing but the native goodness of her heart kept her from running
continually into error.
Even while a child, her susceptibility was evinced in an attachment
which she formed to a playmate, Eugene La Forgue, the only son of a
widow, who lived in the neighbourhood. Their childish love was an
epitome of maturer passion; it had its caprices, and jealousies, and
quarrels, and reconciliations. It was assuming something of a graver
character, as Annette entered her fifteenth and Eugene his nineteenth
year, when he was suddenly carried off to the army by the
conscription.
It was a heavy blow to his widowed mother, for he was her only pride
and comfort; but it was one of those sudden bereavements which mothers
were perpetually doomed to feel in France, during the time that
continual and bloody wars were incessantly draining her youth.
Pages:
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390