Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!" cried

its chief.

Captains, give the sailor place!

He is admiral, in brief.

Still the north wind, by God's grace!

See the noble fellow's face

As the big ship, with a bound,

Clears the entry like a hound,

Keeps the passage, as its inch of way were the wide sea's

profound!

See, safe through shoal and rock,

How they follow in a flock,

Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the

ground,

Not a spar that comes to grief!

The peril, see, is past.

All are harbored to the last,

And just as Hervé Riel hollas "Anchor!"

sure as fate,

Up the English come, too late!

VIII

So, the storm subsides to calm :
They see the green trees wave

On the heights o'erlooking Grève. Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. "Just our rapture to enhance,

Let the English rake the bay,

Gnash their teeth and glare askance

As they cannonade away!

'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!" How hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance ! Out burst all with one accord,

"This is Paradise for Hell!

Let France, let France's king

Thank the man that did the thing!"

What a shout, and all one word,

"Hervé Riel!"

As he stepped in front once more,
Not a symptom of surprise

In the frank blue Breton eyes,
Just the same man as before.

IX

Then said Damfreville, "My friend,
I must speak out at the end,

Though I find the speaking hard.
Praise is deeper than the lips:
You have saved the king his ships,
You must name your own reward.
'Faith, our sun was near eclipse!
Demand whate'er you will,

France remains your debtor still.

Ask to heart's content and have! or my name's not

Damfreville."

Then a beam of fun outbroke

On the bearded mouth that spoke,
As the honest heart laughed through
Those frank eyes of Breton blue:
"Since I needs must say my say,

Since on board the duty's done,

And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but a

run?

Since 'tis ask and have I may

Since the others go ashore

Come! A good whole holiday!

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!"

That he asked and that he got, nothing more.

XI

Name and deed alike are lost:

Not a pillar nor a post

In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell; Not a head in white and black

On a single fishing smack,

In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell.

Go to Paris: rank on rank

Search the heroes flung pell-mell

On the Louvre, face and flank!

You shall look long enough ere you come to Hervé Riel. So, for better and for worse,

Hervé Riel, accept my verse!

In my verse, Hervé Riel, do thou once more.

Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the Belle Aurore!

WASHING IN OLD FRANCE

HERE is another rustic operation little known except to those who have lived in the country. In Paris they wash constantly, and with the help of rapid chemical processes. They use considerable white linen, it is soiled quickly, and as they do not keep an enormous supply, it is often renewed. In the provinces, and especially in the country, it is quite different. They take pride in possessing a quantity of linen; tablecloths, sheets, shirts, pillow cases, are piled up by the dozen in the deep, massive clothespresses; only the body linen is given to the laundress, and the rest is washed at home. So the washing assumes the importance of a solemn event. It is one of the great ceremonies of domestic life.

At my home this sacramental operation is performed twice a year, in the early spring and late in the autumn. I recall exactly the two dates, because they coincided with the Easter holidays and the September vacation. I never think of them except accompanied by gay recollections of

7

holidays spent on the threshold of the washhouse, watching the lighting of the fire in the furnace, and the coming and going of the washerwomen. For months wood ashes had been stored up for the washing. Long before, the week had been fixed upon when the washing was to be done, and the women to wash and iron had been engaged. The lofty garrets, with their branching timbers, were filled with heaps of soiled linen, which was sorted, after having been taken out of a great chest of firwood, and which the servants, bending under the weight, carried to the wash house.

The washing, like a Spanish comedy, included three days, three quite distinct acts. At first it was collected. The family linen was placed in closely pressed layers in the great, big-bellied lye tub, the successive layers being wet with cold water. When the tub was full, a cloth of coarse linen, called the cendrier, was spread over the top, and on this cloth a thick bed of wood ashes was laid. Then it was all left to rest overnight.

The next day the scalding took place. Early in the morning a special woman, skilled in the art of washing, would come to the washhouse, light fagots of vinebranches in the furnace, above which swelled the big boiler full of water, and begin, as soon as the liquid was sufficiently hot, to wet the ashes in the tub. The water, in passing slowly through the ashes, absorbed a part of the alkaline principles which they contained; and, filtered by the cendrier, it gradually soaked into the layers of linen, and gently cleansed them. Then it flowed out through an open bunghole in