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 Pyrenees,
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 precipices 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 corrected. 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.
He was a descendant from the younger branch of an illustrious family,
and it was designed, that the deficiency of his patrimonial wealth
should be supplied either by a splendid alliance in marriage, or by
success in the intrigues of public affairs. But St. Aubert had too nice
a sense of honour to fulfil the latter hope, and too small a portion
of ambition to sacrifice what he called happiness, to the attainment of
wealth. After the death of his father he married a very amiable woman,
his equal in birth, and not his superior in fortune. The late Monsieur
St. Aubert's liberality, or extravagance, had so much involved his
affairs, that his son found it necessary to dispose of a part of
the family domain, and, some years after his marriage, he sold it to
Monsieur Quesnel, the brother of his wife, and retired to a small estate
in Gascony, where conjugal felicity, and parental duties, divided his
attention with the treasures of knowledge and the illuminations of
genius.