Page:An adventure (1911).pdf/66

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
56
AN ADVENTURE

up sticks and leaves, plant flowers, and rake.[1]

In 1783, "Mariamne" received wages for picking up leaves in the Trianon grounds;[2] this is quite possible, as children are said to have been used for that work, and the absence of surname suggests that she was the daughter of one of the gardeners.

The marriage certificate of Alexandre Charpentier, in 1823, gives his father's name as Louis Toussaint Charpentier, and his mother's name as Marie Anne Lemaignan. The marriage certificate of these persons (from which we should have learnt their age) is said to have been destroyed.[3]

In the wages book the names of two "Lemonguin" (elder and younger) appear; also "Magny," but not, so far as has been discovered, Lemaignan.[4] If this Marie Anne Charpentier was 21 years old at her son's birth (November, 1796), she would have been eight years old in 1783, and 14 in 1789. This would suit

  1. Arch. Nat. O1, 1878.
  2. Arch. Nat. O1, 1877.
  3. Letter enclosing marriage certificate (copy from the Archives Municipales, Versailles).
  4. Arch. Nat. O1, 1876, 1877.