THE LITTLE BLANCHEFLEURE
My friend Franeli Thaller from Solathurn, was telling me about an old picture.
From the second hand dealer, Hirschli, by the Hafnersteg, I bought a picture of the little Marquise Blanchefleure, who, with a great part of the French nobility—in that year of bad taste, 1792—lost her charming head. Here in the picture she has her head; and that head has a high coiffure, and astonishingly arched eyebrows—just as if they had been drawn by the brush of Watteau—and a merry looking little face. She is charming, and she fills my heart with longing.
You do not know anything about the little Marquise Blanchefleure, do you, who was always right? You do not know anything, of course, do you, of the ridiculous passion of my great grandfather, the Swiss, Thaller, whose portrait in enamel hangs just below hers, nor of the foolish actions of the Jacobins, those people devoid of all taste and charm?
No?
Well, the little Marquise Blanchefleure was always right. She was right to come into this world as a duchess. Remote blood of Savoy—although somewhat far down in the list of rank of Versailles—but still she was
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