M. Semot, (the father of the present owner), was a painter
of the Empire and a laureate, and he tried to reproduce to the best of
his ability that cold Italian, republican, Roman style, which was so
popular in the time of Canova and of Madame de Stael. In those days
people were inclined to be pompous and noble. They used to place
chiselled urns on graves and paint everybody in a flowing cloak, and
with long hair; then Corinne sang to the accompaniment of her lyre
beside Oswald, who wore Russian boots; and it was thought proper to have
everybody's head adorned with a profusion of dishevelled locks and to
have a multitude of ruins in every landscape.
This style of embellishment abounds throughout La Garenne. There is a
temple erected to Vesta, and directly opposite it another erected to
Friendship....
Inscriptions, artificial rocks, factitious ruins, are scattered
lavishly, with artlessness and conviction.... But the poetical riches
centre in the grotto of Heloise, a sort of natural dolmen on the bank of
the Sevre.
Why have people made Heloise, who was such a great and noble figure,
appear commonplace and silly, the prototype of all crossed loves and the
narrow ideal of sentimental schoolgirls? The unfortunate mistress of the
great Abelard deserved a better fate, for she loved him with devoted
admiration, although he was hard and taciturn at times and spared her
neither bitterness nor blows.
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