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the 20th, Juliette arrives in Mostaganem. At that time, no more than a
creak barely arranged, Karouba. On 24th, Ain-Noussy, where a part of the
convoy will stay.
Christmas in warm weather, in a rough-and-ready camp,
under the stars. May be the most beautiful Christmas in all her life.
Finally,
on 26th of December, she leaves her meagre luggage in the militarised
camp of Mesra, to-be Aboukir, 13 kilometres away from the sea-shore,
on the south slope of djebel Bou Hamara. |
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There are 20 acres for the cultures and less than half an acre for the garden. These stones and roots will grow into wheat fields, potatoes, rasps, corn, linen, tobacco, madder fields.. in rows of salads and radishes… The soldiers
have prepared and carefully aligned some tents. The Captain allocates
the tents and grounds to each family, and starts to assign tasks. The family has get its own luggage. Julien received an axe, a spad and a mattock. The old Joseph weighs the tools and will help as much as he can. First complains
are raising. The tents are not waterproofed, and even in Algeria in
can heavily rain in February ! Juliette recognised with a little despair
the dampness she felt on the boats. They miss wood, very much, in these jebels, and the army has no great architect, one must recognise. One step after the other, the colons receive their first barracks that they will improve themselves, droughtproofing the roofs, beating the earth, or covering it with bushes. They could not take more than 50 kilos of luggages, very few family brought beds and had to satisfy themwelves with straw mats. ... Mattresses, after the bad handling in the toues are in a bad shape that can only worsen. But they sleep so easily, thanks to tiredness, which also refrains the colons from muttering too high. One can hear them a little bit on sundays, after the Mass. « They give seeds, they tell us to plant our gardens, or we won't keep them... but they forget the « drainages », my garden is under water, everything is lost! » More important, these first colons discover quickly that, however courageous one can be, however hard working, one cannot set himself as a farmer from one day to another, especially when already in the middle of your life. Urban handworkers, they were used to work hard for long hours... But a cutler, for example, spent his twelve to fourteen hours of daily work lying on a bench... And even a stone cutter had to learn different gestures a strain knew muscles. I think about Julien, who was molding plaster, now leaning forward the all day long on, working the soil, having to learn everything anew. And who could teach him ? Soldiers, no more experienced than himself in farming... Soon, other hardships are coming. Cholera is going to strike, for example. Hygienics are far from being perfect in this new Aboukir, because of the general conditions, lack of knowledge, and also the nearby swamps.
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Juliette and Henri |
I find
again Juliette at a very unspecific time.
Let’s simply say that, one day, on April the 25th, 1862, she gives birth to Henri. And that Henri is the son of Juliette and my g-great-grandfather, Adrien de La Valette. Without going into the details of his life, Adrien is, at that time, a well-known legitimist, publisher of a very politic and very rightist newspaper. After his parents agreed on a legal separation - which was quite exceptional in the catholic and royalist high society of the time – he was brought up by his mother alone, herself supported by the “Faubourg” [faubourg Saint Germain, so called “the Faubourg” because none other could even exist, was at that time a part of Paris comparable to Sloane Square, where nobility of old extraction concentrated itself. Proust refers very often to it, to give a flair of what it was]… He married first a daughter of good Normandy country nobility, Anaïs de la Broise, who died in 1863 without giving him a heir. Maybe Anaïs’ endowment was one of the grounds of his fortune ?
However, he bought a mansion in the Marais, direct view on the Seine
river, had it completely restored, in a style which announces our gothical
Viollet-le-Duc, and and lives in grand style, affairs, Suez Canal, Simplon
Tunnel Company, nice parties, evenings at the Opera, duels and feverish
articles. I have so few certain elements to imagine what could have happened .
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Juliette’s mother, Mélanie,
would have stayed in Algeria, where she would have died on 9th July 1877,
at Ouled Rahmoun, near Constantine. Juliette’s father died earlier. In
this little notebook I learned not to trust, Juliette wrote : July 23rd,1856,
death of my father… How could the daughter of a small colon, how could she meet the Comte de La Valette, son of a member of the Household Cavalry of Charles X, and descendant of the Counts of Toulouse ? One explanation is that my Juliette was one of these light and easy girls who were so numerous in the area near St Gorges, the lorettes, who get their nickname from the church of the area, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, so becoming the Holy-Mary-of-the-Courtesans... lorettes, dress-maker's apprentices, dancers, young and pretty girls who granted agreable moments to these black sirs, in these times when affairs where decided in champaign's bubbles and at the Foyer of the Opera. Another explanation would be that Adrien went to Algeria for business, and to take part to the great development launched by the Second Empire. There he would have met Juliette, and brought her back with him .. |
Juliette, Adrien and Henri |
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