On one point alone Madame was obstinate. She objected in the strongest way to baths in bedrooms. As there was no bathroom in the house, this raised a difficulty. Madame's own practice--she once explained it to me--was to take her bath on the evening of the first Monday in every month--in the kitchen, I think. My predecessors and my contemporaries refused to be satisfied without baths. Madame compromised. If they wanted baths they must descend to _le cave_, a deep underground cellar where Monsieur kept wine. I, and I believe I alone of all Madame's guests, defeated her. I should like to believe that she gave in to me because she loved me; but I fear that I won my victory by unfair means. I refused to understand one word that Madame said, either in French or English, about baths. I treated the subject in language which I am sure was dark to her. I owned a bath of my own and gave my servant orders to bring up sufficient water every morning, whatever Madame said. He obeyed me, and I washed myself, more or less. Madame took her defeat well. She collected quantities of old blankets, rugs, sacks, and bed quilts. She spread them over the parts of the floor where my bath was placed. I tried, honourably, to splash as little as possible and always stood on a towel while drying myself. After all Madame had reason on her side. Water is bad for polished floors, and it is very doubtful whether the human skin is any the better for it. Most of our rules of hygiene are foolish. We think a daily bath is wholesome. We clamour for fresh air. We fuss about drains. Madame never opened a window and had a horror of a _courant_ _d'air_. The only drain connected with the house ran into the well from which our drinking water came. Yet Madame had celebrated her golden wedding and was never ill. Monsieur and Marie were even older and could still thoroughly enjoy a _jour de fete_. Madame had a high sense of duty towards her guests. She and Marie cooked wonderful meals for us and even made pathetic efforts to produce _le pudding_, a thing strange to them which they were convinced we loved. She mended our clothes and sewed on buttons. She pressed us, anxiously, to remain _tranquille_ for a proper period after meals. She did her best to teach us French. She tried to induce me--she actually had induced one of my predecessors--to write French exercises in the evenings. She made a stringent rule that no word of English was ever to be spoken at meals. I think that this was a real self-denial to Madame. She knew a little English--picked up sixty years before when she spent one term in a school near Folkestone. She liked to air it; but for the sake of our education she denied herself. We used to sit at dinner with a dictionary--English-French and French-English--on the table. We referred to it when stuck, and on the whole we got on well in every respect except one.