I offered my arm to my neighbour and we went down. Oh! worthy Mother Oseraie! when I saw your soup, your mutton cutlets, your soles _en matelote_, your mayonnaise of lobster, your two roast snipe and your shrimp salad, how I regretted I had had doubts of you for an instant! Fifty sous for a dinner which, in Paris, would have cost twenty francs! True, wine would have accounted for some of the difference; but we might drink as much cider as we liked free of charge. My travelling companion suggested taking a lease of three, six, or nine years with Mother Oseraie; during which nine years, in her opinion, we could economise to the extent of a hundred and fifty thousand francs! Perhaps she was right, poor Mélanie! but how was Paris and its revolutions to get on without me? As soon as dinner was finished we went back to the beach. It was high tide, and the barques were coming into the harbour like a flock of sheep to the fold. Women were waiting on the shore with huge baskets to carry off the fish. Each woman recognised her own boat and its rigging from afar; mothers called out to their sons, sisters to their brothers, wives to their husbands. All talked by signs before the boats were near enough to enable them to use their voices, and it was soon known whether the catch had been good or bad. All the while, a hot July sun was sinking below the horizon, surrounded by great clouds which it fringed with purple, and through the gaps between the clouds it darted its golden rays, Apollo's arrows, which disappeared in the sea. I do not know anything more beautiful or grand or magnificent than a sunset over the ocean! We remained on the beach until it was completely dark. I was perfectly well aware that, if I did not from the beginning cut short this desire for contemplation which had taken possession of me, I should spend my days in shooting sea-birds, gathering oysters among the rocks and catching eels in the sand. I therefore resolved to combat this sweet enemy styled idleness, and to set myself to work that very evening if possible. I was under an agreement with Harel; it had been arranged that I should bring him back a play in verse, of five acts, entitled _Charles VII chez ses grands vassaux._ M. Granier, otherwise de Cassagnac, published, in 1833, a work on me, since continued by M. Jacquot, otherwise de Mirecourt, a work in which he pointed out the sources whence I had drawn all the plots for my plays, and taken all the ideas for my novels. I intend, as I go on with these Memoirs, to undertake that work myself, and I guarantee that it shall be more complete and more conscientious than that of my two renowned critics; only, I hope my readers will not demand that it shall be as malicious. But let me relate how the idea of writing _Charles VII._ came to me, and of what heterogeneous elements that drama was composed. CHAPTER XIII