Sons of the Soil by Honoré de Balzac
page 327 of 428 (76%)
page 327 of 428 (76%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
On these posters, about which it will be remembered Madame Tonsard inquired of Vermichel, there was always, on the last line, the following announcement: "Tivoli will be illuminated with colored-glass lamps." The town had adopted as the place for public a dance-ground created by Socquard out of a stony garden (stony, like the rest of the hill on which Soulanges is built, where the gardens are of made land), and called by him a Tivoli. This character of the soil explains the peculiar flavor of the Soulanges wine,--a white wine, dry and spirituous, very like Madeira or the Vouvray wine, or Johannisberger, --three vintages which resemble one another. The powerful effect produced by the Socquard ball upon the imaginations of the whole country-side made the inhabitants thereof very proud of their Tivoli. Such as had ventured as far as Paris declared that the Parisian Tivoli was superior to that of Soulanges only in size. Gaubertin boldly declared that, for his part, he preferred the Socquard ball to the Parisian ball. "Well, we'll think it all over," continued Rigou. "That Parisian fellow, the editor of a newspaper, will soon get tired of his present amusement and be glad of a change; perhaps we could through the servants give him the idea of coming to the fair, and he'd bring the others; I'll consider it. Sibilet might--although, to be sure, his influence is devilishly decreased of late--but he might get the general to think he could curry popularity by coming." |
|