They used to arrive in the summer, some for a couple of days, others for weeks together, to stay with Monsieur Bertin, editor of the _Journal des Débâts_ and owner of Les Roches,[15] a property situated midway between the villages of Bièvres and Jouy-en-Josas. Genial and lively, as Ingres represents him in his celebrated portrait, Monsieur Bertin loved to divine, promote, and, where needful, encourage their vocations and plans. His housekeeping was on a modest scale, but his hospitality delightful--a mixture of go-as-you-please and kindly despotism; perfect freedom outwardly, but, in reality, careful ministrations skilfully disguised. Louise Bertin, the eldest daughter of the old man, and one of the muses of the period, willingly divided her time between the kitchen and the drawing-room, cookery-books and poems. As an ardent musician, tolerably familiar with the best literature, her mind was full of quaintness, while her heart was instinct with kindliness. When, perchance, she had surfeited her guests with sonatas and song, she would be seized with fear lest she should be interfering with their habits or inclinations, and would hastily substitute anarchy, by commanding each one to choose his own occupation, and pursue his meditation, walk, or game unhindered.
Of them all, Victor Hugo seems to have been the girl's favourite, and the one who made the largest use of this generous welcome and charming liberty. As soon as the periwinkles blossomed, he settled his wife and children at Les Roches, while he himself came and went between Paris and Bièvres. Gradually he grew to associate the valley with his joys and sorrows; it became one of those familiar haunts to which one instinctively turns, with the comforting assurance of finding there the outward conditions suitable to one's moods. As a young father, he made it the fitting frame for family joys; when his love was flung back in his face and his friendship betrayed, he returned to seek, if not consolation, at least faith and hope for the future. A year later, again under the shelter of Les Roches, he thought he had found solace. The valley meant something more than an invitation to dawdle: it filled him with sensuous suggestion; he longed to place his ideal of an unquenchable love at the feet of a woman, and to pronounce the word "Forever."