ABSTRACT
Loti returned to Rochefort, dedicated a species of shrine to his dead Turkish love in his oriental chamber, and, while eternally mourning the irrecoverable past, seems to have extracted a reasonable amount of enjoyment out of the present. His visit to the castle in the midst of the Carpathians gave him a taste for what may be called feudal romance, which hitherto had not been remarked in him. In the splendid Gothic hall of his house he organized, in April, 1888, a medieval fête, which is recorded in the newspapers of the time as an event of almost national importance. Loti, assisted by the students of the Ecole des Chartes, had devoted six months to the preparation of it. The hosts and the guests all wore the costume of the year 1470. “Pierre Loti, dressed as Louis XI, seated on a dais, had on his right the lovely Beatrice of Gif “—so runs the account in the Illustration. This lady was no other than Juliette Adam, who had just bought the ancient abbey of Gif. “Madame Loti, on another dāis, faced him, between Tiel, the Duke of Burgundy’s fool, and Maistre Coictier, the King’s physician.” The banquet that followed was in true mediæval style, consisting of thirteen courses. The dishes were so strange to the nineteenth century palate that aids to digestion were judiciously interposed. At the proper moment the picturesque crowd drank the health of Pierre Loti and his noble lady in goblets of champagne. “Beatrice de Gif,” pronounced a discourse in French of Louis XI’s time, hardly understanding a word of it herself. The inhabitants of Rochefort were admitted to witness the splendid scene and pay homage to their illustrious townsman, seated on his dāis! The festivities concluded with a ball by torchlight. Loti understood the king business better than Carmen Sylva.
