“The grapes belong to the boys and are divided when ripe,” said our guide; “it’s very pleasant to see that not a bunch is surreptitiously touched, and that every one gets his share at the proper time. But only consider what a saint we have at our head! Who could help growing better with such an example as Monsieur De M---- before him?”
The gentleman in question is the founder of Mettray, and spends all his time and thought among the outcast children of his adoption. It was quite touching to find how he had leavened the whole lump of this little society with his own goodness; and very proud and happy we felt at receiving an invitation to breakfast with him and his daughter the Countess B----. But before speaking of this pleasant breakfast, I must mention one of the most curious features in the _Colonie_ of Mettray. Every one has seen in _The Times_ the advertisement of some persistent and philanthropic clergyman, who undertakes to make unmanageable boys perfectly tractable and gentlemanly in a few months’ time. But they manage these things better in France, as will be seen by the way in which the benevolent supporter of Mettray has effectually supplied the want of such obliging clergymen.
Monsieur De M----’s pet project is what he calls, “La maison paternelle,”--in other words, a refined sort of prison for the refractory sons of gentlemen. The prison is attractive enough outwardly, and looks like a pretty Swiss house, but, in spite of carpets and curtains, the interior is gloomy. We were conducted all over the building, and our guide was at great pains to give us a clear idea of what was, evidently, his pet project. Unruly boys are sent here under the charge of a tutor for terms of one, two, or more months; they are kept to hard study, and during their hours of work the key of their cells is turned upon them, and their behaviour is watched by the tutor through a tiny pane of glass let in the doors. As a reward of good conduct, more cheerful kinds of cells looking on to the garden and adorned with pictures are given, but the peep-hole and the key are never wanting.
“It is an admirable institution, this _maison paternelle_,” I said, a little doubtfully; “and must relieve parents of a good deal of responsibility; but it would never do to lock up English boys, and watch them at their lessons through a peep-hole.”