He discovered it in a peasant's stable under a two-foot layer of straw and earth, where it had probably been hidden a hundred years before by its owner, and then all record of it lost by his descendants.
The mention of Cannes sets Sardou off on another train of thought. His family for three generations have lived there. Before that they were Sardinian fishermen. His great-grandfather, he imagines, was driven by some tempest to the shore near Cannes and settled where he found himself. Hence the name! For in the patois of Provencal France an inhabitant of Sardinia is still called un Sardou.
The sun is off the front of the house by this time, so we migrate to a shady corner of the lawn for our aperitif, the inevitable vermouth or "bitters" which Frenchmen take at five o'clock. Here another surprise awaits the visitor, who has not realized, perhaps, to what high ground the crawling local train has brought him. At our feet, far below the lawn and shade trees that encircle the chateau, lies the Seine, twisting away toward Saint Germain, whose terrace and dismantled palace stand outlined against the sky.
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