In the June, 1864 issue of La Poupée Modèle, Chiffonnette writes to Lily from the countryside, where she’s visiting with her friend, Bleuette. You may want to read this translated version to your dolls, as it contains several important lessons.
Chiffonnette in the Countryside
My good little Lily, how I would like to have you near me! Because I must tell you, I have had one more adventure, and only you, who are so clever and so complacent, could help me out of my embarrassment. Ah! How I regret having been too lazy to learn to sew! I wouldn’t be threatened at this time with spending the rest of my summer, holidays and Sundays, in everyday dress; which will inevitably happen to me, if I do not manage to repair the disaster of which my dreadful. . . coquetry, I must say the word, has been the cause again!
Yes, I will spend holidays and Sundays in everyday dress! Bonne Amie said it, and Bonne Amie never lies. Do you understand my difficulty? What saddens me the most is that this dear old doll, seeing me so disobedient and so incorrigible, will say to herself: “Chiffonnette must definitely not love me, to disregard my advice so.” And no matter how much I protest, she won’t believe me. . . I no longer have the right to be believed by her, alas! I’ve failed her so many times!
Still, Lily, you know I love her, and I’m unhappy when she talks harshly to me and looks at me without smiling. I would like a hundred times better to be scolded and put to penance than to see her coldness. And then, I have so much sorrow when I say to myself: I hurt her, I made her believe that I am a little ingrate, a little one without heart, who does not know how to make an effort to be pleasant to people whom she likes and to whom she owes recognition. It is always my love of beautiful dresses that is the cause of my faults! Dear Lily, how happy you are not to have this nasty flaw! It’s so hard to correct it when once you’ve let it grow! You see it, despite my remorse, my fine resolutions, I always fall back on it. Ah! I have a lot of sorrow, you know!
But all this does not tell you the cause of my desolation. First of all, everyone must know that at this time I am in the country, with friends of Bonne Amie, in a lovely house surrounded by trees and flowers. I have found a little companion, good and simple like you. It’s not like her to think all day about her toilette! From morning to night, she wears a little pique dress with lines or bouquets, a large ecru smock festooned with color which preserves her dress and allows her to have fun at her ease, very solid boots with which she can walk with impunity in the rose garden and in the flowerbeds of her garden. Her blonde curls are held in place by a little black net, so that you never have the embarrassment of re-styling her during the day, and her hair never looks messy either. When she goes to the garden, to protect herself from the sun, she puts on a straw hat adorned with a simple black velvet. It is true that sometimes she adds to it, for fun, a bouquet of natural roses or wild flowers. You realize that in this outfit she has complete freedom of movement, which does not prevent her from being tasteful.
Well, when we arrived, Bonne Amie wanted me to adopt a similar red costume; but I, who had brought a host of pretty summer dresses in chiffon, barege, Chambray gauze, I replied to our Vieille Poupee that I no doubt found my little companion very well dressed, but that Parisiennes like me could not, it seemed to me, dress in the same way; I therefore begged her to allow me to wear the dresses she had bought for me before we left, from Mademoiselle Peronne.
You will tear them apart, my child, she said.
Oh, relax good friend!
You won’t dare to have fun, for fear of getting dirty.
I know how to play very well without getting dirty, I assure you.
You will waste all your belongings, and you will have nothing left.
What does that matter, since I will be in a new toilet every day?
Okay, have it your way— put on your beautiful dresses. . . but do not forget, Chiffonnette, that I will not give you any more all summer long, and that if any accident happens to you, you will repair it yourself, you will wear costumes like your girlfriend’s on holidays and Sundays, until the end of the season.
I left very happy, and since that time I put on one of my beautiful dresses every morning. But Bonne Amie was right: these dresses are not made for the country.
We had barely been here a month, and out of my four toilets I had only one wearable left, so I looked after her like the apple of my eye. But as the sun was superb today, and we were expecting a visit to the neighboring castle, I dressed in the morning, which did not prevent me from going to the garden with my little companion. Oh disastrous day! While trying to water a plant, my muslin skirt got caught on the thorns of a rose bush. I turned hastily as I heard the cloth tear, but this sudden movement caused the watering-can I had carried in my arm, so that I could hold my parasol at the same time, (for I tell you, Lily, I am dreadfully afraid of turning my complexion black) to be turned round. . so that all the water fell on my dress and on my pretty shoes with rosettes, before I could unhook my skirt, whose tear was widening.
You can imagine my despair, my last toilet was lost in one go! At this moment Bleuette arrived with a wheelbarrow of flowers; but do you know what she did, the villainess, at the sight of my dismayed face? She laughed and cried out:
What did I tell you?
I have been crying in my room ever since, and I have been writing to you to try to console myself, but I have hardly succeeded. My good friend is still unaware of my escapade. What will she say? Oh, my God, I can hear someone. It’s her! No, it’s Bleuette. She is as good as you, my Lily, for she has come to ask me to forgive her for having laughed earlier and to offer to help me mend my dress.
I’ve accepted quickly and leave you to get to work, but not before kissing you very hard and swearing to Bleuette that from now on I will dress like her every day, and keep my dress, repaired by her kindness and skill, for special occasions only.