THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT

 BY

 HONORE DE BALZAC

 Translated by James Waring

 DEDICATION

 To Monsieur le Comte Ferdinand de Gramont. 

 MY DEAR FERDINAND, --If the chances of the world of literature --_habent sua fata libelli_--should allow these lines to be an enduring record, that will still be but a trifle in return for the trouble you have taken--you, the Hozier, the Cherin, the King-at-Arms of these Studies of Life; you, to whom the Navarreins, Cadignans, Langeais, Blamont-Chauvrys, Chaulieus, Arthez, Esgrignons, Mortsaufs, Valois--the hundred great names that form the Aristocracy of the "Human Comedy" owe their lordly mottoes and ingenious armorial bearings. Indeed, "the Armorial of the Etudes, devised by Ferdinand de Gramont, gentleman, " is a complete manual of French Heraldry, in which nothing is forgotten, not even the arms of the Empire, and I shall preserve it as a monument of friendship and of Benedictine patience. What profound knowledge of the old feudal spirit is to be seen in the motto of the Beauseants, _Pulchre sedens, melius agens_; in that of the Espards, _Des partem leonis_; in that of the Vandenesses, _Ne se vend_. And what elegance in the thousand details of the learned symbolism which will always show how far accuracy has been carried in my work, to which you, the poet, have contributed. 

 Your old friend, DE BALZAC. 

 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT

On the skirts of Le Berry stands a town which, watered by the Loire, infallibly attracts the traveler's eye. Sancerre crowns the topmostheight of a chain of hills, the last of the range that gives varietyto the Nivernais. The Loire floods the flats at the foot of theseslopes, leaving a yellow alluvium that is extremely fertile, exceptingin those places where it has deluged them with sand and destroyed themforever, by one of those terrible risings which are also incidental tothe Vistula--the Loire of the northern coast. 

The hill on which the houses of Sancerre are grouped is so far fromthe river that the little river-port of Saint-Thibault thrives on thelife of Sancerre. There wine is shipped and oak staves are landed, with all the produce brought from the upper and lower Loire. At theperiod when this story begins the suspension bridges at Cosne and atSaint-Thibault were already built. Travelers from Paris to Sancerre bythe southern road were no longer ferried across the river from Cosneto Saint-Thibault; and this of itself is enough to show that the greatcross-shuffle of 1830 was a thing of the past, for the House ofOrleans has always had a care for substantial improvements, thoughsomewhat after the fashion of a husband who makes his wife presentsout of her marriage portion. 

Excepting that part of Sancerre which occupies the little plateau, thestreets are more or less steep, and the town is surrounded by slopesknown as the Great Ramparts, a name which shows that they are thehighroads of the place. 

Outside the ramparts lies a belt of vineyards. Wine forms the chiefindustry and the most important trade of the country, which yieldsseveral vintages of high-class wine full of aroma, and so nearlyresembling the wines of Burgundy, that the vulgar palate is deceived. So Sancerre finds in the wineshops of Paris the quick marketindispensable for liquor that will not keep for more than seven oreight years. Below the town lie a few villages, Fontenoy andSaint-Satur, almost suburbs, reminding us by their situation of thesmiling vineyards about Neuchatel in Switzerland. 

The town still bears much of its ancient aspect; the streets arenarrow and paved with pebbles carted up from the Loire. Some oldhouses are to be seen there. The citadel, a relic of military powerand feudal times, stood one of the most terrible sieges of ourreligious wars, when French Calvinists far outdid the ferociousCameronians of Walter Scott's tales. 

The town of Sancerre, rich in its greater past, but widowed now of itsmilitary importance, is doomed to an even less glorious future, forthe course of trade lies on the right bank of the Loire. The sketchhere given shows that Sancerre will be left more and more lonely inspite of the two bridges connecting it with Cosne. 

Sancerre, the pride of the left bank, numbers three thousand fivehundred inhabitants at most, while at Cosne there are now more thansix thousand. Within half a century the part played by these two townsstanding opposite each other has been reversed. The advantage ofsituation, however, remains with the historic town, whence the view onevery side is perfectly enchanting, where the air is deliciously pure, the vegetation splendid, and the residents, in harmony with nature, are friendly souls, good fellows, and devoid of Puritanism, thoughtwo-thirds of the population are Calvinists. Under such conditions, though there are the usual disadvantages of life in a small town, andeach one lives under the officious eye which makes private life almosta public concern, on the other hand, the spirit of township--a sort ofpatriotism, which cannot indeed take the place of a love of home--flourishes triumphantly. 

Thus the town of Sancerre is exceedingly proud of having given birthto one of the glories of modern medicine, Horace Bianchon, and to anauthor of secondary rank, Etienne Lousteau, one of our most successfuljournalists. The district included under the municipality of Sancerre, distressed at finding itself practically ruled by seven or eight largelandowners, the wire-pullers of the elections, tried to shake off theelectoral yoke of a creed which had reduced it to a rotten borough. This little conspiracy, plotted by a handful of men whose vanity wasprovoked, failed through the jealousy which the elevation of one ofthem, as the inevitable result, roused in the breasts of the others. This result showed the radical defect of the scheme, and the remedythen suggested was to rally round a champion at the next election, inthe person of one of the two men who so gloriously representedSancerre in Paris circles. 

This idea was extraordinarily advanced for the provinces, for since1830 the nomination of parochial dignitaries has increased so greatlythat real statesmen are becoming rare indeed in the lower chamber. 

In point of fact, this plan, of very doubtful outcome, was hatched inthe brain of the Superior Woman of the borough, _dux femina fasti_, but with a view to personal interest. This idea was so widely rootedin this lady's past life, and so entirely comprehended her futureprospects, that it can scarcely be understood without some sketch ofher antecedent career. 

Sancerre at that time could boast of a Superior Woman, long misprizedindeed, but now, about 1836, enjoying a pretty extensive localreputation. This, too, was the period at which two Sancerrois in Pariswere attaining, each in his own line, to the highest degree of gloryfor one, and of fashion for the other. Etienne Lousteau, a writer inreviews, signed his name to contributions to a paper that had eightthousand subscribers; and Bianchon, already chief physician to ahospital, Officer of the Legion of Honor, and member of the Academy ofSciences, had just been made a professor. 

If it were not that the word would to many readers seem to imply adegree of blame, it might be said that George Sand created _Sandism_, so true is it that, morally speaking, all good has a reverse of evil. This leprosy of sentimentality would have been charming. Still, _Sandism_ has its good side, in that the woman attacked by it basesher assumption of superiority on feelings scorned; she is a blue-stocking of sentiment; and she is rather less of a bore, love to someextent neutralizing literature. The most conspicuous result of GeorgeSand's celebrity was to elicit the fact that France has a perfectlyenormous number of superior women, who have, however, till now been sogenerous as to leave the field to the Marechal de Saxe'sgranddaughter. 

The Superior Woman of Sancerre lived at La Baudraye, a town-house andcountry-house in one, within ten minutes of the town, and in thevillage, or, if you will, the suburb of Saint-Satur. The La Baudrayesof the present day have, as is frequently the case, thrust themselvesin, and are but a substitute for those La Baudrayes whose name, glorious in the Crusades, figured in the chief events of the historyof Le Berry. 

The story must be told. 

In the time of Louis XIV. A certain sheriff named Milaud, whoseforefathers had been furious Calvinists, was converted at the time ofthe Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. To encourage this movement inone of the strong-holds of Calvinism, the King gave said Milaud a goodappointment in the "Waters and Forests, " granted him arms and thetitle of Sire (or Lord) de la Baudraye, with the fief of the old andgenuine La Baudrayes. The descendants of the famous Captain laBaudraye fell, sad to say, into one of the snares laid for heretics bythe new decrees, and were hanged--an unworthy deed of the greatKing's. 

Under Louis XV. Milaud de la Baudraye, from being a mere squire, wasmade Chevalier, and had influence enough to obtain for his son acornet's commission in the Musketeers. This officer perished atFontenoy, leaving a child, to whom King Louis XVI. Subsequentlygranted the privileges, by patent, of a farmer-general, in remembranceof his father's death on the field of battle. 

This financier, a fashionable wit, great at charades, capping verses, and posies to Chlora, lived in society, was a hanger-on to the Duc deNivernais, and fancied himself obliged to follow the nobility intoexile; but he took care to carry his money with him. Thus the rich_emigre_ was able to assist more than one family of high rank. 

In 1800, tired of hoping, and perhaps tired of lending, he returned toSancerre, bought back La Baudraye out of a feeling of vanity andimaginary pride, quite intelligible in a sheriff's grandson, thoughunder the consulate his prospects were but slender; all the more so, indeed, because the ex-farmer-general had small hopes of his heir'sperpetuating the new race of La Baudraye. 

Jean Athanase Polydore Milaud de la Baudraye, his only son, more thandelicate from his birth, was very evidently the child of a man whoseconstitution had early been exhausted by the excesses in which richmen indulge, who then marry at the first stage of premature old age, and thus bring degeneracy into the highest circles of society. Duringthe years of the emigration Madame de la Baudraye, a girl of nofortune, chosen for her noble birth, had patiently reared this sallow, sickly boy, for whom she had the devoted love mothers feel for suchchangeling creatures. Her death--she was a Casteran de la Tour--contributed to bring about Monsieur de la Baudraye's return toFrance. 

This Lucullus of the Milauds, when he died, left his son the fief, stripped indeed of its fines and dues, but graced with weathercocksbearing his coat-of-arms, a thousand louis-d'or--in 1802 aconsiderable sum of money--and certain receipts for claims on verydistinguished _emigres_ enclosed in a pocketbook full of verses, withthis inscription on the wrapper, _Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas_. 

Young La Baudraye did not die, but he owed his life to habits ofmonastic strictness; to the economy of action which Fontenellepreached as the religion of the invalid; and, above all, to the air ofSancerre and the influence of its fine elevation, whence a panoramaover the valley of the Loire may be seen extending for forty leagues. 

From 1802 to 1815 young La Baudraye added several plots to hisvineyards, and devoted himself to the culture of the vine. TheRestoration seemed to him at first so insecure that he dared not go toParis to claim his debts; but after Napoleon's death he tried to turnhis father's collection of autographs into money, though notunderstanding the deep philosophy which had thus mixed up I O U's andcopies of verses. But the winegrower lost so much time in impressinghis identity on the Duke of Navarreins "and others, " as he phrased it, that he came back to Sancerre, to his beloved vintage, without havingobtained anything but offers of service. 

The Restoration had raised the nobility to such a degree of lustre asmade La Baudraye wish to justify his ambitions by having an heir. Thishappy result of matrimony he considered doubtful, or he would not solong have postponed the step; however, finding himself still aboveground in 1823, at the age of forty-three, a length of years which nodoctor, astrologer, or midwife would have dared to promise him, hehoped to earn the reward of his sober life. And yet his choice showedsuch a lack of prudence in regard to his frail constitution, that themalicious wit of a country town could not help thinking it must be theresult of some deep calculation. 

Just at this time His Eminence, Monseigneur the Archbishop of Bourges, had converted to the Catholic faith a young person, the daughter ofone of the citizen families, who were the first upholders ofCalvinism, and who, thanks to their obscurity or to some compromisewith Heaven, had escaped from the persecutions under Louis XIV. ThePiedefers--a name that was obviously one of the quaint nicknamesassumed by the champions of the Reformation--had set up as highlyrespectable cloth merchants. But in the reign of Louis XVI. , AbrahamPiedefer fell into difficulties, and at his death in 1786 left his twochildren in extreme poverty. One of them, Tobie Piedefer, went out tothe Indies, leaving the pittance they had inherited to his elderbrother. During the Revolution Moise Piedefer bought up thenationalized land, pulled down abbeys and churches with all the zealof his ancestors, oddly enough, and married a Catholic, the onlydaughter of a member of the Convention who had perished on thescaffold. This ambitious Piedefer died in 1819, leaving a little girlof remarkable beauty. This child, brought up in the Calvinist faith, was named Dinah, in accordance with the custom in use among the sect, of taking their Christian names from the Bible, so as to have nothingin common with the Saints of the Roman Church. 

Mademoiselle Dinah Piedefer was placed by her mother in one of thebest schools in Bourges, that kept by the Demoiselles Chamarolles, andwas soon as highly distinguished for the qualities of her mind as forher beauty; but she found herself snubbed by girls of birth andfortune, destined by-and-by to play a greater part in the world than amere plebeian, the daughter of a mother who was dependent on thesettlement of Piedefer's estate. Dinah, having raised herself for themoment above her companions, now aimed at remaining on a level withthem for the rest of her life. She determined, therefore, to renounceCalvinism, in the hope that the Cardinal would extend his favor to hisproselyte and interest himself in her prospects. You may from thisjudge of Mademoiselle Dinah's superiority, since at the age ofseventeen she was a convert solely from ambition. 

The Archbishop, possessed with the idea that Dinah Piedefer wouldadorn society, was anxious to see her married. But every family towhom the prelate made advances took fright at a damsel gifted with thelooks of a princess, who was reputed to be the cleverest ofMademoiselle Chamarolles' pupils and who, at the somewhat theatricalceremonial of prize-giving, always took a leading part. A thousandcrowns a year, which was as much as she could hope for from the estateof La Hautoy when divided between the mother and daughter, would be amere trifle in comparison with the expenses into which a husband wouldbe led by the personal advantages of so brilliant a creature. 

As soon as all these facts came to the ears of little Polydore de laBaudraye--for they were the talk of every circle in the Department ofthe Cher--he went to Bourges just when Madame Piedefer, a devotee athigh services, had almost made up her own mind and her daughter's totake the first comer with well-lined pockets--the first _chiencoiffe_, as they say in Le Berry. And if the Cardinal was delighted toreceive Monsieur de la Baudraye, Monsieur de la Baudraye was evenbetter pleased to receive a wife from the hands of the Cardinal. Thelittle gentleman only demanded of His Eminence a formal promise tosupport his claims with the President of the Council to enable him torecover his debts from the Duc de Navarreins "and others" by a lien ontheir indemnities. This method, however, seemed to the able Ministerthen occupying the Pavillon Marsan rather too sharp practice, and hegave the vine-owner to understand that his business should be attendedto all in good time. 

It is easy to imagine the excitement produced in the Sancerre districtby the news of Monsieur de la Baudraye's imprudent marriage. 

"It is quite intelligible, " said President Boirouge; "the little manwas very much startled, as I am told, at hearing that handsome youngMilaud, the Attorney-General's deputy at Nevers, say to Monsieur deClagny as they were looking at the turrets of La Baudraye, 'That willbe mine some day. '--'But, ' says Clagny, 'he may marry and havechildren. '--'Impossible!'--So you may imagine how such a changeling aslittle La Baudraye must hate that colossal Milaud. "

There was at Nevers a plebeian branch of the Milauds, which had grownso rich in the cutlery trade that the present representative of thatbranch had been brought up to the civil service, in which he hadenjoyed the patronage of Marchangy, now dead. 

It will be as well to eliminate from this story, in which moraldevelopments play the principal part, the baser material interestswhich alone occupied Monsieur de la Baudraye, by briefly relating theresults of his negotiations in Paris. This will also throw light oncertain mysterious phenomena of contemporary history, and theunderground difficulties in matters of politics which hampered theMinistry at the time of the Restoration. 

The promises of Ministers were so illusory that Monsieur de laBaudraye determined on going to Paris at the time when the Cardinal'spresence was required there by the sitting of the Chambers. 

This is how the Duc de Navarreins, the principal debtor threatened byMonsieur de la Baudraye, got out of the scrape. 

The country gentleman, lodging at the Hotel de Mayence, RueSaint-Honore, near the Place Vendome, one morning received a visitfrom a confidential agent of the Ministry, who was an expert in"winding up" business. This elegant personage, who stepped out of anelegant cab, and was dressed in the most elegant style, was requestedto walk up to No. 3--that is to say, to the third floor, to a smallroom where he found his provincial concocting a cup of coffee overhis bedroom fire. 

"Is it to Monsieur Milaud de la Baudraye that I have the honor--"

"Yes, " said the little man, draping himself in his dressing-gown. 

After examining this garment, the illicit offspring of an old chinewrapper of Madame Piedefer's and a gown of the late lamented Madame dela Baudraye, the emissary considered the man, the dressing-gown, andthe little stove on which the milk was boiling in a tin saucepan, asso homogeneous and characteristic, that he deemed it needless to beatabout the bush. 

"I will lay a wager, monsieur, " said he, audaciously, "that you dinefor forty sous at Hurbain's in the Palais Royal. "

"Pray, why?"

"Oh, I know you, having seen you there, " replied the Parisian withperfect gravity. "All the princes' creditors dine there. You know thatyou recover scarcely ten per cent on debts from these fine gentlemen. I would not give you five per cent on a debt to be recovered from theestate of the late Duc d'Orleans--nor even, " he added in a low voice--"from MONSIEUR. "

"So you have come to buy up the bills?" said La Baudraye, thinkinghimself very clever. 

"Buy them!" said his visitor. "Why, what do you take me for? I amMonsieur des Lupeaulx, Master of Appeals, Secretary-General to theMinistry, and I have come to propose an arrangement. "

"What is that?"

"Of course, monsieur, you know the position of your debtor--"

"Of my debtors--"

"Well, monsieur, you understand the position of your debtors; theystand high in the King's good graces, but they have no money, and areobliged to make a good show. --Again, you know the difficulties of thepolitical situation. The aristocracy has to be rehabilitated in theface of a very strong force of the third estate. The King's idea--andFrance does him scant justice--is to create a peerage as a nationalinstitution analogous to the English peerage. To realize this grandidea we need years--and millions. --_Noblesse oblige_. The Duc deNavarreins, who is, as you know, first gentleman of the Bedchamber tothe King, does not repudiate his debt; but he cannot--Now, bereasonable. --Consider the state of politics. We are emerging from thepit of the Revolution. --and you yourself are noble--He simply cannotpay--"

"Monsieur--"

"You are hasty, " said des Lupeaulx. "Listen. He cannot pay in money. Well, then; you, a clever man, can take payment in favors--Royal orMinisterial. "

"What! When in 1793 my father put down one hundred thousand--"

"My dear sir, recrimination is useless. Listen to a simple statementin political arithmetic: The collectorship at Sancerre is vacant; acertain paymaster-general of the forces has a claim on it, but he hasno chance of getting it; you have the chance--and no claim. You willget the place. You will hold it for three months, you will thenresign, and Monsieur Gravier will give twenty thousand francs for it. In addition, the Order of the Legion of Honor will be conferred onyou. "

"Well, that is something, " said the wine-grower, tempted by the moneyrather than by the red ribbon. 

"But then, " said des Lupeaulx, "you must show your gratitude to HisExcellency by restoring to Monseigneur the Duc de Navarreins all yourclaims on him. "

La Baudraye returned to Sancerre as Collector of Taxes. Six monthslater he was superseded by Monsieur Gravier, regarded as one of themost agreeable financiers who had served under the Empire, and who wasof course presented by Monsieur de la Baudraye to his wife. 

As soon as he was released from his functions, Monsieur de la Baudrayereturned to Paris to come to an understanding with some other debtors. This time he was made a Referendary under the Great Seal, Baron, andOfficer of the Legion of Honor. He sold the appointment asReferendary; and then the Baron de la Baudraye called on his lastremaining debtors, and reappeared at Sancerre as Master of Appeals, with an appointment as Royal Commissioner to a commercial associationestablished in the Nivernais, at a salary of six thousand francs, anabsolute sinecure. So the worthy La Baudraye, who was supposed to havecommitted a financial blunder, had, in fact, done very good businessin the choice of a wife. 

Thanks to sordid economy and an indemnity paid him for the estatebelonging to his father, nationalized and sold in 1793, by the year1827 the little man could realize the dream of his whole life. Bypaying four hundred thousand francs down, and binding himself tofurther instalments, which compelled him to live for six years on theair as it came, to use his own expression, he was able to purchase theestate of Anzy on the banks of the Loire, about two leagues aboveSancerre, and its magnificent castle built by Philibert de l'Orme, theadmiration of every connoisseur, and for five centuries the propertyof the Uxelles family. At last he was one of the great landowners ofthe province! It is not absolutely certain that the satisfaction ofknowing that an entail had been created, by letters patent dated backto December 1820, including the estates of Anzy, of La Baudraye, andof La Hautoy, was any compensation to Dinah on finding herself reducedto unconfessed penuriousness till 1835. 

This sketch of the financial policy of the first Baron de la Baudrayeexplains the man completely. Those who are familiar with the manias ofcountry folks will recognize in him the _land-hunger_ which becomessuch a consuming passion to the exclusion of every other; a sort ofavarice displayed in the sight of the sun, which often leads to ruinby a want of balance between the interest on mortgages and theproducts of the soil. Those who, from 1802 till 1827, had merelylaughed at the little man as they saw him trotting to Saint-Thibaultand attending to his business, like a merchant living on hisvineyards, found the answer to the riddle when the ant-lion seized hisprey, after waiting for the day when the extravagance of the Duchessede Maufrigneuse culminated in the sale of that splendid property. 

Madame Piedefer came to live with her daughter. The combined fortunesof Monsieur de la Baudraye and his mother-in-law, who had been contentto accept an annuity of twelve hundred francs on the lands of LaHautoy which she handed over to him, amounted to an acknowledgedincome of about fifteen thousand francs. 

During the early days of her married life, Dinah had effected somealterations which had made the house at La Baudraye a very pleasantresidence. She turned a spacious forecourt into a formal garden, pulling down wine-stores, presses, and shabby outhouses. Behind themanor-house, which, though small, did not lack style with its turretsand gables, she laid out a second garden with shrubs, flower-beds, andlawns, and divided it from the vineyards by a wall hidden undercreepers. She also made everything within doors as comfortable astheir narrow circumstances allowed. 

In order not to be ruined by a young lady so very superior as Dinahseemed to be, Monsieur de la Baudraye was shrewd enough to say nothingas to the recovery of debts in Paris. This dead secrecy as to hismoney matters gave a touch of mystery to his character, and lent himdignity in his wife's eyes during the first years of their marriedlife--so majestic is silence!

The alterations effected at La Baudraye made everybody eager to seethe young mistress, all the more so because Dinah would never showherself, nor receive any company, before she felt quite settled in herhome and had thoroughly studied the inhabitants, and, above all, hertaciturn husband. When, one spring morning in 1825, pretty Madame dela Baudraye was first seen walking on the Mall in a blue velvet dress, with her mother in black velvet, there was quite an excitement inSancerre. This dress confirmed the young woman's reputation forsuperiority, brought up, as she had been, in the capital of Le Berry. Every one was afraid lest in entertaining this phoenix of theDepartment, the conversation should not be clever enough; and, ofcourse, everybody was constrained in the presence of Madame de laBaudraye, who produced a sort of terror among the woman-folk. As theyadmired a carpet of Indian shawl-pattern in the La Baudrayedrawing-room, a Pompadour writing-table carved and gilt, brocade windowcurtains, and a Japanese bowl full of flowers on the round table amonga selection of the newest books; when they heard the fair Dinahplaying at sight, without making the smallest demur before seatingherself at the piano, the idea they conceived of her superiorityassumed vast proportions. That she might never allow herself to becomecareless or the victim of bad taste, Dinah had determined to keepherself up to the mark as to the fashions and latest developments ofluxury by an active correspondence with Anna Grossetete, her bosomfriend at Mademoiselle Chamarolles' school. 

Anna, thanks to a fine fortune, had married the Comte de Fontaine'sthird son. Thus those ladies who visited at La Baudraye wereperpetually piqued by Dinah's success in leading the fashion; do whatthey would, they were always behind, or, as they say on the turf, distanced. 

While all these trifles gave rise to malignant envy in the ladies ofSancerre, Dinah's conversation and wit engendered absolute aversion. In her ambition to keep her mind on the level of Parisian brilliancy, Madame de la Baudraye allowed no vacuous small talk in her presence, no old-fashioned compliments, no pointless remarks; she would neverendure the yelping of tittle-tattle, the backstairs slander whichforms the staple of talk in the country. She liked to hear ofdiscoveries in science or art, or the latest pieces at the theatres, the newest poems, and by airing the cant words of the day she made ashow of uttering thoughts. 

The Abbe Duret, Cure of Sancerre, an old man of a lost type of clergyin France, a man of the world with a liking for cards, had not daredto indulge this taste in so liberal a district as Sancerre; he, therefore, was delighted at Madame de la Baudraye's coming, and theygot on together to admiration. The _sous-prefet_, one Vicomte deChargeboeuf, was delighted to find in Madame de la Baudraye'sdrawing-room a sort of oasis where there was a truce to provinciallife. As to Monsieur de Clagny, the Public Prosecutor, his admirationfor the fair Dinah kept him bound to Sancerre. The enthusiastic lawyerrefused all promotion, and became a quite pious adorer of this angelof grace and beauty. He was a tall, lean man, with a minatorycountenance set off by terrible eyes in deep black circles, underenormous eyebrows; and his eloquence, very unlike his love-making, could be incisive. 

Monsieur Gravier was a little, round man, who in the days of theEmpire had been a charming ballad-singer; it was this accomplishmentthat had won him the high position of Paymaster-General of the forces. Having mixed himself up in certain important matters in Spain withgenerals at that time in opposition, he had made the most of theseconnections to the Minister, who, in consideration of the place he hadlost, promised him the Receivership at Sancerre, and then allowed himto pay for the appointment. The frivolous spirit and light tone of theEmpire had become ponderous in Monsieur Gravier; he did not, or wouldnot, understand the wide difference between manners under theRestoration and under the Empire. Still, he conceived of himself asfar superior to Monsieur de Clagny; his style was in better taste; hefollowed the fashion, was to be seen in a buff waistcoat, graytrousers, and neat, tightly-fitting coats; he wore a fashionable silktie slipped through a diamond ring, while the lawyer never dressed inanything but black--coat, trousers, and waistcoat alike, and thoseoften shabby. 

These four men were the first to go into ecstasies over Dinah'scultivation, good taste, and refinement, and pronounced her a woman ofmost superior mind. Then the women said to each other, "Madame de laBaudraye must laugh at us behind our back. "

This view, which was more or less correct, kept them from visiting atLa Baudraye. Dinah, attainted and convicted of pedantry, because shespoke grammatically, was nicknamed the Sappho of Saint-Satur. At lasteverybody made insolent game of the great qualities of the woman whohad thus roused the enmity of the ladies of Sancerre. And they endedby denying a superiority--after all, merely comparative!--whichemphasized their ignorance, and did not forgive it. Where the wholepopulation is hunch-backed, a straight shape is the monstrosity; Dinahwas regarded as monstrous and dangerous, and she found herself in adesert. 

Astonished at seeing the women of the neighborhood only at longintervals, and for visits of a few minutes, Dinah asked Monsieur deClagny the reason of this state of things. 

"You are too superior a woman to be liked by other women, " said thelawyer. 

Monsieur Gravier, when questioned by the forlorn fair, only, aftermuch entreaty, replied:

"Well, lady fair, you are not satisfied to be merely charming. You areclever and well educated, you know every book that comes out, you lovepoetry, you are a musician, and you talk delightfully. Women cannotforgive so much superiority. "

Men said to Monsieur de la Baudraye:

"You who have such a Superior Woman for a wife are very fortunate----"And at last he himself would say:

"I who have a Superior Woman for a wife, am very fortunate, " etc. 

Madame Piedefer, flattered through her daughter, also allowed herselfto say such things--"My daughter, who is a very Superior Woman, waswriting yesterday to Madame de Fontaine such and such a thing. "

Those who know the world--France, Paris--know how true it is that manycelebrities are thus created. 

Two years later, by the end of the year 1825, Dinah de la Baudraye wasaccused of not choosing to have any visitors but men; then it was saidthat she did not care for women--and that was a crime. Not a thingcould she do, not her most trifling action, could escape criticism andmisrepresentation. After making every sacrifice that a well-bred womancan make, and placing herself entirely in the right, Madame de laBaudraye was so rash as to say to a false friend who condoled with heron her isolation:

"I would rather have my bowl empty than with anything in it!"

This speech produced a terrible effect on Sancerre, and was cruellyretorted on the Sappho of Saint-Satur when, seeing her childless afterfive years of married life, _little_ de la Baudraye became a bywordfor laughter. To understand this provincial witticism, readers may bereminded of the Bailli de Ferrette--some, no doubt, having known him--of whom it was said that he was the bravest man in Europe for daringto walk on his legs, and who was accused of putting lead in his shoesto save himself from being blown away. Monsieur de la Baudraye, asallow and almost diaphanous creature, would have been engaged by theBailli de Ferrette as first gentleman-in-waiting if that diplomatisthad been the Grand Duke of Baden instead of being merely his envoy. 

Monsieur de la Baudraye, whose legs were so thin that, for meredecency, he wore false calves, whose thighs were like the arms of anaverage man, whose body was not unlike that of a cockchafer, wouldhave been an advantageous foil to the Bailli de Ferrette. As hewalked, the little vine-owner's leg-pads often twisted round on to hisshins, so little did he make a secret of them, and he would thank anyone who warned him of this little mishap. He wore knee-breeches, blacksilk stockings, and a white waistcoat till 1824. After his marriage headopted blue trousers and boots with heels, which made Sancerredeclare that he had added two inches to his stature that he might comeup to his wife's chin. For ten years he was always seen in the samelittle bottle-green coat with large white-metal buttons, and a blackstock that accentuated his cold stingy face, lighted up by gray-blueeyes as keen and passionless as a cat's. Being very gentle, as men arewho act on a fixed plan of conduct, he seemed to make his wife happyby never contradicting her; he allowed her to do the talking, and wassatisfied to move with the deliberate tenacity of an insect. 

Dinah, adored for her beauty, in which she had no rival, and admiredfor her cleverness by the most gentlemanly men of the place, encouraged their admiration by conversations, for which it wassubsequently asserted, she prepared herself beforehand. Findingherself listened to with rapture, she soon began to listen to herself, enjoyed haranguing her audience, and at last regarded her friends asthe chorus in a tragedy, there only to give her her cues. In fact, shehad a very fine collection of phrases and ideas, derived either frombooks or by assimilating the opinions of her companions, and thusbecame a sort of mechanical instrument, going off on a round ofphrases as soon as some chance remark released the spring. To do herjustice, Dinah was choke full of knowledge, and read everything, evenmedical books, statistics, science, and jurisprudence; for she did notknow how to spend her days when she had reviewed her flower-beds andgiven her orders to the gardener. Gifted with an excellent memory, andthe talent which some women have for hitting on the right word, shecould talk on any subject with the lucidity of a studied style. And somen came from Cosne, from la Charite, and from Nevers, on the rightbank; from Lere, Vailly, Argent, Blancafort, and Aubigny, on the leftbank, to be introduced to Madame de la Baudraye, as they used inSwitzerland, to be introduced to Madame de Stael. Those who only onceheard the round of tunes emitted by this musical snuff-box went awayamazed, and told such wonders of Dinah as made all the women jealousfor ten leagues round. 

There is an indescribable mental headiness in the admiration weinspire, or in the effect of playing a part, which fends off criticismfrom reaching the idol. An atmosphere, produced perhaps by unceasingnervous tension, forms a sort of halo, through which the world belowis seen. How otherwise can we account for the perennial good faithwhich leads to so many repeated presentments of the same effects, andthe constant ignoring of warnings given by children, such a terror totheir parents, or by husbands, so familiar as they are with thepeacock airs of their wives? Monsieur de la Baudraye had the franknessof a man who opens an umbrella at the first drop of rain. When hiswife was started on the subject of Negro emancipation or theimprovement of convict prisons, he would take up his little blue capand vanish without a sound, in the certainty of being able to get toSaint-Thibault to see off a cargo of puncheons, and return an hourlater to find the discussion approaching a close. Or, if he had nobusiness to attend to, he would go for a walk on the Mall, whence hecommanded the lovely panorama of the Loire valley, and take a draughtof fresh air while his wife was performing a sonata in words, or adialectical duet. 

Once fairly established as a Superior Woman, Dinah was eager to proveher devotion to the most remarkable creations of art. She threwherself into the propaganda of the romantic school, including, underArt, poetry and painting, literature and sculpture, furniture and theopera. Thus she became a mediaevalist. She was also interested in anytreasures that dated from the Renaissance, and employed her allies asso many devoted commission agents. Soon after she was married, she hadbecome possessed of the Rougets' furniture, sold at Issoudun early in1824. She purchased some very good things at Nivernais and theHaute-Loire. At the New Year and on her birthday her friends neverfailed to give her some curiosities. These fancies found favor in theeyes of Monsieur de la Baudraye; they gave him an appearance ofsacrificing a few crowns to his wife's taste. In point of fact, hisland mania allowed him to think of nothing but the estate of Anzy. 

These "antiquities" at that time cost much less than modern furniture. By the end of five or six years the ante-room, the dining-room, thetwo drawing-rooms, and the boudoir which Dinah had arranged on theground floor of La Baudraye, every spot even to the staircase, werecrammed with masterpieces collected in the four adjacent departments. These surroundings, which were called _queer_ by the neighbors, werequite in harmony with Dinah. All these Marvels, so soon to be therage, struck the imagination of the strangers introduced to her; theycame expecting something unusual; and they found their expectationssurpassed when, behind a bower of flowers, they saw these catacombsfull of old things, piled up as Sommerard used to pile them--that "OldMortality" of furniture. And then these finds served as so manysprings which, turned on by a question, played off an essay on JeanGoujon, Michel Columb, Germain Pilon, Boulle, Van Huysum, and Boucher, the great native painter of Le Berry; on Clodion, the carver of wood, on Venetian mirrors, on Brustolone, an Italian tenor who was theMichael-Angelo of boxwood and holm oak; on the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, on the glazes ofBernard de Palissy, the enamels of Petitot, the engravings of AlbrechtDurer--whom she called Dur; on illuminations on vellum, on Gothicarchitecture, early decorated, flamboyant and pure--enough to turn anold man's brain and fire a young man with enthusiasm. 

Madame de la Baudraye, possessed with the idea of waking up Sancerre, tried to form a so-called literary circle. The Presiding Judge, Monsieur Boirouge, who happened to have a house and garden on hishands, part of the Popinot-Chandier property, favored the notion ofthis _coterie_. The wily Judge talked over the rules of the societywith Madame de la Baudraye; he proposed to figure as one of thefounders, and to let the house for fifteen years to the literary club. By the time it had existed a year the members were playing dominoes, billiards, and bouillotte, and drinking mulled wine, punch, andliqueurs. A few elegant little suppers were then given, and somemasked balls during the Carnival. As to literature--there were thenewspapers. Politics and business were discussed. Monsieur de laBaudraye was constantly there--on his wife's account, as she saidjestingly. 

This result deeply grieved the Superior Woman, who despaired ofSancerre, and collected the wit of the neighborhood in her owndrawing-room. Nevertheless, and in spite of the efforts of Messieursde Chargeboeuf, Gravier, and de Clagny, of the Abbe Duret and the twochief magistrates, of a young doctor, and a young Assistant Judge--allblind admirers of Dinah's--there were occasions when, weary ofdiscussion, they allowed themselves an excursion into the domain ofagreeable frivolity which constitutes the common basis of worldlyconversation. Monsieur Gravier called this "from grave to gay. " TheAbbe Duret's rubber made another pleasing variety on the monologues ofthe oracle. The three rivals, tired of keeping their minds up to thelevel of the "high range of discussion"--as they called theirconversation--but not daring to confess it, would sometimes turn withingratiating hints to the old priest. 

"Monsieur le Cure is dying for his game, " they would say. 

The wily priest lent himself very readily to the little trick. Heprotested. 

"We should lose too much by ceasing to listen to our inspiredhostess!" and so he would incite Dinah's magnanimity to take pity atlast on her dear Abbe. 

This bold manoeuvre, a device of the Sous-prefet's, was repeated withso much skill that Dinah never suspected her slaves of escaping to theprison yard, so to speak, of the cardtable; and they would leave herone of the younger functionaries to harry. 

One young landowner, and the dandy of Sancerre, fell away from Dinah'sgood graces in consequence of some rash demonstrations. Aftersoliciting the honor of admission to this little circle, where heflattered himself he could snatch the blossom from the constitutedauthorities who guarded it, he was so unfortunate as to yawn in themiddle of an explanation Dinah was favoring him with--for the fourthtime, it is true--of the philosophy of Kant. Monsieur de laThaumassiere, the grandson of the historian of Le Berry, wasthenceforth regarded as a man entirely bereft of soul and brains. 

The three devotees _en titre_ each submitted to these exorbitantdemands on their mind and attention, in hope of a crowning triumph, when at last Dinah should become human; for neither of them was sobold as to imagine that Dinah would give up her innocence as a wifetill she should have lost all her illusions. In 1826, when she wassurrounded by adorers, Dinah completed her twentieth year, and theAbbe Duret kept her in a sort of fervid Catholicism; so her worshipershad to be content to overwhelm her with little attentions and smallservices, only too happy to be taken for the carpet-knights of thissovereign lady, by strangers admitted to spend an evening or two at LaBaudraye. 

"Madame de la Baudraye is a fruit that must be left to ripen. " Thiswas the opinion of Monsieur Gravier, who was waiting. 

As to the lawyer, he wrote letters four pages long, to which Dinahreplied in soothing speech as she walked, leaning on his arm, roundand round the lawn after dinner. 

Madame de la Baudraye, thus guarded by three passions, and alwaysunder the eye of her pious mother, escaped the malignity of slander. It was so evident to all Sancerre that no two of these three men wouldever leave the third alone with Madame de la Baudraye, that theirjealousy was a comedy to the lookers-on. 

To reach Saint-Thibault from Caesar's Gate there is a way much shorterthan that by the ramparts, down what is known in mountainous districtsas a _coursiere_, called at Sancerre _le Casse-cou_, or Break-neckAlley. The name is significant as applied to a path down the steepestpart of the hillside, thickly strewn with stones, and shut in by thehigh banks of the vineyards on each side. By way of the Break-neck thedistance from Sancerre to La Baudraye is much abridged. The ladies ofthe place, jealous of the Sappho of Saint-Satur, were wont to walk onthe Mall, looking down this Longchamp of the bigwigs, whom they wouldstop and engage in conversation--sometimes the Sous-prefet andsometimes the Public Prosecutor--and who would listen with every signof impatience or uncivil absence of mind. As the turrets of LaBaudraye are visible from the Mall, many a younger man came tocontemplate the abode of Dinah while envying the ten or twelveprivileged persons who might spend their afternoons with the Queen ofthe neighborhood. 

Monsieur de la Baudraye was not slow to discover the advantage he, asDinah's husband, held over his wife's adorers, and he made use ofthem without any disguise, obtaining a remission of taxes, and gainingtwo lawsuits. In every litigation he used the Public Prosecutor's namewith such good effect that the matter was carried no further, and, like all undersized men, he was contentious and litigious in business, though in the gentlest manner. 

At the same time, the more certainly guiltless she was, the lessconceivable did Madame de la Baudraye's position seem to the pryingeyes of these women. Frequently, at the house of the Presidente deBoirouge, the ladies of a certain age would spend a whole eveningdiscussing the La Baudraye household, among themselves of course. Theyall had suspicions of a mystery, a secret such as always interestswomen who have had some experience of life. And, in fact, at LaBaudraye one of those slow and monotonous conjugal tragedies was beingplayed out which would have remained for ever unknown if the mercilessscalpel of the nineteenth century, guided by the insistent demand fornovelty, had not dissected the darkest corners of the heart, or at anyrate those which the decency of past centuries left unopened. And thatdomestic drama sufficiently accounts for Dinah's immaculate virtueduring her early married life. 

A young lady, whose triumphs at school had been the outcome of herpride, and whose first scheme in life had been rewarded by a victory, was not likely to pause in such a brilliant career. Frail as Monsieurde la Baudraye might seem, he was really an unhoped-for good match forMademoiselle Dinah Piedefer. But what was the hidden motive of thiscountry landowner when, at forty-four, he married a girl of seventeen;and what could his wife make out of the bargain? This was the text ofDinah's first meditations. 

The little man never behaved quite as his wife expected. To beginwith, he allowed her to take the five precious acres now wasted inpleasure grounds round La Baudraye, and paid, almost with generosity, the seven or eight thousand francs required by Dinah for improvementsin the house, enabling her to buy the furniture at the Rougets' saleat Issoudun, and to redecorate her rooms in various styles--Mediaeval, Louis XIV. , and Pompadour. The young wife found it difficult tobelieve that Monsieur de la Baudraye was so miserly as he was reputed, or else she must have great influence with him. The illusion lasted ayear and a half. 

After Monsieur de la Baudraye's second journey to Paris, Dinahdiscovered in him the Artic coldness of a provincial miser whenevermoney was in question. The first time she asked for supplies sheplayed the sweetest of the comedies of which Eve invented the secret;but the little man put it plainly to his wife that he gave her twohundred francs a month for her personal expenses, and paid MadamePiedefer twelve hundred francs a year as a charge on the lands of LaHautoy, and that this was two hundred francs a year more than wasagreed to under the marriage settlement. 

"I say nothing of the cost of housekeeping, " he said in conclusion. "You may give your friends cake and tea in the evening, for you musthave some amusement. But I, who spent but fifteen hundred francs ayear as a bachelor, now spend six thousand, including rates andrepairs, and this is rather too much in relation to the nature of ourproperty. A winegrower is never sure of what his expenses may be--themaking, the duty, the casks--while the returns depend on a scorchingday or a sudden frost. Small owners, like us, whose income is far frombeing fixed, must base their estimates on their minimum, for they haveno means of making up a deficit or a loss. What would become of us ifa wine merchant became bankrupt? In my opinion, promissory notes areso many cabbage-leaves. To live as we are living, we ought always tohave a year's income in hand and count on no more than two-thirds ofour returns. "

Any form of resistance is enough to make a woman vow to subdue it;Dinah flung herself against a will of iron padded round withgentleness. She tried to fill the little man's soul with jealousy andalarms, but it was stockaded with insolent confidence. He left Dinah, when he went to Paris, with all the conviction of Medor in Angelique'sfidelity. When she affected cold disdain, to nettle this changeling bythe scorn a courtesan sometimes shows to her "protector, " and whichacts on him with the certainty of the screw of a winepress, Monsieurde la Baudraye gazed at his wife with fixed eyes, like those of a catwhich, in the midst of domestic broils, waits till a blow isthreatened before stirring from its place. The strange, speechlessuneasiness that was perceptible under his mute indifference almostterrified the young wife of twenty; she could not at first understandthe selfish quiescence of this man, who might be compared to a crackedpot, and who, in order to live, regulated his existence with theunchangeable regularity which a clockmaker requires of a clock. So thelittle man always evaded his wife, while she always hit out, as itwere, ten feet above his head. 

Dinah's fits of fury when she saw herself condemned never to escapefrom La Baudraye and Sancerre are more easily imagined than described--she who had dreamed of handling a fortune and managing the dwarfwhom she, the giant, had at first humored in order to command. In thehope of some day making her appearance on the greater stage of Paris, she accepted the vulgar incense of her attendant knights with a viewto seeing Monsieur de la Baudraye's name drawn from the electoral urn;for she supposed him to be ambitious, after seeing him return thricefrom Paris, each time a step higher on the social ladder. But when shestruck on the man's heart, it was as though she had tapped on marble!The man who had been Receiver-General and Referendary, who was nowMaster of Appeals, Officer of the Legion of Honor, and RoyalCommissioner, was but a mole throwing up its little hills round andround a vineyard! Then some lamentations were poured into the heart ofthe Public Prosecutor, of the Sous-prefet, even of Monsieur Gravier, and they all increased in their devotion to this sublime victim; for, like all women, she never mentioned her speculative schemes, and--again like all women--finding such speculation vain, she ceased tospeculate. 

Dinah, tossed by mental storms, was still undecided when, in theautumn of 1827, the news was told of the purchase by the Baron de laBaudraye of the estate of Anzy. Then the little old man showed animpulsion of pride and glee which for a few months changed the currentof his wife's ideas; she fancied there was a hidden vein of greatnessin the man when she found him applying for a patent of entail. In histriumph the Baron exclaimed:

"Dinah, you shall be a countess yet!"

There was then a patched-up reunion between the husband and wife, suchas can never endure, and which only humiliated and fatigued a womanwhose apparent superiority was unreal, while her unseen superioritywas genuine. This whimsical medley is commoner than people think. Dinah, who was ridiculous from the perversity of her cleverness, hadreally great qualities of soul, but circumstances did not bring theserarer powers to light, while a provincial life debased the smallchange of her wit from day to day. Monsieur de la Baudraye, on thecontrary, devoid of soul, of strength, and of wit, was fated to figureas a man of character, simply by pursuing a plan of conduct which hewas too feeble to change. 

There was in their lives a first phase, lasting six years, duringwhich Dinah, alas! became utterly provincial. In Paris there areseveral kinds of women: the duchess and the financier's wife, theambassadress and the consul's wife, the wife of the minister who is aminister, and of him who is no longer a minister; then there is thelady--quite the lady--of the right bank of the Seine and of the left. But in the country there is but one kind of woman, and she, poorthing, is the provincial woman. 

This remark points to one of the sores of modern society. It must beclearly understood: France in the nineteenth century is divided intotwo broad zones--Paris, and the provinces. The provinces jealous ofParis; Paris never thinking of the provinces but to demand money. Ofold, Paris was the Capital of the provinces, and the court ruled theCapital; now, all Paris is the Court, and all the country is the town. 

However lofty, beautiful, and clever a girl born in any department ofFrance may be on entering life, if, like Dinah Piedefer, she marriesin the country and remains there, she inevitably becomes theprovincial woman. In spite of every determination, the commonplace ofsecond-rate ideas, indifference to dress, the culture of vulgarpeople, swamp the sublimer essence hidden in the youthful plant; allis over, it falls into decay. How should it be otherwise? From theirearliest years girls bred in the country see none but provincials;they cannot imagine anything superior, their choice lies amongmediocrities; provincial fathers marry their daughters to provincialsons; crossing the races is never thought of, and the brain inevitablydegenerates, so that in many country towns intellect is as rare as thebreed is hideous. Mankind becomes dwarfed in mind and body, for thefatal principle of conformity of fortune governs every matrimonialalliance. Men of talent, artists, superior brains--every bird ofbrilliant plumage flies to Paris. The provincial woman, inferior inherself, is also inferior through her husband. How is she to livehappy under this crushing twofold consciousness?

But there is a third and terrible element besides her congenital andconjugal inferiority which contributes to make the figure arid andgloomy; to reduce it, narrow it, distort it fatally. Is not one of themost flattering unctions a woman can lay to her soul the assurance ofbeing something in the existence of a superior man, chosen by herself, wittingly, as if to have some revenge on marriage, wherein her tasteswere so little consulted? But if in the country the husbands areinferior beings, the bachelors are no less so. When a provincial wifecommits her "little sin, " she falls in love with some so-calledhandsome native, some indigenous dandy, a youth who wears gloves andis supposed to ride well; but she knows at the bottom of her soul thather fancy is in pursuit of the commonplace, more or less well dressed. Dinah was preserved from this danger by the idea impressed upon her ofher own superiority. Even if she had not been as carefully guarded inher early married life as she was by her mother, whose presence neverweighed upon her till the day when she wanted to be rid of it, herpride, and her high sense of her own destinies, would have protectedher. Flattered as she was to find herself surrounded by admirers, shesaw no lover among them. No man here realized the poetical ideal whichshe and Anna Grossetete had been wont to sketch. When, stirred by theinvoluntary temptations suggested by the homage she received, sheasked herself, "If I had to make a choice, who should it be?" sheowned to a preference for Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, a gentleman of goodfamily, whose appearance and manners she liked, but whose cold nature, selfishness, and narrow ambition, never rising above a prefecture anda good marriage, repelled her. At a word from his family, who werealarmed lest he should be killed for an intrigue, the Vicomte hadalready deserted a woman he had loved in the town where he previouslyhad been Sous-prefet. 

Monsieur de Clagny, on the other hand, the only man whose mindappealed to hers, whose ambition was founded on love, and who knewwhat love means, Dinah thought perfectly odious. When Dinah sawherself condemned to six years' residence at Sancerre she was on thepoint of accepting the devotion of Monsieur le Vicomte de Chargeboeuf;but he was appointed to a prefecture and left the district. ToMonsieur de Clagny's great satisfaction, the new Sous-prefet was amarried man whose wife made friends with Dinah. The lawyer had now norival to fear but Monsieur Gravier. Now Monsieur Gravier was thetypical man of forty of whom women make use while they laugh at him, whose hopes they intentionally and remorselessly encourage, as we arekind to a beast of burden. In six years, among all the men who wereintroduced to her from twenty leagues round, there was not one inwhose presence Dinah was conscious of the excitement caused bypersonal beauty, by a belief in promised happiness, by the impact of asuperior soul, or the anticipation of a love affair, even an unhappyone. 

Thus none of Dinah's choicest faculties had a chance of developing;she swallowed many insults to her pride, which was constantlysuffering under the husband who so calmly walked the stage assupernumerary in the drama of her life. Compelled to bury her wealthof love, she showed only the surface to the world. Now and then shewould try to rouse herself, try to form some manly resolution; but shewas kept in leading strings by the need for money. And so, slowly andin spite of the ambitious protests and grievous recriminations of herown mind, she underwent the provincial metamorphosis here described. Each day took with it a fragment of her spirited determination. Shehad laid down a rule for the care of her person, which she graduallydeparted from. Though at first she kept up with the fashions and thelittle novelties of elegant life, she was obliged to limit herpurchases by the amount of her allowance. Instead of six hats, caps, or gowns, she resigned herself to one gown each season. She was somuch admired in a certain bonnet that she made it do duty for twoseasons. So it was in everything. 

Not unfrequently her artistic sense led her to sacrifice therequirements of her person to secure some bit of Gothic furniture. Bythe seventh year she had come so low as to think it convenient to haveher morning dresses made at home by the best needlewoman in theneighborhood; and her mother, her husband, and her friends pronouncedher charming in these inexpensive costumes which did credit to hertaste. Her ideas were imitated! As she had no standard of comparison, Dinah fell into the snares that surround the provincial woman. If aParisian woman's hips are too narrow or too full, her inventive witand the desire to please help to find some heroic remedy; if she hassome defect, some ugly spot, or small disfigurement, she is capable ofmaking it an adornment; this is often seen; but the provincial woman--never! If her waist is too short and her figure ill balanced, well, she makes up her mind to the worst, and her adorers--or they do notadore her--must take her as she is, while the Parisian always insistson being taken for what she is not. Hence the preposterous bustles, the audacious flatness, the ridiculous fulness, the hideous outlinesingeniously displayed, to which a whole town will become accustomed, but which are so astounding when a provincial woman makes herappearance in Paris or among Parisians. Dinah, who was extremely slim, showed it off to excess, and never knew a dull moment when it becameridiculous; when, reduced by the dull weariness of her life, shelooked like a skeleton in clothes; and her friends, seeing her everyday, did not observe the gradual change in her appearance. 

This is one of the natural results of a provincial life. In spite ofmarriage, a young woman preserves her beauty for some time, and thetown is proud of her; but everybody sees her every day, and whenpeople meet every day their perception is dulled. If, like Madame dela Baudraye, she loses her color, it is scarcely noticed; or, again, if she flushes a little, that is intelligible and interesting. Alittle neglect is thought charming, and her face is so carefullystudied, so well known, that slight changes are scarcely noticed, andregarded at last as "beauty spots. " When Dinah ceased to have a newdress with a new season, she seemed to have made a concession to thephilosophy of the place. 

It is the same with matters of speech, choice of words and ideas, asit is with matters of feeling. The mind can rust as well as the bodyif it is not rubbed up in Paris; but the thing on which provincialismmost sets its stamp is gesture, gait, and movement; these soon losethe briskness which Paris constantly keeps alive. The provincial isused to walk and move in a world devoid of accident or change, thereis nothing to be avoided; so in Paris she walks on as raw recruits do, never remembering that there may be hindrances, for there are none inher way in her native place, where she is known, where she is alwaysin her place, and every one makes way for her. Thus she loses all thecharm of the unforeseen. 

And have you ever noticed the effect on human beings of a life incommon? By the ineffaceable instinct of simian mimicry they all tendto copy each other. Each one, without knowing it, acquires thegestures, the tone of voice, the manner, the attitudes, the verycountenance of others. In six years Dinah had sunk to the pitch of thesociety she lived in. As she acquired Monsieur de Clagny's ideas sheassumed his tone of voice; she unconsciously fell into masculinemanners from seeing none but men; she fancied that by laughing at whatwas ridiculous in them she was safe from catching it; but, as oftenhappens, some hue of what she laughed at remained in the grain. 

A Parisian woman sees so many examples of good taste that a contraryresult ensues. In Paris women learn to seize the hour and moment whenthey may appear to advantage; while Madame de la Baudraye, accustomedto take the stage, acquired an indefinable theatrical and domineeringmanner, the air of a _prima donna_ coming forward on the boards, ofwhich ironical smiles would soon have cured her in the capital. 

But after she had acquired this stock of absurdities, and, deceived byher worshipers, imagined them to be added graces, a moment of terribleawakening came upon her like the fall of an avalanche from a mountain. In one day she was crushed by a frightful comparison. 

In 1829, after the departure of Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, she wasexcited by the anticipation of a little pleasure; she was expectingthe Baronne de Fontaine. Anna's husband, who was now Director-Generalunder the Minister of Finance, took advantage of leave of absence onthe occasion of his father's death to take his wife to Italy. Annawished to spend the day at Sancerre with her school-friend. Thismeeting was strangely disastrous. Anna, who at school had been farless handsome than Dinah, now, as Baronne de Fontaine, was a thousandtimes handsomer than the Baronne de la Baudraye, in spite of herfatigue and her traveling dress. Anna stepped out of an eleganttraveling chaise loaded with Paris milliners' boxes, and she had withher a lady's maid, whose airs quite frightened Dinah. All thedifference between a woman of Paris and a provincial was at onceevident to Dinah's intelligent eye; she saw herself as her friend sawher--and Anna found her altered beyond recognition. Anna spent sixthousand francs a year on herself alone, as much as kept the wholehousehold at La Baudraye. 

In twenty-four hours the friends had exchanged many confidences; andthe Parisian, seeing herself so far superior to the phoenix ofMademoiselle Chamarolles' school, showed her provincial friend suchkindness, such attentions, while giving her certain explanations, aswere so many stabs to Dinah, though she perfectly understood thatAnna's advantages all lay on the surface, while her own were for everburied. 

When Anna had left, Madame de la Baudraye, by this timetwo-and-twenty, fell into the depths of despair. 

"What is it that ails you?" asked Monsieur de Clagny, seeing her sodejected. 

"Anna, " said she, "has learned to live, while I have been learning toendure. "

A tragi-comedy was, in fact, being enacted in Madame de la Baudraye'shouse, in harmony with her struggles over money matters and hersuccessive transformations--a drama to which no one but Monsieur deClagny and the Abbe Duret ever knew the clue, when Dinah in sheeridleness, or perhaps sheer vanity, revealed the secret of heranonymous fame. 

Though a mixture of verse and prose is a monstrous anomaly in Frenchliterature, there must be exceptions to the rule. This tale will beone of the two instances in these Studies of violation of the laws ofnarrative; for to give a just idea of the unconfessed struggle whichmay excuse, though it cannot absolve Dinah, it is necessary to give ananalysis of a poem which was the outcome of her deep despair. 

Her patience and her resignation alike broken by the departure of theVicomte de Chargeboeuf, Dinah took the worthy Abbe's advice to exhaleher evil thoughts in verse--a proceeding which perhaps accounts forsome poets. 

"You will find such relief as those who write epitaphs or elegies overthose whom they have lost. Pain is soothed in the heart as lines surgeup in the brain. "

This strange production caused a great ferment in the departments ofthe Allier, the Nievre, and the Cher, proud to possess a poet capableof rivalry with the glories of Paris. _Paquita la Sevillane_, by _JanDiaz_, was published in the _Echo du Morvan_, a review which foreighteen months maintained its existence in spite of provincialindifference. Some knowing persons at Nevers declared that Jan Diazwas making fun of the new school, just then bringing out its eccentricverse, full of vitality and imagery, and of brilliant effects producedby defying the Muse under pretext of adapting German, English, andRomanesque mannerisms. 

The poem began with this ballad:

 Ah! if you knew the fragrant plain, The air, the sky, of golden Spain, Its fervid noons, its balmy spring, Sad daughters of the northern gloom, Of love, of heav'n, of native home, You never would presume to sing!

 For men are there of other mould Than those who live in this dull cold. And there to music low and sweet Sevillian maids, from eve till dawn, Dance lightly on the moonlit lawn In satin shoes, on dainty feet. 

 Ah, you would be the first to blush Over your dancers' romp and rush, And your too hideous carnival, That turns your cheeks all chill and blue, And skips the mud in hob-nail'd shoe-- A truly dismal festival. 

 To pale-faced girls, and in a squalid room, Paquita sang; the murky town beneath Was Rouen whence the slender spires rise To chew the storm with teeth. Rouen so hideous, noisy, full of rage--

And here followed a magnificent description of Rouen--where Dinah hadnever been--written with the affected brutality which, a little later, inspired so many imitations of Juvenal; a contrast drawn between thelife of a manufacturing town and the careless life of Spain, betweenthe love of Heaven and of human beauty, and the worship of machinery, in short, between poetry and sordid money-making. 

Then Jan Diaz accounted for Paquita's horror of Normandy by saying:

 Seville, you see, had been her native home, Seville, where skies are blue and evening sweet. She, at thirteen, the sovereign of the town, Had lovers at her feet. 

 For her three Toreadors had gone to death Or victory, the prize to be a kiss-- One kiss from those red lips of sweetest breath-- A longed-for touch of bliss!

The features of the Spanish girl's portrait have served so often asthose of the courtesan in so many self-styled _poems_, that it wouldbe tiresome to quote here the hundred lines of description. To judgeof the lengths to which audacity had carried Dinah, it will be enoughto give the conclusion. According to Madame de la Baudraye's ardentpen, Paquita was so entirely created for love that she can hardly havemet with a knight worthy of her; for

 . . . . In her passionate fire Every man would have swooned from the heat, When she at love's feast, in her fervid desire, As yet had but taken her seat. 

"And yet she could quit the joys of Seville, its woods and fields oforange-trees, for a Norman soldier who won her love and carried heraway to his hearth and home. She did not weep for her Andalusia, theSoldier was her whole joy. . . . But the day came when he wascompelled to start for Russia in the footsteps of the great Emperor. "

Nothing could be more dainty than the description of the partingbetween the Spanish girl and the Normandy Captain of Artillery, who, in the delirium of passion expressed with feeling worthy of Byron, exacted from Paquita a vow of absolute fidelity, in the Cathedral atRouen in front of the alter of the Blessed Virgin, who

 Though a Maid is a woman, and never forgives When lovers are false to their vows. 

A large part of the poem was devoted to describing Paquita'ssufferings when alone in Rouen waiting till the campaign was over; shestood writhing at the window bars as she watched happy couples go by;she suppressed her passion in her heart with a determination thatconsumed her; she lived on narcotics, and exhausted herself in dreams. 

 Almost she died, but still her heart was true; And when at last her soldier came again, He found her beauty ever fresh and new-- He had not loved in vain!

"But he, pale and frozen by the cold of Russia, chilled to the verymarrow, met his yearning fair one with a melancholy smile. "

The whole poem was written up to this situation, which was worked outwith such vigor and boldness as too entirely justified the Abbe Duret. 

Paquita, on reaching the limits set to real love, did not, like Julieand Heloise, throw herself into the ideal; no, she rushed into thepaths of vice, which is, no doubt, shockingly natural; but she did itwithout any touch of magnificence, for lack of means, as it would bedifficult to find in Rouen men impassioned enough to place Paquita ina suitable setting of luxury and splendor. This horrible realism, emphasized by gloomy poetic feeling, had inspired some passages suchas modern poetry is too free with, rather too like the flayedanatomical figures known to artists as _ecorches_. Then, by a highlyphilosophical revulsion, after describing the house of ill-fame wherethe Andalusian ended her days, the writer came back to the ballad atthe opening:

 Paquita now is faded, shrunk, and old, But she it was who sang:

 "If you but knew the fragrant plain, The air, the sky, of golden Spain, " etc. 

The gloomy vigor of this poem, running to about six hundred lines, andserving as a powerful foil, to use a painter's word, to the two_seguidillas_ at the beginning and end, the masculine utterance ofinexpressible grief, alarmed the woman who found herself admired bythree departments, under the black cloak of the anonymous. While shefully enjoyed the intoxicating delights of success, Dinah dreaded themalignity of provincial society, where more than one woman, if thesecret should slip out, would certainly find points of resemblancebetween the writer and Paquita. Reflection came too late; Dinahshuddered with shame at having made "copy" of some of her woes. 

"Write no more, " said the Abbe Duret. "You will cease to be a woman;you will be a poet. "

Moulins, Nevers, Bourges were searched to find Jan Diaz; but Dinah wasimpenetrable. To remove any evil impression, in case any unforeseenchance should betray her name, she wrote a charming poem in two cantoson _The Mass-Oak_, a legend of the Nivernais:

"Once upon a time the folks of Nevers and the folks of Saint-Saulge, at war with each other, came at daybreak to fight a battle, in whichone or other should perish, and met in the forest of Faye. And thenthere stood between them, under an oak, a priest whose aspect in themorning sun was so commanding that the foes at his bidding heard Massas he performed it under the oak, and at the words of the Gospel theymade friends. "--The oak is still shown in the forest of Faye. 

This poem, immeasurably superior to _Paquita la Sevillane_, was farless admired. 

After these two attempts Madame de la Baudraye, feeling herself apoet, had a light on her brow and a flash in her eyes that made herhandsomer than ever. She cast longing looks at Paris, aspiring to fame--and fell back into her den of La Baudraye, her daily squabbles withher husband, and her little circle, where everybody's character, intentions, and remarks were too well known not to have become a bore. Though she found relief from her dreary life in literary work, andpoetry echoed loudly in her empty life, though she thus found anoutlet for her energies, literature increased her hatred of the grayand ponderous provincial atmosphere. 

When, after the Revolution of 1830, the glory of George Sand wasreflected on Le Berry, many a town envied La Chatre the privilege ofhaving given birth to this rival of Madame de Stael and CamilleMaupin, and were ready to do homage to minor feminine talent. Thusthere arose in France a vast number of tenth Muses, young girls oryoung wives tempted from a silent life by the bait of glory. Verystrange doctrines were proclaimed as to the part women should play insociety. Though the sound common sense which lies at the root of theFrench nature was not perverted, women were suffered to express ideasand profess opinions which they would not have owned to a few yearspreviously. 

Monsieur de Clagny took advantage of this outbreak of freedom tocollect the works of Jan Diaz in a small volume printed by Desroziersat Moulins. He wrote a little notice of the author, too early snatchedfrom the world of letters, which was amusing to those who were in thesecret, but which even then had not the merit of novelty. Suchpractical jokes, capital so long as the author remains unknown, fallrather flat if subsequently the poet stands confessed. 

From this point of view, however, the memoir of Jan Diaz, born atBourges in 1807, the son of a Spanish prisoner, may very likely someday deceive the compiler of some _Universal Biography_. Nothing isoverlooked; neither the names of the professors at the BourgesCollege, nor those of his deceased schoolfellows, such as Lousteau, Bianchon, and other famous natives of the province, who, it is said, knew the dreamy, melancholy boy, and his precocious bent towardspoetry. An elegy called _Tristesse_ (Melancholy), written at school;the two poems _Paquita la Sevillane_ and _Le Chene de la Messe_; threesonnets, a description of the Cathedral and the House of Jacques Coeurat Bourges, with a tale called _Carola_, published as the work he wasengaged on at the time of his death, constituted the whole of theseliterary remains; and the poet's last hours, full of misery anddespair, could not fail to wring the hearts of the feeling public ofthe Nievre, the Bourbonnais, the Cher, and the Morvan, where he diednear Chateau-Chinon, unknown to all, even to the woman he had loved!

Of this little yellow paper volume two hundred copies were printed;one hundred and fifty were sold--about fifty in each department. Thisaverage of tender and poetic souls in three departments of France isenough to revive the enthusiasm of writers as to the _Furia Francese_, which nowadays is more apt to expend itself in business than in books. 

When Monsieur de Clagny had given away a certain number of copies, Dinah still had seven or eight, wrapped up in the newspapers which hadpublished notices of the work. Twenty copies forwarded to the Parispapers were swamped in the editors' offices. Nathan was taken in aswell as several of his fellow-countrymen of Le Berry, and wrote anarticle on the great man, in which he credited him with all the finequalities we discover in those who are dead and buried. 

Lousteau, warned by his fellow-schoolfellows, who could not rememberJan Diaz, waited for information from Sancerre, and learned that JanDiaz was a pseudonym assumed by a woman. 

Then, in and around Sancerre, Madame de la Baudraye became the rage;she was the future rival of George Sand. From Sancerre to Bourges apoem was praised which, at any other time, would certainly have beenhooted. The provincial public--like every French public, perhaps--doesnot share the love of the King of the French for the happy medium: itlifts you to the skies or drags you in the mud. 

By this time the good Abbe, Madame de la Baudraye's counselor, wasdead; he would certainly have prevented her rushing into public life. But three years of work without recognition weighed on Dinah's soul, and she accepted the clatter of fame as a substitute for herdisappointed ambitions. Poetry and dreams of celebrity, which hadlulled her grief since her meeting with Anna Grossetete, no longersufficed to exhaust the activity of her morbid heart. The Abbe Duret, who had talked of the world when the voice of religion was impotent, who understood Dinah, and promised her a happy future by assuring herthat God would compensate her for her sufferings bravely endured, --this good old man could no longer stand between the opening to sinand the handsome young woman he had called his daughter. 

The wise old priest had more than once endeavored to enlighten Dinahas to her husband's character, telling her that the man could hate;but women are not ready to believe in such force in weak natures, andhatred is too constantly in action not to be a vital force. Dinah, finding her husband incapable of love, denied him the power to hate. 

"Do not confound hatred and vengeance, " said the Abbe. "They are twodifferent sentiments. One is the instinct of small minds; the other isthe outcome of law which great souls obey. God is avenged, but He doesnot hate. Hatred is a vice of narrow souls; they feed it with alltheir meanness, and make it a pretext for sordid tyranny. So beware ofoffending Monsieur de la Baudraye; he would forgive an infidelity, because he could make capital of it, but he would be doubly implacableif you should touch him on the spot so cruelly wounded by MonsieurMilaud of Nevers, and would make your life unendurable. "

Now, at the time when the whole countryside--Nevers and Sancerre, LeMorvan and Le Berry--was priding itself on Madame de la Baudraye, andlauding her under the name of Jan Diaz, "little La Baudraye" felt herglory a mortal blow. He alone knew the secret source of _Paquita laSevillane_. When this terrible work was spoken of, everybody said ofDinah--"Poor woman! Poor soul!"

The women rejoiced in being able to pity her who had so long oppressedthem; never had Dinah seemed to stand higher in the eyes of theneighborhood. 

The shriveled old man, more wrinkled, yellower, feebler than ever, gave no sign; but Dinah sometimes detected in his eyes, as he lookedat her, a sort of icy venom which gave the lie to his increasedpoliteness and gentleness. She understood at last that this was not, as she had supposed, a mere domestic squabble; but when she forced anexplanation with her "insect, " as Monsieur Gravier called him, shefound the cold, hard impassibility of steel. She flew into a passion;she reproached him for her life these eleven years past; she made--intentionally--what women call a scene. But "little La Baudraye" satin an armchair with his eyes shut, and listened phlegmatically to thestorm. And, as usual, the dwarf got the better of his wife. Dinah sawthat she had done wrong in writing; she vowed never to write anotherline, and she kept her vow. 

Then was there desolation in the Sancerrois. 

"Why did not Madame de la Baudraye compose any more verses?" was theuniversal cry. 

At this time Madame de la Baudraye had no enemies; every one rushed tosee her, not a week passed without fresh introductions. The wife ofthe presiding judge, an august _bourgeoise_, _nee_ Popinot-Chandier, desired her son, a youth of two-and-twenty, to pay his humble respectsto La Baudraye, and flattered herself that she might see her Gatien inthe good graces of this Superior Woman. --The words Superior Woman hadsuperseded the absurd nickname of _The Sappho of Saint-Satur_. --Thislady, who for nine years had led the opposition, was so delighted atthe good reception accorded to her son, that she became loud in herpraises of the Muse of Sancerre. 

"After all, " she exclaimed, in reply to a tirade from Madame deClagny, who hated her husband's supposed mistress, "she is thehandsomest and cleverest woman in the whole province!"

After scrambling through so many brambles and setting off on so manydifferent roads, after dreaming of love in splendor and scenting thedarkest dramas, thinking such terrible joys would be cheaply purchasedso weary was she of her dreary existence, one day Dinah fell into thepit she had sworn to avoid. Seeing Monsieur de Clagny alwayssacrificing himself, and at last refusing a high appointment in Paris, where his family wanted to see him, she said to herself, "He lovesme!" She vanquished her repulsion, and seemed willing to reward somuch constancy. 

It was to this impulse of generosity on her part that a coalition wasdue, formed in Sancerre to secure the return of Monsieur de Clagny atthe next elections. Madame de la Baudraye had dreamed of going toParis in the wake of the new deputy. 

But, in spite of the most solemn promises, the hundred and fifty votesto be recorded in favor of this adorer of the lovely Dinah--who hopedto see this defender of the widow and the orphan wearing the gown ofthe Keeper of the Seals--figured as an imposing minority of fiftyvotes. The jealousy of the President de Boirouge, and MonsieurGravier's hatred, for he believed in the candidate's supremacy inDinah's heart, had been worked upon by a young Sous-prefet; and forthis worthy deed the allies got the young man made a prefet elsewhere. 

"I shall never cease to regret, " said he, as he quitted Sancerre, "that I did not succeed in pleasing Madame de la Baudraye; that wouldhave made my triumph complete!"

The household that was thus racked by domestic troubles was calm onthe surface; here were two ill-assorted but resigned beings, and theindescribable propriety, the lie that society insists on, and which toDinah was an unendurable yoke. Why did she long to throw off the maskshe had worn for twelve years? Whence this weariness which, every day, increased her hope of finding herself a widow?

The reader who has noted all the phases of her existence will haveunderstood the various illusions by which Dinah, like many anotherwoman, had been deceived. After an attempt to master Monsieur de laBaudraye, she had indulged the hope of becoming a mother. Betweenthose miserable disputes over household matters and the melancholyconviction as to her fate, quite a long time had elapsed. Then, whenshe had looked for consolation, the consoler, Monsieur de Chargeboeufhad left her. Thus, the overwhelming temptation which commonly causeswomen to sin had hitherto been absent. For if there are, after all, some women who make straight for unfaithfulness, are there not manymore who cling to hope, and do not fall till they have wandered longin a labyrinth of secret woes?

Such was Dinah. She had so little impulse to fail in her duty, thatshe did not care enough for Monsieur de Clagny to forgive him hisdefeat. 

Then the move to the Chateau d'Anzy, the rearrangement of hercollected treasures and curiosities, which derived added value fromthe splendid setting which Philibert de Lorme seemed to have plannedon purpose for this museum, occupied her for several months, givingher leisure to meditate one of those decisive steps that startle thepublic, ignorant of the motives which, however, it sometimes discoversby dint of gossip and suppositions. 

Madame de la Baudraye had been greatly struck by the reputation ofLousteau, who was regarded as a lady's man of the first water inconsequence of his intimacies among actresses; she was anxious to knowhim; she read his books, and was fired with enthusiasm, less perhapsfor his talents than for his successes with women; and to attract himto the country, she started the notion that it was obligatory onSancerre to return one of its great men at the elections. She madeGatien Boirouge write to the great physician Bianchon, whom he claimedas a cousin through the Popinots. Then she persuaded an old friend ofthe departed Madame Lousteau to stir up the journalist's ambitions byletting him know that certain persons in Sancerre were firmly bent onelecting a deputy from among the distinguished men in Paris. 

Tired of her commonplace neighbors, Madame de la Baudraye would thusat last meet really illustrious men, and might give her fall thelustre of fame. 

Neither Lousteau nor Bianchon replied; they were waiting perhaps tillthe holidays. Bianchon, who had won his professor's chair the yearbefore after a brilliant contest, could not leave his lectures. 

In the month of September, when the vintage was at its height, the twoParisians arrived in their native province, and found it absorbed inthe unremitting toil of the wine-crop of 1836; there could thereforebe no public demonstration in their favor. "We have fallen flat, " saidLousteau to his companion, in the slang of the stage. 

In 1836, Lousteau, worn by sixteen years of struggle in the Capital, and aged quite as much by pleasure as by penury, hard work, anddisappointments, looked eight-and-forty, though he was no more thanthirty-seven. He was already bald, and had assumed a Byronic air inharmony with his early decay and the lines furrowed in his face byover-indulgence in champagne. He ascribed these signs-manual ofdissipation to the severities of a literary life, declaring that thePress was murderous; and he gave it to be understood that it consumedsuperior talents, so as to lend a grace to his exhaustion. In hisnative town he thought proper to exaggerate his affected contempt oflife and his spurious misanthropy. Still, his eyes could flash withfire like a volcano supposed to be extinct, and he endeavored, bydressing fashionably, to make up for the lack of youth that mightstrike a woman's eye. 

Horace Bianchon, who wore the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, was fatand burly, as beseems a fashionable physician, with a patriarchal air, his hair thick and long, a prominent brow, the frame of a hard worker, and the calm expression of a philosopher. This somewhat prosaicpersonality set off his more frivolous companion to advantage. 

The two great men remained unrecognized during a whole morning at theinn where they had put up, and it was only by chance that Monsieur deClagny heard of their arrival. Madame de la Baudraye, in despair atthis, despatched Gatien Boirouge, who had no vineyards, to beg the twogentlemen to spend a few days at the Chateau d'Anzy. For the last yearDinah had played the chatelaine, and spent the winter only at LaBaudraye. Monsieur Gravier, the Public Prosecutor, the PresidingJudge, and Gatien Boirouge combined to give a banquet to the greatmen, to meet the literary personages of the town. 

On hearing that the beautiful Madame de la Baudraye was Jan Diaz, theParisians went to spend three days at Anzy, fetched in a sort ofwagonette driven by Gatien himself. The young man, under a genuineillusion, spoke of Madame de la Baudraye not only as the handsomestwoman in those parts, a woman so superior that she might give GeorgeSand a qualm, but as a woman who would produce a great sensation inParis. Hence the extreme though suppressed astonishment of DoctorBianchon and the waggish journalist when they beheld, on the gardensteps of Anzy, a lady dressed in thin black cashmere with a deeptucker, in effect like a riding-habit cut short, for they quiteunderstood the pretentiousness of such extreme simplicity. Dinah alsowore a black velvet cap, like that in the portrait of Raphael, andbelow it her hair fell in thick curls. This attire showed off a ratherpretty figure, fine eyes, and handsome eyelids somewhat faded by theweariful life that has been described. In Le Berry the singularity ofthis _artistic_ costume was a cloak for the romantic affectations ofthe Superior Woman. 

On seeing the affectations of their too amiable hostess--which were, indeed, affectations of soul and mind--the friends glanced at eachother, and put on a deeply serious expression to listen to Madame dela Baudraye, who made them a set speech of thanks for coming to cheerthe monotony of her days. Dinah walked her guests round and round thelawn, ornamented with large vases of flowers, which lay in front ofthe Chateau d'Anzy. 

"How is it, " said Lousteau, the practical joker, "that so handsome awoman as you, and apparently so superior, should have remained buriedin the country? What do you do to make life endurable?"

"Ah! that is the crux, " said the lady. "It is unendurable. Utterdespair or dull resignation--there is no third alternative; that isthe arid soil in which our existence is rooted, and on which athousand stagnant ideas fall; they cannot fertilize the ground, butthey supply food for the etiolated flowers of our desert souls. Neverbelieve in indifference! Indifference is either despair orresignation. Then each woman takes up the pursuit which, according toher character, seems to promise some amusement. Some rush intojam-making and washing, household management, the rural joys of thevintage or the harvest, bottling fruit, embroidering handkerchiefs, the cares of motherhood, the intrigues of a country town. Otherstorment a much-enduring piano, which, at the end of seven years, sounds like an old kettle, and ends its asthmatic life at the Chateaud'Anzy. Some pious dames talk over the different brands of the Word ofGod--the Abbe Fritaud as compared with the Abbe Guinard. They playcards in the evening, dance with the same partners for twelve yearsrunning, in the same rooms, at the same dates. This delightful life isvaried by solemn walks on the Mall, visits of politeness among thewomen, who ask each other where they bought their gowns. 

"Conversation is bounded on the south by remarks on the intrigueslying hidden under the stagnant water of provincial life, on the northby proposed marriages, on the west by jealousies, and on the east bysour remarks. 

"And so, " she went on, striking an attitude, "you see a woman wrinkledat nine-and-twenty, ten years before the time fixed by the rules ofDoctor Bianchon, a woman whose skin is ruined at an early age, whoturns as yellow as a quince when she is yellow at all--we have seensome turn green. When we have reached that point, we try to justifyour normal condition; then we turn and rend the terrible passion ofParis with teeth as sharp as rat's teeth. We have Puritan women here, sour enough to tear the laces of Parisian finery, and eat out all thepoetry of your Parisian beauties, who undermine the happiness ofothers while they cry up their walnuts and rancid bacon, glorify thissqualid mouse-hole, and the dingy color and conventual small of ourdelightful life at Sancerre. "

"I admire such courage, madame, " said Bianchon. "When we have toendure such misfortunes, it is well to have the wit to make a virtueof necessity. "

Amazed at the brilliant move by which Dinah thus placed provinciallife at the mercy of her guests, in anticipation of their sarcasms, Gatien Boirouge nudged Lousteau's elbow, with a glance and a smile, which said:

"Well! did I say too much?"

"But, madame, " said Lousteau, "you are proving that we are still inParis. I shall steal this gem of description; it will be worth tenthousand francs to me in an article. "

"Oh, monsieur, " she retorted, "never trust provincial women. "

"And why not?" said Lousteau. 

Madame de la Baudraye was wily enough--an innocent form of cunning, tobe sure--to show the two Parisians, one of whom she would choose to beher conquerer, the snare into which he would fall, reflecting that shewould have the upper hand at the moment when he should cease to seeit. 

"When you first come, " said she, "you laugh at us. Then when you haveforgotten the impression of Paris brilliancy, and see us in our ownsphere, you pay court to us, if only as a pastime. And you, who arefamous for your past passions, will be the object of attentions whichwill flatter you. Then take care!" cried Dinah, with a coquettishgesture, raising herself above provincial absurdities and Lousteau'sirony by her own sarcastic speech. "When a poor little country-bredwoman has an eccentric passion for some superior man, some Parisianwho has wandered into the provinces, it is to her something more thana sentiment; she makes it her occupation and part of all her life. There is nothing more dangerous than the attachment of such a woman;she compares, she studies, she reflects, she dreams; and she will notgive up her dream, she thinks still of the man she loves when he hasceased to think of her. 

"Now one of the catastrophes that weigh most heavily on a woman in theprovinces is that abrupt termination of her passion which is so oftenseen in England. In the country, a life under minute observation askeen as an Indian's compels a woman either to keep on the rails or tostart aside like a steam engine wrecked by an obstacle. The strategiesof love, the coquetting which form half the composition of a Parisianwoman, are utterly unknown here. "

"That is true, " said Lousteau. "There is in a country-bred woman'sheart a store of surprises, as in some toys. "

"Dear me!" Dinah went on, "a woman will have spoken to you three timesin the course of a winter, and without your knowing it, you will belodged in her heart. Then comes a picnic, an excursion, what not, andall is said--or, if you prefer it, all is done! This conduct, whichseems odd to unobserving persons, is really very natural. A poet, suchas you are, or a philosopher, an observer, like Doctor Bianchon, instead of vilifying the provincial woman and believing her depraved, would be able to guess the wonderful unrevealed poetry, every chapter, in short, of the sweet romance of which the last phrase falls to thebenefit of some happy sub-lieutenant or some provincial bigwig. "

"The provincial women I have met in Paris, " said Lousteau, "were, infact, rapid in their proceedings--"

"My word, they are strange, " said the lady, giving a significant shrugof her shoulders. 

"They are like the playgoers who book for the second performance, feeling sure that the piece will not fail, " replied the journalist. 

"And what is the cause of all these woes?" asked Bianchon. 

"Paris is the monster that brings us grief, " replied the SuperiorWoman. "The evil is seven leagues round, and devastates the wholeland. Provincial life is not self-existent. It is only when a nationis divided into fifty minor states that each can have a physiognomy ofits own, and then a woman reflects the glory of the sphere where shereigns. This social phenomenon, I am told, may be seen in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany; but in France, as in every country wherethere is but one capital, a dead level of manners must necessarilyresult from centralization. "

"Then you would say that manners could only recover theirindividuality and native distinction by the formation of a federationof French states into one empire?" said Lousteau. 

"That is hardly to be wished, for France would have to conquer toomany countries, " said Bianchon. 

"This misfortune is unknown in England, " exclaimed Dinah. "London doesnot exert such tyranny as that by which Paris oppresses France--forwhich, indeed, French ingenuity will at last find a remedy; however, it has a worse disease in its vile hypocrisy, which is a far greaterevil!"

"The English aristocracy, " said Lousteau, hastening to put a word in, for he foresaw a Byronic paragraph, "has the advantage over ours ofassimilating every form of superiority; it lives in the midst ofmagnificent parks; it is in London for no more than two months. Itlives in the country, flourishing there, and making it flourish. "

"Yes, " said Madame de la Baudraye, "London is the capital of trade andspeculation and the centre of government. The aristocracy hold a'mote' there for sixty days only; it gives and takes the passwords ofthe day, looks in on the legislative cookery, reviews the girls tomarry, the carriages to be sold, exchanges greetings, and is awayagain; and is so far from amusing, that it cannot bear itself for morethan the few days known as 'the season. '"

"Hence, " said Lousteau, hoping to stop this nimble tongue by anepigram, "in Perfidious Albion, as the _Constitutionnel_ has it, youmay happen to meet a charming woman in any part of the kingdom. "

"But charming _English_ women!" replied Madame de la Baudraye with asmile. "Here is my mother, I will introduce you, " said she, seeingMadame Piedefer coming towards them. 

Having introduced the two Paris lions to the ambitious skeleton thatcalled itself woman under the name of Madame Piedefer--a tall, leanpersonage, with a red face, teeth that were doubtfully genuine, andhair that was undoubtedly dyed, Dinah left her visitors to themselvesfor a few minutes. 

"Well, " said Gatien to Lousteau, "what do you think of her?"

"I think that the clever woman of Sancerre is simply the greatestchatterbox, " replied the journalist. 

"A woman who wants to see you deputy!" cried Gatien. "An angel!"

"Forgive me, I forgot you were in love with her, " said Lousteau. "Forgive the cynicism of an old scamp. --Ask Bianchon; I have noillusions left. I see things as they are. The woman has evidentlydried up her mother like a partridge left to roast at too fierce afire. "

Gatien de Boirouge contrived to let Madame de la Baudraye know whatthe journalist had said of her in the course of the dinner, which wascopious, not to say splendid, and the lady took care not to talk toomuch while it was proceeding. This lack of conversation betrayedGatien's indiscretion. Etienne tried to regain his footing, but allDinah's advances were directed to Bianchon. 

However, half-way through the evening, the Baroness was gracious toLousteau again. Have you never observed what great meanness may becommitted for small ends? Thus the haughty Dinah, who would notsacrifice herself for a fool, who in the depths of the country ledsuch a wretched life of struggles, of suppressed rebellion, ofunuttered poetry, who to get away from Lousteau had climbed thehighest and steepest peak of her scorn, and who would not have comedown if she had seen the sham Byron at her feet, suddenly stepped offit as she recollected her album. 

Madame de la Baudraye had caught the mania for autographs; shepossessed an oblong volume which deserved the name of album betterthan most, as two-thirds of the pages were still blank. The Baronne deFontaine, who had kept it for three months, had with great difficultyobtained a line from Rossini, six bars written by Meyerbeer, the fourlines that Victor Hugo writes in every album, a verse from Lamartine, a few words from Beranger, _Calypso ne pouvait se consoler du departd'Ulysse_ (the first words of _Telemaque_) written by George Sand, Scribe's famous lines on the Umbrella, a sentence from Charles Nodier, an outline of distance by Jules Dupre, the signature of Davidd'Angers, and three notes written by Hector Berlioz. Monsieur deClagny, during a visit to Paris, added a song by Lacenaire--a muchcoveted autograph, two lines from Fieschi, and an extremely short notefrom Napoleon, which were pasted on to pages of the album. ThenMonsieur Gravier, in the course of a tour, had persuaded MademoiselleMars to write her name on this album, with Mademoiselles Georges, Taglioni, and Grisi, and some distinguished actors, such as FrederickLemaitre, Monrose, Bouffe, Rubini, Lablache, Nourrit, and Arnal; forhe knew a set of old fellows brought up in the seraglio, as theyphrased it, who did him this favor. 

This beginning of a collection was all the more precious to Dinahbecause she was the only person for ten leagues round who owned analbum. Within the last two years, however, several young ladies hadacquired such books, in which they made their friends andacquaintances write more or less absurd quotations or sentiments. Youwho spend your lives in collecting autographs, simple and happy souls, like Dutch tulip fanciers, you will excuse Dinah when, in her fear ofnot keeping her guests more than two days, she begged Bianchon toenrich the volume she handed to him with a few lines of his writing. 

The doctor made Lousteau smile by showing him this sentence on thefirst page:

 "What makes the populace dangerous is that it has in its pocket an absolution for every crime. 

J. B. DE CLAGNY. "

"We will second the man who is brave enough to plead in favor of theMonarchy, " Desplein's great pupil whispered to Lousteau, and he wrotebelow:

 "The distinction between Napoleon and a water-carrier is evident only to Society; Nature takes no account of it. Thus Democracy, which resists inequality, constantly appeals to Nature. 

H. BIANCHON. "

"Ah!" cried Dinah, amazed, "you rich men take a gold piece out of yourpurse as poor men bring out a farthing. . . . I do not know, " she wenton, turning to Lousteau, "whether it is taking an unfair advantage ofa guest to hope for a few lines--"

"Nay, madame, you flatter me. Bianchon is a great man, but I am tooinsignificant!--Twenty years hence my name will be more difficult toidentify than that of the Public Prosecutor whose axiom, written inyour album, will designate him as an obscurer Montesquieu. And Ishould want at least twenty-four hours to improvise some sufficientlybitter reflections, for I could only describe what I feel. "

"I wish you needed a fortnight, " said Madame de la Baudrayegraciously, as she handed him the book. "I should keep you here allthe longer. "

At five next morning all the party in the Chateau d'Anzy were astir, little La Baudraye having arranged a day's sport for the Parisians--less for their pleasure than to gratify his own conceit. He wasdelighted to make them walk over the twelve hundred acres of wasteland that he was intending to reclaim, an undertaking that would costsome hundred thousand francs, but which might yield an increase ofthirty to sixty thousand francs a year in the returns of the estate ofAnzy. 

"Do you know why the Public Prosecutor has not come out with us?"asked Gatien Boirouge of Monsieur Gravier. 

"Why he told us that he was obliged to sit to-day; the minor cases arebefore the Court, " replied the other. 

"And did you believe that?" cried Gatien. "Well, my papa said to me, 'Monsieur Lebas will not join you early, for Monsieur de Clagny hasbegged him as his deputy to sit for him!'"

"Indeed!" said Gravier, changing countenance. "And Monsieur de laBaudraye is gone to La Charite!"

"But why do you meddle in such matters?" said Bianchon to Gatien. 

"Horace is right, " said Lousteau. "I cannot imagine why you troubleyour heads so much about each other; you waste your time infrivolities. "

Horace Bianchon looked at Etienne Lousteau, as much as to say thatnewspaper epigrams and the satire of the "funny column" wereincomprehensible at Sancerre. 

On reaching a copse, Monsieur Gravier left the two great men andGatien, under the guidance of a keeper, to make their way through alittle ravine. 

"Well, we must wait for Monsieur Gravier, " said Bianchon, when theyhad reached a clearing. 

"You may be a great physician, " said Gatien, "but you are ignorant ofprovincial life. You mean to wait for Monsieur Gravier?--By this timehe is running like a hare, in spite of his little round stomach; he iswithin twenty minutes of Anzy by now----" Gatien looked at his watch. "Good! he will be just in time. "

"Where?"

"At the chateau for breakfast, " replied Gatien. "Do you suppose Icould rest easy if Madame de la Baudraye were alone with Monsieur deClagny? There are two of them now; they will keep an eye on eachother. Dinah will be well guarded. "

"Ah, ha! Then Madame de la Baudraye has not yet made up her mind?"said Lousteau. 

"So mamma thinks. For my part, I am afraid that Monsieur de Clagny hasat last succeeded in bewitching Madame de la Baudraye. If he has beenable to show her that he had any chance of putting on the robes of theKeeper of the Seals, he may have hidden his moleskin complexion, histerrible eyes, his touzled mane, his voice like a hoarse crier's, hisbony figure, like that of a starveling poet, and have assumed allthe charms of Adonis. If Dinah sees Monsieur de Clagny asAttorney-General, she may see him as a handsome youth. Eloquence hasgreat privileges. --Besides, Madame de la Baudraye is full of ambition. She does not like Sancerre, and dreams of the glories of Paris. "

"But what interest have you in all this?" said Lousteau. "If she is inlove with the Public Prosecutor!--Ah! you think she will not love himfor long, and you hope to succeed him. "

"You who live in Paris, " said Gatien, "meet as many different women asthere are days in the year. But at Sancerre, where there are not halfa dozen, and where, of those six, five set up for the most extravagantvirtue, when the handsomest of them all keeps you at an infinitedistance by looks as scornful as though she were of the blood royal, ayoung man of two-and-twenty may surely be allowed to make a guess ather secrets, since she must then treat him with some consideration. "

"Consideration! So that is what you call it in these parts?" said thejournalist with a smile. 

"I should suppose Madame de la Baudraye to have too much good taste totrouble her head about that ugly ape, " said Bianchon. 

"Horace, " said Lousteau, "look here, O learned interpreter of humannature, let us lay a trap for the Public Prosecutor; we shall be doingour friend Gatien a service, and get a laugh out of it. I do not lovePublic Prosecutors. "

"You have a keen intuition of destiny, " said Horace. "But what can wedo?"

"Well, after dinner we will tell sundry little anecdotes of wivescaught out by their husbands, killed, murdered under the most terriblecircumstances. --Then we shall see the faces that Madame de la Baudrayeand de Clagny will make. "

"Not amiss!" said Bianchon; "one or the other must surely, by look orgesture--"

"I know a newspaper editor, " Lousteau went on, addressing Gatien, "who, anxious to forefend a grievous fate, will take no stories butsuch as tell the tale of lovers burned, hewn, pounded, or cut topieces; of wives boiled, fried, or baked; he takes them to his wife toread, hoping that sheer fear will keep her faithful--satisfied withthat humble alternative, poor man! 'You see, my dear, to what thesmallest error may lead you!' says he, epitomizing Arnolfe's addressto Agnes. "

"Madame de la Baudraye is quite guiltless; this youth sees double, "said Bianchon. "Madame Piedefer seems to me far too pious to inviteher daughter's lover to the Chateau d'Anzy. Madame de la Baudrayewould have to hoodwink her mother, her husband, her maid, and hermother's maid; that is too much to do. I acquit her. "

"Well with more reason because her husband never 'quits her, '" saidGatien, laughing at his own wit. 

"We can easily remember two or three stories that will make Dinahquake, " said Lousteau. "Young man--and you too, Bianchon--let me begyou to maintain a stern demeanor; be thorough diplomatists, an easymanner without exaggeration, and watch the faces of the two criminals, you know, without seeming to do so--out of the corner of your eye, orin a glass, on the sly. This morning we will hunt the hare, thisevening we will hunt the Public Prosecutor. "

The evening began with a triumph for Lousteau, who returned the albumto the lady with this elegy written in it:

SPLEEN

 You ask for verse from me, the feeble prey Of this self-seeking world, a waif and stray With none to whom to cling; From me--unhappy, purblind, hopeless devil! Who e'en in what is good see only evil In any earthly thing!

 This page, the pastime of a dame so fair, May not reflect the shadow of my care, For all things have their place. Of love, to ladies bright, the poet sings, Of joy, and balls, and dress, and dainty things-- Nay, or of God and Grace. 

 It were a bitter jest to bid the pen Of one so worn with life, so hating men, Depict a scene of joy. Would you exult in sight to one born blind, Or--cruel! of a mother's love remind Some hapless orphan boy?

 When cold despair has gripped a heart still fond, When there is no young heart that will respond To it in love, the future is a lie. If there is none to weep when he is sad, And share his woe, a man were better dead!-- And so I soon must die. 

 Give me your pity! often I blaspheme The sacred name of God. Does it not seem That I was born in vain? Why should I bless him? Or why thank Him, since He might have made me handsome, rich, a prince-- And I am poor and plain?

ETIENNE LOUSTEAU. September 1836, Chateau d'Anzy. 

"And you have written those verses since yesterday?" cried Clagny in asuspicious tone. 

"Dear me, yes, as I was following the game; it is only too evident! Iwould gladly have done something better for madame. "

"The verses are exquisite!" cried Dinah, casting up her eyes toheaven. 

"They are, alas! the expression of a too genuine feeling, " repliedLousteau, in a tone of deep dejection. 

The reader will, of course, have guessed that the journalist hadstored these lines in his memory for ten years at least, for he hadwritten them at the time of the Restoration in disgust at being unableto get on. Madame de la Baudraye gazed at him with such pity as thewoes of genius inspire; and Monsieur de Clagny, who caught herexpression, turned in hatred against this sham _Jeune Malade_ (thename of an Elegy written by Millevoye). He sat down to backgammon withthe cure of Sancerre. The Presiding Judge's son was so extremelyobliging as to place a lamp near the two players in such a way as thatthe light fell full on Madame de la Baudraye, who took up her work;she was embroidering in coarse wool a wicker-plait paper-basket. Thethree conspirators sat close at hand. 

"For whom are you decorating that pretty basket, madame?" saidLousteau. "For some charity lottery, perhaps?"

"No, " she said, "I think there is too much display in charity done tothe sound of a trumpet. "

"You are very indiscreet, " said Monsieur Gravier. 

"Can there be any indiscretion, " said Lousteau, "in inquiring who thehappy mortal may be in whose room that basket is to stand?"

"There is no happy mortal in the case, " said Dinah; "it is forMonsieur de la Baudraye. "

The Public Prosecutor looked slily at Madame de la Baudraye and herwork, as if he had said to himself, "I have lost my paper-basket!"

"Why, madame, may we not think him happy in having a lovely wife, happy in her decorating his paper-baskets so charmingly? The colorsare red and black, like Robin Goodfellow. If ever I marry, I only hopethat twelve years after, my wife's embroidered baskets may still befor me. "

"And why should they not be for you?" said the lady, fixing her finegray eyes, full of invitation, on Etienne's face. 

"Parisians believe in nothing, " said the lawyer bitterly. "The virtueof women is doubted above all things with terrible insolence. Yes, forsome time past the books you have written, you Paris authors, yourfarces, your dramas, all your atrocious literature, turn onadultery--"

"Come, come, Monsieur the Public Prosecutor, " retorted Etienne, laughing, "I left you to play your game in peace, I did not attackyou, and here you are bringing an indictment against me. On my honoras a journalist, I have launched above a hundred articles against thewriters you speak of; but I confess that in attacking them it was toattempt something like criticism. Be just; if you condemn them, youmust condemn Homer, whose _Iliad_ turns on Helen of Troy; you mustcondemn Milton's _Paradise Lost_. Eve and her serpent seem to me apretty little case of symbolical adultery; you must suppress thePsalms of David, inspired by the highly adulterous love affairs ofthat Louis XIV. Of Judah; you must make a bonfire of _Mithridate, leTartuffe, l'Ecole des Femmes, Phedre, Andromaque, le Mariage deFigaro_, Dante's _Inferno_, Petrarch's Sonnets, all the works ofJean-Jacques Rousseau, the romances of the Middle Ages, the Historyof France, and of Rome, etc. , etc. Excepting Bossuet's _Histoire desVariations_ and Pascal's _Provinciales_, I do not think there are manybooks left to read if you insist on eliminating all those in whichillicit love is mentioned. "

"Much loss that would be!" said Monsieur de Clagny. 

Etienne, nettled by the superior air assumed by Monsieur de Clagny, wanted to infuriate him by one of those cold-drawn jests which consistin defending an opinion in which we have no belief, simply to rousethe wrath of a poor man who argues in good faith; a regularjournalist's pleasantry. 

"If we take up the political attitude into which you would forceyourself, " he went on, without heeding the lawyer's remark, "andassume the part of Public Prosecutor of all the ages--for everyGovernment has its public ministry--well, the Catholic religion isinfected at its fountain-head by a startling instance of illegalunion. In the opinion of King Herod, and of Pilate as representing theRoman Empire, Joseph's wife figured as an adulteress, since, by heravowal, Joseph was not the father of Jesus. The heathen judge could nomore recognize the Immaculate Conception than you yourself would admitthe possibility of such a miracle if a new religion should nowadays bepreached as based on a similar mystery. Do you suppose that a judgeand jury in a police court would give credence to the operation of theHoly Ghost! And yet who can venture to assert that God will neveragain redeem mankind? Is it any better now than it was underTiberius?"

"Your argument is blasphemy, " said Monsieur de Clagny. 

"I grant it, " said the journalist, "but not with malicious intent. Youcannot suppress historical fact. In my opinion, Pilate, when hesentenced Jesus, and Anytus--who spoke for the aristocratic party atAthens--when he insisted on the death of Socrates, both representedestablished social interests which held themselves legitimate, invested with co-operative powers, and obliged to defend themselves. Pilate and Anytus in their time were not less logical than the publicprosecutors who demanded the heads of the sergeants of La Rochelle;who, at this day, are guillotining the republicans who take up armsagainst the throne as established by the revolution of July, and theinnovators who aim at upsetting society for their own advantage underpretence of organizing it on a better footing. In the eyes of thegreat families of Greece and Rome, Socrates and Jesus were criminals;to those ancient aristocracies their opinions were akin to those ofthe Mountain; and if their followers had been victorious, they wouldhave produced a little 'ninety-three' in the Roman Empire or inAttica. "

"What are you trying to come to, monsieur?" asked the lawyer. 

"To adultery!--For thus, monsieur, a Buddhist as he smokes his pipemay very well assert that the Christian religion is founded inadultery; as we believe that Mahomet is an impostor; that his Koran isan epitome of the Old Testament and the Gospels; and that God neverhad the least intention of constituting that camel-driver HisProphet. "

"If there were many men like you in France--and there are more thanenough, unfortunately--all government would be impossible. "

"And there would be no religion at all, " said Madame Piedefer, who hadbeen making strangely wry faces all through this discussion. 

"You are paining them very much, " said Bianchon to Lousteau in anundertone. "Do not talk of religion; you are saying things that areenough to upset them. "

"If I were a writer or a romancer, " said Monsieur Gravier, "I shouldtake the side of the luckless husbands. I, who have seen many things, and strange things too, know that among the ranks of deceived husbandsthere are some whose attitude is not devoid of energy, men who, at acrisis, can be very dramatic, to use one of your words, monsieur, " hesaid, addressing Etienne. 

"You are very right, my dear Monsieur Gravier, " said Lousteau. "Inever thought that deceived husbands were ridiculous; on the contrary, I think highly of them--"

"Do you not think a husband's confidence a sublime thing?" saidBianchon. "He believes in his wife, he does not suspect her, he trustsher implicitly. But if he is so weak as to trust her, you make game ofhim; if he is jealous and suspicious, you hate him; what, then, I askyou, is the happy medium for a man of spirit?"

"If Monsieur de Clagny had not just expressed such vehementdisapproval of the immorality of stories in which the matrimonialcompact is violated, I could tell you of a husband's revenge, " saidLousteau. 

Monsieur de Clagny threw the dice with a convulsive jerk, and darednot look up at the journalist. 

"A story, from you!" cried Madame de la Baudraye. "I should hardlyhave dared to hope for such a treat--"

"It is not my story, madame; I am not clever enough to invent such atragedy. It was told me--and how delightfully!--by one of our greatestwriters, the finest literary musician of our day, Charles Nodier. "

"Well, tell it, " said Dinah. "I never met Monsieur Nodier, so you haveno comparison to fear. "

"Not long after the 18th Brumaire, " Etienne began, "there was, as youknow, a call to arms in Brittany and la Vendee. The First Consul, anxious before all things for peace in France, opened negotiationswith the rebel chiefs, and took energetic military measures; but, while combining his plans of campaign with the insinuating charm ofItalian diplomacy, he also set the Machiavelian springs of the policein movement, Fouche then being at its head. And none of these meanswere superfluous to stifle the fire of war then blaring in the West. 

"At this time a young man of the Maille family was despatched by theChouans from Brittany to Saumur, to open communications betweencertain magnates of that town and its environs and the leaders of theRoyalist party. The envoy was, in fact, arrested on the very day helanded--for he traveled by boat, disguised as a master mariner. However, as a man of practical intelligence, he had calculated all therisks of the undertaking; his passport and papers were all in order, and the men told off to take him were afraid of blundering. 

"The Chevalier de Beauvoir--I now remember his name--had studied hispart well; he appealed to the family whose name he had borrowed, persisted in his false address, and stood his examination so boldlythat he would have been set at large but for the blind belief that thespies had in their instructions, which were unfortunately only toominute. In this dilemma the authorities were more ready to risk anarbitrary act than to let a man escape to whose capture the Ministerattached great importance. In those days of liberty the agents of thepowers in authority cared little enough for what we now regard as_legal_. The Chevalier was therefore imprisoned provisionally, untilthe superior officials should come to some decision as to hisidentity. He had not long to wait for it; orders were given to guardthe prisoner closely in spite of his denials. 

"The Chevalier de Beauvoir was next transferred, in obedience tofurther orders, to the Castle of l'Escarpe, a name which sufficientlyindicates its situation. This fortress, perched on very high rocks, has precipices for its trenches; it is reached on all sides by steepand dangerous paths; and, like every ancient castle, its principalgate has a drawbridge over a wide moat. The commandant of this prison, delighted to have charge of a man of family whose manners were mostagreeable, who expressed himself well, and seemed highly educated, received the Chevalier as a godsend; he offered him the freedom of theplace on parole, that they might together the better defy its dulness. The prisoner was more than content. 

"Beauvoir was a loyal gentleman, but, unfortunately, he was also avery handsome youth. He had attractive features, a dashing air, apleasing address, and extraordinary strength. Well made, active, fullof enterprise, and loving danger, he would have made an admirableleader of guerillas, and was the very man for the part. The commandantgave his prisoner the most comfortable room, entertained him at histable, and at first had nothing but praise for the Vendean. Thisofficer was a Corsican and married; his wife was pretty and charming, and he thought her, perhaps, not to be trusted--at any rate, he was asjealous as a Corsican and a rather ill-looking soldier may be. Thelady took a fancy to Beauvoir, and he found her very much to histaste; perhaps they loved! Love in a prison is quick work. Did theycommit some imprudence? Was the sentiment they entertained somethingwarmer than the superficial gallantry which is almost a duty of mentowards women?

"Beauvoir never fully explained this rather obscure episode of thestory; it is at least certain that the commandant thought himselfjustified in treating his prisoner with excessive severity. Beauvoirwas placed in the dungeon, fed on black bread and cold water, andfettered in accordance with the time-honored traditions of thetreatment lavished on captives. His cell, under the fortress-yard, wasvaulted with hard stone, the walls were of desperate thickness; thetower overlooked the precipice. 

"When the luckless man had convinced himself of the impossibility ofescape, he fell into those day-dreams which are at once the comfortand the crowning despair of prisoners. He gave himself up to thetrifles which in such cases seem so important; he counted the hoursand the days; he studied the melancholy trade of being prisoner; hebecame absorbed in himself, and learned the value of air and sunshine;then, at the end of a fortnight, he was attacked by that terriblemalady, that fever for liberty, which drives prisoners to those heroicefforts of which the prodigious achievements seem to us impossible, though true, and which my friend the doctor" (and he turned toBianchon) "would perhaps ascribe to some unknown forces too reconditefor his physiological analysis to detect, some mysteries of the humanwill of which the obscurity baffles science. "

Bianchon shook his head in negation. 

"Beauvoir was eating his heart out, for death alone could set himfree. One morning the turnkey, whose duty it was to bring him hisfood, instead of leaving him when he had given him his meagrepittance, stood with his arms folded, looking at him with strangemeaning. Conversation between them was brief, and the warder neverbegan it. The Chevalier was therefore greatly surprised when the mansaid to him: 'Of course, monsieur, you know your own business when youinsist on being always called Monsieur Lebrun, or citizen Lebrun. Itis no concern of mine; ascertaining your name is no part of my duty. It is all the same to me whether you call yourself Peter or Paul. Ifevery man minds his own business, the cows will not stray. At the sametime, _I_ know, ' said he, with a wink, 'that you are MonsieurCharles-Felix-Theodore, Chevalier de Beauvoir, and cousin to Madamela Duchesse de Maille. --Heh?' he added after a short silence, duringwhich he looked at his prisoner. 

"Beauvoir, seeing that he was safe under lock and key, did not imaginethat his position could be any the worse if his real name were known. 

"'Well, and supposing I were the Chevalier de Beauvoir, what should Igain by that?' said he. 

"'Oh, there is everything to be gained by it, ' replied the jailer inan undertone. 'I have been paid to help you to get away; but wait aminute! If I were suspected in the smallest degree, I should be shotout of hand. So I have said that I will do no more in the matter thanwill just earn the money. --Look here, ' said he, taking a small fileout of his pocket, 'this is your key; with this you can cut throughone of your bars. By the Mass, but it will not be any easy job, ' hewent on, glancing at the narrow loophole that let daylight into thedungeon. 

"It was in a splayed recess under the deep cornice that ran round thetop of the tower, between the brackets that supported the embrasures. 

"'Monsieur, ' said the man, 'you must take care to saw through theiron low enough to get your body through. '

"'I will get through, never fear, ' said the prisoner. 

"'But high enough to leave a stanchion to fasten a cord to, ' thewarder went on. 

"'And where is the cord?' asked Beauvoir. 

"'Here, ' said the man, throwing down a knotted rope. 'It is made ofraveled linen, that you may be supposed to have contrived it yourself, and it is long enough. When you have got to the bottom knot, letyourself drop gently, and the rest you must manage for yourself. Youwill probably find a carriage somewhere in the neighborhood, andfriends looking out for you. But I know nothing about that. --I neednot remind you that there is a man-at-arms to the right of the tower. You will take care, of course, to choose a dark night, and wait tillthe sentinel is asleep. You must take your chance of being shot;but--'

"'All right! All right! At least I shall not rot here, ' cried theyoung man. 

"'Well, that may happen nevertheless, ' replied the jailer, with astupid expression. 

"Beauvoir thought this was merely one of the aimless remarks that suchfolks indulge in. The hope of freedom filled him with such joy that hecould not be troubled to consider the words of a man who was no morethan a better sort of peasant. He set to work at once, and had filedthe bars through in the course of the day. Fearing a visit from theGovernor, he stopped up the breaches with bread crumb rubbed in rustto make it look like iron; he hid his rope, and waited for a favorablenight with the intensity of anticipation, the deep anguish of soulthat makes a prisoner's life dramatic. 

"At last, one murky night, an autumn night, he finished cuttingthrough the bars, tied the cord firmly to the stump, and perchedhimself on the sill outside, holding on by one hand to the piece ofiron remaining. Then he waited for the darkest hour of the night, whenthe sentinels would probably be asleep; this would be not long beforedawn. He knew the hours of their rounds, the length of each watch, every detail with which prisoners, almost involuntarily, becomefamiliar. He waited till the moment when one of the men-at-arms hadspent two-thirds of his watch and gone into his box for shelter fromthe fog. Then, feeling sure that the chances were at the best for hisescape, he let himself down knot by knot, hanging between earth andsky, and clinging to his rope with the strength of a giant. All waswell. At the last knot but one, just as he was about to let himselfdrop, a prudent impulse led him to feel for the ground with his feet, and he found no footing. The predicament was awkward for a man bathedin sweat, tired, and perplexed, and in a position where his life wasat stake on even chances. He was about to risk it, when a trivialincident stopped him; his hat fell off; happily, he listened for thenoise it must make in striking the ground, and he heard not a sound. 

"The prisoner felt vaguely suspicious as to this state of affairs. Hebegan to wonder whether the Commandant had not laid a trap for him--but if so, why? Torn by doubts, he almost resolved to postpone theattempt till another night. At any rate, he would wait for the firstgleam of day, when it would still not be impossible to escape. Hisgreat strength enabled him to climb up again to his window; still, hewas almost exhausted by the time he gained the sill, where he crouchedon the lookout, exactly like a cat on the parapet of a gutter. Beforelong, by the pale light of dawn, he perceived as he waved the ropethat there was a little interval of a hundred feet between the lowestknot and the pointed rocks below. 

"'Thank you, my friend, the Governor!' said he, with characteristiccoolness. Then, after a brief meditation on this skilfully-plannedrevenge, he thought it wise to return to his cell. 

"He laid his outer clothes conspicuously on the bed, left the ropeoutside to make it seem that he had fallen, and hid himself behind thedoor to await the arrival of the treacherous turnkey, arming himselfwith one of the iron bars he had filed out. The jailer, who returnedrather earlier than usual to secure the dead man's leavings, openedthe door, whistling as he came in; but when he was at arm's length, Beauvoir hit him such a tremendous blow on the head that the wretchfell in a heap without a cry; the bar had cracked his skull. 

"The Chevalier hastily stripped him and put on his clothes, mimickedhis walk, and, thanks to the early hour and the undoubting confidenceof the warders of the great gate, he walked out and away. "

It did not seem to strike either the lawyer or Madame de la Baudrayethat there was in this narrative the least allusion that should applyto them. Those in the little plot looked inquiringly at each other, evidently surprised at the perfect coolness of the two supposedlovers. 

"Oh! I can tell you a better story than that, " said Bianchon. 

"Let us hear, " said the audience, at a sign from Lousteau, conveyingthat Bianchon had a reputation as a story-teller. 

Among the stock of narratives he had in store, for every clever manhas a fund of anecdotes as Madame de la Baudraye had a collection ofphrases, the doctor chose that which is known as _La Grande Breteche_, and is so famous indeed, that it was put on the stage at the_Gymnase-Dramatique_ under the title of _Valentine_. So it is notnecessary to repeat it here, though it was then new to the inhabitantsof the Chateau d'Anzy. And it was told with the same finish of gestureand tone which had won such praise for Bianchon when at Mademoiselledes Touches' supper-party he had told it for the first time. The finalpicture of the Spanish grandee, starved to death where he stood in thecupboard walled up by Madame de Merret's husband, and that husband'slast word as he replied to his wife's entreaty, "You swore on thatcrucifix that there was no one in that closet!" produced their fulleffect. There was a silent minute, highly flattering to Bianchon. 

"Do you know, gentlemen, " said Madame de la Baudraye, "love must be amighty thing that it can tempt a woman to put herself in such aposition?"

"I, who have certainly seen some strange things in the course of mylife, " said Gravier, "was cognizant in Spain of an adventure of thesame kind. "

"You come forward after two great performers, " said Madame de laBaudraye, with coquettish flattery, as she glanced at the twoParisians. "But never mind--proceed. "

"Some little time after his entry into Madrid, " said theReceiver-General, "the Grand Duke of Berg invited the magnates of thecapital to an entertainment given to the newly conquered city by theFrench army. In spite of the splendor of the affair, the Spaniardswere not very cheerful; their ladies hardly danced at all, and most ofthe company sat down to cards. The gardens of the Duke's palace wereso brilliantly illuminated, that the ladies could walk about in asperfect safety as in broad daylight. The fete was of imperialmagnificence. Nothing was grudged to give the Spaniards a high idea ofthe Emperor, if they were to measure him by the standard of hisofficers. 

"In an arbor near the house, between one and two in the morning, aparty of French officers were discussing the chances of war, and thenot too hopeful outlook prognosticated by the conduct of the Spaniardspresent at that grand ball. 

"'I can only tell you, ' said the surgeon-major of the company ofwhich I was paymaster, 'I applied formally to Prince Murat onlyyesterday to be recalled. Without being afraid exactly of leaving mybones in the Peninsula, I would rather dress the wounds made by ourworthy neighbors the Germans. Their weapons do not run quite so deepinto the body as these Castilian daggers. Besides, a certain dread ofSpain is, with me, a sort of superstition. From my earliest youth Ihave read Spanish books, and a heap of gloomy romances and tales ofadventures in this country have given me a serious prejudice againstits manners and customs. 

"'Well, now, since my arrival in Madrid, I have already been, notindeed the hero, but the accomplice of a dangerous intrigue, as darkand mysterious as any romance by Lady (Mrs. ) Radcliffe. I am apt toattend to my presentiments, and I am off to-morrow. Murat will notrefuse me leave, for, thanks to our varied services, we always haveinfluential friends. '

"'Since you mean to cut your stick, tell us what's up, ' said an oldRepublican colonel, who cared not a rap for Imperial gentility andchoice language. 

"The surgeon-major looked about him cautiously, as if to make sure whowere his audience, and being satisfied that no Spaniard was withinhearing, he said:

"'We are none but Frenchmen--then, with pleasure, Colonel Hulot. About six days since, I was quietly going home, at about eleven atnight, after leaving General Montcornet, whose hotel is but a fewyards from mine. We had come away together from theQuartermaster-General's, where we had played rather high at_bouillotte_. Suddenly, at the corner of a narrow high-street, twostrangers, or rather, two demons, rushed upon me and flung a largecloak round my head and arms. I yelled out, as you may suppose, like adog that is thrashed, but the cloth smothered my voice, and I waslifted into a chaise with dexterous rapidity. When my two companionsreleased me from the cloak, I heard these dreadful words spoken by awoman, in bad French:

"'"If you cry out, or if you attempt to escape, if you make the veryleast suspicious demonstration, the gentleman opposite to you willstab you without hesitation. So you had better keep quiet. --Now, Iwill tell you why you have been carried off. If you will take thetrouble to put your hand out in this direction, you will find yourcase of instruments lying between us; we sent a messenger for them toyour rooms, in your name. You will need them. We are taking you to ahouse that you may save the honor of a lady who is about to give birthto a child that she wishes to place in this gentleman's keepingwithout her husband's knowledge. Though monsieur rarely leaves hiswife, with whom he is still passionately in love, watching over herwith all the vigilance of Spanish jealousy, she had succeeded inconcealing her condition; he believes her to be ill. You must bringthe child into the world. The dangers of this enterprise do notconcern us: only, you must obey us, otherwise the lover, who issitting opposite to you in this carriage, and who does not understanda word of French, will kill you on the least rash movement. "

"'"And who are you?" I asked, feeling for the speaker's hand, forher arm was inside the sleeve of a soldier's uniform. 

"'"I am my lady's waiting-woman, " said she, "and ready to reward youwith my own person if you show yourself gallant and helpful in ournecessities. "

"'"Gladly, " said I, seeing that I was inevitably started on aperilous adventure. 

"'Under favor of the darkness, I felt whether the person and figureof the girl were in keeping with the idea I had formed of her from hertone of voice. The good soul had, no doubt, made up her mind from thefirst to accept all the chances of this strange act of kidnapping, forshe kept silence very obligingly, and the coach had not been more thanten minutes on the way when she accepted and returned a verysatisfactory kiss. The lover, who sat opposite to me, took no offenceat an occasional quite involuntary kick; as he did not understandFrench, I conclude he paid no heed to them. 

"'"I can be your mistress on one condition only, " said the woman, inreply to the nonsense I poured into her ear, carried away by thefervor of an improvised passion, to which everything was unpropitious. 

"'"And what is it?"

"'"That you will never attempt to find out whose servant I am. If Iam to go to you, it must be at night, and you must receive me in thedark. "

"'"Very good, " said I. 

"'We had got as far as this, when the carriage drew up under a gardenwall. 

"'"You must allow me to bandage your eyes, " said the maid. "You canlean on my arm, and I will lead you. "

"'She tied a handkerchief over my eyes, fastening it in a tight knotat the back of my head. I heard the sound of a key being cautiouslyfitted to the lock of a little side door by the speechless lover whohad sat opposite to me. In a moment the waiting-woman, whose shape wasslender, and who walked with an elegant jauntiness'--_meneho_, as theycall it, " Monsieur Gravier explained in a superior tone, "a word whichdescribes the swing which women contrive to give a certain part oftheir dress that shall be nameless. --'The waiting-woman'--it is thesurgeon-major who is speaking, " the narrator went on--"'led me alongthe gravel walks of a large garden, till at a certain spot shestopped. From the louder sound of our footsteps, I concluded that wewere close to the house. "Now silence!" said she in a whisper, "andmind what you are about. Do not overlook any of my signals; I cannotspeak without terrible danger for both of us, and at this moment yourlife is of the first importance. " Then she added: "My mistress is in aroom on the ground floor. To get into it we must pass through herhusband's room and close to his bed. Do not cough, walk softly, andfollow me closely, so as not to knock against the furniture or treadanywhere but on the carpets I laid down. "

"'Here the lover gave an impatient growl, as a man annoyed by so muchdelay. 

"'The woman said no more, I heard a door open, I felt the warm air ofthe house, and we stole in like thieves. Presently the girl's lighthand removed the bandage. I found myself in a lofty and spacious room, badly lighted by a smoky lamp. The window was open, but the jealoushusband had fitted it with iron bars. I was in the bottom of a sack, as it were. 

"'On the ground a woman was lying on a mat; her head was covered witha muslin veil, but I could see her eyes through it full of tears andflashing with the brightness of stars; she held a handkerchief in hermouth, biting it so hard that her teeth were set in it: I never sawfiner limbs, but her body was writhing with pain like a harp-stringthrown on the fire. The poor creature had made a sort of struts of herlegs by setting her feet against a chest of drawers, and with bothhands she held on to the bar of a chair, her arms outstretched, withevery vein painfully swelled. She might have been a criminalundergoing torture. But she did not utter a cry; there was not asound, all three speechless and motionless. The husband snored withreassuring regularity. I wanted to study the waiting-woman's face, butshe had put on a mask, which she had removed, no doubt, during ourdrive, and I could see nothing but a pair of black eyes and apleasingly rounded figure. 

"'The lover threw some towels over his mistress' legs and folded themuslin veil double over her face. As soon as I had examined the ladywith care, I perceived from certain symptoms which I had noted oncebefore on a very sad occasion in my life, that the infant was dead. Iturned to the maid in order to tell her this. Instantly the suspiciousstranger drew his dagger; but I had time to explain the matter to thewoman, who explained in a word or two to him in a low voice. Onhearing my opinion, a quick, slight shudder ran through him from headto foot like a lightning flash; I fancied I could see him turn paleunder his black velvet mask. 

"'The waiting-woman took advantage of a moment when he was bending indespair over the dying woman, who had turned blue, to point to someglasses of lemonade standing on a table, at the same time shaking herhead negatively. I understood that I was not to drink anything inspite of the dreadful thirst that parched my throat. The lover wasthirsty too; he took an empty glass, poured out some fresh lemonade, and drank it off. 

"'At this moment the lady had a violent attack of pain, which showedme that now was the time to operate. I summoned all my courage, and inabout an hour had succeeded in delivering her of the child, cutting itup to extract it. The Spaniard no longer thought of poisoning me, understanding that I had saved the mother's life. Large tears fell onhis cloak. The woman uttered no sound, but she trembled like a huntedanimal, and was bathed in sweat. 

"'At one horribly critical moment she pointed in the direction of herhusband's room; he had turned in his sleep, and she alone had heardthe rustle of the sheets, the creaking of the bed or of the curtain. We all paused, and the lover and the waiting-woman, through theeyeholes of their masks, gave each other a look that said, "If hewakes, shall we kill him?"

"'At that instant I put out my hand to take the glass of lemonade theSpaniard had drunk of. He, thinking that I was about to take one ofthe full glasses, sprang forward like a cat, and laid his long daggerover the two poisoned goblets, leaving me his own, and signing to meto drink what was left. So much was conveyed by this quick action, andit was so full of good feeling, that I forgave him his atrociousschemes for killing me, and thus burying every trace of this event. 

"'After two hours of care and alarms, the maid and I put her mistressto bed. The lover, forced into so perilous an adventure, had, toprovide means in case of having to fly, a packet of diamonds stuck topaper; these he put into my pocket without my knowing it; and I mayadd parenthetically, that as I was ignorant of the Spaniard'smagnificent gift, my servant stole the jewels the day after, and wentoff with a perfect fortune. 

"'I whispered my instructions to the waiting-woman as to the furthercare of her patient, and wanted to be gone. The maid remained with hermistress, which was not very reassuring, but I was on my guard. Thelover made a bundle of the dead infant and the blood-stained clothes, tying it up tightly, and hiding it under his cloak; he passed his handover my eyes as if to bid me to see nothing, and signed to me to takehold of the skirt of his coat. He went first out of the room, and Ifollowed, not without a parting glance at my lady of an hour. She, seeing the Spaniard had gone out, snatched off her mask and showed mean exquisite face. 

"'When I found myself in the garden, in the open air, I confess thatI breathed as if a heavy load had been lifted from my breast. Ifollowed my guide at a respectful distance, watching his leastmovement with keen attention. Having reached the little door, he tookmy hand and pressed a seal to my lips, set in a ring which I had seenhim wearing on a finger of his left hand, and I gave him to understandthat this significant sign would be obeyed. In the street two horseswere waiting; we each mounted one. My Spaniard took my bridle, heldhis own between his teeth, for his right hand held the bloodstainedbundle, and we went off at lightning speed. 

"'I could not see the smallest object by which to retrace the road wecame by. At dawn I found myself close by my own door, and the Spaniardfled towards the Atocha gate. '

"'And you saw nothing which could lead you to suspect who the womanwas whom you had attended?' the Colonel asked of the surgeon. 

"'One thing only, ' he replied. 'When I turned the unknown lady over, I happened to remark a mole on her arm, about half-way down, as big asa lentil, and surrounded with brown hairs. '--At this instant the rashspeaker turned pale. All our eyes, that had been fixed on his, followed his glance, and we saw a Spaniard, whose glittering eyesshone through a clump of orange-trees. On finding himself the objectof our attention, the man vanished with the swiftness of a sylph. Ayoung captain rushed in pursuit. 

"'By Heaven!' cried the surgeon, 'that basilisk stare has chilled methrough, my friends. I can hear bells ringing in my ears! I may takeleave of you; you will bury me here!'

"'What a fool you are!' exclaimed Colonel Hulot. 'Falcon is on thetrack of the Spaniard who was listening, and he will call him toaccount. '

"'Well, ' cried one and another, seeing the captain return quite outof breath. 

"'The devil's in it, ' said Falcon; 'the man went through a wall, Ibelieve! As I do not suppose that he is a wizard, I fancy he mustbelong to the house! He knows every corner and turning, and easilyescaped. '

"'I am done for, ' said the surgeon, in a gloomy voice. 

"'Come, come, keep calm, Bega, ' said I (his name was Bega), 'we willsit on watch with you till you leave. We will not leave you thisevening. '

"In point of fact, three young officers who had been losing at playwent home with the surgeon to his lodgings, and one of us offered tostay with him. 

"Within two days Bega had obtained his recall to France; he madearrangements to travel with a lady to whom Murat had given a strongescort, and had just finished dinner with a party of friends, when hisservant came to say that a young lady wished to speak to him. Thesurgeon and the three officers went down suspecting mischief. Thestranger could only say, 'Be on your guard--' when she dropped downdead. It was the waiting-woman, who, finding she had been poisoned, had hoped to arrive in time to warn her lover. 

"'Devil take it!' cried Captain Falcon, 'that is what I call love! Nowoman on earth but a Spaniard can run about with a dose of poison inher inside!'

"Bega remained strangely pensive. To drown the dark presentiments thathaunted him, he sat down to table again, and with his companions drankimmoderately. The whole party went early to bed, half drunk. 

"In the middle of the night the hapless Bega was aroused by the sharprattle of the curtain rings pulled violently along the rods. He sat upin bed, in the mechanical trepidation which we all feel on waking withsuch a start. He saw standing before him a Spaniard wrapped in acloak, who fixed on him the same burning gaze that he had seen throughthe bushes. 

"Bega shouted out, 'Help, help, come at once, friends!' But theSpaniard answered his cry of distress with a bitter laugh. --'Opiumgrows for all!' said he. 

"Having thus pronounced sentence as it were, the stranger pointed tothe three other men sleeping soundly, took from under his cloak thearm of a woman, freshly amputated, and held it out to Bega, pointingto a mole like that he had so rashly described. 'Is it the same?' heasked. By the light of the lantern the man had set on the bed, Begarecognized the arm, and his speechless amazement was answer enough. 

"Without waiting for further information, the lady's husband stabbedhim to the heart. "

"You must tell that to the marines!" said Lousteau. "It needs theirrobust faith to swallow it! Can you tell me which told the tale, thedead man or the Spaniard?"

"Monsieur, " replied the Receiver-General, "I nursed poor Bega, whodied five days after in dreadful suffering. --That is not the end. 

"At the time of the expedition sent out to restore Ferdinand VII. Iwas appointed to a place in Spain; but, happily for me, I got nofurther than Tours when I was promised the post of Receiver here atSancerre. On the eve of setting out I was at a ball at Madame deListomere's, where we were to meet several Spaniards of high rank. Onrising from the card-table, I saw a Spanish grandee, an _afrancesado_in exile, who had been about a fortnight in Touraine. He had arrivedvery late at this ball--his first appearance in society--accompaniedby his wife, whose right arm was perfectly motionless. Everybody madeway in silence for this couple, whom we all watched with someexcitement. Imagine a picture by Murillo come to life. Under black andhollow brows the man's eyes were like a fixed blaze; his face lookeddried up, his bald skull was red, and his frame was a terror tobehold, he was so emaciated. His wife--no, you cannot imagine her. Herfigure had the supple swing for which the Spaniards created the word_meneho_; though pale, she was still beautiful; her complexion wasdazzlingly fair--a rare thing in a Spaniard; and her gaze, full of theSpanish sun, fell on you like a stream of melted lead. 

"'Madame, ' said I to her, towards the end of the evening, 'whatoccurrence led to the loss of your arm?'

"'I lost it in the war of independence, ' said she. "

"Spain is a strange country, " said Madame de la Baudraye. "It stillshows traces of Arab manners. "

"Oh!" said the journalist, laughing, "the mania for cutting off armsis an old one there. It turns up every now and then like some of ournewspaper hoaxes, for the subject has given plots for plays on theSpanish stage so early as 1570--"

"Then do you think me capable of inventing such a story?" saidMonsieur Gravier, nettled by Lousteau's impertinent tone. 

"Quite incapable of such a thing, " said the journalist with graveirony. 

"Pooh!" said Bianchon, "the inventions of romances and play-writersare quite as often transferred from their books and pieces into reallife, as the events of real life are made use of on the stage oradapted to a tale. I have seen the comedy of _Tartufe_ played out--with the exception of the close; Orgon's eyes could not be openedto the truth. "

"And the tragi-comedy of _Adolphe_ by Benjamin Constant is constantlyenacted, " cried Lousteau. 

"And do you suppose, " asked Madame de la Baudraye, "that suchadventures as Monsieur Gravier has related could ever occur now, andin France?"

"Dear me!" cried Clagny, "of the ten or twelve startling crimes thatare annually committed in France, quite half are mixed up withcircumstances at least as extraordinary as these, and often outdoingthem in romantic details. Indeed, is not this proved by the reports inthe _Gazette des Tribunaux_--the Police news--in my opinion, one ofthe worst abuses of the Press? This newspaper, which was started onlyin 1826 or '27, was not in existence when I began my professionalcareer, and the facts of the crime I am about to speak of were notknown beyond the limits of the department where it was committed. 

"In the quarter of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps at Tours a woman whosehusband had disappeared at the time when the army of the Loire wasdisbanded, and who had mourned him deeply, was conspicuous for herexcess of devotion. When the mission priests went through all theprovinces to restore the crosses that had been destroyed and to effacethe traces of revolutionary impiety, this widow was one of their mostzealous proselytes, she carried a cross and nailed to it a silverheart pierced by an arrow; and, for a long time after, she went everyevening to pray at the foot of the cross which was erected behind theCathedral apse. 

"At last, overwhelmed by remorse, she confessed to a horrible crime. She had killed her husband, as Fualdes was murdered, by bleeding him;she had salted the body and packed it in pieces into old casks, exactly as if it have been pork; and for a long time she had taken apiece every morning and thrown it into the Loire. Her confessorconsulted his superiors, and told her that it would be his duty toinform the public prosecutor. The woman awaited the action of the Law. The public prosecutor and the examining judge, on examining thecellar, found the husband's head still in pickle in one of the casks. --'Wretched woman, ' said the judge to the accused, 'since you were sobarbarous as to throw your husband's body into the river, why did younot get rid of the head? Then there would have been no proof. '

"'I often tried, monsieur, ' said she, 'but it was too heavy. '"

"Well, and what became of the woman?" asked the two Parisians. 

"She was sentenced and executed at Tours, " replied the lawyer; "buther repentance and piety had attracted interest in spite of hermonstrous crime. "

"And do you suppose, said Bianchon, "that we know all the tragediesthat are played out behind the curtain of private life that the publicnever lifts?--It seems to me that human justice is ill adapted tojudge of crimes as between husband and wife. It has every right tointervene as the police; but in equity it knows nothing of the heartof the matter. "

"The victim has in many cases been for so long the tormentor, " saidMadame de la Baudraye guilelessly, "that the crime would sometimesseem almost excusable if the accused could tell all. "

This reply, led up to by Bianchon and by the story which Clagny hadtold, left the two Parisians excessively puzzled as to Dinah'sposition. 

At bedtime council was held, one of those discussions which take placein the passages of old country-houses where the bachelors linger, candle in hand, for mysterious conversations. 

Monsieur Gravier was now informed of the object in view during thisentertaining evening which had brought Madame de la Baudraye'sinnocence to light. 

"But, after all, " said Lousteau, "our hostess' serenity may indicatedeep depravity instead of the most child-like innocence. The PublicProsecutor looks to me quite capable of suggesting that little LaBaudraye should be put in pickle----"

"He is not to return till to-morrow; who knows what may happen in thecourse of the night?" said Gatien. 

"We will know!" cried Monsieur Gravier. 

In the life of a country house a number of practical jokes areconsidered admissible, some of them odiously treacherous. MonsieurGravier, who had seen so much of the world, proposed setting seals onthe door of Madame de la Baudraye and of the Public Prosecutor. Theducks that denounced the poet Ibycus are as nothing in comparison withthe single hair that these country spies fasten across the opening ofa door by means of two little flattened pills of wax, fixed so highup, or so low down, that the trick is never suspected. If the gallantcomes out of his own door and opens the other, the broken hair tellsthe tale. 

When everybody was supposed to be asleep, the doctor, the journalist, the receiver of taxes, and Gatien came barefoot, like robbers, andsilently fastened up the two doors, agreeing to come again at five inthe morning to examine the state of the fastenings. Imagine theirastonishment and Gatien's delight when all four, candle in hand, andwith hardly any clothes on, came to look at the hairs, and found themin perfect preservation on both doors. 

"Is it the same wax?" asked Monsieur Gravier. 

"Are they the same hairs?" asked Lousteau. 

"Yes, " replied Gatien. 

"This quite alters the matter!" cried Lousteau. "You have been beatingthe bush for a will-o'-the-wisp. "

Monsieur Gravier and Gatien exchanged questioning glances which weremeant to convey, "Is there not something offensive to us in thatspeech? Ought we to laugh or to be angry?"

"If Dinah is virtuous, " said the journalist in a whisper to Bianchon, "she is worth an effort on my part to pluck the fruit of her firstlove. "

The idea of carrying by storm a fortress that had for nine years stoodout against the besiegers of Sancerre smiled on Lousteau. 

With this notion in his head, he was the first to go down and into thegarden, hoping to meet his hostess. And this chance fell out all themore easily because Madame de la Baudraye on her part wished toconverse with her critic. Half such chances are planned. 

"You were out shooting yesterday, monsieur, " said Madame de laBaudraye. "This morning I am rather puzzled as to how to find you anynew amusement; unless you would like to come to La Baudraye, where youmay study more of our provincial life than you can see here, for youhave made but one mouthful of my absurdities. However, the sayingabout the handsomest girl in the world is not less true of the poorprovincial woman!"

"That little simpleton Gatien has, I suppose, related to you a speechI made simply to make him confess that he adored you, " said Etienne. "Your silence, during dinner the day before yesterday and throughoutthe evening, was enough to betray one of those indiscretions which wenever commit in Paris. --What can I say? I do not flatter myself thatyou will understand me. In fact, I laid a plot for the telling of allthose stories yesterday solely to see whether I could rouse you andMonsieur de Clagny to a pang of remorse. --Oh! be quite easy; yourinnocence is fully proved. 

"If you had the slightest fancy for that estimable magistrate, youwould have lost all your value in my eyes. --I love perfection. 

"You do not, you cannot love that cold, dried-up, taciturn littleusurer on wine casks and land, who would leave any man in the lurchfor twenty-five centimes on a renewal. Oh, I have fully recognizedMonsieur de la Baudraye's similarity to a Parisian bill-discounter;their nature is identical. --At eight-and-twenty, handsome, wellconducted, and childless--I assure you, madame, I never saw theproblem of virtue more admirably expressed. --The author of _Paquita laSevillane_ must have dreamed many dreams!

"I can speak of such things without the hypocritical gloss lent themby young men, for I am old before my time. I have no illusions left. Can a man have any illusions in the trade I follow?"

By opening the game in this tone, Lousteau cut out all excursions inthe _Pays de Tendre_, where genuine passion beats the bush so long; hewent straight to the point and placed himself in a position to forcethe offer of what women often make a man pray for, for years; witnessthe hapless Public Prosecutor, to whom the greatest favor hadconsisted in clasping Dinah's hand to his heart more tenderly thanusual as they walked, happy man!

And Madame de la Baudraye, to be true to her reputation as a SuperiorWoman, tried to console the Manfred of the Press by prophesying such afuture of love as he had not had in his mind. 

"You have sought pleasure, " said she, "but you have never loved. Believe me, true love often comes late in life. Remember Monsieur deGentz, who fell in love in his old age with Fanny Ellsler, and leftthe Revolution of July to take its course while he attended thedancer's rehearsals. "

"It seems to me unlikely, " replied Lousteau. "I can still believe inlove, but I have ceased to believe in woman. There are in me, Isuppose, certain defects which hinder me from being loved, for I haveoften been thrown over. Perhaps I have too strong a feeling for theideal--like all men who have looked too closely into reality----"

Madame de la Baudraye at last heard the mind of a man who, flung intothe wittiest Parisian circles, represented to her its most daringaxioms, its almost artless depravity, its advanced convictions; who, if he were not really superior, acted superiority extremely well. Etienne, performing before Dinah, had all the success of a firstnight. _Paquita_ of Sancerre scented the storms, the atmosphere ofParis. She spent one of the most delightful days of her life withLousteau and Bianchon, who told her strange tales about the great menof the day, the anecdotes which will some day form the _Ana_ of ourcentury; sayings and doings that were the common talk of Paris, butquite new to her. 

Of course, Lousteau spoke very ill of the great female celebrity of LeBerry, with the obvious intention of flattering Madame de la Baudrayeand leading her into literary confidences, by suggesting that shecould rival so great a writer. This praise intoxicated Madame de laBaudraye; and Monsieur de Clagny, Monsieur Gravier, and Gatien, allthought her warmer in her manner to Etienne than she had been on theprevious day. Dinah's three _attaches_ greatly regretted having allgone to Sancerre to blow the trumpet in honor of the evening at Anzy;nothing, to hear them, had ever been so brilliant. The Hours had fledon feet so light that none had marked their pace. The two Parisiansthey spoke of as perfect prodigies. 

These exaggerated reports loudly proclaimed on the Mall broughtsixteen persons to Anzy that evening, some in family coaches, some inwagonettes, and a few bachelors on hired saddle horses. By about seveno'clock this provincial company had made a more or less graceful entryinto the huge Anzy drawing-room, which Dinah, warned of the invasion, had lighted up, giving it all the lustre it was capable of by takingthe holland covers off the handsome furniture, for she regarded thisassembly as one of her great triumphs. Lousteau, Bianchon, and Dinahexchanged meaning looks as they studied the attitudes and listened tothe speeches of these visitors, attracted by curiosity. 

What invalided ribbons, what ancestral laces, what ancient flowers, more imaginative than imitative, were boldly displayed on someperennial caps! The Presidente Boirouge, Bianchon's cousin, exchangeda few words with the doctor, from whom she extracted some "advicegratis" by expatiating on certain pains in the chest, which shedeclared were nervous, but which he ascribed to chronic indigestion. 

"Simply drink a cup of tea every day an hour after dinner, as theEnglish do, and you will get over it, for what you suffer from is anEnglish malady, " Bianchon replied very gravely. 

"He is certainly a great physician, " said the Presidente, coming backto Madame de Clagny, Madame Popinot-Chandier, and Madame Gorju, theMayor's wife. 

"They say, " replied Madame de Clagny behind her fan, "that Dinah sentfor him, not so much with a view to the elections as to ascertain whyshe has no children. "

In the first excitement of this success, Lousteau introduced the greatdoctor as the only possible candidate at the ensuing elections. ButBianchon, to the great satisfaction of the new Sous-prefet, remarkedthat it seemed to him almost impossible to give up science in favor ofpolitics. 

"Only a physician without a practice, " said he, "could care to bereturned as a deputy. Nominate statesmen, thinkers, men whoseknowledge is universal, and who are capable of placing themselves onthe high level which a legislator should occupy. That is what islacking in our Chambers, and what our country needs. "

Two or three young ladies, some of the younger men, and the elderwomen stared at Lousteau as if he were a mountebank. 

"Monsieur Gatien Boirouge declares that Monsieur Lousteau makes twentythousand francs a year by his writings, " observed the Mayor's wife toMadame de Clagny. "Can you believe it?"

"Is it possible? Why, a Public Prosecutor gets but a thousand crowns!"

"Monsieur Gatien, " said Madame Chandier, "get Monsieur Lousteau totalk a little louder. I have not heard him yet. "

"What pretty boots he wears, " said Mademoiselle Chandier to herbrother, "and how they shine!"

"Yes--patent leather. "

"Why haven't you the same?"

Lousteau began to feel that he was too much on show, and saw in themanners of the good townsfolk indications of the desires that hadbrought them there. 

"What trick can I play them?" thought he. 

At this moment the footman, so called--a farm-servant put into livery--brought in the letters and papers, and among them a packet of proof, which the journalist left for Bianchon; for Madame de la Baudraye, onseeing the parcel, of which the form and string were obviously fromthe printers, exclaimed:

"What, does literature pursue you even here?"

"Not literature, " replied he, "but a review in which I am nowfinishing a story to come out ten days hence. I have reached the stageof '_To be concluded in our next_, ' so I was obliged to give myaddress to the printer. Oh, we eat very hard-earned bread at the handsof these speculators in black and white! I will give you a descriptionof these editors of magazines. "

"When will the conversation begin?" Madame de Clagny asked of Dinah, as one might ask, "When do the fireworks go off?"

"I fancied we should hear some amusing stories, " said Madame Popinotto her cousin, the Presidente Boirouge. 

At this moment, when the good folks of Sancerre were beginning tomurmur like an impatient pit, Lousteau observed that Bianchon was lostin meditation inspired by the wrapper round the proofs. 

"What is it?" asked Etienne. 

"Why, here is the most fascinating romance possible on some spoiledproof used to wrap yours in. Here, read it. _Olympia, or RomanRevenge_. "

"Let us see, " said Lousteau, taking the sheet the doctor held out tohim, and he read aloud as follows:--

 240 OLYMPIA

 cavern. Rinaldo, indignant at his companions' cowardice, for they had no courage but in the open field, and dared not venture into Rome, looked at them with scorn. 

 "Then I go alone?" said he. He seemed to reflect, and then he went on: "You are poor wretches. I shall proceed alone, and have the rich booty to myself. --You hear me! Farewell. "

 "My Captain, " said Lamberti, "if you should be captured without having succeeded?"

 "God protects me!" said Rinaldo, pointing to the sky. 

 With these words he went out, and on his way he met the steward

"That is the end of the page, " said Lousteau, to whom every one hadlistened devoutly. 

"He is reading his work to us, " said Gatien to MadamePopinot-Chandier's son. 

"From the first word, ladies, " said the journalist, jumping at anopportunity of mystifying the natives, "it is evident that thebrigands are in a cave. But how careless romancers of that date wereas to details which are nowadays so closely, so elaborately studiedunder the name of 'local color. ' If the robbers were in a cavern, instead of pointing to the sky he ought to have pointed to the vaultabove him. --In spite of this inaccuracy, Rinaldo strikes me as a manof spirit, and his appeal to God is quite Italian. There must havebeen a touch of local color in this romance. Why, what with brigands, and a cavern, and one Lamberti who could foresee future possibilities--there is a whole melodrama in that page. Add to these elements alittle intrigue, a peasant maiden with her hair dressed high, shortskirts, and a hundred or so of bad couplets. --Oh! the public willcrowd to see it! And then Rinaldo--how well the name suits Lafont! Bygiving him black whiskers, tightly-fitting trousers, a cloak, amoustache, a pistol, and a peaked hat--if the manager of theVaudeville Theatre were but bold enough to pay for a few newspaperarticles, that would secure fifty performances, and six thousandfrancs for the author's rights, if only I were to cry it up in mycolumns. 

"To proceed:--

 OR ROMAN REVENGE 219

 The Duchess of Bracciano found her glove. Adolphe, who had brought her back to the orange grove, might certainly have supposed that there was some purpose in her forgetful- ness, for at this moment the arbor was deserted. The sound of the fes- tivities was audible in the distance. The puppet show that had been promised had attracted all the guests to the ballroom. Never had Olympia looked more beautiful. Her lover's eyes met hers with an answering glow, and they under- stood each other. There was a mo- ment of silence, delicious to their souls, and impossible to describe. They sat down on the same bench where they had sat in the presence of the Cavaliere Paluzzi and the

"Devil take it! Our Rinaldo has vanished!" cried Lousteau. "But aliterary man once started by this page would make rapid progress inthe comprehension of the plot. The Duchesse Olympia is a lady whocould intentionally forget her gloves in a deserted arbor. "

"Unless she may be classed between the oyster and head-clerk of anoffice, the two creatures nearest to marble in the zoological kingdom, it is impossible to discern in Olympia--" Bianchon began. 

"A woman of thirty, " Madame de la Baudraye hastily interposed, fearingsome all too medical term. 

"Then Adolphe must be two-and-twenty, " the doctor went on, "for anItalian woman at thirty is equivalent to a Parisian of forty. "

"From these two facts, the romance may easily be reconstructed, " saidLousteau. "And this Cavaliere Paluzzi--what a man!--The style is weakin these two passages; the author was perhaps a clerk in the ExciseOffice, and wrote the novel to pay his tailor!"

"In his time, " said Bianchon, "the censor flourished; you must show asmuch indulgence to a man who underwent the ordeal by scissors in 1805as to those who went to the scaffold in 1793. "

"Do you understand in the least?" asked Madame Gorju timidly of Madamede Clagny. 

The Public Prosecutor's wife, who, to use a phrase of MonsieurGravier's, might have put a Cossack to flight in 1814, straightenedherself in her chair like a horseman in his stirrups, and made a faceat her neighbor, conveying, "They are looking at us; we must smile asif we understood. "

"Charming!" said the Mayoress to Gatien. "Pray go on, MonsieurLousteau. "

Lousteau looked at the two women, two Indian idols, and contrived tokeep his countenance. He thought it desirable to say, "Attention!"before going on as follows:--

 OR ROMAN REVENGE 209

 dress rustled in the silence. Sud- denly Cardinal Borborigano stood before the Duchess. 

 "His face was gloomy, his brow was dark with clouds, and a bitter smile lurked in his wrinkles. 

 "Madame, " said he, "you are under suspicion. If you are guilty, fly. If you are not, still fly; because, whether criminal or innocent, you will find it easier to defend yourself from a distance. "

 "I thank your Eminence for your solicitude, " said she. "The Duke of Bracciano will reappear when I find it needful to prove that he is alive. "

"Cardinal Borborigano!" exclaimed Bianchon. "By the Pope's keys! Ifyou do not agree with me that there is a magnificent creation in thevery name, if at those words _dress rustled in the silence_ you do notfeel all the poetry thrown into the part of Schedoni by Mrs. Radcliffein _The Black Penitent_, you do not deserve to read a romance. "

"For my part, " said Dinah, who had some pity on the eighteen facesgazing up at Lousteau, "I see how the story is progressing. I know itall. I am in Rome; I can see the body of a murdered husband whosewife, as bold as she is wicked, has made her bed on the crater of avolcano. Every night, at every kiss, she says to herself, 'All will bediscovered!'"

"Can you see her, " said Lousteau, "clasping Monsieur Adolphe in herarms, to her heart, throwing her whole life into a kiss?--Adolphe Isee as a well-made young man, but not clever--the sort of man anItalian woman likes. Rinaldo hovers behind the scenes of a plot we donot know, but which must be as full of incident as a melodrama byPixerecourt. Or we can imagine Rinaldo crossing the stage in thebackground like a figure in one of Victor Hugo's plays. "

"He, perhaps, is the husband, " exclaimed Madame de la Baudraye. 

"Do you understand anything of it all?" Madame Piedefer asked of thePresidente. 

"Why, it is charming!" said Dinah to her mother. 

All the good folks of Sancerre sat with eyes as large as five-francpieces. 

"Go on, I beg, " said the hostess. 

Lousteau went on:--

 210 OLYMPIA

 "Your key----"

 "Have you lost it?"

 "It is in the arbor. "

 "Let us hasten. "

 "Can the Cardinal have taken it?"

 "No, here it is. "

 "What danger we have escaped!"

 Olympia looked at the key, and fancied she recognized it as her own. But Rinaldo had changed it; his cunning had triumphed; he had the right key. Like a modern Cartouche, he was no less skilful than bold, and suspecting that nothing but a vast treasure could require a duchess to carry it constantly at her belt. 

"Guess!" cried Lousteau. "The corresponding page is not here. We mustlook to page 212 to relieve our anxiety. "

 212 OLYMPIA

 "If the key had been lost?"

 "He would now be a dead man. "

 "Dead? But ought you not to grant the last request he made, and to give him his liberty on the con- ditions----"

 "You do not know him. "

 "But--"

 "Silence! I took you for my lover, not for my confessor. "

 Adolphe was silent. 

"And then comes an exquisite galloping goat, a tail-piece drawn byNormand, and cut by Duplat. --the names are signed, " said Lousteau. 

"Well, and then?" said such of the audience as understood. 

"That is the end of the chapter, " said Lousteau. "The fact of thistailpiece changes my views as to the authorship. To have his book gotup, under the Empire, with vignettes engraved on wood, the writer musthave been a Councillor of State, or Madame Barthelemy-Hadot, or thelate lamented Desforges, or Sewrin. "

"'Adolphe was silent. '--Ah!" cried Bianchon, "the Duchess must havebeen under thirty. "

"If there is no more, invent a conclusion, " said Madame de laBaudraye. 

"You see, " said Lousteau, "the waste sheet has been printed fair onone side only. In printer's lingo, it is a back sheet, or, to make itclearer, the other side which would have to be printed is covered allover with pages printed one above another, all experiments in makingup. It would take too long to explain to you all the complications ofa making-up sheet; but you may understand that it will show no moretrace of the first twelve pages that were printed on it than you wouldin the least remember the first stroke of the bastinado if a Pashacondemned you to have fifty on the soles of your feet. "

"I am quite bewildered, " said Madame Popinot-Chandier to MonsieurGravier. "I am vainly trying to connect the Councillor of State, theCardinal, the key, and the making-up----"

"You have not the key to the jest, " said Monsieur Gravier. "Well! nomore have I, fair lady, if that can comfort you. "

"But here is another sheet, " said Bianchon, hunting on the table wherethe proofs had been laid. 

"Capital!" said Lousteau, "and it is complete and uninjured. It issigned IV. ; J, Second Edition. Ladies, the figure IV. Means that thisis part of the fourth volume. The letter J, the tenth letter of thealphabet, shows that this is the tenth sheet. And it is perfectlyclear to me, that in spite of any publisher's tricks, this romance infour duodecimo volumes, had a great success, since it came to a secondedition. --We will read on and find a clue to the mystery. 

 OR ROMAN REVENGE 21

 corridor; but finding that he was pursued by the Duchess' people

"Oh, get along!"

"But, " said Madame de la Baudraye, "some important events have takenplace between your waste sheet and this page. "

"This complete sheet, madame, this precious made-up sheet. But doesthe waste sheet in which the Duchess forgets her gloves in the arborbelong to the fourth volume? Well, deuce take it--to proceed. 

 Rinaldo saw no safer refuge than to make forthwith for the cellar where the treasures of the Bracciano fam- ily no doubt lay hid. As light of foot as Camilla sung by the Latin poet, he flew to the entrance to the Baths of Vespasian. The torchlight already flickered on the walls when Rinaldo, with the readiness be- stowed on him by nature, discovered the door concealed in the stone- work, and suddenly vanished. A hideous thought then flashed on Rinaldo's brain like lightning rend- ing a cloud: He was imprisoned! He felt the wall with uneasy haste

"Yes, this made-up sheet follows the waste sheet. The last page of thedamaged sheet was 212, and this is 217. In fact, since Rinaldo, who inthe earlier fragment stole the key of the Duchess' treasure byexchanging it for another very much like it, is now--on the made-upsheet--in the palace of the Dukes of Bracciano, the story seems to meto be advancing to a conclusion of some kind. I hope it is as clear toyou as it is to me. --I understand that the festivities are over, thelovers have returned to the Bracciano Palace; it is night--one o'clockin the morning. Rinaldo will have a good time. "

"And Adolphe too!" said President Boirouge, who was considered ratherfree in his speech. 

"And the style!" said Bianchon. --"Rinaldo, who saw _no better refugethan to make for the cellar_. "

"It is quite clear that neither Maradan, nor Treuttel and Wurtz, norDoguereau, were the printers, " said Lousteau, "for they employedcorrectors who revised the proofs, a luxury in which our publishersmight very well indulge, and the writers of the present day, wouldbenefit greatly. Some scrubby pamphlet printer on the Quay--"

"What quay?" a lady asked of her neighbor. "They spoke of baths--"

"Pray go on, " said Madame de la Baudraye. 

"At any rate, it is not by a councillor, " said Bianchon. 

"It may be by Madame Hadot, " replied Lousteau. 

"What has Madame Hadot of La Charite to do with it?" the Presidenteasked of her son. 

"This Madame Hadot, my dear friend, " the hostess answered, "was anauthoress, who lived at the time of the Consulate. "

"What, did women write in the Emperor's time?" asked MadamePopinot-Chandier. 

"What of Madame de Genlis and Madame de Stael?" cried the PublicProsecutor, piqued on Dinah's account by this remark. 

"To be sure!"

"I beg you to go on, " said Madame de la Baudraye to Lousteau. 

Lousteau went on saying: "Page 218. 

 218 OLYMPIA

 and gave a shriek of despair when he had vainly sought any trace of a secret spring. It was impossible to ignore the horrible truth. The door, cleverly constructed to serve the vengeful purposes of the Duchess, could not be opened from within. Rinaldo laid his cheek against the wall in various spots; nowhere could he feel the warmer air from the passage. He had hoped he might find a crack that would show him where there was an opening in the wall, but nothing, nothing! The whole seemed to be of one block of marble. 

 Then he gave a hollow roar like that of a hyaena----

"Well, we fancied that the cry of the hyaena was a recent invention ofour own!" said Lousteau, "and here it was already known to theliterature of the Empire. It is even introduced with a certain skillin natural history, as we see in the word _hollow_. "

"Make no more comments, monsieur, " said Madame de la Baudraye. 

"There, you see!" cried Bianchon. "Interest, the romantic demon, hasyou by the collar, as he had me a while ago. "

"Read on, " cried de Clagny, "I understand. "

"What a coxcomb!" said the Presiding Judge in a whisper to hisneighbor the Sous-prefet. 

"He wants to please Madame de la Baudraye, " replied the newSous-prefet. 

"Well, then I will read straight on, " said Lousteau solemnly. 

Everybody listened in dead silence. 

 OR ROMAN REVENGE 219

 A deep groan answered Rinaldo's cry, but in his alarm he took it for an echo, so weak and hollow was the sound. It could not proceed from any human breast. 

 "Santa Maria!" said the voice. 

 "If I stir from this spot I shall never find it again, " thought Ri- naldo, when he had recovered his usual presence of mind. "If I knock, I shall be discovered. What am I to do?"

 "Who is here?" asked the voice. 

 "Hallo!" cried the brigand; "do the toads here talk?"

 "I am the Duke of Bracciano. Whoever you may be, if you are not a follower of the Duchess', in the name of all the saints, come towards me. "

 220 OLYMPIA

 "I should have to know where to find you, Monsieur le Duc, " said Ri- naldo, with the insolence of a man who knows himself to be necessary. 

 "I can see you, my friend, for my eyes are accustomed to the darkness. Listen: walk straight forward-- good; now turn to the left--come on--this way. There, we are close to each other. "

 Rinaldo putting out his hands as a precaution, touched some iron bars. 

 "I am being deceived, " cried the bandit. 

 "No, you are touching my cage. 

 OR ROMAN REVENGE 221

 Sit down on a broken shaft of por- phyry that is there. "

 "How can the Duke of Bracciano be in a cage?" asked the brigand. 

 "My friend, I have been here for thirty months, standing up, unable to sit down----But you, who are you?"

 "I am Rinaldo, prince of the Cam- pagna, the chief of four-and-twenty brave men whom the law describes as miscreants, whom all the ladies admire, and whom judges hang in obedience to an old habit. "

 "God be praised! I am saved. An honest man would have been afraid, whereas I am sure of coming to an understanding with you, " cried the Duke. "Oh, my worthy

 222 OLYMPIA

 deliverer, you must be armed to the teeth. "

 "_E verissimo_" (most true). 

 "Do you happen to have--"

 "Yes, files, pincers--_Corpo di Bacco_! I came to borrow the treas- ures of the Bracciani on a long loan. "

 "You will earn a handsome share of them very legitimately, my good Rinaldo, and we may possibly go man hunting together--"

 "You surprise me, Eccellenza!"

 "Listen to me, Rinaldo. I will say nothing of the craving for vengeance that gnaws at my heart. I have been here for thirty months --you too are Italian--you will un-

 OR ROMAN REVENGE 223

 derstand me! Alas, my friend, my fatigue and my horrible incarcera- tion are nothing in comparison with the rage that devours my soul. The Duchess of Bracciano is still one of the most beautiful women in Rome. I loved her well enough to be jealous--"

 "You, her husband!"

 "Yes, I was wrong, no doubt. "

 "It is not the correct thing, to be sure, " said Rinaldo. 

 "My jealousy was roused by the Duchess' conduct, " the Duke went on. "The event proved me right. A young Frenchman fell in love with Olympia, and she loved him. I had proofs of their reciprocal affection

"Pray excuse me, ladies, " said Lousteau, "but I find it impossible togo on without remarking to you how direct this Empire literature is, going to the point without any details, a characteristic, as it seemsto me, of a primitive time. The literature of that period holds aplace between the summaries of chapters in _Telemaque_ and thecategorical reports of a public office. It had ideas, but refrainedfrom expressing them, it was so scornful! It was observant, but wouldnot communicate its observations to any one, it was so miserly! Nobodybut Fouche ever mentioned what he had observed. 'At that time, ' toquote the words of one of the most imbecile critics in the _Revue desDeux Mondes_, 'literature was content with a clear sketch and thesimple outline of all antique statues. It did not dance over itsperiods. '--I should think not! It had no periods to dance over. It hadno words to play with. You were plainly told that Lubin lovedToinette; that Toinette did not love Lubin; that Lubin killed Toinetteand the police caught Lubin, who was put in prison, tried at theassizes, and guillotined. --A strong sketch, a clear outline! What anoble drama! Well, in these days the barbarians make words sparkle. "

"Like a hair in a frost, " said Monsieur de Clagny. 

"So those are the airs you affect?"[*] retorted Lousteau. 

[*] The rendering given above is only intended to link the various speeches into coherence; it has no resemblance with the French. In the original, "Font chatoyer les _mots_. "

 "Et quelquefois les _morts_, " dit Monsieur de Clagny. 

 "Ah! Lousteau! vous vous donnez de ces R-la (airs-la). "

 Literally: "And sometimes the dead. "--"Ah, are those the airs you assume?"--the play on the insertion of the letter R (_mots, morts_) has no meaning in English. 

"What can he mean?" asked Madame de Clagny, puzzled by this vile pun. 

"I seem to be walking in the dark, " replied the Mayoress. 

"The jest would be lost in an explanation, " remarked Gatien. 

"Nowadays, " Lousteau went on, "a novelist draws characters, andinstead of a 'simple outline, ' he unveils the human heart and givesyou some interest either in Lubin or in Toinette. "

"For my part, I am alarmed at the progress of public knowledge in thematter of literature, " said Bianchon. "Like the Russians, beaten byCharles XII. , who at least learned the art of war, the reader haslearned the art of writing. Formerly all that was expected of aromance was that it should be interesting. As to style, no one caredfor that, not even the author; as to ideas--zero; as to local color--_non est_. By degrees the reader has demanded style, interest, pathos, and complete information; he insists on the five literarysenses--Invention, Style, Thought, Learning, and Feeling. Then somecriticism commenting on everything. The critic, incapable of inventinganything but calumny, pronounces every work that proceeds from a notperfect brain to be deformed. Some magicians, as Walter Scott, forinstance, having appeared in the world, who combined all the fiveliterary senses, such writers as had but one--wit or learning, style orfeeling --these cripples, these acephalous, maimed or purblind creatures--in a literary sense--have taken to shrieking that all is lost, andhave preached a crusade against men who were spoiling the business, orhave denounced their works. "

"The history of your last literary quarrel!" Dinah observed. 

"For pity's sake, come back to the Duke of Bracciano, " cried Monsieurde Clagny. 

To the despair of all the company, Lousteau went on with the made-upsheet. 

 224 OLYMPIA

 I then wished to make sure of my misfortune that I might be avenged under the protection of Providence and the Law. The Duchess guessed my intentions. We were at war in our purposes before we fought with poison in our hands. We tried to tempt each other to such confidence as we could not feel, I to induce her to drink a potion, she to get posses- sion of me. She was a woman, and she won the day; for women have a snare more than we men. I fell into it--I was happy; but I awoke next day in this iron cage. All through the day I bellowed with rage in the

 OR ROMAN REVENGE 225

 darkness of this cellar, over which is the Duchess' bedroom. At night an ingenious counterpoise acting as a lift raised me through the floor, and I saw the Duchess in her lover's arms. She threw me a piece of bread, my daily pittance. 

 "Thus have I lived for thirty months! From this marble prison my cries can reach no ear. There is no chance for me. I will hope no more. Indeed, the Duchess' room is at the furthest end of the palace, and when I am carried up there none can hear my voice. Each time I see my wife she shows me the

 226 OLYMPIA

 poison I had prepared for her and her lover. I crave it for myself, but she will not let me die; she gives me bread, and I eat it. 

 "I have done well to eat and live; I had not reckoned on robbers!"

 "Yes, Eccellenza, when those fools the honest men are asleep, we are wide awake. "

 "Oh, Rinaldo, all I possess shall be yours; we will share my treasure like brothers; I would give you everything--even to my Duchy----"

 "Eccellenza, procure from the Pope an absolution _in articulo mor- tis_. It would be of more use to me in my walk of life. "

 OR ROMAN REVENGE 227

 "What you will. Only file through the bars of my cage and lend me your dagger. We have but little time, quick, quick! Oh, if my teeth were but files!--I have tried to eat through this iron. "

 "Eccellenza, " said Rinaldo, "I have already filed through one bar. "

 "You are a god!"

 "Your wife was at the fete given by the Princess Villaviciosa. She brought home her little Frenchman; she is drunk with love. --You have plenty of time. "

 "Have you done?"

 "Yes. "

 228 OLYMPIA

 "Your dagger?" said the Duke eagerly to the brigand. 

 "Here it is. "

 "Good. I hear the clatter of the spring. "

 "Do not forget me!" cried the robber, who knew what gratitude was. 

 "No more than my father, " cried the Duke. 

 "Good-bye!" said Rinaldo. "Lord! How he flies up!" he added to him- self as the Duke disappeared. --"No more than his father! If that is all he means to do for me. --And I

 OR ROMAN REVENGE 229

 had sworn a vow never to injure a woman!"

 But let us leave the robber for a moment to his meditations and go up, like the Duke, to the rooms in the palace. 

"Another tailpiece, a Cupid on a snail! And page 230 is blank, " saidthe journalist. "Then there are two more blank pages before we come tothe word it is such a joy to write when one is unhappily so happy asto be a novelist--_Conclusion_!

 CONCLUSION

 Never had the Duchess been more lovely; she came from her bath clothed like a goddess, and on seeing

 234 OLYMPIA

 Adolphe voluptuously reclining on piles of cushions--

 "You are beautiful, " said she. 

 "And so are you, Olympia!"

 "And you still love me?"

 "More and more, " said he. 

 "Ah, none but a Frenchman knows how to love!" cried the Duchess. "Do you love me well to- night?"

 "Yes. "

 "Then come!"

 And with an impulse of love and hate--whether it was that Cardinal Borborigano had reminded her of her husband, or that she felt un- wonted passion to display, she pressed the springs and held out her arms. 

"That is all, " said Lousteau, "for the foreman has torn off the restin wrapping up my proofs. But it is enough to show that the author wasfull of promise. "

"I cannot make head or tail of it, " said Gatien Boirouge, who was thefirst to break the silence of the party from Sancerre. 

"Nor I, " replied Monsieur Gravier. 

"And yet it is a novel of the time of the Empire, " said Lousteau. 

"By the way in which the brigand is made to speak, " said MonsieurGravier, "it is evident that the author knew nothing of Italy. Banditti do not allow themselves such graceful conceits. "

Madame Gorju came up to Bianchon, seeing him pensive, and with aglance towards her daughter Mademoiselle Euphemie Gorju, the owner ofa fairly good fortune--"What a rhodomontade!" said she. "Theprescriptions you write are worth more than all that rubbish. "

The Mayoress had elaborately worked up this speech, which, in heropinion, showed strong judgment. 

"Well, madame, we must be lenient, we have but twenty pages out of athousand, " said Bianchon, looking at Mademoiselle Gorju, whose figurethreatened terrible things after the birth of her first child. 

"Well, Monsieur de Clagny, " said Lousteau, "we were talking yesterdayof the forms of revenge invented by husbands. What do you say to thoseinvented by wives?"

"I say, " replied the Public Prosecutor, "that the romance is not by aCouncillor of State, but by a woman. For extravagant inventions theimagination of women far outdoes that of men; witness _Frankenstein_by Mrs. Shelley, _Leone Leoni_ by George Sand, the works of AnneRadcliffe, and the _Nouveau Promethee_ (New Prometheus) of Camille deMaupin. "

Dinah looked steadily at Monsieur de Clagny, making him feel, by anexpression that gave him a chill, that in spite of the illustriousexamples he had quoted, she regarded this as a reflection on _Paquitala Sevillane_. 

"Pooh!" said little Baudraye, "the Duke of Bracciano, whom his wifeputs into a cage, and to whom she shows herself every night in thearms of her lover, will kill her--and do you call that revenge?--Ourlaws and our society are far more cruel. "

"Why, little La Baudraye is talking!" said Monsieur Boirouge to hiswife. 

"Why, the woman is left to live on a small allowance, the world turnsits back on her, she has no more finery, and no respect paid her--thetwo things which, in my opinion, are the sum-total of woman, " said thelittle old man. 

"But she has happiness!" said Madame de la Baudraye sententiously. 

"No, " said the master of the house, lighting his candle to go to bed, "for she has a lover. "

"For a man who thinks of nothing but his vine-stocks and poles, he hassome spunk, " said Lousteau. 

"Well, he must have something!" replied Bianchon. 

Madame de la Baudraye, the only person who could hear Bianchon'sremark, laughed so knowingly, and at the same time so bitterly, thatthe physician could guess the mystery of this woman's life; herpremature wrinkles had been puzzling him all day. 

But Dinah did not guess, on her part, the ominous prophecy containedfor her in her husband's little speech, which her kind old Abbe Duret, if he had been alive, would not have failed to elucidate. Little LaBaudraye had detected in Dinah's eyes, when she glanced at thejournalist returning the ball of his jests, that swift and luminousflash of tenderness which gilds the gleam of a woman's eye whenprudence is cast to the winds, and she is fairly carried away. Dinahpaid no more heed to her husband's hint to her to observe theproprieties than Lousteau had done to Dinah's significant warnings onthe day of his arrival. 

Any other man than Bianchon would have been surprised at Lousteau'simmediate success; but he was so much the doctor, that he was not evennettled at Dinah's marked preference for the newspaper-rather than theprescription-writer! In fact, Dinah, herself famous, was naturallymore alive to wit than to fame. Love generally prefers contrast tosimilitude. Everything was against the physician--his frankness, hissimplicity, and his profession. And this is why: Women who want tolove--and Dinah wanted to love as much as to be loved--have aninstinctive aversion for men who are devoted to an absorbingoccupation; in spite of superiority, they are all women in the matterof encroachment. Lousteau, a poet and journalist, and a libertine witha veneer of misanthropy, had that tinsel of the intellect, and led thehalf-idle life that attracts women. The blunt good sense and keeninsight of the really great man weighed upon Dinah, who would notconfess her own smallness even to herself. She said in her mind--"Thedoctor is perhaps the better man, but I do not like him. "

Then, again, she reflected on his professional duties, wonderingwhether a woman could ever be anything but a _subject_ to a medicalman, who saw so many subjects in the course of a day's work. The firstsentence of the aphorism written by Bianchon in her album was amedical observation striking so directly at woman, that Dinah couldnot fail to be hit by it. And then Bianchon was leaving on the morrow;his practice required his return. What woman, short of having Cupid'smythological dart in her heart, could decide in so short a time?

These little things, which lead to such great catastrophes--havingbeen seen in a mass by Bianchon, he pronounced the verdict he had cometo as to Madame de la Baudraye in a few words to Lousteau, to thejournalist's great amazement. 

While the two friends stood talking together, a storm was gathering inthe Sancerre circle, who could not in the least understand Lousteau'sparaphrases and commentaries, and who vented it on their hostess. Farfrom finding in his talk the romance which the Public Prosecutor, theSous-prefet, the Presiding Judge, and his deputy, Lebas, haddiscovered there--to say nothing of Monsieur de la Baudraye and Dinah--the ladies now gathered round the tea-table, took the matter as apractical joke, and accused the Muse of Sancerre of having a finger init. They had all looked forward to a delightful evening, and had allstrained in vain every faculty of their mind. Nothing makes provincialfolks so angry as the notion of having been a laughing-stock for Parisfolks. 

Madame Piedefer left the table to say to her daughter, "Do go and talkto the ladies; they are quite annoyed by your behavior. "

Lousteau could not fail to see Dinah's great superiority over the bestwomen of Sancerre; she was better dressed, her movements weregraceful, her complexion was exquisitely white by candlelight--inshort, she stood out against this background of old faces, shy andill-dressed girls, like a queen in the midst of her court. Visions ofParis faded from his brain; Lousteau was accepting the provincialsurroundings; and while he had too much imagination to remainunimpressed by the royal splendor of this chateau, the beautifulcarvings, and the antique beauty of the rooms, he had also too muchexperience to overlook the value of the personality which completedthis gem of the Renaissance. So by the time the visitors from Sancerrehad taken their leave one by one--for they had an hour's drive beforethem--when no one remained in the drawing-room but Monsieur de Clagny, Monsieur Lebas, Gatien, and Monsieur Gravier, who were all to sleep atAnzy--the journalist had already changed his mind about Dinah. Hisopinion had gone through the evolution that Madame de la Baudraye hadso audaciously prophesied at their first meeting. 

"Ah, what things they will say about us on the drive home!" cried themistress of the house, as she returned to the drawing-room afterseeing the President and the Presidente to their carriage with Madameand Mademoiselle Popinot-Chandier. 

The rest of the evening had its pleasant side. In the intimacy of asmall party each one brought to the conversation his contribution ofepigrams on the figure the visitors from Sancerre had cut duringLousteau's comments on the paper wrapped round the proofs. 

"My dear fellow, " said Bianchon to Lousteau as they went to bed--theyhad an enormous room with two beds in it--"you will be the happy manof this woman's choice--_nee_ Piedefer!"

"Do you think so?"

"It is quite natural. You are supposed here to have had manymistresses in Paris; and to a woman there is something indescribablyinviting in a man whom other women favor--something attractive andfascinating; is it that she prides herself on being longer rememberedthan all the rest? that she appeals to his experience, as a sick manwill pay more to a famous physician? or that she is flattered by therevival of a world-worn heart?"

"Vanity and the senses count for so much in love affairs, " saidLousteau, "that there may be some truth in all those hypotheses. However, if I remain, it will be in consequence of the certificate ofinnocence, without ignorance, that you have given Dinah. She ishandsome, is she not?"

"Love will make her beautiful, " said the doctor. "And, after all, shewill be a rich widow some day or other! And a child would secure herthe life-interest in the Master of La Baudraye's fortune--"

"Why, it is quite an act of virtue to make love to her, " saidLousteau, rolling himself up in the bed-clothes, "and to-morrow, withyour help--yes, to-morrow, I--well, good-night. "

On the following day, Madame de la Baudraye, to whom her husband hadsix months since given a pair of horses, which he also used in thefields, and an old carriage that rattled on the road, decided that shewould take Bianchon so far on his way as Cosne, where he would getinto the Lyons diligence as it passed through. She also took hermother and Lousteau, but she intended to drop her mother at LaBaudraye, to go on to Cosne with the two Parisians, and return alonewith Etienne. She was elegantly dressed, as the journalist at onceperceived--bronze kid boots, gray silk stockings, a muslin dress, agreen silk scarf with shaded fringe at the ends, and a pretty blacklace bonnet with flowers in it. As to Lousteau, the wretch had assumedhis war-paint--patent leather boots, trousers of English kerseymerewith pleats in front, a very open waistcoat showing a particularlyfine shirt and the black brocade waterfall of his handsome cravat, anda very thin, very short black riding-coat. 

Monsieur de Clagny and Monsieur Gravier looked at each other, feelingrather silly as they beheld the two Parisians in the carriage, whilethey, like two simpletons, were left standing at the foot of thesteps. Monsieur de la Baudraye, who stood at the top waving his littlehand in a little farewell to the doctor, could not forbear fromsmiling as he heard Monsieur de Clagny say to Monsieur Gravier:

"You should have escorted them on horseback. "

At this juncture, Gatien, riding Monsieur de la Baudraye's quietlittle mare, came out of the side road from the stables and joined theparty in the chaise. 

"Ah, good, " said the Receiver-General, "the boy has mounted guard. "

"What a bore!" cried Dinah as she saw Gatien. "In thirteen years--forI have been married nearly thirteen years--I have never had threehours' liberty. 

"Married, madame?" said the journalist with a smile. "You remind me ofa saying of Michaud's--he was so witty! He was setting out for theHoly Land, and his friends were remonstrating with him, urging hisage, and the perils of such an expedition. 'And then, ' said one, 'youare married. '--'Married!' said he, 'so little married. '"

Even the rigid Madame Piedefer could not repress a smile. 

"I should not be surprised to see Monsieur de Clagny mounted on mypony to complete the escort, " said Dinah. 

"Well, if the Public Prosecutor does not pursue us, you can get rid ofthis little fellow at Sancerre. Bianchon must, of course, have leftsomething behind on his table--the notes for the first lecture of hiscourse--and you can ask Gatien to go back to Anzy to fetch it. "

This simple little plot put Madame de la Baudraye into high spirits. From the road between Anzy to Sancerre, a glorious landscapefrequently comes into view, of the noble stretches of the Loire, looking like a lake, and it was got over very pleasantly, for Dinahwas happy in finding herself well understood. Love was discussed intheory, a subject allowing lovers _in petto_ to take the measure, asit were, of each other's heart. The journalist took a tone of refinedcorruption to prove that love obeys no law, that the character of thelovers gives infinite variety to its incidents, that the circumstancesof social life add to the multiplicity of its manifestations, that inlove all is possible and true, and that any given woman, afterresisting every temptation and the seductions of the most passionatelover, may be carried off her feet in the course of a few hours by afancy, an internal whirlwind of which God alone would ever know thesecret!

"Why, " said he, "is not that the key to all the adventures we havetalked over these three days past?"

For these three days, indeed, Dinah's lively imagination had been fullof the most insidious romances, and the conversation of the twoParisians had affected the woman as the most mischievous reading mighthave done. Lousteau watched the effects of this clever manoeuvre, toseize the moment when his prey, whose readiness to be caught washidden under the abstraction caused by irresolution, should be quitedizzy. 

Dinah wished to show La Baudraye to her two visitors, and the farcewas duly played out of remembering the papers left by Bianchon in hisroom at Anzy. Gatien flew off at a gallop to obey his sovereign;Madame Piedefer went to do some shopping in Sancerre; and Dinah wenton to Cosne alone with the two friends. Lousteau took his seat by thelady, Bianchon riding backwards. The two friends talked affectionatelyand with deep compassion for the fate of this choice nature so illunderstood and in the midst of such vulgar surroundings. Bianchonserved Lousteau well by making fun of the Public Prosecutor, ofMonsieur Gravier, and of Gatien; there was a tone of such genuinecontempt in his remarks, that Madame de la Baudraye dared not take thepart of her adorers. 

"I perfectly understand the position you have maintained, " said thedoctor as they crossed the Loire. "You were inaccessible excepting tothat brain-love which often leads to heart-love; and not one of thosemen, it is very certain, is capable of disguising what, at an earlystage of life, is disgusting to the senses in the eyes of a refinedwoman. To you, now, love is indispensable. "

"Indispensable!" cried Dinah, looking curiously at the doctor. "Do youmean that you prescribe love to me?"

"If you go on living as you live now, in three years you will behideous, " replied Bianchon in a dictatorial tone. 

"Monsieur!" said Madame de la Baudraye, almost frightened. 

"Forgive my friend, " said Lousteau, half jestingly. "He is always themedical man, and to him love is merely a question of hygiene. But heis quite disinterested--it is for your sake only that he speaks--as isevident, since he is starting in an hour--"

At Cosne a little crowd gathered round the old repainted chaise, withthe arms on the panels granted by Louis XIV. To the new La Baudraye. Gules, a pair of scales or; on a chief azure (color on color) threecross-crosslets argent. For supporters two greyhounds argent, collaredazure, chained or. The ironical motto, _Deo sic patet fides ethominibus_, had been inflicted on the converted Calvinist by Hozierthe satirical. 

"Let us get out; they will come and find us, " said the Baroness, desiring her coachman to keep watch. 

Dinah took Bianchon's arm, and the doctor set off by the banks of theLoire at so rapid a pace that the journalist had to linger behind. Thephysician had explained by a single wink that he meant to do Lousteaua good turn. 

"You have been attracted by Etienne, " said Bianchon to Dinah; "he hasappealed strongly to your imagination; last night we were talkingabout you. --He loves you. But he is frivolous, and difficult to hold;his poverty compels him to live in Paris, while everything condemnsyou to live at Sancerre. --Take a lofty view of life. Make Lousteauyour friend; do not ask too much of him; he will come three times ayear to spend a few days with you, and you will owe to him yourbeauty, happiness, and fortune. Monsieur de la Baudraye may live to bea hundred; but he might die in a few days if he should leave off theflannel winding-sheet in which he swathes himself. So run no risks, beprudent both of you. --Say not a work--I have read your heart. "

Madame de la Baudraye was defenceless under this serried attack, andin the presence of a man who spoke at once as a doctor, a confessor, and confidential friend. 

"Indeed!" said she. "Can you suppose that any woman would care tocompete with a journalist's mistresses?--Monsieur Lousteau strikes meas agreeable and witty; but he is _blase_, etc. , etc. ----"

Dinah had turned back, and was obliged to check the flow of words bywhich she tried to disguise her intentions; for Etienne, who seemed tobe studying progress in Cosne, was coming to meet them. 

"Believe me, " said Bianchon, "what he wants is to be truly loved; andif he alters his course of life, it will be to the benefit of histalent. "

Dinah's coachman hurried up breathlessly to say that the diligence hadcome in, and they walked on quickly, Madame de la Baudraye between thetwo men. 

"Good-bye, my children!" said Bianchon, before they got into the town, "you have my blessing!"

He released Madame de la Baudraye's hand from his arm, and allowedLousteau to draw it into his, with a tender look, as he pressed it tohis heart. What a difference to Dinah! Etienne's arm thrilled herdeeply. Bianchon's had not stirred her in the least. She and thejournalist exchanged one of those glowing looks that are more than anavowal. 

"Only provincial women wear muslin gowns in these days, " thoughtLousteau to himself, "the only stuff which shows every crease. Thiswoman, who has chosen me for her lover, will make a fuss over herfrock! If she had but put on a foulard skirt, I should be happy. --Whatis the meaning of these difficulties----"

While Lousteau was wondering whether Dinah had put on a muslin gown onpurpose to protect herself by an insuperable obstacle, Bianchon, withthe help of the coachman, was seeing his luggage piled on thediligence. Finally, he came to take leave of Dinah, who wasexcessively friendly with him. 

"Go home, Madame la Baronne, leave me here--Gatien will be coming, " headded in an undertone. "It is getting late, " said he aloud. "Good-bye!"

"Good-bye--great man!" cried Lousteau, shaking hands with Bianchon. 

When the journalist and Madame de la Baudraye, side by side in therickety old chaise, had recrossed the Loire, they both were unready tospeak. In these circumstances, the first words that break the silenceare full of terrible meaning. 

"Do you know how much I love you?" said the journalist point blank. 

Victory might gratify Lousteau, but defeat could cause him no grief. This indifference was the secret of his audacity. He took Madame de laBaudraye's hand as he spoke these decisive words, and pressed it inboth his; but Dinah gently released it. 

"Yes, I am as good as an actress or a _grisette_, " she said in a voicethat trembled, though she spoke lightly. "But can you suppose that awoman who, in spite of her absurdities, has some intelligence, willhave reserved the best treasures of her heart for a man who willregard her merely as a transient pleasure?--I am not surprised to hearfrom your lips the words which so many men have said to me--but----"

The coachman turned round. 

"Here comes Monsieur Gatien, " said he. 

"I love you, I will have you, you shall be mine, for I have never feltfor any woman the passion I have for you!" said Lousteau in her ear. 

"In spite of my will, perhaps?" said she, with a smile. 

"At least you must seem to have been assaulted to save my honor, " saidthe Parisian, to whom the fatal immaculateness of clean muslinsuggested a ridiculous notion. 

Before Gatien had reached the end of the bridge, the outrageousjournalist had crumpled up Madame de la Baudraye's muslin dress tosuch an effect that she was absolutely not presentable. 

"Oh, monsieur!" she exclaimed in dignified reproof. 

"You defied me, " said the Parisian. 

But Gatien now rode up with the vehemence of a duped lover. To regaina little of Madame de la Baudraye's esteem, Lousteau did his best tohide the tumbled dress from Gatien's eyes by leaning out of the chaiseto speak to him from Dinah's side. 

"Go back to our inn, " said he, "there is still time; the diligencedoes not start for half an hour. The papers are on the table of theroom Bianchon was in; he wants them particularly, for he will be lostwithout his notes for the lecture. "

"Pray go, Gatien, " said Dinah to her young adorer, with an imperiousglance. And the boy thus commanded turned his horse and was off with aloose rein. 

"Go quickly to La Baudraye, " cried Lousteau to the coachman. "Madameis not well--Your mother only will know the secret of my trick, " addedhe, taking his seat by Dinah. 

"You call such infamous conduct a trick?" cried Madame de la Baudraye, swallowing down a few tears that dried up with the fire of outragedpride. 

She leaned back in the corner of the chaise, crossed her arms, andgazed out at the Loire and the landscape, at anything rather than atLousteau. The journalist put on his most ingratiating tone, and talkedtill they reached La Baudraye, where Dinah fled indoors, trying not tobe seen by any one. In her agitation she threw herself on a sofa andburst into tears. 

"If I am an object of horror to you, of aversion or scorn, I will go, "said Lousteau, who had followed her. And he threw himself at her feet. 

It was at this crisis that Madame Piedefer came in, saying to herdaughter:

"What is the matter? What has happened?"

"Give your daughter another dress at once, " said the audaciousParisian in the prim old lady's ear. 

Hearing the mad gallop of Gatien's horse, Madame de la Baudraye fledto her bedroom, followed by her mother. 

"There are no papers at the inn, " said Gatien to Lousteau, who wentout to meet him. 

"And you found none at the Chateau d'Anzy either?" replied Lousteau. 

"You have been making a fool of me, " said Gatien, in a cold, setvoice. 

"Quite so, " replied Lousteau. "Madame de la Baudraye was greatlyannoyed by your choosing to follow her without being invited. Believeme, to bore a woman is a bad way of courting her. Dinah has played youa trick, and you have given her a laugh; it is more than any of youhas done in these thirteen years past. You owe that success toBianchon, for your cousin was the author of the Farce of the'Manuscript. '--Will the horse get over it?" asked Lousteau with alaugh, while Gatien was wondering whether to be angry or not. 

"The horse!" said Gatien. 

At this moment Madame de la Baudraye came in, dressed in a velvetgown, and accompanied by her mother, who shot angry flashes atLousteau. It would have been too rash for Dinah to seem cold or severeto Lousteau in Gatien's presence; and Etienne, taking advantage ofthis, offered his arm to the supposed Lucretia; however, she declinedit. 

"Do you mean to cast off a man who has vowed to live for you?" saidhe, walking close beside her. "I shall stop at Sancerre and go hometo-morrow. "

"Are you coming, mamma?" said Madame de la Baudraye to MadamePiedefer, thus avoiding a reply to the direct challenge by whichLousteau was forcing her to a decision. 

Lousteau handed the mother into the chaise, he helped Madame de laBaudraye by gently taking her arm, and he and Gatien took the frontseat, leaving the saddle horse at La Baudraye. 

"You have changed your gown, " said Gatien, blunderingly, to Dinah. 

"Madame la Baronne was chilled by the cool air off the river, " repliedLousteau. "Bianchon advised her to put on a warm dress. "

Dinah turned as red as a poppy, and Madame Piedefer assumed a sternexpression. 

"Poor Bianchon! he is on the road to Paris. A noble soul!" saidLousteau. 

"Oh, yes!" cried Madame de la Baudraye, "he is high-minded, full ofdelicate feeling----"

"We were in such good spirits when we set out, " said Lousteau; "nowyou are overdone, and you speak to me so bitterly--why? Are you notaccustomed to being told how handsome and how clever you are? For mypart, I say boldly, before Gatien, I give up Paris; I mean to stay atSancerre and swell the number of your _cavalieri serventi_. I feel soyoung again in my native district; I have quite forgotten Paris andall its wickedness, and its bores, and its wearisome pleasures. --Yes, my life seems in a way purified. "

Dinah allowed Lousteau to talk without even looking at him; but atlast there was a moment when this serpent's rhodomontade was really soinspired by the effort he made to affect passion in phrases and ideasof which the meaning, though hidden from Gatien, found a loud responsein Dinah's heart, that she raised her eyes to his. This look seemed tocrown Lousteau's joy; his wit flowed more freely, and at last he madeMadame de la Baudraye laugh. When, under circumstances which soseriously compromise her pride, a woman has been made to laugh, she isfinally committed. 

As they drove in by the spacious graveled forecourt, with its lawn inthe middle, and the large vases filled with flowers which so well setoff the facade of Anzy, the journalist was saying:

"When women love, they forgive everything, even our crimes; when theydo not love, they cannot forgive anything--not even our virtues. --Doyou forgive me, " he added in Madame de la Baudraye's ear, and pressingher arm to his heart with tender emphasis. And Dinah could not helpsmiling. 

All through dinner, and for the rest of the evening, Etienne was inthe most delightful spirits, inexhaustibly cheerful; but while thusgiving vent to his intoxication, he now and then fell into the dreamyabstraction of a man who seems rapt in his own happiness. 

After coffee had been served, Madame de la Baudraye and her motherleft the men to wander about the gardens. Monsieur Gravier thenremarked to Monsieur de Clagny:

"Did you observe that Madame de la Baudraye, after going out in amuslin gown came home in a velvet?"

"As she got into the carriage at Cosne, the muslin dress caught on abrass nail and was torn all the way down, " replied Lousteau. 

"Oh!" exclaimed Gatien, stricken to the heart by hearing two suchdifferent explanations. 

The journalist, who understood, took Gatien by the arm and pressed itas a hint to him to be silent. A few minutes later Etienne leftDinah's three adorers and took possession of little La Baudraye. ThenGatien was cross-questioned as to the events of the day. MonsieurGravier and Monsieur de Clagny were dismayed to hear that on thereturn from Cosne Lousteau had been alone with Dinah, and even more soon hearing the two versions explaining the lady's change of dress. Andthe three discomfited gentlemen were in a very awkward position forthe rest of the evening. 

Next day each, on various business, was obliged to leave Anzy; Dinahremained with her mother, Lousteau, and her husband. The annoyancevented by the three victims gave rise to an organized rebellion inSancerre. The surrender of the Muse of Le Berry, of the Nivernais, andof Morvan was the cause of a perfect hue and cry of slander, evilreport, and various guesses in which the story of the muslin gown helda prominent place. No dress Dinah had ever worn had been so muchcommented on, or was half as interesting to the girls, who could notconceive what the connection might be, that made the married womenlaugh, between love and a muslin gown. 

The Presidente Boirouge, furious at her son's discomfiture, forgot thepraise she had lavished on the poem of _Paquita_, and fulminatedterrific condemnation on the woman who could publish such adisgraceful work. 

"The wretched woman commits every crime she writes about, " said she. "Perhaps she will come to the same end as her heroine!"

Dinah's fate among the good folks of Sancerre was like that ofMarechal Soult in the opposition newspapers; as long as he is ministerhe lost the battle of Toulouse; whenever he is out of the Governmenthe won it! While she was virtuous, Dinah was a match for Camille deMaupin, a rival of the most famous women; but as soon as she washappy, she was an _unhappy creature_. 

Monsieur de Clagny was her valiant champion; he went several times tothe Chateau d'Anzy to acquire the right to contradict the rumorscurrent as to the woman he still faithfully adored, even in her fall;and he maintained that she and Lousteau were engaged together on somegreat work. But the lawyer was laughed to scorn. 

The month of October was lovely; autumn is the finest season in thevalley of the Loire; but in 1836 it was unusually glorious. Natureseemed to aid and abet Dinah, who, as Bianchon had predicted, gradually developed a heart-felt passion. In one month she was analtered woman. She was surprised to find in herself so many inert anddormant qualities, hitherto in abeyance. To her Lousteau seemed anangel; for heart-love, the crowning need of a great nature, had made anew woman of her. Dinah was alive! She had found an outlet for herpowers, she saw undreamed-of vistas in the future--in short, she washappy, happy without alarms or hindrances. The vast castle, thegardens, the park, the forest, favored love. 

Lousteau found in Madame de la Baudraye an artlessness, nay, if youwill, an innocence of mind which made her very original; there wasmuch more of the unexpected and winning in her than in a girl. Lousteau was quite alive to a form of flattery which in most women isassumed, but which in Dinah was genuine; she really learned from himthe ways of love; he really was the first to reign in her heart. And, indeed, he took the trouble to be exceedingly amiable. 

Men, like women, have a stock in hand of recitatives, of _cantabile_, of _nocturnes_, airs and refrains--shall we say of recipes, althoughwe speak of love--which each one believes to be exclusively his own. Men who have reached Lousteau's age try to distribute the "movements"of this repertoire through the whole opera of a passion. Lousteau, regarding this adventure with Dinah as a mere temporary connection, was eager to stamp himself on her memory in indelible lines; andduring that beautiful October he was prodigal of his most entrancingmelodies and most elaborate _barcarolles_. In fact, he exhausted everyresource of the stage management of love, to use an expressionborrowed from the theatrical dictionary, and admirably descriptive ofhis manoeuvres. 

"If that woman ever forgets me!" he would sometimes say to himself asthey returned together from a long walk in the woods, "I will owe herno grudge--she will have found something better. "

When two beings have sung together all the duets of that enchantingscore, and still love each other, it may be said that they love truly. 

Lousteau, however, had not time to repeat himself, for he was to leaveAnzy in the early days of November. His paper required his presence inParis. Before breakfast, on the day before he was to leave, thejournalist and Dinah saw the master of the house come in with anartist from Nevers, who restored carvings of all kinds. 

"What are you going to do?" asked Lousteau. "What is to be done to thechateau?"

"This is what I am going to do, " said the little man, leadingLousteau, the local artist, and Dinah out on the terrace. 

He pointed out, on the front of the building, a shield supported bytwo sirens, not unlike that which may be seen on the arcade, nowclosed, through which there used to be a passage from the Quai desTuileries to the courtyard of the old Louvre, and over which the wordsmay still be seen, "_Bibliotheque du Cabinet du Roi_. " This shieldbore the arms of the noble House of Uxelles, namely, Or and gulesparty per fess, with two lions or, dexter and sinister as supporters. Above, a knight's helm, mantled of the tincture of the shield, andsurmounted by a ducal coronet. Motto, _Cy paroist!_ A proud andsonorous device. 

"I want to put my own coat of arms in the place of that of theUxelles; and as they are repeated six times on the two fronts and thetwo wings, it is not a trifling affair. "

"Your arms, so new, and since 1830!" exclaimed Dinah. 

"Have I not created an entail?"

"I could understand it if you had children, " said the journalist. 

"Oh!" said the old man, "Madame de la Baudraye is still young; thereis no time lost. "

This allusion made Lousteau smile; he did not understand Monsieur dela Baudraye. 

"There, Didine!" said he in Dinah's ear, "what a waste of remorse!"

Dinah begged him to give her one day more, and the lovers parted afterthe manner of certain theatres, which give ten last performances of apiece that is paying. And how many promises they made! How many solemnpledges did not Dinah exact and the unblushing journalist give her!

Dinah, with superiority of the Superior Woman, accompanied Lousteau, in the face of all the world, as far as Cosne, with her mother andlittle La Baudraye. When, ten days later, Madame de la Baudraye saw inher drawing-room at La Baudraye, Monsieur de Clagny, Gatien, andGravier, she found an opportunity of saying to each in turn:

"I owe it to Monsieur Lousteau that I discovered that I had not beenloved for my own sake. "

And what noble speeches she uttered, on man, on the nature of hisfeelings, on the end of his base passions, and so forth. Of Dinah'sthree worshipers, Monsieur de Clagny only said to her: "I love you, come what may"--and Dinah accepted him as her confidant, lavished onhim all the marks of friendship which women can devise for the Gurthswho are ready thus to wear the collar of gilded slavery. 

In Paris once more, Lousteau had, in a few weeks, lost the impressionof the happy time he had spent at the Chateau d'Anzy. This is why:Lousteau lived by his pen. 

In this century, especially since the triumph of the _bourgeoisie_--the commonplace, money-saving citizen--who takes good care not toimitate Francis I. Or Louis XIV. --to live by the pen is a form ofpenal servitude to which a galley-slave would prefer death. To live bythe pen means to create--to create to-day, and to-morrow, andincessantly--or to seem to create; and the imitation costs as dear asthe reality. So, besides his daily contribution to a newspaper, whichwas like the stone of Sisyphus, and which came every Monday, crashingdown on to the feather of his pen, Etienne worked for three or fourliterary magazines. Still, do not be alarmed; he put no artisticconscientiousness into his work. This man of Sancerre had a facility, a carelessness, if you call it so, which ranked him with those writerswho are mere scriveners, literary hacks. In Paris, in our day, hack-work cuts a man off from every pretension to a literary position. When he can do no more, or no longer cares for advancement, the manwho can write becomes a journalist and a hack. 

The life he leads is not unpleasing. Blue-stockings, beginners inevery walk of life, actresses at the outset or the close of a career, publishers and authors, all make much of these writers of the readypen. Lousteau, a thorough man about town, lived at scarcely anyexpense beyond paying his rent. He had boxes at all the theatres; thesale of the books he reviewed or left unreviewed paid for his gloves;and he would say to those authors who published at their own expense, "I have your book always in my hands!" He took toll from vanity in theform of drawings or pictures. Every day had its engagements to dinner, every night its theatre, every morning was filled up with callers, visits, and lounging. His serial in the paper, two novels a year forweekly magazines, and his miscellaneous articles were the tax he paidfor this easy-going life. And yet, to reach this position, Etienne hadstruggled for ten years. 

At the present time, known to the literary world, liked for the goodor the mischief he did with equally facile good humor, he let himselffloat with the stream, never caring for the future. He ruled a littleset of newcomers, he had friendships--or rather, habits of fifteenyears' standing, and men with whom he supped, and dined, and indulgedhis wit. He earned from seven to eight hundred francs a month, a sumwhich he found quite insufficient for the prodigality peculiar to theimpecunious. Indeed, Lousteau found himself now just as hard up aswhen, on first appearing in Paris, he had said to himself, "If I hadbut five hundred francs a month, I should be rich!"

The cause of this phenomenon was as follows: Lousteau lived in the Ruedes Martyrs in pretty ground-floor rooms with a garden, and splendidlyfurnished. When he settled there in 1833 he had come to an agreementwith an upholsterer that kept his pocket money low for a long time. These rooms were let for twelve hundred francs. The months of January, April, July, and October were, as he phrased it, his indigent months. The rent and the porter's account cleaned him out. Lousteau took nofewer hackney cabs, spend a hundred francs in breakfasts all the same, smoked thirty francs' worth of cigars, and could never refuse themistress of a day a dinner or a new dress. He thus dipped so deeplyinto the fluctuating earnings of the following months, that he couldno more find a hundred francs on his chimney-piece now, when he wasmaking seven or eight hundred francs a month, than he could in 1822, when he was hardly getting two hundred. 

Tired, sometimes, by the incessant vicissitudes of a literary life, and as much bored by amusement as a courtesan, Lousteau would get outof the tideway and sit on the bank, and say to one and another of hisintimate allies--Nathan or Bixiou, as they sat smoking in his scrap ofgarden, looking out on an evergreen lawn as big as a dinner-table:

"What will be the end of us? White hairs are giving us respectfulhints!"

"Lord! we shall marry when we choose to give as much thought to thematter as we give to a drama or a novel, " said Nathan. 

"And Florine?" retorted Bixiou. 

"Oh, we all have a Florine, " said Etienne, flinging away the end ofhis cigar and thinking of Madame Schontz. 

Madame Schontz was a pretty enough woman to put a very high price onthe interest on her beauty, while reserving absolute ownership forLousteau, the man of her heart. Like all those women who get the namein Paris of _Lorettes_, from the Church of Notre Dame de Lorette, round about which they dwell, she lived in the Rue Flechier, a stone'sthrow from Lousteau. This lady took a pride and delight in teasing herfriends by boasting of having a Wit for her lover. 

These details of Lousteau's life and fortune are indispensable, forthis penury and this bohemian existence of a man to whom Parisianluxury had become a necessity, were fated to have a cruel influence onDinah's life. Those to whom the bohemia of Paris is familiar will nowunderstand how it was that, by the end of a fortnight, the journalist, up to his ears in the literary environment, could laugh about hisBaroness with his friends and even with Madame Schontz. To suchreaders as regard such things as utterly mean, it is almost useless tomake excuses which they will not accept. 

"What did you do at Sancerre?" asked Bixiou the first time he metLousteau. 

"I did good service to three worthy provincials--a Receiver-General ofTaxes, a little cousin of his, and a Public Prosecutor, who for tenyears had been dancing round and round one of the hundred 'TenthMuses' who adorn the Departments, " said he. "But they had no moredared to touch her than we touch a decorated cream at dessert tillsome strong-minded person has made a hole in it. "

"Poor boy!" said Bixiou. "I said you had gone to Sancerre to turnPegasus out to grass. "

"Your joke is as stupid as my Muse is handsome, " retorted Lousteau. "Ask Bianchon, my dear fellow. "

"A Muse and a Poet! A homoeopathic cure then!" said Bixiou. 

On the tenth day Lousteau received a letter with the Sancerrepost-mark. 

"Good! very good!" said Lousteau. 

"'Beloved friend, idol of my heart and soul----' twenty pages of it!all at one sitting, and dated midnight! She writes when she findsherself alone. Poor woman! Ah, ha! And a postscript--

"'I dare not ask you to write to me as I write, every day; still, Ihope to have a few lines from my dear one every week, to relieve mymind. '--What a pity to burn it all! it is really well written, " saidLousteau to himself, as he threw the ten sheets of paper into the fireafter having read them. "That woman was born to reel off copy!"

Lousteau was not much afraid of Madame Schontz, who really loved himfor himself, but he had supplanted a friend in the heart of aMarquise. This Marquise, a lady nowise coy, sometimes dropped inunexpectedly at his rooms in the evening, arriving veiled in a hackneycoach; and she, as a literary woman, allowed herself to hunt throughall his drawers. 

A week later, Lousteau, who hardly remembered Dinah, was startled byanother budget from Sancerre--eight leaves, sixteen pages! He heard awoman's step; he thought it announced a search from the Marquise, andtossed these rapturous and entrancing proofs of affections into thefire--unread!

"A woman's letter!" exclaimed Madame Schontz, as she came in. "Thepaper, the wax, are scented--"

"Here you are, sir, " said a porter from the coach office, setting downtwo huge hampers in the ante-room. "Carriage paid. Please to sign mybook. "

"Carriage paid!" cried Madame Schontz. "It must have come fromSancerre. "

"Yes, madame, " said the porter. 

"Your Tenth Muse is a remarkably intelligent woman, " said thecourtesan, opening one of the hampers, while Lousteau was writing hisname. "I like a Muse who understands housekeeping, and who can makegame pies as well as blots. And, oh! what beautiful flowers!" she wenton, opening the second hamper. "Why, you could get none finer inParis!--And here, and here! A hare, partridges, half a roebuck!--Wewill ask your friends and have a famous dinner, for Athalie has aspecial talent for dressing venison. "

Lousteau wrote to Dinah; but instead of writing from the heart, he wasclever. The letter was all the more insidious; it was like one ofMirabeau's letters to Sophie. The style of a true lover istransparent. It is a clear stream which allows the bottom of the heartto be seen between two banks, bright with the trifles of existence, and covered with the flowers of the soul that blossom afresh everyday, full of intoxicating beauty--but only for two beings. As soon asa love letter has any charm for a third reader, it is beyond doubt theproduct of the head, not of the heart. But a woman will always bebeguiled; she always believes herself to be the determining cause ofthis flow of wit. 

By the end of December Lousteau had ceased to read Dinah's letters;they lay in a heap in a drawer of his chest that was never locked, under his shirts, which they scented. 

Then one of those chances came to Lousteau which such bohemians oughtto clutch by every hair. In the middle of December, Madame Schontz, who took a real interest in Etienne, sent to beg him to call on herone morning on business. 

"My dear fellow, you have a chance of marrying. "

"I can marry very often, happily, my dear. "

"When I say marrying, I mean marrying well. You have no prejudices: Ineed not mince matters. This is the position: A young lady has gotinto trouble; her mother knows nothing of even a kiss. Her father isan honest notary, a man of honor; he has been wise enough to keep itdark. He wants to get his daughter married within a fortnight, and hewill give her a fortune of a hundred and fifty thousand francs--for hehas three other children; but--and it is not a bad idea--he will add ahundred thousand francs, under the rose, hand to hand, to cover thedamages. They are an old family of Paris citizens, Rue desLombards----"

"Well, then, why does not the lover marry her?"

"Dead. "

"What a romance! Such things are nowhere to be heard of but in the Ruedes Lombards. "

"But do not take it into your head that a jealous brother murdered theseducer. The young man died in the most commonplace way of a pleurisycaught as he came out of the theatre. A head-clerk and penniless, theman entrapped the daughter in order to marry into the business--Ajudgment from heaven, I call it!"

"Where did you hear the story?"

"From Malaga; the notary is her _milord_. "

"What, Cardot, the son of that little old man in hair-powder, Florentine's first friend?"

"Just so. Malaga, whose 'fancy' is a little tomtit of a fiddler ofeighteen, cannot in conscience make such a boy marry the girl. Besides, she has no cause to do him an ill turn. --Indeed, MonsieurCardot wants a man of thirty at least. Our notary, I feel sure, willbe proud to have a famous man for his son-in-law. So just feelyourself all over. --You will pay your debts, you will have twelvethousand francs a year, and be a father without any trouble on yourpart; what do you say to that to the good? And, after all, you onlymarry a very consolable widow. There is an income of fifty thousandfrancs in the house, and the value of the connection, so in due timeyou may look forward to not less than fifteen thousand francs a yearmore for your share, and you will enter a family holding a finepolitical position; Cardot is the brother-in-law of old Camusot, thedepute who lived so long with Fanny Beaupre. "

"Yes, " said Lousteau, "old Camusot married little Daddy Cardot'seldest daughter, and they had high times together!"

"Well!" Madame Schontz went on, "and Madame Cardot, the notary's wife, was a Chiffreville--manufacturers of chemical products, thearistocracy of these days! Potash, I tell you! Still, this is theunpleasant side of the matter. You will have a terrible mother-in-law, a woman capable of killing her daughter if she knew--! This Cardotwoman is a bigot; she has lips like two faded narrow pink ribbons. 

"A man of the town like you would never pass muster with that woman, who, in her well-meaning way, will spy out your bachelor life and knowevery fact of the past. However, Cardot says he means to exert hispaternal authority. The poor man will be obliged to do the civil tohis wife for some days; a woman made of wood, my dear fellow; Malaga, who has seen her, calls her a penitential scrubber. Cardot is a man offorty; he will be mayor of his district, and perhaps be electeddeputy. He is prepared to give in lieu of the hundred thousand francsa nice little house in the Rue Saint-Lazare, with a forecourt and agarden, which cost him no more than sixty thousand at the time of theJuly overthrow; he would sell, and that would be an opportunity foryou to go and come at the house, to see the daughter, and be civil tothe mother. --And it would give you a look of property in MadameCardot's eyes. You would be housed like a prince in that littlemansion. Then, by Camusot's interest, you may get an appointment aslibrarian to some public office where there is no library. --Well, andthen if you invest your money in backing up a newspaper, you will getten thousand francs a year on it, you can earn six, your librarianshipwill bring you in four. --Can you do better for yourself?

"If you were to marry a lamb without spot, it might be a light womanby the end of two years. What is the damage?--an anticipated dividend!It is quite the fashion. 

"Take my word for it, you can do no better than come to dine withMalaga to-morrow. You will meet your father-in-law; he will know thesecret has been let out--by Malaga, with whom he cannot be angry--andthen you are master of the situation. As to your wife!--Why hermisconduct leaves you as free as a bachelor----"

"Your language is as blunt as a cannon ball. "

"I love you for your own sake, that is all--and I can reason. Well!why do you stand there like a wax image of Abd-el-Kader? There isnothing to meditate over. Marriage is heads or tails--well, you havetossed heads up. "

"You shall have my reply to-morrow, " said Lousteau. 

"I would sooner have it at once; Malaga will write you up to-night. "

"Well, then, yes. "

Lousteau spent the evening in writing a long letter to the Marquise, giving her the reasons which compelled him to marry; his constantpoverty, the torpor of his imagination, his white hairs, his moral andphysical exhaustion--in short, four pages of arguments. --"As to Dinah, I will send her a circular announcing the marriage, " said he tohimself. "As Bixiou says, I have not my match for knowing how to dockthe tail of a passion. "

Lousteau, who at first had been on some ceremony with himself, by nextday had come to the point of dreading lest the marriage should notcome off. He was pressingly civil to the notary. 

"I knew monsieur your father, " said he, "at Florentine's, so I maywell know you here, at Mademoiselle Turquet's. Like father, like son. A very good fellow and a philosopher, was little Daddy Cardot--excuseme, we always called him so. At that time, Florine, Florentine, Tullia, Coralie, and Mariette were the five fingers of your hand, soto speak--it is fifteen years ago. My follies, as you may suppose, area thing of the past. --In those days it was pleasure that ran away withme; now I am ambitious; but, in our day, to get on at all a man mustbe free from debt, have a good income, a wife, and a family. If I paytaxes enough to qualify me, I may be a deputy yet, like any otherman. "

Maitre Cardot appreciated this profession of faith. Lousteau had laidhimself out to please and the notary liked him, feeling himself moreat his ease, as may be easily imagined, with a man who had known hisfather's secrets than he would have been with another. On thefollowing day Lousteau was introduced to the Cardot family as thepurchaser of the house in the Rue Saint-Lazare, and three days laterhe dined there. 

Cardot lived in an old house near the Place du Chatelet. In this houseeverything was "good. " Economy covered every scrap of gilding withgreen gauze; all the furniture wore holland covers. Though it wasimpossible to feel a shade of uneasiness as to the wealth of theinhabitants, at the end of half an hour no one could suppress a yawn. Boredom perched in every nook; the curtains hung dolefully; thedining-room was like Harpagon's. Even if Lousteau had not known allabout Malaga, he could have guessed that the notary's real life wasspent elsewhere. 

The journalist saw a tall, fair girl with blue eyes, at once shy andlanguishing. The elder brother took a fancy to him; he was the fourthclerk in the office, but strongly attracted by the snares of literaryfame, though destined to succeed his father. The younger sister wastwelve years old. Lousteau, assuming a little Jesuitical air, playedthe Monarchist and Churchman for the benefit of the mother, was quitesmooth, deliberate, and complimentary. 

Within three weeks of their introduction, at his fourth dinner there, Felicie Cardot, who had been watching Lousteau out of the corner ofher eye, carried him a cup of coffee where he stood in the windowrecess, and said in a low voice, with tears in her eyes:

"I will devote my whole life, monsieur, to thanking you for yoursacrifice in favor of a poor girl----"

Lousteau was touched; there was so much expression in her look, heraccent, her attitude. "She would make a good man happy, " thought he, pressing her hand in reply. 

Madame Cardot looked upon her son-in-law as a man with a future beforehim; but, above all the fine qualities she ascribed to him, she wasmost delighted by his high tone of morals. Etienne, prompted by thewily notary, had pledged his word that he had no natural children, notie that could endanger the happiness of her dear Felicie. 

"You may perhaps think I go rather too far, " said the bigot to thejournalist; "but in giving such a jewel as my Felicie to any man, onemust think of the future. I am not one of those mothers who want to berid of their daughters. Monsieur Cardot hurries matters on, urgesforward his daughter's marriage; he wishes it over. This is the onlypoint on which we differ. --Though with a man like you, monsieur, aliterary man whose youth has been preserved by hard work from themoral shipwreck now so prevalent, we may feel quite safe; still, youwould be the first to laugh at me if I looked for a husband for mydaughter with my eyes shut. I know you are not an innocent, and Ishould be very sorry for my Felicie if you were" (this was said in awhisper); "but if you had any _liaison_--For instance, monsieur, youhave heard of Madame Roguin, the wife of a notary who, unhappily forour faculty, was sadly notorious. Madame Roguin has, ever since 1820, been kept by a banker--"

"Yes, du Tillet, " replied Etienne; but he bit his tongue as herecollected how rash it was to confess to an acquaintance with duTillet. 

"Yes. --Well, monsieur, if you were a mother, would you not quake atthe thought that Madame du Tillet's fate might be your child's? At herage, and _nee_ de Granville! To have as a rival a woman of fifty andmore. Sooner would I see my daughter dead than give her to a man whohad such a connection with a married woman. A grisette, an actress, you take her and leave her. --There is no danger, in my opinion, fromwomen of that stamp; love is their trade, they care for no one, onedown and another to come on!--But a woman who has sinned against dutymust hug her sin, her only excuse is constancy, if such a crime canever have an excuse. At least, that is the view I hold of arespectable woman's fall, and that is what makes it so terrible----"

Instead of looking for the meaning of these speeches, Etienne made ajest of them at Malaga's, whither he went with his father-in-lawelect; for the notary and the journalist were the best of friends. 

Lousteau had already given himself the airs of a person of importance;his life at last was to have a purpose; he was in luck's way, and in afew days would be the owner of a delightful little house in the RueSaint-Lazare; he was going to be married to a charming woman, he wouldhave about twenty thousand francs a year, and could give the reins tohis ambition; the young lady loved him, and he would be connected withseveral respectable families. In short, he was in full sail on theblue waters of hope. 

Madame Cardot had expressed a wish to see the prints for _Gil Blas_, one of the illustrated volumes which the French publishers were atthat time bringing out, and Lousteau had taken the first numbers forthe lady's inspection. The lawyer's wife had a scheme of her own, shehad borrowed the book merely to return it; she wanted an excuse forwalking in on her future son-in-law quite unexpectedly. The sight ofthose bachelor rooms, which her husband had described as charming, would tell her more, she thought, as to Lousteau's habits of life thanany information she could pick up. Her sister-in-law, Madame Camusot, who knew nothing of the fateful secret, was terrified at such amarriage for her niece. Monsieur Camusot, a Councillor of the SupremeCourt, old Camusot's son by his first marriage, had given hisstep-mother, who was Cardot's sister, a far from flattering accountof the journalist. 

Lousteau, clever as he was, did not think it strange that the wife ofa rich notary should wish to inspect a volume costing fifteen francsbefore deciding on the purchase. Your clever man never condescends tostudy the middle-class, who escape his ken by this want of attention;and while he is making game of them, they are at leisure to throttlehim. 

So one day early in January 1837, Madame Cardot and her daughter tooka hackney coach and went to the Rue des Martyrs to return the parts of_Gil Blas_ to Felicie's betrothed, both delighted at the thought ofseeing Lousteau's rooms. These domiciliary visitations are not unusualin the old citizen class. The porter at the front gate was not in; buthis daughter, on being informed by the worthy lady that she was in thepresence of Monsieur Lousteau's future mother-in-law and bride, handedover the key of the apartment--all the more readily because MadameCardot placed a gold piece in her hand. 

It was by this time about noon, the hour at which the journalist wouldreturn from breakfasting at the Cafe Anglais. As he crossed the openspace between the Church of Notre-Dame de Lorette and the Rue desMartyrs, Lousteau happened to look at a hired coach that was toilingup the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, and he fancied it was a dream whenhe saw the face of Dinah! He stood frozen to the spot when, onreaching his house, he beheld his Didine at the coach door. 

"What has brought you here?" he inquired. --He adopted the familiar_tu_. The formality of _vous_ was out of the question to a woman hemust get rid of. 

"Why, my love, " cried she, "have you not read my letters?"

"Certainly I have, " said Lousteau. 

"Well, then?"

"Well, then?"

"You are a father, " replied the country lady. 

"Faugh!" cried he, disregarding the barbarity of such an exclamation. "Well, " thought he to himself, "she must be prepared for the blow. "

He signed to the coachman to wait, gave his hand to Madame de laBaudraye, and left the man with the chaise full of trunks, vowing thathe would send away _illico_, as he said to himself, the woman and herluggage, back to the place she had come from. 

"Monsieur, monsieur, " called out little Pamela. 

The child had some sense, and felt that three women must not beallowed to meet in a bachelor's rooms. 

"Well, well!" said Lousteau, dragging Dinah along. 

Pamela concluded that the lady must be some relation; however, sheadded:

"The key is in the door; your mother-in-law is there. "

In his agitation, while Madame de la Baudraye was pouring out a floodof words, Etienne understood the child to say, "Mother is there, " theonly circumstance that suggested itself as possible, and he went in. 

Felicie and her mother, who were by this time in the bed-room, creptinto a corner on seeing Etienne enter with a woman. 

"At last, Etienne, my dearest, I am yours for life!" cried Dinah, throwing her arms round his neck, and clasping him closely, while hetook the key from the outside of the door. "Life is a perpetualanguish to me in that house at Anzy. I could bear it no longer; andwhen the time came for me to proclaim my happiness--well, I had notthe courage. --Here I am, your wife with your child! And you have notwritten to me; you have left me two months without a line. "

"But, Dinah, you place me in the greatest difficulty--"

"Do you love me?"

"How can I do otherwise than love you?--But would you not have beenwiser to remain at Sancerre?--I am in the most abject poverty, and Ifear to drag you into it--"

"Your misery will be paradise to me. I only ask to live here, never togo out--"

"Good God! that is all very fine in words, but--" Dinah sat down andmelted into tears as she heard this speech, roughly spoken. 

Lousteau could not resist this distress. He clasped the Baroness inhis arms and kissed her. 

"Do not cry, Didine!" said he; and, as he uttered the words, he saw inthe mirror the figure of Madame Cardot, looking at him from thefurther end of the rooms. "Come, Didine, go with Pamela and get yourtrunks unloaded, " said he in her ear. "Go; do not cry; we will behappy!"

He led her to the door, and then came back to divert the storm. 

"Monsieur, " said Madame Cardot, "I congratulate myself on havingresolved to see for myself the home of the man who was to have been myson-in-law. If my daughter were to die of it, she should never be thewife of such a man as you. You must devote yourself to making yourDidine happy, monsieur. "

And the virtuous lady walked out, followed by Felicie, who was cryingtoo, for she had become accustomed to Etienne. The dreadful MadameCardot got into her hackney-coach again, staring insolently at thehapless Dinah, in whose heart the sting still rankled of "that is allvery fine in words"; but who, nevertheless, like every woman in love, believed in the murmured, "Do not cry, Didine!"

Lousteau, who was not lacking in the sort of decision which grows outof the vicissitudes of a storm-tossed life, reflected thus:

"Didine is high-minded; when once she knows of my proposed marriage, she will sacrifice herself for my future prospects, and I know how Ican manage to let her know. " Delighted at having hit on a trick ofwhich the success seemed certain, he danced round to a familiar tune:

"_Larifla, fla, fla!_--And Didine once out of the way, " he went on, talking to himself, "I will treat Maman Cardot to a call and anovelette: I have seduced her Felicie at Saint-Eustache--Felicie, guilty through passion, bears in her bosom the pledge of our affection--and _larifla, fla, fla!_ the father _Ergo_, the notary, his wife, and his daughter are caught, nabbed----"

And, to her great amazement, Dinah discovered Etienne performing aprohibited dance. 

"Your arrival and our happiness have turned my head with joy, " saidhe, to explain this crazy mood. 

"And I had fancied you had ceased to love me!" exclaimed the poorwoman, dropping the handbag she was carrying, and weeping with joy asshe sank into a chair. 

"Make yourself at home, my darling, " said Etienne, laughing in hissleeve; "I must write two lines to excuse myself from a bachelorparty, for I mean to devote myself to you. Give your orders; you areat home. "

Etienne wrote to Bixiou:

 "MY DEAR BOY, --My Baroness has dropped into my arms, and will be fatal to my marriage unless we perform one of the most familiar stratagems of the thousand and one comedies at the Gymnase. I rely on you to come here, like one of Moliere's old men, to scold your nephew Leandre for his folly, while the Tenth Muse lies hidden in my bedroom; you must work on her feelings; strike hard, be brutal, offensive. I, you understand, shall express my blind devotion, and shall seem to be deaf, so that you may have to shout at me. 

 "Come, if you can, at seven o'clock. 

"Yours, "E. LOUSTEAU. "

Having sent this letter by a commissionaire to the man who, in allParis, most delighted in such practical jokes--in the slang ofartists, a _"charge"_--Lousteau made a great show of settling the Museof Sancerre in his apartment. He busied himself in arranging theluggage she had brought, and informed her as to the persons and waysof the house with such perfect good faith, and a glee which overflowedin kind words and caresses, that Dinah believed herself thebest-beloved woman in the world. These rooms, where everything borethe stamp of fashion, pleased her far better than her old chateau. 

Pamela Migeon, the intelligent damsel of fourteen, was questioned bythe journalist as to whether she would like to be waiting-maid to theimposing Baroness. Pamela, perfectly enchanted, entered on her dutiesat once, by going off to order dinner from a restaurant on theboulevard. Dinah was able to judge of the extreme poverty that layhidden under the purely superficial elegance of this bachelor homewhen she found none of the necessaries of life. As she took possessionof the closets and drawers, she indulged in the fondest dreams; shewould alter Etienne's habits, she would make him home-keeping, shewould fill his cup of domestic happiness. 

The novelty of the position hid its disastrous side; Dinah regardedreciprocated love as the absolution of her sin; she did not yet lookbeyond the walls of these rooms. Pamela, whose wits were as sharp asthose of a _lorette_, went straight to Madame Schontz to beg the loanof some plate, telling her what had happened to Lousteau. After makingthe child welcome to all she had, Madame Schontz went off to herfriend Malaga, that Cardot might be warned of the catastrophe that hadbefallen his future son-in-law. 

The journalist, not in the least uneasy about the crisis as affectinghis marriage, was more and more charming to the lady from theprovinces. The dinner was the occasion of the delightful child's-playof lovers set at liberty, and happy to be free. When they had hadtheir coffee, and Lousteau was sitting in front of the fire, Dinah onhis knee, Pamela ran in with a scared face. 

"Here is Monsieur Bixiou!" said she. 

"Go into the bedroom, " said the journalist to his mistress; "I willsoon get rid of him. He is one of my most intimate friends, and Ishall have to explain to him my new start in life. "

"Oh, ho! dinner for two, and a blue velvet bonnet!" cried Bixiou. "Iam off. --Ah! that is what comes of marrying--one must go through somepartings. How rich one feels when one begins to move one's sticks, heh?"

"Who talks of marrying?" said Lousteau. 

"What! are you not going to be married, then?" cried Bixiou. 

"No!"

"No? My word, what next? Are you making a fool of yourself, if youplease?--What!--You, who, by the mercy of Heaven, have come acrosstwenty thousand francs a year, and a house, and a wife connected withall the first families of the better middle class--a wife, in short, out of the Rue des Lombards--"

"That will do, Bixiou, enough; it is at an end. Be off!"

"Be off? I have a friend's privileges, and I shall take everyadvantage of them. --What has come over you?"

"What has 'come over' me is my lady from Sancerre. She is a mother, and we are going to live together happily to the end of our days. --Youwould have heard it to-morrow, so you may as well be told it now. "

"Many chimney-pots are falling on my head, as Arnal says. But if thiswoman really loves you, my dear fellow, she will go back to the placeshe came from. Did any provincial woman ever yet find her sea-legs inParis? She will wound all your vanities. Have you forgotten what aprovincial is? She will bore you as much when she is happy as when sheis sad; she will have as great a talent for escaping grace as aParisian has in inventing it. 

"Lousteau, listen to me. That a passion should lead you to forget tosome extent the times in which we live, is conceivable; but I, my dearfellow, have not the mythological bandage over my eyes. --Well, thenconsider your position. For fifteen years you have been tossing in theliterary world; you are no longer young, you have padded the hoof tillyour soles are worn through!--Yes, my boy, you turn your socks underlike a street urchin to hide the holes, so that the legs cover theheels! In short, the joke is too stale. Your excuses are more familiarthan a patent medicine--"

"I may say to you, like the Regent to Cardinal Dubois, 'That iskicking enough!'" said Lousteau, laughing. 

"Oh, venerable young man, " replied Bixiou, "the iron has touched thesore to the quick. You are worn out, aren't you? Well, then; in theheyday of youth, under the pressure of penury, what have you done? Youare not in the front rank, and you have not a thousand francs of yourown. That is the sum-total of the situation. Can you, in the declineof your powers, support a family by your pen, when your wife, if sheis an honest woman, will not have at her command the resources of thewoman of the streets, who can extract her thousand-franc note from thedepths where milord keeps it safe? You are rushing into the lowestdepths of the social theatre. 

"And this is only the financial side. Now, consider the politicalposition. We are struggling in an essentially _bourgeois_ age, inwhich honor, virtue, high-mindedness, talent, learning--genius, inshort, is summed up in paying your way, owing nobody anything, andconducting your affairs with judgment. Be steady, be respectable, havea wife, and children, pay your rent and taxes, serve in the NationalGuard, and be on the same pattern as all the men of your company--thenyou may indulge in the loftiest pretensions, rise to the Ministry!--and you have the best chances possible, since you are no Montmorency. You were preparing to fulfil all the conditions insisted on forturning out a political personage, you are capable of every mean trickthat is necessary in office, even of pretending to be commonplace--youwould have acted it to the life. And just for a woman, who will leaveyou in the lurch--the end of every eternal passion--in three, five, orseven years--after exhausting your last physical and intellectualpowers, you turn your back on the sacred Hearth, on the Rue desLombards, on a political career, on thirty thousand francs per annum, on respectability and respect!--Ought that to be the end of a man whohas done with illusions?

"If you had kept a pot boiling for some actress who gave you your funfor it--well; that is what you may call a cabinet matter. But to livewith another man's wife? It is a draft at sight on disaster; it isbolting the bitter pills of vice with none of the gilding. "

"That will do. One word answers it all; I love Madame de la Baudraye, and prefer her to every fortune, to every position the world canoffer. --I may have been carried away by a gust of ambition, buteverything must give way to the joy of being a father. "

"Ah, ha! you have a fancy for paternity? But, wretched man, we are thefathers only of our legitimate children. What is a brat that does notbear your name? The last chapter of the romance. --Your child will betaken from you! We have seen that story in twenty plays these tenyears past. 

"Society, my dear boy, will drop upon you sooner or later. Read_Adolphe_ once more. --Dear me! I fancy I can see you when you and sheare used to each other;--I see you dejected, hang-dog, bereft ofposition and fortune, and fighting like the shareholders of a boguscompany when they are tricked by a director!--Your director ishappiness. "

"Say no more, Bixiou. "

"But I have only just begun, " said Bixiou. "Listen, my dear boy. Marriage has been out of favor for some time past; but, apart from theadvantages it offers in being the only recognized way of certifyingheredity, as it affords a good-looking young man, though penniless, the opportunity of making his fortune in two months, it survives inspite of disadvantages. And there is not the man living who would notrepent, sooner or later, of having, by his own fault, lost the chanceof marrying thirty thousand francs a year. "

"You won't understand me, " cried Lousteau, in a voice of exasperation. "Go away--she is there----"

"I beg your pardon; why did you not tell me sooner?--You are of age, and so is she, " he added in a lower voice, but loud enough to be heardby Dinah. "She will make you repent bitterly of your happiness!----"

"If it is a folly, I intend to commit it. --Good-bye. "

"A man gone overboard!" cried Bixiou. 

"Devil take those friends who think they have a right to preach toyou, " said Lousteau, opening the door of the bedroom, where he foundMadame de la Baudraye sunk in an armchair and dabbing her eyes with anembroidered handkerchief. 

"Oh, why did I come here?" sobbed she. "Good Heavens, why indeed?--Etienne, I am not so provincial as you think me. --You are makinga fool of me. "

"Darling angel, " replied Lousteau, taking Dinah in his arms, liftingher from her chair, and dragging her half dead into the drawing-room, "we have both pledged our future, it is sacrifice for sacrifice. WhileI was loving you at Sancerre, they were engaging me to be marriedhere, but I refused. --Oh! I was extremely distressed----"

"I am going, " cried Dinah, starting wildly to her feet and turning tothe door. 

"You will stay here, my Didine. All is at an end. And is this fortuneso lightly earned after all? Must I not marry a gawky, tow-hairedcreature, with a red nose, the daughter of a notary, and saddle myselfwith a stepmother who could give Madame de Piedefer points on thescore of bigotry--"

Pamela flew in, and whispered in Lousteau's ear:

"Madame Schontz!"

Lousteau rose, leaving Dinah on the sofa, and went out. 

"It is all over with you, my dear, " said the woman. "Cardot does notmean to quarrel with his wife for the sake of a son-in-law. The ladymade a scene--something like a scene, I can tell you! So, to conclude, the head-clerk, who was the late head-clerk's deputy for two years, agrees to take the girl with the business. "

"Mean wretch!" exclaimed Lousteau. "What! in two hours he has made uphis mind?"

"Bless me, that is simple enough. The rascal, who knew all the deadman's little secrets, guessed what a fix his master was in fromoverhearing a few words of the squabble with Madame Cardot. The notaryrelies on your honor and good feeling, for the affair is settled. Theclerk, whose conduct has been admirable, went so far as to attendmass! A finished hypocrite, I say--just suits the mamma. You andCardot will still be friends. He is to be a director in an immensefinancial concern, and he may be of use to you. --So you have beenwaked from a sweet dream. "

"I have lost a fortune, a wife, and--"

"And a mistress, " said Madame Schontz, smiling. "Here you are, morethan married; you will be insufferable, you will be always wanting toget home, there will be nothing loose about you, neither your clothesnor your habits. And, after all, my Arthur does things in style. Iwill be faithful to him and cut Malaga's acquaintance. 

"Let me peep at her through the door--your Sancerre Muse, " she wenton. "Is there no finer bird than that to be found in the desert?" sheexclaimed. "You are cheated! She is dignified, lean, lachrymose; sheonly needs Lady Dudley's turban!"

"What is it now?" asked Madame de la Baudraye, who had heard therustle of a silk dress and the murmur of a woman's voice. 

"It is, my darling, that we are now indissolubly united. --I have justhad an answer to the letter you saw me write, which was to break offmy marriage----"

"So that was the party which you gave up?"

"Yes. "

"Oh, I will be more than your wife--I am your slave, I give you mylife, " said the poor deluded creature. "I did not believe I could loveyou more than I did!--Now I shall not be a mere incident, but yourwhole life?"

"Yes, my beautiful, my generous Didine. "

"Swear to me, " said she, "that only death shall divide us. "

Lousteau was ready to sweeten his vows with the most fascinatingprettinesses. And this was why. Between the door of the apartmentwhere he had taken the lorette's farewell kiss, and that of thedrawing-room, where the Muse was reclining, bewildered by such asuccession of shocks, Lousteau had remembered little De la Baudraye'sprecarious health, his fine fortune, and Bianchon's remark aboutDinah, "She will be a rich widow!" and he said to himself, "I would ahundred times rather have Madame de la Baudraye for a wife thanFelicie!"

His plan of action was quickly decided on; he determined to play thefarce of passion once more, and to perfection. His meanself-interestedness and his false vehemence of passion had disastrousresults. Madame de la Baudraye, when she set out from Sancerre forParis, had intended to live in rooms of her own quite near toLousteau; but the proofs of devotion her lover had given her by givingup such brilliant prospects, and yet more the perfect happiness of thefirst days of their illicit union, kept her from mentioning such aparting. The second day was to be--and indeed was--a high festival, inwhich such a suggestion proposed to "her angel" would have been adiscordant note. 

Lousteau, on his part, anxious to make Dinah feel herself dependent onhim, kept her in a state of constant intoxication by incessantamusement. These circumstances hindered two persons so clever as thesewere from avoiding the slough into which they fell--that of a life incommon, a piece of folly of which, unfortunately, many instances maybe seen in Paris in literary circles. 

And thus was the whole programme played out of a provincial amour, sosatirically described by Lousteau to Madame de la Baudraye--a factwhich neither he nor she remembered. Passion is born a deaf-mute. 

This winter in Paris was to Madame de la Baudraye all that the monthof October had been at Sancerre. Etienne, to initiate "his wife" intoParis life, varied this honeymoon by evenings at the play, where Dinahwould only go to the stage box. At first Madame de la Baudrayepreserved some remnants of her countrified modesty; she was afraid ofbeing seen; she hid her happiness. She would say:

"Monsieur de Clagny or Monsieur Gravier may have followed me toParis. " She was afraid on Sancerre even in Paris. 

Lousteau, who was excessively vain, educated Dinah, took her to thebest dressmakers, and pointed out to her the most fashionable women, advising her to take them as models for imitation. And Madame de laBaudraye's provincial appearance was soon a thing of the past. Lousteau, when his friends met him, was congratulated on his conquest. 

All through that season Etienne wrote little and got very much intodebt, though Dinah, who was proud, bought all her clothes out of hersavings, and fancied she had not been the smallest expense to herbeloved. By the end of three months Dinah was acclimatized; she hadreveled in the music at the Italian opera; she knew the pieces "on" atall theatres, and the actors and jests of the day; she had becomeinured to this life of perpetual excitement, this rapid torrent inwhich everything is forgotten. She no longer craned her neck or stoodwith her nose in the air, like an image of Amazement, at the constantsurprises that Paris has for a stranger. She had learned to breathethat witty, vitalizing, teeming atmosphere where clever people feelthemselves in their element, and which they can no longer bear toquit. 

One morning, as she read the papers, for Lousteau had them all, twolines carried her back to Sancerre and the past, two lines that seemednot unfamiliar--as follows:

"Monsieur le Baron de Clagny, Public Prosecutor to the Criminal Courtat Sancerre, has been appointed Deputy Public Prosecutor to theSupreme Court in Paris. "

"How well that worthy lawyer loves you!" said the journalist, smiling. 

"Poor man!" said she. "What did I tell you? He is following me. "

Etienne and Dinah were just then at the most dazzling and fervid stageof a passion when each is perfectly accustomed to the other, and yetlove has not lost its freshness and relish. The lovers know each otherwell, but all is not yet understood; they have not been a second timeto the same secret haunts of the soul; they have not studied eachother till they know, as they must later, the very thought, word, andgesture that responds to every event, the greatest and the smallest. Enchantment reigns; there are no collisions, no differences ofopinion, no cold looks. Their two souls are always on the same side. And Dinah would speak the magical words, emphasized by the yet moremagical expression and looks which every woman can use under suchcircumstances. 

"When you cease to love me, kill me. --If you should cease to love me, I believe I could kill you first and myself after. "

To this sweet exaggeration, Lousteau would reply:

"All I ask of God is to see you as constant as I shall be. It is youwho will desert me!"

"My love is supreme. "

"Supreme, " echoed Lousteau. "Come, now? Suppose I am dragged away to abachelor party, and find there one of my former mistresses, and shemakes fun of me; I, out of vanity, behave as if I were free, and donot come in here till next morning--would you still love me?"

"A woman is only sure of being loved when she is preferred; and if youcame back to me, if--Oh! you make me understand what the happinesswould be of forgiving the man I adore. "

"Well, then, I am truly loved for the first time in my life!" criedLousteau. 

"At last you understand that!" said she. 

Lousteau proposed that they should each write a letter setting forththe reasons which would compel them to end by suicide. Once inpossession of such a document, each might kill the other withoutdanger in case of infidelity. But in spite of mutual promises, neitherwrote the letter. 

The journalist, happy for the moment, promised himself that he woulddeceive Dinah when he should be tired of her, and would sacrificeeverything to the requirements of that deception. To him Madame de laBaudraye was a fortune in herself. At the same time, he felt the yoke. 

Dinah, by consenting to this union, showed a generous mind and thepower derived from self-respect. In this absolute intimacy, in whichboth lovers put off their masks, the young woman never abdicated hermodesty, her masculine rectitude, and the strength peculiar toambitious souls, which formed the basis of her character. Lousteauinvoluntarily held her in high esteem. As a Parisian, Dinah wassuperior to the most fascinating courtesan; she could be as amusingand as witty as Malaga; but her extensive information, her habits ofmind, her vast reading enabled her to generalize her wit, while theFlorines and the Schontzes exerted theirs over a very narrow circle. 

"There is in Dinah, " said Etienne to Bixiou, "the stuff to make both aNinon and a De Stael. "

"A woman who combines an encyclopaedia and a seraglio is verydangerous, " replied the mocking spirit. 

When the expected infant became a visible fact, Madame de la Baudrayewould be seen no more; but before shutting herself up, never to go outunless into the country, she was bent on being present at the firstperformance of a play by Nathan. This literary solemnity occupied theminds of the two thousand persons who regard themselves asconstituting "all Paris. " Dinah, who had never been at a first night'sperformance, was very full of natural curiosity. She had by this timearrived at such a pitch of affection for Lousteau that she gloried inher misconduct; she exerted a sort of savage strength to defy theworld; she was determined to look it in the face without turning herhead aside. 

She dressed herself to perfection, in a style suited to her delicatelooks and the sickly whiteness of her face. Her pallid complexion gaveher an expression of refinement, and her black hair in smooth bandsenhanced her pallor. Her brilliant gray eyes looked finer than ever, set in dark rings. But a terribly distressing incident awaited her. Bya very simple chance, the box given to the journalist, on the firsttier, was next to that which Anna Grossetete had taken. The twointimate friends did not even bow; neither chose to acknowledge theother. At the end of the first act Lousteau left his seat, abandoningDinah to the fire of eyes, the glare of opera-glasses; while theBaronne de Fontaine and the Comtesse Marie de Vandenesse, whoaccompanied her, received some of the most distinguished men offashion. 

Dinah's solitude was all the more distressing because she had not theart of putting a good face to the matter by examining the companythrough her opera-glass. In vain did she try to assume a dignified andthoughtful attitude, and fix her eyes on vacancy; she wasoverpoweringly conscious of being the object of general attention; shecould not disguise her discomfort, and lapsed a little intoprovincialism, displaying her handkerchief and making involuntarymovements of which she had almost cured herself. At last, between thesecond and third acts, a man had himself admitted to Dinah's box! Itwas Monsieur de Clagny. 

"I am happy to see you, to tell you how much I am pleased by yourpromotion, " said she. 

"Oh! Madame, for whom should I come to Paris----?"

"What!" said she. "Have I anything to do with your appointment?"

"Everything, " said he. "Since you left Sancerre, it had becomeintolerable to me; I was dying--"

"Your sincere friendship does me good, " replied she, holding out herhand. "I am in a position to make much of my true friends; I now knowtheir value. --I feared I must have lost your esteem, but the proof youhave given me by this visit touches me more deeply than your tenyears' attachment. "

"You are an object of curiosity to the whole house, " said the lawyer. "Oh! my dear, is this a part for you to be playing? Could you not behappy and yet remain honored?--I have just heard that you are MonsieurEtienne Lousteau's mistress, that you live together as man and wife!--You have broken for ever with society; even if you should some daymarry your lover, the time will come when you will feel the want ofthe respectability you now despise. Ought you not to be in a home ofyour own with your mother, who loves you well enough to protect youwith her aegis?--Appearances at least would be saved. "

"I am in the wrong to have come here, " replied she, "that is all. --Ihave bid farewell to all the advantages which the world confers onwomen who know how to reconcile happiness and the proprieties. Myabnegation is so complete that I only wish I could clear a vast spaceabout me to make a desert of my love, full of God, of _him_, and ofmyself. --We have made too many sacrifices on both sides not to beunited--united by disgrace if you will, but indissolubly one. I amhappy; so happy that I can love freely, my friend, and confide in youmore than of old--for I need a friend. "

The lawyer was magnanimous, nay, truly great. To this declaration, inwhich Dinah's soul thrilled, he replied in heartrending tones:

"I wanted to go to see you, to be sure that you were loved: I shallnow be easy and no longer alarmed as to your future. --But will yourlover appreciate the magnitude of your sacrifice; is there anygratitude in his affection?"

"Come to the Rue des Martyrs and you will see!"

"Yes, I will call, " he replied. "I have already passed your doorwithout daring to inquire for you. --You do not yet know the literaryworld. There are glorious exceptions, no doubt; but these men ofletters drag terrible evils in their train; among these I accountpublicity as one of the greatest, for it blights everything. A womanmay commit herself with--"

"With a Public Prosecutor?" the Baronne put in with a smile. 

"Well!--and then after a rupture there is still something to fall backon; the world has known nothing. But with a more or less famous manthe public is thoroughly informed. Why look there! What an example youhave close at hand! You are sitting back to back with the ComtesseMarie Vandenesse, who was within an ace of committing the utmost follyfor a more celebrated man than Lousteau--for Nathan--and now they donot even recognize each other. After going to the very edge of theprecipice, the Countess was saved, no one knows how; she neither lefther husband nor her house; but as a famous man was scorned, she wasthe talk of the town for a whole winter. But her husband's greatfortune, great name, and high position, but for the admirablemanagement of that true statesman--whose conduct to his wife, theysay, was perfect--she would have been ruined; in her position no otherwoman would have remained respected as she is. "

"And how was Sancerre when you came away?" asked Madame de laBaudraye, to change the subject. 

"Monsieur de la Baudraye announced that your expected confinementafter so many years made it necessary that it should take place inParis, and that he had insisted on your going to be attended by thefirst physicians, " replied Monsieur de Clagny, guessing what it wasthat Dinah most wanted to know. "And so, in spite of the commotion towhich your departure gave rise, you still have your legal status. "

"Why!" she exclaimed, "can Monsieur de la Baudraye still hope----"

"Your husband, madame, did what he always does--made a littlecalculation. "

The lawyer left the box when the journalist returned, bowing withdignity. 

"You are a greater hit than the piece, " said Etienne to Dinah. 

This brief triumph brought greater happiness to the poor woman thanshe had ever known in the whole of her provincial existence; still, asthey left the theatre she was very grave. 

"What ails you, my Didine?" asked Lousteau. 

"I am wondering how a woman succeeds in conquering the world?"

"There are two ways. One is by being Madame de Stael, the other is byhaving two hundred thousand francs a year. "

"Society, " said she, "asserts its hold on us by appealing to ourvanity, our love of appearances. --Pooh! We will be philosophers!"

That evening was the last gleam of the delusive well-being in whichMadame de la Baudraye had lived since coming to Paris. Three dayslater she observed a cloud on Lousteau's brow as he walked round thelittle garden-plot smoking a cigar. This woman, who had acquired fromher husband the habit and the pleasure of never owing anybody a sou, was informed that the household was penniless, with two quarters' rentowing, and on the eve, in fact, of an execution. 

This reality of Paris life pierced Dinah's heart like a thorn; sherepented of having tempted Etienne into the extravagances of love. Itis so difficult to pass from pleasure to work, that happiness haswrecked more poems than sorrows ever helped to flow in sparkling jets. Dinah, happy in seeing Etienne taking his ease, smoking a cigar afterbreakfast, his face beaming as he basked like a lizard in thesunshine, could not summon up courage enough to make herself thebum-bailiff of a magazine. 

It struck her that through the worthy Migeon, Pamela's father, shemight pawn the few jewels she possessed, on which her "uncle, " for shewas learning to talk the slang of the town, advanced her nine hundredfrancs. She kept three hundred for her baby-clothes and the expensesof her illness, and joyfully presented the sum due to Lousteau, whowas ploughing, furrow by furrow, or, if you will, line by line, through a novel for a periodical. 

"Dearest heart, " said she, "finish your novel without making anysacrifice to necessity; polish the style, work up the subject. --I haveplayed the fine lady too long; I am going to be the housewife andattend to business. "

For the last four months Etienne had been taking Dinah to the CafeRiche to dine every day, a corner being always kept for them. Thecountrywoman was in dismay at being told that five hundred francs wereowing for the last fortnight. 

"What! we have been drinking wine at six francs a bottle! A sole_Normande_ costs five francs!--and twenty centimes for a roll?" sheexclaimed, as she looked through the bill Lousteau showed her. 

"Well, it makes very little difference to us whether we are robbed ata restaurant or by a cook, " said Lousteau. 

"Henceforth, for the cost of your dinner, you shall live like aprince. "

Having induced the landlord to let her have a kitchen and twoservants' rooms, Madame de la Baudraye wrote a few lines to hermother, begging her to send her some linen and a loan of a thousandfrancs. She received two trunks full of linen, some plate, and twothousand francs, sent by the hand of an honest and pious cookrecommended her by her mother. 

Ten days after the evening at the theatre when they had met, Monsieurde Clagny came to call at four o'clock, after coming out of court, andfound Madame de la Baudraye making a little cap. The sight of thisproud and ambitious woman, whose mind was so accomplished, and who hadqueened it so well at the Chateau d'Anzy, now condescending tohousehold cares and sewing for the coming infant, moved the poorlawyer, who had just left the bench. And as he saw the pricks on oneof the taper fingers he had so often kissed, he understood that Madamede la Baudraye was not merely playing at this maternal task. 

In the course of this first interview the magistrate saw to the depthsof Dinah's soul. This perspicacity in a man so much in love was asuperhuman effort. He saw that Didine meant to be the journalist'sguardian spirit and lead him into a nobler road; she had seen that thedifficulties of his practical life were due to some moral defects. Between two beings united by love--in one so genuine, and in the otherso well feigned--more than one confidence had been exchanged in thecourse of four months. Notwithstanding the care with which Etiennewrapped up his true self, a word now and then had not failed toenlighten Dinah as to the previous life of a man whose talents were sohampered by poverty, so perverted by bad examples, so thwarted byobstacles beyond his courage to surmount. "He will be a greater man iflife is easy to him, " said she to herself. And she strove to make himhappy, to give him the sense of a sheltered home by dint of sucheconomy and method as are familiar to provincial folks. Thus Dinahbecame a housekeeper, as she had become a poet, by the soaring of hersoul towards the heights. 

"His happiness will be my absolution. "

These words, wrung from Madame de la Baudraye by her friend thelawyer, accounted for the existing state of things. The publicity ofhis triumph, flaunted by Etienne on the evening of the firstperformance, had very plainly shown the lawyer what Lousteau's purposewas. To Etienne, Madame de la Baudraye was, to use his own phrase, "afine feather in his cap. " Far from preferring the joys of a shy andmysterious passion, of hiding such exquisite happiness from the eyesof the world, he found a vulgar satisfaction in displaying the firstwoman of respectability who had ever honored him with her affection. 

The Judge, however, was for some time deceived by the attentions whichany man would lavish on any woman in Madame de la Baudraye'ssituation, and Lousteau made them doubly charming by the ingratiatingways characteristic of men whose manners are naturally attractive. There are, in fact, men who have something of the monkey in them bynature, and to whom the assumption of the most engaging forms ofsentiment is so easy that the actor is not detected; and Lousteau'snatural gifts had been fully developed on the stage on which he hadhitherto figured. 

Between the months of April and July, when Dinah expected herconfinement, she discovered why it was that Lousteau had not triumphedover poverty; he was idle and had no power of will. The brain, to besure, must obey its own laws; it recognizes neither the exigencies oflife nor the voice of honor; a man cannot write a great book because awoman is dying, or to pay a discreditable debt, or to bring up afamily; at the same time, there is no great talent without a strongwill. These twin forces are requisite for the erection of the vastedifice of personal glory. A distinguished genius keeps his brain in aproductive condition, just as the knights of old kept their weaponsalways ready for battle. They conquer indolence, they deny themselvesenervating pleasures, or indulge only to a fixed limit proportioned totheir powers. This explains the life of such men as Walter Scott, Cuvier, Voltaire, Newton, Buffon, Bayle, Bossuet, Leibnitz, Lopez deVega, Calderon, Boccacio, Aretino, Aristotle--in short, every man whodelighted, governed, or led his contemporaries. 

A man may and ought to pride himself more on his will than on histalent. Though Talent has its germ in a cultivated gift, Will meansthe incessant conquest of his instincts, of proclivities subdued andmortified, and difficulties of every kind heroically defeated. Theabuse of smoking encouraged Lousteau's indolence. Tobacco, which canlull grief, inevitably numbs a man's energy. 

Then, while the cigar deteriorated him physically, criticism as aprofession morally stultified a man so easily tempted by pleasure. Criticism is as fatal to the critic as seeing two sides to a questionis to a pleader. In these professions the judgment is undermined, themind loses its lucid rectitude. The writer lives by taking sides. Thus, we may distinguish two kinds of criticism, as in painting we maydistinguish art from practical dexterity. Criticism, after the patternof most contemporary leader-writers, is the expression of judgmentsformed at random in a more or less witty way, just as an advocatepleads in court on the most contradictory briefs. The newspaper criticalways finds a subject to work up in the book he is discussing. Doneafter this fashion, the business is well adapted to indolent brains, to men devoid of the sublime faculty of imagination, or, possessed ofit indeed, but lacking courage to cultivate it. Every play, every bookcomes to their pen as a subject, making no demand on theirimagination, and of which they simply write a report, seriously or inirony, according to the mood of the moment. As to an opinion, whateverit may be, French wit can always justify it, being admirably ready todefend either side of any case. And conscience counts for so little, these _bravi_ have so little value for their own words, that they willloudly praise in the greenroom the work they tear to tatters in print. 

Nay, men have been known to transfer their services from one paper toanother without being at the pains to consider that the opinions ofthe new sheet must be diametrically antagonistic to those of the old. Madame de la Baudraye could smile to see Lousteau with one article onthe Legitimist side and one on the side of the new dynasty, both onthe same occasion. She admired the maxim he preached:

"We are the attorneys of public opinion. "

The other kind of criticism is a science. It necessitates a thoroughcomprehension of each work, a lucid insight into the tendencies of theage, the adoption of a system, and faith in fixed principles--that isto say, a scheme of jurisprudence, a summing-up, and a verdict. Thecritic is then a magistrate of ideas, the censor of his time; hefulfils a sacred function; while in the former case he is but anacrobat who turns somersaults for a living so long as he had a leg tostand on. Between Claude Vignon and Lousteau lay the gulf that dividesmere dexterity from art. 

Dinah, whose mind was soon freed from rust, and whose intellect was byno means narrow, had ere long taken literary measure of her idol. Shesaw Lousteau working up to the last minute under the mostdiscreditable compulsion, and scamping his work, as painters say of apicture from which sound technique is absent; but she would excuse himby saying, "He is a poet!" so anxious was she to justify him in herown eyes. When she thus guessed the secret of many a writer'sexistence, she also guessed that Lousteau's pen could never be trustedto as a resource. 

Then her love for him led her to take a step she would never hadthought of for her own sake. Through her mother she tried to negotiatewith her husband for an allowance, but without Etienne's knowledge;for, as she thought, it would be an offence to his delicate feelings, which must be considered. A few days before the end of July, Dinahcrumbled up in her wrath the letter from her mother containingMonsieur de la Baudraye's ultimatum:

"Madame de la Baudraye cannot need an allowance in Paris when she canlive in perfect luxury at her Chateau of Anzy: she may return. "

Lousteau picked up this letter and read it. 

"I will avenge you!" said he to Dinah in the ominous tone thatdelights a woman when her antipathies are flattered. 

Five days after this Bianchon and Duriau, the famous ladies' doctor, were engaged at Lousteau's; for he, ever since little La Baudraye'sreply, had been making a great display of his joy and importance overthe advent of the infant. Monsieur de Clagny and Madame Piedefer--sentfor in all haste were to be the godparents, for the cautiousmagistrate feared lest Lousteau should commit some compromisingblunder. Madame de la Baudraye gave birth to a boy that might havefilled a queen with envy who hoped for an heir-presumptive. 

Bianchon and Monsieur de Clagny went off to register the child at theMayor's office as the son of Monsieur and Madame de la Baudraye, unknown to Etienne, who, on his part, rushed off to a printer's tohave this circular set up:

 _"Madame la Baronne de la Baudraye is happily delivered of a son. 

 "Monsieur Etienne Lousteau has the pleasure of informing you of the fact. 

 "The mother and child are doing well. "_

Lousteau had already sent out sixty of these announcements whenMonsieur de Clagny, on coming to make inquiries, happened to see thelist of persons at Sancerre to whom Lousteau proposed to send thisamazing notice, written below the names of the persons in Paris towhom it was already gone. The lawyer confiscated the list and theremainder of the circulars, showed them to Madame Piedefer, beggingher on no account to allow Lousteau to carry on this atrocious jest, and jumped into a cab. The devoted friend then ordered from the sameprinter another announcement in the following words:

 _"Madame la Baronne de la Baudraye is happily delivered of a son. 

 "Monsieur le Baron de la Baudraye has the honor of informing you of the fact. 

 "Mother and child are doing well. "_

After seeing the proofs destroyed, the form of type, everything thatcould bear witness to the existence of the former document, Monsieurde Clagny set to work to intercept those that had been sent; in manycases he changed them at the porter's lodge, he got back thirty intohis own hands, and at last, after three days of hard work, only one ofthe original notes existed, that, namely sent to Nathan. 

Five times had the lawyer called on the great man without finding him. By the time Monsieur de Clagny was admitted, after requesting aninterview, the story of the announcement was known to all Paris. Somepersons regarded it as one of those waggish calumnies, a sort of stabto which every reputation, even the most ephemeral, is exposed; otherssaid they had read the paper and returned it to some friend of the LaBaudraye family; a great many declaimed against the immorality ofjournalists; in short, this last remaining specimen was regarded as acuriosity. Florine, with whom Nathan was living, had shown it about, stamped in the post as paid, and addressed in Etienne's hand. So, assoon as the judge spoke of the announcement, Nathan began to smile. 

"Give up that monument of recklessness and folly?" cried he. "Thatautograph is one of those weapons which an athlete in the circuscannot afford to lay down. That note proves that Lousteau has noheart, no taste, no dignity; that he knows nothing of the world nor ofpublic morality; that he insults himself when he can find no one elseto insult. --None but the son of a provincial citizen imported fromSancerre to become a poet, but who is only the _bravo_ of somecontemptible magazine, could ever have sent out such a circularletter, as you must allow, monsieur. This is a document indispensableto the archives of the age. --To-day Lousteau flatters me, to-morrow hemay ask for my head. --Excuse me, I forgot you were a judge. 

"I have gone through a passion for a lady, a great lady, as farsuperior to Madame de la Baudraye as your fine feeling, monsieur, issuperior to Lousteau's vulgar retaliation; but I would have diedrather than utter her name. A few months of her airs and graces costme a hundred thousand francs and my prospects for life; but I do notthink the price too high!--And I have never murmured!--If a womanbetrays the secret of her passion, it is the supreme offering of herlove, but a man!--He must be a Lousteau!

"No, I would not give up that paper for a thousand crowns. "

"Monsieur, " said the lawyer at last, after an eloquent battle lastinghalf an hour, "I have called on fifteen or sixteen men of lettersabout this affair, and can it be that you are the only one immovableby an appeal of honor? It is not for Etienne Lousteau that I plead, but for a woman and child, both equally ignorant of the damage done totheir fortune, their prospects, and their honor. --Who knows, monsieur, whether you might not some day be compelled to plead for some favor ofjustice for a friend, for some person whose honor was dearer to youthan your own. --It might be remembered against you that you had beenruthless. --Can such a man as you are hesitate?" added Monsieur deClagny. 

"I only wished you to understand the extent of the sacrifice, " repliedNathan, giving up the letter, as he reflected on the judge's influenceand accepted this implied bargain. 

When the journalist's stupid jest had been counteracted, Monsieur deClagny went to give him a rating in the presence of Madame Piedefer;but he found Lousteau fuming with irritation. 

"What I did monsieur, I did with a purpose!" replied Etienne. "Monsieur de la Baudraye has sixty thousand francs a year and refusesto make his wife an allowance; I wished to make him feel that thechild is in my power. "

"Yes, monsieur, I quite suspected it, " replied the lawyer. "For thatreason I readily agreed to be little Polydore's godfather, and he isregistered as the son of the Baron and Baronne de la Baudraye; if youhave the feelings of a father, you ought to rejoice in knowing thatthe child is heir to one of the finest entailed estates in France. "

"And pray, sir, is the mother to die of hunger?"

"Be quite easy, " said the lawyer bitterly, having dragged fromLousteau the expression of feeling he had so long been expecting. "Iwill undertake to transact the matter with Monsieur de la Baudraye. "

Monsieur de Clagny left the house with a chill at his heart. 

Dinah, his idol, was loved for her money. Would she not, when toolate, have her eyes opened?

"Poor woman!" said the lawyer, as he walked away. And this justice wewill do him--for to whom should justice be done unless to a Judge?--heloved Dinah too sincerely to regard her degradation as a means oftriumph one day; he was all pity and devotion; he really loved her. 

The care and nursing of the infant, its cries, the quiet needed forthe mother during the first few days, and the ubiquity of MadamePiedefer, were so entirely adverse to literary labors, that Lousteaumoved up to the three rooms taken on the first floor for the oldbigot. The journalist, obliged to go to the first performances withoutDinah, and living apart from her, found an indescribable charm in theuse of his liberty. More than once he submitted to be taken by the armand dragged off to some jollification; more than once he found himselfat the house of a friend's mistress in the heart of bohemia. He againsaw women brilliantly young and splendidly dressed, in whom economyseemed treason to their youth and power. Dinah, in spite of herstriking beauty, after nursing her baby for three months, could notstand comparison with these perishable blossoms, so soon faded, but soshowy as long as they live rooted in opulence. 

Home life had, nevertheless, a strong attraction for Etienne. In threemonths the mother and daughter, with the help of the cook fromSancerre and of little Pamela, had given the apartment a quite changedappearance. The journalist found his breakfast and his dinner servedwith a sort of luxury. Dinah, handsome and nicely dressed, was carefulto anticipate her dear Etienne's wishes, and he felt himself the kingof his home, where everything, even the baby, was subject to hisselfishness. Dinah's affection was to be seen in every trifle, Lousteau could not possibly cease the entrancing deceptions of hisunreal passion. 

Dinah, meanwhile, was aware of a source of ruin, both to her love andto the household, in the kind of life into which Lousteau had allowedhimself to drift. At the end of ten months she weaned her baby, installed her mother in the upstairs rooms, and restored the familyintimacy which indissolubly links a man and woman when the woman isloving and clever. One of the most striking circumstances in BenjaminConstant's novel, one of the explanations of Ellenore's desertion, isthe want of daily--or, if you will, of nightly--intercourse betweenher and Adolphe. Each of the lovers has a separate home; they haveboth submitted to the world and saved appearances. Ellenore, repeatedly left to herself, is compelled to vast labors of affectionto expel the thoughts of release which captivate Adolphe when absent. The constant exchange of glances and thoughts in domestic life gives awoman such power that a man needs stronger reasons for desertion thanshe will ever give him so long as she loves him. 

This was an entirely new phase both to Etienne and to Dinah. Dinahintended to be indispensable; she wanted to infuse fresh energy intothis man, whose weakness smiled upon her, for she thought it asecurity. She found him subjects, sketched the treatment, and at apinch, would write whole chapters. She revived the vitality of thisdying talent by transfusing fresh blood into his veins; she suppliedhim with ideas and opinions. In short, she produced two books whichwere a success. More than once she saved Lousteau's self-esteem bydictating, correcting, or finishing his articles when he was indespair at his own lack of ideas. The secret of this collaboration wasstrictly preserved; Madame Piedefer knew nothing of it. 

This mental galvanism was rewarded by improved pay, enabling them tolive comfortably till the end of 1838. Lousteau became used to seeingDinah do his work, and he paid her--as the French people say in theirvigorous lingo--in "monkey money, " nothing for her pains. Thisexpenditure in self-sacrifice becomes a treasure which generous soulsprize, and the more she gave the more she loved Lousteau; the timesoon came when Dinah felt that it would be too bitter a grief ever togive him up. 

But then another child was coming, and this year was a terrible trial. In spite of the precautions of the two women, Etienne contracteddebts; he worked himself to death to pay them off while Dinah was laidup; and, knowing him as she did, she thought him heroic. But afterthis effort, appalled at having two women, two children, and two maidson his hands, he was incapable of the struggle to maintain a family byhis pen when he had failed to maintain even himself. So he let thingstake their chance. Then the ruthless speculator exaggerated the farceof love-making at home to secure greater liberty abroad. 

Dinah proudly endured the burden of life without support. The oneidea, "He loves me!" gave her superhuman strength. She worked as hardas the most energetic spirits of our time. At the risk of her beautyand health, Didine was to Lousteau what Mademoiselle Delachaux was toGardane in Diderot's noble and true tale. But while sacrificingherself, she committed the magnanimous blunder of sacrificing dress. She had her gowns dyed, and wore nothing but black. She stank ofblack, as Malaga said, making fun mercilessly of Lousteau. 

By the end of 1839, Etienne, following the example of Louis XV. , had, by dint of gradual capitulations of conscience, come to the point ofestablishing a distinction between his own money and the housekeepingmoney, just as Louis XV. Drew the line between his privy purse and thepublic moneys. He deceived Dinah as to his earnings. On discoveringthis baseness, Madame de la Baudraye went through fearful tortures ofjealousy. She wanted to live two lives--the life of the world and thelife of a literary woman; she accompanied Lousteau to everyfirst-night performance, and could detect in him many impulses ofwounded vanity, for her black attire rubbed off, as it were, on him, clouding his brow, and sometimes leading him to be quite brutal. Hewas really the woman of the two; and he had all a woman's exactingperversity; he would reproach Dinah for the dowdiness of herappearance, even while benefiting by the sacrifice, which to amistress is so cruel--exactly like a woman who, after sending a manthrough a gutter to save her honor, tells him she "cannot bear dirt!"when he comes out. 

Dinah then found herself obliged to gather up the rather loose reinsof power by which a clever woman drives a man devoid of will. But inso doing she could not fail to lose much of her moral lustre. Suchsuspicions as she betrayed drag a woman into quarrels which lead todisrespect, because she herself comes down from the high level onwhich she had at first placed herself. Next she made some concession;Lousteau was allowed to entertain several of his friends--Nathan, Bixiou, Blondet, Finot, whose manners, language, and intercourse weredepraving. They tried to convince Madame de la Baudraye that herprinciples and aversions were a survival of provincial prudishness;and they preached the creed of woman's superiority. 

Before long, her jealousy put weapons into Lousteau's hands. Duringthe carnival of 1840, she disguised herself to go to the balls at theOpera-house, and to suppers where she met courtesans, in order to keepan eye on all Etienne's amusements. 

On the day of Mid-Lent--or rather, at eight on the morning after--Dinah came home from the ball in her fancy dress to go to bed. Shehad gone to spy on Lousteau, who, believing her to be ill, had engagedhimself for that evening to Fanny Beaupre. The journalist, warned by afriend, had behaved so as to deceive the poor woman, only too ready tobe deceived. 

As she stepped out of the hired cab, Dinah met Monsieur de laBaudraye, to whom the porter pointed her out. The little old man tookhis wife by the arm, saying, in an icy tone:

"So this is you, madame!"

This sudden advent of conjugal authority, before which she feltherself so small, and, above all, these words, almost froze the heartof the unhappy woman caught in the costume of a _debardeur_. To escapeEtienne's eye the more effectually, she had chosen a dress he was notlikely to detect her in. She took advantage of the mask she still hadon to escape without replying, changed her dress, and went up to hermother's rooms, where she found her husband waiting for her. In spiteof her assumed dignity, she blushed in the old man's presence. 

"What do you want of me, monsieur?" she asked. "Are we not separatedforever?"

"Actually, yes, " said Monsieur de la Baudraye. "Legally, no. "

Madame Piedefer was telegraphing signals to her daughter, which Dinahpresently observed and understood. 

"Nothing could have brought you here but your own interests, " shesaid, in a bitter tone. 

"_Our_ interests, " said the little man coldly, "for we have twochildren. --Your Uncle Silas Piedefer is dead, at New York, where, after having made and lost several fortunes in various parts of theworld, he has finally left some seven or eight hundred thousand francs--they say twelve--but there is stock-in-trade to be sold. I am thechief in our common interests, and act for you. "

"Oh!" cried Dinah, "in everything that relates to business, I trust noone but Monsieur de Clagny. He knows the law, come to terms with him;what he does, will be done right. "

"I have no occasion for Monsieur de Clagny, " answered Monsieur de laBaudraye, "to take my children from you--"

"Your children!" exclaimed Dinah. "Your children, to whom you have notsent a sou! _Your_ children!" She burst into a loud shout of laughter;but Monsieur de la Baudraye's unmoved coolness threw ice on theexplosion. 

"Your mother has just brought them to show me, " he went on. "They arecharming boys. I do not intend to part from them. I shall take them toour house at Anzy, if it were only to save them from seeing theirmother disguised like a--"

"Silence!" said Madame de la Baudraye imperatively. "What do you wantof me that brought you here?"

"A power of attorney to receive our Uncle Silas' property. "

Dinah took a pen, wrote two lines to Monsieur de Clagny, and desiredher husband to call again in the afternoon. 

At five o'clock, Monsieur de Clagny--who had been promoted to the postof Attorney-General--enlightened Madame de la Baudraye as to herposition; still, he undertook to arrange everything by a bargain withthe old fellow, whose visit had been prompted by avarice alone. Monsieur de la Baudraye, to whom his wife's power of attorney wasindispensable to enable him to deal with the business as he wished, purchased it by certain concessions. In the first place, he undertookto allow her ten thousand francs a year so long as she found itconvenient--so the document was worded--to reside in Paris; thechildren, each on attaining the age of six, were to be placed inMonsieur de la Baudraye's keeping. Finally, the lawyer extracted thepayment of the allowance in advance. 

Little La Baudraye, who came jauntily enough to say good-bye to hiswife and _his_ children, appeared in a white india-rubber overcoat. Hewas so firm on his feet, and so exactly like the La Baudraye of 1836, that Dinah despaired of ever burying the dreadful little dwarf. Fromthe garden, where he was smoking a cigar, the journalist could watchMonsieur de la Baudraye for so long as it took the little reptile tocross the forecourt, but that was enough for Lousteau; it was plain tohim that the little man had intended to wreck every hope of his dyingthat his wife might have conceived. 

This short scene made a considerable change in the writer's secretscheming. As he smoked a second cigar, he seriously reviewed theposition. 

His life with Madame de la Baudraye had hitherto cost him quite asmuch as it had cost her. To use the language of business, the twosides of the account balanced, and they could, if necessary, cryquits. Considering how small his income was, and how hardly he earnedit, Lousteau regarded himself, morally speaking, as the creditor. Itwas, no doubt, a favorable moment for throwing the woman over. Tiredat the end of three years of playing a comedy which never can become ahabit, he was perpetually concealing his weariness; and this fellow, who was accustomed to disguise none of his feelings, compelled himselfto wear a smile at home like that of a debtor in the presence of hiscreditor. This compulsion was every day more intolerable. 

Hitherto the immense advantages he foresaw in the future had given himstrength; but when he saw Monsieur de la Baudraye embark for theUnited States, as briskly as if it were to go down to Rouen in asteamboat, he ceased to believe in the future. 

He went in from the garden to the pretty drawing-room, where Dinah hadjust taken leave of her husband. 

"Etienne, " said Madame de la Baudraye, "do you know what my lord andmaster has proposed to me? In the event of my wishing to return tolive at Anzy during his absence, he has left his orders, and he hopesthat my mother's good advice will weigh with me, and that I shall goback there with my children. "

"It is very good advice, " replied Lousteau drily, knowing thepassionate disclaimer that Dinah expected, and indeed begged for withher eyes. 

The tone, the words, the cold look, all hit the hapless woman so hard, who lived only in her love, that two large tears trickled slowly downher cheeks, while she did not speak a word, and Lousteau only saw themwhen she took out her handkerchief to wipe away these two beads ofanguish. 

"What is it, Didine?" he asked, touched to the heart by this excessivesensibility. 

"Just as I was priding myself on having won our freedom, " said she--"at the cost of my fortune--by selling--what is most precious to amother's heart--selling my children!--for he is to have them from theage of six--and I cannot see them without going to Sancerre!--and thatis torture!--Ah, dear God! What have I done----?"

Lousteau knelt down by her and kissed her hands with a lavish displayof coaxing and petting. 

"You do not understand me, " said he. "I blame myself, for I am notworth such sacrifices, dear angel. I am, in a literary sense, a quitesecond-rate man. If the day comes when I can no longer cut a figure atthe bottom of the newspaper, the editors will let me lie, like an oldshoe flung into the rubbish heap. Remember, we tight-rope dancers haveno retiring pension! The State would have too many clever men on itshands if it started on such a career of beneficence. I am forty-two, and I am as idle as a marmot. I feel it--I know it"--and he took herby the hand--"my love can only be fatal to you. 

"As you know, at two-and-twenty I lived on Florine; but what isexcusable in a youth, what then seems smart and charming, is adisgrace to a man of forty. Hitherto we have shared the burden ofexistence, and it has not been lovely for this year and half. Out ofdevotion to me you wear nothing but black, and that does me nocredit. "--Dinah gave one of those magnanimous shrugs which are worthall the words ever spoken. --"Yes, " Etienne went on, "I know yousacrifice everything to my whims, even your beauty. And I, with aheart worn out in past struggles, a soul full of dark presentiments asto the future, I cannot repay your exquisite love with an equalaffection. We were very happy--without a cloud--for a long time. --Well, then, I cannot bear to see so sweet a poem end badly. Am Iwrong?"

Madame de la Baudraye loved Etienne so truly, that this prudence, worthy of de Clagny, gratified her and stanched her tears. 

"He loves me for myself alone!" thought she, looking at him withsmiling eyes. 

After four years of intimacy, this woman's love now combined everyshade of affection which our powers of analysis can discern, and whichmodern society has created; one of the most remarkable men of our age, whose death is a recent loss to the world of letters, Beyle(Stendhal), was the first to delineate them to perfection. 

Lousteau could produce in Dinah the acute agitation which may becompared to magnetism, that upsets every power of the mind and body, and overcomes every instinct of resistance in a woman. A look fromhim, or his hand laid on hers, reduced her to implicit obedience. Akind word or a smile wreathed the poor woman's soul with flowers; afond look elated, a cold look depressed her. When she walked, takinghis arm and keeping step with him in the street or on the boulevard, she was so entirely absorbed in him that she lost all sense ofherself. Fascinated by this fellow's wit, magnetized by his airs, hisvices were but trivial defects in her eyes. She loved the puffs ofcigar smoke that the wind brought into her room from the garden; shewent to inhale them, and made no wry faces, hiding herself to enjoythem. She hated the publisher or the newspaper editor who refusedLousteau money on the ground of the enormous advances he had hadalready. She deluded herself so far as to believe that her bohemianwas writing a novel, for which the payment was to come, instead ofworking off a debt long since incurred. 

This, no doubt, is true love, and includes every mode of loving; thelove of the heart and of the head--passion, caprice, and taste--toaccept Beyle's definitions. Didine loved him so wholly, that incertain moments when her critical judgment, just by nature, andconstantly exercised since she had lived in Paris, compelled her toread to the bottom of Lousteau's soul, sense was still too much forreason, and suggested excuses. 

"And what am I?" she replied. "A woman who has put herself outside thepale. Since I have sacrificed all a woman's honor, why should you notsacrifice to me some of a man's honor? Do we not live outside thelimits of social conventionality? Why not accept from me what Nathancan accept from Florine? We will square accounts when we part, andonly death can part us--you know. My happiness is your honor, Etienne, as my constancy and your happiness are mine. If I fail to make youhappy, all is at an end. If I cause you a pang, condemn me. 

"Our debts are paid; we have ten thousand francs a year, and betweenus we can certainly make eight thousand francs a year--I will writetheatrical articles. --With fifteen hundred francs a month we shall beas rich as Rothschild. --Be quite easy. I will have some lovelydresses, and give you every day some gratified vanity, as on the firstnight of Nathan's play--"

"And what about your mother, who goes to Mass every day, and wants tobring a priest to the house and make you give up this way of life?"

"Every one has a pet vice. You smoke, she preaches at me, poor woman!But she takes great care of the children, she takes them out, she isabsolutely devoted, and idolizes me. Would you hinder her fromcrying?"

"What will be thought of me?"

"But we do not live for the world!" cried she, raising Etienne andmaking him sit by her. "Besides, we shall be married some day--we havethe risks of a sea voyage----"

"I never thought of that, " said Lousteau simply; and he added tohimself, "Time enough to part when little La Baudraye is safe backagain. "

From that day forth Etienne lived in luxury; and Dinah, on firstnights, could hold her own with the best dressed women in Paris. Lousteau was so fatuous as to affect, among his friends, the attitudeof a man overborne, bored to extinction, ruined by Madame de laBaudraye. 

"Oh, what would I not give to the friend who would deliver me fromDinah! But no one ever can!" said he. "She loves me enough to throwherself out of the window if I told her. "

The journalist was duly pitied; he would take precautions againstDinah's jealousy when he accepted an invitation. And then he wasshamelessly unfaithful. Monsieur de Clagny, really in despair atseeing Dinah in such disgraceful circumstances when she might havebeen so rich, and in so wretched a position at the time when heroriginal ambitions would have been fulfilled, came to warn her, totell her--"You are betrayed, " and she only replied, "I know it. "

The lawyer was silenced; still he found his tongue to say one thing. 

Madame de la Baudraye interrupted him when he had scarcely spoken aword. 

"Do you still love me?" she asked. 

"I would lose my soul for you!" he exclaimed, starting to his feet. 

The hapless man's eyes flashed like torches, he trembled like a leaf, his throat was rigid, his hair thrilled to the roots; he believed hewas so blessed as to be accepted as his idol's avenger, and this poorjoy filled him with rapture. 

"Why are you so startled?" said she, making him sit down again. "Thatis how I love him. "

The lawyer understood this argument _ad hominem_. And there were tearsin the eyes of the Judge, who had just condemned a man to death!

Lousteau's satiety, that odious conclusion of such illicit relations, had betrayed itself in a thousand little things, which are like grainsof sand thrown against the panes of the little magical hut where thosewho love dwell and dream. These grains of sand, which grow to bepebbles, had never been discerned by Dinah till they were as big asrocks. Madame de la Baudraye had at last thoroughly understoodLousteau's character. 

"He is, " she said to her mother, "a poet, defenceless againstdisaster, mean out of laziness, not for want of heart, and rather tooprone to pleasure; in short, a great cat, whom it is impossible tohate. What would become of him without me? I hindered his marriage; hehas no prospects. His talent would perish in privations. "

"Oh, my Dinah!" Madame Piedefer had exclaimed, "what a hell you livein! What is the feeling that gives you strength enough to persist?"

"I will be a mother to him!" she had replied. 

There are certain horrible situations in which we come to no decisiontill the moment when our friends discern our dishonor. We acceptcompromises with ourself so long as we escape a censor who comes toplay prosecutor. Monsieur de Clagny, as clumsy as a tortured man, hadbeen torturing Dinah. 

"To preserve my love I will be all that Madame de Pompadour was topreserve her power, " said she to herself when Monsieur de Clagny hadleft her. And this phrase sufficiently proves that her love wasbecoming a burden to her, and would presently be a toil rather than apleasure. 

The part now assumed by Dinah was horribly painful, and Lousteau madeit no easier to play. When he wanted to go out after dinner he wouldperform the tenderest little farces of affection, and address Dinah inwords full of devotion; he would take her by the chain, and when hehad bruised her with it, even while he hurt her, the lordly ingratewould say, "Did I wound you?"

These false caresses and deceptions had degrading consequences forDinah, who believed in a revival of his love. The mother, alas, gaveway to the mistress with shameful readiness. She felt herself a mereplaything in the man's hands, and at last she confessed to herself:

"Well, then, I will be his plaything!" finding joy in it--the raptureof damnation. 

When this woman, of a really manly spirit, pictured herself as livingin solitude, she felt her courage fail. She preferred the anticipatedand inevitable miseries of this fierce intimacy to the absence of thejoys, which were all the more exquisite because they arose from themidst of remorse, of terrible struggles with herself, of a _No_persuaded to be _Yes_. At every moment she seemed to come across thepool of bitter water found in a desert, and drunk with greater relishthan the traveler would find in sipping the finest wines at a prince'stable. 

When Dinah wondered to herself at midnight:

"Will he come home, or will he not?" she was not alive again till sheheard the familiar sound of Lousteau's boots, and his well-known ringat the bell. 

She would often try to restrain him by giving him pleasure; she wouldhope to be a match for her rivals, and leave them no hold on thatagitated heart. How many times a day would she rehearse the tragedy of_Le Dernier Jour d'un condamne_, saying to herself, "To-morrow wepart. " And how often would a word, a look, a kiss full of apparentlyartless feeling, bring her back to the depths of her love!

It was terrible. More than once had she meditated suicide as she pacedthe little town garden where a few pale flowers bloomed. In fact, shehad not yet exhausted the vast treasure of devotion and love which aloving woman bears in her heart. 

The romance of _Adolphe_ was her Bible, her study, for above all elseshe would not be an Ellenore. She allowed herself no tears, sheavoided all the bitterness so cleverly described by the critic to whomwe owe an analysis of this striking work; whose comments indeed seemedto Dinah almost superior to the book. And she read again and againthis fine essay by the only real critic who has written in the _Revuedes Deux Mondes_, an article now printed at the beginning of the newedition of _Adolphe_. 

"No, " she would say to herself, as she repeated the author's fatefulwords, "no, I will not 'give my requests the form of an order, ' I willnot 'fly to tears as a means of revenge, ' I will not 'condemn thethings I once approved without reservation, ' I will not 'dog hisfootsteps with a prying eye'; if he plays truant, he shall not on hisreturn 'see a scornful lip, whose kiss is an unanswerable command. 'No, 'my silence shall not be a reproach nor my first word a quarrel. '--I will not be like every other woman!" she went on, laying on hertable the little yellow paper volume which had already attractedLousteau's remark, "What! are you studying _Adolphe_?"--"If for oneday only he should recognize my merits and say, 'That victim neveruttered a cry!'--it will be all I ask. And besides, the others onlyhave him for an hour; I have him for life!"

Thinking himself justified by his private tribunal in punishing hiswife, Monsieur de la Baudraye robbed her to achieve his cherishedenterprise of reclaiming three thousand acres of moorland, to which hehad devoted himself ever since 1836, living like a mouse. Hemanipulated the property left by Monsieur Silas Piedefer soingeniously, that he contrived to reduce the proved value to eighthundred thousand francs, while pocketing twelve hundred thousand. Hedid not announce his return; but while his wife was enduringunspeakable woes, he was building farms, digging trenches, andploughing rough ground with a courage that ranked him among the mostremarkable agriculturists of the province. 

The four hundred thousand francs he had filched from his wife werespent in three years on this undertaking, and the estate of Anzy wasexpected to return seventy-two thousand francs a year of net profitsafter the taxes were paid. The eight hundred thousand he invested atfour and a half per cent in the funds, buying at eighty francs, at thetime of the financial crisis brought about by the Ministry of theFirst of March, as it was called. By thus securing to his wife anincome of forty-eight thousand francs he considered himself no longerin her debt. Could he not restore the odd twelve hundred thousand assoon as the four and a half per cents had risen above a hundred? Hewas now the greatest man in Sancerre, with the exception of one--therichest proprietor in France--whose rival he considered himself. Hesaw himself with an income of a hundred and forty thousand francs, ofwhich ninety thousand formed the revenue from the lands he hadentailed. Having calculated that besides this net income he paid tenthousand francs in taxes, three thousand in working expenses, tenthousand to his wife, and twelve hundred to his mother-in-law, hewould say in the literary circles of Sancerre:

"I am reputed miserly, and said to spend nothing; but my outlayamounts to twenty-six thousand five hundred francs a year. And I havestill to pay for the education of my two children! I daresay it is nota pleasing fact to the Milauds of Nevers, but the second house of LaBaudraye may yet have as noble a center as the first. --I shall mostlikely go to Paris and petition the King of the French to grant me thetitle of Count--Monsieur Roy is a Count--and my wife would be pleasedto be Madame la Comtesse. "

And this was said with such splendid coolness that no one would havedared to laugh at the little man. Only Monsieur Boirouge, thePresiding Judge, remarked:

"In your place, I should not be happy unless I had a daughter. "

"Well, I shall go to Paris before long----" said the Baron. 

In the early part of 1842 Madame de la Baudraye, feeling that she wasto Lousteau no more than a reserve in the background, had againsacrificed herself absolutely to secure his comfort; she had resumedher black raiment, but now it was in sign of mourning, for herpleasure was turning to remorse. She was too often put to shame not tofeel the weight of the chain, and her mother found her sunk in thosemoods of meditation into which visions of the future cast unhappysouls in a sort of torpor. 

Madame Piedefer, by the advice of her spiritual director, was on thewatch for the moment of exhaustion, which the priest told her wouldinevitably supervene, and then she pleaded in behalf of the children. She restricted herself to urging that Dinah and Lousteau should liveapart, not asking her to give him up. In real life these violentsituations are not closed as they are in books, by death or cleverlycontrived catastrophes; they end far less poetically--in disgust, inthe blighting of every flower of the soul, in the commonplace ofhabit, and very often too in another passion, which robs a wife of theinterest which is traditionally ascribed to women. So, when commonsense, the law of social proprieties, family interest--all the mixedelements which, since the Restoration, have been dignified by the maneof Public Morals, out of sheer aversion to the name of the Catholicreligion--where this is seconded by a sense of insults a little toooffensive; when the fatigue of constant self-sacrifice has almostreached the point of exhaustion; and when, under these circumstances, a too cruel blow--one of those mean acts which a man never lets awoman know of unless he believes himself to be her assured master--puts the crowning touch to her revulsion and disenchantment, themoment has come for the intervention of the friend who undertakes thecure. Madame Piedefer had no great difficulty now in removing the filmfrom her daughter's eyes. 

She sent for Monsieur de Clagny, who completed the work by assuringMadame de la Baudraye that if she would give up Etienne, her husbandwould allow her to keep the children and to live in Paris, and wouldrestore her to the command of her own fortune. 

"And what a life you are leading!" said he. "With care and judgment, and the support of some pious and charitable persons, you may have asalon and conquer a position. Paris is not Sancerre. "

Dinah left it to Monsieur de Clagny to negotiate a reconciliation withthe old man. 

Monsieur de la Baudraye had sold his wine well, he had sold his wool, he had felled his timber, and, without telling his wife, he had cometo Paris to invest two hundred thousand francs in the purchase of adelightful residence in the Rue de l'Arcade, that was being sold inliquidation of an aristocratic House that was in difficulties. He hadbeen a member of the Council for the Department since 1826, and now, paying ten thousand francs in taxes, he was doubly qualified for apeerage under the conditions of the new legislation. 

Some time before the elections of 1842 he had put himself forward ascandidate unless he were meanwhile called to the Upper House as Peerof France. At the same time, he asked for the title of Count, and forpromotion to the higher grade of the Legion of Honor. In the matter ofthe elections, the dynastic nominations; now, in the event of Monsieurde la Baudraye being won over to the Government, Sancerre would bemore than ever a rotten borough of royalism. Monsieur de Clagny, whosetalents and modesty were more and more highly appreciated by theauthorities, gave Monsieur de la Baudraye his support; he pointed outthat by raising this enterprising agriculturist to the peerage, aguarantee would be offered to such important undertakings. 

Monsieur de la Baudraye, then, a Count, a Peer of France, andCommander of the Legion of Honor, was vain enough to wish to cut afigure with a wife and handsomely appointed house. --"He wanted toenjoy life, " he said. 

He therefore addressed a letter to his wife, dictated by Monsieur deClagny, begging her to live under his roof and to furnish the house, giving play to the taste of which the evidences, he said, had charmedhim at the Chateau d'Anzy. The newly made Count pointed out to hiswife that while the interests of their property forbade his leavingSancerre, the education of their boys required her presence in Paris. The accommodating husband desired Monsieur de Clagny to place sixtythousand francs at the disposal of Madame la Comtesse for the interiordecoration of their mansion, requesting that she would have a marbletablet inserted over the gateway with the inscription: _Hotel de laBaudraye_. 

He then accounted to his wife for the money derived from the estate ofSilas Piedefer, told her of the investment at four and a half per centof the eight hundred thousand francs he had brought from New York, andallowed her that income for her expenses, including the education ofthe children. As he would be compelled to stay in Paris during somepart of the session of the House of Peers, he requested his wife toreserve for him a little suite of rooms in an _entresol_ over thekitchens. 

"Bless me! why, he is growing young again--a gentleman!--a magnifico!--What will he become next? It is quite alarming, " said Madame de laBaudraye. 

"He now fulfils all your wishes at the age of twenty, " replied thelawyer. 

The comparison of her future prospects with her present position wasunendurable to Dinah. Only the day before, Anna de Fontaine had turnedher head away in order to avoid seeing her bosom friend at theChamarolles' school. 

"I am a countess, " said Dinah to herself. "I shall have the peer'sblue hammer-cloth on my carriage, and the leaders of the literaryworld in my drawing-room--and I will look at her!"--And it was thislittle triumph that told with all its weight at the moment of herrehabilitation, as the world's contempt had of old weighed on herhappiness. 

One fine day, in May 1842, Madame de la Baudraye paid all her littlehousehold debts and left a thousand crowns on top of the packet ofreceipted bills. After sending her mother and the children away to theHotel de la Baudraye, she awaited Lousteau, dressed ready to leave thehouse. When the deposed king of her heart came into dinner, she said:

"I have upset the pot, my dear. Madame de la Baudraye requests thepleasure of your company at the _Rocher de Cancale_. "

She carried off Lousteau, quite bewildered by the light and easymanners assumed by the woman who till that morning has been the slaveof his least whim, for she too had been acting a farce for two monthspast. 

"Madame de la Baudraye is figged out as if for a first night, " said he--_une premiere_, the slang abbreviation for a first performance. 

"Do not forget the respect you owe to Madame de la Baudraye, " saidDinah gravely. "I do not mean to understand such a word as _figgedout_. "

"Didine a rebel!" said he, putting his arm round her waist. 

"There is no such person as Didine; you have killed her, my dear, " shereplied, releasing herself. "I am taking you to the first performanceof _Madame la Comtesse de la Baudraye_. "

"It is true, then, that our insect is a peer of France?"

"The nomination is to be gazetted in this evening's _Moniteur_, as Iam told by Monsieur de Clagny, who is promoted to the Court ofAppeal. "

"Well, it is quite right, " said the journalist. "The entomology ofsociety ought to be represented in the Upper House. "

"My friend, we are parting for ever, " said Madame de la Baudraye, trying to control the trembling of her voice. "I have dismissed thetwo servants. When you go in, you will find the house in order, and nodebts. I shall always feel a mother's affection for you, but insecret. Let us part calmly, without a fuss, like decent people. 

"Have you had a fault to find with my conduct during the past sixyears?"

"None, but that you have spoiled my life, and wrecked my prospects, "said he in a hard tone. "You have read Benjamin Constant's book verydiligently; you have even studied the last critique on it; but youhave read with a woman's eyes. Though you have one of those superiorintellects which would make a fortune of a poet, you have never daredto take the man's point of view. 

"That book, my dear, is of both sexes. --We agreed that books were maleor female, dark or fair. In _Adolphe_ women see nothing but Ellenore;young men see only Adolphe; men of experience see Ellenore andAdolphe; political men see the whole of social existence. You did notthink it necessary to read the soul of Adolphe--any more than yourcritic indeed, who saw only Ellenore. What kills that poor fellow, mydear, is that he has sacrificed his future for a woman; that he nevercan be what he might have been--an ambassador, a minister, achamberlain, a poet--and rich. He gives up six years of his energy atthat stage of his life when a man is ready to submit to the hardshipsof any apprenticeship--to a petticoat, which he outstrips in thecareer of ingratitude, for the woman who has thrown over her firstlover is certain sooner or later to desert the second. Adolphe is, infact, a tow-haired German, who has not spirit enough to be false toEllenore. There are Adolphes who spare their Ellenores all ignominiousquarreling and reproaches, who say to themselves, 'I will not talk ofwhat I have sacrificed; I will not for ever be showing the stump of mywrist to let that incarnate selfishness I have made my queen, ' asRamorny does in _The Fair Maid of Perth_. But men like that, my dear, get cast aside. 

"Adolphe is a man of birth, an aristocratic nature, who wants to getback into the highroad to honors and recover his social birthright, his blighted position. --You, at this moment, are playing both parts. You are suffering from the pangs of having lost your position, andthink yourself justified in throwing over a hapless lover whosemisfortune it has been that he fancied you so far superior as tounderstand that, though a man's heart ought to be true, his sex may beallowed to indulge its caprices. "

"And do you suppose that I shall not make it my business to restore toyou all you have lost by me? Be quite easy, " said Madame de laBaudraye, astounded by this attack. "Your Ellenore is not dying; andif God gives her life, if you amend your ways, if you give upcourtesans and actresses, we will find you a better match than aFelicie Cardot. "

The two lovers were sullen. Lousteau affected dejection, he aimed atappearing hard and cold; while Dinah, really distressed, listened tothe reproaches of her heart. 

"Why, " said Lousteau presently, "why not end as we ought to have begun--hide our love from all eyes, and see each other in secret?"

"Never!" cried the new-made Countess, with an icy look. "Do you notcomprehend that we are, after all, but finite creatures? Our feelingsseem infinite by reason of our anticipation of heaven, but here onearth they are limited by the strength of our physical being. Thereare some feeble, mean natures which may receive an endless number ofwounds and live on; but there are some more highly-tempered soulswhich snap at last under repeated blows. You have--"

"Oh! enough!" cried he. "No more copy! Your dissertation isunnecessary, since you can justify yourself by merely saying--'I haveceased to love!'"

"What!" she exclaimed in bewilderment. "Is it I who have ceased tolove?"

"Certainly. You have calculated that I gave you more trouble, morevexation than pleasure, and you desert your partner--"

"I desert!----" cried she, clasping her hands. 

"Have not you yourself just said 'Never'?"

"Well, then, yes! _Never_, " she repeated vehemently. 

This final _Never_, spoken in the fear of falling once more underLousteau's influence, was interpreted by him as the death-warrant ofhis power, since Dinah remained insensible to his sarcastic scorn. 

The journalist could not suppress a tear. He was losing a sincere andunbounded affection. He had found in Dinah the gentlest La Valliere, the most delightful Pompadour that any egoist short of a king couldhope for; and, like a boy who has discovered that by dint oftormenting a cockchafer he has killed it, Lousteau shed a tear. 

Madame de la Baudraye rushed out of the private room where they hadbeen dining, paid the bill, and fled home to the Rue de l'Arcade, scolding herself and thinking herself a brute. 

Dinah, who had made her house a model of comfort, now metamorphosedherself. This double metamorphosis cost thirty thousand francs morethan her husband had anticipated. 

The fatal accident which in 1842 deprived the House of Orleans of theheir-presumptive having necessitated a meeting of the Chambers inAugust of that year, little La Baudraye came to present his titles tothe Upper House sooner than he had expected, and then saw what hiswife had done. He was so much delighted, that he paid the thirtythousand francs without a word, just as he had formerly paid eightthousand for decorating La Baudraye. 

On his return from the Luxembourg, where he had been presentedaccording to custom by two of his peers--the Baron de Nucingen and theMarquis de Montriveau--the new Count met the old Duc de Chaulieu, aformer creditor, walking along, umbrella in hand, while he himself satperched in a low chaise on which his coat-of-arms was resplendent, with the motto, _Deo sic patet fides et hominibus_. This contrastfilled his heart with a large draught of the balm on which the middleclass has been getting drunk ever since 1840. 

Madame de la Baudraye was shocked to see her husband improved andlooking better than on the day of his marriage. The little dwarf, fullof rapturous delight, at sixty-four triumphed in the life which had solong been denied him; in the family, which his handsome cousin Milaudof Nevers had declared he would never have; and in his wife--who hadasked Monsieur and Madame de Clagny to dinner to meet the cure of theparish and his two sponsors to the Chamber of Peers. He petted thechildren with fatuous delight. 

The handsome display on the table met with his approval. 

"These are the fleeces of the Berry sheep, " said he, showing Monsieurde Nucingen the dish-covers surmounted by his newly-won coronet. "Theyare of silver, you see!"

Though consumed by melancholy, which she concealed with thedetermination of a really superior woman, Dinah was charming, witty, and above all, young again in her court mourning. 

"You might declare, " cried La Baudraye to Monsieur de Nucingen with awave of his hand to his wife, "that the Countess was not yet thirty. "

"Ah, ha! Matame is a voman of dirty!" replied the baron, who was proneto time-honored remarks, which he took to be the small change ofconversation. 

"In every sense of the words, " replied the Countess. "I am, in fact, five-and-thirty, and mean to set up a little passion--"

"Oh, yes, my wife ruins me in curiosities and china images--"

"She started that mania at an early age, " said the Marquis deMontriveau with a smile. 

"Yes, " said La Baudraye, with a cold stare at the Marquis, whom he hadknown at Bourges, "you know that in '25, '26, and '27, she picked amillion francs' worth of treasures. Anzy is a perfect museum. "

"What a cool hand!" thought Monsieur de Clagny, as he saw this littlecountry miser quite on the level of his new position. 

But misers have savings of all kinds ready for use. 

On the day after the vote on the Regency had passed the Chambers, thelittle Count went back to Sancerre for the vintage and resumed his oldhabits. 

In the course of that winter, the Comtesse de la Baudraye, with thesupport of the Attorney-General to the Court of Appeals, tried to forma little circle. Of course, she had an "at home" day, she made aselection among men of mark, receiving none but those of seriouspurpose and ripe years. She tried to amuse herself by going to theOpera, French and Italian. Twice a week she appeared there with hermother and Madame de Clagny, who was made by her husband to visitDinah. Still, in spite of her cleverness, her charming manners, herfashionable stylishness, she was never really happy but with herchildren, on whom she lavished all her disappointed affection. 

Worthy Monsieur de Clagny tried to recruit women for the Countess'circle, and he succeeded; but he was more successful among theadvocates of piety than the women of fashion. 

"And they bore her!" said he to himself with horror, as he saw hisidol matured by grief, pale from remorse, and then, in all thesplendor of recovered beauty, restored by a life of luxury and carefor her boys. This devoted friend, encouraged in his efforts by hermother and by the cure was full of expedient. Every Wednesday heintroduced some celebrity from Germany, England, Italy, or Prussia tohis dear Countess; he spoke of her as a quite exceptional woman topeople to whom she hardly addressed two words; but she listened tothem with such deep attention that they went away fully convinced ofher superiority. In Paris, Dinah conquered by silence, as at Sancerreshe had conquered by loquacity. Now and then, some smart saying aboutaffairs, or sarcasm on an absurdity, betrayed a woman accustomed todeal with ideas--the woman who, four years since, had given new lifeto Lousteau's articles. 

This phase was to the poor lawyer's hapless passion like the lateseason known as the Indian summer after a sunless year. He affected tobe older than he was, to have the right to befriend Dinah withoutdoing her an injury, and kept himself at a distance as though he wereyoung, handsome, and compromising, like a man who has happiness toconceal. He tried to keep his little attentions a profound secret, andthe trifling gifts which Dinah showed to every one; he endeavored tosuggest a dangerous meaning for his little services. 

"He plays at passion, " said the Countess, laughing. She made fun ofMonsieur de Clagny to his face, and the lawyer said, "She notices me. "

"I impress that poor man so deeply, " said she to her mother, laughing, "that if I would say Yes, I believe he would say No. "

One evening Monsieur de Clagny and his wife were taking his dearCountess home from the theatre, and she was deeply pensive. They hadbeen to the first performance of Leon Gozlan's first play, _La MainDroite et la Main Gauche_ (The Right Hand and the Left). 

"What are you thinking about?" asked the lawyer, alarmed at his idol'sdejection. 

This deep and persistent melancholy, though disguised by the Countess, was a perilous malady for which Monsieur de Clagny knew no remedy; fortrue love is often clumsy, especially when it is not reciprocated. True love takes its expression from the character. Now, this good manloved after the fashion of Alceste, when Madame de la Baudraye wantedto be loved after the manner of Philinte. The meaner side of love cannever get on with the Misanthrope's loyalty. Thus, Dinah had takencare never to open her heart to this man. How could she confess to himthat she sometimes regretted the slough she had left?

She felt a void in this fashionable life; she had no one for whom todress, or whom to tell of her successes and triumphs. Sometimes thememory of her wretchedness came to her, mingled with memories ofconsuming joys. She would hate Lousteau for not taking any pains tofollow her; she would have liked to get tender or furious letters fromhim. 

Dinah made no reply, so Monsieur de Clagny repeated the question, taking the Countess' hand and pressing it between his own with devoutrespect. 

"Will you have the right hand or the left?" said she, smiling. 

"The left, " said he, "for I suppose you mean the truth or a fib. "

"Well, then, I saw him, " she said, speaking into the lawyer's ear. "And as I saw him looking so sad, so out of heart, I said to myself, Has he a cigar? Has he any money?"

"If you wish for the truth, I can tell it you, " said the lawyer. "Heis living as a husband with Fanny Beaupre. You have forced me to tellyou this secret; I should never have told you, for you might havesuspected me perhaps of an ungenerous motive. "

Madame de la Baudraye grasped his hand. 

"Your husband, " said she to her chaperon, "is one of the rarest souls!--Ah! Why----"

She shrank into her corner, looking out of the window, but she did notfinish her sentence, of which the lawyer could guess the end: "Why hadnot Lousteau a little of your husband's generosity of heart?"

This information served, however, to cure Dinah of her melancholy; shethrew herself into the whirl of fashion. She wished for success, andshe achieved it; still, she did not make much way with women, andfound it difficult to get introductions. 

In the month of March, Madame Piedefer's friends the priests andMonsieur de Clagny made a fine stroke by getting Madame de la Baudrayeappointed receiver of subscriptions for the great charitable workfounded by Madame de Carcado. Then she was commissioned to collectfrom the Royal Family their donations for the benefit of the sufferersfrom the earthquake at Guadeloupe. The Marquise d'Espard, to whomMonsieur de Canalis read the list of ladies thus appointed, oneevening at the Opera, said, on hearing that of the Countess:

"I have lived a long time in the world, and I can remember nothingfiner than the manoeuvres undertaken for the rehabilitation of Madamede la Baudraye. "

In the early spring, which, by some whim of our planets, smiled onParis in the first week of March in 1843, making the Champs-Elyseesgreen and leafy before Longchamp, Fanny Beaupre's attache had seenMadame de la Baudraye several times without being seen by her. Morethan once he was stung to the heart by one of those promptings ofjealousy and envy familiar to those who are born and bred provincials, when he beheld his former mistress comfortably ensconced in a handsomecarriage, well dressed, with dreamy eyes, and his two little boys, oneat each window. He accused himself with all the more virulence becausehe was waging war with the sharpest poverty of all--povertyunconfessed. Like all essentially light and frivolous natures, hecherished the singular point of honor which consists in neverderogating in the eyes of one's own little public, which makes men onthe Bourse commit crimes to escape expulsion from the temple of thegoddess Per-cent, and has given some criminals courage enough toperform acts of virtue. 

Lousteau dined and breakfasted and smoked as if he were a rich man. Not for an inheritance would he have bought any but the dearestcigars, for himself as well as for the playwright or author with whomhe went into the shop. The journalist took his walks abroad in patentleather boots; but he was constantly afraid of an execution on goodswhich, to use the bailiff's slang, had already received the lastsacrament. Fanny Beaupre had nothing left to pawn, and her salary waspledged to pay her debts. After exhausting every possible advance ofpay from newspapers, magazines, and publishers, Etienne knew not ofwhat ink he could churn gold. Gambling-houses, so ruthlesslysuppressed, could no longer, as of old, cash I O U's drawn over thegreen table by beggary in despair. In short, the journalist wasreduced to such extremity that he had just borrowed a hundred francsof the poorest of his friends, Bixiou, from whom he had never yetasked for a franc. What distressed Lousteau was not the fact of owingfive thousand francs, but seeing himself bereft of his elegance, andof the furniture purchased at the cost of so many privations, andadded to by Madame de la Baudraye. 

On April the 3rd, a yellow poster, torn down by the porter after beingdisplayed on the wall, announced the sale of a handsome suite offurniture on the following Saturday, the day fixed for sales underlegal authority. Lousteau was taking a walk, smoking cigars, andseeking ideas--for, in Paris, ideas are in the air, they smile on youfrom a street corner, they splash up with a spurt of mud from underthe wheels of a cab! Thus loafing, he had been seeking ideas forarticles, and subjects for novels for a month past, and had foundnothing but friends who carried him off to dinner or to the play, andwho intoxicated his woes, telling him that champagne would inspirehim. 

"Beware, " said the virulent Bixiou one night, the man who would at thesame moment give a comrade a hundred francs and stab him to the heartwith a sarcasm; "if you go to sleep drunk every night, one day youwill wake up mad. "

On the day before, the Friday, the unhappy wretch, although he wasaccustomed to poverty, felt like a man condemned to death. Of old hewould have said:

"Well, the furniture is very old! I will buy new. "

But he was incapable now of literary legerdemain. Publishers, undermined by piracy, paid badly; the newspapers made close bargainswith hard-driven writers, as the Opera managers did with tenors thatsang flat. 

He walked on, his eye on the crowd, though seeing nothing, a cigar inhis mouth, and his hands in his pockets, every feature of his facetwitching, and an affected smile on his lips. Then he saw Madame de laBaudraye go by in a carriage; she was going to the Boulevard by theRue de la Chaussee d'Antin to drive in the Bois. 

"There is nothing else left!" said he to himself, and he went home tosmarten himself up. 

That evening, at seven, he arrived in a hackney cab at Madame de laBaudraye's door, and begged the porter to send a note up to theCountess--a few lines, as follows:

"Would Madame la Comtesse do Monsieur Lousteau the favor of receivinghim for a moment, and at once?"

This note was sealed with a seal which as lovers they had both used. Madame de la Baudraye had had the word _Parce que_ engraved on agenuine Oriental carnelian--a potent word--a woman's word--the wordthat accounts for everything, even for the Creation. 

The Countess had just finished dressing to go to the Opera; Friday washer night in turn for her box. At the sight of this seal she turnedpale. 

"I will come, " she said, tucking the note into her dress. 

She was firm enough to conceal her agitation, and begged her mother tosee the children put to bed. She then sent for Lousteau, and receivedhim in a boudoir, next to the great drawing-room, with open doors. Shewas going to a ball after the Opera, and was wearing a beautiful dressof brocade in stripes alternately plain and flowered with pale blue. Her gloves, trimmed with tassels, showed off her beautiful white arms. She was shimmering with lace and all the dainty trifles required byfashion. Her hair, dressed _a la Sevigne_, gave her a look ofelegance; a necklace of pearls lay on her bosom like bubbles on snow. 

"What is the matter, monsieur?" said the Countess, putting out herfoot from below her skirt to rest it on a velvet cushion. "I thought, I hoped, I was quite forgotten. "

"If I should reply _Never_, you would refuse to believe me, " saidLousteau, who remained standing, or walked about the room, chewing theflowers he plucked from the flower-stands full of plants that scentedthe room. 

For a moment silence reigned. Madame de la Baudraye, studyingLousteau, saw that he was dressed as the most fastidious dandy mighthave been. 

"You are the only person in the world who can help me, or hold out aplank to me--for I am drowning, and have already swallowed more thanone mouthful----" said he, standing still in front of Dinah, andseeming to yield to an overpowering impulse. "Since you see me here, it is because my affairs are going to the devil. "

"That is enough, " said she; "I understand. "

There was another pause, during which Lousteau turned away, took outhis handkerchief, and seemed to wipe away a tear. 

"How much do you want, Etienne, " she went on in motherly tones. "Weare at this moment old comrades; speak to me as you would to--toBixiou. "

"To save my furniture from vanishing into thin air to-morrow morningat the auction mart, eighteen hundred francs! To repay my friends, asmuch again! Three quarters' rent to the landlord--whom you know. --My'uncle' wants five hundred francs--"

"And you!--to live on?"

"Oh! I have my pen----"

"It is heavier to lift than any one could believe who reads yourarticles, " said she, with a subtle smile. --"I have not such a sum asyou need, but come to-morrow at eight; the bailiff will surely waittill nine, especially if you bring him away to pay him. "

She must, she felt, dismiss Lousteau, who affected to be unable tolook at her; she herself felt such pity as might cut every socialGordian knot. 

"Thank you, " she added, rising and offering her hand to Lousteau. "Your confidence has done me good! It is long indeed since my hearthas known such joy----"

Lousteau took her hand and pressed it tenderly to his heart. 

"A drop of water in the desert--and sent by the hand of an angel! Godalways does things handsomely!"

He spoke half in jest and half pathetically; but, believe me, as apiece of acting it was as fine as Talma's in his famous part of_Leicester_, which was played throughout with touches of this kind. Dinah felt his heart beating through his coat; it was throbbing withsatisfaction, for the journalist had had a narrow escape from thehulks of justice; but it also beat with a very natural fire at seeingDinah rejuvenescent and restored by wealth. 

Madame de la Baudraye, stealing an examining glance at Etienne, sawthat his expression was in harmony with the flowers of love, which, asshe thought, had blossomed again in that throbbing heart; she tried tolook once into the eyes of the man she had loved so well, but theseething blood rushed through her veins and mounted to her brain. Their eyes met with the same fiery glow as had encouraged Lousteau onthe Quay by the Loire to crumple Dinah's muslin gown. The Bohemian puthis arm round her waist, she yielded, and their cheeks were touching. 

"Here comes my mother, hide!" cried Dinah in alarm. And she hurriedforward to intercept Madame Piedefer. 

"Mamma, " said she--this word was to the stern old lady a coaxingexpression which never failed of its effect--"will you do me a greatfavor? Take the carriage and go yourself to my banker, MonsieurMongenod, with a note I will give you, and bring back six thousandfrancs. Come, come--it is an act of charity; come into my room. "

And she dragged away her mother, who seemed very anxious to see who itwas that her daughter had been talking with in the boudoir. 

Two days afterwards, Madame Piedefer held a conference with the cureof the parish. After listening to the lamentations of the old mother, who was in despair, the priest said very gravely:

"Any moral regeneration which is not based on a strong religioussentiment, and carried out in the bosom of the Church, is built onsand. --The many means of grace enjoined by the Catholic religion, small as they are, and not understood, are so many dams necessary torestrain the violence of evil promptings. Persuade your daughter toperform all her religious duties, and we shall save her yet. "

Within ten days of this meeting the Hotel de la Baudraye was shut up. The Countess, the children, and her mother, in short, the wholehousehold, including a tutor, had gone away to Sancerre, where Dinahintended to spend the summer. She was everything that was nice to theCount, people said. 

And so the Muse of Sancerre had simply come back to family and marriedlife; but certain evil tongues declared that she had been compelled tocome back, for that the little peer's wishes would no doubt befulfilled--he hoped for a little girl. 

Gatien and Monsieur Gravier lavished every care, every servileattention on the handsome Countess. Gatien, who during Madame de laBaudraye's long absence had been to Paris to learn the art of_lionnerie_ or dandyism, was supposed to have a good chance of findingfavor in the eyes of the disenchanted "Superior Woman. " Others bet onthe tutor; Madame Piedefer urged the claims of religion. 

In 1844, about the middle of June, as the Comte de la Baudraye wastaking a walk on the Mall at Sancerre with the two fine little boys, he met Monsieur Milaud, the Public Prosecutor, who was at Sancerre onbusiness, and said to him:

"These are my children, cousin. "

"Ah, ha! so these are our children!" replied the lawyer, with amischievous twinkle. 

PARIS, June 1843-August 1844. 

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. 

Beaupre, Fanny A Start in Life Modeste Mignon Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Berthier, Madame (Felicie Cardot) Cousin Pons

Bianchon, Horace Father Goriot The Atheist's Mass Cesar Birotteau The Commission in Lunacy Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment The Secrets of a Princess The Government Clerks Pierrette A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side of History The Magic Skin A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Imaginary Mistress The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country ParsonIn addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: Another Study of Woman La Grande Breteche

Bixiou, Jean-Jacques The Purse A Bachelor's Establishment The Government Clerks Modeste Mignon Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Firm of Nucingen Cousin Betty The Member for Arcis Beatrix A Man of Business Gaudissart II. The Unconscious Humorists Cousin Pons

Camusot A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment Cousin Pons Cesar Birotteau At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

Cardot (Parisian notary) A Man of Business Jealousies of a Country Town Pierre Grassou The Middle Classes Cousin Pons

Chargeboeuf, Melchior-Rene, Vicomte de The Member for Arcis

Falcon, Jean The Chouans Cousin Betty

Grosstete (younger brother of F. Grosstete) The Country Parson

Hulot (Marshal) The Chouans Cousin Betty

La Baudraye, Madame Polydore Milaud de A Prince of Bohemia Cousin Betty

Lebas Cousin Betty

Listomere, Baronne de The Vicar of Tours Cesar Birotteau

Lousteau, Etienne A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment Scenes from a Courtesan's Life A Daughter of Eve Beatrix Cousin Betty A Prince of Bohemia A Man of Business The Middle Classes The Unconscious Humorists

Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des Eugenie Grandet A Bachelor's Establishment A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Government Clerks Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Ursule Mirouet

Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de The Secrets of a Princess Modeste Mignon Jealousies of a Country Town Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Letters of Two Brides Another Study of Woman The Gondreville Mystery The Member for Arcis

Milaud Lost Illusions

Nathan, Raoul Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve Letters of Two Brides The Seamy Side of History A Prince of Bohemia A Man of Business The Unconscious Humorists

Nathan, Madame Raoul Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Government Clerks A Bachelor's Establishment Ursule Mirouet Eugenie Grandet The Imaginary Mistress A Prince of Bohemia A Daughter of Eve The Unconscious Humorists

Navarreins, Duc de A Bachelor's Establishment Colonel Chabert The Thirteen Jealousies of a Country Town The Peasantry Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Country Parson The Magic Skin The Gondreville Mystery The Secrets of a Princess Cousin Betty

Nucingen, Baron Frederic de The Firm of Nucingen Father Goriot Pierrette Cesar Birotteau Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Another Study of Woman The Secrets of a Princess A Man of Business Cousin Betty The Unconscious Humorists

Ronceret, Madame Fabien du Beatrix Cousin Betty The Unconscious Humorists

Rouget, Jean-Jacques A Bachelor's Establishment

Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des Beatrix Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment Another Study of Woman A Daughter of Eve Honorine Beatrix

Turquet, Marguerite The Imaginary Mistress A Man of Business Cousin Betty

Vandenesse, Comtesse Felix de A Second Home A Daughter of Eve