AN OLD MAID

 BY

 HONORE DE BALZAC

 Translated By Katharine Prescott Wormeley

 DEDICATION

 To Monsieur Eugene-Auguste-Georges-Louis Midy de la Greneraye Surville, Royal Engineer of the Ponts at Chausses. 

 As a testimony to the affection of his brother-in-law, De Balzac

 AN OLD MAID

 CHAPTER I

 ONE OF MANY CHEVALIERS DE VALOIS

Most persons have encountered, in certain provinces in France, anumber of Chevaliers de Valois. One lived in Normandy, another atBourges, a third (with whom we have here to do) flourished in Alencon, and doubtless the South possesses others. The number of the Valesiantribe is, however, of no consequence to the present tale. All thesechevaliers, among whom were doubtless some who were Valois as LouisXIV. Was Bourbon, knew so little of one another that it was notadvisable to speak to one about the others. They were all willing toleave the Bourbons in tranquil possession of the throne of France; forit was too plainly established that Henri IV. Became king for want ofa male heir in the first Orleans branch called the Valois. If thereare any Valois, they descend from Charles de Valois, Duc d'Angouleme, son of Charles IX. And Marie Touchet, the male line from whom ended, until proof to the contrary be produced, in the person of the Abbe deRothelin. The Valois-Saint-Remy, who descended from Henri II. , alsocame to an end in the famous Lamothe-Valois implicated in the affairof the Diamond Necklace. 

Each of these many chevaliers, if we may believe reports, was, likethe Chevalier of Alencon, an old gentleman, tall, thin, withered, andmoneyless. He of Bourges had emigrated; he of Touraine hid himself; heof Alencon fought in La Vendee and "chouanized" somewhat. The youth ofthe latter was spend in Paris, where the Revolution overtook him whenthirty years of age in the midst of his conquests and gallantries. 

The Chevalier de Valois of Alencon was accepted by the highestaristocracy of the province as a genuine Valois; and he distinguishedhimself, like the rest of his homonyms, by excellent manners, whichproved him a man of society. He dined out every day, and played cardsevery evening. He was thought witty, thanks to his foible for relatinga quantity of anecdotes on the reign of Louis XV. And the beginningsof the Revolution. When these tales were heard for the first time, they were held to be well narrated. He had, moreover, the great meritof not repeating his personal bons mots and of never speaking of hislove-affairs, though his smiles and his airs and graces weredelightfully indiscreet. The worthy gentleman used his privilege as aVoltairean noble to stay away from mass; and great indulgence wasshown to his irreligion because of his devotion to the royal cause. One of his particular graces was the air and manner (imitated, nodoubt, from Mole) with which he took snuff from a gold box adornedwith the portrait of the Princess Goritza, --a charming Hungarian, celebrated for her beauty in the last years of the reign of Louis XV. Having been attached during his youth to that illustrious stranger, hestill mentioned her with emotion. For her sake he had fought a duelwith Monsieur de Lauzun. 

The chevalier, now fifty-eight years of age, owned to only fifty; andhe might well allow himself that innocent deception, for, among theother advantages granted to fair thin persons, he managed to preservethe still youthful figure which saves men as well as women from anappearance of old age. Yes, remember this: all of life, or rather allthe elegance that expresses life, is in the figure. Among thechevalier's other possessions must be counted an enormous nose withwhich nature had endowed him. This nose vigorously divided a pale faceinto two sections which seemed to have no knowledge of each other, forone side would redden under the process of digestion, while the othercontinued white. This fact is worthy of remark at a period whenphysiology is so busy with the human heart. The incandescence, so tocall it, was on the left side. Though his long slim legs, supporting alank body, and his pallid skin, were not indicative of health, Monsieur de Valois ate like an ogre and declared he had a maladycalled in the provinces "hot liver, " perhaps to excuse his monstrousappetite. The circumstance of his singular flush confirmed thisdeclaration; but in a region where repasts are developed on the lineof thirty or forty dishes and last four hours, the chevalier's stomachwould seem to have been a blessing bestowed by Providence on the goodtown of Alencon. According to certain doctors, heat on the left sidedenotes a prodigal heart. The chevalier's gallantries confirmed thisscientific assertion, the responsibility for which does not rest, fortunately, on the historian. 

In spite of these symptoms, Monsieur de Valois' constitution wasvigorous, consequently long-lived. If his liver "heated, " to use anold-fashioned word, his heart was not less inflammable. His face waswrinkled and his hair silvered; but an intelligent observer would haverecognized at once the stigmata of passion and the furrows of pleasurewhich appeared in the crow's-feet and the marches-du-palais, so prizedat the court of Cythera. Everything about this dainty chevalierbespoke the "ladies' man. " He was so minute in his ablutions that hischeeks were a pleasure to look upon; they seemed to have been laved insome miraculous water. The part of his skull which his hair refused tocover shone like ivory. His eyebrows, like his hair, affected youth bythe care and regularity with which they were combed. His skin, alreadywhite, seemed to have been extra-whitened by some secret compound. Without using perfumes, the chevalier exhaled a certain fragrance ofyouth, that refreshed the atmosphere. His hands, which were those of agentleman, and were cared for like the hands of a pretty woman, attracted the eye to their rosy, well-shaped nails. In short, had itnot been for his magisterial and stupendous nose, the chevalier mighthave been thought a trifle too dainty. 

We must here compel ourselves to spoil this portrait by the avowal ofa littleness. The chevalier put cotton in his ears, and wore, appendedto them, two little ear-rings representing negroes' heads in diamonds, of admirable workmanship. He clung to these singular appendages, explaining that since his ears had been bored he had ceased to haveheadaches (he had had headaches). We do not present the chevalier asan accomplished man; but surely we can pardon, in an old celibatewhose heart sends so much blood to his left cheek, these adorablequalities, founded, perhaps, on some sublime secret history. 

Besides, the Chevalier de Valois redeemed those negroes' heads by somany other graces that society felt itself sufficiently compensated. He really took such immense trouble to conceal his age and givepleasure to his friends. In the first place, we must call attention tothe extreme care he gave to his linen, the only distinction thatwell-bred men can nowadays exhibit in their clothes. The linen of thechevalier was invariably of a fineness and whiteness that were trulyaristocratic. As for his coat, though remarkable for its cleanliness, it was always half worn-out, but without spots or creases. Thepreservation of that garment was something marvellous to those whonoticed the chevalier's high-bred indifference to its shabbiness. Hedid not go so far as to scrape the seams with glass, --a refinementinvented by the Prince of Wales; but he did practice the rudiments ofEnglish elegance with a personal satisfaction little understood by thepeople of Alencon. The world owes a great deal to persons who takesuch pains to please it. In this there is certainly someaccomplishment of that most difficult precept of the Gospel aboutrendering good for evil. This freshness of ablution and all the otherlittle cares harmonized charmingly with the blue eyes, the ivoryteeth, and the blond person of the old chevalier. 

The only blemish was that this retired Adonis had nothing manly abouthim; he seemed to be employing this toilet varnish to hide the ruinsoccasioned by the military service of gallantry only. But we musthasten to add that his voice produced what might be called anantithesis to his blond delicacy. Unless you adopted the opinion ofcertain observers of the human heart, and thought that the chevalierhad the voice of his nose, his organ of speech would have amazed youby its full and redundant sound. Without possessing the volume ofclassical bass voices, the tone of it was pleasing from a slightlymuffled quality like that of an English bugle, which is firm andsweet, strong but velvety. 

The chevalier had repudiated the ridiculous costume still preserved bycertain monarchical old men; he had frankly modernized himself. He wasalways seen in a maroon-colored coat with gilt buttons, half-tightbreeches of poult-de-soie with gold buckles, a white waistcoat withoutembroidery, and a tight cravat showing no shirt-collar, --a lastvestige of the old French costume which he did not renounce, perhaps, because it enabled him to show a neck like that of the sleekest abbe. His shoes were noticeable for their square buckles, a style of whichthe present generation has no knowledge; these buckles were fastenedto a square of polished black leather. The chevalier allowed twowatch-chains to hang parallel to each other from each of his waistcoatpockets, --another vestige of the eighteenth century, which theIncroyables had not disdained to use under the Directory. Thistransition costume, uniting as it did two centuries, was worn by thechevalier with the high-bred grace of an old French marquis, thesecret of which is lost to France since the day when Fleury, Mole'slast pupil, vanished. 

The private life of this old bachelor was apparently open to all eyes, though in fact it was quite mysterious. He lived in a lodging that wasmodest, to say the best of it, in the rue du Cours, on the secondfloor of a house belonging to Madame Lardot, the best and busiestwasherwoman in the town. This circumstance will explain the excessivenicety of his linen. Ill-luck would have it that the day came whenAlencon was guilty of believing that the chevalier had not alwayscomported himself as a gentleman should, and that in fact he wassecretly married in his old age to a certain Cesarine, --the mother ofa child which had had the impertinence to come into the world withoutbeing called for. 

"He had given his hand, " as a certain Monsieur du Bousquier remarked, "to the person who had long had him under irons. "

This horrible calumny embittered the last days of the dainty chevalierall the more because, as the present Scene will show, he had lost ahope long cherished to which he had made many sacrifices. 

Madame Lardot leased to the chevalier two rooms on the second floor ofher house, for the modest sum of one hundred francs a year. The worthygentleman dined out every day, returning only in time to go to bed. His sole expense therefore was for breakfast, invariably composed of acup of chocolate, with bread and butter and fruits in their season. Hemade no fire except in the coldest winter, and then only enough to getup by. Between eleven and four o'clock he walked about, went to readthe papers, and paid visits. From the time of his settling in Alenconhe had nobly admitted his poverty, saying that his whole fortuneconsisted in an annuity of six hundred francs a year, the sole remainsof his former opulence, --a property which obliged him to see his manof business (who held the annuity papers) quarterly. In truth, one ofthe Alencon bankers paid him every three months one hundred and fiftyfrancs, sent down by Monsieur Bordin of Paris, the last of the/procureurs du Chatelet/. Every one knew these details because thechevalier exacted the utmost secrecy from the persons to whom he firstconfided them. 

Monsieur de Valois gathered the fruit of his misfortunes. His place attable was laid in all the most distinguished houses in Alencon, and hewas bidden to all soirees. His talents as a card-player, a narrator, an amiable man of the highest breeding, were so well known andappreciated that parties would have seemed a failure if the daintyconnoisseur was absent. Masters of houses and their wives felt theneed of his approving grimace. When a young woman heard the chevaliersay at a ball, "You are delightfully well-dressed!" she was morepleased at such praise than she would have been at mortifying a rival. Monsieur de Valois was the only man who could perfectly pronouncecertain phrases of the olden time. The words, "my heart, " "my jewel, ""my little pet, " "my queen, " and the amorous diminutives of 1770, hada grace that was quite irresistible when they came from his lips. Inshort, the chevalier had the privilege of superlatives. Hiscompliments, of which he was stingy, won the good graces of all theold women; he made himself agreeable to every one, even to theofficials of the government, from whom he wanted nothing. His behaviorat cards had a lofty distinction which everybody noticed: he nevercomplained; he praised his adversaries when they lost; he did notrebuke or teach his partners by showing them how they ought to haveplayed. When, in the course of a deal, those sickening dissertationson the game would take place, the chevalier invariably drew out hissnuff-box with a gesture that was worthy of Mole, looked at thePrincess Goritza, raised the cover with dignity, shook, sifted, massedthe snuff, and gathered his pinch, so that by the time the cards weredealt he had decorated both nostrils and replaced the princess in hiswaistcoat pocket, --always on his left side. A gentleman of the "good"century (in distinction from the "grand" century) could alone haveinvented that compromise between contemptuous silence and a sarcasmwhich might not have been understood. He accepted poor players andknew how to make the best of them. His delightful equability of tempermade many persons say, --

"I do admire the Chevalier de Valois!"

His conversation, his manners, seemed bland, like his person. Heendeavored to shock neither man nor woman. Indulgent to defects bothphysical and mental, he listened patiently (by the help of thePrincess Goritza) to the many dull people who related to him the pettymiseries of provincial life, --an egg ill-boiled for breakfast, coffeewith feathered cream, burlesque details about health, disturbed sleep, dreams, visits. The chevalier could call up a languishing look, hecould take on a classic attitude to feign compassion, which made him amost valuable listener; he could put in an "Ah!" and a "Bah!" and a"What DID you do?" with charming appropriateness. He died without anyone suspecting him of even an allusion to the tender passages of hisromance with the Princess Goritza. Has any one ever reflected on theservice a dead sentiment can do to society; how love may become bothsocial and useful? This will serve to explain why, in spite of hisconstant winning at play (he never left a salon without carrying offwith him about six francs), the old chevalier remained the spoiltdarling of the town. His losses--which, by the bye, he alwaysproclaimed, were very rare. 

All who know him declare that they have never met, not even in theEgyptian museum at Turin, so agreeable a mummy. In no country in theworld did parasitism ever take on so pleasant a form. Never didselfishness of a most concentrated kind appear less forth-putting, less offensive, than in this old gentleman; it stood him in place ofdevoted friendship. If some one asked Monsieur de Valois to do him alittle service which might have discommoded him, that some one did notpart from the worthy chevalier without being truly enchanted with him, and quite convinced that he either could not do the service demanded, or that he should injure the affair if he meddled in it. 

To explain the problematic existence of the chevalier, the historian, whom Truth, that cruel wanton, grasps by the throat, is compelled tosay that after the "glorious" sad days of July, Alencon discoveredthat the chevalier's nightly winnings amounted to about one hundredand fifty francs every three months; and that the clever old noblemanhad had the pluck to send to himself his annuity in order not toappear in the eyes of a community, which loves the main chance, to beentirely without resources. Many of his friends (he was by that timedead, you will please remark) have contested mordicus this curiousfact, declaring it to be a fable, and upholding the Chevalier deValois as a respectable and worthy gentleman whom the liberalscalumniated. Luckily for shrewd players, there are people to be foundamong the spectators who will always sustain them. Ashamed of havingto defend a piece of wrong-doing, they stoutly deny it. Do not accusethem of wilful infatuation; such men have a sense of their dignity;governments set them the example of a virtue which consists in buryingtheir dead without chanting the Misere of their defeats. If thechevalier did allow himself this bit of shrewd practice, --which, bythe bye, would have won him the regard of the Chevalier de Gramont, asmile from the Baron de Foeneste, a shake of the hand from the Marquisde Moncade, --was he any the less that amiable guest, that wittytalker, that imperturbable card-player, that famous teller ofanecdotes, in whom all Alencon took delight? Besides, in what way wasthis action, which is certainly within the rights of a man's own will, --in what way was it contrary to the ethics of a gentleman? When somany persons are forced to pay annuities to others, what more naturalthan to pay one to his own best friend? But Laius is dead--

To return to the period of which we are writing: after about fifteenyears of this way of life the chevalier had amassed ten thousand andsome odd hundred francs. On the return of the Bourbons, one of his oldfriends, the Marquis de Pombreton, formerly lieutenant in the Blackmousquetaires, returned to him--so he said--twelve hundred pistoleswhich he had lent to the marquis for the purpose of emigrating. Thisevent made a sensation; it was used later to refute the sarcasms ofthe "Constitutionnel, " on the method employed by some emigres inpaying their debts. When this noble act of the Marquis de Pombretonwas lauded before the chevalier, the good man reddened even to hisright cheek. Every one rejoiced frankly at this windfall for Monsieurde Valois, who went about consulting moneyed people as to the safestmanner of investing this fragment of his past opulence. Confiding inthe future of the Restoration, he finally placed his money on theGrand-Livre at the moment when the funds were at fifty-six francs andtwenty-five centimes. Messieurs de Lenoncourt, de Navarreins, deVerneuil, de Fontaine, and La Billardiere, to whom he was known, hesaid, obtained for him, from the king's privy purse, a pension ofthree hundred francs, and sent him, moreover, the cross ofSaint-Louis. Never was it known positively by what means the oldchevalier obtained these two solemn consecrations of his title andmerits. But one thing is certain; the cross of Saint-Louis authorizedhim to take the rank of retired colonel in view of his service in theCatholic armies of the West. 

Besides his fiction of an annuity, about which no one at the presenttime knew anything, the chevalier really had, therefore, a bona fideincome of a thousand francs. But in spite of this bettering of hiscircumstances, he made no change in his life, manners, or appearance, except that the red ribbon made a fine effect on his maroon-coloredcoat, and completed, so to speak, the physiognomy of a gentleman. After 1802, the chevalier sealed his letters with a very old seal, ill-engraved to be sure, by which the Casterans, the d'Esgrignons, theTroisvilles were enabled to see that he bore: /Party of France, twocottises gemelled gules, and gules, five mascles or, placed end toend; on a chief sable, a cross argent/. For crest, a knight's helmet. For motto: "Valeo. " Bearing such noble arms, the so-called bastard ofthe Valois had the right to get into all the royal carriages of theworld. 

Many persons envied the quiet existence of this old bachelor, spent onwhist, boston, backgammon, reversi, and piquet, all well played, ondinners well digested, snuff gracefully inhaled, and tranquil walksabout the town. Nearly all Alencon believed this life to be exemptfrom ambitions and serious interests; but no man has a life as simpleas envious neighbors attribute to him. You will find in the mostout-of-the way villages human mollusks, creatures apparently dead, whohave passions for lepidoptera or for conchology, let us say, --beingswho will give themselves infinite pains about moths, butterflies, orthe concha Veneris. Not only did the chevalier have his own particularshells, but he cherished an ambitious desire which he pursued with acraft so profound as to be worthy of Sixtus the Fifth: he wanted tomarry a certain rich old maid, with the intention, no doubt, of makingher a stepping-stone by which to reach the more elevated regions ofthe court. There, then, lay the secret of his royal bearing and of hisresidence in Alencon. 

 CHAPTER II

 SUSANNAH AND THE ELDERS

On a Wednesday morning, early, toward the middle of spring, in theyear 16, --such was his mode of reckoning, --at the moment when thechevalier was putting on his old green-flowered damask dressing-gown, he heard, despite the cotton in his ears, the light step of a younggirl who was running up the stairway. Presently three taps werediscreetly struck upon the door; then, without waiting for anyresponse, a handsome girl slipped like an eel into the room occupiedby the old bachelor. 

"Ah! is it you, Suzanne?" said the Chevalier de Valois, withoutdiscontinuing his occupation, which was that of stropping his razor. "What have you come for, my dear little jewel of mischief?"

"I have come to tell you something which may perhaps give you as muchpleasure as pain?"

"Is it anything about Cesarine?"

"Cesarine! much I care about your Cesarine!" she said with a saucyair, half serious, half indifferent. 

This charming Suzanne, whose present comical performance was toexercise a great influence in the principal personages of our history, was a work-girl at Madame Lardot's. One word here on the topography ofthe house. The wash-rooms occupied the whole of the ground floor. Thelittle courtyard was used to hang out on wire cords embroideredhandkerchiefs, collarets, capes, cuffs, frilled shirts, cravats, laces, embroidered dresses, --in short, all the fine linen of the bestfamilies of the town. The chevalier assumed to know from the number ofher capes in the wash how the love-affairs of the wife of the prefectwere going on. Though he guessed much from observations of this kind, the chevalier was discretion itself; he was never betrayed into anepigram (he had plenty of wit) which might have closed to him anagreeable salon. You are therefore to consider Monsieur de Valois as aman of superior manners, whose talents, like those of many others, were lost in a narrow sphere. Only--for, after all, he was a man--hepermitted himself certain penetrating glances which could make somewomen tremble; although they all loved him heartily as soon as theydiscovered the depth of his discretion and the sympathy that he feltfor their little weaknesses. 

The head woman, Madame Lardot's factotum, an old maid of forty-six, hideous to behold, lived on the opposite side of the passage to thechevalier. Above them were the attics where the linen was dried inwinter. Each apartment had two rooms, --one lighted from the street, the other from the courtyard. Beneath the chevalier's room there liveda paralytic, Madame Lardot's grandfather, an old buccaneer namedGrevin, who had served under Admiral Simeuse in India, and was nowstone-deaf. As for Madame Lardot, who occupied the other lodging onthe first floor, she had so great a weakness for persons of conditionthat she may well have been thought blind to the ways of thechevalier. To her, Monsieur de Valois was a despotic monarch who didright in all things. Had any of her workwomen been guilty of ahappiness attributed to the chevalier she would have said, "He is solovable!" Thus, though the house was of glass, like all provincialhouses, it was discreet as a robber's cave. 

A born confidant to all the little intrigues of the work-rooms, thechevalier never passed the door, which usually stood open, withoutgiving something to his little ducks, --chocolate, bonbons, ribbons, laces, gilt crosses, and such like trifles adored by grisettes;consequently, the kind old gentleman was adored in return. Women havean instinct which enables them to divine the men who love them, wholike to be near them, and exact no payment for gallantries. In thisrespect women have the instinct of dogs, who in a mixed company willgo straight to the man to whom animals are sacred. 

The poor Chevalier de Valois retained from his former life the need ofbestowing gallant protection, a quality of the seigneurs of otherdays. Faithful to the system of the "petite maison, " he liked toenrich women, --the only beings who know how to receive, because theycan always return. But the poor chevalier could no longer ruin himselffor a mistress. Instead of the choicest bonbons wrapped in bank-bills, he gallantly presented paper-bags full of toffee. Let us say to theglory of Alencon that the toffee was accepted with more joy than laDuthe ever showed at a gilt service or a fine equipage offered by theComte d'Artois. All these grisettes fully understood the fallenmajesty of the Chevalier de Valois, and they kept their privatefamiliarities with him a profound secret for his sake. If they werequestioned about him in certain houses when they carried home thelinen, they always spoke respectfully of the chevalier, and made himout older than he really was; they talked of him as a most respectablemonsieur, whose life was a flower of sanctity; but once in their ownregions they perched on his shoulders like so many parrots. He likedto be told the secrets which washerwomen discover in the bosom ofhouseholds, and day after day these girls would tell him the cancanswhich were going the round of Alencon. He called them his "petticoatgazettes, " his "talking feuilletons. " Never did Monsieur de Sartineshave spies more intelligent and less expensive, or minions who showedmore honor while displaying their rascality of mind. So it may be saidthat in the mornings, while breakfasting, the chevalier usually amusedhimself as much as the saints in heaven. 

Suzanne was one of his favorites, a clever, ambitious girl, made ofthe stuff of a Sophie Arnold, and handsome withal, as the handsomestcourtesan invited by Titian to pose on black velvet for a model ofVenus; although her face, fine about the eyes and forehead, degenerated, lower down, into commonness of outline. Hers was a Normanbeauty, fresh, high-colored, redundant, the flesh of Rubens coveringthe muscles of the Farnese Hercules, and not the slender articulationsof the Venus de' Medici, Apollo's graceful consort. 

"Well, my child, tell me your great or your little adventure, whateverit is. "

The particular point about the chevalier which would have made himnoticeable from Paris to Pekin, was the gentle paternity of his mannerto grisettes. They reminded him of the illustrious operatic queens ofhis early days, whose celebrity was European during a good third ofthe eighteenth century. It is certain that the old gentleman, who hadlived in days gone by with that feminine nation now as much forgottenas many other great things, --like the Jesuits, the Buccaneers, theAbbes, and the Farmers-General, --had acquired an irresistiblegood-humor, a kindly ease, a laisser-aller devoid of egotism, theself-effacement of Jupiter with Alcmene, of the king intending to beduped, who casts his thunderbolts to the devil, wants his Olympus fullof follies, little suppers, feminine profusions--but with Juno out ofthe way, be it understood. 

In spite of his old green damask dressing-gown and the bareness of theroom in which he sat, where the floor was covered with a shabbytapestry in place of carpet, and the walls were hung with tavern-paperpresenting the profiles of Louis XVI. And members of his family, traced among the branches of a weeping willow with othersentimentalities invented by royalism during the Terror, --in spite ofhis ruins, the chevalier, trimming his beard before a shabby oldtoilet-table, draped with trumpery lace, exhaled an essence of theeighteenth century. All the libertine graces of his youth reappeared;he seemed to have the wealth of three hundred thousand francs of debt, while his vis-a-vis waited before the door. He was grand, --likeBerthier on the retreat from Moscow, issuing orders to an army thatexisted no longer. 

"Monsieur le chevalier, " replied Suzanne, drolly, "seems to me Ineedn't tell you anything; you've only to look. "

And Suzanne presented a side view of herself which gave a sort oflawyer's comment to her words. The chevalier, who, you must know, wasa sly old bird, lowered his right eye on the grisette, still holdingthe razor at his throat, and pretended to understand. 

"Well, well, my little duck, we'll talk about that presently. But youare rather previous, it seems to me. "

"Why, Monsieur le chevalier, ought I to wait until my mother beats meand Madame Lardot turns me off? If I don't get away soon to Paris, Ishall never be able to marry here, where men are so ridiculous. "

"It can't be helped, my dear; society is changing; women are just asmuch victims to the present state of things as the nobilitythemselves. After political overturn comes the overturn of morals. Alas! before long woman won't exist" (he took out the cotton-wool toarrange his ears): "she'll lose everything by rushing into sentiment;she'll wring her nerves; good-bye to all the good little pleasures ofour time, desired without shame, accepted without nonsense. " (Hepolished up the little negroes' heads. ) "Women had hysterics in thosedays to get their ends, but now" (he began to laugh) "their vapors endin charcoal. In short, marriage" (here he picked up his pincers toremove a hair) "will become a thing intolerable; whereas it used to beso gay in my day! The reigns of Louis XIV. And Louis XV. --rememberthis, my child--said farewell to the finest manners and morals everknown to the world. "

"But, Monsieur le chevalier, " said the grisette, "the matter nowconcerns the morals and honor of your poor little Suzanne, and I hopeyou won't abandon her. "

"Abandon her!" cried the chevalier, finishing his hair; "I'd soonerabandon my own name. "

"Ah!" exclaimed Suzanne. 

"Now, listen to me, you little mischief, " said the chevalier, sittingdown on a huge sofa, formerly called a duchesse, which Madame Lardothad been at some pains to find for him. 

He drew the magnificent Suzanne before him, holding her legs betweenhis knees. She let him do as he liked, although in the street she wasoffish enough to other men, refusing their familiarities partly fromdecorum and partly for contempt for their commonness. She now stoodaudaciously in front of the chevalier, who, having fathomed in his daymany other mysteries in minds that were far more wily, took in thesituation at a single glance. He knew very well that no young girlwould joke about a real dishonor; but he took good care not to knockover the pretty scaffolding of her lie as he touched it. 

"We slander ourselves, " he said with inimitable craft; "we are asvirtuous as that beautiful biblical girl whose name we bear; we canalways marry as we please, but we are thirsty for Paris, wherecharming creatures--and we are no fool--get rich without trouble. Wewant to go and see if the great capital of pleasures hasn't some youngChevalier de Valois in store for us, with a carriage, diamonds, anopera-box, and so forth. Russians, Austrians, Britons, have millionson which we have an eye. Besides, we are patriotic; we want to helpFrance in getting back her money from the pockets of those gentry. Hey! hey! my dear little devil's duck! it isn't a bad plan. The worldyou live in may cry out a bit, but success justifies all things. Theworst thing in this world, my dear, is to be without money; that's ourdisease, yours and mine. Now inasmuch as we have plenty of wit, wethought it would be a good thing to parade our dear little honor, ordishonor, to catch an old boy; but that old boy, my dear heart, knowsthe Alpha and Omega of female tricks, --which means that you couldeasier put salt on a sparrow's tail than to make me believe I haveanything to do with your little affair. Go to Paris, my dear; go atthe cost of an old celibate, I won't prevent it; in fact, I'll helpyou, for an old bachelor, Suzanne, is the natural money-box of a younggirl. But don't drag me into the matter. Listen, my queen, you whoknow life pretty well; you would me great harm and give me much pain, --harm, because you would prevent my marriage in a town where peoplecling to morality; pain, because if you are in trouble (which I deny, you sly puss!) I haven't a penny to get you out of it. I'm as poor asa church mouse; you know that, my dear. Ah! if I marry MademoiselleCormon, if I am once more rich, of course I would prefer you toCesarine. You've always seemed to me as fine as the gold they gild onlead; you were made to be the love of a great seigneur. I think you soclever that the trick you are trying to play off on me doesn'tsurprise me one bit; I expected it. You are flinging the scabbardafter the sword, and that's daring for a girl. It takes nerve andsuperior ideas to do it, my angel, and therefore you have won myrespectful esteem. "

"Monsieur le chevalier, I assure you, you are mistaken, and--"

She colored, and did not dare to say more. The chevalier, with asingle glance, had guessed and fathomed her whole plan. 

"Yes, yes! I understand: you want me to believe it, " he said. "Well! Ido believe it. But take my advice: go to Monsieur du Bousquier. Haven't you taken linen there for the last six or eight months? I'mnot asking what went on between you; but I know the man: he hasimmense conceit; he is an old bachelor, and very rich; and he onlyspends a quarter of a comfortable income. If you are as clever as Isuppose, you can go to Paris at his expense. There, run along, mylittle doe; go and twist him round your finger. Only, mind this: be assupple as silk; at every word take a double turn round him and make aknot. He is a man to fear scandal, and if he has given you a chance toput him in the pillory--in short, understand; threaten him with theladies of the Maternity Hospital. Besides, he's ambitious. A mansucceeds through his wife, and you are handsome and clever enough tomake the fortune of a husband. Hey! the mischief! you could hold yourown against all the court ladies. "

Suzanne, whose mind took in at a flash the chevalier's last words, waseager to run off to du Bousquier, but, not wishing to depart tooabruptly, she questioned the chevalier about Paris, all the whilehelping him to dress. The chevalier, however, divined her desire to beoff, and favored it by asking her to tell Cesarine to bring up hischocolate, which Madame Lardot made for him every morning. Suzannethen slipped away to her new victim, whose biography must here begiven. 

Born of an old Alencon family, du Bousquier was a cross between thebourgeois and the country squire. Finding himself without means on thedeath of his father, he went, like other ruined provincials, to Paris. On the breaking out of the Revolution he took part in public affairs. In spite of revolutionary principles, which made a hobby of republicanhonesty, the management of public business in those days was by nomeans clean. A political spy, a stock-jobber, a contractor, a man whoconfiscated in collusion with the syndic of a commune the property ofemigres in order to sell them and buy them in, a minister, and ageneral were all equally engaged in public business. From 1793 to 1799du Bousquier was commissary of provisions to the French armies. Helived in a magnificent hotel and was one of the matadors of finance, did business with Ouvrard, kept open house, and led the scandalouslife of the period, --the life of a Cincinnatus, on sacks of cornharvested without trouble, stolen rations, "little houses" full ofmistresses, in which were given splendid fetes to the Directors of theRepublic. 

The citizen du Bousquier was one of Barras' familiars; he was on thebest of terms with Fouche, stood very well with Bernadotte, and fullyexpected to become a minister by throwing himself into the party whichsecretly caballed against Bonaparte until Marengo. If it had not beenfor Kellermann's charge and Desaix's death, du Bousquier wouldprobably have become a minister. He was one of the chief assistancesof that secret government whom Napoleon's luck send behind the scenesin 1793. (See "An Historical Mystery. ") The unexpected victory ofMarengo was the defeat of that party who actually had theirproclamations printed to return to the principles of the Montagne incase the First Consul succumbed. 

Convinced of the impossibility of Bonaparte's triumph, du Bousquierstaked the greater part of his property on a fall in the Funds, andkept two couriers on the field of battle. The first started for Pariswhen Melas' victory was certain; the second, starting four hourslater, brought the news of the defeat of the Austrians. Du Bousquiercursed Kellermann and Desaix; he dared not curse Bonaparte, who mightowe him millions. This alternative of millions to be earned andpresent ruin staring him in the face, deprived the purveyor of most ofhis faculties: he became nearly imbecile for several days; the man hadso abused his health by excesses that when the thunderbolt fell uponhim he had no strength to resist. The payment of his bills against theExchequer gave him some hopes for the future, but, in spite of allefforts to ingratiate himself, Napoleon's hatred to the contractorswho had speculated on his defeat made itself felt; du Bousquier wasleft without a sou. The immorality of his private life, his intimacywith Barras and Bernadotte, displeased the First Consul even more thanhis manoeuvres at the Bourse, and he struck du Bousquier's name fromthe list of the government contractors. 

Out of all his past opulence du Bousquier saved only twelve hundredfrancs a year from an investment in the Grand Livre, which he hadhappened to place there by pure caprice, and which saved him frompenury. A man ruined by the First Consul interested the town ofAlencon, to which he now returned, where royalism was secretlydominant. Du Bousquier, furious against Bonaparte, relating storiesagainst him of his meanness, of Josephine's improprieties, and all theother scandalous anecdotes of the last ten years, was well received. 

About this time, when he was somewhere between forty and fifty, duBousquier's appearance was that of a bachelor of thirty-six, of mediumheight, plump as a purveyor, proud of his vigorous calves, with astrongly marked countenance, a flattened nose, the nostrils garnishedwith hair, black eyes with thick lashes, from which darted shrewdglances like those of Monsieur de Talleyrand, though somewhat dulled. He still wore republican whiskers and his hair very long; his hands, adorned with bunches of hair on each knuckle, showed the power of hismuscular system in their prominent blue veins. He had the chest of theFarnese Hercules, and shoulders fit to carry the stocks. Suchshoulders are seen nowadays only at Tortoni's. This wealth ofmasculine vigor counted for much in du Bousquier's relations withothers. And yet in him, as in the chevalier, symptoms appeared whichcontrasted oddly with the general aspect of their persons. The latepurveyor had not the voice of his muscles. We do not mean that hisvoice was a mere thread, such as we sometimes hear issuing from themouth of these walruses; on the contrary, it was a strong voice, butstifled, an idea of which can be given only by comparing it with thenoise of a saw cutting into soft and moistened wood, --the voice of aworn-out speculator. 

In spite of the claims which the enmity of the First Consul gaveMonsieur du Bousquier to enter the royalist society of the province, he was not received in the seven or eight families who composed thefaubourg Saint-Germain of Alencon, among whom the Chevalier de Valoiswas welcome. He had offered himself in marriage, through her notary, to Mademoiselle Armande, sister of the most distinguished noble in thetown; to which offer he received a refusal. He consoled himself asbest he could in the society of a dozen rich families, formermanufacturers of the old point d'Alencon, owners of pastures andcattle, or merchants doing a wholesale business in linen, among whom, as he hoped, he might find a wealthy wife. In fact, all his hopes nowconverged to the perspective of a fortunate marriage. He was notwithout a certain financial ability, which many persons used to theirprofit. Like a ruined gambler who advises neophytes, he pointed outenterprises and speculations, together with the means and chances ofconducting them. He was thought a good administrator, and it was oftena question of making him mayor of Alencon; but the memory of hisunderhand jobbery still clung to him, and he was never received at theprefecture. All the succeeding governments, even that of the HundredDays, refused to appoint him mayor of Alencon, --a place he coveted, which, could he have had it, would, he thought, have won him the handof a certain old maid on whom his matrimonial views now turned. 

Du Bousquier's aversion to the Imperial government had thrown him atfirst into the royalist circles of Alencon, where he remained in spiteof the rebuffs he received there; but when, after the first return ofthe Bourbons, he was still excluded from the prefecture, thatmortification inspired him with a hatred as deep as it was secretagainst the royalists. He now returned to his old opinions, and becamethe leader of the liberal party in Alencon, the invisible manipulatorof elections, and did immense harm to the Restoration by thecleverness of his underhand proceedings and the perfidy of his outwardbehavior. Du Bousquier, like all those who live by their heads only, carried on his hatreds with the quiet tranquillity of a rivulet, feeble apparently, but inexhaustible. His hatred was that of a negro, so peaceful that it deceived the enemy. His vengeance, brooded overfor fifteen years, was as yet satisfied by no victory, not even thatof July, 1830. 

It was not without some private intention that the Chevalier de Valoishad turned Suzanne's designs upon Monsieur du Bousquier. The liberaland the royalist had mutually divined each other in spite of the widedissimulation with which they hid their common hope from the rest ofthe town. The two old bachelors were secretly rivals. Each had formeda plan to marry the Demoiselle Cormon, whom Monsieur de Valois hadmentioned to Suzanne. Both, ensconced in their idea and wearing thearmor of apparent indifference, awaited the moment when some luckychance might deliver the old maid over to them. Thus, if the two oldbachelors had not been kept asunder by the two political systems ofwhich they each offered a living expression, their private rivalrywould still have made them enemies. Epochs put their mark on men. These two individuals proved the truth of that axiom by the opposinghistoric tints that were visible in their faces, in theirconversation, in their ideas, and in their clothes. One, abrupt, energetic, with loud, brusque manners, curt, rude speech, dark intone, in hair, in look, terrible apparently, in reality as impotent asan insurrection, represented the republic admirably. The other, gentleand polished, elegant and nice, attaining his ends by the slow andinfallible means of diplomacy, faithful to good taste, was the expressimage of the old courtier regime. 

The two enemies met nearly every evening on the same ground. The warwas courteous and benign on the side of the chevalier; but duBousquier showed less ceremony on his, though still preserving theoutward appearances demanded by society, for he did not wish to bedriven from the place. They themselves fully understood each other;but in spite of the shrewd observation which provincials bestow on thepetty interests of their own little centre, no one in the townsuspected the rivalry of these two men. Monsieur le Chevalier deValois occupied a vantage-ground: he had never asked for the hand ofMademoiselle Cormon; whereas du Bousquier, who entered the lists soonafter his rejection by the most distinguished family in the place, hadbeen refused. But the chevalier believed that his rival had still suchstrong chances of success that he dealt him this coup de Jarnac with ablade (namely, Suzanne) that was finely tempered for the purpose. Thechevalier had cast his plummet-line into the waters of du Bousquier;and, as we shall see by the sequel, he was not mistaken in any of hisconjectures. 

Suzanne tripped with a light foot from the rue du Cours, by the rue dela Porte de Seez and the rue du Bercail, to the rue du Cygne, where, about five years earlier, du Bousquier had bought a little house builtof gray Jura stone, which is something between Breton slate and Normangranite. There he established himself more comfortably than anyhouseholder in town; for he had managed to preserve certain furnitureand decorations from the days of his splendor. But provincial mannersand morals obscured, little by little, the rays of this fallenSardanapalus; these vestiges of his former luxury now produced theeffect of a glass chandelier in a barn. Harmony, that bond of allwork, human or divine, was lacking in great things as well as inlittle ones. The stairs, up which everybody mounted without wipingtheir feet, were never polished; the walls, painted by some wretchedartisan of the neighborhood, were a terror to the eye; the stonemantel-piece, ill-carved, "swore" with the handsome clock, which wasfurther degraded by the company of contemptible candlesticks. Like theperiod which du Bousquier himself represented, the house was a jumbleof dirt and magnificence. Being considered a man of leisure, duBousquier led the same parasite life as the chevalier; and he who doesnot spend his income is always rich. His only servant was a sort ofJocrisse, a lad of the neighborhood, rather a ninny, trained slowlyand with difficulty to du Bousquier's requirements. His master hadtaught him, as he might an orang-outang, to rub the floors, dust thefurniture, black his boots, brush his coats, and bring a lantern toguide him home at night if the weather were cloudy, and clogs if itrained. Like many other human beings, this lad hadn't stuff enough inhim for more than one vice; he was a glutton. Often, when du Bousquierwent to a grand dinner, he would take Rene to wait at table; on suchoccasions he made him take off his blue cotton jacket, with its bigpockets hanging round his hips, and always bulging with handkerchiefs, clasp-knives, fruits, or a handful of nuts, and forced him to put on aregulation coat. Rene would then stuff his fill with the otherservants. This duty, which du Bousquier had turned into a reward, wonhim the most absolute discretion from the Breton servant. 

"You here, mademoiselle!" said Rene to Suzanne when she entered;"'t'isn't your day. We haven't any linen for the wash, tell MadameLardot. "

"Old stupid!" said Suzanne, laughing. 

The pretty girl went upstairs, leaving Rene to finish his porringer ofbuckwheat in boiled milk. Du Bousquier, still in bed, was revolving inhis mind his plans of fortune; for ambition was all that was left tohim, as to other men who have sucked dry the orange of pleasure. Ambition and play are inexhaustible; in a well-organized man thepassions which proceed from the brain will always survive the passionsof the heart. 

"Here am I, " said Suzanne, sitting down on the bed and jangling thecurtain-rings back along the rod with despotic vehemence. 

"Quesaco, my charmer?" said the old bachelor, sitting up in bed. 

"Monsieur, " said Suzanne, gravely, "you must be astonished to see mehere at this hour; but I find myself in a condition which obliges menot to care for what people may say about it. "

"What does all that mean?" said du Bousquier, crossing his arms. 

"Don't you understand me?" said Suzanne. "I know, " she continued, making a pretty little face, "how ridiculous it is in a poor girl tocome and nag at a man for what he thinks a mere nothing. But if youreally knew me, monsieur, if you knew all that I am capable of for aman who would attach himself to me as much as I'm attached to you, youwould never repent having married me. Of course it isn't here, inAlencon, that I should be of service to you; but if we went to Paris, you would see where I could lead a man with your mind and yourcapacities; and just at this time too, when they are remaking thegovernment from top to toe. So--between ourselves, be it said--/is/what has happened a misfortune? Isn't it rather a piece of luck, whichwill pay you well? Who and what are you working for now?"

"For myself, of course!" cried du Bousquier, brutally. 

"Monster! you'll never be a father!" said Suzanne, giving a tone ofprophetic malediction to the words. 

"Come, don't talk nonsense, Suzanne, " replied du Bousquier; "I reallythink I am still dreaming. "

"How much more reality do you want?" cried Suzanne, standing up. 

Du Bousquier rubbed his cotton night-cap to the top of his head with arotatory motion, which plainly indicated the tremendous fermentationof his ideas. 

"He actually believes it!" thought Suzanne, "and he's flattered. Heaven! how easy it is to gull men!"

"Suzanne, what the devil must I do? It is so extraordinary--I, whothought-- The fact is that-- No, no, it can't be--"

"What? you can't marry me?"

"Oh! as for that, no; I have engagements. "

"With Mademoiselle Armande or Mademoiselle Cormon, who have bothrefused you? Listen to me, Monsieur du Bousquier, my honor doesn'tneed gendarmes to drag you to the mayor's office. I sha'n't lack forhusbands, thank goodness! and I don't want a man who can't appreciatewhat I'm worth. But some day you'll repent of the way you arebehaving; for I tell you now that nothing on earth, neither gold norsilver, will induce me to return the good thing that belongs to you, if you refuse to accept it to-day. "

"But, Suzanne, are you sure?"

"Oh, monsieur!" cried the grisette, wrapping her virtue round her, "what do you take me for? I don't remind you of the promises you mademe, which have ruined a poor young girl whose only blame was to haveas much ambition as love. "

Du Bousquier was torn with conflicting sentiments, joy, distrust, calculation. He had long determined to marry Mademoiselle Cormon; forthe Charter, on which he had just been ruminating, offered to hisambition, through the half of her property, the political career of adeputy. Besides, his marriage with the old maid would put him sociallyso high in the town that he would have great influence. Consequently, the storm upraised by that malicious Suzanne drove him into thewildest embarrassment. Without this secret scheme, he would havemarried Suzanne without hesitation. In which case, he could openlyassume the leadership of the liberal party in Alencon. After such amarriage he would, of course, renounce the best society and take upwith the bourgeois class of tradesmen, rich manufacturers andgraziers, who would certainly carry him in triumph as their candidate. Du Bousquier already foresaw the Left side. 

This solemn deliberation he did not conceal; he rubbed his hands overhis head, displacing the cap which covered its disastrous baldness. Suzanne, meantime, like all those persons who succeed beyond theirhopes, was silent and amazed. To hide her astonishment, she assumedthe melancholy pose of an injured girl at the mercy of her seducer;inwardly she was laughing like a grisette at her clever trick. 

"My dear child, " said du Bousquier at length, "I'm not to be taken inwith such /bosh/, not I!"

Such was the curt remark which ended du Bousquier's meditation. Heplumed himself on belonging to the class of cynical philosophers whocould never be "taken in" by women, --putting them, one and all, untothe same category, as /suspicious/. These strong-minded persons areusually weak men who have a special catechism in the matter ofwomenkind. To them the whole sex, from queens of France to milliners, are essentially depraved, licentious, intriguing, not a littlerascally, fundamentally deceitful, and incapable of thought aboutanything but trifles. To them, women are evil-doing queens, who mustbe allowed to dance and sing and laugh as they please; they seenothing sacred or saintly in them, nor anything grand; to them thereis no poetry in the senses, only gross sensuality. Where suchjurisprudence prevails, if a woman is not perpetually tyrannized over, she reduces the man to the condition of a slave. Under this aspect duBousquier was again the antithesis of the chevalier. When he made hisfinal remark, he flung his night-cap to the foot of the bed, as PopeGregory did the taper when he fulminated an excommunication; Suzannethen learned for the first time that du Bousquier wore a toupetcovering his bald spot. 

"Please to remember, Monsieur du Bousquier, " she replied majestically, "that in coming here to tell you of this matter I have done my duty;remember that I have offered you my hand, and asked for yours; butremember also that I behaved with the dignity of a woman who respectsherself. I have not abased myself to weep like a silly fool; I havenot insisted; I have not tormented you. You now know my situation. Youmust see that I cannot stay in Alencon: my mother would beat me, andMadame Lardot rides a hobby of principles; she'll turn me off. Poorwork-girl that I am, must I go to the hospital? must I beg my bread?No! I'd rather throw myself into the Brillante or the Sarthe. Butisn't it better that I should go to Paris? My mother could find anexcuse to send me there, --an uncle who wants me, or a dying aunt, or alady who sends for me. But I must have some money for the journey andfor--you know what. "

This extraordinary piece of news was far more startling to duBousquier than to the Chevalier de Valois. Suzanne's fictionintroduced such confusion into the ideas of the old bachelor that hewas literally incapable of sober reflection. Without this agitationand without his inward delight (for vanity is a swindler which neverfails of its dupe), he would certainly have reflected that, supposingit were true, a girl like Suzanne, whose heart was not yet spoiled, would have died a thousand deaths before beginning a discussion ofthis kind and asking for money. 

"Will you really go to Paris, then?" he said. 

A flash of gayety lighted Suzanne's gray eyes as she heard thesewords; but the self-satisfied du Bousquier saw nothing. 

"Yes, monsieur, " she said. 

Du Bousquier then began bitter lamentations: he had the last paymentsto make on his house; the painter, the mason, the upholsterers must bepaid. Suzanne let him run on; she was listening for the figures. DuBousquier offered her three hundred francs. Suzanne made what iscalled on the stage a false exit; that is, she marched toward thedoor. 

"Stop, stop! where are you going?" said du Bousquier, uneasily. "Thisis what comes of a bachelor's life!" thought he. "The devil take me ifI ever did anything more than rumple her collar, and, lo and behold!she makes THAT a ground to put her hand in one's pocket!"

"I'm going, monsieur, " replied Suzanne, "to Madame Granson, thetreasurer of the Maternity Society, who, to my knowledge, has savedmany a poor girl in my condition from suicide. "

"Madame Granson!"

"Yes, " said Suzanne, "a relation of Mademoiselle Cormon, the presidentof the Maternity Society. Saving your presence, the ladies of the townhave created an institution to protect poor creatures from destroyingtheir infants, like that handsome Faustine of Argentan who wasexecuted for it three years ago. "

"Here, Suzanne, " said du Bousquier, giving her a key, "open thatsecretary, and take out the bag you'll find there: there's about sixhundred francs in it; it is all I possess. "

"Old cheat!" thought Suzanne, doing as he told her, "I'll tell aboutyour false toupet. "

She compared du Bousquier with that charming chevalier, who had givenher nothing, it is true, but who had comprehended her, advised her, and carried all grisettes in his heart. 

"If you deceive me, Suzanne, " cried du Bousquier, as he saw her withher hand in the drawer, "you--"

"Monsieur, " she said, interrupting him with ineffable impertinence, "wouldn't you have given me money if I had asked for it?"

Recalled to a sense of gallantry, du Bousquier had a remembrance ofpast happiness and grunted his assent. Suzanne took the bag anddeparted, after allowing the old bachelor to kiss her, which he didwith an air that seemed to say, "It is a right which costs me dear;but it is better than being harried by a lawyer in the court ofassizes as the seducer of a girl accused of infanticide. "

Suzanne hid the sack in a sort of gamebag made of osier which she hadon her arm, all the while cursing du Bousquier for his stinginess; forone thousand francs was the sum she wanted. Once tempted of the devilto desire that sum, a girl will go far when she has set foot on thepath of trickery. As she made her way along the rue du Bercail, itcame into her head that the Maternity Society, presided over byMademoiselle Cormon, might be induced to complete the sum at which shehad reckoned her journey to Paris, which to a grisette of Alenconseemed considerable. Besides, she hated du Bousquier. The latter hadevidently feared a revelation of his supposed misconduct to MadameGranson; and Suzanne, at the risk of not getting a penny from thesociety, was possessed with the desire, on leaving Alencon, ofentangling the old bachelor in the inextricable meshes of a provincialslander. In all grisettes there is something of the malevolentmischief of a monkey. Accordingly, Suzanne now went to see MadameGranson, composing her face to an expression of the deepest dejection. 

 CHAPTER III

 ATHANASE

Madame Granson, widow of a lieutenant-colonel of artillery killed atJena, possessed, as her whole means of livelihood, a meagre pension ofnine hundred francs a year, and three hundred francs from property ofher own, plus a son whose support and education had eaten up all hersavings. She occupied, in the rue du Bercail, one of those melancholyground-floor apartments which a traveller passing along the principalstreet of a little provincial town can look through at a glance. Thestreet door opened at the top of three steep steps; a passage led toan interior courtyard, at the end of which was the staircase coveredby a wooden gallery. On one side of the passage was the dining-roomand the kitchen; on the other side, a salon put to many uses, and thewidow's bedchamber. 

Athanase Granson, a young man twenty-three years of age, who slept inan attic room above the second floor of the house, added six hundredfrancs to the income of his poor mother, by the salary of a littleplace which the influence of his relation, Mademoiselle Cormon, hadobtained for him in the mayor's office, where he was placed in chargeof the archives. 

From these indications it is easy to imagine Madame Granson in hercold salon with its yellow curtains and Utrecht velvet furniture, alsoyellow, as she straightened the round straw mats which were placedbefore each chair, that visitors might not soil the red-tiled floorwhile they sat there; after which she returned to her cushionedarmchair and little work-table placed beneath the portrait of thelieutenant-colonel of artillery between two windows, --a point fromwhich her eye could rake the rue du Bercail and see all comers. Shewas a good woman, dressed with bourgeois simplicity in keeping withher wan face furrowed by grief. The rigorous humbleness of povertymade itself felt in all the accessories of this household, the veryair of which was charged with the stern and upright morals of theprovinces. At this moment the son and mother were together in thedining-room, where they were breakfasting with a cup of coffee, withbread and butter and radishes. To make the pleasure which Suzanne'svisit was to give to Madame Granson intelligible, we must explaincertain secret interests of the mother and son. 

Athanase Granson was a thin and pale young man, of medium height, witha hollow face in which his two black eyes, sparkling with thoughts, gave the effect of bits of coal. The rather irregular lines of hisface, the curve of his lips, a prominent chin, the fine modelling ofhis forehead, his melancholy countenance, caused by a sense of hispoverty warring with the powers that he felt within him, were allindications of repressed and imprisoned talent. In any other placethan the town of Alencon the mere aspect of his person would have wonhim the assistance of superior men, or of women who are able torecognize genius in obscurity. If his was not genius, it was at anyrate the form and aspect of it; if he had not the actual force of agreat heart, the glow of such a heart was in his glance. Although hewas capable of expressing the highest feeling, a casing of timiditydestroyed all the graces of his youth, just as the ice of poverty kepthim from daring to put forth all his powers. Provincial life, withoutan opening, without appreciation, without encouragement, described acircle about him in which languished and died the power of thought, --apower which as yet had scarcely reached its dawn. Moreover, Athanasepossessed that savage pride which poverty intensifies in noble minds, exalting them in their struggle with men and things; although at theirstart in life it is an obstacle to their advancement. Genius proceedsin two ways: either it takes its opportunity--like Napoleon, likeMoliere--the moment that it sees it, or it waits to be sought when ithas patiently revealed itself. Young Granson belonged to that class ofmen of talent who distrust themselves and are easily discouraged. Hissoul was contemplative. He lived more by thought than by action. Perhaps he might have seemed deficient or incomplete to those whocannot conceive of genius without the sparkle of French passion; buthe was powerful in the world of mind, and he was liable to reach, through a series of emotions imperceptible to common souls, thosesudden determinations which make fools say of a man, "He is mad. "

The contempt which the world pours out on poverty was death toAthanase; the enervating heat of solitude, without a breath or currentof air, relaxed the bow which ever strove to tighten itself; his soulgrew weary in this painful effort without results. Athanase was a manwho might have taken his place among the glories of France; but, eagleas he was, cooped in a cage without his proper nourishment, he wasabout to die of hunger after contemplating with an ardent eye thefields of air and the mountain heights where genius soars. His work inthe city library escaped attention, and he buried in his soul histhoughts of fame, fearing that they might injure him; but deeper thanall lay buried within him the secret of his heart, --a passion whichhollowed his cheeks and yellowed his brow. He loved his distantcousin, this very Mademoiselle Cormon whom the Chevalier de Valois anddu Bousquier, his hidden rivals, were stalking. This love had had itsorigin in calculation. Mademoiselle Cormon was thought to be one ofthe richest persons in the town: the poor lad had therefore been ledto love her by desires for material happiness, by the hope, longindulged, of gilding with comfort his mother's last years, by eagerlonging for the ease of life so needful to men who live by thought;but this most innocent point of departure degraded his passion in hisown eyes. Moreover, he feared the ridicule the world would cast uponthe love of a young man of twenty-three for an old maid of forty. 

And yet his passion was real; whatever may seem false about such alove elsewhere, it can be realized as a fact in the provinces, where, manners and morals being without change or chance or movement ormystery, marriage becomes a necessity of life. No family will accept ayoung man of dissolute habits. However natural the liaison of a youngman, like Athanase, with a handsome girl, like Suzanne, for instance, might seem in a capital, it alarms provincial parents, and destroysthe hopes of marriage of a poor young man when possibly the fortune ofa rich one might cause such an unfortunate antecedent to beoverlooked. Between the depravity of certain liaisons and a sincerelove, a man of honor and no fortune will not hesitate: he prefers themisfortunes of virtue to the evils of vice. But in the provinces womenwith whom a young man call fall in love are rare. A rich young girl hecannot obtain in a region where all is calculation; a poor young girlhe is prevented from loving; it would be, as provincials say, marryinghunger and thirst. Such monkish solitude is, however, dangerous toyouth. 

These reflections explain why provincial life is so firmly based onmarriage. Thus we find that ardent and vigorous genius, forced to relyon the independence of its own poverty, quits these cold regions wherethought is persecuted by brutal indifference, where no woman iswilling to be a sister of charity to a man of talent, of art, ofscience. 

Who will really understand Athanase Granson's love for MademoiselleCormon? Certainly neither rich men--those sultans of society who filltheir harems--nor middle-class men, who follow the well-beatenhigh-road of prejudices; nor women who, not choosing to understand thepassions of artists, impose the yoke of their virtues upon men ofgenius, imagining that the two sexes are governed by the same laws. 

Here, perhaps, we should appeal to those young men who suffer from therepression of their first desires at the moment when all their forcesare developing; to artists sick of their own genius smothering underthe pressure of poverty; to men of talent, persecuted and withoutinfluence, often without friends at the start, who have ended bytriumphing over that double anguish, equally agonizing, of soul andbody. Such men will well understand the lancinating pains of thecancer which was now consuming Athanase; they have gone through thoselong and bitter deliberations made in presence of some grandiosepurpose they had not the means to carry out; they have endured thosesecret miscarriages in which the fructifying seed of genius falls onarid soil. Such men know that the grandeur of desires is in proportionto the height and breadth of the imagination. The higher they spring, the lower they fall; and how can it be that ties and bonds should notbe broken by such a fall? Their piercing eye has seen--as did Athanase--the brilliant future which awaited them, and from which they fanciedthat only a thin gauze parted them; but that gauze through which theireyes could see is changed by Society into a wall of iron. Impelled bya vocation, by a sentiment of art, they endeavor again and again tolive by sentiments which society as incessantly materializes. Alas!the provinces calculate and arrange marriage with the one view ofmaterial comfort, and a poor artist or man of science is forbidden todouble its purpose and make it the saviour of his genius by securingto him the means of subsistence!

Moved by such ideas, Athanase Granson first thought of marriage withMademoiselle Cormon as a means of obtaining a livelihood which wouldbe permanent. Thence he could rise to fame, and make his mother happy, knowing at the same time that he was capable of faithfully loving hiswife. But soon his own will created, although he did not know it, agenuine passion. He began to study the old maid, and, by dint of thecharm which habit gives, he ended by seeing only her beauties andignoring her defects. 

In a young man of twenty-three the senses count for much in love;their fire produces a sort of prism between his eyes and the woman. From this point of view the clasp with which Beaumarchis' Cherubinseizes Marceline is a stroke of genius. But when we reflect that inthe utter isolation to which poverty condemned poor Athanase, Mademoiselle Cormon was the only figure presented to his gaze, thatshe attracted his eye incessantly, that all the light he had wasconcentrated on her, surely his love may be considered natural. 

This sentiment, so carefully hidden, increased from day to day. Desires, sufferings, hopes, and meditations swelled in quietness andsilence the lake widening ever in the young man's breast, as hour byhour added its drop of water to the volume. And the wider this inwardcircle, drawn by the imagination, aided by the senses, grew, the moreimposing Mademoiselle Cormon appeared to Athanase, and the more hisown timidity increased. 

The mother had divined the truth. Like all provincial mothers, shecalculated candidly in her own mind the advantages of the match. Shetold herself that Mademoiselle Cormon would be very lucky to secure ahusband in a young man of twenty-three, full of talent, who wouldalways be an honor to his family and the neighborhood; at the sametime the obstacles which her son's want of fortune and MademoiselleCormon's age presented to the marriage seemed to her almostinsurmountable; she could think of nothing but patience as being ableto vanquish them. Like du Bousquier, like the Chevalier de Valois, shehad a policy of her own; she was on the watch for circumstances, awaiting the propitious moment for a move with the shrewdness ofmaternal instinct. Madame Granson had no fears at all as to thechevalier, but she did suppose that du Bousquier, although refused, retained certain hopes. As an able and underhand enemy to the latter, she did him much secret harm in the interests of her son; from whom, by the bye, she carefully concealed all such proceedings. 

After this explanation it is easy to understand the importance whichSuzanne's lie, confided to Madame Granson, was about to acquire. Whata weapon put into the hands of this charitable lady, the treasurer ofthe Maternity Society! How she would gently and demurely spread thenews while collecting assistance for the chaste Suzanne!

At the present moment Athanase, leaning pensively on his elbow at thebreakfast table, was twirling his spoon in his empty cup andcontemplating with a preoccupied eye the poor room with its red brickfloor, its straw chairs, its painted wooden buffet, its pink and whitecurtains chequered like a backgammon board, which communicated withthe kitchen through a glass door. As his back was to the chimney whichhis mother faced, and as the chimney was opposite to the door, hispallid face, strongly lighted from the window, framed in beautifulblack hair, the eyes gleaming with despair and fiery with morningthoughts, was the first object which met the eyes of the incomingSuzanne. The grisette, who belonged to a class which certainly has theinstinct of misery and the sufferings of the heart, suddenly felt thatelectric spark, darting from Heaven knows where, which can never beexplained, which some strong minds deny, but the sympathetic stroke ofwhich has been felt by many men and many women. It is at once a lightwhich lightens the darkness of the future, a presentiment of thesacred joys of a shared love, the certainty of mutual comprehension. Above all, it is like the touch of a firm and able hand on thekeyboard of the senses. The eyes are fascinated by an irresistibleattraction; the heart is stirred; the melodies of happiness echo inthe soul and in the ears; a voice cries out, "It is he!" Oftenreflection casts a douche of cold water on this boiling emotion, andall is over. 

In a moment, as rapid as the flash of the lightning, Suzanne receivedthe broadside of this emotion in her heart. The flame of a real loveburned up the evil weeds fostered by a libertine and dissipated life. She saw how much she was losing of decency and value by accusingherself falsely. What had seemed to her a joke the night before becameto her eyes a serious charge against herself. She recoiled at her ownsuccess. But the impossibility of any result; the poverty of the youngman; a vague hope of enriching herself, of going to Paris, andreturning with full hands to say, "I love you! here are the means ofhappiness!" or mere fate, if you will have it so, dried up the nextmoment this beneficent dew. 

The ambitious grisette asked with a timid air for a moment's interviewwith Madame Granson, who took her at once into her bedchamber. WhenSuzanne came out she looked again at Athanase; he was still in thesame position, and the tears came into her eyes. As for MadameGranson, she was radiant with joy. At last she had a weapon, and aterrible one, against du Bousquier; she could now deal him a mortalblow. She had of course promised the poor seduced girl the support ofall charitable ladies and that of the members of the Maternity Societyin particular; she foresaw a dozen visits which would occupy her wholeday, and brew up a frightful storm on the head of the guilty duBousquier. The Chevalier de Valois, while foreseeing the turn theaffair would take, had really no idea of the scandal which wouldresult from his own action. 

"My dear child, " said Madame Granson to her son, "we are to dine, youknow, with Mademoiselle Cormon; do take a little pains with yourappearance. You are wrong to neglect your dress as you do. Put on thathandsome frilled shirt and your green coat of Elbeuf cloth. I have myreasons, " she added slyly. "Besides, Mademoiselle Cormon is going toPrebaudet, and many persons will doubtless call to bid her good-bye. When a young man is marriageable he ought to take every means to makehimself agreeable. If girls would only tell the truth, heavens! mydear boy, you'd be astonished at what makes them fall in love. Oftenit suffices for a man to ride past them at the head of a company ofartillery, or show himself at a ball in tight clothes. Sometimes amere turn of the head, a melancholy attitude, makes them suppose aman's whole life; they'll invent a romance to match the hero--who isoften a mere brute, but the marriage is made. Watch the Chevalier deValois: study him; copy his manners; see with what ease he presentshimself; he never puts on a stiff air, as you do. Talk a little more;one would really think you didn't know anything, --you, who know Hebrewby heart. "

Athanase listened to his mother with a surprised but submissive air;then he rose, took his cap, and went off to the mayor's office, sayingto himself, "Can my mother suspect my secret?"

He passed through the rue du Val-Noble, where Mademoiselle Cormonlived, --a little pleasure which he gave himself every morning, thinking, as usual, a variety of fanciful things:--

"How little she knows that a young man is passing before her house wholoves her well, who would be faithful to her, who would never causeher any grief; who would leave her the entire management of herfortune without interference. Good God! what fatality! here, side byside, in the same town, are two persons in our mutual condition, andyet nothing can bring them together. Suppose I were to speak to herthis evening?"

During this time Suzanne had returned to her mother's house thinkingof Athanase; and, like many other women who have longed to help anadored man beyond the limit of human powers, she felt herself capableof making her body a stepping-stone on which he could rise to attainhis throne. 

It is now necessary to enter the house of this old maid toward whom somany interests are converging, where the actors in this scene, withthe exception of Suzanne, were all to meet this very evening. As forSuzanne, that handsome individual bold enough to burn her ships likeAlexander at her start in life, and to begin the battle by afalsehood, she disappears from the stage, having introduced upon it aviolent element of interest. Her utmost wishes were gratified. Shequitted her native town a few days later, well supplied with money andgood clothes, among which was a fine dress of green reps and acharming green bonnet lined with pink, the gift of Monsieur de Valois, --a present which she preferred to all the rest, even the money. Ifthe chevalier had gone to Paris in the days of her future brilliancy, she would certainly have left every one for him. Like the chasteSusannah of the Bible, whom the Elders hardly saw, she establishedherself joyously and full of hope in Paris, while all Alencon wasdeploring her misfortunes, for which the ladies of two Societies(Charity and Maternity) manifested the liveliest sympathy. ThoughSuzanne is a fair specimen of those handsome Norman women whom alearned physician reckons as comprising one third of her fallen classwhom our monstrous Paris absorbs, it must be stated that she remainedin the upper and more decent regions of gallantry. At an epoch when, as Monsieur de Valois said, Woman no longer existed, she was simply"Madame du Val-Noble"; in other days she would have rivalled theRhodopes, the Imperias, the Ninons of the past. One of the mostdistinguished writers of the Restoration has taken her under hisprotection; perhaps he may marry her. He is a journalist, andconsequently above public opinion, inasmuch as he manufactures itafresh every year or two. 

 CHAPTER III

 MADEMOISELLE CORMON

In nearly all the second-class prefectures of France there exists onesalon which is the meeting-ground of those considerable andwell-considered persons of the community who are, nevertheless, /not/the cream of the best society. The master and mistress of such anestablishment are counted among the leading persons of the town; theyare received wherever it may please them to visit; no fete is given, no formal or diplomatic dinner takes place, to which they are notinvited. But the chateau people, heads of families possessing greatestates, in short, the highest personages in the department, do not goto their houses; social intercourse between them is carried on bycards from one to the other, and a dinner or soiree accepted andreturned. 

This salon, in which the lesser nobility, the clergy, and themagistracy meet together, exerts a great influence. The judgment andmind of the region reside in that solid, unostentatious society, whereeach man knows the resources of his neighbor, where completeindifference is shown to luxury and dress, --pleasures which arethought childish in comparison to that of obtaining ten or twelveacres of pasture land, --a purchase coveted for years, which hasprobably given rise to endless diplomatic combinations. Immovable inits prejudices, good or evil, this social circle follows a beatentrack, looking neither before it nor behind it. It accepts nothingfrom Paris without long examination and trial; it rejects cashmeres asit does investments on the Grand-Livre; it scoffs at fashions andnovelties; reads nothing, prefers ignorance, whether of science, literature, or industrial inventions. It insists on the removal of aprefect when that official does not suit it; and if the administrationresists, it isolates him, after the manner of bees who wall up a snailin wax when it gets into their hive. 

In this society gossip is often turned into solemn verdicts. Youngwomen are seldom seen there; when they come it is to seek approbationof their conduct, --a consecration of their self-importance. Thissupremacy granted to one house is apt to wound the sensibilities ofother natives of the region, who console themselves by adding up thecost it involves, and by which they profit. If it so happens thatthere is no fortune large enough to keep open house in this way, thebig-wigs of the place choose a place of meeting, as they did atAlencon, in the house of some inoffensive person, whose settled lifeand character and position offers no umbrage to the vanities or theinterests of any one. 

For some years the upper classes of Alencon had met in this way at thehouse of an old maid, whose fortune was, unknown to herself, the aimand object of Madame Granson, her second cousin, and of the two oldbachelors whose secret hopes in that direction we have just unveiled. This lady lived with her maternal uncle, a former grand-vicar of thebishopric of Seez, once her guardian, and whose heir she was. Thefamily of which Rose-Marie-Victoire Cormon was the presentrepresentative had been in earlier days among the most considerable inthe province. Though belonging to the middle classes, she consortedwith the nobility, among whom she was more or less allied, her familyhaving furnished, in past years, stewards to the Duc d'Alencon, manymagistrates to the long robe, and various bishops to the clergy. Monsieur de Sponde, the maternal grandfather of Mademoiselle Cormon, was elected by the Nobility to the States-General, and MonsieurCormon, her father, by the Tiers-Etat, though neither accepted themission. For the last hundred years the daughters of the family hadmarried nobles belonging to the provinces; consequently, this familyhad thrown out so many suckers throughout the duchy as to appear onnearly all the genealogical trees. No bourgeois family had ever seemedso like nobility. 

The house in which Mademoiselle Cormon lived, build in Henri IV. 'stime, by Pierre Cormon, the steward of the last Duc d'Alencon, hadalways belonged to the family; and among the old maid's visiblepossessions this one was particularly stimulating to the covetousdesires of the two old lovers. Yet, far from producing revenue, thehouse was a cause of expense. But it is so rare to find in the verycentre of a provincial town a private dwelling without unpleasantsurroundings, handsome in outward structure and convenient within, that Alencon shared the envy of the lovers. 

This old mansion stands exactly in the middle of the rue du Val-Noble. It is remarkable for the strength of its construction, --a style ofbuilding introduced by Marie de' Medici. Though built of granite, --astone which is hard to work, --its angles, and the casings of the doorsand windows, are decorated with corner blocks cut into diamond facets. It has only one clear story above the ground-floor; but the roof, rising steeply, has several projecting windows, with carved spandrelsrather elegantly enclosed in oaken frames, and externally adorned withbalustrades. Between each of these windows is a gargoyle presentingthe fantastic jaws of an animal without a body, vomiting therain-water upon large stones pierced with five holes. The two gablesare surmounted by leaden bouquets, --a symbol of the bourgeoisie; fornobles alone had the privilege in former days of having weather-vanes. To right of the courtyard are the stables and coach-house; to left, the kitchen, wood-house, and laundry. 

One side of the porte-cochere, being left open, allowed the passers inthe street to see in the midst of the vast courtyard a flower-bed, theraised earth of which was held in place by a low privet hedge. A fewmonthly roses, pinkes, lilies, and Spanish broom filled this bed, around which in the summer season boxes of paurestinus, pomegranates, and myrtle were placed. Struck by the scrupulous cleanliness of thecourtyard and its dependencies, a stranger would at once have divinedthat the place belonged to an old maid. The eye which presided theremust have been an unoccupied, ferreting eye; minutely careful, lessfrom nature than for want of something to do. An old maid, forced toemploy her vacant days, could alone see to the grass being hoed frombetween the paving stones, the tops of the walls kept clean, the broomcontinually going, and the leather curtains of the coach-house alwaysclosed. She alone would have introduced, out of busy idleness, a sortof Dutch cleanliness into a house on the confines of Bretagne andNormandie, --a region where they take pride in professing an utterindifference to comfort. 

Never did the Chevalier de Valois, or du Bousquier, mount the steps ofthe double stairway leading to the portico of this house withoutsaying to himself, one, that it was fit for a peer of France, theother, that the mayor of the town ought to live there. 

A glass door gave entrance from this portico into an antechamber, aspecies of gallery paved in red tiles and wainscoted, which served asa hospital for the family portraits, --some having an eye put out, others suffering from a dislocated shoulder; this one held his hat ina hand that no longer existed; that one was a case of amputation atthe knee. Here were deposited the cloaks, clogs, overshoes, umbrellas, hoods, and pelisses of the guests. It was an arsenal where eacharrival left his baggage on arriving, and took it up when departing. Along each wall was a bench for the servants who arrived withlanterns, and a large stove, to counteract the north wind, which blewthrough this hall from the garden to the courtyard. 

The house was divided in two equal parts. On one side, toward thecourtyard, was the well of the staircase, a large dining-room lookingto the garden, and an office or pantry which communicated with thekitchen. On the other side was the salon, with four windows, beyondwhich were two smaller rooms, --one looking on the garden, and used asa boudoir, the other lighted from the courtyard, and used as a sort ofoffice. 

The upper floor contained a complete apartment for a family household, and a suite of rooms where the venerable Abbe de Sponde had his abode. The garrets offered fine quarters to the rats and mice, whosenocturnal performances were related by Mademoiselle Cormon to theChevalier de Valois, with many expressions of surprise at theinutility of her efforts to get rid of them. The garden, about half anacre in size, is margined by the Brillante, so named from theparticles of mica which sparkle in its bed elsewhere than in theVal-Noble, where its shallow waters are stained by the dyehouses, andloaded with refuse from the other industries of the town. The shoreopposite to Mademoiselle Cormon's garden is crowded with houses wherea variety of trades are carried on; happily for her, the occupants arequiet people, --a baker, a cleaner, an upholsterer, and severalbourgeois. The garden, full of common flowers, ends in a naturalterrace, forming a quay, down which are several steps leading to theriver. Imagine on the balustrade of this terrace a number of tallvases of blue and white pottery, in which are gilliflowers; and toright and left, along the neighboring walls, hedges of linden closelytrimmed in, and you will gain an idea of the landscape, full oftranquil chastity, modest cheerfulness, but commonplace withal, whichsurrounded the venerable edifice of the Cormon family. What peace!what tranquillity! nothing pretentious, but nothing transitory; allseems eternal there!

The ground-floor is devoted wholly to the reception-rooms. The old, unchangeable provincial spirit pervades them. The great square salonhas four windows, modestly cased in woodwork painted gray. A singleoblong mirror is placed above the fireplace; the top of its framerepresented the Dawn led by the Hours, and painted in camaieu (twoshades of one color). This style of painting infested the decorativeart of the day, especially above door-frames, where the artistdisplayed his eternal Seasons, and made you, in most houses in thecentre of France, abhor the odious Cupids, endlessly employed inskating, gleaning, twirling, or garlanding one another with flowers. Each window was draped in green damask curtains, looped up by heavycords, which made them resemble a vast dais. The furniture, coveredwith tapestry, the woodwork, painted and varnished, and remarkable forthe twisted forms so much the fashion in the last century, bore scenesfrom the fables of La Fontaine on the chair-backs; some of thistapestry had been mended. The ceiling was divided at the centre of theroom by a huge beam, from which depended an old chandelier ofrock-crystal swathed in green gauze. On the fireplace were two vasesin Sevres blue, and two old girandoles attached to the frame of themirror, and a clock, the subject of which, taken from the last sceneof the "Deserteur, " proved the enormous popularity of Sedaine's work. This clock, of bronze-gilt, bore eleven personages upon it, each aboutfour inches tall. At the back the Deserter was seen issuing fromprison between the soldiers; in the foreground the young woman layfainting, and pointing to his pardon. On the walls of this salon wereseveral of the more recent portraits of the family, --one or two byRigaud, and three pastels by Latour. Four card tables, a backgammonboard, and a piquet table occupied the vast room, the only one in thehouse, by the bye, which was ceiled. 

The dining-room, paved in black and white stone, not ceiled, and itsbeams painted, was furnished with one of those enormous sideboardswith marble tops, required by the war waged in the provinces againstthe human stomach. The walls, painted in fresco, represented a flowerytrellis. The seats were of varnished cane, and the doors of naturalwood. All things about the place carried out the patriarchal air whichemanated from the inside as well as the outside of the house. Thegenius of the provinces preserved everything; nothing was new or old, neither young nor decrepit. A cold precision made itself feltthroughout. 

Tourists in Normandy, Brittany, Maine, and Anjou must all have seen inthe capitals of those provinces many houses which resemble more orless that of the Cormons; for it is, in its way, an archetype of theburgher houses in that region of France, and it deserves a place inthis history because it serves to explain manners and customs, andrepresents ideas. Who does not already feel that life must have beencalm and monotonously regular in this old edifice? It contained alibrary; but that was placed below the level of the river. The bookswere well bound and shelved, and the dust, far from injuring them, only made them valuable. They were preserved with the care given inthese provinces deprived of vineyards to other native products, desirable for their antique perfume, and issued by the presses ofBourgogne, Touraine, Gascogne, and the South. The cost oftransportation was too great to allow any but the best products to beimported. 

The basis of Mademoiselle Cormon's society consisted of about onehundred and fifty persons; some went at times to the country; otherswere occasionally ill; a few travelled about the department onbusiness; but certain of the faithful came every night (unless invitedelsewhere), and so did certain others compelled by duties or by habitto live permanently in the town. All the personages were of ripe age;few among them had ever travelled; nearly all had spent their lives inthe provinces, and some had taken part in the chouannerie. The latterwere beginning to speak fearlessly of that war, now that rewards werebeing showered on the defenders of the good cause. Monsieur de Valois, one of the movers in the last uprising (during which the Marquis deMontauran, betrayed by his mistress, perished in spite of the devotionof Marche-a-Terre, now tranquilly raising cattle for the market nearMayenne), --Monsieur de Valois had, during the last six months, giventhe key to several choice stratagems practised upon an old republicannamed Hulot, the commander of a demi-brigade stationed at Alencon from1798 to 1800, who had left many memories in the place. [See "TheChouans. "]

The women of this society took little pains with their dress, excepton Wednesdays, when Mademoiselle Cormon gave a dinner, on whichoccasion the guests invited on the previous Wednesday paid their"visit of digestion. " Wednesdays were gala days: the assembly wasnumerous; guests and visitors appeared in fiocchi; some women broughttheir sewing, knitting, or worsted work; the young girls were notashamed to make patterns for the Alencon point lace, with the proceedsof which they paid for their personal expenses. Certain husbandsbrought their wives out of policy, for young men were few in thathouse; not a word could be whispered in any ear without attracting theattention of all; there was therefore no danger, either for younggirls or wives, of love-making. 

Every evening, at six o'clock, the long antechamber received itsfurniture. Each habitue brought his cane, his cloak, his lantern. Allthese persons knew each other so well, and their habits and ways wereso familiarly patriarchal, that if by chance the old Abbe de Spondewas lying down, or Mademoiselle Cormon was in her chamber, neitherJosette, the maid, nor Jacquelin, the man-servant, nor Mariette, thecook, informed them. The first comer received the second; then, whenthe company were sufficiently numerous for whist, piquet, or boston, they began the game without awaiting either the Abbe de Sponde ormademoiselle. If it was dark, Josette or Jacquelin would hasten tolight the candles as soon as the first bell rang. Seeing the salonlighted up, the abbe would slowly hurry to come down. Every eveningthe backgammon and the piquet tables, the three boston tables, and thewhist table were filled, --which gave occupation to twenty-five orthirty persons; but as many as forty were usually present. Jacquelinwould then light the candles in the other rooms. 

Between eight and nine o'clock the servants began to arrive in theantechamber to accompany their masters home; and, short of arevolution, no one remained in the salon at ten o'clock. At that hourthe guests were departing in groups along the street, discoursing onthe game, or continuing conversations on the land they were covetousof buying, on the terms of some one's will, on quarrels among heirs, on the haughty assumption of the aristocratic portion of thecommunity. It was like Paris when the audience of a theatre disperses. 

Certain persons who talk much of poesy and know nothing about it, declaim against the habits of life in the provinces. But put yourforehead in your left hand, rest one foot on the fender, and yourelbow on your knee; then, if you compass the idea of this quiet anduniform scene, this house and its interior, this company and itsinterests, heightened by the pettiness of its intellect like goldleafbeaten between sheets of parchment, ask yourself, What is human life?Try to decide between him who scribbles jokes on Egyptian obelisks, and him who has "bostoned" for twenty years with Du Bousquier, Monsieur de Valois, Mademoiselle Cormon, the judge of the court, theking's attorney, the Abbe de Sponde, Madame Granson, and tutti quanti. If the daily and punctual return of the same steps to the same path isnot happiness, it imitates happiness so well that men driven by thestorms of an agitated life to reflect upon the blessings oftranquillity would say that here was happiness /enough/. 

To reckon the importance of Mademoiselle Cormon's salon at its truevalue, it will suffice to say that the born statistician of thesociety, du Bousquier, had estimated that the persons who frequentedit controlled one hundred and thirty-one votes in the electoralcollege, and mustered among themselves eighteen hundred thousandfrancs a year from landed estate in the neighborhood. 

The town of Alencon, however, was not entirely represented by thissalon. The higher aristocracy had a salon of their own; moreover, thatof the receiver-general was like an administration inn kept by thegovernment, where society danced, plotted, fluttered, loved, andsupped. These two salons communicated by means of certain mixedindividuals with the house of Cormon, and vice-versa; but the Cormonestablishment sat severely in judgment on the two other camps. Theluxury of their dinners was criticised; the ices at their balls werepondered; the behavior of the women, the dresses, and "novelties"there produced were discussed and disapproved. 

Mademoiselle Cormon, a species of firm, as one might say, under whosename was comprised an imposing coterie, was naturally the aim andobject of two ambitious men as deep and wily as the Chevalier deValois and du Bousquier. To the one as well as to the other, she meantelection as deputy, resulting, for the noble, in the peerage, for thepurveyor, in a receiver-generalship. A leading salon is a difficultthing to create, whether in Paris or the provinces, and here was onealready created. To marry Mademoiselle Cormon was to reign in Alencon. Athanase Granson, the only one of the three suitors for the hand ofthe old maid who no longer calculated profits, now loved her person aswell as her fortune. 

To employ the jargon of the day, is there not a singular drama in thesituation of these four personages? Surely there is something odd andfantastic in three rivalries silently encompassing a woman who neverguessed their existence, in spite of an eager and legitimate desire tobe married. And yet, though all these circumstances make thespinsterhood of this old maid an extraordinary thing, it is notdifficult to explain how and why, in spite of her fortune and herthree lovers, she was still unmarried. In the first place, Mademoiselle Cormon, following the custom and rule of her house, hadalways desired to marry a nobleman; but from 1788 to 1798 publiccircumstances were very unfavorable to such pretensions. Though shewanted to be a woman of condition, as the saying is, she was horriblyafraid of the Revolutionary tribunal. The two sentiments, equal inforce, kept her stationary by a law as true in ethics as it is instatics. This state of uncertain expectation is pleasing to unmarriedwomen as long as they feel themselves young, and in a position tochoose a husband. France knows that the political system of Napoleonresulted in making many widows. Under that regime heiresses wereentirely out of proportion in numbers to the bachelors who wanted tomarry. When the Consulate restored internal order, externaldifficulties made the marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon as difficult toarrange as it had been in the past. If, on the one hand, Rose-Marie-Victoire refused to marry an old man, on the other, thefear of ridicule forbade her to marry a very young one. 

In the provinces, families marry their sons early to escape theconscription. In addition to all this, she was obstinately determinednot to marry a soldier: she did not intend to take a man and then givehim up to the Emperor; she wanted him for herself alone. With theseviews, she found it therefore impossible, from 1804 to 1815, to enterthe lists with young girls who were rivalling each other for suitablematches. 

Besides her predilection for the nobility, Mademoiselle Cormon hadanother and very excusable mania: that of being loved for herself. Youcould hardly believe the lengths to which this desire led her. Sheemployed her mind on setting traps for her possible lovers, in orderto test their real sentiments. Her nets were so well laid that theluckless suitors were all caught, and succumbed to the test sheapplied to them without their knowledge. Mademoiselle Cormon did notstudy them; she watched them. A single word said heedlessly, a joke(that she often was unable to understand), sufficed to make her rejectan aspirant as unworthy: this one had neither heart nor delicacy; thatone told lies, and was not religious; a third only wanted to coinmoney under the cloak of marriage; another was not of a nature to makea woman happy; here she suspected hereditary gout; there certainimmoral antecedents alarmed her. Like the Church, she required a noblepriest at her altar; she even wanted to be married for imaginaryugliness and pretended defects, just as other women wish to be lovedfor the good qualities they have not, and for imaginary beauties. Mademoiselle Cormon's ambition took its rise in the most delicate andsensitive feminine feeling; she longed to reward a lover by revealingto him a thousand virtues after marriage, as other women then betraythe imperfections they have hitherto concealed. But she was illunderstood. The noble woman met with none but common souls in whom thereckoning of actual interests was paramount, and who knew nothing ofthe nobler calculations of sentiment. 

The farther she advanced towards that fatal epoch so adroitly calledthe "second youth, " the more her distrust increased. She affected topresent herself in the most unfavorable light, and played her part sowell that the last wooers hesitated to link their fate to that of aperson whose virtuous blind-man's-buff required an amount ofpenetration that men who want the virtuous ready-made would not bestowupon it. The constant fear of being married for her money rendered hersuspicious and uneasy beyond all reason. She turned to the rich men;but the rich are in search of great marriages; she feared the poormen, in whom she denied the disinterestedness she sought so eagerly. After each disappointment in marriage, the poor lady, led to despisemankind, began to see them all in a false light. Her characteracquired, necessarily, a secret misanthropy, which threw a tinge ofbitterness into her conversation, and some severity into her eyes. Celibacy gave to her manners and habits a certain increasing rigidity;for she endeavored to sanctify herself in despair of fate. Noblevengeance! she was cutting for God the rough diamond rejected by man. Before long public opinion was against her; for society accepts theverdict an independent woman renders on herself by not marrying, either through losing suitors or rejecting them. Everybody supposedthat these rejections were founded on secret reasons, always illinterpreted. One said she was deformed; another suggested some hiddenfault; but the poor girl was really as pure as a saint, as healthy asan infant, and full of loving kindness; Nature had intended her forall the pleasures, all the joys, and all the fatigues of motherhood. 

Mademoiselle Cormon did not possess in her person an obligingauxiliary to her desires. She had no other beauty than that veryimproperly called la beaute du diable, which consists of a buxomfreshness of youth that the devil, theologically speaking, could neverhave, --though perhaps the expression may be explained by the constantdesire that must surely possess him to cool and refresh himself. Thefeet of the heiress were broad and flat. Her leg, which she oftenexposed to sight by her manner (be it said without malice) of liftingher gown when it rained, could never have been taken for the leg of awoman. It was sinewy, with a thick projecting calf like a sailor's. Astout waist, the plumpness of a wet-nurse, strong dimpled arms, redhands, were all in keeping with the swelling outlines and the fatwhiteness of Norman beauty. Projecting eyes, undecided in color, gaveto her face, the rounded outline of which had no dignity, an air ofsurprise and sheepish simplicity, which was suitable perhaps for anold maid. If Rose had not been, as she was, really innocent, she wouldhave seemed so. An aquiline nose contrasted curiously with thenarrowness of her forehead; for it is rare that that form of nose doesnot carry with it a fine brow. In spite of her thick red lips, a signof great kindliness, the forehead revealed too great a lack of ideasto allow of the heart being guided by intellect; she was evidentlybenevolent without grace. How severely we reproach Virtue for itsdefects, and how full of indulgence we all are for the pleasanterqualities of Vice!

Chestnut hair of extraordinary length gave to Rose Cormon's face abeauty which results from vigor and abundance, --the physical qualitiesmost apparent in her person. In the days of her chief pretensions, Rose affected to hold her head at the three-quarter angle, in order toexhibit a very pretty ear, which detached itself from the blue-veinedwhiteness of her throat and temples, set off, as it was, by her wealthof hair. Seen thus in a ball-dress, she might have seemed handsome. Her protuberant outlines and her vigorous health did, in fact, drawfrom the officers of the Empire the approving exclamation, --

"What a fine slip of a girl!"

But, as years rolled on, this plumpness, encouraged by a tranquil, wholesome life, had insensibly so ill spread itself over the whole ofMademoiselle Cormon's body that her primitive proportions weredestroyed. At the present moment, no corset could restore a pair ofhips to the poor lady, who seemed to have been cast in a single mould. The youthful harmony of her bosom existed no longer; and its excessiveamplitude made the spectator fear that if she stooped its heavy massesmight topple her over. But nature had provided against this by givingher a natural counterpoise, which rendered needless the deceitfuladjunct of a bustle; in Rose Cormon everything was genuine. Her chin, as it doubled, reduced the length of her neck, and hindered the easycarriage of her head. Rose had no wrinkles, but she had folds offlesh; and jesters declared that to save chafing she powdered her skinas they do an infant's. 

This ample person offered to a young man full of ardent desires likeAthanase an attraction to which he had succumbed. Young imaginations, essentially eager and courageous, like to rove upon these fine livingsheets of flesh. Rose was like a plump partridge attracting the knifeof a gourmet. Many an elegant deep in debt would very willingly haveresigned himself to make the happiness of Mademoiselle Cormon. But, alas! the poor girl was now forty years old. At this period, aftervainly seeking to put into her life those interests which make theWoman, and finding herself forced to be still unmarried, she fortifiedher virtue by stern religious practices. She had recourse to religion, the great consoler of oppressed virginity. A confessor had, for thelast three years, directed Mademoiselle Cormon rather stupidly in thepath of maceration; he advised the use of scourging, which, if modernmedical science is to be believed, produces an effect quite thecontrary to that expected by the worthy priest, whose hygienicknowledge was not extensive. 

These absurd practices were beginning to shed a monastic tint over theface of Rose Cormon, who now saw with something like despair her whiteskin assuming the yellow tones which proclaim maturity. A slight downon her upper lip, about the corners, began to spread and darken like atrail of smoke; her temples grew shiny; decadence was beginning! Itwas authentic in Alencon that Mademoiselle Cormon suffered from rushof blood to the head. She confided her ills to the Chevalier deValois, enumerating her foot-baths, and consulting him as torefrigerants. On such occasions the shrewd old gentleman would pullout his snuff-box, gaze at the Princess Goritza, and say, by way ofconclusion:--

"The right composing draught, my dear lady, is a good and kindhusband. "

"But whom can one trust?" she replied. 

The chevalier would then brush away the snuff which had settled in thefolds of his waistcoat or his paduasoy breeches. To the world at largethis gesture would have seemed very natural; but it always gaveextreme uneasiness to the poor woman. 

The violence of this hope without an object was so great that Rose wasafraid to look a man in the face lest he should perceive in her eyesthe feelings that filled her soul. By a wilfulness, which was perhapsonly the continuation of her earlier methods, though she felt herselfattracted toward the men who might still suit her, she was so afraidof being accused of folly that she treated them ungraciously. Mostpersons in her society, being incapable of appreciating her motives, which were always noble, explained her manner towards her co-celibatesas the revenge of a refusal received or expected. When the year 1815began, Rose had reached that fatal age which she dared not avow. Shewas forty-two years old. Her desire for marriage then acquired anintensity which bordered on monomania, for she saw plainly that allchance of progeny was about to escape her; and the thing which in hercelestial ignorance she desired above all things was the possession ofchildren. Not a person in all Alencon ever attributed to this virtuouswoman a single desire for amorous license. She loved, as it were, inbulk without the slightest imagination of love. Rose was a CatholicAgnes, incapable of inventing even one of the wiles of Moliere'sAgnes. 

For some months past she had counted on chance. The disbandment of theImperial troops and the reorganization of the Royal army caused achange in the destination of many officers, who returned, some onhalf-pay, others with or without a pension, to their native towns, --all having a desire to counteract their luckless fate, and to endtheir life in a way which might to Rose Cormon be a happy beginning ofhers. It would surely be strange if, among those who returned toAlencon or its neighborhood, no brave, honorable, and, above all, sound and healthy officer of suitable age could be found, whosecharacter would be a passport among Bonaparte opinions; or someci-devant noble who, to regain his lost position, would join the ranksof the royalists. This hope kept Mademoiselle Cormon in heart duringthe early months of that year. But, alas! all the soldiers who thusreturned were either too old or too young; too aggressivelyBonapartist, or too dissipated; in short, their several situationswere out of keeping with the rank, fortune, and morals of MademoiselleCormon, who now grew daily more and more desperate. The poor woman invain prayed to God to send her a husband with whom she could bepiously happy: it was doubtless written above that she should die bothvirgin and martyr; no man suitable for a husband presented himself. The conversations in her salon every evening kept her informed of thearrival of all strangers in Alencon, and of the facts of theirfortunes, rank, and habits. But Alencon is not a town which attractsvisitors; it is not on the road to any capital; even sailors, travelling from Brest to Paris, never stop there. The poor woman endedby admitting to herself that she was reduced to the aborigines. Hereye now began to assume a certain savage expression, to which themalicious chevalier responded by a shrewd look as he drew out hissnuff-box and gazed at the Princess Goritza. Monsieur de Valois waswell aware that in the feminine ethics of love fidelity to a firstattachment is considered a pledge for the future. 

But Mademoiselle Cormon--we must admit it--was wanting in intellect, and did not understand the snuff-box performance. She redoubled hervigilance against "the evil spirit"; her rigid devotion and fixedprinciples kept her cruel sufferings hidden among the mysteries ofprivate life. Every evening, after the company had left her, shethought of her lost youth, her faded bloom, the hopes of thwartednature; and, all the while immolating her passions at the feet of theCross (like poems condemned to stay in a desk), she resolved firmlythat if, by chance, any suitor presented himself, to subject him to notests, but to accept him at once for whatever he might be. She evenwent so far as to think of marrying a sub-lieutenant, a man who smokedtobacco, whom she proposed to render, by dint of care and kindness, one of the best men in the world, although he was hampered with debts. 

But it was only in the silence of night watches that these fantasticmarriages, in which she played the sublime role of guardian angel, took place. The next day, though Josette found her mistress' bed in atossed and tumbled condition, Mademoiselle Cormon had recovered herdignity, and could only think of a man of forty, a land-owner, wellpreserved, and a quasi-young man. 

The Abbe de Sponde was incapable of giving his niece the slightest aidin her matrimonial manoeuvres. The worthy soul, now seventy years ofage, attributed the disasters of the French Revolution to the designof Providence, eager to punish a dissolute Church. He had thereforeflung himself into the path, long since abandoned, which anchoritesonce followed in order to reach heaven: he led an ascetic life withoutproclaiming it, and without external credit. He hid from the world hisworks of charity, his continual prayers, his penances; he thought thatall priests should have acted thus during the days of wrath andterror, and he preached by example. While presenting to the world acalm and smiling face, he had ended by detaching himself utterly fromearthly interests; his mind turned exclusively to sufferers, to theneeds of the Church, and to his own salvation. He left the managementof his property to his niece, who gave him the income of it, and towhom he paid a slender board in order to spend the surplus in secretalms and gifts to the Church. 

All the abbe's affections were concentrated on his niece, who regardedhim as a father, but an abstracted father, unable to conceive theagitations of the flesh, and thanking God for maintaining his deardaughter in a state of celibacy; for he had, from his youth up, adopted the principles of Saint John Chrysostom, who wrote that "thevirgin state is as far above the marriage state as the angel is abovehumanity. " Accustomed to reverence her uncle, Mademoiselle Cormondared not initiate him into the desires which filled her soul for achange of state. The worthy man, accustomed, on his side, to the waysof the house, would scarcely have liked the introduction of a husband. Preoccupied by the sufferings he soothed, lost in the depths ofprayer, the Abbe de Sponde had periods of abstraction which thehabitues of the house regarded as absent-mindedness. In any case, hetalked little; but his silence was affable and benevolent. He was aman of great height and spare, with grave and solemn manners, thoughhis face expressed all gentle sentiments and an inward calm; while hismere presence carried with it a sacred authority. He was very fond ofthe Voltairean chevalier. Those two majestic relics of the nobilityand clergy, though of very different habits and morals, recognizedeach other by their generous traits. Besides, the chevalier was asunctuous with the abbe as he was paternal with the grisettes. 

Some persons may fancy that Mademoiselle Cormon used every means toattain her end; and that among the legitimate lures of womanhood shedevoted herself to dress, wore low-necked gowns, and employed thenegative coquetries of a magnificent display of arms. Not at all! Shewas as heroic and immovable in her high-necked chemisette as a sentryin his box. Her gowns, bonnets, and chiffons were all cut and made bythe dressmaker and the milliner of Alencon, two hump-backed sisters, who were not without some taste. In spite of the entreaties of theseartists, Mademoiselle Cormon refused to employ the airy deceits ofelegance; she chose to be substantial in all things, flesh andfeathers. But perhaps the heavy fashion of her gowns was best suitedto her cast of countenance. Let those laugh who will at this poorgirl; you would have thought her sublime, O generous souls! who carebut little what form true feeling takes, but admire it where it /is/. 

Here some light-minded person may exclaim against the truth of thisstatement; they will say that there is not in all France a girl sosilly as to be ignorant of the art of angling for men; thatMademoiselle Cormon is one of those monstrous exceptions whichcommonsense should prevent a writer from using as a type; that themost virtuous and also the silliest girl who desires to catch her fishknows well how to bait the hook. But these criticisms fall before thefact that the noble catholic, apostolic, and Roman religion is stillerect in Brittany and in the ancient duchy of Alencon. Faith and pietyadmit of no subtleties. Mademoiselle Cormon trod the path ofsalvation, preferring the sorrows of her virginity so cruellyprolonged to the evils of trickery and the sin of a snare. In a womanarmed with a scourge virtue could never compromise; consequently bothlove and self-interest were forced to seek her, and seek herresolutely. And here let us have the courage to make a cruelobservation, in days when religion is nothing more than a useful meansto some, and a poesy to others. Devotion causes a moral ophthalmia. Bysome providential grace, it takes from souls on the road to eternitythe sight of many little earthly things. In a word, pious persons, devotes, are stupid on various points. This stupidity proves with whatforce they turn their minds to celestial matters; although theVoltairean Chevalier de Valois declared that it was difficult todecide whether stupid people became naturally pious, or whether pietyhad the effect of making intelligent young women stupid. But reflectupon this carefully: the purest catholic virtue, with its lovingacceptance of all cups, with its pious submission to the will of God, with its belief in the print of the divine finger on the clay of allearthly life, is the mysterious light which glides into the innermostfolds of human history, setting them in relief and magnifying them inthe eyes of those who still have Faith. Besides, if there bestupidity, why not concern ourselves with the sorrows of stupidity aswell as with the sorrows of genius? The former is a social elementinfinitely more abundant than the latter. 

So, then, Mademoiselle Cormon was guilty in the eyes of the world ofthe divine ignorance of virgins. She was no observer, and her behaviorwith her suitors proved it. At this very moment, a young girl ofsixteen, who had never opened a novel, would have read a hundredchapters of a love story in the eyes of Athanase Granson, whereMademoiselle Cormon saw absolutely nothing. Shy herself, she neversuspected shyness in others; she did not recognize in the quaveringtones of his speech the force of a sentiment he could not utter. Capable of inventing those refinements of sentimental grandeur whichhindered her marriage in her early years, she yet could not recognizethem in Athanase. This moral phenomenon will not seem surprising topersons who know that the qualities of the heart are as distinct fromthose of the mind as the faculties of genius are from the nobility ofsoul. A perfect, all-rounded man is so rare that Socrates, one of thenoblest pearls of humanity, declared (as a phrenologist of that day)that he was born to be a scamp, and a very bad one. A great generalmay save his country at Zurich, and take commissions from purveyors. Agreat musician may conceive the sublimest music and commit a forgery. A woman of true feeling may be a fool. In short, a devote may have asublime soul and yet be unable to recognize the tones of a noble soulbeside her. The caprices produced by physical infirmities are equallyto be met with in the mental and moral regions. 

This good creature, who grieved at making her yearly preserves for noone but her uncle and herself, was becoming almost ridiculous. Thosewho felt a sympathy for her on account of her good qualities, andothers on account of her defects, now made fun of her abortivemarriages. More than one conversation was based on what would becomeof so fine a property, together with the old maid's savings and heruncle's inheritance. For some time past she had been suspected ofbeing au fond, in spite of appearances, an "original. " In theprovinces it was not permissible to be original: being original meanshaving ideas that are not understood by others; the provinces demandequality of mind as well as equality of manners and customs. 

The marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon seemed, after 1804, a thing soproblematical that the saying "married like Mademoiselle Cormon"became proverbial in Alencon as applied to ridiculous failures. Surelythe sarcastic mood must be an imperative need in France, that soexcellent a woman should excite the laughter of Alencon. Not only didshe receive the whole society of the place at her house, not only wasshe charitable, pious, incapable of saying an unkind thing, but shewas fully in accord with the spirit of the place and the habits andcustoms of the inhabitants, who liked her as the symbol of theirlives; she was absolutely inlaid into the ways of the provinces; shehad never quitted them; she imbibed all their prejudices; she espousedall their interests; she adored them. 

In spite of her income of eighteen thousand francs from landedproperty, a very considerable fortune in the provinces, she lived on afooting with families who were less rich. When she went to hercountry-place at Prebaudet, she drove there in an old wicker carriole, hung on two straps of white leather, drawn by a wheezy mare, andscarcely protected by two leather curtains rusty with age. Thiscarriole, known to all the town, was cared for by Jacquelin as thoughit were the finest coupe in all Paris. Mademoiselle valued it; she hadused it for twelve years, --a fact to which she called attention withthe triumphant joy of happy avarice. Most of the inhabitants of thetown were grateful to Mademoiselle Cormon for not humiliating them bythe luxury she could have displayed; we may even believe that had sheimported a caleche from Paris they would have gossiped more about thatthan about her various matrimonial failures. The most brilliantequipage would, after all, have only taken her, like the old carriole, to Prebaudet. Now the provinces, which look solely to results, carelittle about the beauty or elegance of the means, provided they areefficient. 

 CHAPTER V

 AN OLD MAID'S HOUSEHOLD

To complete the picture of the internal habits and ways of this house, it is necessary to group around Mademoiselle Cormon and the Abbe deSponde Jacquelin, Josette, and Mariette, the cook, who employedthemselves in providing for the comfort of uncle and niece. 

Jacquelin, a man of forty, short, fat, ruddy, and brown, with a facelike a Breton sailor, had been in the service of the house fortwenty-two years. He waited at table, groomed the mare, gardened, blacked the abbe's boots, went on errands, chopped the wood, drove thecarriole, and fetched the oats, straw, and hay from Prebaudet. He satin the antechamber during the evening, where he slept like a dormouse. He was in love with Josette, a girl of thirty, whom Mademoiselle wouldhave dismissed had she married him. So the poor fond pair laid bytheir wages, and loved each other silently, waiting, hoping formademoiselle's own marriage, as the Jews are waiting for the Messiah. Josette, born between Alencon and Mortagne, was short and plump; herface, which looked like a dirty apricot, was not wanting in sense andcharacter; it was said that she ruled her mistress. Josette andJacquelin, sure of results, endeavored to hide an inward satisfactionwhich allows it to be supposed that, as lovers, they had discountedthe future. Mariette, the cook, who had been fifteen years in thehousehold, knew how to make all the dishes held in most honor inAlencon. 

Perhaps we ought to count for much the fat old Norman brown-bay mare, which drew Mademoiselle Cormon to her country-seat at Prebaudet; forthe five inhabitants of the house bore to this animal a maniacalaffection. She was called Penelope, and had served the family foreighteen years; but she was kept so carefully and fed with suchregularity that mademoiselle and Jacquelin both hoped to use her forten years longer. This beast was the subject of perpetual talk andoccupation; it seemed as if poor Mademoiselle Cormon, having nochildren on whom her repressed motherly feelings could expendthemselves, had turned those sentiments wholly on this most fortunateanimal. 

The four faithful servants--for Penelope's intelligence raised her tothe level of the other good servants; while they, on the other hand, had lowered themselves to the mute, submissive regularity of the beast--went and came daily in the same occupations with the infallibleaccuracy of mechanism. But, as they said in their idiom, they hadeaten their white bread first. Mademoiselle Cormon, like all personsnervously agitated by a fixed idea, became hard to please, andnagging, less by nature than from the need of employing her activity. Having no husband or children to occupy her, she fell back on pettydetails. She talked for hours about mere nothings, on a dozen napkinsmarked "Z, " placed in the closet before the "O's. "

"What can Josette be thinking of?" she exclaimed. "Josette isbeginning to neglect things. "

Mademoiselle inquired for eight days running whether Penelope had hadher oats at two o'clock, because on one occasion Jacquelin was atrifle late. Her narrow imagination spent itself on trifles. A layerof dust forgotten by the feather-duster, a slice of toast ill-made byMariette, Josette's delay in closing the blinds when the sun cameround to fade the colors of the furniture, --all these great littlethings gave rise to serious quarrels in which mademoiselle grew angry. "Everything was changing, " she would cry; "she did not know her ownservants; the fact was she spoiled them!" On one occasion Josette gaveher the "Journee du Chretien" instead of the "Quinzaine de Paques. "The whole town heard of this disaster the same evening. Mademoisellehad been forced to leave the church and return home; and her suddendeparture, upsetting the chairs, made people suppose a catastrophe hadhappened. She was therefore obliged to explain the facts to herfriends. 

"Josette, " she said gently, "such a thing must never happen again. "

Mademoiselle Cormon was, without being aware of it, made happier bysuch little quarrels, which served as cathartics to relieve herbitterness. The soul has its needs, and, like the body, itsgymnastics. These uncertainties of temper were accepted by Josette andJacquelin as changes in the weather are accepted by husbandmen. Thoseworthy souls remark, "It is fine to-day, " or "It rains, " withoutarraigning the heavens. And so when they met in the morning theservants would wonder in what humor mademoiselle would get up, just asa farmer wonders about the mists at dawn. 

Mademoiselle Cormon had ended, as it was natural she should end, incontemplating herself only in the infinite pettinesses of her life. Herself and God, her confessor and the weekly wash, her preserves andthe church services, and her uncle to care for, absorbed her feebleintellect. To her the atoms of life were magnified by an opticpeculiar to persons who are selfish by nature or self-absorbed by someaccident. Her perfect health gave alarming meaning to the least littlederangement of her digestive organs. She lived under the iron rod ofthe medical science of our forefathers, and took yearly fourprecautionary doses, strong enough to have killed Penelope, thoughthey seemed to rejuvenate her mistress. If Josette, when dressing her, chanced to discover a little pimple on the still satiny shoulders ofmademoiselle, it became the subject of endless inquiries as to thevarious alimentary articles of the preceding week. And what a triumphwhen Josette reminded her mistress of a certain hare that was rather"high, " and had doubtless raised that accursed pimple! With what joythey said to each other: "No doubt, no doubt, it /was/ the hare!"

"Mariette over-seasoned it, " said mademoiselle. "I am always tellingher to do so lightly for my uncle and for me; but Mariette has no morememory than--"

"The hare, " said Josette. 

"Just so, " replied Mademoiselle; "she has no more memory than a hare, --a very just remark. "

Four times a year, at the beginning of each season, MademoiselleCormon went to pass a certain number of days on her estate ofPrebaudet. It was now the middle of May, the period at which shewished to see how her apple-trees had "snowed, " a saying of thatregion which expressed the effect produced beneath the trees by thefalling of their blossoms. When the circular deposit of these fallenpetals resembled a layer of snow the owner of the trees might hope foran abundant supply of cider. While she thus gauged her vats, Mademoiselle Cormon also attended to the repairs which the winternecessitated; she ordered the digging of her flower-beds and hervegetable garden, from which she supplied her table. Every season hadits own business. Mademoiselle always gave a dinner of farewell to herintimate friends the day before her departure, although she wascertain to see them again within three weeks. It was always a piece ofnews which echoed through Alencon when Mademoiselle Cormon departed. All her visitors, especially those who had missed a visit, came to bidher good-bye; the salon was thronged, and every one said farewell asthough she were starting for Calcutta. The next day the shopkeeperswould stand at their doors to see the old carriole pass, and theyseemed to be telling one another some news by repeating from shop toshop:--

"So Mademoiselle Cormon is going to Prebaudet!"

Some said: "/Her/ bread is baked. "

"Hey! my lad, " replied the next man. "She's a worthy woman; if moneyalways came into such hands we shouldn't see a beggar in the country. "

Another said: "Dear me, I shouldn't be surprised if the vineyards werein bloom; here's Mademoiselle Cormon going to Prebaudet. How happensit she doesn't marry?"

"I'd marry her myself, " said a wag; "in fact, the marriage ishalf-made, for here's one consenting party; but the other side won't. Pooh! the oven is heating for Monsieur du Bousquier. "

"Monsieur du Bousquier! Why, she has refused him. "

That evening at all the gatherings it was told gravely:--

"Mademoiselle Cormon has gone. "

Or:--

"So you have really let Mademoiselle Cormon go. "

The Wednesday chosen by Suzanne to make known her scandal happened tobe this farewell Wednesday, --a day on which Mademoiselle Cormon droveJosette distracted on the subject of packing. During the morning, therefore, things had been said and done in the town which lent theutmost interest to this farewell meeting. Madame Granson had gone theround of a dozen houses while the old maid was deliberating on thethings she needed for the journey; and the malicious Chevalier deValois was playing piquet with Mademoiselle Armande, sister of adistinguished old marquis, and the queen of the salon of thearistocrats. If it was not uninteresting to any one to see what figurethe seducer would cut that evening, it was all important for thechevalier and Madame Granson to know how Mademoiselle Cormon wouldtake the news in her double capacity of marriageable woman andpresident of the Maternity Society. As for the innocent du Bousquier, he was taking a walk on the promenade, and beginning to suspect thatSuzanne had tricked him; this suspicion confirmed him in hisprinciples as to women. 

On gala days the table was laid at Mademoiselle Cormon's abouthalf-past three o'clock. At that period the fashionable people ofAlencon dined at four. Under the Empire they still dined as in formertimes at half-past two; but then they supped! One of the pleasureswhich Mademoiselle Cormon valued most was (without meaning any malice, although the fact certainly rests on egotism) the unspeakablesatisfaction she derived from seeing herself dressed as mistress ofthe house to receive her guests. When she was thus under arms a ray ofhope would glide into the darkness of her heart; a voice told her thatnature had not so abundantly provided for her in vain, and that someman, brave and enterprising, would surely present himself. Her desirewas refreshed like her person; she contemplated herself in her heavystuffs with a sort of intoxication, and this satisfaction continuedwhen she descended the stairs to cast her redoubtable eye on thesalon, the dinner-table, and the boudoir. She would then walk aboutwith the naive contentment of the rich, --who remember at all momentsthat they are rich and will never want for anything. She looked at hereternal furniture, her curiosities, her lacquers, and said to herselfthat all these fine things wanted was a master. After admiring thedining-room, and the oblong dinner-table, on which was spread asnow-white cloth adorned with twenty covers placed at equal distances;after verifying the squadron of bottles she had ordered to be broughtup, and which all bore honorable labels; after carefully verifying thenames written on little bits of paper in the trembling handwriting ofthe abbe (the only duty he assumed in the household, and one whichgave rise to grave discussions on the place of each guest), --aftergoing through all these preliminary acts mademoiselle went, in herfine clothes, to her uncle, who was accustomed at this, the best hourin the day, to take his walk on the terrace which overlooked theBrillante, where he could listen to the warble of birds which wereresting in the coppice, unafraid of either sportsmen or children. Atsuch times of waiting she never joined the Abbe de Sponde withoutasking him some ridiculous question, in order to draw the old man intoa discussion which might serve to amuse him. And her reason was this, --which will serve to complete our picture of this excellent woman'snature:--

Mademoiselle Cormon regarded it as one of her duties to talk; not thatshe was talkative, for she had unfortunately too few ideas, and didnot know enough phrases to converse readily. But she believed she wasaccomplishing one of the social duties enjoined by religion, whichorders us to make ourselves agreeable to our neighbor. This obligationcost her so much that she consulted her director, the Abbe Couturier, upon the subject of this honest but puerile civility. In spite of thehumble remark of his penitent, confessing the inward labor of her mindin finding anything to say, the old priest, rigid on the point ofdiscipline, read her a passage from Saint-Francois de Sales on theduties of women in society, which dwelt on the decent gayety of piousChristian women, who were bound to reserve their sternness forthemselves, and to be amiable and pleasing in their homes, and seethat their neighbors enjoyed themselves. Thus, filled with a sense ofduty, and wishing, at all costs, to obey her director, who bade herconverse with amenity, the poor soul perspired in her corset when thetalk around her languished, so much did she suffer from the effort ofemitting ideas in order to revive it. Under such circumstances shewould put forth the silliest statements, such as: "No one can be intwo places at once--unless it is a little bird, " by which she one dayroused, and not without success, a discussion on the ubiquity of theapostles, which she was unable to comprehend. Such efforts atconversation won her the appellation of "that good MademoiselleCormon, " which, from the lips of the beaux esprits of society, meansthat she was as ignorant as a carp, and rather a poor fool; but manypersons of her own calibre took the remark in its literal sense, andanswered:--

"Yes; oh yes! Mademoiselle Cormon is an excellent woman. "

Sometimes she would put such absurd questions (always for the purposeof fulfilling her duties to society, and making herself agreeable toher guests) that everybody burst out laughing. She asked, forinstance, what the government did with the taxes they were alwaysreceiving; and why the Bible had not been printed in the days of JesusChrist, inasmuch as it was written by Moses. Her mental powers werethose of the English "country gentleman" who, hearing constant mentionof "posterity" in the House of Commons, rose to make the speech thathas since become celebrated: "Gentlemen, " he said, "I hear much talkin this place about Posterity. I should be glad to know what thatpower has ever done for England. "

Under these circumstances the heroic Chevalier de Valois would bringto the succor of the old maid all the powers of his clever diplomacy, whenever he saw the pitiless smile of wiser heads. The old gentleman, who loved to assist women, turned Mademoiselle Cormon's sayings intowit by sustaining them paradoxically, and he often covered the retreatso well that it seemed as if the good woman had said nothing silly. She asserted very seriously one evening that she did not see anydifference between an ox and a bull. The dear chevalier instantlyarrested the peals of laughter by asserting that there was only thedifference between a sheep and a lamb. 

But the Chevalier de Valois served an ungrateful dame, for never didMademoiselle Cormon comprehend his chivalrous services. Observing thatthe conversation grew lively, she simply thought that she was not sostupid as she was, --the result being that she settled down into herignorance with some complacency; she lost her timidity, and acquired aself-possession which gave to her "speeches" something of thesolemnity with which the British enunciate their patrioticabsurdities, --the self-conceit of stupidity, as it may be called. 

As she approached her uncle, on this occasion, with a majestic step, she was ruminating over a question that might draw him from a silence, which always troubled her, for she feared he was dull. 

"Uncle, " she said, leaning on his arm and clinging to his side (thiswas one of her fictions; for she said to herself "If I had a husband Ishould do just so"), --"uncle, if everything here below happensaccording to the will of God, there must be a reason for everything. "

"Certainly, " replied the abbe, gravely. The worthy man, who cherishedhis niece, always allowed her to tear him from his meditations withangelic patience. 

"Then if I remain unmarried, --supposing that I do, --God wills it?"

"Yes, my child, " replied the abbe. 

"And yet, as nothing prevents me from marrying to-morrow if I choose, His will can be destroyed by mine?"

"That would be true if we knew what was really the will of God, "replied the former prior of the Sorbonne. "Observe, my daughter, thatyou put in an /if/. "

The poor woman, who expected to draw her uncle into a matrimonialdiscussion by an argument ad omnipotentem, was stupefied; but personsof obtuse mind have the terrible logic of children, which consists inturning from answer to question, --a logic that is frequentlyembarrassing. 

"But, uncle, God did not make women intending them not to marry;otherwise they ought all to stay unmarried; if not, they ought all tomarry. There's great injustice in the distribution of parts. "

"Daughter, " said the worthy abbe, "you are blaming the Church, whichdeclares celibacy to be the better way to God. "

"But if the Church is right, and all the world were good Catholics, wouldn't the human race come to an end, uncle?"

"You have too much mind, Rose; you don't need so much to be happy. "

That remark brought a smile of satisfaction to the lips of the poorwoman, and confirmed her in the good opinion she was beginning toacquire about herself. That is how the world, our friends, and ourenemies are the accomplices of our defects!

At this moment the conversation was interrupted by the successivearrival of the guests. On these ceremonial days, friendlyfamiliarities were exchanged between the servants of the house and thecompany. Mariette remarked to the chief-justice as he passed thekitchen:--

"Ah, Monsieur du Ronceret, I've cooked the cauliflowers au gratinexpressly for you, for mademoiselle knows how you like them; and shesaid to me: 'Now don't forget, Mariette, for Monsieur du Ronceret iscoming. '"

"That good Mademoiselle Cormon!" ejaculated the chief legal authorityof the town. "Mariette, did you steep them in gravy instead ofsoup-stock? it is much richer. "

The chief-justice was not above entering the chamber of council whereMariette held court; he cast the eye of a gastronome around it, andoffered the advice of a past master in cookery. 

"Good-day, madame, " said Josette to Madame Granson, who courted themaid. "Mademoiselle has thought of you, and there's fish for dinner. "

As for the Chevalier de Valois, he remarked to Mariette, in the easytone of a great seigneur who condescends to be familiar:--

"Well, my dear cordon-bleu, to whom I should give the cross of theLegion of honor, is there some little dainty for which I had betterreserve myself?"

"Yes, yes, Monsieur de Valois, --a hare sent from Prebaudet; weighsfourteen pounds. "

Du Bousquier was not invited. Mademoiselle Cormon, faithful to thesystem which we know of, treated that fifty-year-old suitor extremelyill, although she felt inexplicable sentiments towards him in thedepths of her heart. She had refused him; yet at times she repented;and a presentiment that she should yet marry him, together with aterror at the idea which prevented her from wishing for the marriage, assailed her. Her mind, stimulated by these feelings, was muchoccupied by du Bousquier. Without being aware of it, she wasinfluenced by the herculean form of the republican. Madame Granson andthe Chevalier de Valois, although they could not explain to themselvesMademoiselle Cormon's inconsistencies, had detected her naive glancesin that direction, the meaning of which seemed clear enough to makethem both resolve to ruin the hopes of the already rejected purveyor, --hopes which it was evident he still indulged. 

Two guests, whose functions excused them, kept the dinner waiting. Onewas Monsieur du Coudrai, the recorder of mortgages; the other MonsieurChoisnel, former bailiff to the house of Esgrignon, and now the notaryof the upper aristocracy, by whom he was received with a distinctiondue to his virtues; he was also a man of considerable wealth. When thetwo belated guests arrived, Jacquelin said to them as he saw themabout to enter the salon:--

"/They/ are all in the garden. "

No doubt the assembled stomachs were impatient; for on the appearanceof the register of mortgages--who had no defect except that of havingmarried for her money an intolerable old woman, and of perpetratingendless puns, at which he was the first to laugh--the gentle murmur bywhich such late-comers are welcomed arose. While awaiting the officialannouncement of dinner, the company were sauntering on the terraceabove the river, and gazing at the water-plants, the mosaic of thecurrents, and the various pretty details of the houses clusteringacross the river, their old wooden galleries, their moulderingwindow-frames, their little gardens where clothes were drying, thecabinet-maker's shop, --in short, the many details of a small communityto which the vicinity of a river, a weeping willow, flowers, rose-bushes, added a certain grace, making the scene quite worthy of alandscape painter. 

The chevalier studied all faces, for he knew that his firebrand hadbeen very successfully introduced into the chief houses of the place. But no one as yet referred openly to the great news of Suzanne and duBousquier. Provincials possess in the highest degree the art ofdistilling gossip; the right moment for openly discussing this strangeaffair had not arrived; it was first necessary that all present shouldput themselves on record. So the whispers went round from ear toear:--

"You have heard?"

"Yes. "

"Du Bousquier?"

"And that handsome Suzanne. "

"Does Mademoiselle Cormon know of it?"

"No. "

"Ha!"

This was the /piano/ of the scandal; the /rinforzando/ would breakforth as soon as the first course had been removed. Suddenly Monsieurde Valois's eyes lighted on Madame Granson, arrayed in her green hatwith bunches of auriculas, and beaming with evident joy. Was it merelythe joy of opening the concert? Though such a piece of news was like agold mine to work in the monotonous lives of these personages, theobservant and distrustful chevalier thought he recognized in theworthy woman a far more extended sentiment; namely, the joy caused bythe triumph of self-interest. Instantly he turned to examine Athanase, and detected him in the significant silence of deep meditation. Presently, a look cast by the young man on Mademoiselle Cormon carriedto the soul of the chevalier a sudden gleam. That momentary flash oflightning enabled him to read the past. 

"Ha! the devil!" he said to himself; "what a checkmate I'm exposedto!"

Monsieur de Valois now approached Mademoiselle Cormon, and offered hisarm. The old maid's feeling to the chevalier was that of respectfulconsideration; and certainly his name, together with the position heoccupied among the aristocratic constellations of the department madehim the most brilliant ornament of her salon. In her inmost mindMademoiselle Cormon had wished for the last dozen years to becomeMadame de Valois. That name was like the branch of a tree, to whichthe ideas which /swarmed/ in her mind about rank, nobility, and theexternal qualities of a husband had fastened. But, though theChevalier de Valois was the man chosen by her heart, and mind, andambition, that elderly ruin, combed and curled like a littleSaint-John in a procession, alarmed Mademoiselle Cormon. She saw thegentleman in him, but she could not see a husband. The indifferencewhich the chevalier affected as to marriage, above all, the apparentpurity of his morals in a house which abounded in grisettes, didsingular harm in her mind to Monsieur de Valois against hisexpectations. The worthy man, who showed such judgment in the matterof his annuity, was at fault here. Without being herself aware of it, the thoughts of Mademoiselle Cormon on the too virtuous chevaliermight be translated thus:--

"What a pity that he isn't a trifle dissipated!"

Observers of the human heart have remarked the leaning of pious womentoward scamps; some have expressed surprise at this taste, consideringit opposed to Christian virtue. But, in the first place, what noblerdestiny can you offer to a virtuous woman than to purify, likecharcoal, the muddy waters of vice? How is it some observers fail tosee that these noble creatures, obliged by the sternness of their ownprinciples never to infringe on conjugal fidelity, must naturallydesire a husband of wider practical experience than their own? Thescamps of social life are great men in love. Thus the poor womangroaned in spirit at finding her chosen vessel parted into two pieces. God alone could solder together a Chevalier de Valois and a duBousquier. 

In order to explain the importance of the few words which thechevalier and Mademoiselle Cormon are about to say to each other, itis necessary to reveal two serious matters which agitated the town, and about which opinions were divided; besides, du Bousquier wasmysteriously connected with them. 

One concerns the rector of Alencon, who had formerly taken theconstitutional oath, and who was now conquering the repugnance of theCatholics by a display of the highest virtues. He was Cheverus on asmall scale, and became in time so fully appreciated that when he diedthe whole town mourned him. Mademoiselle Cormon and the Abbe de Spondebelonged to that "little Church, " sublime in its orthodoxy, which wasto the court of Rome what the Ultras were to be to Louis XVIII. Theabbe, more especially, refused to recognize a Church which hadcompromised with the constitutionals. The rector was therefore notreceived in the Cormon household, whose sympathies were all given tothe curate of Saint-Leonard, the aristocratic parish of Alencon. DuBousquier, that fanatic liberal now concealed under the skin of aroyalist, knowing how necessary rallying points are to all discontents(which are really at the bottom of all oppositions), had drawn thesympathies of the middle classes around the rector. So much for thefirst case; the second was this:--

Under the secret inspiration of du Bousquier the idea of building atheatre had dawned on Alencon. The henchmen of the purveyor did notknow their Mohammed; and they thought they were ardent in carrying outtheir own conception. Athanase Granson was one of the warmestpartisans for the theatre; and of late he had urged at the mayor'soffice a cause which all the other young clerks had eagerly adopted. 

The chevalier, as we have said, offered his arm to the old maid for aturn on the terrace. She accepted it, not without thanking him by ahappy look for this attention, to which the chevalier replied bymotioning toward Athanase with a meaning eye. 

"Mademoiselle, " he began, "you have so much sense and judgment insocial proprieties, and also, you are connected with that young man bycertain ties--"

"Distant ones, " she said, interrupting him. 

"Ought you not, " he continued, "to use the influence you have over hismother and over himself by saving him from perdition? He is not veryreligious, as you know; indeed he approves of the rector; but that isnot all; there is something far more serious; isn't he throwinghimself headlong into an opposition without considering what influencehis present conduct may exert upon his future? He is working for theconstruction of a theatre. In this affair he is simply the dupe ofthat disguised republican du Bousquier--"

"Good gracious! Monsieur de Valois, " she replied; "his mother isalways telling me he has so much mind, and yet he can't say two words;he stands planted before me as mum as a post--"

"Which doesn't think at all!" cried the recorder of mortgages. "Icaught your words on the fly. I present my compliments to Monsieur deValois, " he added, bowing to that gentleman with much emphasis. 

The chevalier returned the salutation stiffly, and drew MademoiselleCormon toward some flower-pots at a little distance, in order to showthe interrupter that he did not choose to be spied upon. 

"How is it possible, " he continued, lowering his voice, and leaningtowards Mademoiselle Cormon's ear, "that a young man brought up inthose detestable lyceums should have ideas? Only sound morals andnoble habits will ever produce great ideas and a true love. It is easyto see by a mere look at him that the poor lad is likely to beimbecile, and come, perhaps, to some sad end. See how pale and haggardhe is!"

"His mother declares he works too hard, " replied the old maid, innocently. "He sits up late, and for what? reading books and writing!What business ought to require a young man to write at night?"

"It exhausts him, " replied the chevalier, trying to bring the oldmaid's thoughts back to the ground where he hoped to inspire her withhorror for her youthful lover. "The morals of those Imperial lyceumsare really shocking. "

"Oh, yes!" said the ingenuous creature. "They march the pupils aboutwith drums at their head. The masters have no more religion thanpagans. And they put the poor lads in uniform, as if they were troops. What ideas!"

"And behold the product!" said the chevalier, motioning to Athanase. "In my day, young men were not so shy of looking at a pretty woman. Asfor him, he drops his eyes whenever he sees you. That young manfrightens me because I am really interested in him. Tell him not tointrigue with the Bonapartists, as he is now doing about that theatre. When all these petty folks cease to ask for it insurrectionally, --which to my mind is the synonym of constitutionally, --the governmentwill build it. Besides which, tell his mother to keep an eye on him. "

"Oh, I'm sure she will prevent him from seeing those half-pay, questionable people. I'll talk to her, " said Mademoiselle Cormon, "forhe might lose his place in the mayor's office; and then what would heand his mother have to live on? It makes me shudder. "

As Monsieur de Talleyrand said of his wife, so the chevalier said tohimself, looking at Mademoiselle Cormon:--

"Find me another as stupid! Good powers! isn't virtue which drives outintellect vice? But what an adorable wife for a man of my age! Whatprinciples! what ignorance!"

Remember that this monologue, addressed to the Princess Goritza, wasmentally uttered while he took a pinch of snuff. 

Madame Granson had divined that the chevalier was talking aboutAthanase. Eager to know the result of the conversation, she followedMademoiselle Cormon, who was now approaching the young man with muchdignity. But at this moment Jacquelin appeared to announce thatmademoiselle was served. The old maid gave a glance of appeal to thechevalier; but the gallant recorder of mortgages, who was beginning tosee in the manners of that gentleman the barrier which the provincialnobles were setting up about this time between themselves and thebourgeoisie, made the most of his chance to cut out Monsieur deValois. He was close to Mademoiselle Cormon, and promptly offered hisarm, which she found herself compelled to accept. The chevalier thendarted, out of policy, upon Madame Granson. 

"Mademoiselle Cormon, my dear lady, " he said to her, walking slowlyafter all the other guests, "feels the liveliest interest in your dearAthanase; but I fear it will vanish through his own fault. He isirreligious and liberal; he is agitating this matter of the theatre;he frequents the Bonapartists; he takes the side of that rector. Suchconduct may make him lose his place in the mayor's office. You knowwith what care the government is beginning to weed out such opinions. If your dear Athanase loses his place, where can he find otheremployment? I advise him not to get himself in bad odor with theadministration. "

"Monsieur le Chevalier, " said the poor frightened mother, "howgrateful I am to you! You are right: my son is the tool of a bad setof people; I shall enlighten him. "

The chevalier had long since fathomed the nature of Athanase, andrecognized in it that unyielding element of republican convictions towhich in his youth a young man is willing to sacrifice everything, carried away by the word "liberty, " so ill-defined and so littleunderstood, but which to persons disdained by fate is a banner ofrevolt; and to such, revolt is vengeance. Athanase would certainlypersist in that faith, for his opinions were woven in with hisartistic sorrows, with his bitter contemplation of the social state. He was ignorant of the fact that at thirty-six years of age, --theperiod of life when a man has judged men and social interests andrelations, --the opinions for which he was ready to sacrifice hisfuture would be modified in him, as they are in all men of realsuperiority. To remain faithful to the Left side of Alencon was togain the aversion of Mademoiselle Cormon. There, indeed, the chevaliersaw true. 

Thus we see that this society, so peaceful in appearance, wasinternally as agitated as any diplomatic circle, where craft, ability, and passions group themselves around the grave questions of an empire. The guests were now seated at the table laden with the first course, which they ate as provincials eat, without shame at possessing a goodappetite, and not as in Paris, where it seems as if jaws gnashed undersumptuary laws, which made it their business to contradict the laws ofanatomy. In Paris people eat with their teeth, and trifle with theirpleasure; in the provinces things are done naturally, and interest isperhaps rather too much concentrated on the grand and universal meansof existence to which God has condemned his creatures. 

It was at the end of the first course that Mademoiselle Cormon madethe most celebrated of her "speeches"; it was talked about for fullytwo years, and is still told at the gatherings of the lesserbourgeoisie whenever the topic of her marriage comes up. 

The conversation, becoming lively as the penultimate entree wasreached, had turned naturally on the affair of the theatre and theconstitutionally sworn rector. In the first fervor of royalty, duringthe year 1816, those who later were called Jesuits were all for theexpulsion of the Abbe Francois from his parish. Du Bousquier, suspected by Monsieur de Valois of sustaining the priest and being atthe bottom of the theatre intrigues, and on whose back the adroitchevalier would in any case have put those sins with his customarycleverness, was in the dock with no lawyer to defend him. Athanase, the only guest loyal enough to stand by du Bousquier, had not thenerve to emit his ideas in the presence of those potentates ofAlencon, whom in his heart he thought stupid. None but provincialyouths now retain a respectful demeanor before men of a certain age, and dare neither to censure nor contradict them. The talk, diminishedunder the effect of certain delicious ducks dressed with olives, wasfalling flat. Mademoiselle Cormon, feeling the necessity ofmaintaining it against her own ducks, attempted to defend duBousquier, who was being represented as a pernicious fomenter ofintrigues, capable of any trickery. 

"As for me, " she said, "I thought that Monsieur du Bousquier caredchiefly for childish things. "

Under existing circumstances the remark had enormous success. Mademoiselle Cormon obtained a great triumph; she brought the nose ofthe Princess Goritza flat on the table. The chevalier, who littleexpected such an apt remark from his Dulcinea, was so amazed that hecould at first find no words to express his admiration; he applaudednoiselessly, as they do at the Opera, tapping his fingers together toimitate applause. 

"She is adorably witty, " he said to Madame Granson. "I always saidthat some day she would unmask her batteries. "

"In private she is always charming, " replied the widow. 

"In private, madame, all women have wit, " returned the chevalier. 

The Homeric laugh thus raised having subsided, Mademoiselle Cormonasked the reason of her success. Then began the /forte/ of the gossip. Du Bousquier was depicted as a species of celibate Pere Gigogne, amonster, who for the last fifteen years had kept the FoundlingHospital supplied. His immoral habits were at last revealed! theseParisian saturnalias were the result of them, etc. , etc. Conducted bythe Chevalier de Valois, a most able leader of an orchestra of thiskind, the opening of the /cancan/ was magnificent. 

"I really don't know, " he said, "what should hinder a du Bousquierfrom marrying a Mademoiselle Suzanne What's-her-name. What /is/ hername, do you know? Suzette! Though I have lodgings at Madame Lardot's, I know her girls only by sight. If this Suzette is a tall, fine, saucygirl, with gray eyes, a slim waist, and a pretty foot, whom I haveoccasionally seen, and whose behavior always seemed to me extremelyinsolent, she is far superior in manners to du Bousquier. Besides, thegirl has the nobility of beauty; from that point of view the marriagewould be a poor one for her; she might do better. You know how theEmperor Joseph had the curiosity to see the du Barry at Luciennes. Heoffered her his arm to walk about, and the poor thing was so surprisedat the honor that she hesitated to accept it: 'Beauty is ever aqueen, ' said the Emperor. And he, you know, was an Austrian-German, "added the chevalier. "But I can tell you that Germany, which isthought here very rustic, is a land of noble chivalry and finemanners, especially in Poland and Hungary, where--"

Here the chevalier stopped, fearing to slip into some allusion to hispersonal happiness; he took out his snuff-box, and confided the restof his remarks to the princess, who had smiled upon him for thirty-sixyears and more. 

"That speech was rather a delicate one for Louis XV. , " said duRonceret. 

"But it was, I think, the Emperor Joseph who made it, and not LouisXV. , " remarked Mademoiselle Cormon, in a correcting tone. 

"Mademoiselle, " said the chevalier, observing the malicious glanceexchanged between the judge, the notary, and the recorder, "Madame duBarry was the Suzanne of Louis XV. , --a circumstance well known toscamps like ourselves, but unsuitable for the knowledge of youngladies. Your ignorance proves you to be a flawless diamond; historicalcorruptions do not enter your mind. "

The Abbe de Sponde looked graciously at the Chevalier de Valois, andnodded his head in sign of his laudatory approbation. 

"Doesn't mademoiselle know history?" asked the recorder of mortgages. 

"If you mix up Louis XV. And this girl Suzanne, how am I to knowhistory?" replied Mademoiselle Cormon, angelically, glad to see thatthe dish of ducks was empty at last, and the conversation so ready torevive that all present laughed with their mouths full at her lastremark. 

"Poor girl!" said the Abbe de Sponde. "When a great misfortunehappens, charity, which is divine love, and as blind as pagan love, ought not to look into the causes of it. Niece, you are president ofthe Maternity Society; you must succor that poor girl, who will nowfind it difficult to marry. "

"Poor child!" ejaculated Mademoiselle Cormon. 

"Do you suppose du Bousquier would marry her?" asked the judge. 

"If he is an honorable man he ought to do so, " said Madame Granson;"but really, to tell the truth, my dog has better morals than he--"

"Azor is, however, a good purveyor, " said the recorder of mortgages, with the air of saying a witty thing. 

At dessert du Bousquier was still the topic of conversation, havinggiven rise to various little jokes which the wine rendered sparkling. Following the example of the recorder, each guest capped hisneighbor's joke with another: Du Bousquier was a father, but not aconfessor; he was father less; he was father LY; he was not a reverendfather; nor yet a conscript-father--

"Nor can he be a foster-father, " said the Abbe de Sponde, with agravity which stopped the laughter. 

"Nor a noble father, " added the chevalier. 

The Church and the nobility descended thus into the arena of puns, without, however, losing their dignity. 

"Hush!" exclaimed the recorder of mortgages. "I hear the creaking ofdu Bousquier's boots. "

It usually happens that a man is ignorant of rumors that are afloatabout him. A whole town may be talking of his affairs; may calumniateand decry him, but if he has no good friends, he will know nothingabout it. Now the innocent du Bousquier was superb in his ignorance. No one had told him as yet of Suzanne's revelations; he thereforeappeared very jaunty and slightly conceited when the company, leavingthe dining-room, returned to the salon for their coffee; several otherguests had meantime assembled for the evening. Mademoiselle Cormon, from a sense of shamefacedness, dared not look at the terribleseducer. She seized upon Athanase, and began to lecture him with thequeerest platitudes about royalist politics and religious morality. Not possessing, like the Chevalier de Valois, a snuff-box adorned witha princess, by the help of which he could stand this torrent ofsilliness, the poor poet listened to the words of her whom he lovedwith a stupid air, gazing, meanwhile, at her enormous bust, which helditself before him in that still repose which is the attribute of allgreat masses. His love produced in him a sort of intoxication whichchanged the shrill voice of the old maid into a soft murmur, and herflat remarks into witty speeches. Love is a maker of false coin, continually changing copper pennies into gold-pieces, and sometimesturning its real gold into copper. 

"Well, Athanase, will you promise me?"

This final sentence struck the ear of the absorbed young man like oneof those noises which wake us with a bound. 

"What, mademoiselle?"

Mademoiselle Cormon rose hastily, and looked at du Bousquier, who atthat moment resembled the stout god of Fable which the Republicstamped upon her coins. She walked up to Madame Granson, and said inher ear:--

"My dear friend, you son is an idiot. That lyceum has ruined him, " sheadded, remembering the insistence with which the chevalier had spokenof the evils of education in such schools. 

What a catastrophe! Unknown to himself, the luckless Athanase had hadan occasion to fling an ember of his own fire upon the pile of brushgathered in the heart of the old maid. Had he listened to her, hemight have made her, then and there, perceive his passion; for, in theagitated state of Mademoiselle Cormon's mind, a single word would havesufficed. But that stupid absorption in his own sentiments, whichcharacterizes young and true love, had ruined him, as a child full oflife sometimes kills itself out of ignorance. 

"What have you been saying to Mademoiselle Cormon?" demanded hismother. 

"Nothing. "

"Nothing; well, I can explain that, " she thought to herself, puttingoff till the next day all further reflection on the matter, andattaching but little importance to Mademoiselle Cormon's words; forshe fully believed that du Bousquier was forever lost in the oldmaid's esteem after the revelation of that evening. 

Soon the four tables were filled with their sixteen players. Fourpersons were playing piquet, --an expensive game, at which the mostmoney was lost. Monsieur Choisnel, the procureur-du-roi, and twoladies went into the boudoir for a game at backgammon. The glasslustres were lighted; and then the flower of Mademoiselle Cormon'scompany gathered before the fireplace, on sofas, and around thetables, and each couple said to her as they arrived, --

"So you are going to-morrow to Prebaudet?"

"Yes, I really must, " she replied. 

On this occasion the mistress of the house appeared preoccupied. Madame Granson was the first to perceive the quite unnatural state ofthe old maid's mind, --Mademoiselle Cormon was thinking!

"What are you thinking of, cousin?" she said at last, finding herseated in the boudoir. 

"I am thinking, " she replied, "of that poor girl. As the president ofthe Maternity Society, I will give you fifty francs for her. "

"Fifty francs!" cried Madame Granson. "But you have never given asmuch as that. "

"But, my dear cousin, it is so natural to have children. "

That immoral speech coming from the heart of the old maid staggeredthe treasurer of the Maternity Society. Du Bousquier had evidentlyadvanced in the estimation of Mademoiselle Cormon. 

"Upon my word, " said Madame Granson, "du Bousquier is not only amonster, he is a villain. When a man has done a wrong like that, heought to pay the indemnity. Isn't it his place rather than ours tolook after the girl?--who, to tell you the truth, seems to me ratherquestionable; there are plenty of better men in Alencon than thatcynic du Bousquier. A girl must be depraved, indeed, to go after him. "

"Cynic! Your son teaches you to talk Latin, my dear, which is whollyincomprehensible. Certainly I don't wish to excuse Monsieur duBousquier; but pray explain to me why a woman is depraved because sheprefers one man to another. "

"My dear cousin, suppose you married my son Athanase; nothing could bemore natural. He is young and handsome, full of promise, and he willbe the glory of Alencon; and yet everybody will exclaim against you:evil tongues will say all sorts of things; jealous women will accuseyou of depravity, --but what will that matter? you will be loved, andloved truly. If Athanase seemed to you an idiot, my dear, it is thathe has too many ideas; extremes meet. He lives the life of a girl offifteen; he has never wallowed in the impurities of Paris, not he!Well, change the terms, as my poor husband used to say; it is the samething with du Bousquier in connection with Suzanne. /You/ would becalumniated; but in the case of du Bousquier, the charge would betrue. Don't you understand me?"

"No more than if you were talking Greek, " replied Mademoiselle Cormon, who opened her eyes wide, and strained all the forces of herintellect. 

"Well, cousin, if I must dot all the i's, it is impossible for Suzanneto love du Bousquier. And if the heart counts for nothing in thisaffair--"

"But, cousin, what do people love with if not their hearts?"

Here Madame Granson said to herself, as the chevalier had previouslythought: "My poor cousin is altogether too innocent; such stupiditypasses all bounds!--Dear child, " she continued aloud, "it seems to methat children are not conceived by the spirit only. "

"Why, yes, my dear; the Holy Virgin herself--"

"But, my love, du Bousquier isn't the Holy Ghost!"

"True, " said the old maid; "he is a man!--a man whose personalappearance makes him dangerous enough for his friends to advise him tomarry. "

"You could yourself bring about that result, cousin. "

"How so?" said the old maid, with the meekness of Christian charity. 

"By not receiving him in your house until he marries. You owe it togood morals and to religion to manifest under such circumstances anexemplary displeasure. "

"On my return from Prebaudet we will talk further of this, my dearMadame Granson. I will consult my uncle and the Abbe Couturier, " saidMademoiselle Cormon, returning to the salon, where the animation wasnow at its height. 

The lights, the group of women in their best clothes, the solemn tone, the dignified air of the assembly, made Mademoiselle Cormon not alittle proud of her company. To many persons nothing better could beseen in Paris in the highest society. 

At this moment du Bousquier, who was playing whist with the chevalierand two old ladies, --Madame du Coudrai and Madame du Ronceret, --wasthe object of deep but silent curiosity. A few young women arrived, who, under pretext of watching the game, gazed fixedly at him in sosingular a manner, though slyly, that the old bachelor began to thinkthat there must be some deficiency in his toilet. 

"Can my false front be crooked?" he asked himself, seized by one ofthose anxieties which beset old bachelors. 

He took advantage of a lost trick, which ended a seventh rubber, torise and leave the table. 

"I can't touch a card without losing, " he said. "I am decidedly toounlucky. "

"But you are lucky in other ways, " said the chevalier, giving him asly look. 

That speech naturally made the rounds of the salon, where every oneexclaimed on the exquisite taste of the chevalier, the Prince deTalleyrand of the province. 

"There's no one like Monsieur de Valois for such wit. "

Du Bousquier went to look at himself in a little oblong mirror, placedabove the "Deserter, " but he saw nothing strange in his appearance. 

After innumerable repetitions of the same text, varied in all keys, the departure of the company took place about ten o'clock, through thelong antechamber, Mademoiselle Cormon conducting certain of herfavorite guests to the portico. There the groups parted; some followedthe Bretagne road towards the chateau; the others went in thedirection of the river Sarthe. Then began the usual conversation, which for twenty years had echoed at that hour through this particularstreet of Alencon. It was invariably:--

"Mademoiselle Cormon looked very well to-night. "

"Mademoiselle Cormon? why, I thought her rather strange. "

"How that poor abbe fails! Did you notice that he slept? He does notknow what cards he holds; he is getting very absent-minded. "

"We shall soon have the grief of losing him. "

"What a fine night! It will be a fine day to-morrow. "

"Good weather for the apple-blossoms. "

"You beat us; but when you play with Monsieur de Valois you never dootherwise. "

"How much did he win?"

"Well, to-night, three or four francs; he never loses. "

"True; and don't you know there are three hundred and sixty-five daysa year? At that price his gains are the value of a farm. "

"Ah! what hands we had to-night!"

"Here you are at home, monsieur and madame, how lucky you are, whilewe have half the town to cross!"

"I don't pity you; you could afford a carriage, and dispense with thefatigue of going on foot. "

"Ah, monsieur! we have a daughter to marry, which takes off one wheel, and the support of our son in Paris carries off another. "

"You persist in making a magistrate of him?"

"What else can be done with a young man? Besides, there's no shame inserving the king. "

Sometimes a discussion on ciders and flax, always couched in the sameterms, and returning at the same time of year, was continued on thehomeward way. If any observer of human customs had lived in thisstreet, he would have known the months and seasons by simplyoverhearing the conversations. 

On this occasion it was exclusively jocose; for du Bousquier, whochanced to march alone in front of the groups, was humming thewell-known air, --little thinking of its appropriateness, --"Tenderwoman! hear the warble of the birds, " etc. To some, du Bousquier wasa strong man and a misjudged man. Ever since he had been confirmed inhis present office by a royal decree, Monsieur du Ronceret had been infavor of du Bousquier. To others the purveyor seemed dangerous, --a manof bad habits, capable of anything. In the provinces, as in Paris, menbefore the public eye are like that statue in the fine allegoricaltale of Addison, for which two knights on arriving near it fought; forone saw it white, the other saw it black. Then, when they were bothoff their horses, they saw it was white one side and black the other. A third knight coming along declared it red. 

When the chevalier went home that night, he made many reflections, asfollows:--

"It is high time now to spread a rumor of my marriage withMademoiselle Cormon. It will leak out from the d'Esgrignon salon, andgo straight to the bishop at Seez, and so get round through the grandvicars to the curate of Saint-Leonard's, who will be certain to tellit to the Abbe Couturier; and Mademoiselle Cormon will get the shot inher upper works. The old Marquis d'Esgrignon shall invite the Abbe deSponde to dinner, so as to stop all gossip about Mademoiselle Cormonif I decide against her, or about me if she refuses me. The abbe shallbe well cajoled; and Mademoiselle Cormon will certainly not hold outagainst a visit from Mademoiselle Armande, who will show her thegrandeur and future chances of such an alliance. The abbe's propertyis undoubtedly as much as three hundred thousand; her own savings mustamount to more than two hundred thousand; she has her house andPrebaudet and fifteen thousand francs a year. A word to my friend theComte de Fontaine, and I should be mayor of Alencon to-morrow, anddeputy. Then, once seated on the Right benches, we shall reach thepeerage, shouting, 'Cloture!' 'Ordre!'"

As soon as she reached home Madame Granson had a lively argument withher son, who could not be made to see the connection which existedbetween his love and his political opinions. It was the first quarrelthat had ever troubled that poor household. 

 CHAPTER VI

 FINAL DISAPPOINTMENT AND ITS FIRST RESULT

The next day, Mademoiselle Cormon, packed into the old carriole withJosette, and looking like a pyramid on a vast sea of parcels, drove upthe rue Saint-Blaise on her way to Prebaudet, where she was overtakenby an event which hurried on her marriage, --an event entirely unlookedfor by either Madame Granson, du Bousquier, Monsieur de Valois, orMademoiselle Cormon himself. Chance is the greatest of all artificers. 

The day after her arrival at Prebaudet, she was innocently employed, about eight o'clock in the morning, in listening, as she breakfasted, to the various reports of her keeper and her gardener, when Jacquelinmade a violent irruption into the dining-room. 

"Mademoiselle, " he cried, out of breath, "Monsieur l'abbe sends you anexpress, the son of Mere Grosmort, with a letter. The lad left Alenconbefore daylight, and he has just arrived; he ran like Penelope! Can'tI give him a glass of wine?"

"What can have happened, Josette? Do you think my uncle can be--"

"He couldn't write if he were, " said Josette, guessing her mistress'sfears. 

"Quick! quick!" cried Mademoiselle Cormon, as soon as she had read thefirst lines. "Tell Jacquelin to harness Penelope-- Get ready, Josette;pack up everything in half an hour. We must go back to town--"

"Jacquelin!" called Josette, excited by the sentiment she saw on hermistress's face. 

Jacquelin, informed by Josette, came in to say, --

"But, mademoiselle, Penelope is eating her oats. "

"What does that signify? I must start at once. "

"But, mademoiselle, it is going to rain. "

"Then we shall get wet. "

"The house is on fire!" muttered Josette, piqued at the silence hermistress kept as to the contents of the letter, which she read andreread. 

"Finish your coffee, at any rate, mademoiselle; don't excite yourblood; just see how red you are. "

"Am I red, Josette?" she said, going to a mirror, from which thequicksilver was peeling, and which presented her features to herupside down. 

"Good heavens!" thought Mademoiselle Cormon, "suppose I should lookugly! Come, Josette; come, my dear, dress me at once; I want to beready before Jacquelin has harnessed Penelope. If you can't pack mythings in time, I will leave them here rather than lose a singleminute. "

If you have thoroughly comprehended the positive monomania to whichthe desire of marriage had brought Mademoiselle Cormon, you will shareher emotion. The worthy uncle announced in this sudden missive thatMonsieur de Troisville, of the Russian army during the Emigration, grandson of one of his best friends, was desirous of retiring toAlencon, and asked his, the abbe's hospitality, on the ground of hisfriendship for his grandfather, the Vicomte de Troisville. The oldabbe, alarmed at the responsibility, entreated his niece to returninstantly and help him to receive this guest, and do the honors of thehouse; for the viscount's letter had been delayed, and he mightdescend upon his shoulders that very night. 

After reading this missive could there be a question of the demands ofPrebaudet? The keeper and the gardener, witnesses to MademoiselleCormon's excitement, stood aside and awaited her orders. But when, asshe was about to leave the room, they stopped her to ask forinstructions, for the first time in her life the despotic old maid, who saw to everything at Prebaudet with her own eyes, said, to theirstupefaction, "Do what you like. " This from a mistress who carried heradministration to the point of counting her fruits, and marking themso as to order their consumption according to the number and conditionof each!

"I believe I'm dreaming, " thought Josette, as she saw her mistressflying down the staircase like an elephant to which God has givenwings. 

Presently, in spite of a driving rain, Mademoiselle Cormon drove awayfrom Prebaudet, leaving her factotums with the reins on their necks. Jacquelin dared not take upon himself to hasten the usual little trotof the peaceable Penelope, who, like the beautiful queen whose nameshe bore, had an appearance of making as many steps backward as shemade forward. Impatient with the pace, mademoiselle ordered Jacquelinin a sharp voice to drive at a gallop, with the whip, if necessary, tothe great astonishment of the poor beast, so afraid was she of nothaving time to arrange the house suitably to receive Monsieur deTroisville. She calculated that the grandson of her uncle's friend wasprobably about forty years of age; a soldier just from service wasundoubtedly a bachelor; and she resolved, her uncle aiding, not to letMonsieur de Troisville quit their house in the condition he enteredit. Though Penelope galloped, Mademoiselle Cormon, absorbed inthoughts of her trousseau and the wedding-day, declared again andagain that Jacquelin made no way at all. She twisted about in thecarriole without replying to Josette's questions, and talked toherself like a person who is mentally revolving important designs. 

The carriole at last arrived in the main street of Alencon, called therue Saint-Blaise at the end toward Montagne, but near the hotel duMore it takes the name of the rue de la Porte-de-Seez, and becomes therue du Bercail as it enters the road to Brittany. If the departure ofMademoiselle Cormon made a great noise in Alencon, it is easy toimagine the uproar caused by her sudden return on the following day, in a pouring rain which beat her face without her apparently mindingit. Penelope at a full gallop was observed by every one, andJacquelin's grin, the early hour, the parcels stuffed into thecarriole topsy-turvy, and the evident impatience of MademoiselleCormon were all noted. 

The property of the house of Troisville lay between Alencon andMortagne. Josette knew the various branches of the family. A worddropped by mademoiselle as they entered Alencon had put Josette on thescent of the affair; and a discussion having started between them, itwas settled that the expected de Troisville must be between forty andforty-two years of age, a bachelor, and neither rich nor poor. Mademoiselle Cormon beheld herself speedily Vicomtesse de Troisville. 

"And to think that my uncle told me nothing! thinks of nothing!inquires nothing! That's my uncle all over. He'd forget his own noseif it wasn't fastened to his face. "

Have you never remarked that, under circumstances such as these, oldmaids become, like Richard III. , keen-witted, fierce, bold, promissory, --if one may so use the word, --and, like inebriate clerks, no longer in awe of anything?

Immediately the town of Alencon, speedily informed from the fartherend of the rue de Saint-Blaise to the gate of Seez of this precipitatereturn, accompanied by singular circumstances, was perturbedthroughout its viscera, both public and domestic. Cooks, shopkeepers, street passengers, told the news from door to door; thence it rose tothe upper regions. Soon the words: "Mademoiselle Cormon has returned!"burst like a bombshell into all households. At that moment Jacquelinwas descending from his wooden seat (polished by a process unknown tocabinet-makers), on which he perched in front of the carriole. Heopened the great green gate, round at the top, and closed in sign ofmourning; for during Mademoiselle Cormon's absence the eveningassemblies did not take place. The faithful invited the Abbe de Spondeto their several houses; and Monsieur de Valois paid his debt byinviting him to dine at the Marquis d'Esgrignon's. Jacquelin, havingopened the gate, called familiarly to Penelope, whom he had left inthe middle of the street. That animal, accustomed to this proceeding, turned in of herself, and circled round the courtyard in a manner toavoid injuring the flower-bed. Jacquelin then took her bridle, and ledthe carriage to the portico. 

"Mariette!" cried Mademoiselle Cormon. 

"Mademoiselle!" exclaimed Mariette, who was occupied in closing thegate. 

"Has the gentleman arrived?"

"No, mademoiselle. "

"Where's my uncle?"

"He is at church, mademoiselle. "

Jacquelin and Josette were by this time on the first step of theportico, holding out their hands to manoeuvre the exit of theirmistress from the carriole as she pulled herself up by the sides ofthe vehicle and clung to the curtains. Mademoiselle then threw herselfinto their arms; because for the last two years she dared not risk herweight on the iron step, affixed to the frame of the carriage by ahorrible mechanism of clumsy bolts. 

When Mademoiselle Cormon reached the level of the portico she lookedabout her courtyard with an air of satisfaction. 

"Come, come, Mariette, leave that gate alone; I want you. "

"There's something in the wind, " whispered Jacquelin, as Mariettepassed the carriole. 

"Mariette, what provisions have you in the house?" asked MademoiselleCormon, sitting down on the bench in the long antechamber like aperson overcome with fatigue. 

"I haven't anything, " replied Mariette, with her hands on her hips. "Mademoiselle knows very well that during her absence Monsieur l'abbedines out every day. Yesterday I went to fetch him from MademoiselleArmande's. "

"Where is he now?"

"Monsieur l'abbe? Why, at church; he won't be in before threeo'clock. "

"He thinks of nothing! he ought to have told you to go to market. Mariette, go at once; and without wasting money, don't spare it; getall there is that is good and delicate. Go to the diligence office andsee if you can send for pates; and I want shrimps from the Brillante. What o'clock is it?"

"A quarter to nine. "

"Good heavens! Mariette, don't stop to chatter. The person my uncleexpects may arrive at any moment. If we had to give him breakfast, where should we be with nothing in the house?"

Mariette turned back to Penelope in a lather, and looked at Jacquelinas if she would say, "Mademoiselle has put her hand on a husband/this/ time. "

"Now, Josette, " continued the old maid, "let us see where we hadbetter put Monsieur de Troisville to sleep. "

With what joy she said the words, "Put Monsieur de Troisville"(pronounced Treville) "to sleep. " How many ideas in those few words!The old maid was bathed in hope. 

"Will you put him in the green chamber?"

"The bishop's room? No; that's too near mine, " said MademoiselleCormon. "All very well for monseigneur; he's a saintly man. "

"Give him your uncle's room. "

"Oh, that's so bare; it is actually indecent. "

"Well, then, mademoiselle, why not arrange a bed in your boudoir? Itis easily done; and there's a fire-place. Moreau can certainly find inhis warerooms a bed to match the hangings. "

"You are right, Josette. Go yourself to Moreau; consult with him whatto do; I authorize you to get what is wanted. If the bed could be putup to-night without Monsieur de Troisville observing it (in caseMonsieur de Troisville arrives while Moreau is here), I should likeit. If Moreau won't engage to do this, then I must put Monsieur deTroisville in the green room, although Monsieur de Troisville would beso very near to me. "

Josette was departing when her mistress recalled her. 

"Stop! explain the matter to Jacquelin, " she cried, in a loud nervoustone. "Tell /him/ to go to Moreau; I must be dressed! Fancy if Monsieurde Troisville surprised me as I am now! and my uncle not here toreceive him! Oh, uncle, uncle! Come, Josette; come and dress me atonce. "

"But Penelope?" said Josette, imprudently. 

"Always Penelope! Penelope this, Penelope that! Is Penelope themistress of this house?"

"But she is all of a lather, and she hasn't had time to eat her oats. "

"Then let her starve!" cried Mademoiselle Cormon; "provided I marry, "she thought to herself. 

Hearing these words, which seemed to her like homicide, Josette stoodstill for a moment, speechless. Then, at a gesture from her mistress, she ran headlong down the steps of the portico. 

"The devil is in her, Jacquelin, " were the first words she uttered. 

Thus all things conspired on this fateful day to produce the greatscenic effect which decided the future life of Mademoiselle Cormon. The town was already topsy-turvy in mind, as a consequence of the fiveextraordinary circumstances which accompanied Mademoiselle Cormon'sreturn; to wit, the pouring rain; Penelope at a gallop, in a lather, and blown; the early hour; the parcels half-packed; and the singularair of the excited old maid. But when Mariette made an invasion of themarket, and bought all the best things; when Jacquelin went to theprincipal upholsterer in Alencon, two doors from the church, in searchof a bed, --there was matter for the gravest conjectures. Theseextraordinary events were discussed on all sides; they occupied theminds of every one, even Mademoiselle Armande herself, with whom wasMonsieur de Valois. Within two days the town of Alencon had beenagitated by such startling events that certain good women were heardto remark that the world was coming to an end. This last news, however, resolved itself into a single question, "What is happening atthe Cormons?"

The Abbe de Sponde, adroitly questioned when he left Saint-Leonard'sto take his daily walk with the Abbe Couturier, replied with his usualkindliness that he expected the Vicomte de Troisville, a nobleman inthe service of Russia during the Emigration, who was returning toAlencon to settle there. From two to five o'clock a species of labialtelegraphy went on throughout the town; and all the inhabitantslearned that Mademoiselle Cormon had at last found a husband byletter, and was about to marry the Vicomte de Troisville. Some said, "Moreau has sold them a bed. " The bed was six feet wide in thatquarter; it was four feet wide at Madame Granson's, in the rue duBercail; but it was reduced to a simple couch at Monsieur duRonceret's, where du Bousquier was dining. The lesser bourgeoisiedeclared that the cost was eleven hundred francs. But generally it wasthought that, as to this, rumor was counting the chickens before theywere hatched. In other quarters it was said that Mariette had madesuch a raid on the market that the price of carp had risen. At the endof the rue Saint-Blaise, Penelope had dropped dead. This decease wasdoubted in the house of the receiver-general; but at the Prefecture itwas authenticated that the poor beast had expired as she turned intothe courtyard of the hotel Cormon, with such velocity had the old maidflown to meet her husband. The harness-maker, who lived at the cornerof the rue de Seez, was bold enough to call at the house and ask ifanything had happened to Mademoiselle Cormon's carriage, in order todiscover whether Penelope was really dead. From the end of the rueSaint-Blaise to the end of the rue du Bercail, it was then made knownthat, thanks to Jacquelin's devotion, Penelope, that silent victim ofher mistress's impetuosity, still lived, though she seemed to besuffering. 

Along the road to Brittany the Vicomte de Troisville was stated to bea younger son without a penny, for the estates in Perche belonged tothe Marquis de Troisville, peer of France, who had children; themarriage would be, therefore, an enormous piece of luck for a pooremigre. The aristocracy along that road approved of the marriage;Mademoiselle Cormon could not do better with her money. But among theBourgeoisie, the Vicomte de Troisville was a Russian general who hadfought against France, and was now returning with a great fortune madeat the court of Saint-Petersburg; he was a /foreigner/; one of those/allies/ so hated by the liberals; the Abbe de Sponde had slylynegotiated this marriage. All the persons who had a right to call uponMademoiselle Cormon determined to do so that very evening. 

During this transurban excitement, which made that of Suzanne almost aforgotten affair, Mademoiselle was not less agitated; she was filledwith a variety of novel emotions. Looking about her salon, dining-room, and boudoir, cruel apprehensions took possession of her. A species of demon showed her with a sneer her old-fashioned luxury. The handsome things she had admired from her youth up she suddenlysuspected of age and absurdity. In short, she felt that fear whichtakes possession of nearly all authors when they read over a work theyhave hitherto thought proof against every exacting or blase critic:new situations seem timeworn; the best-turned and most highly polishedphrases limp and squint; metaphors and images grin or contradict eachother; whatsoever is false strikes the eye. In like manner this poorwoman trembled lest she should see on the lips of Monsieur deTroisville a smile of contempt for this episcopal salon; she dreadedthe cold look he might cast over that ancient dining-room; in short, she feared the frame might injure and age the portrait. Suppose theseantiquities should cast a reflected light of old age upon herself?This question made her flesh creep. She would gladly, at that moment, spend half her savings on refitting her house if some fairy wand coulddo it in a moment. Where is the general who has not trembled on theeve of a battle? The poor woman was now between her Austerlitz and herWaterloo. 

"Madame la Vicomtesse de Troisville, " she said to herself; "a noblename! Our property will go to a good family, at any rate. "

She fell a prey to an irritation which made every fibre of her nervesquiver to all their papillae, long sunk in flesh. Her blood, lashed bythis new hope, was in motion. She felt the strength to converse, ifnecessary, with Monsieur de Troisville. 

It is useless to relate the activity with which Josette, Jacquelin, Mariette, Moreau, and his agents went about their functions. It waslike the busyness of ants about their eggs. All that daily care hadalready rendered neat and clean was again gone over and brushed andrubbed and scrubbed. The china of ceremony saw the light; the damasklinen marked "A, B, C" was drawn from depths where it lay under atriple guard of wrappings, still further defended by formidable linesof pins. Above all, Mademoiselle Cormon sacrificed on the altar of herhopes three bottles of the famous liqueurs of Madame Amphoux, the mostillustrious of all the distillers of the tropics, --a name very dear togourmets. Thanks to the devotion of her lieutenants, mademoiselle wassoon ready for the conflict. The different weapons--furniture, cookery, provisions, in short, all the various munitions of war, together with a body of reserve forces--were ready along the wholeline. Jacquelin, Mariette, and Josette received orders to appear infull dress. The garden was raked. The old maid regretted that shecouldn't come to an understanding with the nightingales nesting in thetrees, in order to obtain their finest trilling. 

At last, about four o'clock, at the very moment when the Abbe deSponde returned home, and just as mademoiselle began to think she hadset the table with the best plate and linen and prepared the choicestdishes to no purpose, the click-clack of a postilion was heard in theVal-Noble. 

"'Tis he!" she said to herself, the snap of the whip echoing in herheart. 

True enough; heralded by all this gossip, a post-chaise, in which wasa single gentleman, made so great a sensation coming down the rueSaint-Blaise and turning into the rue du Cours that several littlegamains and some grown persons followed it, and stood in groups aboutthe gate of the hotel Cormon to see it enter. Jacquelin, who foresawhis own marriage in that of his mistress, had also heard theclick-clack in the rue Saint-Blaise, and had opened wide the gatesinto the courtyard. The postilion, a friend of his, took pride inmaking a fine turn-in, and drew up sharply before the portico. Theabbe came forward to greet his guest, whose carriage was emptied witha speed that highwaymen might put into the operation; the chaiseitself was rolled into the coach-house, the gates closed, and in a fewmoments all signs of Monsieur de Troisville's arrival had disappeared. Never did two chemicals blend into each other with greater rapiditythan the hotel Cormon displayed in absorbing the Vicomte de Troisville. 

Mademoiselle, whose heart was beating like a lizard caught by aherdsman, sat heroically still on her sofa, beside the fire in thesalon. Josette opened the door; and the Vicomte de Troisville, followed by the Abbe de Sponde, presented himself to the eyes of thespinster. 

"Niece, this is Monsieur le Vicomte de Troisville, the grandson of oneof my old schoolmates; Monsieur de Troisville, my niece, MademoiselleCormon. "

"Ah! that good uncle; how well he does it!" thoughtRose-Marie-Victoire. 

The Vicomte de Troisville was, to paint him in two words, du Bousquierennobled. Between the two men there was precisely the difference whichseparates the vulgar style from the noble style. If they had both beenpresent, the most fanatic liberal would not have denied the existenceof aristocracy. The viscount's strength had all the distinction ofelegance; his figure had preserved its magnificent dignity. He hadblue eyes, black hair, an olive skin, and looked to be about forty-sixyears of age. You might have thought him a handsome Spaniard preservedin the ice of Russia. His manner, carriage, and attitude, all denoteda diplomat who had seen Europe. His dress was that of a well-bredtraveller. As he seemed fatigued, the abbe offered to show him to hisroom, and was much amazed when his niece threw open the door of theboudoir, transformed into a bedroom. 

Mademoiselle Cormon and her uncle then left the noble stranger toattend to his own affairs, aided by Jacquelin, who brought up hisluggage, and went themselves to walk beside the river until theirguest had made his toilet. Although the Abbe de Sponde chanced to beeven more absent-minded than usual, Mademoiselle Cormon was not lesspreoccupied. They both walked on in silence. The old maid had neverbefore met any man as seductive as this Olympean viscount. She mighthave said to herself, as the Germans do, "This is my ideal!" insteadof which she felt herself bound from head to foot, and could only say, "Here's my affair!" Then she flew to Mariette to know if the dinnercould be put back a while without loss of excellence. 

"Uncle, your Monsieur de Troisville is very amiable, " she said, onreturning. 

"Why, niece, he hasn't as yet said a word. "

"But you can see it in his ways, his manners, his face. Is he abachelor?"

"I'm sure I don't know, " replied the abbe, who was thinking of adiscussion on mercy, lately begun between the Abbe Couturier andhimself. "Monsieur de Troisville wrote me that he wanted to buy ahouse here. If he was married, he wouldn't come alone on such anerrand, " added the abbe, carelessly, not conceiving the idea that hisniece could be thinking of marriage. 

"Is he rich?"

"He is a younger son of the younger branch, " replied her uncle. "Hisgrandfather commanded a squadron, but the father of this young manmade a bad marriage. "

"Young man!" exclaimed the old maid. "It seems to me, uncle, that hemust be at least forty-five. " She felt the strongest desire to puttheir years on a par. 

"Yes, " said the abbe; "but to a poor priest of seventy, Rose, a man offorty seems a youth. "

All Alencon knew by this time that Monsieur de Troisville had arrivedat the Cormons. The traveller soon rejoined his hosts, and began toadmire the Brillante, the garden, and the house. 

"Monsieur l'abbe, " he said, "my whole ambition is to have a house likethis. " The old maid fancied a declaration lurked in that speech, andshe lowered her eyes. "You must enjoy it very much, mademoiselle, "added the viscount. 

"How could it be otherwise? It has been in our family since 1574, theperiod at which one of our ancestors, steward to the Duc d'Alencon, acquired the land and built the house, " replied Mademoiselle Cormon. "It is built on piles, " she added. 

Jacquelin announced dinner. Monsieur de Troisville offered his arm tothe happy woman, who endeavored not to lean too heavily upon it; shefeared, as usual, to seem to make advances. 

"Everything is so harmonious here, " said the viscount, as he seatedhimself at table. 

"Yes, our trees are full of birds, which give us concerts for nothing;no one ever frightens them; and the nightingales sing at night, " saidMademoiselle Cormon. 

"I was speaking of the interior of the house, " remarked the viscount, who did not trouble himself to observe Mademoiselle Cormon, andtherefore did not perceive the dulness of her mind. "Everything is soin keeping, --the tones of color, the furniture, the generalcharacter. "

"But it costs a great deal; taxes are enormous, " responded theexcellent woman. 

"Ah! taxes are high, are they?" said the viscount, preoccupied withhis own ideas. 

"I don't know, " replied the abbe. "My niece manages the property ofeach of us. "

"Taxes are not of much importance to the rich, " said MademoiselleCormon, not wishing to be thought miserly. "As for the furniture, Ishall leave it as it is, and change nothing, --unless I marry; andthen, of course, everything here must suit the husband. "

"You have noble principles, mademoiselle, " said the viscount, smiling. "You will make one happy man. "

"No one ever made to me such a pretty speech, " thought the old maid. 

The viscount complimented Mademoiselle Cormon on the excellence of herservice and the admirable arrangements of the house, remarking that hehad supposed the provinces behind the age in that respect; but, on thecontrary, he found them, as the English say, "very comfortable. "

"What can that word mean?" she thought. "Oh, where is the chevalier toexplain it to me? 'Comfortable, '--there seem to be several words init. Well, courage!" she said to herself. "I can't be expected toanswer a foreign language-- But, " she continued aloud, feeling hertongue untied by the eloquence which nearly all human creatures findin momentous circumstances, "we have a very brilliant society here, monsieur. It assembles at my house, and you shall judge of it thisevening, for some of my faithful friends have no doubt heard of myreturn and your arrival. Among them is the Chevalier de Valois, aseigneur of the old court, a man of infinite wit and taste; then thereis Monsieur le Marquis d'Esgrignon and Mademoiselle Armande, hissister" (she bit her tongue with vexation), --"a woman remarkable inher way, " she added. "She resolved to remain unmarried in order toleave all her fortune to her brother and nephew. "

"Ah!" exclaimed the viscount. "Yes, the d'Esgrignons, --I rememberthem. "

"Alencon is very gay, " continued the old maid, now fairly launched. "There's much amusement: the receiver-general gives balls; the prefectis an amiable man; and Monseigneur the bishop sometimes honors us witha visit--"

"Well, then, " said the viscount, smiling, "I have done wisely to comeback, like the hare, to die in my form. "

"Yes, " she said. "I, too, attach myself or I die. "

The viscount smiled. 

"Ah!" thought the old maid, "all is well; he understands me. "

The conversation continued on generalities. By one of those mysteriousunknown and undefinable faculties, Mademoiselle Cormon found in herbrain, under the pressure of her desire to be agreeable, all thephrases and opinions of the Chevalier de Valois. It was like a duel inwhich the devil himself pointed the pistol. Never was any adversarybetter aimed at. The viscount was far too well-bred to speak of theexcellence of the dinner; but his silence was praise. As he drank thedelicious wines which Jacquelin served to him profusely, he seemed tofeel he was with friends, and to meet them with pleasure; for the trueconnoisseur does not applaud, he enjoys. He inquired the price ofland, of houses, of estates; he made Mademoiselle Cormon describe atlength the confluence of the Sarthe and the Brillante; he expressedsurprise that the town was placed so far from the river, and seemed tobe much interested in the topography of the place. 

The silent abbe left his niece to throw the dice of conversation; andshe truly felt that she pleased Monsieur de Troisville, who smiled ather gracefully, and committed himself during this dinner far more thanher most eager suitors had ever done in ten days. Imagine, therefore, the little attentions with which he was petted; you might have thoughthim a cherished lover, whose return brought joy to the household. Mademoiselle foresaw the moment when the viscount wanted bread; shewatched his every look; when he turned his head she adroitly put uponhis plate a portion of some dish he seemed to like; had he been agourmand, she would almost have killed him; but what a delightfulspecimen of the attentions she would show to a husband! She did notcommit the folly of depreciating herself; on the contrary, she setevery sail bravely, ran up all her flags, assumed the bearing of thequeen of Alencon, and boasted of her excellent preserves. In fact, shefished for compliments in speaking of herself, for she saw that shepleased the viscount; the truth being that her eager desire had sotransformed her that she became almost a woman. 

At dessert she heard, not without emotions of delight, certain soundsin the antechamber and salon which denoted the arrival of her usualguests. She called the attention of her uncle and Monsieur deTroisville to this prompt attendance as a proof of the affection thatwas felt for her; whereas it was really the result of the poignantcuriosity which had seized upon the town. Impatient to show herself inall her glory, Mademoiselle Cormon told Jacquelin to serve coffee andliqueurs in the salon, where he presently set out, in view of thewhole company, a magnificent liqueur-stand of Dresden china which sawthe light only twice a year. This circumstance was taken note of bythe company, standing ready to gossip over the merest trifle:--

"The deuce!" muttered du Bousquier. "Actually Madame Amphoux'sliqueurs, which they only serve at the four church festivals!"

"Undoubtedly the marriage was arranged a year ago by letter, " said thechief-justice du Ronceret. "The postmaster tells me his office hasreceived letters postmarked Odessa for more than a year. "

Madame Granson trembled. The Chevalier de Valois, though he had dinedwith the appetite of four men, turned pale even to the left section ofhis face. Feeling that he was about to betray himself, he saidhastily, --

"Don't you think it is very cold to-day? I am almost frozen. "

"The neighborhood of Russia, perhaps, " said du Bousquier. 

The chevalier looked at him as if to say, "Well played!"

Mademoiselle Cormon appeared so radiant, so triumphant, that thecompany thought her handsome. This extraordinary brilliancy was notthe effect of sentiment only. Since early morning her blood had beenwhirling tempestuously within her, and her nerves were agitated by thepresentiment of some great crisis. It required all these circumstancescombined to make her so unlike herself. With what joy did she now makeher solemn presentation of the viscount to the chevalier, thechevalier to the viscount, and all Alencon to Monsieur de Troisville, and Monsieur de Troisville to all Alencon!

By an accident wholly explainable, the viscount and chevalier, aristocrats by nature, came instantly into unison; they recognizedeach other at once as men belonging to the same sphere. Accordingly, they began to converse together, standing before the fireplace. Acircle formed around them; and their conversation, though uttered in alow voice, was listened to in religious silence. To give the effect ofthis scene it is necessary to dramatize it, and to pictureMademoiselle Cormon occupied in pouring out the coffee of herimaginary suitor, with her back to the fireplace. 

Monsieur de Valois. "Monsieur le vicomte has come, I am told, tosettle in Alencon?"

Monsieur de Troisville. "Yes, monsieur, I am looking for a house. "[Mademoiselle Cormon, cup in hand, turns round. ] "It must be a largehouse" [Mademoiselle Cormon offers him the cup] "to lodge my wholefamily. " [The eyes of the old maid are troubled. ]

Monsieur de Valois. "Are you married?"

Monsieur de Troisville. "Yes, for the last sixteen years, to adaughter of the Princess Scherbellof. "

Mademoiselle Cormon fainted; du Bousquier, who saw her stagger, sprangforward and received her in his arms; some one opened the door andallowed him to pass out with his enormous burden. The fieryrepublican, instructed by Josette, found strength to carry the oldmaid to her bedroom, where he laid her out on the bed. Josette, armedwith scissors, cut the corset, which was terribly tight. Du Bousquierflung water on Mademoiselle Cormon's face and bosom, which, releasedfrom the corset, overflowed like the Loire in flood. The poor womanopened her eyes, saw du Bousquier, and gave a cry of modesty at thesight of him. Du Bousquier retired at once, leaving six women, at thehead of whom was Madame Granson, radiant with joy, to take care of theinvalid. 

What had the Chevalier de Valois been about all this time? Faithful tohis system, he had covered the retreat. 

"That poor Mademoiselle Cormon, " he said to Monsieur de Troisville, gazing at the assembly, whose laughter was repressed by his coolaristocratic glances, "her blood is horribly out of order; shewouldn't be bled before going to Prebaudet (her estate), --and see theresult!"

"She came back this morning in the rain, " said the Abbe de Sponde, "and she may have taken cold. It won't be anything; it is only alittle upset she is subject to. "

"She told me yesterday she had not had one for three months, addingthat she was afraid it would play her a trick at last, " said thechevalier. 

"Ha! so you are married?" said Jacquelin to himself as he looked atMonsieur de Troisville, who was quietly sipping his coffee. 

The faithful servant espoused his mistress's disappointment; hedivined it, and he promptly carried away the liqueurs of MadameAmphoux, which were offered to a bachelor, and not to the husband of aRussian woman. 

All these details were noticed and laughed at. The Abbe de Sponde knewthe object of Monsieur de Troisville's journey; but, absent-minded asusual, he forgot it, not supposing that his niece could have theslightest interest in Monsieur de Troisville's marriage. As for theviscount, preoccupied with the object of his journey, and, like manyhusbands, not eager to talk about his wife, he had had no occasion tosay he was married; besides, he would naturally suppose thatMademoiselle Cormon knew it. 

Du Bousquier reappeared, and was questioned furiously. One of the sixwomen came down soon after, and announced that Mademoiselle Cormon wasmuch better, and that the doctor had come. She intended to stay inbed, as it was necessary to bleed her. The salon was now full. Mademoiselle Cormon's absence allowed the ladies present to discussthe tragi-comic scene--embellished, extended, historified, embroidered, wreathed, colored, and adorned--which had just takenplace, and which, on the morrow, was destined to occupy all Alencon. 

"That good Monsieur du Bousquier! how well he carried you!" saidJosette to her mistress. "He was really pale at the sight of you; heloves you still. "

That speech served as closure to this solemn and terrible evening. 

Throughout the morning of the next day every circumstance of the latecomedy was known in the household of Alencon, and--let us say it tothe shame of that town, --they caused inextinguishable laughter. But onthat day Mademoiselle Cormon (much benefited by the bleeding) wouldhave seemed sublime even to the boldest scoffers, had they witnessedthe noble dignity, the splendid Christian resignation which influencedher as she gave her arm to her involuntary deceiver to go intobreakfast. Cruel jesters! why could you not have seen her as she saidto the viscount, --

"Madame de Troisville will have difficulty in finding a suitablehouse; do me the favor, monsieur, of accepting the use of mine duringthe time you are in search of yours. "

"But, mademoiselle, I have two sons and two daughters; we shouldgreatly inconvenience you. "

"Pray do not refuse me, " she said earnestly. 

"I made you the same offer in the answer I wrote to your letter, " saidthe abbe; "but you did not receive it. "

"What, uncle! then you knew--"

The poor woman stopped. Josette sighed. Neither the viscount nor theabbe observed anything amiss. After breakfast the Abbe de Spondecarried off his guest, as agreed upon the previous evening, to showhim the various houses in Alencon which could be bought, and the lotsof lands on which he might build. 

Left alone in the salon, Mademoiselle Cormon said to Josette, with adeeply distressed air, "My child, I am now the talk of the wholetown. "

"Well, then, mademoiselle, you should marry. "

"But I am not prepared to make a choice. "

"Bah! if I were in your place, I should take Monsieur du Bousquier. "

"Josette, Monsieur de Valois says he is so republican. "

"They don't know what they say, your gentlemen: sometimes they declarethat he robbed the republic; he couldn't love it if he did that, " saidJosette, departing. 

"That girl has an amazing amount of sense, " thought MademoiselleCormon, who remained alone, a prey to her perplexities. 

She saw plainly that a prompt marriage was the only way to silence thetown. This last checkmate, so evidently mortifying, was of a nature todrive her into some extreme action; for persons deficient in mind finddifficulty in getting out of any path, either good or evil, into whichthey have entered. 

Each of the two old bachelors had fully understood the situation inwhich Mademoiselle Cormon was about to find herself; consequently, each resolved to call in the course of that morning to ask after herhealth, and take occasion, in bachelor language, to "press his point. "Monsieur de Valois considered that such an occasion demanded apainstaking toilet; he therefore took a bath and groomed himself withextraordinary care. For the first and last time Cesarine observed himputting on with incredible art a suspicion of rouge. Du Bousquier, onthe other hand, that coarse republican, spurred by a brisk will, paidno attention to his dress, and arrived the first. 

Such little things decide the fortunes of men, as they do of empires. Kellerman's charge at Marengo, Blucher's arrival at Waterloo, LouisXIV. 's disdain for Prince Eugene, the rector of Denain, --all thesegreat causes of fortune or catastrophe history has recorded; but noone ever profits by them to avoid the small neglects of their ownlife. Consequently, observe what happens: the Duchesse de Langeais(see "History of the Thirteen") makes herself a nun for the lack often minutes' patience; Judge Popinot (see "Commission in Lunacy") putsoff till the morrow the duty of examining the Marquis d'Espard;Charles Grandet (see "Eugenie Grandet") goes to Paris from Bordeauxinstead of returning by Nantes; and such events are called chance orfatality! A touch of rouge carefully applied destroyed the hopes ofthe Chevalier de Valois; could that nobleman perish in any other way?He had lived by the Graces, and he was doomed to die by their hand. While the chevalier was giving this last touch to his toilet the roughdu Bousquier was entering the salon of the desolate old maid. Thisentrance produced a thought in Mademoiselle Cormon's mind which wasfavorable to the republican, although in all other respects theChevalier de Valois held the advantages. 

"God wills it!" she said piously, on seeing du Bousquier. 

"Mademoiselle, you will not, I trust, think my eagerness importunate. I could not trust to my stupid Rene to bring news of your condition, and therefore I have come myself. "

"I am perfectly recovered, " she replied, in a tone of emotion. "Ithank you, Monsieur du Bousquier, " she added, after a slight pause, and in a significant tone of voice, "for the trouble you have taken, and for that which I gave you yesterday--"

She remembered having been in his arms, and that again seemed to heran order from heaven. She had been seen for the first time by a manwith her laces cut, her treasures violently bursting from theircasket. 

"I carried you with such joy that you seemed to me light. "

Here Mademoiselle Cormon looked at du Bousquier as she had never yetlooked at any man in the world. Thus encouraged, the purveyor castupon the old maid a glance which reached her heart. 

"I would, " he said, "that that moment had given me the right to keepyou as mine forever" [she listened with a delighted air]; "as you layfainting upon that bed, you were enchanting. I have never in my lifeseen a more beautiful person, --and I have seen many handsome women. Plump ladies have this advantage: they are superb to look upon; theyhave only to show themselves and they triumph. "

"I fear you are making fun of me, " said the old maid, "and that is notkind when all the town will probably misinterpret what happened to meyesterday. "

"As true as my name is du Bousquier, mademoiselle, I have neverchanged in my feelings toward you; and your first refusal has notdiscouraged me. "

The old maid's eyes were lowered. There was a moment of cruel silencefor du Bousquier, and then Mademoiselle Cormon decided on her course. She raised her eyelids; tears flowed from her eyes, and she gave duBousquier a tender glance. 

"If that is so, monsieur, " she said, in a trembling voice, "promise meto live in a Christian manner, and not oppose my religious customs, but to leave me the right to select my confessors, and I will grantyou my hand"; as she said the words, she held it out to him. 

Du Bousquier seized the good fat hand so full of money, and kissed itsolemnly. 

"But, " she said, allowing him to kiss it, "one thing more I mustrequire of you. "

"If it is a possible thing, it is granted, " replied the purveyor. 

"Alas!" returned the old maid. "For my sake, I must ask you to takeupon yourself a sin which I feel to be enormous, --for to lie is one ofthe capital sins. But you will confess it, will you not? We will dopenance for it together" [they looked at each other tenderly]. "Besides, it may be one of those lies which the Church permits asnecessary--"

"Can she be as Suzanne says she is?" thought du Bousquier. "What luck!Well, mademoiselle, what is it?" he said aloud. 

"That you will take upon yourself to--"

"What?"

"To say that this marriage has been agreed upon between us for thelast six months. "

"Charming woman, " said the purveyor, in the tone of a man willing todevote himself, "such sacrifices can be made only for a creatureadored these ten years. "

"In spite of my harshness?" she said. 

"Yes, in spite of your harshness. "

"Monsieur du Bousquier, I have misjudged you. "

Again she held out the fat red hand, which du Bousquier kissed again. 

At this moment the door opened; the betrothed pair, looking round tosee who entered, beheld the delightful, but tardy Chevalier de Valois. 

"Ah!" he said, on entering, "I see you are about to be up, fairqueen. "

She smiled at the chevalier, feeling a weight upon her heart. Monsieurde Valois, remarkably young and seductive, had the air of a Lauzunre-entering the apartments of the Grande Mademoiselle in thePalais-Royal. 

"Hey! dear du Bousquier, " said he, in a jaunty tone, so sure was he ofsuccess, "Monsieur de Troisville and the Abbe de Sponde are examiningyour house like appraisers. "

"Faith!" said du Bousquier, "if the Vicomte de Troisville wants it, itit is his for forty thousand francs. It is useless to me now. Ifmademoiselle will permit--it must soon be known-- Mademoiselle, may Itell it?-- Yes! Well, then, be the first, /my dear Chevalier/, to hear"[Mademoiselle Cormon dropped her eyes] "of the honor that mademoisellehas done me, the secret of which I have kept for some months. We shallbe married in a few days; the contract is already drawn, and we shallsign it to-morrow. You see, therefore, that my house in the rue duCygne is useless to me. I have been privately looking for a purchaserfor some time; and the Abbe de Sponde, who knew that fact, hasnaturally taken Monsieur de Troisville to see the house. "

This falsehood bore such an appearance of truth that the chevalier wastaken in by it. That "my dear chevalier" was like the revenge taken byPeter the Great on Charles XII. At Pultawa for all his past defeats. Du Bousquier revenged himself deliciously for the thousand littleshafts he had long borne in silence; but in his triumph he made alively youthful gesture by running his hands through his hair, and inso doing he--knocked aside his false front. 

"I congratulate you both, " said the chevalier, with an agreeable air;"and I wish that the marriage may end like a fairy tale: /They werehappy ever after, and had--many--children/!" So saying, he took a pinchof snuff. "But, monsieur, " he added satirically, "you forget--that youare wearing a false front. "

Du Bousquier blushed. The false front was hanging half a dozen inchesfrom his skull. Mademoiselle Cormon raised her eyes, saw that skull inall its nudity, and lowered them, abashed. Du Bousquier cast upon thechevalier the most venomous look that toad ever darted on its prey. 

"Dogs of aristocrats who despise me, " thought he, "I'll crush you someday. "

The chevalier thought he had recovered his advantage. But MademoiselleCormon was not a woman to understand the connection which thechevalier intimated between his congratulatory wish and the falsefront. Besides, even if she had comprehended it, her word was passed, her hand given. Monsieur de Valois saw at once that all was lost. Theinnocent woman, with the two now silent men before her, wished, trueto her sense of duty, to amuse them. 

"Why not play a game of piquet together?" she said artlessly, withoutthe slightest malice. 

Du Bousquier smiled, and went, as the future master of the house, tofetch the piquet table. Whether the Chevalier de Valois lost his head, or whether he wanted to stay and study the causes of his disaster andremedy it, certain it is that he allowed himself to be led like a lambto the slaughter. He had received the most violent knock-down blowthat ever struck a man; any nobleman would have lost his senses forless. 

The Abbe de Sponde and the Vicomte de Troisville soon returned. Mademoiselle Cormon instantly rose, hurried into the antechamber, andtook her uncle apart to tell him her resolution. Learning that thehouse in the rue du Cygne exactly suited the viscount, she begged herfuture husband to do her the kindness to tell him that her uncle knewit was for sale. She dared not confide that lie to the abbe, fearinghis absent-mindedness. The lie, however, prospered better than if ithad been a virtuous action. In the course of that evening all Alenconheard the news. For the last four days the town had had as much tothink of as during the fatal days of 1814 and 1815. Some laughed;others admitted the marriage. These blamed it; those approved it. Themiddle classes of Alencon rejoiced; they regarded it as a victory. Thenext day, among friends, the Chevalier de Valois said a cruel thing:--

"The Cormons end as they began; there's only a hand's breadth betweena steward and a purveyor. "

 CHAPTER VII

 OTHER RESULTS

The news of Mademoiselle Cormon's choice stabbed poor Athanase Gransonto the heart; but he showed no outward sign of the terrible agitationwithin him. When he first heard of the marriage he was at the house ofthe chief-justice, du Ronceret, where his mother was playing boston. Madame Granson looked at her son in a mirror, and thought him pale;but he had been so all day, for a vague rumor of the matter hadalready reached him. 

Mademoiselle Cormon was the card on which Athanase had staked hislife; and the cold presentiment of a catastrophe was already upon him. When the soul and the imagination have magnified a misfortune and madeit too heavy for the shoulders and the brain to bear; when a hope longcherished, the realization of which would pacify the vulture feedingon the heart, is balked, and the man has faith neither in himself, despite his powers, nor in the future, despite of the Divine power, --then that man is lost. Athanase was a fruit of the Imperial systemof education. Fatality, the Emperor's religion, had filtered down fromthe throne to the lowest ranks of the army and the benches of thelyceums. Athanase sat still, with his eyes fixed on Madame duRonceret's cards, in a stupor that might so well pass for indifferencethat Madame Granson herself was deceived about his feelings. Thisapparent unconcern explained her son's refusal to make a sacrifice forthis marriage of his /liberal/ opinions, --the term "liberal" havinglately been created for the Emperor Alexander by, I think, Madame deStael, through the lips of Benjamin Constant. 

After that fatal evening the young man took to rambling among thepicturesque regions of the Sarthe, the banks of which are muchfrequented by sketchers who come to Alencon for points of view. Windmills are there, and the river is gay in the meadows. The shoresof the Sarthe are bordered with beautiful trees, well grouped. Thoughthe landscape is flat, it is not without those modest graces whichdistinguish France, where the eye is never wearied by the brilliancyof Oriental skies, nor saddened by constant fog. The place issolitary. In the provinces no one pays much attention to a fine view, either because provincials are blases on the beauty around them, orbecause they have no poesy in their souls. If there exists in theprovinces a mall, a promenade, a vantage-ground from which a fine viewcan be obtained, that is the point to which no one goes. Athanase wasfond of this solitude, enlivened by the sparkling water, where thefields were the first to green under the earliest smiling of thespringtide sun. Those persons who saw him sitting beneath a poplar, and who noticed the vacant eye which he turned to them, would say toMadame Granson:--

"Something is the matter with your son. "

"I know what it is, " the mother would reply; hinting that he wasmeditating over some great work. 

Athanase no longer took part in politics: he ceased to have opinions;but he appeared at times quite gay, --gay with the satire of those whothink to insult a whole world with their own individual scorn. Thisyoung man, outside of all the ideas and all the pleasures of theprovinces, interested few persons; he was not even an object ofcuriosity. If persons spoke of him to his mother, it was for her sake, not his. There was not a single soul in Alencon that sympathized withhis; not a woman, not a friend came near to dry his tears; theydropped into the Sarthe. If the gorgeous Suzanne had happened thatway, how many young miseries might have been born of the meeting! forthe two would surely have loved each other. 

She did come, however. Suzanne's ambition was early excited by thetale of a strange adventure which had happened at the tavern of theMore, --a tale which had taken possession of her childish brain. AParisian woman, beautiful as the angels, was sent by Fouche toentangle the Marquis de Montauran, otherwise called "The Gars, " in alove-affair (see "The Chouans"). She met him at the tavern of the Moreon his return from an expedition to Mortagne; she cajoled him, madehim love her, and then betrayed him. That fantastic power--the powerof beauty over mankind; in fact, the whole story of Marie de Verneuiland the Gars--dazzled Suzanne; she longed to grow up in order to playupon men. Some months after her hasty departure she passed through hernative town with an artist on his way to Brittany. She wanted to seeFougeres, where the adventure of the Marquis de Montauran culminated, and to stand upon the scene of that picturesque war, the tragedies ofwhich, still so little known, had filled her childish mind. Besidesthis, she had a fancy to pass through Alencon so elegantly equippedthat no one could recognize her; to put her mother above the reach ofnecessity, and also to send to poor Athanase, in a delicate manner, asum of money, --which in our age is to genius what in the middle ageswas the charger and the coat of mail that Rebecca conveyed to Ivanhoe. 

One month passed away in the strangest uncertainties respecting themarriage of Mademoiselle Cormon. A party of unbelievers denied themarriage altogether; the believers, on the other hand, affirmed it. Atthe end of two weeks, the faction of unbelief received a vigorous blowin the sale of du Bousquier's house to the Marquis de Troisville, whoonly wanted a simple establishment in Alencon, intending to go toParis after the death of the Princess Scherbellof; he proposed toawait that inheritance in retirement, and then to reconstitute hisestates. This seemed positive. The unbelievers, however, were notcrushed. They declared that du Bousquier, married or not, had made anexcellent sale, for the house had only cost him twenty-seven thousandfrancs. The believers were depressed by this practical observation ofthe incredulous. Choisnel, Mademoiselle Cormon's notary, asserted thelatter, had heard nothing about the marriage contract; but thebelievers, still firm in their faith, carried off, on the twentiethday, a signal victory: Monsieur Lepressoir, the notary of theliberals, went to Mademoiselle Cormon's house, and the contract wassigned. 

This was the first of the numerous sacrifices which MademoiselleCormon was destined to make to her husband. Du Bousquier bore thedeepest hatred to Choisnel; to him he owed the refusal of the hand ofMademoiselle Armande, --a refusal which, as he believed, had influencedthat of Mademoiselle Cormon. This circumstance alone made the marriagedrag along. Mademoiselle received several anonymous letters. Shelearned, to her great astonishment, that Suzanne was as truly a virginas herself so far as du Bousquier was concerned, for that seducer withthe false toupet could never be the hero of any such adventure. Mademoiselle Cormon disdained anonymous letters; but she wrote toSuzanne herself, on the ground of enlightening the Maternity Society. Suzanne, who had no doubt heard of du Bousquier's proposed marriage, acknowledged her trick, sent a thousand francs to the society, and didall the harm she could to the old purveyor. Mademoiselle Cormonconvoked the Maternity Society, which held a special meeting at whichit was voted that the association would not in future assist anymisfortunes about to happen, but solely those that had happened. 

In spite of all these various events which kept the town in thechoicest gossip, the banns were published in the churches and at themayor's office. Athanase prepared the deeds. As a matter of proprietyand public decency, the bride retired to Prebaudet, where duBousquier, bearing sumptuous and horrible bouquets, betook himselfevery morning, returning home for dinner. 

At last, on a dull and rainy morning in June, the marriage ofMademoiselle Cormon and the Sieur du Bousquier took place at noon inthe parish church of Alencon, in sight of the whole town. The bridalpair went from their own house to the mayor's office, and from themayor's office to the church in an open caleche, a magnificent vehiclefor Alencon, which du Bousquier had sent for secretly to Paris. Theloss of the old carriole was a species of calamity in the eyes of thecommunity. The harness-maker of the Porte de Seez bemoaned it, for helost the fifty francs a year which it cost in repairs. Alencon sawwith alarm the possibility of luxury being thus introduced into thetown. Every one feared a rise in the price of rents and provisions, and a coming invasion of Parisian furniture. Some persons weresufficiently pricked by curiosity to give ten sous to Jacquelin toallow them a close inspection of the vehicle which threatened to upsetthe whole economy of the region. A pair of horses, bought inNormandie, were also most alarming. 

"If we bought our own horses, " said the Ronceret circle, "we couldn'tsell them to those who come to buy. "

Stupid as it was, this reasoning seemed sound; for surely such acourse would prevent the region from grasping the money of foreigners. In the eyes of the provinces wealth consisted less in the rapidturning over of money than in sterile accumulation. It may bementioned here that Penelope succumbed to a pleurisy which sheacquired about six weeks before the marriage; nothing could save her. 

Madame Granson, Mariette, Madame du Coudrai, Madame du Ronceret, andthrough them the whole town, remarked that Madame du Bousquier enteredthe church /with her left foot/, --an omen all the more dreadful becausethe term Left was beginning to acquire a political meaning. The priestwhose duty it was to read the opening formula opened his book bychance at the De Profundis. Thus the marriage was accompanied bycircumstances so fateful, so alarming, so annihilating that no onedared to augur well of it. Matters, in fact, went from bad to worse. There was no wedding party; the married pair departed immediately forPrebaudet. Parisian customs, said the community, were about to triumphover time-honored provincial ways. 

The marriage of Jacquelin and Josette now took place: it was gay; andthey were the only two persons in Alencon who refuted the sinisterprophecies relating to the marriage of their mistress. 

Du Bousquier determined to use the proceeds of the sale of his lateresidence in restoring and modernizing the hotel Cormon. He decided toremain through two seasons at Prebaudet, and took the Abbe de Spondewith them. This news spread terror through the town, where everyindividual felt that du Bousquier was about to drag the community intothe fatal path of "comfort. " This fear increased when the inhabitantsof Alencon saw the bridegroom driving in from Prebaudet one morning toinspect his works, in a fine tilbury drawn by a new horse, having Reneat his side in livery. The first act of his administration had been toplace his wife's savings on the Grand-Livre, which was then quoted at67 fr. 50 cent. In the space of one year, during which he playedconstantly for a rise, he made himself a personal fortune almost asconsiderable as that of his wife. 

But all these foreboding prophecies, these perturbing innovations, were superseded and surpassed by an event connected with this marriagewhich gave a still more fatal aspect to it. 

On the very evening of the ceremony, Athanase and his mother weresitting, after their dinner, over a little fire of fagots, which theservant lighted usually at dessert. 

"Well, we will go this evening to the du Roncerets', inasmuch as wehave lost Mademoiselle Cormon, " said Madame Granson. "Heavens! howshall I ever accustom myself to call her Madame du Bousquier! thatname burns my lips. "

Athanase looked at his mother with a constrained and melancholy air;he could not smile; but he seemed to wish to welcome that naivesentiment which soothed his wound, though it could not cure hisanguish. 

"Mamma, " he said, in the voice of his childhood, so tender was it, andusing the name he had abandoned for several years, --"my dear mamma, donot let us go out just yet; it is so pleasant here before the fire. "

The mother heard, without comprehending, that supreme prayer of amortal sorrow. 

"Yes, let us stay, my child, " she said. "I like much better to talkwith you and listen to your projects than to play at boston and losemy money. "

"You are so handsome to-night I love to look at you. Besides, I am ina current of ideas which harmonize with this poor little salon wherewe have suffered so much. "

"And where we shall still suffer, my poor Athanase, until your workssucceed. For myself, I am trained to poverty; but you, my treasure! tosee your youth go by without a joy! nothing but toil for my poor boyin life! That thought is like an illness to a mother; it tortures meat night; it wakes me in the morning. O God! what have I done? forwhat crime dost thou punish me thus?"

She left her sofa, took a little chair, and sat close to Athanase, soas to lay her head on the bosom of her child. There is always thegrace of love in true motherhood. Athanase kissed her on the eyes, onher gray hair, on her forehead, with the sacred desire of laying hissoul wherever he applied his lips. 

"I shall never succeed, " he said, trying to deceive his mother as tothe fatal resolution he was revolving in his mind. 

"Pooh! don't get discouraged. As you often say, thought can do allthings. With ten bottles of ink, ten reams of paper, and his powerfulwill, Luther upset all Europe. Well, you'll make yourself famous; youwill do good things by the same means which he used to do evil things. Haven't you said so yourself? For my part, I listen to you; Iunderstand you a great deal more than you think I do, --for I stillbear you in my bosom, and your every thought still stirs me as yourslightest motion did in other days. "

"I shall never succeed here, mamma; and I don't want you to witnessthe sight of my struggles, my misery, my anguish. Oh, mother, let meleave Alencon! I want to suffer away from you. "

"And I wish to be at your side, " replied his mother, proudly. "Sufferwithout your mother!--that poor mother who would be your servant ifnecessary; who will efface herself rather than injure you; yourmother, who will never shame you. No, no, Athanase; we must not part. "

Athanase clung to his mother with the ardor of a dying man who clingsto life. 

"But I wish it, nevertheless. If not, you will lose me; this doublegrief, yours and mine, is killing me. You would rather I lived thandied?"

Madame Granson looked at her son with a haggard eye. 

"So this is what you have been brooding?" she said. "They told meright. Do you really mean to go?"

"Yes. "

"You will not go without telling me; without warning me? You must havean outfit and money. I have some louis sewn into my petticoat; I shallgive them to you. "

Athanase wept. 

"That's all I wanted to tell you, " he said. "Now I'll take you to thedu Roncerets'. Come. "

The mother and the son went out. Athanase left his mother at the doorof the house where she intended to pass the evening. He looked long atthe light which came through the shutters; he clung closely to thewall, and a frenzied joy came over him when he presently heard hismother say, "He has great independence of heart. "

"Poor mother! I have deceived her, " he cried, as he made his way tothe Sarthe. 

He reached the noble poplar beneath which he had meditated so much forthe last forty days, and where he had placed two heavy stones on whichhe now sat down. He contemplated that beautiful nature lighted by themoon; he reviewed once more the glorious future he had longed for; hepassed through towns that were stirred by his name; he heard theapplauding crowds; he breathed the incense of his fame; he adored thatlife long dreamed of; radiant, he sprang to radiant triumphs; heraised his stature; he evoked his illusions to bid them farewell in alast Olympic feast. The magic had been potent for a moment; but now itvanished forever. In that awful hour he clung to the beautiful tree towhich, as to a friend, he had attached himself; then he put the twostones into the pockets of his overcoat, which he buttoned across hisbreast. He had come intentionally without a hat. He now went to thedeep pool he had long selected, and glided into it resolutely, tryingto make as little noise as possible, and, in fact, making scarcelyany. 

When, at half-past nine o'clock, Madame Granson returned home, herservant said nothing of Athanase, but gave her a letter. She opened itand read these few words, --

"My good mother, I have departed; don't be angry with me. "

"A pretty trick he has played me!" she thought. "And his linen! andthe money! Well, he will write to me, and then I'll follow him. Thesepoor children think they are so much cleverer than their fathers andmothers. "

And she went to bed in peace. 

During the preceding morning the Sarthe had risen to a height foreseenby the fisherman. These sudden rises of muddy water brought eels fromtheir various runlets. It so happened that a fisherman had spread hisnet at the very place where poor Athanase had flung himself, believingthat no one would ever find him. About six o'clock in the morning theman drew in his net, and with it the young body. The few friends ofthe poor mother took every precaution in preparing her to receive thedreadful remains. The news of this suicide made, as may well besupposed, a great excitement in Alencon. The poor young man of geniushad no protector the night before, but on the morrow of his death athousand voices cried aloud, "I would have helped him. " It is so easyand convenient to be charitable gratis!

The suicide was explained by the Chevalier de Valois. He revealed, ina spirit of revenge, the artless, sincere, and genuine love ofAthanase for Mademoiselle Cormon. Madame Granson, enlightened by thechevalier, remembered a thousand little circumstances which confirmedthe chevalier's statement. The story then became touching, and manywomen wept over it. Madame Granson's grief was silent, concentrated, and little understood. There are two forms of mourning for mothers. Often the world can enter fully into the nature of their loss: theirson, admired, appreciated, young, perhaps handsome, with a noble pathbefore him, leading to fortune, possibly to fame, excites universalregret; society joins in the grief, and alleviates while it magnifiesit. But there is another sorrow of mothers who alone know what theirchild was really; who alone have received his smiles and observed thetreasures of a life too soon cut short. That sorrow hides its woe, theblackness of which surpasses all other mourning; it cannot bedescribed; happily there are but few women whose heart-strings arethus severed. 

Before Madame du Bousquier returned to town, Madame du Ronceret, oneof her good friends, had driven out to Prebaudet to fling this corpseupon the roses of her joy, to show her the love she had ignored, andsweetly shed a thousand drops of wormwood into the honey of her bridalmonth. As Madame du Bousquier drove back to Alencon, she chanced tomeet Madame Granson at the corner of the rue Val-Noble. The glance ofthe mother, dying of her grief, struck to the heart of the poor woman. A thousand maledictions, a thousand flaming reproaches, were in thatlook: Madame du Bousquier was horror-struck; that glance predicted andcalled down evil upon her head. 

The evening after the catastrophe, Madame Granson, one of the personsmost opposed to the rector of the town, and who had hitherto supportedthe minister of Saint-Leonard, began to tremble as she thought of theinflexible Catholic doctrines professed by her own party. Afterplacing her son's body in its shroud with her own hands, thinking ofthe mother of the Saviour, she went, with a soul convulsed by anguish, to the house of the hated rector. There she found the modest priest inan outer room, engaged in putting away the flax and yarns with whichhe supplied poor women, in order that they might never be wholly outof work, --a form of charity which saved many who were incapable ofbegging from actual penury. The rector left his yarns and hastened totake Madame Granson into his dining-room, where the wretched mothernoticed, as she looked at his supper, the frugal method of his ownliving. 

"Monsieur l'abbe, " she said, "I have come to implore you--" She burstinto tears, unable to continue. 

"I know what brings you, " replied the saintly man. "I must trust toyou, madame, and to your relation, Madame du Bousquier, to pacifyMonseigneur the Bishop at Seez. Yes, I will pray for your unhappychild; yes, I will say the masses. But we must avoid all scandal, andgive no opportunity for evil-judging persons to assemble in thechurch. I alone, without other clergy, at night--"

"Yes, yes, as you think best; if only he may lie in consecratedground, " said the poor mother, taking the priest's hand and kissingit. 

Toward midnight a coffin was clandestinely borne to the parish churchby four young men, comrades whom Athanase had liked the best. A fewfriends of Madame Granson, women dressed in black, and veiled, werepresent; and half a dozen other young men who had been somewhatintimate with this lost genius. Four torches flickered on the coffin, which was covered with crape. The rector, assisted by one discreetchoirboy, said the mortuary mass. Then the body of the suicide wasnoiselessly carried to a corner of the cemetery, where a black woodencross, without inscription, was all that indicated its place hereafterto the mother. Athanase lived and died in shadow. No voice was raisedto blame the rector; the bishop kept silence. The piety of the motherredeemed the impiety of the son's last act. 

Some months later, the poor woman, half beside herself with grief, andmoved by one of those inexplicable thirsts which misery feels to steepits lips in the bitter chalice, determined to see the spot where herson was drowned. Her instinct may have told her that thoughts of hiscould be recovered beneath that poplar; perhaps, too, she desired tosee what his eyes had seen for the last time. Some mothers would dieof the sight; others give themselves up to it in saintly adoration. Patient anatomists of human nature cannot too often enunciate thetruths before which all educations, laws, and philosophical systemsmust give way. Let us repeat continually: it is absurd to forcesentiments into one formula: appearing as they do, in each individualman, they combine with the elements that form his nature and take hisown physiognomy. 

Madame Granson, as she stood on that fatal spot, saw a woman approachit, who exclaimed, --

"Was it here?"

That woman wept as the mother wept. It was Suzanne. Arriving thatmorning at the hotel du More, she had been told of the catastrophe. Ifpoor Athanase had been living, she meant to do as many noble souls, who are moneyless, dream of doing, and as the rich never think ofdoing, --she meant to have sent him several thousand francs, writing upthe envelope the words: "Money due to your father from a comrade whomakes restitution to you. " This tender scheme had been arranged bySuzanne during her journey. 

The courtesan caught sight of Madame Granson and moved rapidly away, whispering as she passed her, "I loved him!"

Suzanne, faithful to her nature, did not leave Alencon on thisoccasion without changing the orange-blossoms of the bride to rue. Shewas the first to declare that Madame du Bousquier would never beanything but Mademoiselle Cormon. With one stab of her tongue sherevenged poor Athanase and her dear chevalier. 

Alencon now witnessed a suicide that was slower and quite differentlypitiful from that of poor Athanase, who was quickly forgotten bysociety, which always makes haste to forget its dead. The poorChevalier de Valois died in life; his suicide was a daily occurrencefor fourteen years. Three months after the du Bousquier marriagesociety remarked, not without astonishment, that the linen of thechevalier was frayed and rusty, that his hair was irregularly combedand brushed. With a frowsy head the Chevalier de Valois could nolonger be said to exist! A few of his ivory teeth deserted, though thekeenest observers of human life were unable to discover to what bodythey had hitherto belonged, whether to a foreign legion or whetherthey were indigenous, vegetable or animal; whether age had pulled themfrom the chevalier's mouth, or whether they were left forgotten in thedrawer of his dressing-table. The cravat was crooked, indifferent toelegance. The negroes' heads grew pale with dust and grease. Thewrinkles of the face were blackened and puckered; the skin becameparchment. The nails, neglected, were often seen, alas! with a blackvelvet edging. The waistcoat was tracked and stained with droppingswhich spread upon its surface like autumn leaves. The cotton in theears was seldom changed. Sadness reigned upon that brow, and slippedits yellowing tints into the depths of each furrow. In short, theruins, hitherto so cleverly hidden, now showed through the cracks andcrevices of that fine edifice, and proved the power of the soul overthe body; for the fair and dainty man, the cavalier, the young blood, died when hope deserted him. Until then the nose of the chevalier wasever delicate and nice; never had a damp black blotch, nor an amberdrop fall from it; but now that nose, smeared with tobacco around thenostrils, degraded by the driblets which took advantage of the naturalgutter placed between itself and the upper lip, --that nose, which nolonger cared to seem agreeable, revealed the infinite pains which thechevalier had formerly taken with his person, and made observerscomprehend, by the extent of its degradation, the greatness andpersistence of the man's designs upon Mademoiselle Cormon. 

Alas, too, the anecdotes went the way of the teeth; the clever sayingsgrew rare. The appetite, however, remained; the old nobleman savednothing but his stomach from the wreck of his hopes; though helanguidly prepared his pinches of snuff, he ate alarming dinners. Perhaps you will more fully understand the disaster that this marriagewas to the mind and heart of the chevalier when you learn that hisintercourse with the Princess Goritza became less frequent. 

One day he appeared in Mademoiselle Armande's salon with the calf ofhis leg on the shin-bone. This bankruptcy of the graces was, I doassure you, terrible, and struck all Alencon with horror. The lateyoung man had become an old one; this human being, who, by thebreaking-down of his spirit, had passed at once from fifty to ninetyyears of age, frightened society. Besides, his secret was betrayed; hehad waited and watched for Mademoiselle Cormon; he had, like a patienthunter, adjusted his aim for ten whole years, and finally had missedthe game! In short, the impotent Republic had won the day from ValiantChivalry, and that, too, under the Restoration! Form triumphed; mindwas vanquished by matter, diplomacy by insurrection. And, O finalblow! a mortified grisette revealed the secret of the chevalier'smornings, and he now passed for a libertine. The liberals cast at hisdoor all the foundlings hitherto attributed to du Bousquier. But thefaubourg Saint-Germain of Alencon accepted them proudly: it even said, "That poor chevalier, what else could he do?" The faubourg pitied him, gathered him closer to their circle, and brought back a few raresmiles to his face; but frightful enmity was piled upon the head of duBousquier. Eleven persons deserted the Cormon salon, and passed tothat of the d'Esgrignons. 

The old maid's marriage had a signal effect in defining the twoparties in Alencon. The salon d'Esgrignon represented the upperaristocracy (the returning Troisvilles attached themselves to it); theCormon salon represented, under the clever influence of du Bousquier, that fatal class of opinions which, without being truly liberal orresolutely royalist, gave birth to the 221 on that famous day when thestruggle openly began between the most august, grandest, and only truepower, /royalty/, and the most false, most changeful, most oppressive ofall powers, --the power called /parliamentary/, which elective assembliesexercise. The salon du Ronceret, secretly allied to the Cormon salon, was boldly liberal. 

The Abbe de Sponde, after his return from Prebaudet, bore many andcontinual sufferings, which he kept within his breast, saying no wordof them to his niece. But to Mademoiselle Armande he opened his heart, admitting that, folly for folly, he would much have preferred theChevalier de Valois to Monsieur du Bousquier. Never would the dearchevalier have had the bad taste to contradict and oppose a poor oldman who had but a few days more to live; du Bousquier had destroyedeverything in the good old home. The abbe said, with scanty tearsmoistening his aged eyes, --

"Mademoiselle, I haven't even the little grove where I have walked forfifty years. My beloved lindens are all cut down! At the moment of mydeath the Republic appears to me more than ever under the form of ahorrible destruction of the Home. "

"You must pardon your niece, " said the Chevalier de Valois. "Republican ideas are the first error of youth which seeks forliberty; later it finds it the worst of despotisms, --that of animpotent canaille. Your poor niece is punished where she sinned. "

"What will become of me in a house where naked women are painted onthe walls?" said the poor abbe. "Where shall I find other lindensbeneath which to read my breviary?"

Like Kant, who was unable to collect his thoughts after the fir-treeat which he was accustomed to gaze while meditating was cut down, sothe poor abbe could never attain the ardor of his former prayers whilewalking up and down the shadeless paths. Du Bousquier had planted anEnglish garden. 

"It was best, " said Madame du Bousquier, without thinking so; but theAbbe Couterier had authorized her to commit many wrongs to please herhusband. 

These restorations destroyed all the venerable dignity, cordiality, and patriarchal air of the old house. Like the Chevalier de Valois, whose personal neglect might be called an abdication, the bourgeoisdignity of the Cormon salon no longer existed when it was turned towhite and gold, with mahogany ottomans covered in blue satin. Thedining-room, adorned in modern taste, was colder in tone than it usedto be, and the dinners were eaten with less appetite than formerly. Monsieur du Coudrai declared that he felt his puns stick in his throatas he glanced at the figures painted on the walls, which looked himout of countenance. Externally, the house was still provincial; butinternally everything revealed the purveyor of the Directory and thebad taste of the money-changer, --for instance, columns in stucco, glass doors, Greek mouldings, meaningless outlines, all stylesconglomerated, magnificence out of place and out of season. 

The town of Alencon gabbled for two weeks over this luxury, whichseemed unparalleled; but a few months later the community was proud ofit, and several rich manufacturers restored their houses and set upfine salons. Modern furniture came into the town, and astral lampswere seen!

The Abbe de Sponde was among the first to perceive the secretunhappiness this marriage now brought to the private life of hisbeloved niece. The character of noble simplicity which had hithertoruled their lives was lost during the first winter, when du Bousquiergave two balls every month. Oh, to hear violins and profane music atthese worldly entertainments in the sacred old house! The abbe prayedon his knees while the revels lasted. Next the political system of thesober salon was slowly perverted. The abbe fathomed du Bousquier; heshuddered at his imperious tone; he saw the tears in his niece's eyeswhen she felt herself losing all control over her own property; forher husband now left nothing in her hands but the management of thelinen, the table, and things of a kind which are the lot of women. Rose had no longer any orders to give. Monsieur's will was aloneregarded by Jacquelin, now become coachman, by Rene, the groom, and bythe chef, who came from Paris, Mariette being reduced to kitchen maid. Madame du Bousquier had no one to rule but Josette. Who knows what itcosts to relinquish the delights of power? If the triumph of the willis one of the intoxicating pleasures in the lives of great men, it isthe ALL of life to narrow minds. One must needs have been a ministerdismissed from power to comprehend the bitter pain which came uponMadame du Bousquier when she found herself reduced to this absoluteservitude. She often got into the carriage against her will; she sawherself surrounded by servants who were distasteful to her; she nolonger had the handling of her dear money, --she who had known herselffree to spend money, and did not spend it. 

All imposed limits make the human being desire to go beyond them. Thekeenest sufferings come from the thwarting of self-will. The beginningof this state of things was, however, rose-colored. Every concessionmade to marital authority was an effect of the love which the poorwoman felt for her husband. Du Bousquier behaved, in the firstinstance, admirably to his wife: he was wise; he was excellent; hegave her the best of reasons for each new encroachment. So for thefirst two years of her marriage Madame du Bousquier appeared to besatisfied. She had that deliberate, demure little air whichdistinguishes young women who have married for love. The rush of bloodto her head no longer tormented her. This appearance of satisfactionrouted the scoffers, contradicted certain rumors about du Bousquier, and puzzled all observers of the human heart. Rose-Marie-Victoire wasso afraid that if she displeased her husband or opposed him, she wouldlose his affection and be deprived of his company, that she wouldwillingly have sacrificed all to him, even her uncle. Her silly littleforms of pleasure deceived even the poor abbe for a time, who enduredhis own trials all the better for thinking that his niece was happy, after all. 

Alencon at first thought the same. But there was one man moredifficult to deceive than the whole town put together. The Chevalierde Valois, who had taken refuge on the Sacred Mount of the upperaristocracy, now passed his life at the d'Esgrignons. He listened tothe gossip and the gabble, and he thought day and night upon hisvengeance. He meant to strike du Bousquier to the heart. 

The poor abbe fully understood the baseness of this first and lastlove of his niece; he shuddered as, little by little, he perceived thehypocritical nature of his nephew and his treacherous manoeuvres. Though du Bousquier restrained himself, as he thought of the abbe'sproperty, and wished not to cause him vexation, it was his hand thatdealt the blow that sent the old priest to his grave. If you willinterpret the word /intolerance/ as /firmness of principle/, if you donot wish to condemn in the catholic soul of the Abbe de Sponde thestoicism which Walter Scott has made you admire in the puritan soul ofJeanie Deans' father; if you are willing to recognize in the RomanChurch the Potius mori quam foedari that you admire in republicantenets, --you will understand the sorrow of the Abbe de Sponde when hesaw in his niece's salon the apostate priest, the renegade, thepervert, the heretic, that enemy of the Church, the guilty taker ofthe Constitutional oath. Du Bousquier, whose secret ambition was tolay down the law to the town, wished, as a first proof of his power, to reconcile the minister of Saint-Leonard with the rector of theparish, and he succeeded. His wife thought he had accomplished a workof peace where the immovable abbe saw only treachery. The bishop cameto visit du Bousquier, and seemed glad of the cessation ofhostilities. The virtues of the Abbe Francois had conquered prejudice, except that of the aged Roman Catholic, who exclaimed with Cornelle, "Alas! what virtues do you make me hate!"

The abbe died when orthodoxy thus expired in the diocese. 

In 1819, the property of the Abbe de Sponde increased Madame duBousquier's income from real estate to twenty-five thousand francswithout counting Prebaudet or the house in the Val-Noble. About thistime du Bousquier returned to his wife the capital of her savingswhich she had yielded to him; and he made her use it in purchasinglands contiguous to Prebaudet, which made that domain one of the mostconsiderable in the department, for the estates of the Abbe de Spondealso adjoined it. Du Bousquier thus passed for one of the richest menof the department. This able man, the constant candidate of theliberals, missing by seven or eight votes only in all the electoralbattles fought under the Restoration, and who ostensibly repudiatedthe liberals by trying to be elected as a ministerial royalist(without ever being able to conquer the aversion of theadministration), --this rancorous republican, mad with ambition, resolved to rival the royalism and aristocracy of Alencon at themoment when they once more had the upper hand. He strengthened himselfwith the Church by the deceitful appearance of a well-feigned piety:he accompanied his wife to mass; he gave money for the convents of thetown; he assisted the congregation of the Sacre-Coeur; he took sideswith the clergy on all occasions when the clergy came into collisionwith the town, the department, or the State. Secretly supported by theliberals, protected by the Church, calling himself a constitutionalroyalist, he kept beside the aristocracy of the department in the onehope of ruining it, --and he did ruin it. Ever on the watch for thefaults and blunders of the nobility and the government, he laid plansfor his vengeance against the "chateau-people, " and especially againstthe d'Esgrignons, in whose bosom he was one day to thrust a poisoneddagger. 

Among other benefits to the town he gave money liberally to revive themanufacture of point d'Alencon; he renewed the trade in linens, andthe town had a factory. Inscribing himself thus upon the interests andheart of the masses, by doing what the royalists did not do, duBousquier did not really risk a farthing. Backed by his fortune, hecould afford to wait results which enterprising persons who involvethemselves are forced to abandon to luckier successors. 

Du Bousquier now posed as a banker. This miniature Lafitte was apartner in all new enterprises, taking good security. He servedhimself while apparently serving the interests of the community. Hewas the prime mover of insurance companies, the protector of newenterprises for public conveyance; he suggested petitions for askingthe administration for the necessary roads and bridges. Thus warned, the government considered this action an encroachment of its ownauthority. A struggle was begun injudiciously, for the good of thecommunity compelled the authorities to yield in the end. Du Bousquierembittered the provincial nobility against the court nobility and thepeerage; and finally he brought about the shocking adhesion of astrong party of constitutional royalists to the warfare sustained bythe "Journal des Debats, " and M. De Chateaubriand against the throne, --an ungrateful opposition based on ignoble interests, which was onecause of the triumph of the bourgeoisie and journalism in 1830. 

Thus du Bousquier, in common with the class he represented, had thesatisfaction of beholding the funeral of royalty. The old republican, smothered with masses, who for fifteen years had played that comedy tosatisfy his vendetta, himself threw down with his own hand the whiteflag of the mayoralty to the applause of the multitude. No man inFrance cast upon the new throne raised in August, 1830, a glance ofmore intoxicated, joyous vengeance. The accession of the YoungerBranch was the triumph of the Revolution. To him the victory of thetricolor meant the resurrection of Montagne, which this time shouldsurely bring the nobility down to the dust by means more certain thanthat of the guillotine, because less violent. The peerage withoutheredity; the National Guard, which puts on the same camp-bed thecorner grocer and the marquis; the abolition of the entails demandedby a bourgeois lawyer; the Catholic Church deprived of its supremacy;and all the other legislative inventions of August, 1830, --were to duBousquier the wisest possible application of the principles of 1793. 

Since 1830 this man has been a receiver-general. He relied for hisadvancement on his relations with the Duc d'Orleans, father of LouisPhilippe, and with Monsieur de Folmon, formerly steward to theDuchess-dowager of Orleans. He receives about eighty thousand francs ayear. In the eyes of the people about him Monsieur du Bousquier is aman of means, --a respectable man, steady in his principles, upright, and obliging. Alencon owes to him its connection with the industrialmovement by which Brittany may possibly some day be joined to what ispopularly called modern civilization. Alencon, which up to 1816 couldboast of only two private carriages, saw, without amazement, in thecourse of ten years, coupes, landaus, tilburies, and cabrioletsrolling through her streets. The burghers and the land-owners, alarmedat first lest the price of everything should increase, recognizedlater that this increase in the style of living had a contrary effectupon their revenues. The prophetic remark of du Ronceret, "DuBousquier is a very strong man, " was adopted by the wholecountry-side. 

But, unhappily for the wife, that saying has a double meaning. Thehusband does not in any way resemble the public politician. This greatcitizen, so liberal to the world about him, so kindly inspired withlove for his native place, is a despot in his own house, and utterlydevoid of conjugal affection. This man, so profoundly astute, hypocritical, and sly; this Cromwell of the Val-Noble, --behaves in hishome as he behaves to the aristocracy, whom he caresses in hopes tothrottle them. Like his friend Bernadotte, he wears a velvet gloveupon his iron hand. His wife has given him no children. Suzanne'sremark and the chevalier's insinuations were therefore justified. Butthe liberal bourgeoisie, the constitutional-royalist-bourgeoisie, thecountry-squires, the magistracy, and the "church party" laid the blameon Madame du Bousquier. "She was too old, " they said; "Monsieur duBousquier had married her too late. Besides, it was very lucky for thepoor woman; it was dangerous at her age to bear children!" When Madamedu Bousquier confided, weeping, her periodic despair to Mesdames duCoudrai and du Ronceret, those ladies would reply, --

"But you are crazy, my dear; you don't know what you are wishing for;a child would be your death. "

Many men, whose hopes were fastened on du Bousquier's triumph, sanghis praises to their wives, who in turn repeated them to the poor wifein some such speech as this:--

"You are very lucky, dear, to have married such an able man; you'llescape the misery of women whose husbands are men without energy, incapable of managing their property, or bringing up their children. "

"Your husband is making you queen of the department, my love. He'llnever leave you embarrassed, not he! Why, he leads all Alencon. "

"But I wish, " said the poor wife, "that he gave less time to thepublic and--"

"You are hard to please, my dear Madame du Bousquier. I assure youthat all the women in town envy you your husband. "

Misjudged by society, which began by blaming her, the pious womanfound ample opportunity in her home to display her virtues. She livedin tears, but she never ceased to present to others a placid face. Toso Christian a soul a certain thought which pecked forever at herheart was a crime: "I loved the Chevalier de Valois, " it said; "but Ihave married du Bousquier. " The love of poor Athanase Granson alsorose like a phantom of remorse, and pursued her even in her dreams. The death of her uncle, whose griefs at the last burst forth, made herlife still more sorrowful; for she now felt the suffering her unclemust have endured in witnessing the change of political and religiousopinion in the old house. Sorrow often falls like a thunderbolt, as itdid on Madame Granson; but in this old maid it slowly spread like adrop of oil, which never leaves the stuff that slowly imbibes it. 

The Chevalier de Valois was the malicious manipulator who broughtabout the crowning misfortune of Madame du Bousquier's life. His heartwas set on undeceiving her pious simplicity; for the chevalier, expertin love, divined du Bousquier, the married man, as he had divined duBousquier, the bachelor. But the wary republican was difficult ofattack. His salon was, of course, closed to the Chevalier de Valois, as to all those who, in the early days of his marriage, had slightedthe Cormon mansion. He was, moreover, impervious to ridicule; hepossessed a vast fortune; he reigned in Alencon; he cared as littlefor his wife as Richard III. Cared for the dead horse which had helpedhim win a battle. To please her husband, Madame du Bousquier hadbroken off relations with the d'Esgrignon household, where she went nolonger, except that sometimes when her husband left her during histrips to Paris, she would pay a brief visit to Mademoiselle Armande. 

About three years after her marriage, at the time of the Abbe deSponde's death, Mademoiselle Armande joined Madame du Bousquier asthey were leaving Saint-Leonard's, where they had gone to hear arequiem said for him. The generous demoiselle thought that on thisoccasion she owed her sympathy to the niece in trouble. They walkedtogether, talking of the dear deceased, until they reached theforbidden house, into which Mademoiselle Armande enticed Madame duBousquier by the charm of her manner and conversation. The poordesolate woman was glad to talk of her uncle with one whom he trulyloved. Moreover, she wanted to receive the condolences of the oldmarquis, whom she had not seen for nearly three years. It washalf-past one o'clock, and she found at the hotel d'Esgrignon theChevalier de Valois, who had come to dinner. As he bowed to her, hetook her by the hands. 

"Well, dear, virtuous, and beloved lady, " he said, in a tone ofemotion, "we have lost our sainted friend; we share your grief. Yes, your loss is as keenly felt here as in your own home, --more so, " headded, alluding to du Bousquier. 

After a few more words of funeral oration, in which all present spokefrom the heart, the chevalier took Madame du Bousquier's arm, and, gallantly placing it within his own, pressed it adoringly as he ledher to the recess of a window. 

"Are you happy?" he said in a fatherly voice. 

"Yes, " she said, dropping her eyes. 

Hearing that "Yes, " Madame de Troisville, the daughter of the PrincessScherbellof, and the old Marquise de Casteran came up and joined thechevalier, together with Mademoiselle Armande. They all went to walkin the garden until dinner was served, without any perception on thepart of Madame du Bousquier that a little conspiracy was afoot. "Wehave her! now let us find out the secret of the case, " were the wordswritten in the eyes of all present. 

"To make your happiness complete, " said Mademoiselle Armande, "youought to have children, --a fine lad like my nephew--"

Tears seemed to start in Madame du Bousquier's eyes. 

"I have heard it said that you were the one to blame in the matter, and that you feared the dangers of a pregnancy, " said the chevalier. 

"I!" she said artlessly. "I would buy a child with a hundred years ofpurgatory if I could. "

On the question thus started a discussion arose, conducted by Madamede Troisville and the old Marquise de Casteran with such delicacy andadroitness that the poor victim revealed, without being aware of it, the secrets of her house. Mademoiselle Armande had taken thechevalier's arm, and walked away so as to leave the three women freeto discuss wedlock. Madame du Bousquier was then enlightened on thevarious deceptions of her marriage; and as she was still the samesimpleton she had always been, she amused her advisers by delightfulnaivetes. 

Although at first the deceptive marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon made alaugh throughout the town, which was soon initiated into the story ofthe case, before long Madame du Bousquier won the esteem and sympathyof all the women. The fact that Mademoiselle Cormon had flung herselfheadlong into marriage without succeeding in being married, madeeverybody laugh at her; but when they learned the exceptional positionin which the sternness of her religious principles placed her, all theworld admired her. "That poor Madame du Bousquier" took the place of"That good Mademoiselle Cormon. "

Thus the chevalier contrived to render du Bousquier both ridiculousand odious for a time; but ridicule ends by weakening; when all hadsaid their say about him, the gossip died out. Besides, at fifty-sevenyears of age the dumb republican seemed to many people to have a rightto retire. This affair, however, envenomed the hatred which duBousquier already bore to the house of Esgrignon to such a degree thatit made him pitiless when the day of vengeance came. [See "The Galleryof Antiquities. "] Madame du Bousquier received orders never again toset foot into that house. By way of reprisals upon the chevalier forthe trick thus played him, du Bousquier, who had just created thejournal called the "Courrier de l'Orne, " caused the following noticeto be inserted in it:--

 "Bonds to the amount of one thousand francs a year will be paid to any person who can prove the existence of one Monsieur de Pombreton before, during, or after the Emigration. "

Although her marriage was essentially negative, Madame du Bousquiersaw some advantages in it: was it not better to interest herself inthe most remarkable man in the town than to live alone? Du Bousquierwas preferable to a dog, or cat, or those canaries that spinsterslove. He showed for his wife a sentiment more real and less selfishthan that which is felt by servants, confessors, and hopeful heirs. Later in life she came to consider her husband as the instrument ofdivine wrath; for she then saw innumerable sins in her former desiresfor marriage; she regarded herself as justly punished for the sorrowshe had brought on Madame Granson, and for the hastened death of heruncle. Obedient to that religion which commands us to kiss the rodwith which the punishment is inflicted, she praised her husband, andpublicly approved him. But in the confessional, or at night, whenpraying, she wept often, imploring God's forgiveness for the apostasyof the man who thought the contrary of what he professed, and whodesired the destruction of the aristocracy and the Church, --the tworeligions of the house of Cormon. 

With all her feelings bruised and immolated within her, compelled byduty to make her husband happy, attached to him by a certainindefinable affection, born, perhaps, of habit, her life became oneperpetual contradiction. She had married a man whose conduct andopinions she hated, but whom she was bound to care for with dutifultenderness. Often she walked with the angels when du Bousquier ate herpreserves or thought the dinner good. She watched to see that hisslightest wish was satisfied. If he tore off the cover of hisnewspaper and left it on a table, instead of throwing it away, shewould say:--

"Rene, leave that where it is; monsieur did not place it there withoutintention. "

If du Bousquier had a journey to take, she was anxious about histrunk, his linen; she took the most minute precautions for hismaterial benefit. If he went to Prebaudet, she consulted the barometerthe evening before to know if the weather would be fine. She watchedfor his will in his eyes, like a dog which hears and sees its masterwhile sleeping. When the stout du Bousquier, touched by thisscrupulous love, would take her round the waist and kiss her forehead, saying, "What a good woman you are!" tears of pleasure would come intothe eyes of the poor creature. It is probably that du Bousquier felthimself obliged to make certain concessions which obtained for him therespect of Rose-Marie-Victoire; for Catholic virtue does not require adissimulation as complete as that of Madame du Bousquier. Often thegood saint sat mutely by and listened to the hatred of men whoconcealed themselves under the cloak of constitutional royalists. Sheshuddered as she foresaw the ruin of the Church. Occasionally sherisked a stupid word, an observation which du Bousquier cut short witha glance. 

The worries of such an existence ended by stupefying Madame duBousquier, who found it easier and also more dignified to concentrateher intelligence on her own thoughts and resign herself to lead a lifethat was purely animal. She then adopted the submission of a slave, and regarded it as a meritorious deed to accept the degradation inwhich her husband placed her. The fulfilment of his will never oncecaused her to murmur. The timid sheep went henceforth in the way theshepherd led her; she gave herself up to the severest religiouspractices, and thought no more of Satan and his works and vanities. Thus she presented to the eyes of the world a union of all Christianvirtues; and du Bousquier was certainly one of the luckiest men in thekingdom of France and of Navarre. 

"She will be a simpleton to her last breath, " said the formercollector, who, however, dined with her twice a week. 

This history would be strangely incomplete if no mention were made ofthe coincidence of the Chevalier de Valois's death occurring at thesame time as that of Suzanne's mother. The chevalier died with themonarchy, in August, 1830. He had joined the cortege of Charles X. AtNonancourt, and piously escorted it to Cherbourg with the Troisvilles, Casterans, d'Esgrignons, Verneuils, etc. The old gentleman had takenwith him fifty thousand francs, --the sum to which his savings thenamounted. He offered them to one of the faithful friends of the kingfor transmission to his master, speaking of his approaching death, anddeclaring that the money came originally from the goodness of theking, and, moreover, that the property of the last of the Valoisbelonged of right to the crown. It is not known whether the fervor ofhis zeal conquered the reluctance of the Bourbon, who abandoned hisfine kingdom of France without carrying away with him a farthing, andwho ought to have been touched by the devotion of the chevalier. It iscertain, however, that Cesarine, the residuary legate of the old man, received from his estate only six hundred francs a year. The chevalierreturned to Alencon, cruelly weakened by grief and by fatigue; he diedon the very day when Charles X. Arrived on a foreign shore. 

Madame du Val-Noble and her protector, who was just then afraid of thevengeance of the liberal party, were glad of a pretext to remainincognito in the village where Suzanne's mother died. At the sale ofthe chevalier's effects, which took place at that time, Suzanne, anxious to obtain a souvenir of her first and last friend, pushed upthe price of the famous snuff-box, which was finally knocked down toher for a thousand francs. The portrait of the Princess Goritza wasalone worth that sum. Two years later, a young dandy, who was making acollection of the fine snuff-boxes of the last century, obtained fromMadame du Val-Noble the chevalier's treasure. The charming confidantof many a love and the pleasure of an old age is now on exhibition ina species of private museum. If the dead could know what happens afterthem, the chevalier's head would surely blush upon its left cheek. 

If this history has no other effect than to inspire the possessors ofprecious relics with holy fear, and induce them to make codicils tosecure these touching souvenirs of joys that are no more bybequeathing them to loving hands, it will have done an immense serviceto the chivalrous and romantic portion of the community; but it does, in truth, contain a far higher moral. Does it not show the necessityfor a new species of education? Does it not invoke, from theenlightened solicitude of the ministers of Public Instruction, thecreation of chairs of anthropology, --a science in which Germanyoutstrips us? Modern myths are even less understood than ancient ones, harried as we are with myths. Myths are pressing us from every point;they serve all theories, they explain all questions. They are, according to human ideas, the torches of history; they would saveempires from revolution if only the professors of history would forcethe explanations they give into the mind of the provincial masses. IfMademoiselle Cormon had been a reader or a student, and if there hadexisted in the department of the Orne a professor of anthropology, oreven had she read Ariosto, the frightful disasters of her conjugallife would never have occurred. She would probably have known why theItalian poet makes Angelica prefer Medoro, who was a blond Chevalierde Valois, to Orlando, whose mare was dead, and who knew no betterthan to fly into a passion. Is not Medoro the mythic form for allcourtiers of feminine royalty, and Orlando the myth of disorderly, furious, and impotent revolutions, which destroy but cannot produce?We publish, but without assuming any responsibility for it, thisopinion of a pupil of Monsieur Ballanche. 

No information has reached us as to the fate of the negroes' heads indiamonds. You may see Madame du Val-Noble every evening at the Opera. Thanks to the education given her by the Chevalier de Valois, she hasalmost the air of a well-bred woman. 

Madame du Bousquier still lives; is not that as much as to say shestill suffers? After reaching the age of sixty--the period at whichwomen allow themselves to make confessions--she said confidentially toMadame du Coudrai, that she had never been able to endure the idea ofdying an old maid. 

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. 

(Note: The Collection of Antiquities is a companion piece to The OldMaid. In other Addendum appearances they are combined under the titleof The Jealousies of a Country Town. )

Bordin The Gondreville Mystery The Seamy Side of History The Commission in Lunacy

Bousquier, Du (or Du Croisier or Du Bourguier) The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece) The Middle Classes

Bousquier, Madame du (du Croisier) (Mlle. Cormon) The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Casteran, De The Chouans The Seamy Side of History The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece) Beatrix The Peasantry

Chesnel (or Choisnel) The Seamy Side of History The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Coudrai, Du The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Esgrignon, Charles-Marie-Victor-Ange-Carol, Marquis d' (or Des Grignons) The Chouans The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Esgrignon, Marie-Armande-Claire d' The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Gaillard, Madame Theodore (Suzanne) A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Beatrix The Unconscious Humorists

Granson, Athanase The Government Clerks (mentioned only)

Lenoncourt, Duc de The Lily of the Valley Cesar Birotteau The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece) The Gondreville Mystery Beatrix

Navarreins, Duc de Colonel Chabert The Muse of the Department The Thirteen The Peasantry Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Country Parson The Magic Skin The Gondreville Mystery The Secrets of a Princess Cousin Betty

Pombreton, Marquis de Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Ronceret, Du The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece) Beatrix

Ronceret, Madame Du The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Simeuse, Admiral de Beatrix The Gondreville Mystery

Troisville, Guibelin, Vicomte de The Seamy Side of History The Chouans The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece) The Peasantry

Valois, Chevalier de The Chouans The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Verneuil, Duc de The Chouans The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)