To complete the picture of the internal habits and ways of this house,
it is necessary to group around Mademoiselle Cormon and the Abbe
de Sponde Jacquelin, Josette, and Mariette, the cook, who employed
themselves in providing for the comfort of uncle and niece.
Jacquelin, a man of forty, short, fat, ruddy, and brown, with a
face like a Breton sailor, had been in the service of the house for
twenty-two years. He waited at table, groomed the mare, gardened,
blacked the abbe’s boots, went on errands, chopped the wood, drove the
carriole, and fetched the oats, straw, and hay from Prebaudet. He sat in
the antechamber during the evening, where he slept like a dormouse. He
was in love with Josette, a girl of thirty, whom Mademoiselle would
have dismissed had she married him. So the poor fond pair laid by their
wages, and loved each other silently, waiting, hoping for mademoiselle’s
own marriage, as the Jews are waiting for the Messiah. Josette, born
between Alencon and Mortagne, was short and plump; her face, which
looked like a dirty apricot, was not wanting in sense and character;
it was said that she ruled her mistress. Josette and Jacquelin, sure of
results, endeavored to hide an inward satisfaction which allows it to be
supposed that, as lovers, they had discounted the future. Mariette, the
cook, who had been fifteen years in the household, knew how to make all
the dishes held in most honor in Alencon.
Perhaps we ought to count for much the fat old Norman brown-bay mare,
which drew Mademoiselle Cormon to her country-seat at Prebaudet; for the
five inhabitants of the house bore to this animal a maniacal affection.
She was called Penelope, and had served the family for eighteen
years; but she was kept so carefully and fed with such regularity that
mademoiselle and Jacquelin both hoped to use her for ten years longer.
This beast was the subject of perpetual talk and occupation; it seemed
as if poor Mademoiselle Cormon, having no children on whom her repressed
motherly feelings could expend themselves, had turned those sentiments
wholly on this most fortunate animal.
The four faithful servants--for Penelope’s intelligence raised her to
the 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 infallible accuracy of
mechanism. But, as they said in their idiom, they had eaten their white
bread first. Mademoiselle Cormon, like all persons nervously agitated
by a fixed idea, became hard to please, and nagging, less by nature than
from the need of employing her activity. Having no husband or children
to occupy her, she fell back on petty details. She talked for hours
about mere nothings, on a dozen napkins marked “Z,” placed in the closet
before the “O’s.”
“What can Josette be thinking of?” she exclaimed. “Josette is beginning
to neglect things.”
Mademoiselle inquired for eight days running whether Penelope had had
her oats at two o’clock, because on one occasion Jacquelin was a trifle
late. Her narrow imagination spent itself on trifles. A layer of dust
forgotten by the feather-duster, a slice of toast ill-made by Mariette,
Josette’s delay in closing the blinds when the sun came round to fade
the colors of the furniture,--all these great little things gave rise
to serious quarrels in which mademoiselle grew angry. “Everything was
changing,” she would cry; “she did not know her own servants; the fact
was she spoiled them!” On one occasion Josette gave her the “Journee du
Chretien” instead of the “Quinzaine de Paques.” The whole town heard of
this disaster the same evening. Mademoiselle had been forced to leave
the church and return home; and her sudden departure, upsetting
the chairs, made people suppose a catastrophe had happened. She was
therefore obliged to explain the facts to her friends.
“Josette,” she said gently, “such a thing must never happen again.”
Mademoiselle Cormon was, without being aware of it, made happier by such
little quarrels, which served as cathartics to relieve her bitterness.
The soul has its needs, and, like the body, its gymnastics. These
uncertainties of temper were accepted by Josette and Jacquelin as
changes in the weather are accepted by husbandmen. Those worthy souls
remark, “It is fine to-day,” or “It rains,” without arraigning the
heavens. And so when they met in the morning the servants would wonder
in what humor mademoiselle would get up, just as a farmer wonders about
the mists at dawn.
Mademoiselle Cormon had ended, as it was natural she should end, in
contemplating herself only in the infinite pettinesses of her life.
Herself and God, her confessor and the weekly wash, her preserves and
the church services, and her uncle to care for, absorbed her feeble
intellect. To her the atoms of life were magnified by an optic peculiar
to persons who are selfish by nature or self-absorbed by some accident.
Her perfect health gave alarming meaning to the least little derangement
of her digestive organs. She lived under the iron rod of the medical
science of our forefathers, and took yearly four precautionary doses,
strong enough to have killed Penelope, though they seemed to rejuvenate
her mistress. If Josette, when dressing her, chanced to discover a
little pimple on the still satiny shoulders of mademoiselle, it became
the subject of endless inquiries as to the various alimentary articles
of the preceding week. And what a triumph when Josette reminded her
mistress of a certain hare that was rather “high,” and had doubtless
raised that accursed pimple! With what joy they said to each other: “No
doubt, no doubt, it _was_ the hare!”
“Mariette over-seasoned it,” said mademoiselle. “I am always telling
her to do so lightly for my uncle and for me; but Mariette has no more
memory 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, Mademoiselle Cormon
went to pass a certain number of days on her estate of Prebaudet. It
was now the middle of May, the period at which she wished to see how her
apple-trees had “snowed,” a saying of that region which expressed the
effect produced beneath the trees by the falling of their blossoms. When
the circular deposit of these fallen petals resembled a layer of snow
the owner of the trees might hope for an abundant supply of cider.
While she thus gauged her vats, Mademoiselle Cormon also attended to the
repairs which the winter necessitated; she ordered the digging of her
flower-beds and her vegetable garden, from which she supplied her table.
Every season had its own business. Mademoiselle always gave a dinner of
farewell to her intimate friends the day before her departure, although
she was certain to see them again within three weeks. It was always
a piece of news which echoed through Alencon when Mademoiselle Cormon
departed. All her visitors, especially those who had missed a visit,
came to bid her good-bye; the salon was thronged, and every one said
farewell as though she were starting for Calcutta. The next day the
shopkeepers would stand at their doors to see the old carriole pass, and
they seemed to be telling one another some news by repeating from shop
to shop:--
“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 money
always 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 were
in bloom; here’s Mademoiselle Cormon going to Prebaudet. How happens it
she doesn’t marry?”
“I’d marry her myself,” said a wag; “in fact, the marriage is half-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 to
be this farewell Wednesday,--a day on which Mademoiselle Cormon drove
Josette distracted on the subject of packing. During the morning,
therefore, things had been said and done in the town which lent the
utmost interest to this farewell meeting. Madame Granson had gone the
round of a dozen houses while the old maid was deliberating on the
things she needed for the journey; and the malicious Chevalier de Valois
was playing piquet with Mademoiselle Armande, sister of a distinguished
old marquis, and the queen of the salon of the aristocrats. If it was
not uninteresting to any one to see what figure the seducer would cut
that evening, it was all important for the chevalier and Madame Granson
to know how Mademoiselle Cormon would take the news in her double
capacity of marriageable woman and president of the Maternity Society.
As for the innocent du Bousquier, he was taking a walk on the promenade,
and beginning to suspect that Suzanne had tricked him; this suspicion
confirmed him in his principles as to women.
On gala days the table was laid at Mademoiselle Cormon’s about half-past
three o’clock. At that period the fashionable people of Alencon dined at
four. Under the Empire they still dined as in former times at half-past
two; but then they supped! One of the pleasures which Mademoiselle
Cormon valued most was (without meaning any malice, although the fact
certainly rests on egotism) the unspeakable satisfaction she derived
from seeing herself dressed as mistress of the house to receive her
guests. When she was thus under arms a ray of hope would glide into
the darkness of her heart; a voice told her that nature had not so
abundantly provided for her in vain, and that some man, brave and
enterprising, would surely present himself. Her desire was refreshed
like her person; she contemplated herself in her heavy stuffs with a
sort of intoxication, and this satisfaction continued when she descended
the stairs to cast her redoubtable eye on the salon, the dinner-table,
and the boudoir. She would then walk about with the naive contentment of
the rich,--who remember at all moments that they are rich and will never
want for anything. She looked at her eternal furniture, her curiosities,
her lacquers, and said to herself that all these fine things wanted was
a master. After admiring the dining-room, and the oblong dinner-table,
on which was spread a snow-white cloth adorned with twenty covers placed
at equal distances; after verifying the squadron of bottles she had
ordered to be brought up, and which all bore honorable labels; after
carefully verifying the names written on little bits of paper in the
trembling handwriting of the abbe (the only duty he assumed in the
household, and one which gave rise to grave discussions on the place
of each guest),--after going through all these preliminary acts
mademoiselle went, in her fine clothes, to her uncle, who was accustomed
at this, the best hour in the day, to take his walk on the terrace which
overlooked the Brillante, where he could listen to the warble of birds
which were resting in the coppice, unafraid of either sportsmen or
children. At such times of waiting she never joined the Abbe de Sponde
without asking him some ridiculous question, in order to draw the old
man into a discussion which might serve to amuse him. And her reason
was this,--which will serve to complete our picture of this excellent
woman’s nature:--
Mademoiselle Cormon regarded it as one of her duties to talk; not that
she was talkative, for she had unfortunately too few ideas, and did
not know enough phrases to converse readily. But she believed she was
accomplishing one of the social duties enjoined by religion, which
orders us to make ourselves agreeable to our neighbor. This obligation
cost her so much that she consulted her director, the Abbe Couturier,
upon the subject of this honest but puerile civility. In spite of the
humble remark of his penitent, confessing the inward labor of her
mind in finding anything to say, the old priest, rigid on the point
of discipline, read her a passage from Saint-Francois de Sales on the
duties of women in society, which dwelt on the decent gayety of
pious Christian women, who were bound to reserve their sternness for
themselves, and to be amiable and pleasing in their homes, and see that
their neighbors enjoyed themselves. Thus, filled with a sense of duty,
and wishing, at all costs, to obey her director, who bade her converse
with amenity, the poor soul perspired in her corset when the talk around
her languished, so much did she suffer from the effort of emitting ideas
in order to revive it. Under such circumstances she would put forth
the silliest statements, such as: “No one can be in two places at
once--unless it is a little bird,” by which she one day roused, and not
without success, a discussion on the ubiquity of the apostles, which
she was unable to comprehend. Such efforts at conversation won her the
appellation of “that good Mademoiselle Cormon,” which, from the lips of
the beaux esprits of society, means that she was as ignorant as a carp,
and rather a poor fool; but many persons of her own calibre took the
remark in its literal sense, and answered:--
“Yes; oh yes! Mademoiselle Cormon is an excellent woman.”
Sometimes she would put such absurd questions (always for the purpose
of fulfilling her duties to society, and making herself agreeable to her
guests) that everybody burst out laughing. She asked, for instance, what
the government did with the taxes they were always receiving; and why
the Bible had not been printed in the days of Jesus Christ, inasmuch
as it was written by Moses. Her mental powers were those of the English
“country gentleman” who, hearing constant mention of “posterity” in
the House of Commons, rose to make the speech that has since become
celebrated: “Gentlemen,” he said, “I hear much talk in this place about
Posterity. I should be glad to know what that power has ever done for
England.”
Under these circumstances the heroic Chevalier de Valois would bring
to 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 into wit
by sustaining them paradoxically, and he often covered the retreat so
well that it seemed as if the good woman had said nothing silly. She
asserted very seriously one evening that she did not see any difference
between an ox and a bull. The dear chevalier instantly arrested the
peals of laughter by asserting that there was only the difference
between a sheep and a lamb.
But the Chevalier de Valois served an ungrateful dame, for never did
Mademoiselle Cormon comprehend his chivalrous services. Observing that
the conversation grew lively, she simply thought that she was not so
stupid as she was,--the result being that she settled down into her
ignorance with some complacency; she lost her timidity, and acquired a
self-possession which gave to her “speeches” something of the solemnity
with which the British enunciate their patriotic absurdities,--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 (this
was one of her fictions; for she said to herself “If I had a husband I
should do just so”),--“uncle, if everything here below happens according
to the will of God, there must be a reason for everything.”
“Certainly,” replied the abbe, gravely. The worthy man, who cherished
his niece, always allowed her to tear him from his meditations with
angelic 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, that you put in
an _if_.”
The poor woman, who expected to draw her uncle into a matrimonial
discussion by an argument ad omnipotentem, was stupefied; but persons
of obtuse mind have the terrible logic of children, which consists
in turning from answer to question,--a logic that is frequently
embarrassing.
“But, uncle, God did not make women intending them not to marry;
otherwise they ought all to stay unmarried; if not, they ought all to
marry. There’s great injustice in the distribution of parts.”
“Daughter,” said the worthy abbe, “you are blaming the Church, which
declares 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 poor
woman, and confirmed her in the good opinion she was beginning to
acquire about herself. That is how the world, our friends, and our
enemies are the accomplices of our defects!
At this moment the conversation was interrupted by the successive
arrival of the guests. On these ceremonial days, friendly familiarities
were exchanged between the servants of the house and the company.
Mariette remarked to the chief-justice as he passed the kitchen:--
“Ah, Monsieur du Ronceret, I’ve cooked the cauliflowers au gratin
expressly for you, for mademoiselle knows how you like them; and she
said to me: ‘Now don’t forget, Mariette, for Monsieur du Ronceret is
coming.’”
“That good Mademoiselle Cormon!” ejaculated the chief legal authority of
the town. “Mariette, did you steep them in gravy instead of soup-stock?
it is much richer.”
The chief-justice was not above entering the chamber of council where
Mariette held court; he cast the eye of a gastronome around it, and
offered the advice of a past master in cookery.
“Good-day, madame,” said Josette to Madame Granson, who courted the
maid. “Mademoiselle has thought of you, and there’s fish for dinner.”
As for the Chevalier de Valois, he remarked to Mariette, in the easy
tone of a great seigneur who condescends to be familiar:--
“Well, my dear cordon-bleu, to whom I should give the cross of the
Legion of honor, is there some little dainty for which I had better
reserve myself?”
“Yes, yes, Monsieur de Valois,--a hare sent from Prebaudet; weighs
fourteen pounds.”
Du Bousquier was not invited. Mademoiselle Cormon, faithful to the
system which we know of, treated that fifty-year-old suitor extremely
ill, although she felt inexplicable sentiments towards him in the depths
of her heart. She had refused him; yet at times she repented; and a
presentiment that she should yet marry him, together with a terror at
the idea which prevented her from wishing for the marriage, assailed
her. Her mind, stimulated by these feelings, was much occupied by
du Bousquier. Without being aware of it, she was influenced by the
herculean form of the republican. Madame Granson and the Chevalier
de Valois, although they could not explain to themselves Mademoiselle
Cormon’s inconsistencies, had detected her naive glances in that
direction, the meaning of which seemed clear enough to make them 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. One
was Monsieur du Coudrai, the recorder of mortgages; the other Monsieur
Choisnel, former bailiff to the house of Esgrignon, and now the notary
of the upper aristocracy, by whom he was received with a distinction due
to his virtues; he was also a man of considerable wealth. When the two
belated guests arrived, Jacquelin said to them as he saw them about to
enter the salon:--
“_They_ are all in the garden.”
No doubt the assembled stomachs were impatient; for on the appearance
of the register of mortgages--who had no defect except that of having
married for her money an intolerable old woman, and of perpetrating
endless puns, at which he was the first to laugh--the gentle murmur by
which such late-comers are welcomed arose. While awaiting the official
announcement of dinner, the company were sauntering on the terrace above
the river, and gazing at the water-plants, the mosaic of the currents,
and the various pretty details of the houses clustering across the
river, their old wooden galleries, their mouldering window-frames, their
little gardens where clothes were drying, the cabinet-maker’s shop,--in
short, the many details of a small community to which the vicinity of
a river, a weeping willow, flowers, rose-bushes, added a certain grace,
making the scene quite worthy of a landscape painter.
The chevalier studied all faces, for he knew that his firebrand had been
very successfully introduced into the chief houses of the place. But
no one as yet referred openly to the great news of Suzanne and du
Bousquier. Provincials possess in the highest degree the art of
distilling gossip; the right moment for openly discussing this strange
affair had not arrived; it was first necessary that all present should
put themselves on record. So the whispers went round from ear to ear:--
“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 break
forth as soon as the first course had been removed. Suddenly Monsieur de
Valois’s eyes lighted on Madame Granson, arrayed in her green hat with
bunches of auriculas, and beaming with evident joy. Was it merely the
joy of opening the concert? Though such a piece of news was like a gold
mine to work in the monotonous lives of these personages, the observant
and distrustful chevalier thought he recognized in the worthy woman a
far more extended sentiment; namely, the joy caused by the 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 carried to the soul of the
chevalier a sudden gleam. That momentary flash of lightning enabled him
to read the past.
“Ha! the devil!” he said to himself; “what a checkmate I’m exposed to!”
Monsieur de Valois now approached Mademoiselle Cormon, and offered his
arm. The old maid’s feeling to the chevalier was that of respectful
consideration; and certainly his name, together with the position he
occupied among the aristocratic constellations of the department
made him the most brilliant ornament of her salon. In her inmost mind
Mademoiselle Cormon had wished for the last dozen years to become Madame
de Valois. That name was like the branch of a tree, to which the ideas
which _swarmed_ in her mind about rank, nobility, and the external
qualities of a husband had fastened. But, though the Chevalier de Valois
was the man chosen by her heart, and mind, and ambition, that elderly
ruin, combed and curled like a little Saint-John in a procession,
alarmed Mademoiselle Cormon. She saw the gentleman in him, but she could
not see a husband. The indifference which the chevalier affected as to
marriage, above all, the apparent purity of his morals in a house which
abounded in grisettes, did singular harm in her mind to Monsieur
de Valois against his expectations. The worthy man, who showed such
judgment in the matter of his annuity, was at fault here. Without being
herself aware of it, the thoughts of Mademoiselle Cormon on the too
virtuous chevalier might be translated thus:--
“What a pity that he isn’t a trifle dissipated!”
Observers of the human heart have remarked the leaning of pious women
toward scamps; some have expressed surprise at this taste, considering
it opposed to Christian virtue. But, in the first place, what nobler
destiny can you offer to a virtuous woman than to purify, like charcoal,
the muddy waters of vice? How is it some observers fail to see that
these noble creatures, obliged by the sternness of their own principles
never to infringe on conjugal fidelity, must naturally desire a husband
of wider practical experience than their own? The scamps of social life
are great men in love. Thus the poor woman groaned in spirit at finding
her chosen vessel parted into two pieces. God alone could solder
together a Chevalier de Valois and a du Bousquier.
In order to explain the importance of the few words which the chevalier
and Mademoiselle Cormon are about to say to each other, it is necessary
to reveal two serious matters which agitated the town, and about which
opinions were divided; besides, du Bousquier was mysteriously connected
with them.
One concerns the rector of Alencon, who had formerly taken the
constitutional oath, and who was now conquering the repugnance of the
Catholics by a display of the highest virtues. He was Cheverus on a
small scale, and became in time so fully appreciated that when he died
the whole town mourned him. Mademoiselle Cormon and the Abbe de Sponde
belonged to that “little Church,” sublime in its orthodoxy, which was to
the court of Rome what the Ultras were to be to Louis XVIII. The abbe,
more especially, refused to recognize a Church which had compromised
with the constitutionals. The rector was therefore not received in
the Cormon household, whose sympathies were all given to the curate of
Saint-Leonard, the aristocratic parish of Alencon. Du Bousquier, that
fanatic liberal now concealed under the skin of a royalist, knowing how
necessary rallying points are to all discontents (which are really at
the bottom of all oppositions), had drawn the sympathies of the middle
classes around the rector. So much for the first case; the second was
this:--
Under the secret inspiration of du Bousquier the idea of building a
theatre had dawned on Alencon. The henchmen of the purveyor did not know
their Mohammed; and they thought they were ardent in carrying out their
own conception. Athanase Granson was one of the warmest partisans for
the theatre; and of late he had urged at the mayor’s office 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
a turn on the terrace. She accepted it, not without thanking him by
a happy look for this attention, to which the chevalier replied by
motioning toward Athanase with a meaning eye.
“Mademoiselle,” he began, “you have so much sense and judgment in social
proprieties, and also, you are connected with that young man by certain
ties--”
“Distant ones,” she said, interrupting him.
“Ought you not,” he continued, “to use the influence you have over his
mother and over himself by saving him from perdition? He is not very
religious, as you know; indeed he approves of the rector; but that is
not all; there is something far more serious; isn’t he throwing himself
headlong into an opposition without considering what influence his
present conduct may exert upon his future? He is working for the
construction of a theatre. In this affair he is simply the dupe of that
disguised republican du Bousquier--”
“Good gracious! Monsieur de Valois,” she replied; “his mother is always
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. “I caught
your words on the fly. I present my compliments to Monsieur de Valois,”
he added, bowing to that gentleman with much emphasis.
The chevalier returned the salutation stiffly, and drew Mademoiselle
Cormon toward some flower-pots at a little distance, in order to show
the interrupter that he did not choose to be spied upon.
“How is it possible,” he continued, lowering his voice, and leaning
towards Mademoiselle Cormon’s ear, “that a young man brought up in those
detestable lyceums should have ideas? Only sound morals and noble habits
will ever produce great ideas and a true love. It is easy to see by a
mere look at him that the poor lad is likely to be imbecile, and come,
perhaps, to some sad end. See how pale and haggard he 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 old maid’s
thoughts back to the ground where he hoped to inspire her with horror
for her youthful lover. “The morals of those Imperial lyceums are really
shocking.”
“Oh, yes!” said the ingenuous creature. “They march the pupils about
with drums at their head. The masters have no more religion than pagans.
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. As for
him, he drops his eyes whenever he sees you. That young man frightens me
because I am really interested in him. Tell him not to intrigue 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 government will 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, “for
he might lose his place in the mayor’s office; and then what would he
and his mother have to live on? It makes me shudder.”
As Monsieur de Talleyrand said of his wife, so the chevalier said to
himself, looking at Mademoiselle Cormon:--
“Find me another as stupid! Good powers! isn’t virtue which drives out
intellect vice? But what an adorable wife for a man of my age! What
principles! what ignorance!”
Remember that this monologue, addressed to the Princess Goritza, was
mentally uttered while he took a pinch of snuff.
Madame Granson had divined that the chevalier was talking about
Athanase. Eager to know the result of the conversation, she followed
Mademoiselle Cormon, who was now approaching the young man with
much dignity. But at this moment Jacquelin appeared to announce that
mademoiselle was served. The old maid gave a glance of appeal to the
chevalier; but the gallant recorder of mortgages, who was beginning to
see in the manners of that gentleman the barrier which the provincial
nobles were setting up about this time between themselves and the
bourgeoisie, made the most of his chance to cut out Monsieur de Valois.
He was close to Mademoiselle Cormon, and promptly offered his arm, which
she found herself compelled to accept. The chevalier then darted, out of
policy, upon Madame Granson.
“Mademoiselle Cormon, my dear lady,” he said to her, walking slowly
after all the other guests, “feels the liveliest interest in your
dear Athanase; but I fear it will vanish through his own fault. He is
irreligious and liberal; he is agitating this matter of the theatre;
he frequents the Bonapartists; he takes the side of that rector. Such
conduct may make him lose his place in the mayor’s office. You know with
what care the government is beginning to weed out such opinions. If your
dear Athanase loses his place, where can he find other employment? I
advise him not to get himself in bad odor with the administration.”
“Monsieur le Chevalier,” said the poor frightened mother, “how grateful
I am to you! You are right: my son is the tool of a bad set of people; I
shall enlighten him.”
The chevalier had long since fathomed the nature of Athanase, and
recognized in it that unyielding element of republican convictions
to which in his youth a young man is willing to sacrifice everything,
carried away by the word “liberty,” so ill-defined and so little
understood, but which to persons disdained by fate is a banner of
revolt; and to such, revolt is vengeance. Athanase would certainly
persist in that faith, for his opinions were woven in with his artistic
sorrows, with his bitter contemplation of the social state. He was
ignorant of the fact that at thirty-six years of age,--the period of
life when a man has judged men and social interests and relations,--the
opinions for which he was ready to sacrifice his future would be
modified in him, as they are in all men of real superiority. To remain
faithful to the Left side of Alencon was to gain the aversion of
Mademoiselle Cormon. There, indeed, the chevalier saw true.
Thus we see that this society, so peaceful in appearance, was internally
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 good appetite, and
not as in Paris, where it seems as if jaws gnashed under sumptuary laws,
which made it their business to contradict the laws of anatomy. In Paris
people eat with their teeth, and trifle with their pleasure; in the
provinces things are done naturally, and interest is perhaps rather too
much concentrated on the grand and universal means of existence to which
God has condemned his creatures.
It was at the end of the first course that Mademoiselle Cormon made the
most celebrated of her “speeches”; it was talked about for fully two
years, and is still told at the gatherings of the lesser bourgeoisie
whenever the topic of her marriage comes up.
The conversation, becoming lively as the penultimate entree was
reached, had turned naturally on the affair of the theatre and the
constitutionally sworn rector. In the first fervor of royalty, during
the year 1816, those who later were called Jesuits were all for the
expulsion of the Abbe Francois from his parish. Du Bousquier, suspected
by Monsieur de Valois of sustaining the priest and being at the bottom
of the theatre intrigues, and on whose back the adroit chevalier would
in any case have put those sins with his customary cleverness, was in
the dock with no lawyer to defend him. Athanase, the only guest loyal
enough to stand by du Bousquier, had not the nerve to emit his ideas
in the presence of those potentates of Alencon, whom in his heart he
thought stupid. None but provincial youths now retain a respectful
demeanor before men of a certain age, and dare neither to censure
nor contradict them. The talk, diminished under the effect of certain
delicious ducks dressed with olives, was falling flat. Mademoiselle
Cormon, feeling the necessity of maintaining it against her own ducks,
attempted to defend du Bousquier, who was being represented as a
pernicious fomenter of intrigues, capable of any trickery.
“As for me,” she said, “I thought that Monsieur du Bousquier cared
chiefly for childish things.”
Under existing circumstances the remark had enormous success.
Mademoiselle Cormon obtained a great triumph; she brought the nose
of the Princess Goritza flat on the table. The chevalier, who little
expected such an apt remark from his Dulcinea, was so amazed that he
could at first find no words to express his admiration; he applauded
noiselessly, as they do at the Opera, tapping his fingers together to
imitate applause.
“She is adorably witty,” he said to Madame Granson. “I always said that
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 Cormon asked
the reason of her success. Then began the _forte_ of the gossip. Du
Bousquier was depicted as a species of celibate Pere Gigogne, a monster,
who for the last fifteen years had kept the Foundling Hospital supplied.
His immoral habits were at last revealed! these Parisian saturnalias
were the result of them, etc., etc. Conducted by the Chevalier de
Valois, a most able leader of an orchestra of this kind, the opening of
the _cancan_ was magnificent.
“I really don’t know,” he said, “what should hinder a du Bousquier from
marrying a Mademoiselle Suzanne What’s-her-name. What _is_ her name, 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, saucy girl, with
gray eyes, a slim waist, and a pretty foot, whom I have occasionally
seen, and whose behavior always seemed to me extremely insolent, she
is far superior in manners to du Bousquier. Besides, the girl has the
nobility of beauty; from that point of view the marriage would be a poor
one for her; she might do better. You know how the Emperor Joseph had
the curiosity to see the du Barry at Luciennes. He offered her his arm
to walk about, and the poor thing was so surprised at the honor that she
hesitated to accept it: ‘Beauty is ever a queen,’ said the Emperor. And
he, you know, was an Austrian-German,” added the chevalier. “But I can
tell you that Germany, which is thought here very rustic, is a land
of noble chivalry and fine manners, especially in Poland and Hungary,
where--”
Here the chevalier stopped, fearing to slip into some allusion to his
personal happiness; he took out his snuff-box, and confided the rest
of his remarks to the princess, who had smiled upon him for thirty-six
years and more.
“That speech was rather a delicate one for Louis XV.,” said du Ronceret.
“But it was, I think, the Emperor Joseph who made it, and not Louis
XV.,” remarked Mademoiselle Cormon, in a correcting tone.
“Mademoiselle,” said the chevalier, observing the malicious glance
exchanged between the judge, the notary, and the recorder, “Madame du
Barry was the Suzanne of Louis XV.,--a circumstance well known to scamps
like ourselves, but unsuitable for the knowledge of young ladies. Your
ignorance proves you to be a flawless diamond; historical corruptions do
not enter your mind.”
The Abbe de Sponde looked graciously at the Chevalier de Valois, and
nodded 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 know
history?” replied Mademoiselle Cormon, angelically, glad to see that the
dish of ducks was empty at last, and the conversation so ready to revive
that all present laughed with their mouths full at her last remark.
“Poor girl!” said the Abbe de Sponde. “When a great misfortune happens,
charity, which is divine love, and as blind as pagan love, ought not to
look into the causes of it. Niece, you are president of the Maternity
Society; you must succor that poor girl, who will now find 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, having
given rise to various little jokes which the wine rendered sparkling.
Following the example of the recorder, each guest capped his neighbor’s
joke with another: Du Bousquier was a father, but not a confessor; he
was father less; he was father LY; he was not a reverend father; nor yet
a conscript-father--
“Nor can he be a foster-father,” said the Abbe de Sponde, with a gravity
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 of du
Bousquier’s boots.”
It usually happens that a man is ignorant of rumors that are afloat
about him. A whole town may be talking of his affairs; may calumniate
and decry him, but if he has no good friends, he will know nothing about
it. Now the innocent du Bousquier was superb in his ignorance. No one
had told him as yet of Suzanne’s revelations; he therefore appeared very
jaunty and slightly conceited when the company, leaving the dining-room,
returned to the salon for their coffee; several other guests had
meantime assembled for the evening. Mademoiselle Cormon, from a sense of
shamefacedness, dared not look at the terrible seducer. She seized upon
Athanase, and began to lecture him with the queerest platitudes about
royalist politics and religious morality. Not possessing, like the
Chevalier de Valois, a snuff-box adorned with a princess, by the help of
which he could stand this torrent of silliness, the poor poet listened
to the words of her whom he loved with a stupid air, gazing, meanwhile,
at her enormous bust, which held itself before him in that still repose
which is the attribute of all great masses. His love produced in him a
sort of intoxication which changed the shrill voice of the old maid into
a soft murmur, and her flat remarks into witty speeches. Love is a maker
of false coin, continually changing copper pennies into gold-pieces, and
sometimes turning its real gold into copper.
“Well, Athanase, will you promise me?”
This final sentence struck the ear of the absorbed young man like one of
those noises which wake us with a bound.
“What, mademoiselle?”
Mademoiselle Cormon rose hastily, and looked at du Bousquier, who at
that moment resembled the stout god of Fable which the Republic stamped
upon her coins. She walked up to Madame Granson, and said in her ear:--
“My dear friend, you son is an idiot. That lyceum has ruined him,” she
added, remembering the insistence with which the chevalier had spoken of
the evils of education in such schools.
What a catastrophe! Unknown to himself, the luckless Athanase had had
an occasion to fling an ember of his own fire upon the pile of brush
gathered in the heart of the old maid. Had he listened to her, he
might have made her, then and there, perceive his passion; for, in the
agitated state of Mademoiselle Cormon’s mind, a single word would
have sufficed. But that stupid absorption in his own sentiments, which
characterizes young and true love, had ruined him, as a child full of
life sometimes kills itself out of ignorance.
“What have you been saying to Mademoiselle Cormon?” demanded his mother.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing; well, I can explain that,” she thought to herself, putting off
till the next day all further reflection on the matter, and attaching
but little importance to Mademoiselle Cormon’s words; for she fully
believed that du Bousquier was forever lost in the old maid’s esteem
after the revelation of that evening.
Soon the four tables were filled with their sixteen players. Four
persons were playing piquet,--an expensive game, at which the most money
was lost. Monsieur Choisnel, the procureur-du-roi, and two ladies
went into the boudoir for a game at backgammon. The glass lustres were
lighted; and then the flower of Mademoiselle Cormon’s company gathered
before the fireplace, on sofas, and around the tables, 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 of the old
maid’s mind,--Mademoiselle Cormon was thinking!
“What are you thinking of, cousin?” she said at last, finding her seated
in the boudoir.
“I am thinking,” she replied, “of that poor girl. As the president of
the Maternity Society, I will give you fifty francs for her.”
“Fifty francs!” cried Madame Granson. “But you have never given as much
as that.”
“But, my dear cousin, it is so natural to have children.”
That immoral speech coming from the heart of the old maid staggered the
treasurer of the Maternity Society. Du Bousquier had evidently advanced
in the estimation of Mademoiselle Cormon.
“Upon my word,” said Madame Granson, “du Bousquier is not only a
monster, he is a villain. When a man has done a wrong like that, he
ought to pay the indemnity. Isn’t it his place rather than ours to
look after the girl?--who, to tell you the truth, seems to me rather
questionable; there are plenty of better men in Alencon than that cynic
du Bousquier. A girl must be depraved, indeed, to go after him.”
“Cynic! Your son teaches you to talk Latin, my dear, which is wholly
incomprehensible. Certainly I don’t wish to excuse Monsieur du
Bousquier; but pray explain to me why a woman is depraved because she
prefers one man to another.”
“My dear cousin, suppose you married my son Athanase; nothing could be
more natural. He is young and handsome, full of promise, and he will be
the glory of Alencon; and yet everybody will exclaim against you: evil
tongues will say all sorts of things; jealous women will accuse you
of depravity,--but what will that matter? you will be loved, and loved
truly. If Athanase seemed to you an idiot, my dear, it is that he has
too many ideas; extremes meet. He lives the life of a girl of fifteen;
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 same thing with du
Bousquier in connection with Suzanne. _You_ would be calumniated; but in
the case of du Bousquier, the charge would be true. 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 her intellect.
“Well, cousin, if I must dot all the i’s, it is impossible for Suzanne
to love du Bousquier. And if the heart counts for nothing in this
affair--”
“But, cousin, what do people love with if not their hearts?”
Here Madame Granson said to herself, as the chevalier had previously
thought: “My poor cousin is altogether too innocent; such stupidity
passes all bounds!--Dear child,” she continued aloud, “it seems to me
that 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 personal
appearance makes him dangerous enough for his friends to advise him to
marry.”
“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 to good
morals and to religion to manifest under such circumstances an exemplary
displeasure.”
“On my return from Prebaudet we will talk further of this, my dear
Madame Granson. I will consult my uncle and the Abbe Couturier,” said
Mademoiselle Cormon, returning to the salon, where the animation was now
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 a little
proud of her company. To many persons nothing better could be seen in
Paris in the highest society.
At this moment du Bousquier, who was playing whist with the chevalier
and two old ladies,--Madame du Coudrai and Madame du Ronceret,--was the
object of deep but silent curiosity. A few young women arrived, who,
under pretext of watching the game, gazed fixedly at him in so singular
a manner, though slyly, that the old bachelor began to think that there
must be some deficiency in his toilet.
“Can my false front be crooked?” he asked himself, seized by one of
those anxieties which beset old bachelors.
He took advantage of a lost trick, which ended a seventh rubber, to rise
and leave the table.
“I can’t touch a card without losing,” he said. “I am decidedly too
unlucky.”
“But you are lucky in other ways,” said the chevalier, giving him a sly
look.
That speech naturally made the rounds of the salon, where every one
exclaimed on the exquisite taste of the chevalier, the Prince de
Talleyrand 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, placed
above 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 the long
antechamber, Mademoiselle Cormon conducting certain of her favorite
guests to the portico. There the groups parted; some followed the
Bretagne road towards the chateau; the others went in the direction of
the river Sarthe. Then began the usual conversation, which for twenty
years had echoed at that hour through this particular street 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 not
know 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 do
otherwise.”
“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 days a
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, while we
have half the town to cross!”
“I don’t pity you; you could afford a carriage, and dispense with the
fatigue 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 in
serving the king.”
Sometimes a discussion on ciders and flax, always couched in the same
terms, and returning at the same time of year, was continued on the
homeward way. If any observer of human customs had lived in this street,
he would have known the months and seasons by simply overhearing the
conversations.
On this occasion it was exclusively jocose; for du Bousquier, who
chanced to march alone in front of the groups, was humming the
well-known air,--little thinking of its appropriateness,--“Tender woman!
hear the warble of the birds,” etc. To some, du Bousquier was a strong
man and a misjudged man. Ever since he had been confirmed in his present
office by a royal decree, Monsieur du Ronceret had been in favor of
du Bousquier. To others the purveyor seemed dangerous,--a man of bad
habits, capable of anything. In the provinces, as in Paris, men before
the public eye are like that statue in the fine allegorical tale of
Addison, for which two knights on arriving near it fought; for one saw
it white, the other saw it black. Then, when they were both off 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, as
follows:--
“It is high time now to spread a rumor of my marriage with Mademoiselle
Cormon. It will leak out from the d’Esgrignon salon, and go straight
to the bishop at Seez, and so get round through the grand vicars to the
curate of Saint-Leonard’s, who will be certain to tell it to the Abbe
Couturier; and Mademoiselle Cormon will get the shot in her upper works.
The old Marquis d’Esgrignon shall invite the Abbe de Sponde to dinner,
so as to stop all gossip about Mademoiselle Cormon if I decide against
her, or about me if she refuses me. The abbe shall be well cajoled; and
Mademoiselle Cormon will certainly not hold out against a visit from
Mademoiselle Armande, who will show her the grandeur and future chances
of such an alliance. The abbe’s property is undoubtedly as much as three
hundred thousand; her own savings must amount to more than two hundred
thousand; she has her house and Prebaudet and fifteen thousand francs a
year. A word to my friend the Comte de Fontaine, and I should be
mayor of Alencon to-morrow, and deputy. Then, once seated on the Right
benches, we shall reach the peerage, shouting, ‘Cloture!’ ‘Ordre!’”
As soon as she reached home Madame Granson had a lively argument with
her son, who could not be made to see the connection which existed
between his love and his political opinions. It was the first quarrel
that had ever troubled that poor household.