CHAPTER VII

OTHER RESULTS

The news of Mademoiselle Cormon's choice stabbed poor Athanase Granson

to the heart; but he showed no outward sign of the terrible agitation

within him. When he first heard of the marriage he was at the house of

the 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 had

already reached him.

Mademoiselle Cormon was the card on which Athanase had staked his

life; and the cold presentiment of a catastrophe was already upon him.

When the soul and the imagination have magnified a misfortune and made

it too heavy for the shoulders and the brain to bear; when a hope long

cherished, the realization of which would pacify the vulture feeding

on 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 system

of education. Fatality, the Emperor's religion, had filtered down from

the throne to the lowest ranks of the army and the benches of the

lyceums. Athanase sat still, with his eyes fixed on Madame du

Ronceret's cards, in a stupor that might so well pass for indifference

that Madame Granson herself was deceived about his feelings. This

apparent unconcern explained her son's refusal to make a sacrifice for

this marriage of his /liberal/ opinions,--the term "liberal" having

lately been created for the Emperor Alexander by, I think, Madame de

Stael, through the lips of Benjamin Constant.

After that fatal evening the young man took to rambling among the

picturesque regions of the Sarthe, the banks of which are much

frequented by sketchers who come to Alencon for points of view.

Windmills are there, and the river is gay in the meadows. The shores

of the Sarthe are bordered with beautiful trees, well grouped. Though

the landscape is flat, it is not without those modest graces which

distinguish France, where the eye is never wearied by the brilliancy

of Oriental skies, nor saddened by constant fog. The place is

solitary. In the provinces no one pays much attention to a fine view,

either because provincials are blases on the beauty around them, or

because they have no poesy in their souls. If there exists in the

provinces a mall, a promenade, a vantage-ground from which a fine view

can be obtained, that is the point to which no one goes. Athanase was

fond of this solitude, enlivened by the sparkling water, where the

fields were the first to green under the earliest smiling of the

springtide sun. Those persons who saw him sitting beneath a poplar,

and who noticed the vacant eye which he turned to them, would say to

Madame Granson:--

"Something is the matter with your son."

"I know what it is," the mother would reply; hinting that he was

meditating 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 who

think to insult a whole world with their own individual scorn. This

young man, outside of all the ideas and all the pleasures of the

provinces, interested few persons; he was not even an object of

curiosity. 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 with

his; not a woman, not a friend came near to dry his tears; they

dropped into the Sarthe. If the gorgeous Suzanne had happened that

way, how many young miseries might have been born of the meeting! for

the two would surely have loved each other.

She did come, however. Suzanne's ambition was early excited by the

tale of a strange adventure which had happened at the tavern of the

More,--a tale which had taken possession of her childish brain. A

Parisian woman, beautiful as the angels, was sent by Fouche to

entangle the Marquis de Montauran, otherwise called "The Gars," in a

love-affair (see "The Chouans"). She met him at the tavern of the More

on his return from an expedition to Mortagne; she cajoled him, made

him love her, and then betrayed him. That fantastic power--the power

of beauty over mankind; in fact, the whole story of Marie de Verneuil

and the Gars--dazzled Suzanne; she longed to grow up in order to play

upon men. Some months after her hasty departure she passed through her

native town with an artist on his way to Brittany. She wanted to see

Fougeres, where the adventure of the Marquis de Montauran culminated,

and to stand upon the scene of that picturesque war, the tragedies of

which, still so little known, had filled her childish mind. Besides

this, she had a fancy to pass through Alencon so elegantly equipped

that no one could recognize her; to put her mother above the reach of

necessity, and also to send to poor Athanase, in a delicate manner, a

sum of money,--which in our age is to genius what in the middle ages

was the charger and the coat of mail that Rebecca conveyed to Ivanhoe.

One month passed away in the strangest uncertainties respecting the

marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon. A party of unbelievers denied the

marriage altogether; the believers, on the other hand, affirmed it. At

the end of two weeks, the faction of unbelief received a vigorous blow

in the sale of du Bousquier's house to the Marquis de Troisville, who

only wanted a simple establishment in Alencon, intending to go to

Paris after the death of the Princess Scherbellof; he proposed to

await that inheritance in retirement, and then to reconstitute his

estates. This seemed positive. The unbelievers, however, were not

crushed. They declared that du Bousquier, married or not, had made an

excellent sale, for the house had only cost him twenty-seven thousand

francs. The believers were depressed by this practical observation of

the incredulous. Choisnel, Mademoiselle Cormon's notary, asserted the

latter, had heard nothing about the marriage contract; but the

believers, still firm in their faith, carried off, on the twentieth

day, a signal victory: Monsieur Lepressoir, the notary of the

liberals, went to Mademoiselle Cormon's house, and the contract was

signed.

This was the first of the numerous sacrifices which Mademoiselle

Cormon was destined to make to her husband. Du Bousquier bore the

deepest hatred to Choisnel; to him he owed the refusal of the hand of

Mademoiselle Armande,--a refusal which, as he believed, had influenced

that of Mademoiselle Cormon. This circumstance alone made the marriage

drag along. Mademoiselle received several anonymous letters. She

learned, to her great astonishment, that Suzanne was as truly a virgin

as herself so far as du Bousquier was concerned, for that seducer with

the false toupet could never be the hero of any such adventure.

Mademoiselle Cormon disdained anonymous letters; but she wrote to

Suzanne 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 did

all the harm she could to the old purveyor. Mademoiselle Cormon

convoked the Maternity Society, which held a special meeting at which

it was voted that the association would not in future assist any

misfortunes about to happen, but solely those that had happened.

In spite of all these various events which kept the town in the

choicest gossip, the banns were published in the churches and at the

mayor's office. Athanase prepared the deeds. As a matter of propriety

and public decency, the bride retired to Prebaudet, where du

Bousquier, bearing sumptuous and horrible bouquets, betook himself

every morning, returning home for dinner.

At last, on a dull and rainy morning in June, the marriage of

Mademoiselle Cormon and the Sieur du Bousquier took place at noon in

the parish church of Alencon, in sight of the whole town. The bridal

pair went from their own house to the mayor's office, and from the

mayor's office to the church in an open caleche, a magnificent vehicle

for Alencon, which du Bousquier had sent for secretly to Paris. The

loss of the old carriole was a species of calamity in the eyes of the

community. The harness-maker of the Porte de Seez bemoaned it, for he

lost the fifty francs a year which it cost in repairs. Alencon saw

with alarm the possibility of luxury being thus introduced into the

town. Every one feared a rise in the price of rents and provisions,

and a coming invasion of Parisian furniture. Some persons were

sufficiently pricked by curiosity to give ten sous to Jacquelin to

allow them a close inspection of the vehicle which threatened to upset

the whole economy of the region. A pair of horses, bought in

Normandie, were also most alarming.

"If we bought our own horses," said the Ronceret circle, "we couldn't

sell them to those who come to buy."

Stupid as it was, this reasoning seemed sound; for surely such a

course would prevent the region from grasping the money of foreigners.

In the eyes of the provinces wealth consisted less in the rapid

turning over of money than in sterile accumulation. It may be

mentioned here that Penelope succumbed to a pleurisy which she

acquired about six weeks before the marriage; nothing could save her.

Madame Granson, Mariette, Madame du Coudrai, Madame du Ronceret, and

through them the whole town, remarked that Madame du Bousquier entered

the church /with her left foot/,--an omen all the more dreadful because

the term Left was beginning to acquire a political meaning. The priest

whose duty it was to read the opening formula opened his book by

chance at the De Profundis. Thus the marriage was accompanied by

circumstances so fateful, so alarming, so annihilating that no one

dared to augur well of it. Matters, in fact, went from bad to worse.

There was no wedding party; the married pair departed immediately for

Prebaudet. Parisian customs, said the community, were about to triumph

over time-honored provincial ways.

The marriage of Jacquelin and Josette now took place: it was gay; and

they were the only two persons in Alencon who refuted the sinister

prophecies relating to the marriage of their mistress.

Du Bousquier determined to use the proceeds of the sale of his late

residence in restoring and modernizing the hotel Cormon. He decided to

remain through two seasons at Prebaudet, and took the Abbe de Sponde

with them. This news spread terror through the town, where every

individual felt that du Bousquier was about to drag the community into

the fatal path of "comfort." This fear increased when the inhabitants

of Alencon saw the bridegroom driving in from Prebaudet one morning to

inspect his works, in a fine tilbury drawn by a new horse, having Rene

at his side in livery. The first act of his administration had been to

place his wife's savings on the Grand-Livre, which was then quoted at

67 fr. 50 cent. In the space of one year, during which he played

constantly for a rise, he made himself a personal fortune almost as

considerable as that of his wife.

But all these foreboding prophecies, these perturbing innovations,

were superseded and surpassed by an event connected with this marriage

which gave a still more fatal aspect to it.

On the very evening of the ceremony, Athanase and his mother were

sitting, after their dinner, over a little fire of fagots, which the

servant lighted usually at dessert.

"Well, we will go this evening to the du Roncerets', inasmuch as we

have lost Mademoiselle Cormon," said Madame Granson. "Heavens! how

shall I ever accustom myself to call her Madame du Bousquier! that

name 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 naive

sentiment which soothed his wound, though it could not cure his

anguish.

"Mamma," he said, in the voice of his childhood, so tender was it, and

using the name he had abandoned for several years,--"my dear mamma, do

not let us go out just yet; it is so pleasant here before the fire."

The mother heard, without comprehending, that supreme prayer of a

mortal sorrow.

"Yes, let us stay, my child," she said. "I like much better to talk

with you and listen to your projects than to play at boston and lose

my money."

"You are so handsome to-night I love to look at you. Besides, I am in

a current of ideas which harmonize with this poor little salon where

we have suffered so much."

"And where we shall still suffer, my poor Athanase, until your works

succeed. For myself, I am trained to poverty; but you, my treasure! to

see your youth go by without a joy! nothing but toil for my poor boy

in life! That thought is like an illness to a mother; it tortures me

at night; it wakes me in the morning. O God! what have I done? for

what crime dost thou punish me thus?"

She left her sofa, took a little chair, and sat close to Athanase, so

as to lay her head on the bosom of her child. There is always the

grace of love in true motherhood. Athanase kissed her on the eyes, on

her gray hair, on her forehead, with the sacred desire of laying his

soul wherever he applied his lips.

"I shall never succeed," he said, trying to deceive his mother as to

the fatal resolution he was revolving in his mind.

"Pooh! don't get discouraged. As you often say, thought can do all

things. With ten bottles of ink, ten reams of paper, and his powerful

will, Luther upset all Europe. Well, you'll make yourself famous; you

will 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; I

understand you a great deal more than you think I do,--for I still

bear you in my bosom, and your every thought still stirs me as your

slightest motion did in other days."

"I shall never succeed here, mamma; and I don't want you to witness

the sight of my struggles, my misery, my anguish. Oh, mother, let me

leave Alencon! I want to suffer away from you."

"And I wish to be at your side," replied his mother, proudly. "Suffer

without your mother!--that poor mother who would be your servant if

necessary; who will efface herself rather than injure you; your

mother, 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 clings

to life.

"But I wish it, nevertheless. If not, you will lose me; this double

grief, yours and mine, is killing me. You would rather I lived than

died?"

Madame Granson looked at her son with a haggard eye.

"So this is what you have been brooding?" she said. "They told me

right. Do you really mean to go?"

"Yes."

"You will not go without telling me; without warning me? You must have

an outfit and money. I have some louis sewn into my petticoat; I shall

give them to you."

Athanase wept.

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

du Roncerets'. Come."

The mother and the son went out. Athanase left his mother at the door

of the house where she intended to pass the evening. He looked long at

the light which came through the shutters; he clung closely to the

wall, and a frenzied joy came over him when he presently heard his

mother say, "He has great independence of heart."

"Poor mother! I have deceived her," he cried, as he made his way to

the Sarthe.

He reached the noble poplar beneath which he had meditated so much for

the last forty days, and where he had placed two heavy stones on which

he now sat down. He contemplated that beautiful nature lighted by the

moon; he reviewed once more the glorious future he had longed for; he

passed through towns that were stirred by his name; he heard the

applauding crowds; he breathed the incense of his fame; he adored that

life long dreamed of; radiant, he sprang to radiant triumphs; he

raised his stature; he evoked his illusions to bid them farewell in a

last Olympic feast. The magic had been potent for a moment; but now it

vanished forever. In that awful hour he clung to the beautiful tree to

which, as to a friend, he had attached himself; then he put the two

stones into the pockets of his overcoat, which he buttoned across his

breast. He had come intentionally without a hat. He now went to the

deep pool he had long selected, and glided into it resolutely, trying

to make as little noise as possible, and, in fact, making scarcely

any.

When, at half-past nine o'clock, Madame Granson returned home, her

servant said nothing of Athanase, but gave her a letter. She opened it

and 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! and

the money! Well, he will write to me, and then I'll follow him. These

poor children think they are so much cleverer than their fathers and

mothers."

And she went to bed in peace.

During the preceding morning the Sarthe had risen to a height foreseen

by the fisherman. These sudden rises of muddy water brought eels from

their various runlets. It so happened that a fisherman had spread his

net at the very place where poor Athanase had flung himself, believing

that no one would ever find him. About six o'clock in the morning the

man drew in his net, and with it the young body. The few friends of

the poor mother took every precaution in preparing her to receive the

dreadful remains. The news of this suicide made, as may well be

supposed, a great excitement in Alencon. The poor young man of genius

had no protector the night before, but on the morrow of his death a

thousand voices cried aloud, "I would have helped him." It is so easy

and convenient to be charitable gratis!

The suicide was explained by the Chevalier de Valois. He revealed, in

a spirit of revenge, the artless, sincere, and genuine love of

Athanase for Mademoiselle Cormon. Madame Granson, enlightened by the

chevalier, remembered a thousand little circumstances which confirmed

the chevalier's statement. The story then became touching, and many

women 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: their

son, admired, appreciated, young, perhaps handsome, with a noble path

before him, leading to fortune, possibly to fame, excites universal

regret; society joins in the grief, and alleviates while it magnifies

it. But there is another sorrow of mothers who alone know what their

child was really; who alone have received his smiles and observed the

treasures of a life too soon cut short. That sorrow hides its woe, the

blackness of which surpasses all other mourning; it cannot be

described; happily there are but few women whose heart-strings are

thus severed.

Before Madame du Bousquier returned to town, Madame du Ronceret, one

of her good friends, had driven out to Prebaudet to fling this corpse

upon the roses of her joy, to show her the love she had ignored, and

sweetly shed a thousand drops of wormwood into the honey of her bridal

month. As Madame du Bousquier drove back to Alencon, she chanced to

meet Madame Granson at the corner of the rue Val-Noble. The glance of

the mother, dying of her grief, struck to the heart of the poor woman.

A thousand maledictions, a thousand flaming reproaches, were in that

look: Madame du Bousquier was horror-struck; that glance predicted and

called down evil upon her head.

The evening after the catastrophe, Madame Granson, one of the persons

most opposed to the rector of the town, and who had hitherto supported

the minister of Saint-Leonard, began to tremble as she thought of the

inflexible Catholic doctrines professed by her own party. After

placing her son's body in its shroud with her own hands, thinking of

the 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 in

an outer room, engaged in putting away the flax and yarns with which

he supplied poor women, in order that they might never be wholly out

of work,--a form of charity which saved many who were incapable of

begging from actual penury. The rector left his yarns and hastened to

take Madame Granson into his dining-room, where the wretched mother

noticed, as she looked at his supper, the frugal method of his own

living.

"Monsieur l'abbe," she said, "I have come to implore you--" She burst

into tears, unable to continue.

"I know what brings you," replied the saintly man. "I must trust to

you, madame, and to your relation, Madame du Bousquier, to pacify

Monseigneur the Bishop at Seez. Yes, I will pray for your unhappy

child; yes, I will say the masses. But we must avoid all scandal, and

give no opportunity for evil-judging persons to assemble in the

church. I alone, without other clergy, at night--"

"Yes, yes, as you think best; if only he may lie in consecrated

ground," said the poor mother, taking the priest's hand and kissing

it.

Toward midnight a coffin was clandestinely borne to the parish church

by four young men, comrades whom Athanase had liked the best. A few

friends of Madame Granson, women dressed in black, and veiled, were

present; and half a dozen other young men who had been somewhat

intimate with this lost genius. Four torches flickered on the coffin,

which was covered with crape. The rector, assisted by one discreet

choirboy, said the mortuary mass. Then the body of the suicide was

noiselessly carried to a corner of the cemetery, where a black wooden

cross, without inscription, was all that indicated its place hereafter

to the mother. Athanase lived and died in shadow. No voice was raised

to blame the rector; the bishop kept silence. The piety of the mother

redeemed the impiety of the son's last act.

Some months later, the poor woman, half beside herself with grief, and

moved by one of those inexplicable thirsts which misery feels to steep

its lips in the bitter chalice, determined to see the spot where her

son was drowned. Her instinct may have told her that thoughts of his

could be recovered beneath that poplar; perhaps, too, she desired to

see what his eyes had seen for the last time. Some mothers would die

of the sight; others give themselves up to it in saintly adoration.

Patient anatomists of human nature cannot too often enunciate the

truths before which all educations, laws, and philosophical systems

must give way. Let us repeat continually: it is absurd to force

sentiments into one formula: appearing as they do, in each individual

man, they combine with the elements that form his nature and take his

own physiognomy.

Madame Granson, as she stood on that fatal spot, saw a woman approach

it, who exclaimed,--

"Was it here?"

That woman wept as the mother wept. It was Suzanne. Arriving that

morning at the hotel du More, she had been told of the catastrophe. If

poor Athanase had been living, she meant to do as many noble souls,

who are moneyless, dream of doing, and as the rich never think of

doing,--she meant to have sent him several thousand francs, writing up

the envelope the words: "Money due to your father from a comrade who

makes restitution to you." This tender scheme had been arranged by

Suzanne 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 this

occasion without changing the orange-blossoms of the bride to rue. She

was the first to declare that Madame du Bousquier would never be

anything but Mademoiselle Cormon. With one stab of her tongue she

revenged poor Athanase and her dear chevalier.

Alencon now witnessed a suicide that was slower and quite differently

pitiful from that of poor Athanase, who was quickly forgotten by

society, which always makes haste to forget its dead. The poor

Chevalier de Valois died in life; his suicide was a daily occurrence

for fourteen years. Three months after the du Bousquier marriage

society remarked, not without astonishment, that the linen of the

chevalier was frayed and rusty, that his hair was irregularly combed

and brushed. With a frowsy head the Chevalier de Valois could no

longer be said to exist! A few of his ivory teeth deserted, though the

keenest observers of human life were unable to discover to what body

they had hitherto belonged, whether to a foreign legion or whether

they were indigenous, vegetable or animal; whether age had pulled them

from the chevalier's mouth, or whether they were left forgotten in the

drawer of his dressing-table. The cravat was crooked, indifferent to

elegance. The negroes' heads grew pale with dust and grease. The

wrinkles of the face were blackened and puckered; the skin became

parchment. The nails, neglected, were often seen, alas! with a black

velvet edging. The waistcoat was tracked and stained with droppings

which spread upon its surface like autumn leaves. The cotton in the

ears was seldom changed. Sadness reigned upon that brow, and slipped

its yellowing tints into the depths of each furrow. In short, the

ruins, hitherto so cleverly hidden, now showed through the cracks and

crevices of that fine edifice, and proved the power of the soul over

the body; for the fair and dainty man, the cavalier, the young blood,

died when hope deserted him. Until then the nose of the chevalier was

ever delicate and nice; never had a damp black blotch, nor an amber

drop fall from it; but now that nose, smeared with tobacco around the

nostrils, degraded by the driblets which took advantage of the natural

gutter placed between itself and the upper lip,--that nose, which no

longer cared to seem agreeable, revealed the infinite pains which the

chevalier had formerly taken with his person, and made observers

comprehend, by the extent of its degradation, the greatness and

persistence of the man's designs upon Mademoiselle Cormon.

Alas, too, the anecdotes went the way of the teeth; the clever sayings

grew rare. The appetite, however, remained; the old nobleman saved

nothing but his stomach from the wreck of his hopes; though he

languidly prepared his pinches of snuff, he ate alarming dinners.

Perhaps you will more fully understand the disaster that this marriage

was to the mind and heart of the chevalier when you learn that his

intercourse with the Princess Goritza became less frequent.

One day he appeared in Mademoiselle Armande's salon with the calf of

his leg on the shin-bone. This bankruptcy of the graces was, I do

assure you, terrible, and struck all Alencon with horror. The late

young man had become an old one; this human being, who, by the

breaking-down of his spirit, had passed at once from fifty to ninety

years of age, frightened society. Besides, his secret was betrayed; he

had waited and watched for Mademoiselle Cormon; he had, like a patient

hunter, adjusted his aim for ten whole years, and finally had missed

the game! In short, the impotent Republic had won the day from Valiant

Chivalry, and that, too, under the Restoration! Form triumphed; mind

was vanquished by matter, diplomacy by insurrection. And, O final

blow! a mortified grisette revealed the secret of the chevalier's

mornings, and he now passed for a libertine. The liberals cast at his

door all the foundlings hitherto attributed to du Bousquier. But the

faubourg 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 rare

smiles to his face; but frightful enmity was piled upon the head of du

Bousquier. Eleven persons deserted the Cormon salon, and passed to

that of the d'Esgrignons.

The old maid's marriage had a signal effect in defining the two

parties in Alencon. The salon d'Esgrignon represented the upper

aristocracy (the returning Troisvilles attached themselves to it); the

Cormon salon represented, under the clever influence of du Bousquier,

that fatal class of opinions which, without being truly liberal or

resolutely royalist, gave birth to the 221 on that famous day when the

struggle openly began between the most august, grandest, and only true

power, /royalty/, and the most false, most changeful, most oppressive of

all powers,--the power called /parliamentary/, which elective assemblies

exercise. The salon du Ronceret, secretly allied to the Cormon salon,

was boldly liberal.

The Abbe de Sponde, after his return from Prebaudet, bore many and

continual sufferings, which he kept within his breast, saying no word

of them to his niece. But to Mademoiselle Armande he opened his heart,

admitting that, folly for folly, he would much have preferred the

Chevalier de Valois to Monsieur du Bousquier. Never would the dear

chevalier have had the bad taste to contradict and oppose a poor old

man who had but a few days more to live; du Bousquier had destroyed

everything in the good old home. The abbe said, with scanty tears

moistening his aged eyes,--

"Mademoiselle, I haven't even the little grove where I have walked for

fifty years. My beloved lindens are all cut down! At the moment of my

death the Republic appears to me more than ever under the form of a

horrible destruction of the Home."

"You must pardon your niece," said the Chevalier de Valois.

"Republican ideas are the first error of youth which seeks for

liberty; later it finds it the worst of despotisms,--that of an

impotent canaille. Your poor niece is punished where she sinned."

"What will become of me in a house where naked women are painted on

the walls?" said the poor abbe. "Where shall I find other lindens

beneath which to read my breviary?"

Like Kant, who was unable to collect his thoughts after the fir-tree

at which he was accustomed to gaze while meditating was cut down, so

the poor abbe could never attain the ardor of his former prayers while

walking up and down the shadeless paths. Du Bousquier had planted an

English garden.

"It was best," said Madame du Bousquier, without thinking so; but the

Abbe Couterier had authorized her to commit many wrongs to please her

husband.

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 bourgeois

dignity of the Cormon salon no longer existed when it was turned to

white and gold, with mahogany ottomans covered in blue satin. The

dining-room, adorned in modern taste, was colder in tone than it used

to be, and the dinners were eaten with less appetite than formerly.

Monsieur du Coudrai declared that he felt his puns stick in his throat

as he glanced at the figures painted on the walls, which looked him

out of countenance. Externally, the house was still provincial; but

internally everything revealed the purveyor of the Directory and the

bad taste of the money-changer,--for instance, columns in stucco,

glass doors, Greek mouldings, meaningless outlines, all styles

conglomerated, magnificence out of place and out of season.

The town of Alencon gabbled for two weeks over this luxury, which

seemed unparalleled; but a few months later the community was proud of

it, and several rich manufacturers restored their houses and set up

fine salons. Modern furniture came into the town, and astral lamps

were seen!

The Abbe de Sponde was among the first to perceive the secret

unhappiness this marriage now brought to the private life of his

beloved niece. The character of noble simplicity which had hitherto

ruled their lives was lost during the first winter, when du Bousquier

gave two balls every month. Oh, to hear violins and profane music at

these worldly entertainments in the sacred old house! The abbe prayed

on his knees while the revels lasted. Next the political system of the

sober salon was slowly perverted. The abbe fathomed du Bousquier; he

shuddered at his imperious tone; he saw the tears in his niece's eyes

when she felt herself losing all control over her own property; for

her husband now left nothing in her hands but the management of the

linen, 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 alone

regarded by Jacquelin, now become coachman, by Rene, the groom, and by

the chef, who came from Paris, Mariette being reduced to kitchen maid.

Madame du Bousquier had no one to rule but Josette. Who knows what it

costs to relinquish the delights of power? If the triumph of the will

is one of the intoxicating pleasures in the lives of great men, it is

the ALL of life to narrow minds. One must needs have been a minister

dismissed from power to comprehend the bitter pain which came upon

Madame du Bousquier when she found herself reduced to this absolute

servitude. She often got into the carriage against her will; she saw

herself surrounded by servants who were distasteful to her; she no

longer had the handling of her dear money,--she who had known herself

free to spend money, and did not spend it.

All imposed limits make the human being desire to go beyond them. The

keenest sufferings come from the thwarting of self-will. The beginning

of this state of things was, however, rose-colored. Every concession

made to marital authority was an effect of the love which the poor

woman felt for her husband. Du Bousquier behaved, in the first

instance, admirably to his wife: he was wise; he was excellent; he

gave her the best of reasons for each new encroachment. So for the

first two years of her marriage Madame du Bousquier appeared to be

satisfied. She had that deliberate, demure little air which

distinguishes young women who have married for love. The rush of blood

to her head no longer tormented her. This appearance of satisfaction

routed the scoffers, contradicted certain rumors about du Bousquier,

and puzzled all observers of the human heart. Rose-Marie-Victoire was

so afraid that if she displeased her husband or opposed him, she would

lose his affection and be deprived of his company, that she would

willingly have sacrificed all to him, even her uncle. Her silly little

forms of pleasure deceived even the poor abbe for a time, who endured

his 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 more

difficult to deceive than the whole town put together. The Chevalier

de Valois, who had taken refuge on the Sacred Mount of the upper

aristocracy, now passed his life at the d'Esgrignons. He listened to

the gossip and the gabble, and he thought day and night upon his

vengeance. He meant to strike du Bousquier to the heart.

The poor abbe fully understood the baseness of this first and last

love of his niece; he shuddered as, little by little, he perceived the

hypocritical nature of his nephew and his treacherous manoeuvres.

Though du Bousquier restrained himself, as he thought of the abbe's

property, and wished not to cause him vexation, it was his hand that

dealt the blow that sent the old priest to his grave. If you will

interpret the word /intolerance/ as /firmness of principle/, if you do

not wish to condemn in the catholic soul of the Abbe de Sponde the

stoicism which Walter Scott has made you admire in the puritan soul of

Jeanie Deans' father; if you are willing to recognize in the Roman

Church the Potius mori quam foedari that you admire in republican

tenets,--you will understand the sorrow of the Abbe de Sponde when he

saw in his niece's salon the apostate priest, the renegade, the

pervert, the heretic, that enemy of the Church, the guilty taker of

the Constitutional oath. Du Bousquier, whose secret ambition was to

lay 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 the

parish, and he succeeded. His wife thought he had accomplished a work

of peace where the immovable abbe saw only treachery. The bishop came

to visit du Bousquier, and seemed glad of the cessation of

hostilities. 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 du

Bousquier's income from real estate to twenty-five thousand francs

without counting Prebaudet or the house in the Val-Noble. About this

time du Bousquier returned to his wife the capital of her savings

which she had yielded to him; and he made her use it in purchasing

lands contiguous to Prebaudet, which made that domain one of the most

considerable in the department, for the estates of the Abbe de Sponde

also adjoined it. Du Bousquier thus passed for one of the richest men

of the department. This able man, the constant candidate of the

liberals, missing by seven or eight votes only in all the electoral

battles fought under the Restoration, and who ostensibly repudiated

the liberals by trying to be elected as a ministerial royalist

(without ever being able to conquer the aversion of the

administration),--this rancorous republican, mad with ambition,

resolved to rival the royalism and aristocracy of Alencon at the

moment when they once more had the upper hand. He strengthened himself

with the Church by the deceitful appearance of a well-feigned piety:

he accompanied his wife to mass; he gave money for the convents of the

town; he assisted the congregation of the Sacre-Coeur; he took sides

with the clergy on all occasions when the clergy came into collision

with the town, the department, or the State. Secretly supported by the

liberals, protected by the Church, calling himself a constitutional

royalist, he kept beside the aristocracy of the department in the one

hope of ruining it,--and he did ruin it. Ever on the watch for the

faults and blunders of the nobility and the government, he laid plans

for his vengeance against the "chateau-people," and especially against

the d'Esgrignons, in whose bosom he was one day to thrust a poisoned

dagger.

Among other benefits to the town he gave money liberally to revive the

manufacture of point d'Alencon; he renewed the trade in linens, and

the town had a factory. Inscribing himself thus upon the interests and

heart of the masses, by doing what the royalists did not do, du

Bousquier did not really risk a farthing. Backed by his fortune, he

could afford to wait results which enterprising persons who involve

themselves are forced to abandon to luckier successors.

Du Bousquier now posed as a banker. This miniature Lafitte was a

partner in all new enterprises, taking good security. He served

himself while apparently serving the interests of the community. He

was the prime mover of insurance companies, the protector of new

enterprises for public conveyance; he suggested petitions for asking

the administration for the necessary roads and bridges. Thus warned,

the government considered this action an encroachment of its own

authority. A struggle was begun injudiciously, for the good of the

community compelled the authorities to yield in the end. Du Bousquier

embittered the provincial nobility against the court nobility and the

peerage; and finally he brought about the shocking adhesion of a

strong party of constitutional royalists to the warfare sustained by

the "Journal des Debats," and M. de Chateaubriand against the throne,

--an ungrateful opposition based on ignoble interests, which was one

cause of the triumph of the bourgeoisie and journalism in 1830.

Thus du Bousquier, in common with the class he represented, had the

satisfaction of beholding the funeral of royalty. The old republican,

smothered with masses, who for fifteen years had played that comedy to

satisfy his vendetta, himself threw down with his own hand the white

flag of the mayoralty to the applause of the multitude. No man in

France cast upon the new throne raised in August, 1830, a glance of

more intoxicated, joyous vengeance. The accession of the Younger

Branch was the triumph of the Revolution. To him the victory of the

tricolor meant the resurrection of Montagne, which this time should

surely bring the nobility down to the dust by means more certain than

that of the guillotine, because less violent. The peerage without

heredity; the National Guard, which puts on the same camp-bed the

corner grocer and the marquis; the abolition of the entails demanded

by a bourgeois lawyer; the Catholic Church deprived of its supremacy;

and all the other legislative inventions of August, 1830,--were to du

Bousquier the wisest possible application of the principles of 1793.

Since 1830 this man has been a receiver-general. He relied for his

advancement on his relations with the Duc d'Orleans, father of Louis

Philippe, and with Monsieur de Folmon, formerly steward to the

Duchess-dowager of Orleans. He receives about eighty thousand francs a

year. In the eyes of the people about him Monsieur du Bousquier is a

man of means,--a respectable man, steady in his principles, upright,

and obliging. Alencon owes to him its connection with the industrial

movement by which Brittany may possibly some day be joined to what is

popularly called modern civilization. Alencon, which up to 1816 could

boast of only two private carriages, saw, without amazement, in the

course of ten years, coupes, landaus, tilburies, and cabriolets

rolling through her streets. The burghers and the land-owners, alarmed

at first lest the price of everything should increase, recognized

later that this increase in the style of living had a contrary effect

upon their revenues. The prophetic remark of du Ronceret, "Du

Bousquier is a very strong man," was adopted by the whole

country-side.

But, unhappily for the wife, that saying has a double meaning. The

husband does not in any way resemble the public politician. This great

citizen, so liberal to the world about him, so kindly inspired with

love for his native place, is a despot in his own house, and utterly

devoid of conjugal affection. This man, so profoundly astute,

hypocritical, and sly; this Cromwell of the Val-Noble,--behaves in his

home as he behaves to the aristocracy, whom he caresses in hopes to

throttle them. Like his friend Bernadotte, he wears a velvet glove

upon his iron hand. His wife has given him no children. Suzanne's

remark and the chevalier's insinuations were therefore justified. But

the liberal bourgeoisie, the constitutional-royalist-bourgeoisie, the

country-squires, the magistracy, and the "church party" laid the blame

on Madame du Bousquier. "She was too old," they said; "Monsieur du

Bousquier had married her too late. Besides, it was very lucky for the

poor woman; it was dangerous at her age to bear children!" When Madame

du Bousquier confided, weeping, her periodic despair to Mesdames du

Coudrai 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, sang

his praises to their wives, who in turn repeated them to the poor wife

in some such speech as this:--

"You are very lucky, dear, to have married such an able man; you'll

escape 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'll

never leave you embarrassed, not he! Why, he leads all Alencon."

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

public and--"

"You are hard to please, my dear Madame du Bousquier. I assure you

that all the women in town envy you your husband."

Misjudged by society, which began by blaming her, the pious woman

found ample opportunity in her home to display her virtues. She lived

in tears, but she never ceased to present to others a placid face. To

so Christian a soul a certain thought which pecked forever at her

heart was a crime: "I loved the Chevalier de Valois," it said; "but I

have married du Bousquier." The love of poor Athanase Granson also

rose 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 her

life still more sorrowful; for she now felt the suffering her uncle

must have endured in witnessing the change of political and religious

opinion in the old house. Sorrow often falls like a thunderbolt, as it

did on Madame Granson; but in this old maid it slowly spread like a

drop of oil, which never leaves the stuff that slowly imbibes it.

The Chevalier de Valois was the malicious manipulator who brought

about the crowning misfortune of Madame du Bousquier's life. His heart

was set on undeceiving her pious simplicity; for the chevalier, expert

in love, divined du Bousquier, the married man, as he had divined du

Bousquier, the bachelor. But the wary republican was difficult of

attack. His salon was, of course, closed to the Chevalier de Valois,

as to all those who, in the early days of his marriage, had slighted

the Cormon mansion. He was, moreover, impervious to ridicule; he

possessed a vast fortune; he reigned in Alencon; he cared as little

for his wife as Richard III. cared for the dead horse which had helped

him win a battle. To please her husband, Madame du Bousquier had

broken off relations with the d'Esgrignon household, where she went no

longer, except that sometimes when her husband left her during his

trips to Paris, she would pay a brief visit to Mademoiselle Armande.

About three years after her marriage, at the time of the Abbe de

Sponde's death, Mademoiselle Armande joined Madame du Bousquier as

they were leaving Saint-Leonard's, where they had gone to hear a

requiem said for him. The generous demoiselle thought that on this

occasion she owed her sympathy to the niece in trouble. They walked

together, talking of the dear deceased, until they reached the

forbidden house, into which Mademoiselle Armande enticed Madame du

Bousquier by the charm of her manner and conversation. The poor

desolate woman was glad to talk of her uncle with one whom he truly

loved. Moreover, she wanted to receive the condolences of the old

marquis, whom she had not seen for nearly three years. It was

half-past one o'clock, and she found at the hotel d'Esgrignon the

Chevalier de Valois, who had come to dinner. As he bowed to her, he

took her by the hands.

"Well, dear, virtuous, and beloved lady," he said, in a tone of

emotion, "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," he

added, alluding to du Bousquier.

After a few more words of funeral oration, in which all present spoke

from the heart, the chevalier took Madame du Bousquier's arm, and,

gallantly placing it within his own, pressed it adoringly as he led

her 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 Princess

Scherbellof, and the old Marquise de Casteran came up and joined the

chevalier, together with Mademoiselle Armande. They all went to walk

in the garden until dinner was served, without any perception on the

part of Madame du Bousquier that a little conspiracy was afoot. "We

have her! now let us find out the secret of the case," were the words

written in the eyes of all present.

"To make your happiness complete," said Mademoiselle Armande, "you

ought 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 of

purgatory if I could."

On the question thus started a discussion arose, conducted by Madame

de Troisville and the old Marquise de Casteran with such delicacy and

adroitness that the poor victim revealed, without being aware of it,

the secrets of her house. Mademoiselle Armande had taken the

chevalier's arm, and walked away so as to leave the three women free

to discuss wedlock. Madame du Bousquier was then enlightened on the

various deceptions of her marriage; and as she was still the same

simpleton she had always been, she amused her advisers by delightful

naivetes.

Although at first the deceptive marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon made a

laugh throughout the town, which was soon initiated into the story of

the case, before long Madame du Bousquier won the esteem and sympathy

of all the women. The fact that Mademoiselle Cormon had flung herself

headlong into marriage without succeeding in being married, made

everybody laugh at her; but when they learned the exceptional position

in which the sternness of her religious principles placed her, all the

world admired her. "That poor Madame du Bousquier" took the place of

"That good Mademoiselle Cormon."

Thus the chevalier contrived to render du Bousquier both ridiculous

and odious for a time; but ridicule ends by weakening; when all had

said their say about him, the gossip died out. Besides, at fifty-seven

years of age the dumb republican seemed to many people to have a right

to retire. This affair, however, envenomed the hatred which du

Bousquier already bore to the house of Esgrignon to such a degree that

it made him pitiless when the day of vengeance came. [See "The Gallery

of Antiquities."] Madame du Bousquier received orders never again to

set foot into that house. By way of reprisals upon the chevalier for

the trick thus played him, du Bousquier, who had just created the

journal called the "Courrier de l'Orne," caused the following notice

to 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 Bousquier

saw some advantages in it: was it not better to interest herself in

the most remarkable man in the town than to live alone? Du Bousquier

was preferable to a dog, or cat, or those canaries that spinsters

love. He showed for his wife a sentiment more real and less selfish

than that which is felt by servants, confessors, and hopeful heirs.

Later in life she came to consider her husband as the instrument of

divine wrath; for she then saw innumerable sins in her former desires

for marriage; she regarded herself as justly punished for the sorrow

she had brought on Madame Granson, and for the hastened death of her

uncle. Obedient to that religion which commands us to kiss the rod

with which the punishment is inflicted, she praised her husband, and

publicly approved him. But in the confessional, or at night, when

praying, she wept often, imploring God's forgiveness for the apostasy

of the man who thought the contrary of what he professed, and who

desired the destruction of the aristocracy and the Church,--the two

religions of the house of Cormon.

With all her feelings bruised and immolated within her, compelled by

duty to make her husband happy, attached to him by a certain

indefinable affection, born, perhaps, of habit, her life became one

perpetual contradiction. She had married a man whose conduct and

opinions she hated, but whom she was bound to care for with dutiful

tenderness. Often she walked with the angels when du Bousquier ate her

preserves or thought the dinner good. She watched to see that his

slightest wish was satisfied. If he tore off the cover of his

newspaper and left it on a table, instead of throwing it away, she

would say:--

"Rene, leave that where it is; monsieur did not place it there without

intention."

If du Bousquier had a journey to take, she was anxious about his

trunk, his linen; she took the most minute precautions for his

material benefit. If he went to Prebaudet, she consulted the barometer

the evening before to know if the weather would be fine. She watched

for his will in his eyes, like a dog which hears and sees its master

while sleeping. When the stout du Bousquier, touched by this

scrupulous love, would take her round the waist and kiss her forehead,

saying, "What a good woman you are!" tears of pleasure would come into

the eyes of the poor creature. It is probably that du Bousquier felt

himself obliged to make certain concessions which obtained for him the

respect of Rose-Marie-Victoire; for Catholic virtue does not require a

dissimulation as complete as that of Madame du Bousquier. Often the

good saint sat mutely by and listened to the hatred of men who

concealed themselves under the cloak of constitutional royalists. She

shuddered as she foresaw the ruin of the Church. Occasionally she

risked a stupid word, an observation which du Bousquier cut short with

a glance.

The worries of such an existence ended by stupefying Madame du

Bousquier, who found it easier and also more dignified to concentrate

her intelligence on her own thoughts and resign herself to lead a life

that was purely animal. She then adopted the submission of a slave,

and regarded it as a meritorious deed to accept the degradation in

which her husband placed her. The fulfilment of his will never once

caused her to murmur. The timid sheep went henceforth in the way the

shepherd led her; she gave herself up to the severest religious

practices, and thought no more of Satan and his works and vanities.

Thus she presented to the eyes of the world a union of all Christian

virtues; and du Bousquier was certainly one of the luckiest men in the

kingdom of France and of Navarre.

"She will be a simpleton to her last breath," said the former

collector, who, however, dined with her twice a week.

This history would be strangely incomplete if no mention were made of

the coincidence of the Chevalier de Valois's death occurring at the

same time as that of Suzanne's mother. The chevalier died with the

monarchy, in August, 1830. He had joined the cortege of Charles X. at

Nonancourt, and piously escorted it to Cherbourg with the Troisvilles,

Casterans, d'Esgrignons, Verneuils, etc. The old gentleman had taken

with him fifty thousand francs,--the sum to which his savings then

amounted. He offered them to one of the faithful friends of the king

for transmission to his master, speaking of his approaching death, and

declaring that the money came originally from the goodness of the

king, and, moreover, that the property of the last of the Valois

belonged of right to the crown. It is not known whether the fervor of

his zeal conquered the reluctance of the Bourbon, who abandoned his

fine kingdom of France without carrying away with him a farthing, and

who ought to have been touched by the devotion of the chevalier. It is

certain, however, that Cesarine, the residuary legate of the old man,

received from his estate only six hundred francs a year. The chevalier

returned to Alencon, cruelly weakened by grief and by fatigue; he died

on the very day when Charles X. arrived on a foreign shore.

Madame du Val-Noble and her protector, who was just then afraid of the

vengeance of the liberal party, were glad of a pretext to remain

incognito in the village where Suzanne's mother died. At the sale of

the chevalier's effects, which took place at that time, Suzanne,

anxious to obtain a souvenir of her first and last friend, pushed up

the price of the famous snuff-box, which was finally knocked down to

her for a thousand francs. The portrait of the Princess Goritza was

alone worth that sum. Two years later, a young dandy, who was making a

collection of the fine snuff-boxes of the last century, obtained from

Madame du Val-Noble the chevalier's treasure. The charming confidant

of many a love and the pleasure of an old age is now on exhibition in

a species of private museum. If the dead could know what happens after

them, the chevalier's head would surely blush upon its left cheek.

If this history has no other effect than to inspire the possessors of

precious relics with holy fear, and induce them to make codicils to

secure these touching souvenirs of joys that are no more by

bequeathing them to loving hands, it will have done an immense service

to the chivalrous and romantic portion of the community; but it does,

in truth, contain a far higher moral. Does it not show the necessity

for a new species of education? Does it not invoke, from the

enlightened solicitude of the ministers of Public Instruction, the

creation of chairs of anthropology,--a science in which Germany

outstrips 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 save

empires from revolution if only the professors of history would force

the explanations they give into the mind of the provincial masses. If

Mademoiselle Cormon had been a reader or a student, and if there had

existed in the department of the Orne a professor of anthropology, or

even had she read Ariosto, the frightful disasters of her conjugal

life would never have occurred. She would probably have known why the

Italian poet makes Angelica prefer Medoro, who was a blond Chevalier

de Valois, to Orlando, whose mare was dead, and who knew no better

than to fly into a passion. Is not Medoro the mythic form for all

courtiers 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, this

opinion of a pupil of Monsieur Ballanche.

No information has reached us as to the fate of the negroes' heads in

diamonds. You may see Madame du Val-Noble every evening at the Opera.

Thanks to the education given her by the Chevalier de Valois, she has

almost the air of a well-bred woman.

Madame du Bousquier still lives; is not that as much as to say she

still suffers? After reaching the age of sixty--the period at which

women allow themselves to make confessions--she said confidentially to

Madame du Coudrai, that she had never been able to endure the idea of

dying 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 Old

Maid. In other Addendum appearances they are combined under the title

of 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)

II

THE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC

Translated

By

Ellen Marriage

DEDICATION

To Baron Von Hammer-Purgstall, Member of the Aulic Council, Author

of the History of the Ottoman Empire.

Dear Baron,--You have taken so warm an interest in my long, vast

"History of French Manners in the Nineteenth Century," you have

given me so much encouragement to persevere with my work, that you

have given me a right to associate your name with some portion of

it. Are you not one of the most important representatives of

conscientious, studious Germany? Will not your approval win for me

the approval of others, and protect this attempt of mine? So proud

am I to have gained your good opinion, that I have striven to

deserve it by continuing my labors with the unflagging courage

characteristic of your methods of study, and of that exhaustive

research among documents without which you could never have given

your monumental work to the world of letters. Your sympathy with

such labor as you yourself have bestowed upon the most brilliant

civilization of the East, has often sustained my ardor through

nights of toil given to the details of our modern civilization.

And will not you, whose naive kindliness can only be compared with

that of our own La Fontaine, be glad to know of this?

May this token of my respect for you and your work find you at

Dobling, dear Baron, and put you and yours in mind of one of your

most sincere admirers and friends.

DE BALZAC.

THE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES

There stands a house at a corner of a street, in the middle of a town,

in one of the least important prefectures in France, but the name of

the street and the name of the town must be suppressed here. Every one

will appreciate the motives of this sage reticence demanded by

convention; for if a writer takes upon himself the office of annalist

of his own time, he is bound to touch on many sore subjects. The house

was called the Hotel d'Esgrignon; but let d'Esgrignon be considered a

mere fancy name, neither more nor less connected with real people than

the conventional Belval, Floricour, or Derville of the stage, or the

Adalberts and Mombreuses of romance. After all, the names of the

principal characters will be quite as much disguised; for though in

this history the chronicler would prefer to conceal the facts under a

mass of contradictions, anachronisms, improbabilities, and

absurdities, the truth will out in spite of him. You uproot a

vine-stock, as you imagine, and the stem will send up lusty shoots

after you have ploughed your vineyard over.

The "Hotel d'Esgrignon" was nothing more nor less than the house in

which the old Marquis lived; or, in the style of ancient documents,

Charles Marie Victor Ange Carol, Marquis d'Esgrignon. It was only an

ordinary house, but the townspeople and tradesmen had begun by calling

it the Hotel d'Esgrignon in jest, and ended after a score of years by

giving it that name in earnest.

The name of Carol, or Karawl, as the Thierrys would have spelt it, was

glorious among the names of the most powerful chieftains of the

Northmen who conquered Gaul and established the feudal system there.

Never had Carol bent his head before King or Communes, the Church or

Finance. Intrusted in the days of yore with the keeping of a French

March, the title of marquis in their family meant no shadow of

imaginary office; it had been a post of honor with duties to

discharge. Their fief had always been their domain. Provincial nobles

were they in every sense of the word; they might boast of an unbroken

line of great descent; they had been neglected by the court for two

hundred years; they were lords paramount in the estates of a province

where the people looked up to them with superstitious awe, as to the

image of the Holy Virgin that cures the toothache. The house of

d'Esgrignon, buried in its remote border country, was preserved as the

charred piles of one of Caesar's bridges are maintained intact in a

river bed. For thirteen hundred years the daughters of the house had

been married without a dowry or taken the veil; the younger sons of

every generation had been content with their share of their mother's

dower and gone forth to be captains or bishops; some had made a

marriage at court; one cadet of the house became an admiral, a duke,

and a peer of France, and died without issue. Never would the Marquis

d'Esgrignon of the elder branch accept the title of duke.

"I hold my marquisate as His Majesty holds the realm of France, and on

the same conditions," he told the Constable de Luynes, a very paltry

fellow in his eyes at that time.

You may be sure that d'Esgrignons lost their heads on the scaffold

during the troubles. The old blood showed itself proud and high even

in 1789. The Marquis of that day would not emigrate; he was answerable

for his March. The reverence in which he was held by the countryside

saved his head; but the hatred of the genuine sans-culottes was strong

enough to compel him to pretend to fly, and for a while he lived in

hiding. Then, in the name of the Sovereign People, the d'Esgrignon

lands were dishonored by the District, and the woods sold by the

Nation in spite of the personal protest made by the Marquis, then

turned forty. Mlle. d'Esgrignon, his half-sister, saved some portions

of the fief, thanks to the young steward of the family, who claimed on

her behalf the partage de presuccession, which is to say, the right of

a relative to a portion of the emigre's lands. To Mlle. d'Esgrignon,

therefore, the Republic made over the castle itself and a few farms.

Chesnel [Choisnel], the faithful steward, was obliged to buy in his

own name the church, the parsonage house, the castle gardens, and

other places to which his patron was attached--the Marquis advancing

the money.

The slow, swift years of the Terror went by, and the Marquis, whose

character had won the respect of the whole country, decided that he

and his sister ought to return to the castle and improve the property

which Maitre Chesnel--for he was now a notary--had contrived to save

for them out of the wreck. Alas! was not the plundered and dismantled

castle all too vast for a lord of the manor shorn of all his ancient

rights; too large for the landowner whose woods had been sold

piecemeal, until he could scarce draw nine thousand francs of income

from the pickings of his old estates?

It was in the month of October 1800 that Chesnel brought the Marquis

back to the old feudal castle, and saw with deep emotion, almost

beyound his control, his patron standing in the midst of the empty

courtyard, gazing round upon the moat, now filled up with rubbish, and

the castle towers razed to the level of the roof. The descendant of

the Franks looked for the missing Gothic turrets and the picturesque

weather vanes which used to rise above them; and his eyes turned to

the sky, as if asking of heaven the reason of this social upheaval. No

one but Chesnel could understand the profound anguish of the great

d'Esgrignon, now known as Citizen Carol. For a long while the Marquis

stood in silence, drinking in the influences of the place, the ancient

home of his forefathers, with the air that he breathed; then he flung

out a most melancholy exclamation.

"Chesnel," he said, "we will come back again some day when the

troubles are over; I could not bring myself to live here until the

edict of pacification has been published; /they/ will not allow me to

set my scutcheon on the wall."

He waved his hand toward the castle, mounted his horse, and rode back

beside his sister, who had driven over in the notary's shabby

basket-chaise.

The Hotel d'Esgrignon in the town had been demolished; a couple of

factories now stood on the site of the aristocrat's house. So Maitre

Chesnel spent the Marquis' last bag of louis on the purchase of the

old-fashioned building in the square, with its gables, weather-vane,

turret, and dovecote. Once it had been the courthouse of the

bailiwick, and subsequently the presidial; it had belonged to the

d'Esgrignons from generation to generation; and now, in consideration

of five hundred louis d'or, the present owner made it over with the

title given by the Nation to its rightful lord. And so, half in jest,

half in earnest, the old house was christened the Hotel d'Esgrignon.

In 1800 little or no difficulty was made over erasing names from the

fatal list, and some few emigres began to return. Among the very first

nobles to come back to the old town were the Baron de Nouastre and his

daughter. They were completely ruined. M. d'Esgrignon generously

offered them the shelter of his roof; and in his house, two months

later, the Baron died, worn out with grief. The Nouastres came of

the best blood in the province; Mlle. de Nouastre was a girl of

two-and-twenty; the Marquis d'Esgrignon married her to continue his

line. But she died in childbirth, a victim to the unskilfulness of her

physician, leaving, most fortunately, a son to bear the name of the

d'Esgrignons. The old Marquis--he was but fifty-three, but adversity

and sharp distress had added months to every year--the poor old

Marquis saw the death of the loveliest of human creatures, a noble

woman in whom the charm of the feminine figures of the sixteenth

century lived again, a charm now lost save to men's imaginations. With

her death the joy died out of his old age. It was one of those

terrible shocks which reverberate through every moment of the years

that follow. For a few moments he stood beside the bed where his wife

lay, with her hands folded like a saint, then he kissed her on the

forehead, turned away, drew out his watch, broke the mainspring, and

hung it up beside the hearth. It was eleven o'clock in the morning.

"Mlle. d'Esgrignon," he said, "let us pray God that this hour may not

prove fatal yet again to our house. My uncle the archbishop was

murdered at this hour; at this hour also my father died----"

He knelt down beside the bed and buried his face in the coverlet; his

sister did the same, in another moment they both rose to their feet.

Mlle. d'Esgrignon burst into tears; but the old Marquis looked with

dry eyes at the child, round the room, and again on his dead wife. To

the stubbornness of the Frank he united the fortitude of a Christian.

These things came to pass in the second year of the nineteenth

century. Mlle. d'Esgrignon was then twenty-seven years of age. She was

a beautiful woman. An ex-contractor for forage to the armies of the

Republic, a man of the district, with an income of six thousand

francs, persuaded Chesnel to carry a proposal of marriage to the lady.

The Marquis and his sister were alike indignant with such presumption

in their man of business, and Chesnel was almost heartbroken; he could

not forgive himself for yielding to the Sieur du Croisier's [du

Bousquier] blandishments. The Marquis' manner with his old servant

changed somewhat; never again was there quite the old affectionate

kindliness, which might almost have been taken for friendship. From

that time forth the Marquis was grateful, and his magnanimous and

sincere gratitude continually wounded the poor notary's feelings. To

some sublime natures gratitude seems an excessive payment; they would

rather have that sweet equality of feeling which springs from similar

ways of thought, and the blending of two spirits by their own choice

and will. And Maitre Chesnel had known the delights of such high

friendship; the Marquis had raised him to his own level. The old noble

looked on the good notary as something more than a servant, something

less than a child; he was the voluntary liege man of the house, a serf

bound to his lord by all the ties of affection. There was no balancing

of obligations; the sincere affection on either side put them out of

the question.

In the eyes of the Marquis, Chesnel's official dignity was as nothing;

his old servitor was merely disguised as a notary. As for Chesnel, the

Marquis was now, as always, a being of a divine race; he believed in

nobility; he did not blush to remember that his father had thrown open

the doors of the salon to announce that "My Lord Marquis is served."

His devotion to the fallen house was due not so much to his creed as

to egoism; he looked on himself as one of the family. So his vexation

was intense. Once he had ventured to allude to his mistake in spite

of the Marquis' prohibition, and the old noble answered gravely

--"Chesnel, before the troubles you would not have permitted yourself

to entertain such injurious suppositions. What can these new doctrines

be if they have spoiled /you/?"

Maitre Chesnel had gained the confidence of the whole town; people

looked up to him; his high integrity and considerable fortune

contributed to make him a person of importance. From that time forth

he felt a very decided aversion for the Sieur du Crosier; and though

there was little rancor in his composition, he set others against the

sometime forage-contractor. Du Croisier, on the other hand, was a man

to bear a grudge and nurse a vengeance for a score of years. He hated

Chesnel and the d'Esgrignon family with the smothered, all-absorbing

hate only to be found in a country town. His rebuff had simply ruined

him with the malicious provincials among whom he had come to live,

thinking to rule over them. It was so real a disaster that he was not

long in feeling the consequences of it. He betook himself in

desperation to a wealthy old maid, and met with a second refusal. Thus

failed the ambitious schemes with which he had started. He had lost

his hope of a marriage with Mlle. d'Esgrignon, which would have opened

the Faubourg Saint-Germain of the province to him; and after the

second rejection, his credit fell away to such an extent that it was

almost as much as he could do to keep his position in the second rank.

In 1805, M. de la Roche-Guyon, the oldest son of an ancient family

which had previously intermarried with the d'Esgrignons, made

proposals in form through Maitre Chesnel for Mlle. Marie Armande Clair

d'Esgrignon. She declined to hear the notary.

"You must have guessed before now that I am a mother, dear Chesnel,"

she said; she had just put her nephew, a fine little boy of five, to

bed.

The old Marquis rose and went up to his sister, but just returned from

the cradle; he kissed her hand reverently, and as he sat down again,

found words to say:

"My sister, you are a d'Esgrignon."

A quiver ran through the noble girl; the tears stood in her eyes. M.

d'Esgrignon, the father of the present Marquis, had married a second

wife, the daughter of a farmer of taxes ennobled by Louis XIV. It was

a shocking mesalliance in the eyes of his family, but fortunately of

no importance, since a daughter was the one child of the marriage.

Armande knew this. Kind as her brother had always been, he looked on

her as a stranger in blood. And this speech of his had just recognized

her as one of the family.

And was not her answer the worthy crown of eleven years of her noble

life? Her every action since she came of age had borne the stamp of

the purest devotion; love for her brother was a sort of religion with

her.

"I shall die Mlle. d'Esgrignon," she said simply, turning to the

notary.

"For you there could be no fairer title," returned Chesnel, meaning to

convey a compliment. Poor Mlle. d'Esgrignon reddened.

"You have blundered, Chesnel," said the Marquis, flattered by the

steward's words, but vexed that his sister had been hurt. "A

d'Esgrignon may marry a Montmorency; their descent is not so pure as

ours. The d'Esgrignons bear or, two bends, gules," he continued, "and

nothing during nine hundred years has changed their scutcheon; as it

was at first, so it is to-day. Hence our device, Cil est nostre, taken

at a tournament in the reign of Philip Augustus, with the supporters,

a knight in armor or on the right, and a lion gules on the left."

"I do not remember that any woman I have ever met has struck my

imagination as Mlle. d'Esgrignon did," said Emile Blondet, to whom

contemporary literature is indebted for this history among other

things. "Truth to tell, I was a boy, a mere child at the time, and

perhaps my memory-pictures of her owe something of their vivid color

to a boy's natural turn for the marvelous.

"If I was playing with other children on the Parade, and she came to

walk there with her nephew Victurnien, the sight of her in the

distance thrilled me with very much the effect of galvanism on a dead

body. Child as I was, I felt as though new life had been given me.

"Mlle. Armande had hair of tawny gold; there was a delicate fine down

on her cheek, with a silver gleam upon it which I loved to catch,

putting myself so that I could see the outlines of her face lit up by

the daylight, and feel the fascination of those dreamy emerald eyes,

which sent a flash of fire through me whenever they fell upon my face.

I used to pretend to roll on the grass before her in our games, only

to try to reach her little feet, and admire them on a closer view. The

soft whiteness of her skin, her delicate features, the clearly cut

lines of her forehead, the grace of her slender figure, took me with a

sense of surprise, while as yet I did not know that her shape was

graceful, nor her brows beautiful, nor the outline of her face a

perfect oval. I admired as children pray at that age, without too

clearly understanding why they pray. When my piercing gaze attracted

her notice, when she asked me (in that musical voice of hers, with

more volume in it, as it seemed to me, than all other voices), 'What

are you doing little one? Why do you look at me?'--I used to come

nearer and wriggle and bite my finger-nails, and redden and say, 'I do

not know.' And if she chanced to stroke my hair with her white hand,

and ask me how old I was, I would run away and call from a distance,

'Eleven!'

Every princess and fairy of my visions, as I read the Arabian Nights,

looked and walked like Mlle. d'Esgrignon; and afterwards, when my

drawing-master gave me heads from the antique to copy, I noticed that

their hair was braided like Mlle. d'Esgrignon's. Still later, when the

foolish fancies had vanished one by one, Mlle. Armande remained

vaguely in my memory as a type; that Mlle. Armande for whom men made

way respectfully, following the tall brown-robed figure with their

eyes along the Parade and out of sight. Her exquisitely graceful form,

the rounded curves sometimes revealed by a chance gust of wind, and

always visible to my eyes in spite of the ample folds of stuff,

revisited my young man's dreams. Later yet, when I came to think

seriously over certain mysteries of human thought, it seemed to me

that the feeling of reverence was first inspired in me by something

expressed in Mlle. d'Esgrignon's face and bearing. The wonderful calm

of her face, the suppressed passion in it, the dignity of her

movements, the saintly life of duties fulfilled,--all this touched and

awed me. Children are more susceptible than people imagine to the

subtle influences of ideas; they never make game of real dignity; they

feel the charm of real graciousness, and beauty attracts them, for

childhood itself is beautiful, and there are mysterious ties between

things of the same nature.

"Mlle. d'Esgrignon was one of my religions. To this day I can never

climb the staircase of some old manor-house but my foolish imagination

must needs picture Mlle. Armande standing there, like the spirit of

feudalism. I can never read old chronicles but she appears before my

eyes in the shape of some famous woman of old times; she is Agnes

Sorel, Marie Touchet, Gabrielle; and I lend her all the love that was

lost in her heart, all the love that she never expressed. The angel

shape seen in glimpses through the haze of childish fancies visits me

now sometimes across the mists of dreams."

Keep this portrait in mind; it is a faithful picture and sketch of

character. Mlle. d'Esgrignon is one of the most instructive figures in

this story; she affords an example of the mischief that may be done by

the purest goodness for lack of intelligence.

Two-thirds of the emigres returned to France during 1804 and 1805, and

almost every exile from the Marquis d'Esgrignon's province came back

to the land of his fathers. There were certainly defections. Men of

good birth entered the service of Napoleon, and went into the army or

held places at the Imperial court, and others made alliances with the

upstart families. All those who cast in their lots with the Empire

retrieved their fortunes and recovered their estates, thanks to the

Emperor's munificence; and these for the most part went to Paris and

stayed there. But some eight or nine families still remained true to

the proscribed noblesse and loyal to the fallen monarchy. The La

Roche-Guyons, Nouastres, Verneuils, Casterans, Troisvilles, and the

rest were some of them rich, some of them poor; but money, more or

less, scarcely counted for anything among them. They took an

antiquarian view of themselves; for them the age and preservation of

the pedigree was the one all-important matter; precisely as, for an

amateur, the weight of metal in a coin is a small matter in comparison

with clean lettering, a flawless stamp, and high antiquity. Of these

families, the Marquis d'Esgrignon was the acknowledged head. His house

became their cenacle. There His Majesty, Emperor and King, was never

anything but "M. de Bonaparte"; there "the King" meant Louis XVIII.,

then at Mittau; there the Department was still the Province, and the

prefecture the intendance.

The Marquis was honored among them for his admirable behavior, his

loyalty as a noble, his undaunted courage; even as he was respected

throughout the town for his misfortunes, his fortitude, his steadfast

adherence to his political convictions. The man so admirable in

adversity was invested with all the majesty of ruined greatness. His

chivalrous fair-mindedness was so well known, that litigants many a

time had referred their disputes to him for arbitration. All gently

bred Imperalists and the authorities themselves showed as much

indulgence for his prejudices as respect for his personal character;

but there was another and a large section of the new society which was

destined to be known after the Restoration as the Liberal party; and

these, with du Croisier as their unacknowledged head, laughed at an

aristocratic oasis which nobody might enter without proof of

irreproachable descent. Their animosity was all the more bitter

because honest country squires and the higher officials, with a good

many worthy folk in the town, were of the opinion that all the best

society thereof was to be found in the Marquis d'Esgrignon's salon.

The prefect himself, the Emperor's chamberlain, made overtures to the

d'Esgrignons, humbly sending his wife (a Grandlieu) as ambassadress.

Wherefore, those excluded from the miniature provincial Faubourg

Saint-Germain nicknamed the salon "The Collection of Antiquities," and

called the Marquis himself "M. Carol." The receiver of taxes, for

instance, addressed his applications to "M. Carol (ci-devant des

Grignons)," maliciously adopting the obsolete way of spelling.

"For my own part," said Emile Blondet, "if I try to recall my

childhood memories, I remember that the nickname of 'Collection of

Antiquities' always made me laugh, in spite of my respect--my love, I

ought to say--for Mlle. d'Esgrignon. The Hotel d'Esgrignon stood at

the angle of two of the busiest thoroughfares in the town, and not

five hundred paces away from the market place. Two of the drawing-room

windows looked upon the street and two upon the square; the room was

like a glass cage, every one who came past could look through it from

side to side. I was only a boy of twelve at the time, but I thought,

even then, that the salon was one of those rare curiosities which

seem, when you come to think of them afterwards, to lie just on the

borderland between reality and dreams, so that you can scarcely tell

to which side they most belong.

"The room, the ancient Hall of Audience, stood above a row of cellars

with grated air-holes, once the prison cells of the old court-house,

now converted into a kitchen. I do not know that the magnificent lofty

chimney-piece of the Louvre, with its marvelous carving, seemed more

wonderful to me than the vast open hearth of the salon d'Esgrignon

when I saw it for the first time. It was covered like a melon with a

network of tracery. Over it stood an equestrian portrait of Henri

III., under whom the ancient duchy of appanage reverted to the crown;

it was a great picture executed in low relief, and set in a carved and

gilded frame. The ceiling spaces between the chestnut cross-beams in

the fine old roof were decorated with scroll-work patterns; there was

a little faded gilding still left along the angles. The walls were

covered with Flemish tapestry, six scenes from the Judgment of

Solomon, framed in golden garlands, with satyrs and cupids playing

among the leaves. The parquet floor had been laid down by the present

Marquis, and Chesnel had picked up the furniture at sales of the

wreckage of old chateaux between 1793 and 1795; so that there were

Louis Quatorze consoles, tables, clock-cases, andirons, candle-sconces

and tapestry-covered chairs, which marvelously completed a stately

room, large out of all proportion to the house. Luckily, however,

there was an equally lofty ante-chamber, the ancient Salle des Pas

Perdus of the presidial, which communicated likewise with the

magistrate's deliberating chamber, used by the d'Esgrignons as a

dining-room.

"Beneath the old paneling, amid the threadbare braveries of a bygone

day, some eight or ten dowagers were drawn up in state in a quavering

line; some with palsied heads, others dark and shriveled like mummies;

some erect and stiff, others bowed and bent, but all of them tricked

out in more or less fantastic costumes as far as possible removed from

the fashion of the day, with be-ribboned caps above their curled and

powdered 'heads,' and old discolored lace. No painter however earnest,

no caricature however wild, ever caught the haunting fascination of

those aged women; they come back to me in dreams; their puckered faces

shape themselves in my memory whenever I meet an old woman who puts me

in mind of them by some faint resemblance of dress or feature. And

whether it is that misfortune has initiated me into the secrets of

irremediable and overwhelming disaster; whether that I have come to

understand the whole range of human feelings, and, best of all, the

thoughts of Old Age and Regret; whatever the reason, nowhere and never

again have I seen among the living or in the faces of the dying the

wan look of certain gray eyes that I remember, nor the dreadful

brightness of others that were black.

"Neither Hoffmann nor Maturin, the two weirdest imaginations of our

time, ever gave me such a thrill of terror as I used to feel when I

watched the automaton movements of those bodies sheathed in whalebone.

The paint on actors' faces never caused me a shock; I could see below

it the rouge in grain, the rouge de naissance, to quote a comrade at

least as malicious as I can be. Years had leveled those women's faces,

and at the same time furrowed them with wrinkles, till they looked

like the heads on wooden nutcrackers carved in Germany. Peeping

in through the window-panes, I gazed at the battered bodies, and

ill-jointed limbs (how they were fastened together, and, indeed,

their whole anatomy was a mystery I never attempted to explain); I saw

the lantern jaws, the protuberant bones, the abnormal development of

the hips; and the movements of these figures as they came and went

seemed to me no whit less extraordinary than their sepulchral

immobility as they sat round the card-tables.

"The men looked gray and faded like the ancient tapestries on the

wall, in dress they were much more like the men of the day, but even

they were not altogether convincingly alive. Their white hair, their

withered waxen-hued faces, their devastated foreheads and pale eyes,

revealed their kinship to the women, and neutralized any effects of

reality borrowed from their costume.

"The very certainty of finding all these folk seated at or among the

tables every day at the same hours invested them at length in my eyes

with a sort of spectacular interest as it were; there was something

theatrical, something unearthly about them.

"Whenever, in after times, I have gone through museums of old

furniture in Paris, London, Munich, or Vienna, with the gray-headed

custodian who shows you the splendors of time past, I have peopled the

rooms with figures from the Collection of Antiquities. Often, as

little schoolboys of eight or ten we used to propose to go and take a

look at the curiosities in their glass cage, for the fun of the thing.

But as soon as I caught sight of Mlle. Armande's sweet face, I used to

tremble; and there was a trace of jealousy in my admiration for the

lovely child Victurnien, who belonged, as we all instinctively felt,

to a different and higher order of being from our own. It struck me as

something indescribably strange that the young fresh creature should

be there in that cemetery awakened before the time. We could not have

explained our thoughts to ourselves, yet we felt that we were

bourgeois and insignificant in the presence of that proud court."

The disasters of 1813 and 1814, which brought about the downfall of

Napoleon, gave new life to the Collection of Antiquities, and what was

more than life, the hope of recovering their past importance; but the

events of 1815, the troubles of the foreign occupation, and the

vacillating policy of the Government until the fall of M. Decazes, all

contributed to defer the fulfilment of the expectations of the

personages so vividly described by Blondet. This story, therefore,

only begins to shape itself in 1822.

In 1822 the Marquis d'Esgrignon's fortunes had not improved in spite

of the changes worked by the Restoration in the condition of emigres.

Of all the nobles hardly hit by Revolutionary legislation, his case

was the hardest. Like other great families, the d'Esgrignons before

1789 derived the greater part of their income from their rights as

lords of the manor in the shape of dues paid by those who held of

them; and, naturally, the old seigneurs had reduced the size of the

holdings in order to swell the amounts paid in quit-rents and heriots.

Families in this position were hopelessly ruined. They were not

affected by the ordinance by which Louis XVIII. put the emigres into

possession of such of their lands as had not been sold; and at a later

date it was impossible that the law of indemnity should indemnify

them. Their suppressed rights, as everybody knows, were revived in the

shape of a land tax known by the very name of domaines, but the money

went into the coffers of the State.

The Marquis by his position belonged to that small section of the

Royalist party which would hear of no kind of compromise with those

whom they styled, not Revolutionaries, but revolted subjects, or, in

more parliamentary language, they had no dealings with Liberals or

Constitutionnels. Such Royalists, nicknamed Ultras by the opposition,

took for leaders and heroes those courageous orators of the Right, who

from the very beginning attempted, with M. de Polignac, to protest

against the charter granted by Louis XVIII. This they regarded as an

ill-advised edict extorted from the Crown by the necessity of the

moment, only to be annulled later on. And, therefore, so far from

co-operating with the King to bring about a new condition of things,

the Marquis d'Esgrignon stood aloof, an upholder of the straitest sect

of the Right in politics, until such time as his vast fortune should

be restored to him. Nor did he so much as admit the thought of the

indemnity which filled the minds of the Villele ministry, and formed a

part of a design of strengthening the Crown by putting an end to those

fatal distinctions of ownership which still lingered on in spite of

legislation.

The miracles of the Restoration of 1814, the still greater miracle of

Napoleon's return in 1815, the portents of a second flight of the

Bourbons, and a second reinstatement (that almost fabulous phase of

contemporary history), all these things took the Marquis by

surprise at the age of sixty-seven. At that time of life, the most

high-spirited men of their age were not so much vanquished as worn out

in the struggle with the Revolution; their activity, in their remote

provincial retreats, had turned into a passionately held and immovable

conviction; and almost all of them were shut in by the enervating,

easy round of daily life in the country. Could worse luck befall a

political party than this--to be represented by old men at a time when

its ideas are already stigmatized as old-fashioned?

When the legitimate sovereign appeared to be firmly seated on the

throne again in 1818, the Marquis asked himself what a man of seventy

should do at court; and what duties, what office he could discharge

there? The noble and high-minded d'Esgrignon was fain to be content

with the triumph of the Monarchy and Religion, while he waited for the

results of that unhoped-for, indecisive victory, which proved to be

simply an armistice. He continued as before, lord-paramount of his

salon, so felicitously named the Collection of Antiquities.

But when the victors of 1793 became the vanquished in their turn, the

nickname given at first in jest began to be used in bitter earnest.

The town was no more free than other country towns from the hatreds

and jealousies bred of party spirit. Du Croisier, contrary to all

expectation, married the old maid who had refused him at first;

carrying her off from his rival, the darling of the aristocratic

quarter, a certain Chevalier whose illustrious name will be

sufficiently hidden by suppressing it altogether, in accordance with

the usage formerly adopted in the place itself, where he was known by

his title only. He was "the Chevalier" in the town, as the Comte

d'Artois was "Monsieur" at court. Now, not only had that marriage

produced a war after the provincial manner, in which all weapons are

fair; it had hastened the separation of the great and little noblesse,

of the aristocratic and bourgeois social elements, which had been

united for a little space by the heavy weight of Napoleonic rule.

After the pressure was removed, there followed that sudden revival of

class divisions which did so much harm to the country.