mistaken, whether Albert really loved an Italian Princess, and was
loved by her. In the course of this fateful night, the power of swift
decision, which had characterized the famous Watteville, was fully
developed in his descendant. She devised those whimsical schemes, round
which hovers the imagination of most young girls when, in the solitude
to which some injudicious mothers confine them, they are roused by
some tremendous event which the system of repression to which they are
subjected could neither foresee nor prevent. She dreamed of descending
by a ladder from the kiosk into the garden of the house occupied by
Albert; of taking advantage of the lawyer’s being asleep to look through
the window into his private room. She thought of writing to him, or of
bursting the fetters of Besancon society by introducing Albert to the
drawing-room of the Hotel de Rupt. This enterprise, which to the Abbe de
Grancey even would have seemed the climax of the impossible, was a mere
passing thought.
“Ah!” said she to herself, “my father has a dispute pending as to his
land at les Rouxey. I will go there! If there is no lawsuit, I will
manage to make one, and _he_ shall come into our drawing-room!” she
cried, as she sprang out of bed and to the window to look at the
fascinating gleam which shone through Albert’s nights. The clock struck
one; he was still asleep.
“I shall see him when he gets up; perhaps he will come to his window.”
At this instant Mademoiselle de Watteville was witness to an incident
which promised to place in her power the means of knowing Albert’s
secrets. By the light of the moon she saw a pair of arms stretched
out from the kiosk to help Jerome, Albert’s servant, to get across
the coping of the wall and step into the little building. In Jerome’s
accomplice Rosalie at once recognized Mariette the lady’s-maid.
“Mariette and Jerome!” said she to herself. “Mariette, such an ugly
girl! Certainly they must be ashamed of themselves.”
Though Mariette was horribly ugly and six-and-thirty, she had inherited
several plots of land. She had been seventeen years with Madame de
Watteville, who valued her highly for her bigotry, her honesty, and long
service, and she had no doubt saved money and invested her wages and
perquisites. Hence, earning about ten louis a year, she probably had by
this time, including compound interest and her little inheritance, not
less than ten thousand francs.
In Jerome’s eyes ten thousand francs could alter the laws of optics; he
saw in Mariette a neat figure; he did not perceive the pits and seams
which virulent smallpox had left on her flat, parched face; to him the
crooked mouth was straight; and ever since Savaron, by taking him into
his service, had brought him so near to the Wattevilles’ house, he had
laid siege systematically to the maid, who was as prim and sanctimonious
as her mistress, and who, like every ugly old maid, was far more
exacting than the handsomest.
If the night-scene in the kiosk is thus fully accounted for to all
perspicacious readers, it was not so to Rosalie, though she derived from
it the most dangerous lesson that can be given, that of a bad example.
A mother brings her daughter up strictly, keeps her under her wing for
seventeen years, and then, in one hour, a servant girl destroys the
long and painful work, sometimes by a word, often indeed by a gesture!
Rosalie got into bed again, not without considering how she might take
advantage of her discovery.
Next morning, as she went to Mass accompanied by Mariette--her mother
was not well--Rosalie took the maid’s arm, which surprised the country
wench not a little.
“Mariette,” said she, “is Jerome in his master’s confidence?”
“I do not know, mademoiselle.”
“Do not play the innocent with me,” said Mademoiselle de Watteville
drily. “You let him kiss you last night under the kiosk; I no longer
wonder that you so warmly approved of my mother’s ideas for the
improvements she planned.”
Rosalie could feel how Mariette was trembling by the shaking of her arm.
“I wish you no ill,” Rosalie went on. “Be quite easy; I shall not say a
word to my mother, and you can meet Jerome as often as you please.”
“But, mademoiselle,” said Mariette, “it is perfectly respectable; Jerome
honestly means to marry me--”
“But then,” said Rosalie, “why meet at night?”
Mariette was dumfounded, and could make no reply.
“Listen, Mariette; I am in love too! In secret and without any return.
I am, after all, my father’s and mother’s only child. You have more to
hope for from me than from any one else in the world--”
“Certainly, mademoiselle, and you may count on us for life or death,”
exclaimed Mariette, rejoiced at the unexpected turn of affairs.
“In the first place, silence for silence,” said Rosalie. “I will not
marry Monsieur de Soulas; but one thing I will have, and must have; my
help and favor are yours on one condition only.”
“What is that?”
“I must see the letters which Monsieur Savaron sends to the post by
Jerome.”
“But what for?” said Mariette in alarm.
“Oh! merely to read them, and you yourself shall post them afterwards.
It will cause a little delay; that is all.”
At this moment they went into church, and each of them, instead of
reading the order of Mass, fell into her own train of thought.
“Dear, dear, how many sins are there in all that?” thought Mariette.
Rosalie, whose soul, brain, and heart were completely upset by reading
the story, by this time regarded it as history, written for her
rival. By dint of thinking of nothing else, like a child, she ended by
believing that the _Eastern Review_ was no doubt forwarded to Albert’s
lady-love.
“Oh!” said she to herself, her head buried in her hands in the attitude
of a person lost in prayer; “oh! how can I get my father to look through
the list of people to whom the _Review_ is sent?”
After breakfast she took a turn in the garden with her father, coaxing
and cajoling him, and brought him to the kiosk.
“Do you suppose, my dear little papa, that our _Review_ is ever read
abroad?”
“It is but just started--”
“Well, I will wager that it is.”
“It is hardly possible.”
“Just go and find out, and note the names of any subscribers out of
France.”
Two hours later Monsieur de Watteville said to his daughter:
“I was right; there is not one foreign subscriber as yet. They hope to
get some at Neufchatel, at Berne, and at Geneva. One copy, is in fact,
sent to Italy, but it is not paid for--to a Milanese lady at her country
house at Belgirate, on Lago Maggiore.
“What is her name?”
“The Duchesse d’Argaiolo.”
“Do you know her, papa?”
“I have heard about her. She was by birth a Princess Soderini, a
Florentine, a very great lady, and quite as rich as her husband, who
has one of the largest fortunes in Lombardy. Their villa on the Lago
Maggiore is one of the sights of Italy.”
Two days after, Mariette placed the following letter in Mademoiselle de
Watteville’s hand:--
Albert Savaron to Leopold Hannequin.
“Yes, ‘tis so, my dear friend; I am at Besancon, while you thought
I was traveling. I would not tell you anything till success should
begin, and now it is dawning. Yes, my dear Leopold, after so many
abortive undertakings, over which I have shed the best of my
blood, have wasted so many efforts, spent so much courage, I have
made up my mind to do as you have done--to start on a beaten path,
on the highroad, as the longest but the safest. I can see you jump
with surprise in your lawyer’s chair!
“But do not suppose that anything is changed in my personal life,
of which you alone in the world know the secret, and that under
the reservations _she_ insists on. I did not tell you, my friend;
but I was horribly weary of Paris. The outcome of the first
enterprise, on which I had founded all my hopes, and which came to
a bad end in consequence of the utter rascality of my two
partners, who combined to cheat and fleece me--me, though
everything was done by my energy--made me give up the pursuit of a
fortune after the loss of three years of my life. One of these
years was spent in the law courts, and perhaps I should have come
worse out of the scrape if I had not been made to study law when I
was twenty.
“I made up my mind to go into politics solely, to the end that I
may some day find my name on a list for promotion to the Senate
under the title of Comte Albert Savaron de Savarus, and so revive
in France a good name now extinct in Belgium--though indeed I am
neither legitimate nor legitimized.”
“Ah! I knew it! He is of noble birth!” exclaimed Rosalie, dropping the
letter.
“You know how conscientiously I studied, how faithful and useful I
was as an obscure journalist, and how excellent a secretary to the
statesman who, on his part, was true to me in 1829. Flung to the
depths once more by the revolution of July just when my name was
becoming known, at the very moment when, as Master of Appeals, I
was about to find my place as a necessary wheel in the political
machine, I committed the blunder of remaining faithful to the
fallen, and fighting for them, without them. Oh! why was I but
three-and-thirty, and why did I not apply to you to make me
eligible? I concealed from you all my devotedness and my dangers.
What would you have? I was full of faith. We should not have
agreed.
“Ten months ago, when you saw me so gay and contented, writing my
political articles, I was in despair; I foresaw my fate, at the
age of thirty-seven, with two thousand francs for my whole
fortune, without the smallest fame, just having failed in a noble
undertaking, the founding, namely, of a daily paper answering only
to a need of the future instead of appealing to the passions of
the moment. I did not know which way to turn, and I felt my own
value! I wandered about, gloomy and hurt, through the lonely
places of Paris--Paris which had slipped through my fingers
--thinking of my crushed ambitions, but never giving them up. Oh,
what frantic letters I wrote at that time to _her_, my second
conscience, my other self! Sometimes I would say to myself, ‘Why
did I sketch so vast a programme of life? Why demand everything?
Why not wait for happiness while devoting myself to some
mechanical employment.’
“I then looked about me for some modest appointment by which I
might live. I was about to get the editorship of a paper under a
manager who did not know much about it, a man of wealth and
ambition, when I took fright. ‘Would _she_ ever accept as her
husband a man who had stooped so low?’ I wondered.
“This reflection made me two-and-twenty again. But, oh, my dear
Leopold, how the soul is worn by these perplexities! What must not
the caged eagles suffer, and imprisoned lions!--They suffer what
Napoleon suffered, not at Saint Helena, but on the Quay of the
Tuileries, on the 10th of August, when he saw Louis XVI. defending
himself so badly while he could have quelled the insurrection; as
he actually did, on the same spot, a little later, in Vendemiaire.
Well, my life has been a torment of that kind, extending over four
years. How many a speech to the Chamber have I not delivered in
the deserted alleys of the Bois de Boulogne! These wasted
harangues have at any rate sharpened my tongue and accustomed my
mind to formulate its ideas in words. And while I was undergoing
this secret torture, you were getting married, you had paid for
your business, you were made law-clerk to the Maire of your
district, after gaining a cross for a wound at Saint-Merri.
“Now, listen. When I was a small boy and tortured cock-chafers,
the poor insects had one form of struggle which used almost to put
me in a fever. It was when I saw them making repeated efforts to
fly but without getting away, though they could spread their
wings. We used to say, ‘They are marking time.’ Now was this
sympathy? Was it a vision of my own future?--Oh! to spread my
wings and yet be unable to fly! That has been my predicament since
that fine undertaking by which I was disgusted, but which has now
made four families rich.
“At last, seven months ago, I determined to make myself a name at
the Paris Bar, seeing how many vacancies had been left by the
promotion of several lawyers to eminent positions. But when I
remembered the rivalry I had seen among men of the press, and how
difficult it is to achieve anything of any kind in Paris, the
arena where so many champions meet, I came to a determination
painful to myself, but certain in its results, and perhaps quicker
than any other. In the course of our conversations you had given
me a picture of the society of Besancon, of the impossibility for
a stranger to get on there, to produce the smallest effect, to get
into society, or to succeed in any way whatever. It was there that
I determined to set up my flag, thinking, and rightly, that I
should meet with no opposition, but find myself alone to canvass
for the election. The people of the Comte will not meet the
outsider? The outsider will meet them! They refuse to admit him to
their drawing-rooms, he will never go there! He never shows
himself anywhere, not even in the streets! But there is one class
that elects the deputies--the commercial class. I am going
especially to study commercial questions, with which I am already
familiar; I will gain their lawsuits, I will effect compromises, I
will be the greatest pleader in Besancon. By and by I will start a
_Review_, in which I will defend the interests of the country,
will create them, or preserve them, or resuscitate them. When I
shall have won a sufficient number of votes, my name will come out
of the urn. For a long time the unknown barrister will be treated
with contempt, but some circumstance will arise to bring him to
the front--some unpaid defence, or a case which no other pleader
will undertake.
“Well, my dear Leopold, I packed up my books in eleven cases, I
bought such law-books as might prove useful, and I sent everything
off, furniture and all, by carrier to Besancon. I collected my
diplomas, and I went to bid you good-bye. The mail coach dropped
me at Besancon, where, in three days’ time, I chose a little set
of rooms looking out over some gardens. I sumptuously arranged the
mysterious private room where I spend my nights and days, and
where the portrait of my divinity reigns--of her to whom my life
is dedicate, who fills it wholly, who is the mainspring of my
efforts, the secret of my courage, the cause of my talents. Then,
as soon as the furniture and books had come, I engaged an
intelligent man-servant, and there I sat for five months like a
hibernating marmot.
“My name had, however, been entered on the list of lawyers in the
town. At last I was called one day to defend an unhappy wretch at
the Assizes, no doubt in order to hear me speak for once! One of
the most influential merchants of Besancon was on the jury; he had
a difficult task to fulfil; I did my utmost for the man, and my
success was absolute and complete. My client was innocent; I very
dramatically secured the arrest of the real criminals, who had
come forward as witnesses. In short, the Court and the public were
united in their admiration. I managed to save the examining
magistrate’s pride by pointing out the impossibility of detecting
a plot so skilfully planned.
“Then I had to fight a case for my merchant, and won his suit. The
Cathedral Chapter next chose me to defend a tremendous action
against the town, which had been going on for four years; I won
that. Thus, after three trials, I had become the most famous
advocate of Franche-Comte.
“But I bury my life in the deepest mystery, and so hide my aims. I
have adopted habits which prevent my accepting any invitations. I
am only to be consulted between six and eight in the morning; I go
to bed after my dinner, and work at night. The Vicar-General, a
man of parts, and very influential, who placed the Chapter’s case
in my hands after they had lost it in the lower Court, of course
professed their gratitude. ‘Monsieur,’ said I, ‘I will win your
suit, but I want no fee; I want more’ (start of alarm on the
Abbe’s part). ‘You must know that I am a great loser by putting
myself forward in antagonism to the town. I came here only to
leave the place as deputy. I mean to engage only in commercial
cases, because commercial men return the members; they will
distrust me if I defend “the priests”--for to them you are simply
priests. If I undertake your defence, it is because I was, in
1828, private secretary to such a Minister’ (again a start of
surprise on the part of my Abbe), ‘and Master of Appeals, under
the name of Albert de Savarus’ (another start). ‘I have remained
faithful to monarchical opinions; but, as you have not the
majority of votes in Besancon, I must gain votes among the
citizens. So the fee I ask of you is the votes you may be able
secretly to secure for me at the opportune moment. Let us each
keep our own counsel, and I will defend, for nothing, every case
to which a priest of this diocese may be a party. Not a word about
my previous life, and we will be true to each other.’
“When he came to thank me afterwards, he gave me a note for five
hundred francs, and said in my ear, ‘The votes are a bargain all
the same.’--I have in the course of five interviews made a friend,
I think, of this Vicar-General.
“Now I am overwhelmed with business, and I undertake no cases but
those brought to me by merchants, saying that commercial questions
are my specialty. This line of conduct attaches business men to
me, and allows me to make friends with influential persons. So all
goes well. Within a few months I shall have found a house to
purchase in Besancon, so as to secure a qualification. I count on
your lending me the necessary capital for this investment. If I
should die, if I should fail, the loss would be too small to be
any consideration between you and me. You will get the interest
out of the rental, and I shall take good care to look out for
something cheap, so that you may lose nothing by this mortgage,
which is indispensable.
“Oh! my dear Leopold, no gambler with the last remains of his
fortune in his pocket, bent on staking it at the Cercle des
Etrangers for the last time one night, when he must come away rich
or ruined, ever felt such a perpetual ringing in his ears, such a
nervous moisture on his palms, such a fevered tumult in his brain,
such inward qualms in his body as I go through every day now that
I am playing my last card in the game of ambition. Alas! my dear
and only friend, for nearly ten years now I have been struggling.
This battle with men and things, in which I have unceasingly
poured out my strength and energy, and so constantly worn the
springs of desire, has, so to speak, undermined my vitality. With
all the appearance of a strong man of good health, I feel myself a
wreck. Every day carries with it a shred of my inmost life. At
every fresh effort I feel that I should never be able to begin
again. I have no power, no vigor left but for happiness; and if it
should never come to crown my head with roses, the _me_ that is
really me would cease to exist, I should be a ruined thing. I
should wish for nothing more in the world. I should want to cease
from living. You know that power and fame, the vast moral empire
that I crave, is but secondary; it is to me only a means to
happiness, the pedestal for my idol.
“To reach the goal and die, like the runner of antiquity! To see
fortune and death stand on the threshold hand in hand! To win the
beloved woman just when love is extinct! To lose the faculty of
enjoyment after earning the right to be happy!--Of how many men
has this been the fate!
“But there surely is a moment when Tantalus rebels, crosses his
arms, and defies hell, throwing up his part of the eternal dupe.
That is what I shall come to if anything should thwart my plan;
if, after stooping to the dust of provincial life, prowling like a
starving tiger round these tradesmen, these electors, to secure
their votes; if, after wrangling in these squalid cases, and
giving them my time--the time I might have spent on Lago Maggiore,
seeing the waters she sees, basking in her gaze, hearing her voice
--if, after all, I failed to scale the tribune and conquer the
glory that should surround the name that is to succeed to that of
Argaiolo! Nay, more than this, Leopold; there are days when I feel
a heady languor; deep disgust surges up from the depths of my
soul, especially when, abandoned to long day-dreams, I have lost
myself in anticipation of the joys of blissful love! May it not be
that our desire has only a certain modicum of power, and that it
perishes, perhaps, of a too lavish effusion of its essence? For,
after all, at this present, my life is fair, illuminated by faith,
work, and love.
“Farewell, my friend; I send love to your children, and beg you to
remember me to your excellent wife.--Yours,
“ALBERT.”
Rosalie read this letter twice through, and its general purport was
stamped on her heart. She suddenly saw the whole of Albert’s previous
existence, for her quick intelligence threw light on all the details,
and enabled her to take it all in. By adding this information to the
little novel published in the _Review_, she now fully understood Albert.
Of course, she exaggerated the greatness, remarkable as it was, of this
lofty soul and potent will, and her love for Albert thenceforth became
a passion, its violence enhanced by all the strength of her youth, the
weariness of her solitude, and the unspent energy of her character. Love
is in a young girl the effect of a natural law; but when her craving
for affection is centered in an exceptional man, it is mingled with the
enthusiasm which overflows in a youthful heart. Thus Mademoiselle de
Watteville had in a few days reached a morbid and very dangerous
stage of enamored infatuation. The Baroness was much pleased with her
daughter, who, being under the spell of her absorbing thoughts, never
resisted her will, seemed to be devoted to feminine occupations, and
realized her mother’s ideal of a docile daughter.
The lawyer was now engaged in Court two or three times a week. Though he
was overwhelmed with business, he found time to attend the trials, call
on the litigious merchants, and conduct the _Review_; keeping up his
personal mystery, from the conviction that the more covert and hidden
was his influence, the more real it would be. But he neglected no means
of success, reading up the list of electors of Besancon, and finding
out their interests, their characters, their various friendships and
antipathies. Did ever a Cardinal hoping to be made Pope give himself
more trouble?
One evening Mariette, on coming to dress Rosalie for an evening party,
handed to her, not without many groans over this treachery, a letter of
which the address made Mademoiselle de Watteville shiver and redden and
turn pale again as she read the address:
To Madame la Duchesse d’Argaiolo
(nee Princesse Soderini)
At Belgirate,
Lago Maggiore, Italy.
In her eyes this direction blazed as the words _Mene_, _Tekel_,
_Upharsin_, did in the eyes of Belshazzar. After concealing the
letter, Rosalie went downstairs to accompany her mother to Madame
de Chavoncourt’s; and as long as the endless evening lasted, she was
tormented by remorse and scruples. She had already felt shame at having
violated the secrecy of Albert’s letter to Leopold; she had several
times asked herself whether, if he knew of her crime, infamous inasmuch
as it necessarily goes unpunished, the high-minded Albert could esteem
her. Her conscience answered an uncompromising “No.”
She had expiated her sin by self-imposed penances; she fasted, she
mortified herself by remaining on her knees, her arms outstretched for
hours, and repeating prayers all the time. She had compelled Mariette
to similar sets of repentance; her passion was mingled with genuine
asceticism, and was all the more dangerous.
“Shall I read that letter, shall I not?” she asked herself, while
listening to the Chavoncourt girls. One was sixteen, the other seventeen
and a half. Rosalie looked upon her two friends as mere children because
they were not secretly in love.--“If I read it,” she finally decided,
after hesitating for an hour between Yes and No, “it shall, at any rate,
be the last. Since I have gone so far as to see what he wrote to his
friend, why should I not know what he says to _her_? If it is a horrible
crime, is it not a proof of love? Oh, Albert! am I not your wife?”
When Rosalie was in bed she opened the letter, dated from day to day, so
as to give the Duchess a faithful picture of Albert’s life and feelings.
“25th.
“My dear Soul, all is well. To my other conquests I have just
added an invaluable one: I have done a service to one of the most
influential men who work the elections. Like the critics, who make
other men’s reputations but can never make their own, he makes
deputies though he never can become one. The worthy man wanted to
show his gratitude without loosening his purse-strings by saying
to me, ‘Would you care to sit in the Chamber? I can get you
returned as deputy.’
“‘If I ever make up my mind to enter on a political career,’
replied I hypocritically, ‘it would be to devote myself to the
Comte, which I love, and where I am appreciated.’