Vicar-General, understanding how great an affection Albert showed him
by this mark of confidence. “But there is pride on that brow; it is
implacable; she would never forgive an insult! It is the Archangel
Michael, the angel of Execution, the inexorable angel--‘All or nothing’
is the motto of this type of angel. There is something divinely pitiless
in that head.”
“You have guessed well,” cried Savarus. “But, my dear Abbe, for more
than twelve years now she had reigned over my life, and I have not a
thought for which to blame myself--”
“Ah! if you could only say the same of God!” said the priest with
simplicity. “Now, to talk of your affairs. For ten days I have been at
work for you. If you are a real politician, this time you will follow my
advice. You would not be where you are now if you would have gone to the
Wattevilles when I first told you. But you must go there to-morrow; I
will take you in the evening. The Rouxey estates are in danger; the case
must be defended within three days. The election will not be over in
three days. They will take good care not to appoint examiners the first
day. There will be several voting days, and you will be elected by
ballot--”
“How can that be?” asked Savarus.
“By winning the Rouxey lawsuit you will gain eighty Legitimist votes;
add them to the thirty I can command, and you have a hundred and ten.
Then, as twenty remain to you of the Boucher committee, you will have a
hundred and thirty in all.”
“Well,” said Albert, “we must get seventy-five more.”
“Yes,” said the priest, “since all the rest are Ministerial. But, my
son, you have two hundred votes, and the Prefecture no more than a
hundred and eighty.”
“I have two hundred votes?” said Albert, standing stupid with amazement,
after starting to his feet as if shot up by a spring.
“You have those of Monsieur de Chavoncourt,” said the Abbe.
“How?” said Albert.
“You will marry Mademoiselle Sidonie de Chavoncourt.”
“Never!”
“You will marry Mademoiselle Sidonie de Chavoncourt,” the priest
repeated coldly.
“But you see--she is inexorable,” said Albert, pointing to Francesca.
“You will marry Mademoiselle Sidonie de Chavoncourt,” said the Abbe
calmly for the third time.
This time Albert understood. The Vicar-General would not be implicated
in a scheme which at last smiled on the despairing politician. A word
more would have compromised the priest’s dignity and honor.
“To-morrow evening at the Hotel de Rupt you will meet Madame de
Chavoncourt and her second daughter. You can thank her beforehand for
what she is going to do for you, and tell her that your gratitude is
unbounded, that you are hers body and soul, that henceforth your future
is that of her family. You are quite disinterested, for you have so much
confidence in yourself that you regard the nomination as deputy as a
sufficient fortune.
“You will have a struggle with Madame de Chavoncourt; she will want you
to pledge your word. All your future life, my son, lies in that evening.
But, understand clearly, I have nothing to do with it. I am answerable
only for Legitimist voters; I have secured Madame de Watteville,
and that means all the aristocracy of Besancon. Amedee de Soulas and
Vauchelles, who will both vote for you, have won over the young men;
Madame de Watteville will get the old ones. As to my electors, they are
infallible.”
“And who on earth has gained over Madame de Chavoncourt?” asked Savarus.
“Ask me no questions,” replied the Abbe. “Monsieur de Chavoncourt, who
has three daughters to marry, is not capable of increasing his wealth.
Though Vauchelles marries the eldest without anything from her father,
because her old aunt is to settle something on her, what is to become
of the two others? Sidonie is sixteen, and your ambition is as good as
a gold mine. Some one has told Madame de Chavoncourt that she will do
better by getting her daughter married than by sending her husband to
waste his money in Paris. That some one manages Madame de Chavoncourt,
and Madame de Chavoncourt manages her husband.”
“That is enough, my dear Abbe. I understand. When once I am returned as
deputy, I have somebody’s fortune to make, and by making it large enough
I shall be released from my promise. In me you have a son, a man who
will owe his happiness to you. Great heavens! what have I done to
deserve so true a friend?”
“You won a triumph for the Chapter,” said the Vicar-General, smiling.
“Now, as to all this, be as secret as the tomb. We are nothing, we have
done nothing. If we were known to have meddled in election matters, we
should be eaten up alive by the Puritans of the Left--who do worse--and
blamed by some of our own party, who want everything. Madame de
Chavoncourt has no suspicion of my share in all this. I have confided
in no one but Madame de Watteville, whom we may trust as we trust
ourselves.”
“I will bring the Duchess to you to be blessed!” cried Savarus.
After seeing out the old priest, Albert went to bed in the swaddling
clothes of power.
* * * * *
Next evening, as may well be supposed, by nine o’clock Madame la Baronne
de Watteville’s rooms were crowded by the aristocracy of Besancon in
convocation extraordinary. They were discussing the exceptional step
of going to the poll, to oblige the daughter of the Rupts. It was known
that the former Master of Appeals, the secretary of one of the most
faithful ministers under the Elder Branch, was to be presented that
evening. Madame de Chavoncourt was there with her second daughter
Sidonie, exquisitely dressed, while her elder sister, secure of her
lover, had not indulged in any of the arts of the toilet. In country
towns these little things are remarked. The Abbe de Grancey’s fine and
clever head was to be seen moving from group to group, listening to
everything, seeming to be apart from it all, but uttering those incisive
phrases which sum up a question and direct the issue.
“If the Elder Branch were to return,” said he to an old statesman of
seventy, “what politicians would they find?”--“Berryer, alone on his
bench, does not know which way to turn; if he had sixty votes, he would
often scotch the wheels of the Government and upset Ministries!”--“The
Duc de Fitz-James is to be nominated at Toulouse.”--“You will enable
Monsieur de Watteville to win his lawsuit.”--“If you vote for Monsieur
Savarus, the Republicans will vote with you rather than with the
Moderates!” etc., etc.
At nine o’clock Albert had not arrived. Madame de Watteville was
disposed to regard such delay as an impertinence.
“My dear Baroness,” said Madame de Chavoncourt, “do not let such serious
issues turn on such a trifle. The varnish on his boots is not dry--or a
consultation, perhaps, detains Monsieur de Savarus.”
Rosalie shot a side glance at Madame de Chavoncourt.
“She is very lenient to Monsieur de Savarus,” she whispered to her
mother.
“You see,” said the Baroness with a smile, “there is a question of a
marriage between Sidonie and Monsieur de Savarus.”
Mademoiselle de Watteville hastily went to a window looking out over the
garden.
At ten o’clock Albert de Savarus had not yet appeared. The storm that
threatened now burst. Some of the gentlemen sat down to cards, finding
the thing intolerable. The Abbe de Grancey, who did not know what to
think, went to the window where Rosalie was hidden, and exclaimed aloud
in his amazement, “He must be dead!”
The Vicar-General stepped out into the garden, followed by Monsieur de
Watteville and his daughter, and they all three went up to the kiosk. In
Albert’s rooms all was dark; not a light was to be seen.
“Jerome!” cried Rosalie, seeing the servant in the yard below. The Abbe
looked at her with astonishment. “Where in the world is your master?”
she asked the man, who came to the foot of the wall.
“Gone--in a post-chaise, mademoiselle.”
“He is ruined!” exclaimed the Abbe de Grancey, “or he is happy!”
The joy of triumph was not so effectually concealed on Rosalie’s face
that the Vicar-General could not detect it. He affected to see nothing.
“What can this girl have had to do with this business?” he asked
himself.
They all three returned to the drawing-room, where Monsieur de
Watteville announced the strange, the extraordinary, the prodigious news
of the lawyer’s departure, without any reason assigned for his evasion.
By half-past eleven only fifteen persons remained, among them Madame de
Chavoncourt and the Abbe de Godenars, another Vicar-General, a man of
about forty, who hoped for a bishopric, the two Chavoncourt girls, and
Monsieur de Vauchelles, the Abbe de Grancey, Rosalie, Amedee de Soulas,
and a retired magistrate, one of the most influential members of the
upper circle of Besancon, who had been very eager for Albert’s election.
The Abbe de Grancey sat down by the Baroness in such a position as to
watch Rosalie, whose face, usually pale, wore a feverish flush.
“What can have happened to Monsieur de Savarus?” said Madame de
Chavoncourt.
At this moment a servant in livery brought in a letter for the Abbe de
Grancey on a silver tray.
“Pray read it,” said the Baroness.
The Vicar-General read the letter; he saw Rosalie suddenly turn as white
as her kerchief.
“She recognizes the writing,” said he to himself, after glancing at the
girl over his spectacles. He folded up the letter, and calmly put it in
his pocket without a word. In three minutes he had met three looks from
Rosalie which were enough to make him guess everything.
“She is in love with Albert Savarus!” thought the Vicar-General.
He rose and took leave. He was going towards the door when, in the next
room, he was overtaken by Rosalie, who said:
“Monsieur de Grancey, it was from Albert!”
“How do you know that it was his writing, to recognize it from so far?”
The girl’s reply, caught as she was in the toils of her impatience and
rage, seemed to the Abbe sublime.
“I love him!--What is the matter?” she said after a pause.
“He gives up the election.”
Rosalie put her finger to her lip.
“I ask you to be as secret as if it were a confession,” said she before
returning to the drawing-room. “If there is an end of the election,
there is an end of the marriage with Sidonie.”
* * * * *
In the morning, on her way to Mass, Mademoiselle de Watteville heard
from Mariette some of the circumstances which had prompted Albert’s
disappearance at the most critical moment of his life.
“Mademoiselle, an old gentleman from Paris arrived yesterday morning at
the Hotel National; he came in his own carriage with four horses, and
a courier in front, and a servant. Indeed, Jerome, who saw the carriage
returning, declares he could only be a prince or a _milord_.”
“Was there a coronet on the carriage?” asked Rosalie.
“I do not know,” said Mariette. “Just as two was striking he came to
call on Monsieur Savarus, and sent in his card; and when he saw it,
Jerome says Monsieur turned as pale as a sheet, and said he was to be
shown in. As he himself locked the door, it is impossible to tell what
the old gentleman and the lawyer said to each other; but they were
together above an hour, and then the old gentleman, with the lawyer,
called up his servant. Jerome saw the servant go out again with an
immense package, four feet long, which looked like a great painting
on canvas. The old gentleman had in his hand a large parcel of papers.
Monsieur Savaron was paler than death, and he, so proud, so dignified,
was in a state to be pitied. But he treated the old gentleman so
respectfully that he could not have been politer to the King himself.
Jerome and Monsieur Albert Savaron escorted the gentleman to his
carriage, which was standing with the horses in. The courier started on
the stroke of three.
“Monsieur Savaron went straight to the Prefecture, and from that to
Monsieur Gentillet, who sold him the old traveling carriage that used
to belong to Madame de Saint-Vier before she died; then he ordered post
horses for six o’clock. He went home to pack; no doubt he wrote a lot of
letters; finally, he settled everything with Monsieur Girardet, who went
to him and stayed till seven. Jerome carried a note to Monsieur Boucher,
with whom his master was to have dined; and then, at half-past seven,
the lawyer set out, leaving Jerome with three months’ wages, and telling
him to find another place.
“He left his keys with Monsieur Girardet, whom he took home, and at
his house, Jerome says, he took a plate of soup, for at half-past seven
Monsieur Girardet had not yet dined. When Monsieur Savaron got into the
carriage he looked like death. Jerome, who, of course, saw his master
off, heard him tell the postilion ‘The Geneva Road!’”
“Did Jerome ask the name of the stranger at the Hotel National?”
“As the old gentleman did not mean to stay, he was not asked for it. The
servant, by his orders no doubt, pretended not to speak French.”
“And the letter which came so late to Abbe de Grancey?” said Rosalie.
“It was Monsieur Girardet, no doubt, who ought to have delivered it; but
Jerome says that poor Monsieur Girardet, who was much attached to lawyer
Savaron, was as much upset as he was. So he who came so mysteriously, as
Mademoiselle Galard says, is gone away just as mysteriously.”
After hearing this narrative, Mademoiselle de Watteville fell into a
brooding and absent mood, which everybody could see. It is useless
to say anything of the commotion that arose in Besancon on the
disappearance of Monsieur Savaron. It was understood that the Prefect
had obliged him with the greatest readiness by giving him at once a
passport across the frontier, for he was thus quit of his only opponent.
Next day Monsieur de Chavoncourt was carried to the top by a majority of
a hundred and forty votes.
“Jack is gone by the way he came,” said an elector on hearing of Albert
Savaron’s flight.
This event lent weight to the prevailing prejudice at Besancon against
strangers; indeed, two years previously they had received confirmation
from the affair of the Republican newspaper. Ten days later Albert de
Savarus was never spoken of again. Only three persons--Girardet the
attorney, the Vicar-General, and Rosalie--were seriously affected by his
disappearance. Girardet knew that the white-haired stranger was Prince
Soderini, for he had seen his card, and he told the Vicar-General; but
Rosalie, better informed than either of them, had known for three months
past that the Duc d’Argaiolo was dead.
In the month of April 1836 no one had had any news from or of Albert
de Savarus. Jerome and Mariette were to be married, but the Baroness
confidentially desired her maid to wait till her daughter was married,
saying that the two weddings might take place at the same time.
“It is time that Rosalie should be married,” said the Baroness one
day to Monsieur de Watteville. “She is nineteen, and she is fearfully
altered in these last months.”
“I do not know what ails her,” said the Baron.
“When fathers do not know what ails their daughters, mothers can guess,”
said the Baroness; “we must get her married.”
“I am quite willing,” said the Baron. “I shall give her les Rouxey now
that the Court has settled our quarrel with the authorities of Riceys by
fixing the boundary line at three hundred feet up the side of the Dent
de Vilard. I am having a trench made to collect all the water and carry
it into the lake. The village did not appeal, so the decision is final.”
“It has never occurred to you,” said Madame de Watteville, “that this
decision cost me thirty thousand francs handed over to Chantonnit. That
peasant would take nothing else; he sold us peace.--If you give away les
Rouxey, you will have nothing left,” said the Baroness.
“I do not need much,” said the Baron; “I am breaking up.”
“You eat like an ogre!”
“Just so. But however much I may eat, I feel my legs get weaker and
weaker--”
“It is from working the lathe,” said his wife.
“I do not know,” said he.
“We will marry Rosalie to Monsieur de Soulas; if you give her les
Rouxey, keep the life interest. I will give them fifteen thousand francs
a year in the funds. Our children can live here; I do not see that they
are much to be pitied.”
“No. I shall give them les Rouxey out and out. Rosalie is fond of les
Rouxey.”
“You are a queer man with your daughter! It does not occur to you to ask
me if I am fond of les Rouxey.”
Rosalie, at once sent for, was informed that she was to marry Monsieur
de Soulas one day early in the month of May.
“I am very much obliged to you, mother, and to you too, father, for
having thought of settling me; but I do not mean to marry; I am very
happy with you.”
“Mere speeches!” said the Baroness. “You are not in love with Monsieur
de Soulas, that is all.”
“If you insist on the plain truth, I will never marry Monsieur de
Soulas--”
“Oh! the _never_ of a girl of nineteen!” retorted her mother, with a
bitter smile.
“The _never_ of Mademoiselle de Watteville,” said Rosalie with firm
decision. “My father, I imagine, has no intention of making me marry
against my wishes?”
“No, indeed no!” said the poor Baron, looking affectionately at his
daughter.
“Very well!” said the Baroness, sternly controlling the rage of a bigot
startled at finding herself unexpectedly defied, “you yourself, Monsieur
de Watteville, may take the responsibility of settling your daughter.
Consider well, mademoiselle, for if you do not marry to my mind you will
get nothing out of me!”
The quarrel thus begun between Madame de Watteville and her husband, who
took his daughter’s part, went so far that Rosalie and her father were
obliged to spend the summer at les Rouxey; life at the Hotel de Rupt
was unendurable. It thus became known in Besancon that Mademoiselle de
Watteville had positively refused the Comte de Soulas.
After their marriage Mariette and Jerome came to les Rouxey to succeed
to Modinier in due time. The Baron restored and repaired the house to
suit his daughter’s taste. When she heard that these improvements had
cost about sixty thousand francs, and that Rosalie and her father were
building a conservatory, the Baroness understood that there was a leaven
of spite in her daughter. The Baron purchased various outlying plots,
and a little estate worth thirty thousand francs. Madame de Watteville
was told that, away from her, Rosalie showed masterly qualities, that
she was taking steps to improve the value of les Rouxey, that she had
treated herself to a riding habit and rode about; her father, whom she
made very happy, who no longer complained of his health, and who was
growing fat, accompanied her in her expeditions. As the Baroness’
name-day grew near--her name was Louise--the Vicar-General came one day
to les Rouxey, deputed, no doubt, by Madame de Watteville and Monsieur
de Soulas, to negotiate a peace between mother and daughter.
“That little Rosalie has a head on her shoulders,” said the folk of
Besancon.
After handsomely paying up the ninety thousand francs spent on les
Rouxey, the Baroness allowed her husband a thousand francs a month to
live on; she would not put herself in the wrong. The father and daughter
were perfectly willing to return to Besancon for the 15th of August, and
to remain there till the end of the month.
When, after dinner, the Vicar-General took Mademoiselle de Watteville
apart, to open the question of the marriage, by explaining to her that
it was vain to think any more of Albert, of whom they had had no news
for a year past, he was stopped at once by a sign from Rosalie. The
strange girl took Monsieur de Grancey by the arm, and led him to a seat
under a clump of rhododendrons, whence there was a view of the lake.
“Listen, dear Abbe,” said she. “You whom I love as much as my father,
for you had an affection for my Albert, I must at last confess that I
committed crimes to become his wife, and he must be my husband.--Here;
read this.”
She held out to him a number of the _Gazette_ which she had in her apron
pocket, pointing out the following paragraph under the date of Florence,
May 25th:--
“The wedding of Monsieur le Duc de Rhetore, eldest son of the Duc
de Chaulieu, the former Ambassador, to Madame la Duchesse
d’Argaiolo, _nee_ Princess Soderini, was solemnized with great
splendor. Numerous entertainments given in honor of the marriage
are making Florence gay. The Duchess’ fortune is one of the finest
in Italy, for the late Duke left her everything.”
“The woman he loved is married,” said she. “I divided them.”
“You? How?” asked the Abbe.
Rosalie was about to reply, when she was interrupted by a loud cry from
two of the gardeners, following on the sound of a body falling into the
water; she started, and ran off screaming, “Oh! father!”--The Baron had
disappeared.
In trying to reach a piece of granite on which he fancied he saw the
impression of a shell, a circumstance which would have contradicted some
system of geology, Monsieur de Watteville had gone down the slope, lost
his balance, and slipped into the lake, which, of course, was deepest
close under the roadway. The men had the greatest difficulty in enabling
the Baron to catch hold of a pole pushed down at the place where the
water was bubbling, but at last they pulled him out, covered with mud,
in which he had sunk; he was getting deeper and deeper in, by dint of
struggling. Monsieur de Watteville had dined heavily, digestion was in
progress, and was thus checked.
When he had been undressed, washed, and put to bed, he was in such
evident danger that two servants at once set out on horseback: one to
ride to Besancon, and the other to fetch the nearest doctor and surgeon.
When Madame de Watteville arrived, eight hours later, with the first
medical aid from Besancon, they found Monsieur de Watteville past all
hope, in spite of the intelligent treatment of the Rouxey doctor. The
fright had produced serious effusion on the brain, and the shock to the
digestion was helping to kill the poor man.
This death, which would never have happened, said Madame de Watteville,
if her husband had stayed at Besancon, was ascribed by her to her
daughter’s obstinacy. She took an aversion for Rosalie, abandoning
herself to grief and regrets that were evidently exaggerated. She spoke
of the Baron as “her dear lamb!”
The last of the Wattevilles was buried on an island in the lake at les
Rouxey, where the Baroness had a little Gothic monument erected of white
marble, like that called the tomb of Heloise at Pere-Lachaise.
A month after this catastrophe the mother and daughter had settled
in the Hotel de Rupt, where they lived in savage silence. Rosalie was
suffering from real sorrow, which had no visible outlet; she accused
herself of her father’s death, and she feared another disaster, much
greater in her eyes, and very certainly her own work; neither Girardet
the attorney nor the Abbe de Grancey could obtain any information
concerning Albert. This silence was appalling. In a paroxysm of
repentance she felt that she must confess to the Vicar-General the
horrible machinations by which she had separated Francesca and Albert.
They had been simple, but formidable. Mademoiselle de Watteville had
intercepted Albert’s letters to the Duchess as well as that in which
Francesca announced her husband’s illness, warning her lover that she
could write to him no more during the time while she was devoted, as was
her duty, to the care of the dying man. Thus, while Albert was wholly
occupied with election matters, the Duchess had written him only two
letters; one in which she told him that the Duc d’Argaiolo was in
danger, and one announcing her widowhood--two noble and beautiful
letters which Rosalie kept back.