The Collection of Antiquities.............................................................................................................................1

Honore de Balzac .....................................................................................................................................1

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

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

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

sansculottes 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

halfsister, 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 attachedthe 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 Chesnelfor he was now a notaryhad 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

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

"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

He waved his hand toward the castle, mounted his horse, and rode back beside his sister, who had driven over

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

oldfashioned building in the square, with its gables, weathervane, 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

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 twoand 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 Marquishe was but fiftythree, but

adversity and sharp distress had added months to every yearthe 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.

"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

These things came to pass in the second year of the nineteenth century. Mlle. d'Esgrignon was then

twentyseven years of age. She was a beautiful woman. An excontractor 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

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

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 foragecontractor. 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,

allabsorbing 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 SaintGermain 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

In 1805, M. de la RocheGuyon, 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

"You must have guessed before now that I am a mother, dear Chesnel," she said; she had just put her nephew,

The old Marquis rose and went up to his sister, but just returned from the cradle; he kissed her hand

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.

"For you there could be no fairer title," returned Chesnel, meaning to convey a compliment. Poor Mlle.

"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 today. 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 memorypictures of her owe something of their

"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

"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 fingernails, 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,

Every princess and fairy of my visions, as I read the Arabian Nights, looked and walked like Mlle.

d'Esgrignon; and afterwards, when my drawingmaster 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 brownrobed 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

manorhouse 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

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

Twothirds 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 RocheGuyons, 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 allimportant 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 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 fairmindedness 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 SaintGermain 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 (cidevant des Grignons)," maliciously adopting the obsolete way of

"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 respectmy love, I ought to

sayfor 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 drawingroom 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 airholes, once the prison

cells of the old courthouse, now converted into a kitchen. I do not know that the magnificent lofty

chimneypiece 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 crossbeams in the fine old roof were decorated with scrollwork 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, clockcases, andirons, candlesconces and tapestrycovered chairs, which marvelously completed a

stately room, large out of all proportion to the house. Luckily, however, there was an equally lofty

antechamber, the ancient Salle des Pas Perdus of the presidial, which communicated likewise with the

"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 beribboned 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 0those 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,

"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 windowpanes, 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

"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

waxenhued faces, their devastated foreheads and pale eyes, revealed their kinship to the women, and

"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

"Whenever, in after times, I have gone through museums of old furniture in Paris, London, Munich, or

Vienna, with the grayheaded 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 quitrents 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

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 illadvised 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 sixtyseven. 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 thisto be represented by old men at a time when its ideas are

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 highminded d'Esgrignon was fain to be content with the triumph of the Monarchy and Religion,

while he waited for the results of that unhopedfor, indecisive victory, which proved to be simply an

armistice. He continued as before, lordparamount of his salon, so felicitously named the Collection of

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

The most national of all sentiments in France is vanity. The wounded vanity of the many induced a thirst for

Equality; though, as the most ardent innovator will some day discover, Equality is an impossibility. The

Royalists pricked the Liberals in the most sensitive spots, and this happened specially in the provinces, where

either party accused the other of unspeakable atrocities. In those days the blackest deeds were done in

politics, to secure public opinion on one side or the other, to catch the votes of that public of fools which

holds up hands for those that are clever enough to serve out weapons to them. Individuals are identified with

their political opinions, and opponents in public life forthwith became private enemies. It is very difficult in a

country town to avoid a mantoman conflict of this kind over interests or questions which in Paris appear in

a more general and theoretical form, with the result that political combatants also rise to a higher level; M.

Laffitte, for example, or M. CasimirPerier can respect M. de Villele or M. de Payronnet as a man. M.

Laffitte, who drew the fire on the Ministry, would have given them an asylum in his house if they had fled

thither on the 29th of July 1830. Benjamin Constant sent a copy of his work on Religion to the Vicomte de

Chateaubriand, with a flattering letter acknowledging benefits received from the former Minister. At Paris

men are systems, whereas in the provinces systems are identified with men; men, moreover, with restless

passions, who must always confront one another, always spy upon each other in private life, and pull their

opponents' speeches to pieces, and live generally like two duelists on the watch for a chance to thrust six

inches of steel between an antagonist's ribs. Each must do his best to get under his enemy's guard, and a

political hatred becomes as allabsorbing as a duel to the death. Epigram and slander are used against

In such warfare as this, waged ceremoniously and without rancor on the side of the Antiquities, while du

Croisier's faction went so far as to use the poisoned weapons of savagesin this warfare the advantages of

wit and delicate irony lay on the side of the nobles. But it should never be forgotten that the wounds made by

the tongue and the eyes, by gibe or slight, are the last of all to heal. When the Chevalier turned his back on

mixed society and entrenched himself on the Mons Sacer of the aristocracy, his witticisms thenceforward

were directed at du Croisier's salon; he stirred up the fires of war, not knowing how far the spirit of revenge

was to urge the rival faction. None but purists and loyal gentlemen and women sure one of another entered

the Hotel d'Esgrignon; they committed no indiscretions of any kind; they had their ideas, true or false, good

or bad, noble or trivial, but there was nothing to laugh at in all this. If the Liberals meant to make the nobles

ridiculous, they were obliged to fasten on the political actions of their opponents; while the intermediate

party, composed of officials and others who paid court to the higher powers, kept the nobles informed of all

that was done and said in the Liberal camp, and much of it was abundantly laughable. Du Croisier's adherents

In 1822, du Croisier put himself at the head of the manufacturing interest of the province, as the Marquis

d'Esgrignon headed the noblesse. Each represented his party. But du Croisier, instead of giving himself out

frankly for a man of the extreme Left, ostensibly adopted the opinions formulated at a later date by the 221

By taking up this position, he could keep in touch with the magistrates and local officials and the capitalists

of the department. Du Croisier's salon, a power at least equal to the salon d'Esgrignon, larger numerically, as

well as younger and more energetic, made itself felt all over the countryside; the Collection of Antiquities, on

the other hand, remained inert, a passive appendage, as it were, of a central authority which was often

embarrassed by its own partisans; for not merely did they encourage the Government in a mistaken policy,

but some of its most fatal blunders were made in consequence of the pressure brought to bear upon it by the

The Liberals, so far, had never contrived to carry their candidate. The department declined to obey their

command knowing that du Croisier, if elected, would take his place on the Left Centre benches, and as far as

possible to the Left. Du Croisier was in correspondence with the Brothers Keller, the bankers, the oldest of

whom shone conspicuous among "the nineteen deputies of the Left," that phalanx made famous by the efforts

of the entire Liberal press. This same M. Keller, moreover, was related by marriage to the Comte de

Gondreville, a Constitutional peer who remained in favor with Louis XVIII. For these reasons, the

Constitutional Opposition (as distinct from the Liberal party) was always prepared to vote at the last moment,

not for the candidate whom they professed to support, but for du Croisier, if that worthy could succeed in

gaining a sufficient number of Royalist votes; but at every election du Croisier was regularly thrown out by

the Royalists. The leaders of that party, taking their tone from the Marquis d'Esgrignon, had pretty thoroughly

fathomed and gauged their man; and with each defeat, du Croisier and his party waxed more bitter. Nothing

so effectually stirs up strife as the failure of some snare set with elaborate pains.

In 1822 there seemed to be a lull in hostilities which had been kept up with great spirit during the first four

years of the Restoration. The salon du Croisier and the salon d'Esgrignon, having measured their strength and

weakness, were in all probability waiting for opportunity, that Providence of party strife. Ordinary persons

were content with the surface quiet which deceived the Government; but those who knew du Croisier better,

were well aware that the passion of revenge in him, as in all men whose whole life consists in mental activity,

is implacable, especially when political ambitions are involved. About this time du Croisier, who used to turn

white and red at the bare mention of d'Esgrignon or the Chevalier, and shuddered at the name of the

Collection of Antiquities, chose to wear the impassive countenance of a savage. He smiled upon his enemies,

hating them but the more deeply, watching them the more narrowly from hour to hour. One of his own party,

who seconded him in these calculations of cold wrath, was the President of the Tribunal, M. du Ronceret, a

little country squire, who had vainly endeavored to gain admittance among the Antiquities.

The d'Esgrignons' little fortune, carefully administered by Maitre Chesnel, was barely sufficient for the

worthy Marquis' needs; for though he lived without the slightest ostentation, he also lived like a noble. The

governor found by his Lordship the Bishop for the hope of the house, the young Comte Victurnien

d'Esgrignon, was an elderly Oratorian who must be paid a certain salary, although he lived with the family.

The wages of a cook, a waitingwoman for Mlle. Armande, an old valet for M. le Marquis, and a couple of

other servants, together with the daily expenses of the household, and the cost of an education for which

nothing was spared, absorbed the whole family income, in spite of Mlle. Armande's economies, in spite of

Chesnel's careful management, and the servants' affection. As yet, Chesnel had not been able to set about

repairs at the ruined castle; he was waiting till the leases fell in to raise the rent of the farms, for rents had

been rising lately, partly on account of improved methods of agriculture, partly by the fall in the value of

money, of which the landlord would get the benefit at the expiration of leases granted in 1809.

The Marquis himself knew nothing of the details of the management of the house or of his property. He

would have been thunderstruck if he had been told of the excessive precautions needed "to make both ends of

the year meet in December," to use the housewife's saying, and he was so near the end of his life, that every

one shrank from opening his eyes. The Marquis and his adherents believed that a House, to which no one at

Court or in the Government gave a thought, a House that was never heard of beyond the gates of the town,

save here and there in the same department, was about to revive its ancient greatness, to shine forth in all its

glory. The d'Esgrignons' line should appear with renewed lustre in the person of Victurnien, just as the

despoiled nobles came into their own again, and the handsome heir to a great estate would be in a position to

go to Court, enter the King's service, and marry (as other d'Esgrignons had done before him) a Navarreins, a

Cadignan, a d'Uxelles, a Beausant, a BlamontChauvry; a wife, in short, who should unite all the distinctions

The intimates who came to play their game of cards of an eveningthe Troisvilles (pronounced Treville),

the La RocheGuyons, the Casterans (pronounced Cateran), and the Duc de Verneuilhad all so long been

accustomed to look up to the Marquis as a person of immense consequence, that they encouraged him in such

notions as these. They were perfectly sincere in their belief; and indeed, it would have been well founded if

they could have wiped out the history of the last forty years. But the most honorable and undoubted sanctions

of right, such as Louis XVIII. had tried to set on record when he dated the Charter from the

oneandtwentieth year of his reign, only exist when ratified by the general consent. The d'Esgrignons not

only lacked the very rudiments of the language of latterday politics, to wit, money, the great modern

RELIEF, or sufficient rehabilitation of nobility; but, in their case, too, "historical continuity" was lacking, and

that is a kind of renown which tells quite as much at Court as on the battlefield, in diplomatic circles as in

Parliament, with a book, or in connection with an adventure; it is, as it were, a sacred ampulla poured upon

the heads of each successive generation. Whereas a noble family, inactive and forgotten, is very much in the

position of a hardfeatured, povertystricken, simpleminded, and virtuous maid, these qualifications being

the four cardinal points of misfortune. The marriage of a daughter of the Troisvilles with General

Montcornet, so far from opening the eyes of the Antiquities, very nearly brought about a rupture between the

Troisvilles and the salon d'Esgrignon, the latter declaring that the Troisvilles were mixing themselves up with

There was one, and one only, among all these folk who did not share their illusions. And that one, needless to

say, was Chesnel the notary. Although his devotion, sufficiently proved already, was simply unbounded for

the great house now reduced to three persons; although he accepted all their ideas, and thought them nothing

less than right, he had too much common sense, he was too good a man of business to more than half the

families in the department, to miss the significance of the great changes that were taking place in people's

minds, or to be blind to the different conditions brought about by industrial development and modern

manners. He had watched the Revolution pass through the violent phase of 1793, when men, women, and

children wore arms, and heads fell on the scaffold, and victories were won in pitched battles with Europe; and

now he saw the same forces quietly at work in men's minds, in the shape of ideas which sanctioned the issues.

The soil had been cleared, the seed sown, and now came the harvest. To his thinking, the Revolution had

formed the mind of the younger generation; he touched the hard facts, and knew that although there were

countless unhealed wounds, what had been done was past recall. The death of a king on the scaffold, the

protracted agony of a queen, the division of the nobles' lands, in his eyes were so many binding contracts; and

where so many vested interests were involved, it was not likely that those concerned would allow them to be

attacked. Chesnel saw clearly. His fanatical attachment to the d'Esgrignons was wholehearted, but it was not

blind, and it was all the fairer for this. The young monk's faith that sees heaven laid open and beholds the

angels, is something far below the power of the old monk who points them out to him. The exsteward was

He tried to explain the "innovations" to his old master, using a thousand tactful precautions; sometimes

speaking jestingly, sometimes affecting surprise or sorrow over this or that; but he always met the same

prophetic smile on the Marquis' lips, the same fixed conviction in the Marquis' mind, that these follies would

go by like others. Events contributed in a way which has escaped attention to assist such noble champions of

forlorn hope to cling to their superstitions. What could Chesnel do when the old Marquis said, with a lordly

gesture, "God swept away Bonaparte with his armies, his new great vassals, his crowned kings, and his vast

conceptions! God will deliver us from the rest." And Chesnel hung his head sadly, and did not dare to answer,

"It cannot be God's will to sweep away France." Yet both of them were grand figures; the one, standing out

against the torrent of facts like an ancient block of lichencovered granite, still upright in the depths of an

Alpine gorge; the other, watching the course of the flood to turn it to account. Then the good grayheaded

notary would groan over the irreparable havoc which the superstitions were sure to work in the mind, the

Idolized by his father, idolized by his aunt, the young heir was a spoilt child in every sense of the word; but

still a spoilt child who justified paternal and maternal illusions. Maternal, be it said, for Victurnien's aunt was

truly a mother to him; and yet, however careful and tender she may be that never bore a child, there is

something lacking in her motherhood. A mother's second sight cannot be acquired. An aunt, bound to her

nursling by ties of such pure affection as united Mlle. Armande to Victurnien, may love as much as a mother

might; may be as careful, as kind, as tender, as indulgent, but she lacks the mother's instinctive knowledge

when and how to be severe; she has no sudden warnings, none of the uneasy presentiments of the mother's

heart; for a mother, bound to her child from the beginnings of life by all the fibres of her being, still is

conscious of the communication, still vibrates with the shock of every trouble, and thrills with every joy in

the child's life as if it were her own. If Nature has made of woman, physically speaking, a neutral ground, it

has not been forbidden to her, under certain conditions, to identify herself completely with her offspring.

When she has not merely given life, but given of her whole life, you behold that wonderful, unexplained, and

inexplicable thingthe love of a woman for one of her children above the others. The outcome of this story

is one more proof of a proven trutha mother's place cannot be filled. A mother foresees danger long before

a Mlle. Armande can admit the possibility of it, even if the mischief is done. The one prevents the evil, the

other remedies it. And besides, in the maiden's motherhood there is an element of blind adoration, she cannot

A practical knowledge of life, and the experience of business, had taught the old notary a habit of distrustful

clearsighted observation something akin to the mother's instinct. But Chesnel counted for so little in the

house (especially since he had fallen into something like disgrace over that unlucky project of a marriage

between a d'Esgrignon and a du Croisier), that he had made up his mind to adhere blindly in future to the

family doctrines. He was a common soldier, faithful to his post, and ready to give his life; it was never likely

that they would take his advice, even in the height of the storm; unless chance should bring him, like the

King's bedesman in The Antiquary, to the edge of the sea, when the old baronet and his daughter were caught

Du Croisier caught a glimpse of his revenge in the anomalous education given to the lad. He hoped, to quote

the expressive words of the author quoted above, "to drown the lamb in its mother's milk." THIS was the

hope which had produced his taciturn resignation and brought that savage smile on his lips.

The young Comte Victurnien was taught to believe in his own supremacy as soon as an idea could enter his

head. All the great nobles of the realm were his peers, his one superior was the King, and the rest of mankind

were his inferiors, people with whom he had nothing in common, towards whom he had no duties. They were

defeated and conquered enemies, whom he need not take into account for a moment; their opinions could not

affect a noble, and they all owed him respect. Unluckily, with the rigorous logic of youth, which leads

children and young people to proceed to extremes whether good or bad, Victurnien pushed these conclusions

to their utmost consequences. His own external advantages, moreover, confirmed him in his beliefs. He had

been extraordinarily beautiful as a child; he became as accomplished a young man as any father could wish.

He was of average height, but well proportioned, slender, and almost delicatelooking, but muscular. He had

the brilliant blue eyes of the d'Esgrignons, the finelymoulded aquiline nose, the perfect oval of the face, the

auburn hair, the white skin, and the graceful gait of his family; he had their delicate extremities, their long

taper fingers with the inward curve, and that peculiar distinction of shapeliness of the wrist and instep, that

supple felicity of line, which is as sure a sign of race in men as in horses. Adroit and alert in all bodily

exercises, and an excellent shot, he handled arms like a St. George, he was a paladin on horseback. In short,

he gratified the pride which parents take in their children's appearance; a pride founded, for that matter, on a

just idea of the enormous influence exercised by physical beauty. Personal beauty has this in common with

noble birth; it cannot be acquired afterwards; it is everywhere recognized, and often is more valued than

either brains or money; beauty has only to appear and triumph; nobody asks more of beauty than that it

Fate had endowed Victurnien, over and above the privileges of good looks and noble birth, with a high spirit,

a wonderful aptitude of comprehension, and a good memory. His education, therefore, had been complete. He

knew a good deal more than is usually known by young provincial nobles, who develop into

highlydistinguished sportsmen, owners of land, and consumers of tobacco; and are apt to treat art, sciences,

letters, poetry, or anything offensively above their intellects, cavalierly enough. Such gifts of nature and

education surely would one day realize the Marquis d'Esgrignon's ambitions; he already saw his son a

Marshal of France if Victurnien's tastes were for the army; an ambassador if diplomacy held any attractions

for him; a cabinet minister if that career seemed good in his eyes; every place in the state belonged to

Victurnien. And, most gratifying thought of all for a father, the young Count would have made his way in the

All through his happy childhood and golden youth, Victurnien had never met with opposition to his wishes.

He had been the king of the house; no one curbed the little prince's will; and naturally he grew up insolent

and audacious, selfish as a prince, selfwilled as the most highspirited cardinal of the Middle

Ages,defects of character which any one might guess from his qualities, essentially those of the noble.

The Chevalier was a man of the good old times when the Gray Musketeers were the terror of the Paris

theatres, when they horsewhipped the watch and drubbed servers of writs, and played a host of page's pranks,

at which Majesty was wont to smile so long as they were amusing. This charming deceiver and hero of the

ruelles had no small share in bringing about the disasters which afterwards befell. The amiable old

gentleman, with nobody to understand him, was not a little pleased to find a budding Faublas, who looked the

part to admiration, and put him in mind of his own young days. So, making no allowance for the difference of

the times, he sowed the maxims of a roue of the Encyclopaedic period broadcast in the boy's mind. He told

wicked anecdotes of the reign of His Majesty Louis XV.; he glorified the manners and customs of the year

1750; he told of the orgies in petites maisons, the follies of courtesans, the capital tricks played on creditors,

the manners, in short, which furnished forth Dancourt's comedies and Beaumarchais' epigrams. And

unfortunately, the corruption lurking beneath the utmost polish tricked itself out in Voltairean wit. If the

Chevalier went rather too far at times, he always added as a corrective that a man must always behave

Of all this discourse, Victurnien comprehended just so much as flattered his passions. From the first he saw

his old father laughing with the Chevalier. The two elderly men considered that the pride of a d'Esgrignon

was a sufficient safeguard against anything unbefitting; as for a dishonorable action, no one in the house

imagined that a d'Esgrignon could be guilty of it. HONOR, the great principle of Monarchy, was planted firm

like a beacon in the hearts of the family; it lighted up the least action, it kindled the least thought of a

d'Esgrignon. "A d'Esgrignon ought not to permit himself to do such and such a thing; he bears a name which

pledges him to make a future worthy of the past"a noble teaching which should have been sufficient in

itself to keep alive the tradition of noblessehad been, as it were, the burden of Victurnien's cradle song. He

heard them from the old Marquis, from Mlle. Armande, from Chesnel, from the intimates of the house. And

so it came to pass that good and evil met, and in equal forces, in the boy's soul.

At the age of eighteen, Victurnien went into society. He noticed some slight discrepancies between the outer

world of the town and the inner world of the Hotel d'Esgrignon, but he in no wise tried to seek the causes of

them. And, indeed, the causes were to be found in Paris. He had yet to learn that the men who spoke their

minds out so boldly in evening talk with his father, were extremely careful of what they said in the presence

of the hostile persons with whom their interests compelled them to mingle. His own father had won the right

of freedom of speech. Nobody dreamed of contradicting an old man of seventy, and besides, every one was

willing to overlook fidelity to the old order of things in a man who had been violently despoiled.

Victurnien was deceived by appearances, and his behavior set up the backs of the townspeople. In his

impetuous way he tried to carry matters with too high a hand over some difficulties in the way of sport, which

ended in formidable lawsuits, hushed up by Chesnel for money paid down. Nobody dared to tell the Marquis

of these things. You may judge of his astonishment if he had heard that his son had been prosecuted for

shooting over his lands, his domains, his covers, under the reign of a son of St. Louis! People were too much

afraid of the possible consequences to tell him about such trifles, Chesnel said.

The young Count indulged in other escapades in the town. These the Chevalier regarded as "amourettes," but

they cost Chesnel something considerable in portions for forsaken damsels seduced under imprudent

promises of marriage: yet other cases there were which came under an article of the Code as to the abduction

of minors; and but for Chesnel's timely intervention, the new law would have been allowed to take its brutal

course, and it is hard to say where the Count might have ended. Victurnien grew the bolder for these victories

over bourgeois justice. He was so accustomed to be pulled out of scrapes, that he never thought twice before

any prank. Courts of law, in his opinion, were bugbears to frighten people who had no hold on him. Things

which he would have blamed in common people were for him only pardonable amusements. His disposition

to treat the new laws cavalierly while obeying the maxims of a Code for aristocrats, his behavior and

character, were all pondered, analyzed, and tested by a few adroit persons in du Croisier's interests. These

folk supported each other in the effort to make the people believe that Liberal slanders were revelations, and

that the Ministerial policy at bottom meant a return to the old order of things.

What a bit of luck to find something by way of proof of their assertions! President du Ronceret, and the

public prosecutor likewise, lent themselves admirably, so far as was compatible with their duty as

magistrates, to the design of letting off the offender as easily as possible; indeed, they went deliberately out

of their way to do this, well pleased to raise a Liberal clamor against their overlarge concessions. And so,

while seeming to serve the interests of the d'Esgrignons, they stirred up feeling against them. The treacherous

de Ronceret had it in his mind to pose as incorruptible at the right moment over some serious charge, with

public opinion to back him up. The young Count's worst tendencies, moreover, were insidiously encouraged

by two or three young men who followed in his train, paid court to him, won his favor, and flattered and

obeyed him, with a view to confirming his belief in a noble's supremacy; and all this at a time when a noble's

one chance of preserving his power lay in using it with the utmost discretion for half a century to come.

Du Croisier hoped to reduce the d'Esgrignons to the last extremity of poverty; he hoped to see their castle

demolished, and their lands sold piecemeal by auction, through the follies which this harebrained boy was

pretty certain to commit. This was as far as he went; he did not think, with President du Ronceret, that

Victurnien was likely to give justice another kind of hold upon him. Both men found an ally for their schemes

of revenge in Victurnien's overweening vanity and love of pleasure. President du Ronceret's son, a lad of

seventeen, was admirably fitted for the part of instigator. He was one of the Count's companions, a new kind

of spy in du Croisier's pay; du Croisier taught him his lesson, set him to track down the noble and beautiful

boy through his better qualities, and sardonically prompted him to encourage his victim in his worst faults.

Fabien du Ronceret was a sophisticated youth, to whom such a mystification was attractive; he had precisely

the keen brain and envious nature which finds in such a pursuit as this the absorbing amusement which a man

In three years, between the ages of eighteen and oneandtwenty, Victurnien cost poor Chesnel nearly eighty

thousand francs! And this without the knowledge of Mlle. Armande or the Marquis. More than half of the

money had been spent in buying off lawsuits; the lad's extravagance had squandered the rest. Of the Marquis'

income of ten thousand livres, five thousand were necessary for the housekeeping; two thousand more

represented Mlle. Armande's allowance (parsimonious though she was) and the Marquis' expenses. The

handsome young heir presumptive, therefore, had not a hundred louis to spend. And what sort of figure can

a man make on two thousand livres? Victurnien's tailor's bills alone absorbed his whole allowance. He had

his linen, his clothes, gloves, and perfumery from Paris. He wanted a good English saddlehorse, a tilbury,

and a second horse. M. du Croisier had a tilbury and a thoroughbred. Was the bourgeoisie to cut out the

noblesse? Then, the young Count must have a man in the d'Esgrignon livery. He prided himself on setting the

fashion among young men in the town and the department; he entered that world of luxuries and fancies

which suit youth and good looks and wit so well. Chesnel paid for it all, not without using, like ancient

"What a pity it is that so good a man should be so tiresome!" Victurnien would say to himself every time that

Chesnel had been left a widower, and childless; he had taken his old master's son to fill the void in his heart.

It was a pleasure to him to watch the lad driving up the High Street, perched aloft on the box seat of the

tilbury, whip in hand, and a rose in his buttonhole, handsome, well turned out, envied by every one.

Pressing need would bring Victurnien with uneasy eyes and coaxing manner, but steady voice, to the modest

house in the Rue du Bercail; there had been losses at cards at the Troisvilles, or the Duc de Verneuil's, or the

prefecture, or the receivergeneral's, and the Count had come to his providence, the notary. He had only to

"Well, what is it, M. le Comte? What has happened?" the old man would ask, with a tremor in his voice.

On great occasions Victurnien would sit down, assume a melancholy, pensive expression, and submit with

little coquetries of voice and gesture to be questioned. Then when he had thoroughly roused the old man's

fears (for Chesnel was beginning to fear how such a course of extravagance would end), he would own up to

a peccadillo which a bill for a thousand francs would absolve. Chesnel possessed a private income of some

twelve thousand livres, but the fund was not inexhaustible. The eighty thousand francs thus squandered

represented his savings, accumulated for the day when the Marquis should send his son to Paris, or open

Chesnel was clearsighted so long as Victurnien was not there before him. One by one he lost the illusions

which the Marquis and his sister still fondly cherished. He saw that the young fellow could not be depended

upon in the least, and wished to see him married to some modest, sensible girl of good birth, wondering

within himself how a young man could mean so well and do so ill, for he made promises one day only to

But there is never any good to be expected of young men who confess their sins and repent, and straightway

fall into them again. A man of strong character only confesses his faults to himself, and punishes himself for

them; as for the weak, they drop back into the old ruts when they find that the bank is too steep to climb. The

springs of pride which lie in a great man's secret soul had been slackened in Victurnien. With such guardians

as he had, such company as he kept, such a life as he led, he had suddenly became an enervated voluptuary at

that turningpoint in his life when a man most stands in need of the harsh discipline of misfortune and

adversity which formed a Prince Eugene, a Frederick II., a Napoleon. Chesnel saw that Victurnien possessed

that uncontrollable appetite for enjoyments which should be the prerogative of men endowed with giant

powers; the men who feel the need of counterbalancing their gigantic labors by pleasures which bring

At times the good man stood aghast; then, again, some profound sally, some sign of the lad's remarkable

range of intellect, would reassure him. He would say, as the Marquis said at the rumor of some escapade,

"Boys will be boys." Chesnel had spoken to the Chevalier, lamenting the young lord's propensity for getting

into debt; but the Chevalier manipulated his pinch of snuff, and listened with a smile of amusement.

"My dear Chesnel, just explain to me what a national debt is," he answered. "If France has debts, egad! why

should not Victurnien have debts? At this time and at all times princes have debts, every gentleman has debts.

Perhaps you would rather that Victurnien should bring you his savings?Do you know that our great

Richelieu (not the Cardinal, a pitiful fellow that put nobles to death, but the Marechal), do you know what he

did once when his grandson the Prince de Chinon, the last of the line, let him see that he had not spent his

"Oh, well; he flung the purse out of the window to a sweeper in the courtyard, and said to his grandson, 'Then

Chesnel bent his head and made no answer. But that night, as he lay awake, he thought that such doctrines as

these were fatal in times when there was one law for everybody, and foresaw the first beginnings of the ruin

But for these explanations which depict one side of provincial life in the time of the Empire and the

Restoration, it would not be easy to understand the opening scene of this history, an incident which took

place in the great salon one evening towards the end of October 1822. The cardtables were forsaken, the

Collection of Antiquitieselderly nobles, elderly countesses, young marquises, and simple baronesses

had settled their losses and winnings. The master of the house was pacing up and down the room, while Mlle.

Armande was putting out the candles on the cardtables. He was not taking exercise alone, the Chevalier was

with him, and the two wrecks of the eighteenth century were talking of Victurnien. The Chevalier had

"Yes, Marquis," he was saying, "your son is wasting his time and his youth; you ought to send him to court."

"I have always thought," said the Marquis, "that if my great age prevents me from going to courtwhere,

between ourselves, I do not know what I should do among all these new people whom his Majesty receives,

and all that is going on therethat if I could not go myself, I could at least send my son to present our

homage to His Majesty. The King surely would do something for the Countgive him a company, for

instance, or a place in the Household, a chance, in short, for the boy to win his spurs. My uncle the

Archbishop suffered a cruel martyrdom; I have fought for the cause without deserting the camp with those

who thought it their duty to follow the Princes. I held that while the King was in France, his nobles should

rally round him.Ah! well, no one gives us a thought; a Henry IV. would have written before now to the

d'Esgrignons, 'Come to me, my friends; we have won the day!'After all, we are something better than the

Troisvilles, yet here are two Troisvilles made peers of France; and another, I hear, represents the nobles in the

Chamber." (He took the upper electoral colleges for assemblies of his own order.) "Really, they think no

more of us than if we did not exist. I was waiting for the Princes to make their journey through this part of the

"I am enchanted to learn that you think of introducing our dear Victurnien into society," the Chevalier put in

adroitly. "He ought not to bury his talents in a hole like this town. The best fortune that he can look for here is

to come across some Norman girl" (mimicking the accent), "countrybred, stupid, and rich. What could he

"I sincerely hope that he will defer his marriage until he has obtained some great office or appointment under

the Crown," returned the grayhaired Marquis. "Still, there are serious difficulties in the way."

And these were the only difficulties which the Marquis saw at the outset of his son's career.

"My son, the Comte d'Esgrignon, cannot make his appearance at court like a tatterdemalion," he continued

after a pause, marked by a sigh; "he must be equipped. Alas! for these two hundred years we have had no

retainers. Ah! Chevalier, this demolition from top to bottom always brings me back to the first hammer stroke

delivered by M. de Mirabeau. The one thing needful nowadays is money; that is all that the Revolution has

done that I can see. The King does not ask you whether you are a descendant of the Valois or a conquerer of

Gaul; he asks whether you pay a thousand francs in tailles which nobles never used to pay. So I cannot well

"Yes," assented the Chevalier, "with that trifling sum he could cut a brave figure."

"Well," said Mlle. Armande, "I have asked Chesnel to come tonight. Would you believe it, Chevalier, ever

since the day when Chesnel proposed that I should marry that miserable du Croisier"

"Well, since then my brother has never brought himself to ask anything whatsoever of Chesnel," continued

"Of your old household servant? Why, Marquis, you would do Chesnel honoran honor which he would

"There is not much question of dignity; it is a matter of necessity," said the Chevalier, with the trace of a

"Never," said the Marquis, riposting with a gesture which decided the Chevalier to risk a great stroke to open

"Very well," he said, "since you do not know it, I will tell you myself that Chesnel has let your son have

"My son is incapable of accepting anything whatever from Chesnel," the Marquis broke in, drawing himself

"Something like a hundred thousand livres," said the Chevalier, finishing his sentence.

"The Comte d'Esgrignon owes a hundred thousand livres to a Chesnel!" cried the Marquis, with every sign of

deep pain. "Oh! if he were not an only son, he should set out tonight for Mexico with a captain's

commission. A man may be in debt to moneylenders, they charge a heavy interest, and you are quits; that is

"Yes, our adorable Victurnien has run through a hundred thousand livres, dear Marquis," resumed the

Chevalier, flicking a trace of snuff from his waistcoat; "it is not much, I know. I myself at his age But,

after all, let us let old memories be, Marquis. The Count is living in the provinces; all things taken into

consideration, it is not so much amiss. He will not go far; these irregularities are common in men who do

"And he is sleeping upstairs, without a word of this to his father," exclaimed the Marquis.

"Sleeping innocently as a child who has merely got five or six little bourgeoises into trouble, and now must

" 'They' have done away with lettres de cachet," said the Chevalier. "You know what a hubbub there was

when they tried to institute a law for special cases. We could not keep the provost's courts, which M. DE

"Well, well; what are we to do if our boys are wild, or turn out scapegraces? Is there no locking them up in

The Chevalier looked at the heartbroken father and lacked courage to answer, "We shall be obliged to bring

"And you have never said a word of this to me, Mlle. d'Esgrignon," added the Marquis, turning suddenly

round upon Mlle. Armande. He never addressed her as Mlle. d'Esgrignon except when he was vexed; usually

"Why, monsieur, when a young man is full of life and spirits, and leads an idle life in a town like this, what

else can you expect?" asked Mlle. d'Esgrignon. She could not understand her brother's anger.

"Debts! eh! why, hang it all!" added the Chevalier. "He plays cards, he has little adventures, he shoots,all

"Come," said the Marquis, "it is time to send him to the King. I will spend tomorrow morning in writing to

"I have some acquaintance with the Ducs de Navarreins, de Lenoncourt, de Maufrigneuse, and de Chaulieu,"

said the Chevalier, though he knew, as he spoke, that he was pretty thoroughly forgotten.

"My dear Chevalier, there is no need of such formalities to present a d'Esgrignon at court," the Marquis broke

in."A hundred thousand livres," he muttered; "this Chesnel makes very free. This is what comes of these

accursed troubles. M. Chesnel protects my son. And now I must ask him. . . . No, sister, you must undertake

this business. Chesnel shall secure himself for the whole amount by a mortgage on our lands. And just give

this harebrained boy a good scolding; he will end by ruining himself if he goes on like this."

The Chevalier and Mlle. d'Esgrignon thought these words perfectly simple and natural, absurd as they would

have sounded to any other listener. So far from seeing anything ridiculous in the speech, they were both very

much touched by a look of something like anguish in the old noble's face. Some dark premonition seemed to

weigh upon M. d'Esgrignon at that moment, some glimmering of an insight into the changed times. He went

to the settee by the fireside and sat down, forgetting that Chesnel would be there before long; that Chesnel, of

Just then the Marquis d'Esgrignon looked exactly as any imagination with a touch of romance could wish. He

was almost bald, but a fringe of silken, white locks, curled at the tips, covered the back of his head. All the

pride of race might be seen in a noble forehead, such as you may admire in a Louis XV., a Beaumarchais, a

Marechal de Richelieu, it was not the square, broad brow of the portraits of the Marechal de Saxe; nor yet the

small hard circle of Voltaire, compact to overfulness; it was graciously rounded and finely moulded, the

temples were ivory tinted and soft; and mettle and spirit, unquenched by age, flashed from the brilliant eyes.

The Marquis had the Conde nose and the lovable Bourbon mouth, from which, as they used to say of the

Comte d'Artois, only witty and urbane words proceed. His cheeks, sloping rather than foolishly rounded to

the chin, were in keeping with his spare frame, thin legs, and plump hands. The strangulation cravat at his

throat was of the kind which every marquis wears in all the portraits which adorn eighteenth century

literature; it is common alike to SaintPreux and to Lovelace, to the elegant Montesquieu's heroes and to

The Marquis always wore a white, goldembroidered, high waistcoat, with the red ribbon of a commander of

the Order of St. Louis blazing upon his breast; and a blue coat with wide skirts, and fleurdelys on the flaps,

which were turned backan odd costume which the King had adopted. But the Marquis could not bring

himself to give up the Frenchman's kneebreeches nor yet the white silk stockings or the buckles at the

He read no newspapers but the Quotidienne and the Gazette de France, two journals accused by the

Constitutional press of obscurantist views and uncounted "monarchical and religious" enormities; while the

Marquis d'Esgrignon, on the other hand, found heresies and revolutionary doctrines in every issue. No matter

to what extremes the organs of this or that opinion may go, they will never go quite far enough to please the

purists on their own side; even as the portrayer of this magnificent personage is pretty certain to be accused of

exaggeration, whereas he has done his best to soften down some of the cruder tones and dim the more

The Marquis d'Esgrignon rested his elbows on his knees and leant his head on his hands. During his

meditations Mlle. Armande and the Chevalier looked at one another without uttering the thoughts in their

minds. Was he pained by the discovery that his son's future must depend upon his sometime land steward?

Was he doubtful of the reception awaiting the young Count? Did he regret that he had made no preparation

for launching his heir into that brilliant world of court? Poverty had kept him in the depths of his province;

That sigh, in those days, came from the real aristocracy all over France; from the loyal provincial noblesse,

consigned to neglect with most of those who had drawn sword and braved the storm for the cause.

"What have the Princes done for the du Guenics, or the Fontaines, or the Bauvans, who never submitted?" he

muttered to himself. "They fling miserable pensions to the men who fought most bravely, and give them a

Evidently the Marquis doubted the reigning dynasty. Mlle. d'Esgrignon was trying to reassure her brother as

to the prospects of the journey, when a step outside on the dry narrow footway gave them notice of Chesnel's

coming. In another moment Chesnel appeared; Josephin, the Count's grayaired valet, admitted the notary

"Chesnel, my boy" (Chesnel was a whitehaired man of sixtynine, with a squarejawed, venerable

countenance; he wore kneebreeches, ample enough to fill several chapters of dissertation in the manner of

Sterne, ribbed stockings, shoes with silver clasps, an ecclesiastical looking coat and a high waistcoat of

"Chesnel, my boy, it was very presumptuous of you to lend money to the Comte d'Esgrignon! If I repaid you

at once and we never saw each other again, it would be no more than you deserve for giving wings to his

There was a pause, a silence such as there falls at court when the King publicly reprimands a courtier. The

"I am anxious about that boy, Chesnel," continued the Marquis in a kindly tone; "I should like to send him to

Paris to serve His Majesty. Make arrangements with my sister for his suitable appearance at court.And we

The Marquis looked grave as he left the room with a friendly gesture of farewell to Chesnel.

"I thank M. le Marquis for all his goodness," returned the old man, who still remained standing.

Mlle. Armande rose to go to the door with her brother; she had rung the bell, old Josephin was in readiness to

"Take a seat, Chesnel," said the lady, as she returned, and with womanly tact she explained away and

softened the Marquis' harshness. And yet beneath that harshness Chesnel saw a great affection. The Marquis'

attachment for his old servant was something of the same order as a man's affection for his dog; he will fight

any one who kicks the animal, the dog is like a part of his existence, a something which, if not exactly

"It is quite time that M. le Comte should be sent away from the town, mademoiselle," he said sententiously.

"I am not blaming him, mademoiselle. No, I am not blaming him. I am very far from blaming him. I will even

There was a pause. The Chevalier, nothing if not quick to take in a situation, began to yawn like a

sleepridden mortal. Gracefully he made his excuses and went, with as little mind to sleep as to go and

drown himself. The imp Curiosity kept the Chevalier wide awake, and with airy fingers plucked away the

"Yes, things that cannot be told to M. le Marquis; he would drop down in an apoplectic fit."

"Speak out," she said. With her beautiful head leant on the back of her low chair, and her arms extended

listlessly by her side, she looked as if she were waiting passively for her deathblow.

"Mademoiselle, M. le Comte, with all his cleverness, is a plaything in the hands of mean creatures, petty

natures on the lookout for a crushing revenge. They want to ruin us and bring us low! There is the President

of the Tribunal, M. de Ronceret; he has, as you know, a very great notion of his descent"

"I know he was. And for that reason you have not received him; nor does he go to M. de Troisville's, nor to

M. le Duc de Verneuil's, nor to the Marquis de Casteran's; but he is one of the pillars of du Croisier's salon.

Your nephew may rub shoulders with young M. Fabien du Ronceret without condescending too far, for he

must have companions of his own age. Well and good. That young fellow is at the bottom of all M. le

Comte's follies; he and two or three of the rest of them belong to the other side, the side of M. le Chevalier's

enemy, who does nothing but breathe threats of vengeance against you and all the nobles together. They all

hope to ruin you through your nephew. The ringleader of the conspiracy is this sycophant of a du Croisier, the

pretended Royalist. Du Croisier's wife, poor thing, knows nothing about it; you know her, I should have

heard of it before this if she had ears to hear evil. For some time these wild young fellows were not in the

secret, nor was anybody else; but the ringleaders let something drop in jest, and then the fools got to know

about it, and after the Count's recent escapades they let fall some words while they were drunk. And those

words were carried to me by others who are sorry to see such a fine, handsome, noble, charming lad ruining

himself with pleasure. So far people feel sorry for him; before many days are over they willI am afraid to

"Ah! How can you keep the best people in the town from finding out faults in their neighbors? They do not

know what to do with themselves from morning to night. And so M. le Comte's losses at play are all reckoned

up. Thirty thousand francs have taken flight during these two months, and everybody wonders where he gets

the money. If they mention it when I am present, I just call them to order. Ah! but'Do you suppose' (I told

them this morning), 'do you suppose that if the d'Esgrignon family have lost their manorial rights, that

therefore they have been robbed of their hoard of treasure? The young Count has a right to do as he pleases;

and so long as he does not owe you a halfpenny, you have no right to say a word.' "

"Good Chesnel! . . . But, my friend, how shall we find the money for this journey? Victurnien must appear as

"You can take the hundred thousand francs which I hold at your disposal. You can understand that the loan

was negotiated in confidence, so that it might not reflect on you; for it is known in the town that I am closely

Tears came into Mlle. Armande's eyes. Chesnel saw them, took a fold of the noble woman's dress in his

"Never mind," he said, "a lad must sow his wild oats. In great salons in Paris his boyish ideas will take a new

turn. And, really, though our old friends here are the worthiest folk in the world, and no one could have

nobler hearts than they, they are not amusing. If M. le Comte wants amusement, he is obliged to look below

Next day the old traveling coach saw the light, and was sent to be put in repair. In a solemn interview after

breakfast, the hope of the house was duly informed of his father's intentions regarding himhe was to go to

court and ask to serve His Majesty. He would have time during the journey to make up his mind about his

career. The navy or the army, the privy council, an embassy, or the Royal Household,all were open to a

d'Esgrignon, a d'Esgrignon had only to choose. The King would certainly look favorably upon the

d'Esgrignons, because they had asked nothing of him, and had sent the youngest representative of their house

But young d'Esgrignon, with all his wild pranks, had guessed instinctively what society in Paris meant, and

formed his own opinions of life. So when they talked of his leaving the country and the paternal roof, he

listened with a grave countenance to his revered parent's lecture, and refrained from giving him a good deal

of information in reply. As, for instance, that young men no longer went into the army or the navy as they

used to do; that if a man had a mind to be a second lieutenant in a cavalry regiment without passing through a

special training in the Ecoles, he must first serve in the Pages; that sons of the greatest houses went exactly

like commoners to SaintCyr and the Ecole polytechnique, and took their chances of being beaten by base

blood. If he had enlightened his relatives on these points, funds might not have been forthcoming for a stay in

Paris; so he allowed his father and Aunt Armande to believe that he would be permitted a seat in the King's

carriages, that he must support his dignity at court as the d'Esgrignon of the time, and rub shoulders with

It grieved the Marquis that he could send but one servant with his son; but he gave him his own valet

Josephin, a man who can be trusted to take care of his young master, and to watch faithfully over his

interests. The poor father must do without Josephin, and hope to replace him with a young lad.

"Remember that you are a Carol, my boy," he said; "remember that you come of an unalloyed descent, and

that your scutcheon bears the motto Cil est nostre; with such arms you may hold your head high everywhere,

and aspire to queens. Render grace to your father, as I to mine. We owe it to the honor of our ancestors, kept

stainless until now, that we can look all men in the face, and need bend the knee to none save a mistress, the

Chesnel, good man, was breakfasting with the family. He took no part in counsels based on heraldry, nor in

the inditing of letters addressed to divers mighty personages of the day; but he had spent the night in writing

to an old friend of his, one of the oldest established notaries of Paris. Without this letter it is not possible to

understand Chesnel's real and assumed fatherhood. It almost recalls Daedalus' address to Icarus; for where,

save in old mythology, can you look for comparisons worthy of this man of antique mould?

"MY DEAR AND ESTIMABLE SORBIER,I remember with no little pleasure that I made my first

campaign in our honorable profession under your father, and that you had a liking for me, poor little clerk

that I was. And now I appeal to old memories of the days when we worked in the same office, old pleasant

memories for our hearts, to ask you to do me the one service that I have ever asked of you in the course of our

long lives, crossed as they have been by political catastrophes, to which, perhaps, I owe it that I have the

honor to be your colleague. And now I ask this service of you, my friend, and my white hairs will be brought

with sorrow to the grave if you should refuse my entreaty. It is no question of myself or of mine, Sorbier, for

I lost poor Mme. Chesnel, and I have no child of my own. Something more to me than my own family (if I

had one) is involvedit is the Marquis d'Esgrignon's only son. I have had the honor to be the Marquis' land

steward ever since I left the office to which his father sent me at his own expense, with the idea of providing

for me. The house which nurtured me has passed through all the troubles of the Revolution. I have managed

to save some of their property; but what is it, after all, in comparison with the wealth that they have lost? I

cannot tell you, Sorbier, how deeply I am attached to the great house, which has been all but swallowed up

under my eyes by the abyss of time. M. le Marquis was proscribed, and his lands confiscated, he was getting

on in years, he had no child. Misfortunes upon misfortunes! Then M. le Marquis married, and his wife died

when the young Count was born, and today this noble, dear, and precious child is all the life of the

d'Esgrignon family; the fate of the house hangs upon him. He has got into debt here with amusing himself.

What else should he do in the provinces with an allowance of a miserable hundred louis? Yes, my friend, a

"In this extremity his father thinks it necessary to send the Count to Paris to ask for the King's favor at court.

Paris is a very dangerous place for a lad; if he is to keep steady there, he must have the grain of sense which

makes notaries of us. Besides, I should be heartbroken to think of the poor boy living amid such hardships as

we have known.Do you remember the pleasure with which we spent a day and a night there waiting to see

The Marriage of Figaro? Oh, blind that we were!We were happy and poor, but a noble cannot be happy in

poverty. A noble in wantit is a thing against nature! Ah! Sorbier, when one has known the satisfaction of

propping one of the grandest genealogical trees in the kingdom in its fall, it is so natural to interest oneself in

it and to grow fond of it, and love it and water it and look to see it blossom. So you will not be surprised at so

many precautions on my part; you will not wonder when I beg the help of your lights, so that all may go well

"Keep yourself informed of his movements and doings, of the company which he keeps, and watch over his

connections with women. M. le Chevalier says that an opera dancer often costs less than a court lady. Obtain

information on that point and let me know. If you are too busy, perhaps Mme. Sorbier might know what

becomes of the young man, and where he goes. The idea of playing the part of guardian angel to such a noble

and charming boy might have attractions for her. God will remember her for accepting the sacred trust.

Perhaps when you see M. le Comte Victurnien, her heart may tremble at the thought of all the dangers

awaiting him in Paris; he is very young, and handsome; clever, and at the same time disposed to trust others.

If he forms a connection with some designing woman, Mme. Sorbier could counsel him better than you

yourself could do. The old manservant who is with him can tell you many things; sound Josephin, I have

"But why should I say more? We once were clerks together, and a pair of scamps; remember our escapades,

and be a little bit young again, my old friend, in your dealings with him. The sixty thousand francs will be

remitted to you in the shape of a bill on the Treasury by a gentlemen who is going to Paris," and so forth.

If the old couple to whom this epistle was addressed had followed out Chesnel's instructions, they would have

been compelled to take three private detectives into their pay. And yet there was ample wisdom shown in

Chesnel's choice of a depositary. A banker pays money to any one accredited to him so long as the money

lasts; whereas, Victurnien was obliged, every time that he was in want of money, to make a personal visit to

Victurnien heard that he was to be allowed two thousand francs every month, and thought that he betrayed his

joy. He knew nothing of Paris. He fancied that he could keep up princely state on such a sum.

Next day he started on his journey. All the benedictions of the Collection of Antiquities went with him; he

was kissed by the dowagers; good wishes were heaped on his head; his old father, his aunt, and Chesnel went

with him out of the town, tears filling the eyes of all three. The sudden departure supplied material for

conversation for several evenings; and what was more, it stirred the rancorous minds of the salon du Croisier

to the depths. The forage contractor, the president, and others who had vowed to ruin the d'Esgrignons, saw

their prey escaping out of their hands. They had based their schemes of revenge on a young man's follies, and

The tendency in human nature, which often gives a bigot a rake for a daughter, and makes a frivolous woman

the mother of a narrow pietist; that rule of contraries, which, in all probability, is the "resultant" of the law of

similarities, drew Victurnien to Paris by a desire to which he must sooner or later have yielded. Brought up as

he had been in the oldfashioned provincial house, among the quiet, gentle faces that smiled upon him,

among sober servants attached to the family, and surroundings tinged with a general color of age, the boy had

only seen friends worthy of respect. All of those about him, with the exception of the Chevalier, had example

of venerable age, were elderly men and women, sedate of manner, decorous and sententious of speech. He

had been petted by those women in gray gowns and embroidered mittens described by Blondet. The

antiquated splendors of his father's house were as little calculated as possible to suggest frivolous thoughts;

and lastly, he had been educated by a sincerely religious abbe, possessed of all the charm of old age, which

has dwelt in two centuries, and brings to the Present its gifts of the dried roses of experience, the faded

flowers of the old customs of its youth. Everything should have combined to fashion Victurnien to serious

habits; his whole surroundings from childhood bade him continue the glory of a historic name, by taking his

life as something noble and great; and yet Victurnien listened to dangerous promptings.

For him, his noble birth was a steppingstone which raised him above other men. He felt that the idol of

Noblesse, before which they burned incense at home, was hollow; he had come to be one of the commonest

as well as one of the worst types from a social point of viewa consistent egoist. The aristocratic cult of the

EGO simply taught him to follow his own fancies; he had been idolized by those who had the care of him in

childhood, and adored by the companions who shared in his boyish escapades, and so he had formed a habit

of looking and judging everything as it affected his own pleasure; he took it as a matter of course when good

souls saved him from the consequences of his follies, a piece of mistaken kindness which could only lead to

his ruin. Victurnien's early training, noble and pious though it was, had isolated him too much. He was out of

the current of the life of the time, for the life of a provincial town is certainly not in the main current of the

age; Victurnien's true destiny lifted him above it. He had learned to think of an action, not as it affected

others, nor relatively, but absolutely from his own point of view. Like despots, he made the law to suit the

circumstance, a system which works in the lives of prodigal sons the same confusion which fancy brings into

Victurnien was quicksighted, he saw clearly and without illusion, but he acted on impulse, and unwisely. An

indefinable flaw of character, often seen in young men, but impossible to explain, led him to will one thing

and do another. In spite of an active mind, which showed itself in unexpected ways, the senses had but to

assert themselves, and the darkened brain seemed to exist no longer. He might have astonished wise men; he

was capable of setting fools agape. His desires, like a sudden squall of bad weather, overclouded all the clear

and lucid spaces of his brain in a moment; and then, after the dissipations which he could not resist, he sank,

utterly exhausted in body, heart, and mind, into a collapsed condition bordering upon imbecility. Such a

character will drag a man down into the mire if he is left to himself, or bring him to the highest heights of

political power if he has some stern friend to keep him in hand. Neither Chesnel, nor the lad's father, nor

Aunt Armande had fathomed the depths of a nature so nearly akin on many sides to the poetic temperament,

By the time the old town lay several miles away, Victurnien felt not the slightest regret; he thought no more

about the father, who had loved ten generations in his son, nor of the aunt, and her almost insane devotion.

He was looking forward to Paris with vehement ill starred longings; in thought he had lived in that

fairyland, it had been the background of his brightest dreams. He imagined that he would be first in Paris, as

he had been in the town and the department where his father's name was potent; but it was vanity, not pride,

that filled his soul, and in his dreams his pleasures were to be magnified by all the greatness of Paris. The

distance was soon crossed. The traveling coach, like his own thoughts, left the narrow horizon of the province

for the vast world of the great city, without a break in the journey. He stayed in the Rue de Richelieu, in a

handsome hotel close to the boulevard, and hastened to take possession of Paris as a famished horse rushes

He was not long in finding out the difference between country and town, and was rather surprised than

abashed by the change. His mental quickness soon discovered how small an entity he was in the midst of this

allcomprehending Babylon; how insane it would be to attempt to stem the torrent of new ideas and new

ways. A single incident was enough. He delivered his father's letter of introduction to the Duc de Lenoncourt,

a noble who stood high in favor with the King. He saw the duke in his splendid mansion, among

surroundings befitting his rank. Next day he met him again. This time the Peer of France was lounging on

foot along the boulevard, just like any ordinary mortal, with an umbrella in his hand; he did not even wear the

Blue Ribbon, without which no knight of the order could have appeared in public in other times. And, duke

and peer and first gentleman of the bedchamber though he was, M. de Lenoncourt, in spite of his high

courtesy, could not repress a smile as he read his relative's letter; and that smile told Victurnien that the

Collection of Antiquities and the Tuileries were separated by more than sixty leagues of road; the distance of

The names of the families grouped about the throne are quite different in each successive reign, and the

characters change with the names. It would seem that, in the sphere of court, the same thing happens over and

over again in each generation; but each time there is a quite different set of personages. If history did not

prove that this is so, it would seem incredible. The prominent men at the court of Louis XVIII., for instance,

had scarcely any connection with the Rivieres, Blacas, d'Avarays, Vitrolles, d'Autichamps, Pasquiers,

Larochejaqueleins, Decazes, Dambrays, Laines, de Villeles, La Bourdonnayes, and others who shone at the

court of Louis XV. Compare the courtiers of Henri IV. with those of Louis XIV.; you will hardly find five

great families of the former time still in existence. The nephew of the great Richelieu was a very insignificant

person at the court of Louis XIV.; while His Majesty's favorite, Villeroi, was the grandson of a secretary

ennobled by Charles IX. And so it befell that the d'Esgrignons, all but princes under the Valois, and

allpowerful in the time of Henri IV., had no fortune whatever at the court of Louis XVIII., which gave them

not so much as a thought. At this day there are names as famous as those of royal housesthe FoixGraillys,

for instance, or the d'Herouvillesleft to obscurity tantamount to extinction for want of money, the one

All which things Victurnien beheld entirely from his own point of view; he felt the equality that he saw in

Paris as a personal wrong. The monster Equality was swallowing down the last fragments of social

distinction in the Restoration. Having made up his mind on this head, he immediately proceeded to try to win

back his place with such dangerous, if blunted weapons, as the age left to the noblesse. It is an expensive

matter to gain the attention of Paris. To this end, Victurnien adopted some of the ways then in vogue. He felt

that it was a necessity to have horses and fine carriages, and all the accessories of modern luxury; he felt, in

short, "that a man must keep abreast of the times," as de Marsay saidde Marsay, the first dandy that he

came across in the first drawingroom to which he was introduced. For his misfortune, he fell in with a set of

roues, with de Marsay, de Ronquerolles, Maxime de Trailles, des Lupeaulx, Rastignac, Ajuda Pinto,

Beaudenord, de la RocheHugon, de Manerville, and the Vandenesses, whom he met wherever he went, and

a great many houses were open to a young man with his ancient name and reputation for wealth. He went to

the Marquise d'Espard's, to the Duchesses de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, and de Chaulieu, to the Marquises

d'Aiglemont and de Listomere, to Mme. de Serizy's, to the Opera, to the embassies and elsewhere. The

Faubourg SaintGermain has its provincial genealogies at its fingers' ends; a great name once recognized and

adopted therein is a passport which opens many a door that will scarcely turn on its hinges for unknown

Victurnien found his relatives both amiable and ready to welcome him so long as he did not appear as a

suppliant; he saw at once that the surest way of obtaining nothing was to ask for something. At Paris, if the

first impulse moves people to protect, second thoughts (which last a good deal longer) impel them to despise

the protege. Independence, vanity, and pride, all the young Count's better and worse feelings combined, led

him, on the contrary, to assume an aggressive attitude. And therefore the Ducs de Verneuil, de Lenoncourt,

de Chaulieu, de Navarreins, d'Herouville, de Grandlieu, and de Maufrigneuse, the Princes de Cadignan and

de BlamontChauvry, were delighted to present the charming survivor of the wreck of an ancient family at

Victurnien went to the Tuileries in a splendid carriage with his armorial bearings on the panels; but his

presentation to His Majesty made it abundantly clear to him that the people occupied the royal mind so much

that his nobility was like to be forgotten. The restored dynasty, moreover, was surrounded by triple ranks of

eligible old men and grayheaded courtiers; the young noblesse was reduced to a cipher, and this Victurnien

guessed at once. He saw that there was no suitable place for him at court, nor in the government, nor the

army, nor, indeed, anywhere else. So he launched out into the world of pleasure. Introduced at the

ElyessBourbon, at the Duchesse d'Angouleme's, at the Pavillon Marsan, he met on all sides with the surface

civilities due to the heir of an old family, not so old but it could be called to mind by the sight of a living

member. And, after all, it was not a small thing to be remembered. In the distinction with which Victurnien

was honored lay the way to the peerage and a splendid marriage; he had taken the field with a false

appearance of wealth, and his vanity would not allow him to declare his real position. Besides, he had been so

much complimented on the figure that he made, he was so pleased with his first success, that, like many other

young men, he felt ashamed to draw back. He took a suite of rooms in the Rue du Bac, with stables and a

complete equipment for the fashionable life to which he had committed himself. These preliminaries cost him

fifty thousand francs, which money, moreover, the young gentleman managed to draw in spite of all

Chesnel's letter certainly reached his friend's office, but Maitre Sorbier was dead; and Mme. Sorbier, a

matteroffact person, seeing it was a business letter, handed it on to her husband's successor. Maitre Cardot,

the new notary, informed the young Count that a draft on the Treasury made payable to the deceased would

be useless; and by way of reply to the letter, which had cost the old provincial notary so much thought,

Cardot despatched four lines intended not to reach Chesnel's heart, but to produce the money. Chesnel made

the draft payable to Sorbier's young successor; and the latter, feeling but little inclination to adopt his

correspondent's sentimentality, was delighted to put himself at the Count's orders, and gave Victurnien as

Now those who know what life in Paris means, know that fifty thousand francs will not go very far in

furniture, horses, carriages, and elegance generally; but it must be borne in mind that Victurnien immediately

contracted some twenty thousand francs' worth of debts besides, and his tradespeople at first were not at all

anxious to be paid, for our young gentleman's fortune had been prodigiously increased, partly by rumor,

Victurnien had not been in town a month before he was obliged to repair to his man of business for ten

thousand francs; he had only been playing whist with the Ducs de Navarreins, de Chaulieu, and de

Lenoncourt, and now and again at his club. He had begun by winning some thousands of francs but pretty

soon lost five or six thousand, which brought home to him the necessity of a purse for play. Victurnien had

the spirit that gains goodwill everywhere, and puts a young man of a great family on a level with the very

highest. He was not merely admitted at once into the band of patrician youth, but was even envied by the rest.

It was intoxicating to him to feel that he was envied, nor was he in this mood very likely to think of reform.

Indeed, he had completely lost his head. He would not think of the means; he dipped into his moneybags as

if they could be refilled indefinitely; he deliberately shut his eyes to the inevitable results of the system. In

that dissipated set, in the continual whirl of gaiety, people take the actors in their brilliant costumes as they

find them, no one inquires whether a man can afford to make the figure he does, there is nothing in worse

taste than inquiries as to ways and means. A man ought to renew his wealth perpetually, and as Nature does

below the surface and out of sight. People talk if somebody comes to grief; they joke about a newcomer's

fortune till their minds are set at rest, and at this they draw the line. Victurnien d'Esgrignon, with all the

Faubourg SaintGermain to back him, with all his protectors exaggerating the amount of his fortune (were it

only to rid themselves of responsibility), and magnifying his possessions in the most refined and wellbred

way, with a hint or a word; with all these advantages to repeatVicturnien was, in fact, an eligible Count.

He was handsome, witty, sound in politics; his father still possessed the ancestral castle and the lands of the

marquisate. Such a young fellow is sure of an admirable reception in houses where there are marriageable

daughters, fair but portionless partners at dances, and young married women who find that time hangs heavy

on their hands. So the world, smiling, beckoned him to the foremost benches in its booth; the seats reserved

for marquises are still in the same place in Paris; and if the names are changed, the things are the same as

In the most exclusive circle of society in the Faubourg SaintGermain, Victurnien found the Chevalier's

double in the person of the Vidame de Pamiers. The Vidame was a Chevalier de Valois raised to the tenth

power, invested with all the prestige of wealth, enjoying all the advantages of high position. The dear Vidame

was a repositary for everybody's secrets, and the gazette of the Faubourg besides; nevertheless, he was

discreet, and, like other gazettes, only said things that might safely be published. Again Victurnien listened to

the Chevalier's esoteric doctrines. The Vidame told young d'Esgrignon, without mincing matters, to make

conquests among women of quality, supplementing the advice with anecdotes from his own experience. The

Vicomte de Pamiers, it seemed, had permitted himself much that it would serve no purpose to relate here; so

remote was it all from our modern manners, in which soul and passion play so large a part, that nobody

"Dine with me at a tavern tomorrow," said he, by way of conclusion. "We will digest our dinner at the

Opera, and afterwards I will take you to a house where several people have the greatest wish to meet you."

The Vidame gave a delightful little dinner at the Rocher de Cancale; three guests only were asked to meet

Victurniende Marsay, Rastignac, and Blondet. Emile Blondet, the young Count's fellowtownsman, was a

man of letters on the outskirts of society to which he had been introduced by a charming woman from the

same province. This was one of the Vicomte de Troisville's daughters, now married to the Comte de

Montcornet, one of those of Napoleon's generals who went over to the Bourbons. The Vidame held that a

dinnerparty of more than six persons was beneath contempt. In that case, according to him, there was an end

alike of cookery and conversation, and a man could not sip his wine in a proper frame of mind.

"I have not yet told you, my dear boy, where I mean to take you to night," he said, taking Victurnien's hands

and tapping on them. "You are going to see Mlle. des Touches; all the pretty women with any pretensions to

wit will be at her house en petit comite. Literature, art, poetry, any sort of genius, in short, is held in great

esteem there. It is one of our oldworld bureaux d'esprit, with a veneer of monarchical doctrine, the livery of

"It is sometimes as tiresome and tedious there as a pair of new boots, but there are women with whom you

"If all the poets who went there to rub up their muse were like our friend here," said Rastignac, tapping

Blondet familiarly on the shoulder, "we should have some fun. But a plague of odes, and ballads, and

driveling meditations, and novels with wide margins, pervades the sofas and the atmosphere."

"I don't dislike them," said de Marsay, "so long as they corrupt girls' minds, and don't spoil women."

"You need not talk. You have robbed us of the most charming woman in the world, you lucky rogue; we may

"Yes, he is a lucky rascal," said the Vidame, and he twitched Blondet's ear. "But perhaps Victurnien here will

"ALREADY!" exclaimed de Marsay. "Why, he only came here a month ago; he has scarcely had time to

shake the dust of his old manor house off his feet, to wipe off the brine in which his aunt kept him preserved;

"No, no, not a groom," interrupted Rastignac; "he has some sort of an agricultural laborer that he brought

with him 'from his place.' Buisson, who understands a livery as well as most, declared that the man was

"I will tell you what, you ought to have modeled yourself on Beaudenord," the Vidame said seriously. "He

has this advantage over all of you, my young friends, he has a genuine specimen of the English tiger"

"Just see, gentlemen, what the noblesse have come to in France!" cried Victurnien. "For them the one

"Bless me!" said Blondet. " 'This gentleman's good sense at times appalls me.'Well, yes, young moralist,

you nobles have come to that. You have not even left to you that lustre of lavish expenditure for which the

dear Vidame was famous fifty years ago. We revel on a second floor in the Rue Montorgueil. There are no

more wars with the Cardinal, no Field of the Cloth of Gold. You, Comte d'Esgrignon, in short, are supping in

the company of one Blondet, younger son of a miserable provincial magistrate, with whom you would not

shake hands down yonder; and in ten years' time you may sit beside him among peers of the realm. Believe in

"Ah, well," said Rastignac, "we have passed from action to thought, from brute force to force of intellect, we

"Let us not talk of our reverses," protested the Vidame; "I have made up my mind to die merrily. If our friend

here has not a tiger as yet, he comes of a race of lions, and can dispense with one."

"His elegance may be new as yet," returned de Marsay, "but we are adopting it. He is worthy of us, he

understands his age, he has brains, he is nobly born and gently bred; we are going to like him, and serve him,

"Plague take it! What can we have done that the dear Vidame is punishing us by keeping his word to the

The conversation continued pitched in the same key, charmingly scandalous, and agreeably corrupt. The

dinner went off very pleasantly. Rastignac and de Marsay went to the Opera with the Vidame and Victurnien,

with a view to following them afterwards to Mlle. des Touches' salon. And thither, accordingly, this pair of

rakes betook themselves, calculating that by that time the tragedy would have been read; for of all things to

be taken between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, a tragedy in their opinion was the most unwholesome.

They went to keep a watch on Victurnien and to embarrass him, a piece of schoolboys's mischief embittered

by a jealous dandy's spite. But Victurnien was gifted with that page's effrontery which is a great help to ease

of manner; and Rastignac, watching him as he made his entrance, was surprised to see how quickly he caught

"That young d'Esgrignon will go far, will he not?" he said, addressing his companion.

The Vidame introduced his young friend to one of the most amiable and frivolous duchesses of the day, a

lady whose adventures caused an explosion five years later. Just then, however, she was in the full blaze of

her glory; she had been suspected, it is true, of equivocal conduct; but suspicion, while it is still suspicion and

not proof, marks a woman out with the kind of distinction which slander gives to a man. Nonentities are

never slandered; they chafe because they are left in peace. This woman was, in fact, the Duchesse de

Maufrigneuse, a daughter of the d'Uxelles; her fatherinlaw was still alive; she was not to be the Princesse

de Cadignan for some years to come. A friend of the Duchesse de Langeais and the Vicomtesse de

Beauseant, two glories departed, she was likewise intimate with the Marquise d'Espard, with whom she

disputed her fragile sovereignty as queen of fashion. Great relations lent her countenance for a long while, but

the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was one of those women who, in some way, nobody knows how, or why, or

where, will spend the rents of all the lands of earth, and of the moon likewise, if they were not out of reach.

The general outline of her character was scarcely known as yet; de Marsay, and de Marsay only, really had

read her. That redoubtable dandy now watched the Vidame de Pamiers' introduction of his young friend to

"My dear fellow, he will go up WHIZZ! like a rocket, and come down like a stick," an atrociously vulgar

The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse had lost her heart to Victurnien after first giving her mind to a serious study

of him. Any lover who should have caught the glance by which she expressed her gratitude to the Vidame

might well have been jealous of such friendship. Women are like horses let loose on a steppe when they feel,

as the Duchess felt with the Vidame de Pamiers, that the ground is safe; at such moments they are

themselves; perhaps it pleases them to give, as it were, samples of their tenderness in intimacy in this way. It

was a guarded glance, nothing was lost between eye and eye; there was no possibility of reflection in any

"See how she has prepared herself," Rastignac said, turning to de Marsay. "What a virginal toilette; what

swan's grace in that snow white throat of hers! How white her gown is, and she is wearing a sash like a little

girl; she looks round like a madonna inviolate. Who would think that you had passed that way?"

"The very reason why she looks as she does," returned de Marsay, with a triumphant air.

The two young men exchanged a smile. Mme. de Maufrigneuse saw the smile and guessed at their

conversation, and gave the pair a broadside of her eyes, an art acquired by Frenchwomen since the Peace,

when Englishwomen imported it into this country, together with the shape of their silver plate, their horses

and harness, and the piles of insular ice which impart a refreshing coolness to the atmosphere of any room in

which a certain number of British females are gathered together. The young men grew serious as a couple of

clerks at the end of a homily from headquarters before the receipt of an expected bonus.

The Duchess when she lost her heart to Victurnien had made up her mind to play the part of romantic

Innocence, a role much understudied subsequently by other women, for the misfortune of modern youth. Her

Grace of Maufrigneuse had just come out as an angel at a moment's notice, precisely as she meant to turn to

literature and science somewhere about her fortieth year instead of taking to devotion. She made a point of

being like nobody else. Her parts, her dresses, her caps, opinions, toilettes, and manner of acting were all

entirely new and original. Soon after her marriage, when she was scarcely more than a girl, she had played

the part of a knowing and almost depraved woman; she ventured on risky repartees with shallow people, and

betrayed her ignorance to those who knew better. As the date of that marriage made it impossible to abstract

one little year from her age without the knowledge of Time, she had taken it into her head to be immaculate.

She scarcely seemed to belong to earth; she shook out her wide sleeves as if they had been wings. Her eyes

There is a madonna painted by Piola, the great Genoese painter, who bade fair to bring out a second edition

of Raphael till his career was cut short by jealousy and murder; his madonna, however, you may dimly

A more chasteeyed madonna than Piola's does not exist but compared with Mme. de Maufrigneuse, that

heavenly creature was a Messalina. Women wondered among themselves how such a giddy young thing had

been transformed by a change of dress into the fair veiled seraph who seemed (to use an expression now in

vogue) to have a soul as white as new fallen snow on the highest Alpine crests. How had she solved in such

short space the Jesuitical problem how to display a bosom whiter than her soul by hiding it in gauze? How

could she look so ethereal while her eyes drooped so murderously? Those almost wanton glances seemed to

give promise of untold languorous delight, while by an ascetic's sigh of aspiration after a better life the mouth

appeared to add that none of those promises would be fulfilled. Ingenuous youths (for there were a few to be

found in the Guards of that day) privately wondered whether, in the most intimate moments, it were possible

to speak familiarly to this White Lady, this starry vapor slidden down from the Milky Way. This system,

which answered completely for some years at a stretch, was turned to good account by women of fashion,

whose breasts were lined with a stout philosophy, for they could cloak no inconsiderable exactions with these

little airs from the sacristy. Not one of the celestial creatures but was quite well aware of the possibilities of

less ethereal love which lay in the longing of every wellconditioned male to recall such beings to earth. It

was a fashion which permitted them to abide in a semireligious, semiOssianic empyrean; they could, and

did, ignore all the practical details of daily life, a short and easy method of disposing of many questions. De

Marsay, foreseeing the future developments of the system, added a last word, for he saw that Rastignac was

"My boy," said he, "stay as you are. Our Nucingen will make your fortune, whereas the Duchess would ruin

Rastignac allowed de Marsay to go without asking further questions. He knew Paris. He knew that the most

refined and noble and disinterested of womena woman who cannot be induced to accept anything but a

bouquetcan be as dangerous an acquaintance for a young man as any opera girl of former days. As a matter

of fact, the opera girl is an almost mythical being. As things are now at the theatres, dancers and actresses are

about as amusing as a declaration of the rights of woman, they are puppets that go abroad in the morning in

the character of respected and respectable mothers of families, and act men's parts in tightfitting garments at

Worthy M. Chesnel, in his country notary's office, was right; he had foreseen one of the reefs on which the

Count might shipwreck. Victurnien was dazzled by the poetic aureole which Mme. de Maufrigneuse chose to

assume; he was chained and padlocked from the first hour in her company, bound captive by that girlish sash,

and caught by the curls twined round fairy fingers. Far corrupted the boy was already, but he really believed

in that farrago of maidenliness and muslin, in sweet looks as much studied as an Act of Parliament. And if the

one man, who is in duty bound to believe in feminine fibs, is deceived by them, is not that enough?

For a pair of lovers, the rest of their species are about as much alive as figures on the tapestry. The Duchess,

flattery apart, was avowedly and admittedly one of the ten handsomest women in society. "The loveliest

woman in Paris" is, as you know, as often met with in the world of lovemaking as "the finest book that has

The converse which Victurnien held with the Duchess can be kept up at his age without too great a strain. He

was young enough and ignorant enough of life in Paris to feel no necessity to be upon his guard, no need to

keep a watch over his lightest words and glances. The religious sentimentalism, which finds a broadly

humorous commentary in the afterthoughts of either speaker, puts the oldworld French chat of men and

women, with its pleasant familiarity, its lively ease, quite out of the question; they make love in a mist

Victurnien was just sufficient of an unsophisticated provincial to remain suspended in a highly appropriate

and unfeigned rapture which pleased the Duchess; for women are no more to be deceived by the comedies

which men play than by their own. Mme. de Maufrigneuse calculated, not without dismay, that the young

Count's infatuation was likely to hold good for six whole months of disinterested love. She looked so lovely

in this dove's mood, quenching the light in her eyes by the golden fringe of their lashes, that when the

Marquise d'Espard bade her friend goodnight, she whispered, "Good! very good, dear!" And with those

farewell words, the fair Marquise left her rival to make the tour of the modern Pays du Tendre; which, by the

way, is not so absurd a conception as some appear to think. New maps of the country are engraved for each

generation; and if the names of the routes are different, they still lead to the same capital city.

In the course of an hour's teteatete, on a corner sofa, under the eyes of the world, the Duchess brought

young d'Esgrignon as far as Scipio's Generosity, the Devotion of Amadis, and Chivalrous Self abnegation

(for the Middle Ages were just coming into fashion, with their daggers, machicolations, hauberks,

chainmail, peaked shoes, and romantic painted cardboard properties). She had an admirable turn,

moreover, for leaving things unsaid, for leaving ideas in a discreet, seeming careless way, to work their way

down, one by one, into Victurnien's heart, like needles into a cushion. She possessed a marvelous skill in

reticence; she was charming in hypocrisy, lavish of subtle promises, which revived hope and then melted

away like ice in the sun if you looked at them closely, and most treacherous in the desire which she felt and

inspired. At the close of this charming encounter she produced the running noose of an invitation to call, and

flung it over him with a dainty demureness which the printed page can never set forth.

"You will forget me," she said. "You will find so many women eager to pay court to you instead of

enlightening you. . . . But you will come back to me undeceived. Are you coming to me first? . . . No. As you

will.For my own part, I tell you frankly that your visits will be a great pleasure to me. People of soul are so

rare, and I think that you are one of them.Come, goodbye; people will begin to talk about us if we talk

She made good her words and took flight. Victurnien went soon afterwards, but not before others had guessed

his ecstatic condition; his face wore the expression peculiar to happy men, something between an Inquisitor's

calm discretion and the selfcontained beatitude of a devotee, fresh from the confessional and absolution.

"Mme. de Maufrigneuse went pretty briskly to the point this evening," said the Duchesse de Grandlieu, when

only halfadozen persons were left in Mlle. des Touches' little drawingroomto wit, des Lupeaulx, a

Master of Requests, who at that time stood very well at court, Vandenesse, the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu,

"D'Esgrignon and Maufrigneuse are two names that are sure to cling together," said Mme. de Serizy, who

Next morning he wrote to his aunt describing his introduction into the high world of the Faubourg

SaintGermain in bright colors flung by the prism of love, explaining the reception which met him

everywhere in a way which gratified his father's family pride. The Marquis would have the whole long letter

read to him twice; he rubbed his hands when he heard of the Vidame de Pamiers' dinnerthe Vidame was an

old acquaintanceand of the subsequent introduction to the Duchess; but at Blondet's name he lost himself

in conjectures. What could the younger son of a judge, a public prosecutor during the Revolution, have been

There was joy that evening among the Collection of Antiquities. They talked over the young Count's success.

So discreet were they with regard to Mme. de Maufrigneuse, that the one man who heard the secret was the

Chevalier. There was no financial postscript at the end of the letter, no unpleasant reference to the sinews of

war, which every young man makes in such a case. Mlle. Armande showed it to Chesnel. Chesnel was

pleased and raised not a single objection. It was clear, as the Marquis and the Chevalier agreed, that a young

man in favor with the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse would shortly be a hero at court, where in the old days

women were allpowerful. The Count had not made a bad choice. The dowagers told over all the gallant

adventures of the Maufrigneuses from Louis XIII. to Louis XVI.they spared to inquire into preceding

reignsand when all was done they were enchanted. Mme. de Maufrigneuse was much praised for

interesting herself in Victurnien. Any writer of plays in search of a piece of pure comedy would have found it

Victurnien received charming letters from his father and aunt, and also from the Chevalier. That gentleman

recalled himself to the Vidame's memory. He had been at Spa with M. de Pamiers in 1778, after a certain

journey made by a celebrated Hungarian princess. And Chesnel also wrote. The fond flattery to which the

unhappy boy was only too well accustomed shone out of every page; and Mlle. Armande seemed to share

Thus happy in the approval of his family, the young Count made a spirited beginning in the perilous and

costly ways of dandyism. He had five horseshe was moderatede Marsay had fourteen! He returned the

Vidame's hospitality, even including Blondet in the invitation, as well as de Marsay and Rastignac. The

dinner cost five hundred francs, and the noble provincial was feted on the same scale. Victurnien played a

He laid out his days in busy idleness. Every day between twelve and three o'clock he was with the Duchess;

afterwards he went to meet her in the Bois de Boulogne and ride beside her carriage. Sometimes the charming

couple rode together, but this was early in fine summer mornings. Society, balls, the theatre, and gaiety filled

the Count's evening hours. Everywhere Victurnien made a brilliant figure, everywhere he flung the pearls of

his wit broadcast. He gave his opinion on men, affairs, and events in profound sayings; he would have put

you in mind of a fruittree putting forth all its strength in blossom. He was leading an enervating life wasteful

of money, and even yet more wasteful, it may be of a man's soul; in that life the fairest talents are buried out

of sight, the most incorruptible honesty perishes, the besttempered springs of will are slackened.

The Duchess, so white and fragile and angellike, felt attracted to the dissipations of bachelor life; she

enjoyed first nights, she liked anything amusing, anything improvised. Bohemian restaurants lay outside her

experience; so d'Esgrignon got up a charming little party at the Rocher de Cancale for her benefit, asked all

the amiable scamps whom she cultivated and sermonized, and there was a vast amount of merriment, wit, and

gaiety, and a corresponding bill to pay. That supper led to others. And through it all Victurnien worshiped her

as an angel. Mme. de Maufrigneuse for him was still an angel, untouched by any taint of earth; an angel at the

Varietes, where she sat out the halfobscene, vulgar farces, which made her laugh; an angel through the

crossfire of highlyflavored jests and scandalous anecdotes, which enlivened a stolen frolic; a languishing

angel in the latticed box at the Vaudeville; an angel while she criticised the postures of opera dancers with the

experience of an elderly habitue of le coin de la reine; an angel at the Porte SaintMartin, at the little

boulevard theatres, at the masked balls, which she enjoyed like any schoolboy. She was an angel who asked

him for the love that lives by self abnegation and heroism and selfsacrifice; an angel who would have her

lover live like an English lord, with an income of a million francs. D'Esgrignon once exchanged a horse

because the animal's coat did not satisfy her notions. At play she was an angel, and certainly no bourgeoise

that ever lived could have bidden d'Esgrignon "Stake for me!" in such an angelic way. She was so divinely

reckless in her folly, that a man might well have sold his soul to the devil lest this angel should lose her taste

The first winter went by. The Count had drawn on M. Cardot for the trifling sum of thirty thousand francs

over and above Chesnel's remittance. As Cardot very carefully refrained from using his right of

remonstrance, Victurnien now learned for the first time that he had overdrawn his account. He was the more

offended by an extremely polite refusal to make any further advance, since it so happened that he had just lost

six thousand francs at play at the club, and he could not very well show himself there until they were paid.

After growing indignant with Maitre Cardot, who had trusted him with thirty thousand francs (Cardot had

written to Chesnel, but to the fair Duchess' favorite he made the most of his socalled confidence in him),

after all this, d'Esgrignon was obliged to ask the lawyer to tell him how to set about raising the money, since

"Draw bills on your father's banker, and take them to his correspondent; he, no doubt, will discount them for

you. Then write to your family, and tell them to remit the amount to the banker."

An inner voice seemed to suggest du Croisier's name in this predicament. He had seen du Croisier on his

knees to the aristocracy, and of the man's real disposition he was entirely ignorant. So to du Croisier he wrote

a very offhand letter, informing him that he had drawn a bill of exchange on him for ten thousand francs,

adding that the amount would be repaid on receipt of the letter either by M. Chesnel or by Mlle. Armande

d'Esgrignon. Then he indited two touching epistlesone to Chesnel, another to his aunt. In the matter of

going headlong to ruin, a young man often shows singular ingenuity and ability, and fortune favors him. In

the morning Victurnien happened on the name of the Paris bankers in correspondence with du Croisier, and

de Marsay furnished him with the Kellers' address. De Marsay knew everything in Paris. The Kellers took the

bill and gave him the sum without a word, after deducting the discount. The balance of the account was in du

But the gaming debt was as nothing in comparison with the state of things at home. Invoices showered in

"I say! Do you trouble yourself about that sort of thing?" Rastignac said, laughing. "Are you putting them in

"My dear fellow, it is quite time I thought about it; there are twenty odd thousand francs there."

De Marsay, coming in to look up d'Esgrignon for a steeplechase, produced a dainty little pocketbook, took

"It is the best way of keeping the money safe," said he; "I am twice enchanted to have won it yesterday from

Such French grace completely fascinated d'Esgrignon; he took it for friendship; and as to the money,

punctually forgot to pay his debts with it, and spent it on his pleasures. The fact was that de Marsay was

looking on with an unspeakable pleasure while young d'Esgrignon "got out of his depth," in dandy's idiom; it

pleased de Marsay in all sorts of fondling ways to lay an arm on the lad's shoulder; by and by he should feel

its weight, and disappear the sooner. For de Marsay was jealous; the Duchess flaunted her love affair; she

was not at home to other visitors when d'Esgrignon was with her. And besides, de Marsay was one of those

savage humorists who delight in mischief, as Turkish women in the bath. So when he had carried off the

prize, and bets were settled at the tavern where they breakfasted, and a bottle or two of good wine had

"Then you do not know the Duchess' position?" queried de Marsay, as he sprang into the saddle.

"Well, dear fellow, it is like this," returned de Marsay"thirty thousand francs to Victorine, eighteen

thousand francs to Houbigaut, lesser amounts to Herbault, Nattier, Nourtier, and those Latour

"She owes all that, my dear boy," continued de Marsay, "precisely because she is an angel. But we have all

seen angels in this position," he added, glancing at Rastignac; "there is this about women that is sublime: they

understand nothing of money; they do not meddle with it, it is no affair of theirs; they are invited guests at the

'banquet of life,' as some poet or other said that came to an end in the workhouse."

"You are sure to be the last to know it, just as she is sure to be the last to hear that you are in debt."

"Her husband," replied de Marsay, "lives apart from her. He stays with his regiment and practises economy,

for he has one or two little debts of his own as well, has our dear Duke. Where do you come from? Just learn

to do as we do and keep our friends' accounts for them. Mlle. Diane (I fell in love with her for the name's

sake), Mlle. Diane d'Uxelles brought her husband sixty thousand livres of income; for the last eight years she

has lived as if she had two hundred thousand. It is perfectly plain that at this moment her lands are mortgaged

up to their full value; some fine morning the crash must come, and the angel will be put to flight bymust it

be said?by sheriff's officers that have the effrontery to lay hands on an angel just as they might take hold of

"Lord! it costs a great deal to dwell in a Parisian heaven; you must whiten your wings and your complexion

Now as the thought of confessing his debts to his beloved Diane had passed through d'Esgrignon's mind,

something like a shudder ran through him when he remembered that he still owed sixty thousand francs, to

say nothing of bills to come for another ten thousand. He went back melancholy enough. His friends

remarked his illdisguised preoccupation, and spoke of it among themselves at dinner.

"Young d'Esgrignon is getting out of his depth. He is not up to Paris. He will blow his brains out. A little

D'Esgrignon, however, promptly took comfort. His servant brought him two letters. The first was from

Chesnel. A letter from Chesnel smacked of the stale grumbling faithfulness of honesty and its consecrated

formulas. With all respect he put it aside till the evening. But the second letter he read with unspeakable

pleasure. In Ciceronian phrases, du Croisier groveled before him, like a Sganarelle before a Geronte, begging

the young Count in future to spare him the affront of first depositing the amount of the bills which he should

condescend to draw. The concluding phrase seemed meant to convey the idea that here was an open cashbox

full of coin at the service of the noble d'Esgrignon family. So strong was the impression that Victurnien, like

Sganarelle or Mascarille in the play, like everybody else who feels a twinge of conscience at his fingertips,

Now that he was sure of unlimited credit with the Kellers, he opened Chesnel's letter gaily. He had expected

four full pages, full of expostulation to the brim; he glanced down the sheet for the familiar words

"prudence," "honor," "determination to do right," and the like, and saw something else instead which made

"MONSIEUR LE COMTE,Of all my fortune I have now but two hundred thousand francs left. I beg of

you not to exceed that amount, if you should do one of the most devoted servants of your family the honor of

"He is one of Plutarch's men," Victurnien said to himself, as he tossed the letter on the table. He felt

"There! one must reform," he thought; and instead of going to a restaurant and spending fifty or sixty francs

over his dinner, he retrenched by dining with the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and told her about the letter.

"I should like to see that man," she said, letting her eyes shine like two fixed stars.

Diane de Maufrigneuse was divinely dressed; she meant her toilet to do honor to Victurnien. The levity with

which she treated his affairs or, more properly speaking, his debts fascinated him.

The charming pair went to the Italiens. Never had that beautiful and enchanting woman looked more

seraphic, more ethereal. Nobody in the house could have believed that she had debts which reached the sum

total mentioned by de Marsay that very morning. No single one of the cares of earth had touched that sublime

forehead of hers, full of woman's pride of the highest kind. In her, a pensive air seemed to be some gleam of

an earthly love, nobly extinguished. The men for the most part were wagering that Victurnien, with his

handsome figure, laid her under contribution; while the women, sure of their rival's subterfuge, admired her

as Michael Angelo admired Raphael, in petto. Victurnien loved Diane, according to one of these ladies, for

the sake of her hairshe had the most beautiful fair hair in France; another maintained that Diane's pallor

was her principal merit, for she was not really well shaped, her dress made the most of her figure; yet others

thought that Victurnien loved her for her foot, her one good point, for she had a flat figure. But (and this

brings the presentday manner of Paris before you in an astonishing manner) whereas all the men said that

the Duchess was subsidizing Victurnien's splendor, the women, on the other hand, gave people to understand

As they drove back again, Victurnien had it on the tip of his tongue a score of times to open this chapter, for

the Duchess' debts weighed more heavily upon his mind than his own; and a score of times his purpose died

away before the attitude of the divine creature beside him. He could see her by the light of the carriage lamps;

she was bewitching in the lovelanguor which always seemed to be extorted by the violence of passion from

her madonna's purity. The Duchess did not fall into the mistake of talking of her virtue, of her angel's estate,

as provincial women, her imitators, do. She was far too clever. She made him, for whom she made such great

sacrifices, think these things for himself. At the end of six months she could make him feel that a harmless

kiss on her hand was a deadly sin; she contrived that every grace should be extorted from her, and this with

such consummate art, that it was impossible not to feel that she was more an angel than ever when she

None but Parisian women are clever enough always to give a new charm to the moon, to romanticize the

stars, to roll in the same sack of charcoal and emerge each time whiter than ever. This is the highest

refinement of intellectual and Parisian civilization. Women beyond the Rhine or the English Channel believe

nonsense of this sort when they utter it; while your Parisienne makes her lover believe that she is an angel,

the better to add to his bliss by flattering his vanity on both sidestemporal and spiritual. Certain persons,

detractors of the Duchess, maintain that she was the first dupe of her own white magic. A wicked slander.

By the end of the year 1823 the Kellers had supplied Victurnien with two hundred thousand francs, and

neither Chesnel nor Mlle. Armande knew anything about it. He had had, besides, two thousand crowns from

Chesnel at one time and another, the better to hide the sources on which he was drawing. He wrote lying

letters to his poor father and aunt, who lived on, happy and deceived, like most happy people under the sun.

The insidious current of life in Paris was bringing a dreadful catastrophe upon the great and noble house; and

only one person was in the secret of it. This was du Croisier. He rubbed his hands gleefully as he went past in

the dark and looked in at the Antiquities. He had good hope of attaining his ends; and his ends were not, as

heretofore, the simple ruin of the d'Esgrignons, but the dishonor of their house. He felt instinctively at such

times that his revenge was at hand; he scented it in the wind! He had been sure of it indeed from the day

when he discovered that the young Count's burden of debt was growing too heavy for the boy to bear.

Du Croisier's first step was to rid himself of his most hated enemy, the venerable Chesnel. The good old man

lived in the Rue du Bercail, in a house with a steeppitched roof. There was a little paved courtyard in front,

where the rosebushes grew and clambered up to the windows of the upper story. Behind lay a little country

garden, with its boxedged borders, shut in by damp, gloomylooking walls. The prim, graypainted street

door, with its wicket opening and bell attached, announced quite as plainly as the official scutcheon that "a

It was halfpast five o'clock in the afternoon, at which hour the old man usually sat digesting his dinner. He

had drawn his black leather covered armchair before the fire, and put on his armor, a painted pasteboard

contrivance shaped like a top boot, which protected his stockinged legs from the heat of the fire; for it was

one of the good man's habits to sit for a while after dinner with his feet on the dogs and to stir up the glowing

coals. He always ate too much; he was fond of good living. Alas! if it had not been for that little failing,

would he not have been more perfect than it is permitted to mortal man to be? Chesnel had finished his cup of

coffee. His old housekeeper had just taken away the tray which had been used for the purpose for the last

twenty years. He was waiting for his clerks to go before he himself went out for his game at cards, and

meanwhile he was thinking no need to ask of whom or what. A day seldom passed but he asked himself,

"Where is HE? What is HE doing?" He thought that the Count was in Italy with the fair Duchesse de

When every franc of a man's fortune has come to him, not by inheritance, but through his own earning and

saving, it is one of his sweetest pleasures to look back upon the pains that have gone to the making of it, and

then to plan out a future for his crowns. This it is to conjugate the verb "to enjoy" in every tense. And the old

lawyer, whose affections were all bound up in a single attachment, was thinking that all the carefullychosen,

welltilled land which he had pinched and scraped to buy would one day go to round the d'Esgrignon estates,

and the thought doubled his pleasure. His pride swelled as he sat at his ease in the old armchair; and the

building of glowing coals, which he raised with the tongs, sometimes seemed to him to be the old noble

house built up again, thanks to his care. He pictured the young Count's prosperity, and told himself that he

had done well to live for such an aim. Chesnel was not lacking in intelligence; sheer goodness was not the

sole source of his great devotion; he had a pride of his own; he was like the nobles who used to rebuild a

pillar in a cathedral to inscribe their name upon it; he meant his name to be remembered by the great house

which he had restored. Future generations of d'Esgrignons should speak of old Chesnel. Just at this point his

"Something of the sort," said she. "Here is M. du Croisier wanting to speak to you"

"M. du Croisier," repeated the old lawyer. A stab of cold misgiving gave him so sharp a pang at the heart that

Du Croisier came in at that moment, like a cat that scents milk in a dairy. He made a bow, seated himself

quietly in the easychair which the lawyer brought forward, and produced a bill for two hundred and

twentyseven thousand francs, principal and interest, the total amount of sums advanced to M. Victurnien in

bills of exchange drawn upon du Croisier, and duly honored by him. Of these, he now demanded immediate

payment, with a threat of proceeding to extremities with the heir presumptive of the house. Chesnel turned

the unlucky letters over one by one, and asked the enemy to keep the secret. This he engaged to do if he were

paid within fortyeight hours. He was pressed for money he had obliged various manufacturers; and there

followed a series of the financial fictions by which neither notaries nor borrowers are deceived. Chesnel's

eyes were dim; he could scarcely keep back the tears. There was but one way of raising the money; he must

mortgage his own lands up to their full value. But when du Croisier learned the difficulty in the way of

repayment, he forgot that he was hard pressed; he no longer wanted ready money, and suddenly came out

with a proposal to buy the old lawyer's property. The sale was completed within two days. Poor Chesnel

could not bear the thought of the son of the house undergoing a five years' imprisonment for debt. So in a few

days' time nothing remained to him but his practice, the sums that were due to him, and the house in which he

lived. Chesnel, stripped of all his lands, paced to and fro in his private office, paneled with dark oak, his eyes

fixed on the beveled edges of the chestnut cross beams of the ceiling, or on the trellised vines in the garden

outside. He was not thinking of his farms now, or of Le Jard, his dear house in the country; not he.

"What will become of him? He ought to come back; they must marry him to some rich heiress," he said to

How to approach Mlle. Armande, and in what words to break the news to her, he did not know. The man who

had just paid the debts of the family quaked at the thought of confessing these things. He went from the Rue

du Bercail to the Hotel d'Esgrignon with pulses throbbing like some girl's heart when she leaves her father's

roof by stealth, not to return again till she is a mother and her heart is broken.

Mlle. Armande had just received a charming letter, charming in its hypocrisy. Her nephew was the happiest

man under the sun. He had been to the baths, he had been traveling in Italy with Mme. de Maufrigneuse, and

now sent his journal to his aunt. Every sentence was instinct with love. There were enchanting descriptions of

Venice, and fascinating appreciations of the great works of Venetian art; there were most wonderful pages

full of the Duomo at Milan, and again of Florence; he described the Apennines, and how they differed from

the Alps, and how in some village like Chiavari happiness lay all around you, ready made.

The poor aunt was under the spell. She saw the faroff country of love, she saw, hovering above the land, the

angel whose tenderness gave to all that beauty a burning glow. She was drinking in the letter at long

draughts; how should it have been otherwise? The girl who had put love from her was now a woman ripened

by repressed and pentup passion, by all the longings continually and gladly offered up as a sacrifice on the

altar of the hearth. Mlle. Armande was not like the Duchess. She did not look like an angel. She was rather

like the little, straight, slim and slender, ivorytinted statues, which those wonderful sculptors, the builders of

cathedrals, placed here and there about the buildings. Wild plants sometimes find a hold in the damp niches,

and weave a crown of beautiful bluebell flowers about the carved stone. At this moment the blue buds were

unfolding in the fair saint's eyes. Mlle. Armande loved the charming couple as if they stood apart from real

life; she saw nothing wrong in a married woman's love for Victurnien; any other woman she would have

judged harshly; but in this case, not to have loved her nephew would have been the unpardonable sin. Aunts,

mothers, and sisters have a code of their own for nephews and sons and brothers.

Mlle. Armande was in Venice; she saw the lines of fairy palaces that stand on either side of the Grand Canal;

she was sitting in Victurnien's gondola; he was telling her what happiness it had been to feel that the Duchess'

beautiful hand lay in his own, to know that she loved him as they floated together on the breast of the

amorous Queen of Italian seas. But even in that moment of bliss, such as angels know, some one appeared in

the garden walk. It was Chesnel! Alas! the sound of his tread on the gravel might have been the sound of the

sands running from Death's hourglass to be trodden under his unshod feet. The sound, the sight of a dreadful

hopelessness in Chesnel's face, gave her that painful shock which follows a sudden recall of the senses when

"All is lost!" said Chesnel. "M. le Comte will bring dishonor upon the house if we do not set it in order." He

held out the bills, and described the agony of the last few days in a few simple but vigorous and touching

"He is deceiving us! The miserable boy!" cried Mlle. Armande, her heart swelling as the blood surged back to

"Let us both say mea culpa, mademoiselle," the old lawyer said stoutly; "we have always allowed him to have

his own way; he needed stern guidance; he could not have it from you with your inexperience of life; nor

"Fate sometimes deals terribly with a noble house in decay," said Mlle. Armande, with tears in her eyes.

The Marquis came up as she spoke. He had been walking up and down the garden while he read the letter

sent by his son after his return. Victurnien gave his itinerary from an aristocrat's point of view; telling how he

had been welcomed by the greatest Italian families of Genoa, Turin, Milan, Florence, Venice, Rome, and

Naples. This flattering reception he owed to his name, he said, and partly, perhaps, to the Duchess as well. In

Mlle. Armande made Chesnel an eager sign, dreadful to see. They understood each other. The poor father, the

flower of feudal honor, must die with all his illusions. A compact of silence and devotion was ratified

"Ah! Chesnel, it was not exactly in this way that the d'Esgrignons went into Italy at the end of the fourteenth

century, when Marshal Trivulzio, in the service of the King of France, served under a d'Esgrignon, who had a

Bayard too under his orders. Other times, other pleasures. And, for that matter, the Duchesse de

And, on the strength of his genealogical tree, the old man swung himself off with a coxcomb's air, as if he

himself had once made a conquest of the Marchesa di Spinola, and still possessed the Duchess of today.

The two companions in unhappiness were left together on the garden bench, with the same thought for a bond

of union. They sat for a long time, saying little save vague, unmeaning words, watching the father walk away

"Du Croisier has sent instructions to the MM. Keller; he is not to be allowed to draw any more without

"But he must be drawn out of that life, he must come back to us, or he will have nothing left."

"And nothing else left to him," Chesnel said gloomily. But Mlle. Armande as yet did not and could not

"Is there any hope of getting him away from that woman, that Duchess? Perhaps she leads him on."

"He would not stick at a crime to be with her," said Chesnel, trying to pave the way to an intolerable thought

"Crime," repeated Mlle. Armande. "Oh, Chesnel, no one but you would think of such a thing!" she added,

with a withering look; before such a look from a woman's eyes no mortal can stand. "There is but one crime

that a noble can committhe crime of high treason; and when he is beheaded, the block is covered with a

"The times have changed very much," said Chesnel, shaking his head. Victurnien had thinned his last thin,

That thought soothed Mlle. Armande's splendid indignation; a shudder ran through her; but still she did not

"Tomorrow we will decide what we must do," she said; "it needs thought. At the worst, we have our lands."

"Yes," said Chesnel. "You and M. le Marquis own the estate conjointly; but the larger part of it is yours. You

The players at whist, reversis, boston, and backgammon noticed that evening that Mlle. Armande's features,

"That poor heroic child!" said the old Marquise de Casteran, "she must be suffering still. A woman never

Next day it was arranged with Chesnel that Mlle. Armande should go to Paris to snatch her nephew from

perdition. If any one could carry off Victurnien, was it not the woman whose motherly heart yearned over

him? Mlle. Armande made up her mind that she would go to the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and tell her all.

Still, some sort of pretext was necessary to explain the journey to the Marquis and the whole town. At some

cost to her maidenly delicacy, Mlle. Armande allowed it to be thought that she was suffering from a

complaint which called for a consultation of skilled and celebrated physicians. Goodness knows whether the

town talked of this or no! But Mlle. Armande saw that something far more than her own reputation was at

stake. She set out. Chesnel brought her his last bag of louis; she took it, without paying any attention to it, as

"Generous girl! What grace!" he said, as he put her into the carriage with her maid, a woman who looked like

Du Croisier had thought out his revenge, as provincials think out everything. For studying out a question in

all its bearings, there are no folk in this world like savages, peasants, and provincials; and this is how, when

they proceed from thought to action, you find every contingency provided for from beginning to end.

Diplomatists are children compared with these classes of mammals; they have time before them, an element

which is lacking to those people who are obliged to think about a great many things, to superintend the

progress of all kinds of schemes, to look forward for all sorts of contingencies in the wider interests of human

affairs. Had de Croisier sounded poor Victurnien's nature so well, that he foresaw how easily the young

Count would lend himself to his schemes of revenge? Or was he merely profiting by an opportunity for which

he had been on the watch for years? One circumstance there was, to be sure, in his manner of preparing his

stroke, which shows a certain skill. Who was it that gave du Croisier warning of the moment? Was it the

Kellers? Or could it have been President du Ronceret's son, then finishing his law studies in Paris?

Du Croisier wrote to Victurnien, telling him that the Kellers had been instructed to advance no more money;

and that letter was timed to arrive just as the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was in the utmost perplexity, and the

Comte d'Esgrignon consumed by the sense of poverty as dreadful as it was cunningly hidden. The wretched

Now in the letter which informed the victim that in future the Kellers would make no further advances

without security, there was a tolerably wide space left between the forms of an exaggerated respect and the

signature. It was quite easy to tear off the best part of the letter and convert it into a bill of exchange for any

amount. The diabolical missive had been enclosed in an envelope, so that the other side of the sheet was

blank. When it arrived, Victurnien was writhing in the lowest depths of despair. After two years of the most

prosperous, sensual, thoughtless, and luxurious life, he found himself face to face with the most inexorable

poverty; it was an absolute impossibility to procure money. There had been some throes of crisis before the

journey came to an end. With the Duchess' help he had managed to extort various sums from bankers; but it

had been with the greatest difficulty, and, moreover, those very amounts were about to start up again before

him as overdue bills of exchange in all their rigor, with a stern summons to pay from the Bank of France and

the commercial court. All through the enjoyments of those last weeks the unhappy boy had felt the point of

the Commander's sword; at every supperparty he heard, like Don Juan, the heavy tread of the statue outside

upon the stairs. He felt an unaccountable creeping of the flesh, a warning that the sirocco of debt is nigh at

hand. He reckoned on chance. For five years he had never turned up a blank in the lottery, his purse had

always been replenished. After Chesnel had come du Croisier (he told himself), after du Croisier surely

another gold mine would pour out its wealth. And besides, he was winning great sums at play; his luck at

play had saved him several unpleasant steps already; and often a wild hope sent him to the Salon des

Etrangers only to lose his winnings afterwards at whist at the club. His life for the past two months had been

like the immortal finale of Mozart's Don Giovanni; and of a truth, if a young man has come to such a plight

as Victurnien's, that finale is enough to make him shudder. Can anything better prove the enormous power of

music than that sublime rendering of the disorder and confusion arising out of a life wholly give up to sensual

indulgence? that fearful picture of a deliberate effort to shut out the thought of debts and duels, deceit and

evil luck? In that music Mozart disputes the palm with Moliere. The terrific finale, with its glow, its power,

its despair and laughter, its grisly spectres and elfish women, centres about the prodigal's last effort made in

the aftersupper heat of wine, the frantic struggle which ends the drama. Victurnien was living through this

infernal poem, and alone. He saw visions of himselfa friendless, solitary outcast, reading the words carved

on the stone, the last words on the last page of the book that had held him spellboundTHE END!

Yes; for him all would be at an end, and that soon. Already he saw the cold, ironical eyes which his

associates would turn upon him, and their amusement over his downfall. Some of them he knew were playing

high on that gamblingtable kept open all day long at the Bourse, or in private houses at the clubs, and

anywhere and everywhere in Paris; but not one of these men could spare a banknote to save an intimate.

There was no help for itChesnel must be ruined. He had devoured Chesnel's living.

He sat with the Duchess in their box at the Italiens, the whole house envying them their happiness, and while

he smiled at her, all the Furies were tearing at his heart. Indeed, to give some idea of the depths of doubt,

despair, and incredulity in which the boy was groveling; he who so clung to lifethe life which the angel

had made so fairwho so loved it, that he would have stooped to baseness merely to live; he, the

pleasureloving scapegrace, the degenerate d'Esgrignon, had even taken out his pistols, had gone so far as to

think of suicide. He who would never have brooked the appearance of an insult was abusing himself in

He left du Croisier's letter lying open on the bed. Josephin had brought it in at nine o'clock. Victurnien's

furniture had been seized, but he slept none the less. After he came back from the Opera, he and the Duchess

had gone to a voluptuous retreat, where they often spent a few hours together after the most brilliant court

balls and evening parties and gaieties. Appearances were very cleverly saved. Their lovenest was a garret

like any other to all appearance; Mme. de Maufrigneuse was obliged to bow her head with its court feathers

or wreath of flowers to enter in at the door; but within all the peris of the East had made the chamber fair.

And now that the Count was on the brink of ruin, he had longed to bid farewell to the dainty nest, which he

had built to realize a daydream worthy of his angel. Presently adversity would break the enchanted eggs;

there would be no brood of white doves, no brilliant tropical birds, no more of the thousand brightwinged

fancies which hover above our heads even to the last days of our lives. Alas! alas! in three days he must be

gone; his bills had fallen into the hands of the moneylenders, the law proceedings had reached the last stage.

An evil thought crossed his brain. He would fly with the Duchess; they would live in some undiscovered

nook in the wilds of North or South America; buthe would fly with a fortune, and leave his creditors to

confront their bills. To carry out the plan, he had only to cut off the lower portion of that letter with du

Croisier's signature, and to fill in the figures to turn it into a bill, and present it to the Kellers. There was a

dreadful struggle with temptation; tears shed, but the honor of the family triumphed, subject to one condition.

Victurnien wanted to be sure of his beautiful Diane; he would do nothing unless she should consent to their

flight. So he went to the Duchess in the Rue Faubourg SaintHonore, and found her in coquettish morning

dress, which cost as much in thought as in money, a fit dress in which to begin to play the part of Angel at

Mme. de Maufrigneuse was somewhat pensive. Cares of a similar kind were gnawing her mind; but she took

them gallantly. Of all the various feminine organizations classified by physiologists, there is one that has

something indescribably terrible about it. Such women combine strength of soul and clear insight, with a

faculty for prompt decision, and a recklessness, or rather resolution in a crisis which would shake a man's

nerves. And these powers lie out of sight beneath an appearance of the most graceful helplessness. Such

women only among womankind afford examples of a phenomenon which Buffon recognized in men alone, to

wit, the union, or rather the disunion, of two different natures in one human being. Other women are wholly

women; wholly tender, wholly devoted, wholly mothers, completely null and completely tiresome; nerves

and brain and blood are all in harmony; but the Duchess, and others like her, are capable of rising to the

highest heights of feelings, or of showing the most selfish insensibility. It is one of the glories of Moliere that

he has given us a wonderful portrait of such a woman, from one point of view only, in that greatest of his

fulllength figuresCelimene; Celimene is the typical aristocratic woman, as Figaro, the second edition of

So, the Duchess, being overwhelmed with debt, laid it upon herself to give no more than a moment's thought

to the avalanche of cares, and to take her resolution once and for all; Napoleon could take up or lay down the

burden of his thoughts in precisely the same way. The Duchess possessed the faculty of standing aloof from

herself; she could look on as a spectator at the crash when it came, instead of submitting to be buried beneath.

This was certainly great, but repulsive in a woman. When she awoke in the morning she collected her

thoughts; and by the time she had begun to dress she had looked at the danger in its fullest extent and faced

the possibilities of terrific downfall. She pondered. Should she take refuge in a foreign country? Or should

she go to the King and declare her debts to him? Or again, should she fascinate a du Tillet or a Nucingen, and

gamble on the stock exchange to pay her creditors? The city man would find the money; he would be

intelligent enough to bring her nothing but the profits, without so much as mentioning the losses, a piece of

delicacy which would gloss all over. The catastrophe, and these various ways of averting it, had all been

As a naturalist takes up some king of butterflies and fastens him down on cottonwool with a pin, so Mme.

de Maufrigneuse had plucked love out of her heart while she pondered the necessity of the moment, and was

quite ready to replace the beautiful passion on its immaculate setting so soon as her duchess' coronet was

safe. SHE knew none of the hesitation which Cardinal Richelieu hid from all the world but Pere Joseph; none

of the doubts that Napoleon kept at first entirely to himself. "Either the one or the other," she told herself.

She was sitting by the fire, giving orders for her toilette for a drive in the Bois if the weather should be fine,

The Comte d'Esgrignon, with all his stifled capacity, his so keen intellect, was in exactly the state which

might have been looked for in the woman. His heart was beating violently, the perspiration broke out over

him as he stood in his dandy's trappings; he was afraid as yet to lay a hand on the cornerstone which upheld

the pyramid of his life with Diane. So much it cost him to know the truth. The cleverest men are fain to

deceive themselves on one or two points if the truth once known is likely to humiliate them in their own eyes,

and damage themselves with themselves. Victurnien forced his own irresolution into the field by committing

"What is the matter with you?" Diane de Maufrigneuse had said at once, at the sight of her beloved

"Why, dear Diane, I am in such a perplexity; a man gone to the bottom and at his last gasp is happy in

"Pshaw! it is nothing," said she; "you are a child. Let us see now; tell me about it."

"Is that all?" said she, smiling at him. "Money matters can always be arranged somehow or other; nothing is

Victurnien's mind being set at rest by this swift comprehension of his position, he unrolled the brightcolored

web of his life for the last two years and a half; but it was the seamy side of it which he displayed with

something of genius, and still more of wit, to his Diane. He told his tale with the inspiration of the moment,

which fails no one in great crises; he had sufficient artistic skill to set it off by a varnish of delicate scorn for

men and things. It was an aristocrat who spoke. And the Duchess listened as she could listen.

One knee was raised, for she sat with her foot on a stool. She rested her elbow on her knee and leant her face

on her hand so that her fingers closed daintily over her shapely chin. Her eyes never left his; but thoughts by

myriads flitted under the blue surface, like gleams of stormy light between two clouds. Her forehead was

calm, her mouth gravely intentgrave with love; her lips were knotted fast by Victurnien's lips. To have her

listening thus was to believe that a divine love flowed from her heart. Wherefore, when the Count had

proposed flight to this soul, so closely knit to his own, he could not help crying, "You are an angel!"

"Good, very good," she said at last. (She had not given herself up to the love expressed in her face; her mind

had been entirely absorbed by deeplaid schemes which she kept to herself.) "But THAT is not the question,

dear." (The "angel" was only "that" by this time.) "Let us think of your affairs. Yes, we will go, and the

sooner the better. Arrange it all; I will follow you. It is glorious to leave Paris and the world behind. I will set

I WILL FOLLOW YOU! Just so Mlle. Mars might have spoken those words to send a thrill through two

thousand listening men and women. When a Duchesse de Maufrigneuse offers, in such words, to make such a

sacrifice to love, she has paid her debt. How should Victurnien speak of sordid details after that? He could so

much the better hide his schemes, because Diane was particularly careful not to inquire into them. She was

now, and always, as de Marsay said, an invited guest at a banquet wreathed with roses, a banquet which

Victurnien would not go till the promise had been sealed. He must draw courage from his happiness before he

could bring himself to do a deed on which, as he inwardly told himself, people would be certain to put a bad

construction. Still (and this was the thought that decided him) he counted on his aunt and father to hush up

the affair; he even counted on Chesnel. Chesnel would think of one more compromise. Besides, "this

business," as he called it in his thoughts, was the only way of raising money on the family estate. With three

hundred thousand francs, he and Diane would lead a happy life hidden in some palace in Venice; and there

Next day Victurnien made out a bill for three hundred thousand francs, and took it to the Kellers. The Kellers

advanced the money, for du Croisier happened to have a balance at the time; but they wrote to let him know

that he must not draw again on them without giving them notice. Du Croisier, much astonished, asked for a

statement of accounts. It was sent. Everything was explained. The day of his vengeance had arrived.

When Victurnien had drawn "his" money, he took it to Mme. de Maufrigneuse. She locked up the banknotes

in her desk, and proposed to bid the world farewell by going to the Opera to see it for the last time.

Victurnien was thoughtful, absent, and uneasy. He was beginning to reflect. He thought that his seat in the

Duchess' box might cost him dear; that perhaps, when he had put the three hundred thousand francs in safety,

it would be better to travel post, to fall at Chesnel's feet, and tell him all. But before they left the opera

house, the Duchess, in spite of herself, gave Victurnien an adorable glance, her eyes were shining with the

desire to go back once more to bid farewell to the nest which she loved so much. And boy that he was, he lost

The next day, at three o'clock, he was back again at the Hotel de Maufrigneuse; he had come to take the

Duchess' orders for that night's escape. And, "Why should we go?" asked she; "I have thought it all out. The

Vicomtesse de Beauseant and the Duchesse de Langeais disappeared. If I go too, it will be something quite

commonplace. We will brave the storm. It will be a far finer thing to do. I am sure of success." Victurnien's

eyes dazzled; he felt as if his skin were dissolving and the blood oozing out all over him.

"What is the matter with you?" cried the fair Diane, noticing a hesitation which a woman never forgives.

Your truly adroit lover will hasten to agree with any fancy that Woman may take into her head, and suggest

reasons for doing otherwise, while leaving her free exercise of her right to change her mind, her intentions,

and sentiments generally as often as she pleases. Victurnien was angry for the first time, angry with the wrath

of a weak man of poetic temperament; it was a storm of rain and lightning flashes, but no thunder followed.

The angel on whose faith he had risked more than his life, the honor of his house, was very roughly handled.

"So," said she, "we have come to this after eighteen months of tenderness! You are unkind, very unkind. Go

"And how have you done so much for me, monsieur? As if a man ought not to do anything for a woman that

After that sublime, "Oh!" Diane bowed her head on her hand and sat, still, cold, and implacable as angels

naturally may be expected to do, seeing that they share none of the passions of humanity. At the sight of the

woman he loved in this terrible attitude, Victurnien forgot his danger. Had he not just that moment wronged

the most angelic creature on earth? He longed for forgiveness, he threw himself before her, he kissed her feet,

he pleaded, he wept. Two whole hours the unhappy young man spent in all kinds of follies, only to meet the

same cold face, while the great silent tears dropping one by one, were dried as soon as they fell lest the

unworthy lover should try to wipe them away. The Duchess was acting a great agony, one of those hours

Two more hours went by. By this time the Count had gained possession of Diane's hand; it felt cold and

spiritless. The beautiful hand, with all the treasures in its grasp, might have been supple wood; there was

nothing of Diane in it; he had taken it, it had not been given to him. As for Victurnien, the spirit had ebbed

out of his frame, he had ceased to think. He would not have seen the sun in heaven. What was to be done?

What course should he take? What resolution should he make? The man who can keep his head in such

circumstances must be made of the same stuff as the convict who spent the night in robbing the Bibliotheque

Royale of its gold medals, and repaired to his honest brother in the morning with a request to melt down the

plunder. "What is to be done?" cried the brother. "Make me some coffee," replied the thief. Victurnien sank

into a bewildered stupor, darkness settled down over his brain. Visions of past rapture flitted across the misty

gloom like the figures that Raphael painted against a black background; to these he must bid farewell.

Inexorable and disdainful, the Duchess played with the tip of her scarf. She looked in irritation at Victurnien

from time to time; she coquetted with memories, she spoke to her lover of his rivals as if anger had finally

decided her to prefer one of them to a man who could so change in one moment after twentyeight months of

"Ah! that charming young Felix de Vandenesse, so faithful as he was to Mme. de Mortsauf, would never

have permitted himself such a scene! He can love, can de Vandenesse! De Marsay, that terrible de Marsay,

such a tiger as everyone thought him, was rough with other men; but like all strong men, he kept his

gentleness for women. Montriveau trampled the Duchesse de Langeais under foot, as Othello killed

Desdemona, in a burst of fury which at any rate proved the extravagance of his love. It was not like a paltry

squabble. There was rapture in being so crushed. Little, fairhaired, slim, and slender men loved to torment

women; they could only reign over poor, weak creatures; it pleased them to have some ground for believing

that they were men. The tyranny of love was their one chance of asserting their power. She did not know why

she had put herself at the mercy of fair hair. Such men as de Marsay, Montriveau, and Vandenesse,

It was a storm of epigrams. Her speeches, like bullets, came hissing past his ears. Every word that Diane

hurled at him was triplebarbed; she humiliated, stung, and wounded him with an art that was all her own, as

"You are mad!" he cried at last, at the end of his patience, and out he went in God knows what mood. He

drove as if he had never handled the reins before, locked his wheels in the wheels of other vehicles, collided

with the curbstone in the Place LouisQuinze, went he knew not whither. The horse, left to its own devices,

made a bolt for the stable along the Quai d'Orsay; but as he turned into the Rue de l'Universite, Josephin

"You cannot go home, sir," the old man said, with a scared face; "they have come with a warrant to arrest

Victurnien thought that he had been arrested on the criminal charge, albeit there had not been time for the

public prosecutor to receive his instructions. He had forgotten the matter of the bills of exchange, which had

been stirred up again for some days past in the form of orders to pay, brought by the officers of the court with

accompaniments in the shape of bailiffs, men in possession, magistrates, commissaries, policemen, and other

representatives of social order. Like most guilty creatures, Victurnien had forgotten everything but his crime.

"No, M. le Comte, drive as fast as you can to the Hotel du Bon la Fontaine, in the Rue de Grenelle. Mlle.

Armande is waiting there for you, the horses have been put in, she will take you with her."

Victurnien, in his trouble, caught like a drowning man at the branch that came to his hand; he rushed off to

the inn, reached the place, and flung his arms about his aunt. Mlle. Armande cried as if her heart would

break; any one might have thought that she had a share in her nephew's guilt. They stepped into the carriage.

A few minutes later they were on the road to Brest, and Paris lay behind them. Victurnien uttered not a

sound; he was paralyzed. And when aunt and nephew began to speak, they talked at cross purposes;

Victurnien, still laboring under the unlucky misapprehension which flung him into Mlle. Armande's arms,

"Poor boy, yes, but we are here. I am not going to scold you just yet. Take heart."

"Perhaps I might get into Chesnel's house without being seen if we timed ourselves to arrive in the middle of

"That will be best. We shall be better able to hide this from my brother.Poor angel! how unhappy he is!"

"Unhappy boy; what bliss and what misery!" And Mlle. Armande drew his fevered face to her breast and

kissed his forehead, cold and damp though it was, as the holy women might have kissed the brow of the dead

Christ when they laid Him in His grave clothes. Following out the excellent scheme suggested by the

prodigal son, he was brought by night to the quiet house in the Rue du Bercail; but chance ordered it that by

so doing he ran straight into the wolf's jaws, as the saying goes. That evening Chesnel had been making

arrangements to sell his connection to M. Lepressoir's headclerk. M. Lepressoir was the notary employed by

the Liberals, just as Chesnel's practice lay among the aristocratic families. The young fellow's relatives were

rich enough to pay Chesnel the considerable sum of a hundred thousand francs in cash.

Chesnel was rubbing his hands. "A hundred thousand francs will go a long way in buying up debts," he

thought. "The young man is paying a high rate of interest on his loans. We will lock him up down here. I will

Chesnel, honest Chesnel, upright, worthy Chesnel, called his darling Comte Victurnien's creditors "curs."

Meanwhile his successor was making his way along the Rue du Bercail just as Mlle. Armande's traveling

carriage turned into it. Any young man might be expected to feel some curiosity if he saw a traveling carriage

stop at a notary's door in such a town and at such an hour of the night; the young man in question was

sufficiently inquisitive to stand in a doorway and watch. He saw Mlle. Armande alight.

"Mlle. Armande d'Esgrignon at this time of night!" said he to himself. "What can be going forward at the

At the sight of mademoiselle, Chesnel opened the door circumspectly and set down the light which he was

carrying; but when he looked out and saw Victurnien, Mlle. Armande's first whispered word made the whole

thing plain to him. He looked up and down the street; it seemed quite deserted; he beckoned, and the young

Count sprang out of the carriage and entered the courtyard. All was lost. Chesnel's successor had discovered

Victurnien was hurried into the house and installed in a room beyond Chesnel's private office. No one could

"Yes, monsieur," the Count answered, understanding his old friend's exclamation. "I did not listen to you; and

"No, no," the good man answered, looking triumphantly from Mlle. Armande to the Count. "I have sold my

connection. I have been working for a very long time now, and am thinking of retiring. By noon to morrow

I shall have a hundred thousand francs; many things can be settled with that. Mademoiselle, you are tired," he

"My good Chesnel," said the Count, when they began to talk of business, "what are your hundred thousand

francs in such a position as mine? You do not know the full extent of my troubles, I think."

Victurnien explained the situation. Chesnel was thunderstruck. But for the strength of his devotion, he would

have succumbed to this blow. Tears streamed from the eyes that might well have had no tears left to shed. For

a few moments he was a child again, for a few moments he was bereft of his senses; he stood like a man who

should find his own house on fire, and through a window see the cradle ablaze and hear the hiss of the flames

on his children's curls. He rose to his full height il se dressa en pied, as Amyot would have said; he seemed

to grow taller; he raised his withered hands and wrung them despairingly and wildly.

"If only your father may die and never know this, young man! To be a forger is enough; a parricide you must

not be. Fly, you say? No. They would condemn you for contempt of court! Oh, wretched boy! Why did you

not forge MY signature? _I_ would have paid; I should not have taken the bill to the public

prosecutor.Now I can do nothing. You have brought me to a stand in the lowest pit in hell!Du Croisier!

What will come of it? What is to be done?If you had killed a man, there might be some help for it. But

forgeryFORGERY! And timethe time is flying," he went on, shaking his fist towards the old clock.

"You will want a sham passport now. One crime leads to another. First," he added, after a pause, "first of all

"But the money is still in Mme. de Maufrigneuse's keeping," exclaimed Victurnien.

"Ah!" exclaimed Chesnel. "Well, there is some hope lefta faint hope. Could we soften du Croisier, I

wonder, or buy him over? He shall have all the lands if he likes. I will go to him; I will wake him and offer

him all we have.Besides, it was not you who forged that bill; it was I. I will go to jail; I am too old for the

"But the body of the bill is in my handwriting," objected Victurnien, without a sign of surprise at this reckless

"Idiot! . . . that is, pardon, M. le Comte. Josephin should have been made to write it," the old notary cried

wrathfully. "He is a good creature; he would have taken it all on his shoulders. But there is an end of it; the

world is falling to pieces," the old man continued, sinking exhausted into a chair. "Du Croisier is a tiger; we

must be careful not to rouse him. What time is it? Where is the draft? If it is at Paris, it might be bought back

from the Kellers; they might accommodate us. Ah! but there are dangers on all sides; a single false step

means ruin. Money is wanted in any case. But there! nobody knows you are here, you must live buried away

in the cellar if needs must. I will go at once to Paris as fast as I can; I can hear the mail coach from Brest."

In a moment the old man recovered the faculties of his youthhis agility and vigor. He packed up clothes for

the journey, took money, brought a sixpound loaf to the little room beyond the office, and turned the key on

"Not a sound in here," he said, "no light at night; and stop here till I come back, or you will go to the hulks.

Do you understand, M. le Comte? Yes, TO THE HULKS! if anybody in a town like this knows that you are

With that Chesnel went out, first telling his housekeeper to give out that he was ill, to allow no one to come

into the house, to send everybody away, and to postpone business of every kind for three days. He wheedled

the manager of the coachoffice, made up a tale for his benefithe had the makings of an ingenious novelist

in himand obtained a promise that if there should be a place, he should have it, passport or no passport, as

well as a further promise to keep the hurried departure a secret. Luckily, the coach was empty when it

In the middle of the following night Chesnel was set down in Paris. At nine o'clock in the morning he waited

on the Kellers, and learned that the fatal draft had returned to du Croisier three days since; but while

obtaining this information, he in no way committed himself. Before he went away he inquired whether the

draft could be recovered if the amount were refunded. Francois Keller's answer was to the effect that the

document was du Croisier's property, and that it was entirely in his power to keep or return it. Then, in

Mme. de Maufrigneuse was not at home to any visitor at that hour. Chesnel, feeling that every moment was

precious, sat down in the hall, wrote a few lines, and succeeded in sending them to the lady by dint of

wheedling, fascinating, bribing, and commanding the most insolent and inaccessible servants in the world.

The Duchess was still in bed; but, to the great astonishment of her household, the old man in black

kneebreeches, ribbed stockings, and shoes with buckles to them, was shown into her room.

"What is it, monsieur?" she asked, posing in her disorder. "What does he want of me, ungrateful that he is?"

"It is this, Mme. la Duchesse," the good man exclaimed, "you have a hundred thousand crowns belonging to

"The money was gained by a forgery, for which we are going to the hulks, a forgery which we committed for

love of you," Chesnel said quickly. "How is it that you did not guess it, so clever as you are? Instead of

scolding the boy, you ought to have had the truth out of him, and stopped him while there was time, and

At the first words the Duchess understood; she felt ashamed of her behavior to so impassioned a lover, and

afraid besides that she might be suspected of complicity. In her wish to prove that she had not touched the

money left in her keeping, she lost all regard for appearances; and besides, it did not occur to her that the

notary was a man. She flung off the eiderdown quilt, sprang to her desk (flitting past the lawyer like an

angel out of one of the vignettes which illustrate Lamartine's books), held out the notes, and went back in

"You are an angel, madame." (She was to be an angel for all the world, it seemed.) "But this will not be the

"To save you! I will do it or die! Love that will not shrink from a crime must be love indeed. Is there a

woman in the world for whom such a thing has been done? Poor boy! Come, do not lose time, dear M.

"Mme. la Duchesse! Mme. la Duchesse!" It was all that he could say, so overcome was he. He cried, he could

Chesnel went straight to Josephin. Josephin unlocked the young Count's desk and writingtable. Very

luckily, the notary found letters which might be useful, letters from du Croisier and the Kellers. Then he took

a place in a diligence which was just about to start; and by dint of fees to the postilions, the lumbering vehicle

went as quickly as the coach. His two fellowpassengers on the journey happened to be in as great a hurry as

himself, and readily agreed to take their meals in the carriage. Thus swept over the road, the notary reached

the Rue du Bercail, after three days of absence, an hour before midnight. And yet he was too late. He saw the

gendarmes at the gate, crossed the threshold, and met the young Count in the courtyard. Victurnien had been

arrested. If Chesnel had had the power, he would beyond a doubt have killed the officers and men; as it was,

"If I cannot hush this matter up, you must kill yourself before the indictment is made out," he whispered. But

"Yes. If your courage should fail, my boy, count upon me," said Chesnel, squeezing Victurnien's hand.

In spite of the anguish of mind and tottering limbs, he stood firmly planted, to watch the son of his heart, the

Comte d'Esgrignon, go out of the courtyard between two gendarmes, with the commissary, the justice of the

peace, and the clerk of the court; and not until the figures had disappeared, and the sound of footsteps had

Never in the nineandtwenty years that Brigitte had been in his service had she heard such words from him!

Her candle fell out of her hands, but Chesnel neither heeded his housekeeper's alarm nor heard her exclaim.

"He is out of his mind," said she; "after all, it is no wonder. But where is he off to? I cannot possibly go after

And Brigitte went to waken the headclerk and send him to look along the river bank; the river had a gloomy

reputation just then, for there had lately been two cases of suicideone a young man full of promise, and the

other a girl, a victim of seduction. Chesnel went straight to the Hotel du Croisier. There lay his only hope.

The law requires that a charge of forgery must be brought by a private individual. It was still possible to

withdraw if du Croisier chose to admit that there had been a misapprehension; and Chesnel had hopes, even

M. and Mme. du Croisier had much more company than usual that evening. Only a few persons were in the

secret. M. du Ronceret, president of the Tribunal; M. Sauvager, deputy Public Prosecutor; and M. du Coudrai,

a registrar of mortgages, who had lost his post by voting on the wrong side, were the only persons who were

supposed to know about it; but Mesdames du Ronceret and du Coudrai had told the news, in strict

confidence, to one or two intimate friends, so that it had spread half over the seminoble, semibourgeois

assembly at M. du Croisier's. Everybody felt the gravity of the situation, but no one ventured to speak of it

openly; and, moreover, Mme. du Croisier's attachment to the upper sphere was so well known, that people

scarcely dared to mention the disaster which had befallen the d'Esgrignons or to ask for particulars. The

persons most interested were waiting till good Mme. du Croisier retired, for that lady always retreated to her

room at the same hour to perform her religious exercises as far as possible out of her husband's sight.

Du Croisier's adherents, knowing the secret and the plans of the great commercial power, looked round when

the lady of the house disappeared; but there were still several persons present whose opinions or interests

marked them out as untrustworthy, so they continued to play. About half past eleven all had gone save

intimates: M. Sauvager, M. Camusot, the examining magistrate, and his wife, M. and Mme. du Ronceret and

their son Fabien, M. and Mme. du Coudrai, and Joseph Blondet, the eldest of an old judge; ten persons in all.

It is told of Talleyrand that one fatal day, three hours after midnight, he suddenly interrupted a game of cards

in the Duchesse de Luynes' house by laying down his watch on the table and asking the players whether the

"Why do you ask?" returned Mme. de Luynes, "when you know so well that he has not."

There was a moment's pause, and they finished the game.President du Ronceret now did something very

similar. Perhaps he had heard the anecdote; perhaps, in political life, little minds and great minds are apt to

hit upon the same expression. He looked at his watch, and interrupted the game of boston with:

"At this moment M. le Comte d'Esgrignon is arrested, and that house which has held its head so high is

Every one in the room, with the exception of the President, the deputy, and du Croisier, looked startled.

"He has just been arrested in Chesnel's house, where he was hiding," said the deputy public prosecutor, with

the air of a capable but unappreciated public servant, who ought by rights to be Minister of Police. M.

Sauvager, the deputy, was a thin, tall young man of five andtwenty, with a lengthy olivehued

countenance, black frizzled hair, and deepset eyes; the wide, dark rings beneath them were completed by the

wrinkled purple eyelids above. With a nose like the beak of some bird of prey, a pinched mouth, and cheeks

worn lean with study and hollowed by ambition, he was the very type of a secondrate personage on the

lookout for something to turn up, and ready to do anything if so he might get on in the world, while keeping

within the limitations of the possible and the forms of law. His pompous expression was an admirable

indication of the timeserving eloquence to be expected of him. Chesnel's successor had discovered the

young Count's hiding place to him, and he took great credit to himself for his penetration.

The news seemed to come as a shock to the examining magistrate, M. Camusot, who had granted the warrant

of arrest on Sauvager's application, with no idea that it was to be executed so promptly. Camusot was short,

fair, and fat already, though he was only thirty years old or thereabouts; he had the flabby, livid look peculiar

to officials who live shut up in their private study or in a court of justice; and his little, pale, yellow eyes were

"Could you doubt it?" asked du Coudrai. "Now they have got the Count, all is over."

"There is the jury," said Camusot. "In this case M. le Prefet is sure to take care that after the challenges from

the prosecution and the defence, the jury to a man will be for an acquittal.My advice would be to come to a

"Acquitted or convicted, the Comte d'Esgrignon will be dishonored all the same," put in Sauvager.

"I am bringing an action,"[*] said du Croisier. "I shall have Dupin senior. We shall see how the d'Esgrignon

[*] A trial for an offence of this kind in France is an action brought by a private person (partie civile) to

recover damages, and at the same time a criminal prosecution conducted on behalf of the Government.Tr.

"The d'Esgrignons will defend the case and have counsel from Paris; they will have Berryer," said Mme.

Du Croisier, M. Sauvager, and the President du Ronceret looked at Camusot, and one thought troubled their

minds. The lady's tone, the way in which she flung her proverb in the faces of the eight conspirators against

the house of d'Esgrignon, caused them inward perturbation, which they dissembled as provincials can

dissemble, by dint of lifelong practice in the shifts of a monastic existence. Little Mme. Camusot saw their

change of countenance and subsequent composure when they scented opposition on the part of the examining

magistrate. When her husband unveiled the thoughts in the back of his own mind, she had tried to plumb the

depths of hate in du Croisier's adherents. She wanted to find out how du Croisier had gained over this deputy

public prosecutor, who had acted so promptly and so directly in opposition to the views of the central power.

"In any case," continued she, "if celebrated counsel come down from Paris, there is a prospect of a very

interesting session in the Court of Assize; but the matter will be snuffed out between the Tribunal and the

Court of Appeal. It is only to be expected that the Government should do all that can be done, below the

surface, to save a young man who comes of a great family, and has the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse for a

"How you go on, madame!" the President said sternly. "Can you suppose that the Court of First Instance will

"The event proves the contrary," she said meaningly, looking full at Sauvager and the President, who glanced

"Explain yourself, madame," said Sauvager. "you speak as if we had not done our duty."

"But has not M. le President just said something prejudicing a case which depends on the examination of the

prisoner?" said she. "And the evidence is still to be taken, and the Court had not given its decision?"

"We are not at the lawcourts," the deputy public prosecutor replied tartly; "and besides, we know all that."

"But the public prosecutor knows nothing at all about it yet," returned she, with an ironical glance. "He will

come back from the Chamber of Deputies in all haste. You have cut out his work for him, and he, no doubt,

The deputy prosecutor knitted his thick bushy brows. Those interested read tardy scruples in his countenance.

A great silence followed, broken by no sound but the dealing of the cards. M. and Mme. Camusot, sensible of

a decided chill in the atmosphere, took their departure to leave the conspirators to talk at their ease.

"Camusot," the lady began in the street, "you went too far. Why lead those people to suspect that you will

At that very moment Chesnel ran up against the couple. The old notary recognized the examining magistrate;

and with the lucidity which comes of an experience of business, he saw that the fate of the d'Esgrignons lay

"Ah, sir!" he exclaimed, "we shall soon need you badly. Just a word with you.Your pardon, madame," he

Mme. Camusot, as a good conspirator, looked towards du Croisier's house, ready to break up the conversation

if anybody appeared; but she thought, and thought rightly, that their enemies were busy discussing this

unexpected turn which she had given to the affair. Chesnel meanwhile drew the magistrate into a dark corner

"If you are for the house of d'Esgrignon," he said, "Mme. la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, the Prince of

Cadignan, the Ducs de Navarreins and de Lenoncourt, the Keeper of the Seals, the Chancellor, the King

himself, will interest themselves in you. I have just come from Paris; I knew all about this; I went posthaste

to explain everything at Court. We are counting on you, and I will keep your secret. If you are hostile, I shall

go back to Paris tomorrow and lodge a complaint with the Keeper of the Seals that there is a suspicion of

corruption. Several functionaries were at du Croisier's house tonight, and no doubt, ate and drank there,

Chesnel would have brought the Almighty to intervene if he had had the power. He did not wait for an

answer; he left Camusot and fled like a deer towards du Croisier's house. Camusot, meanwhile, bidden to

reveal the notary's confidences, was at once assailed with, "Was I not right, dear?"a wifely formula used

on all occasions, but rather more vehemently when the fair speaker is in the wrong. By the time they reached

home, Camusot had admitted the superiority of his partner in life, and appreciated his good fortune in

belonging to her; which confession, doubtless, was the prelude of a blissful night.

Chesnel met his foes in a body as they left du Croisier's house, and began to fear that du Croisier had gone to

bed. In his position he was compelled to act quickly, and any delay was a misfortune.

"In the King's name!" he cried, as the manservant was closing the hall door. He had just brought the King on

the scene for the benefit of an ambitious little official, and the word was still on his lips. He fretted and

chafed while the door was unbarred; then, swift as a thunderbolt, dashed into the antechamber, and spoke to

"A hundred crowns to you, young man, if you can wake Mme. du Croisier and send her to me this instant.

Chesnel grew cool and composed as he opened the door of the brightly lighted drawingroom, where du

Croisier was striding up and down. For a moment the two men scanned each other, with hatred and enmity,

twenty years' deep, in their eyes. One of the two had his foot on the heart of the house of d'Esgrignon; the

"Never mind that, I am at your orders, at your feet." The old man knelt before du Croisier, and stretched out

"What do you want? Our lands, our castle? Take all; withdraw the charge; leave us nothing but life and

honor. And over and besides all this, I will be your servant; command and I will obey."

"You are not vindictive," pleaded Chesnel; "you are goodhearted, you do not bear us such a grudge that you

will not listen to terms. Before daylight the young man ought to be at liberty."

"The whole town knows that he has been arrested," returned du Croisier, enjoying his revenge.

"It is a great misfortune, but as there will be neither proofs nor trial, we can easily manage that."

Du Croisier reflected. He seemed to be struggling with selfinterest; Chesnel thought that he had gained a

hold on his enemy through the great motive of human action. At that supreme moment Mme. du Croisier

"Come here and help me to soften your dear husband, madame?" said Chesnel, still on his knees. Mme. du

Croisier made him rise with every sign of profound astonishment. Chesnel explained his errand; and when

she knew it, the generous daughter of the intendants of the Ducs de Alencon turned to du Croisier with tears

"Ah! monsieur, can you hesitate? The d'Esgrignons, the honor of the province!" she said.

"There is more in it than that," exclaimed du Croisier, rising to begin his restless walk again.

"France is involved, M. Chesnel! It is a question of the country, of the people, of giving my lords your nobles

a lesson, and teaching them that there is such a thing as justice, and law, and a bourgeoisiea lesser nobility

as good as they, and a match for them! There shall be no more trampling down half a score of wheat fields for

a single hare; no bringing shame on families by seducing unprotected girls; they shall not look down on

others as good as they are, and mock at them for ten whole years, without finding out at last that these things

swell into avalanches, and those avalanches will fall and crush and bury my lords the nobles. You want to go

back to the old order of things. You want to tear up the social compact, the Charter in which our rights are set

"Is it not a sacred mission to open the people's eyes?" cried du Croisier. "Their eyes will be opened to the

morality of your party when they see nobles going to be tried at the Assize Court like Pierre and Jacques.

They will say, then, that small folk who keep their self respect are as good as great folk that bring shame on

themselves. The Assize Court is a light for all the world. Here, I am the champion of the people, the friend of

law. You yourselves twice flung me on the side of the peopleonce when you refused an alliance, twice

when you put me under the ban of your society. You are reaping as you have sown."

If Chesnel was startled by this outburst, so no less was Mme. du Croisier. To her this was a terrible revelation

of her husband's character, a new light not merely on the past but on the future as well. Any capitulation on

the part of the colossus was apparently out of the question; but Chesnel in no wise retreated before the

"What, monsieur?" said Mme. du Croisier. "Would you not forgive? Then you are not a Christian."

"I wish that we, my wife and I, should be received familiarly every evening, with an appearance of

friendliness at any rate, by M. le Marquis d'Esgrignon and his circle," continued du Croisier.

"I wish to have the family bound over by a surety of four hundred thousand francs, and by a written

document stating the nature of the compromise, so as to keep a loaded cannon pointed at its heart."

"We agree," said Chesnel, without admitting that the three hundred thousand francs was in his possession;

"but the amount must be deposited with a third party and returned to the family after your election and

"No; after the marriage of my grandniece, Mlle. Duval. She will very likely have four million francs some

day; the reversion of our property (mine and my wife's) shall be settled upon her by her marriagecontract,

"Idiot that I am," thought Chesnel, "why did I shrink from a lie to such a man?"

Du Croisier took himself off; he was pleased with himself; he had enjoyed Chesnel's humiliation; he had held

the destinies of a proud house, the representatives of the aristocracy of the province, suspended in his hand;

he had set the print of his heel on the very heart of the d'Esgrignons; and, finally, he had broken off the whole

negotiation on the score of his wounded pride. He went up to his room, leaving his wife alone with Chesnel.

In his intoxication, he saw his victory clear before him. He firmly believed that the three hundred thousand

francs had been squandered; the d'Esgrignons must sell or mortgage all that they had to raise the money; the

An affair of forgery can always be settled out of court in France if the missing amount is returned. The losers

by the crime are usually welltodo, and have no wish to blight an imprudent man's character. But du

Croisier had no mind to slacken his hold until he knew what he was about. He meditated until he fell asleep

on the magnificent manner in which his hopes would be fulfilled by the way of the Assize Court or by

marriage. The murmur of voices below, the lamentations of Chesnel and Mme. du Croisier, sounded sweet in

Mme. du Croisier shared Chesnel's views of the d'Esgrignons. She was a deeply religious woman, a Royalist

attached to the noblesse; the interview had been in every way a cruel shock to her feelings. She, a staunch

Royalist, had heard the roaring of that Liberalism, which, in her director's opinion, wished to crush the

Church. The Left benches for her meant the popular upheaval and the scaffolds of 1793.

"What would your uncle, that sainted man who hears us, say to this?" exclaimed Chesnel. Mme. du Croisier

"You have already been the cause of one poor boy's death; his mother will go mourning all her days,"

continued Chesnel; he saw how his words told, but he would have struck harder and even broken this

woman's heart to save Victurnien. "Do you want to kill Mlle. Armande, for she would not survive the

dishonor of the house for a week? Do you wish to be the death of poor Chesnel, your old notary? For I shall

kill the Count in prison before they shall bring the charge against him, and take my own life afterwards,

"That is enough! that is enough, my friend! I would do anything to put a stop to such an affair; but I never

knew M. du Croisier's real character until a few minutes ago. To you I can make the admission: there is

"I would give half the blood in my veins that it were so," said she, finishing her sentence by a wistful shake

As the First Consul, beaten on the field of Marengo till five o'clock in the evening, by six o'clock saw the tide

of battle turned by Desaix's desperate attack and Kellermann's terrific charge, so Chesnel in the midst of

defeat saw the beginnings of victory. No one but a Chesnel, an old notary, an exsteward of the manor, old

Maitre Sorbier's junior clerk, in the sudden flash of lucidity which comes with despair, could rise thus, high

as a Napoleon, nay, higher. This was not Marengo, it was Waterloo, and the Prussians had come up; Chesnel

"Madame," he said, "remember that I have been your man of business for twenty years; remember that if the

d'Esgrignons mean the honor of the province, you represent the honor of the bourgeoisie; it rests with you,

and you alone, to save the ancient house. Now, answer me; are you going to allow dishonor to fall on the

shade of your dead uncle, on the d'Esgrignons, on poor Chesnel? Do you want to kill Mlle. Armande weeping

yonder? Or do you wish to expiate wrongs done to others by a deed which will rejoice your ancestors, the

intendants of the dukes of Alencon, and bring comfort to the soul of our dear Abbe? If he could rise from his

"Well. Here are the hundred thousand crowns," said Chesnel, drawing the bundles of notes from his pocket.

"Nothing but good," Chesnel replied. "You are saving him from eternal punishment in hell, at the cost of a

Then Chesnel read the depths of the poor wife's mind. Mme. du Croisier was hesitating between her two

creeds; between wifely obedience to her husband as laid down by the Church, and obedience to the altar and

the throne. Her husband, in her eyes, was acting wrongly, but she dared not blame him; she would fain save

"Not in the least," Chesnel answered; "your old notary swears it by the Holy Gospels"

He had nothing left to lose for the d'Esgrignons but his soul; he risked it now by this horrible perjury, but

Mme. du Croisier must be deceived, there was no other choice but death. Without losing a moment, he

dictated a form of receipt by which Mme. du Croisier acknowledged payment of a hundred thousand crowns

five days before the fatal letter of exchange appeared; for he recollected that du Croisier was away from

"Now swear to me that you will declare before the examining magistrate that you received the money on that

date," he said, when Mme. du Croisier had taken the notes and he held the receipt in his hand.

"Very well," said Chesnel, "will you be guided entirely by his advice in this affair?"

"And you must not give the money to M. du Croisier until you have been before the magistrate."

"No. Ah! God give me strength to appear in a Court of Justice and maintain a lie before men!"

Chesnel kissed Mme. du Croisier's hand, then stood upright, and majestic as one of the prophets that Raphael

"You uncle's soul is thrilled with joy," he said; "you have wiped out for ever the wrong that you did by

marrying an enemy of altar and throne"words that made a lively impression on Mme. du Croisier's

Then Chesnel all at once bethought himself that he must make sure of the lady's director, the Abbe Couturier.

He knew how obstinately devout souls can work for the triumph of their views when once they come forward

for their side, and wished to secure the concurrence of the Church as early as possible. So he went to the

Hotel d'Esgrignon, roused up Mlle. Armande, gave her an account of that night's work, and sped her to fetch

"Ah, God in heaven! Thou must save the house of d'Esgrignon!" he exclaimed, as he went slowly home

again. "The affair is developing now into a fight in a Court of Law. We are face to face with men that have

passions and interests of their own; we can get anything out of them. This du Croisier has taken advantage of

the public prosecutor's absence; the public prosecutor is devoted to us, but since the opening of the Chambers

he has gone to Paris. Now, what can they have done to get round his deputy? They have induced him to take

up the charge without consulting his chief. This mystery must be looked into, and the ground surveyed

tomorrow; and then, perhaps, when I have unraveled this web of theirs, I will go back to Paris to set great

So he reasoned, poor, aged, clearsighted wrestler, before he lay down half dead with bearing the weight of

so much emotion and fatigue. And yet, before he fell asleep he ran a searching eye over the list of

magistrates, taking all their secret ambitions into account, casting about for ways of influencing them,

calculating his chances in the coming struggle. Chesnel's prolonged scrutiny of consciences, given in a

condensed form, will perhaps serve as a picture of the judicial world in a country town.

Magistrates and officials generally are obliged to begin their career in the provinces; judicial ambition there

ferments. At the outset every man looks towards Paris; they all aspire to shine in the vast theatre where great

political causes come before the courts, and the higher branches of the legal profession are closely connected

with the palpitating interests of society. But few are called to that paradise of the man of law, and ninetenths

of the profession are bound sooner or later to regard themselves as shelved for good in the provinces.

Wherefore, every Tribunal of First Instance and every CourtRoyal is sharply divided in two. The first

section has given up hope, and is either torpid or content; content with the excessive respect paid to office in

a country town, or torpid with tranquillity. The second section is made up of the younger sort, in whom the

desire of success is untempered as yet by disappointment, and of the really clever men urged on continually

by ambition as with a goad; and these two are possessed with a sort of fanatical belief in their order.

At this time the younger men were full of Royalist zeal against the enemies of the Bourbons. The most

insignificant deputy official was dreaming of conducting a prosecution, and praying with all his might for one

of those political cases which bring a man's zeal into prominence, draw the attention of the higher powers,

and mean advancement for King's men. Was there a member of an official staff of prosecuting counsel who

could hear of a Bonapartist conspiracy breaking out somewhere else without a feeling of envy? Where was

the man that did not burn to discover a Caron, or a Berton, or a revolt of some sort? With reasons of State,

and the necessity of diffusing the monarchical spirit throughout France as their basis, and a fierce ambition

stirred up whenever party spirit ran high, these ardent politicians on their promotion were lucid,

clearsighted, and perspicacious. They kept up a vigorous detective system throughout the kingdom; they did

the work of spies, and urged the nation along a path of obedience, from which it had no business to swerve.

Justice, thus informed with monarchical enthusiasm, atoned for the errors of the ancient parliaments, and

walked, perhaps, too ostentatiously hand in hand with religion. There was more zeal than discretion shown;

but justice sinned not so much in the direction of machiavelism as by giving the candid expression to its

views, when those views appeared to be opposed to the general interests of a country which must be put

safely out of reach of revolutions. But taken as a whole, there was still too much of the bourgeois element in

the administration; it was too readily moved by petty liberal agitation; and as a result, it was inevitable that it

should incline sooner or later to the Constitutional party, and join ranks with the bourgeoisie in the day of

battle. In the great body of legal functionaries, as in other departments of the administration, there was not

wanting a certain hypocrisy, or rather that spirit of imitation which always leads France to model herself on

Officials of both complexions were to be found in the court in which young d'Esgrignon's fate depended. M.

le President du Ronceret and an elderly judge, Blondet by name, represented the section of functionaries

shelved for good, and resigned to stay where they were; while the young and ambitious party comprised the

examining magistrate M. Camusot, and his deputy M. Michu, appointed through the interests of the

CinqCygnes, and certain of promotion to the Court of Appeal of Paris at the first opportunity.

President du Ronceret held a permanent post; it was impossible to turn him out. The aristocratic party

declined to give him what he considered to be his due, socially speaking; so he declared for the bourgeoisie,

glossed over his disappointment with the name of independence, and failed to realize that his opinions

condemned him to remain a president of a court of the first instance for the rest of his life. Once started in this

track the sequence of events led du Ronceret to place his hopes of advancement on the triumph of du Croisier

and the Left. He was in no better odor at the Prefecture than at the CourtRoyal. He was compelled to keep

on good terms with the authorities; the Liberals distrusted him, consequently he belonged to neither party. He

was obliged to resign his chances of election to du Croisier, he exercised no influence, and played a

secondary part. The false position reacted on his character; he was soured and discontented; he was tired of

political ambiguity, and privately had made up his mind to come forward openly as leader of the Liberal

party, and so to strike ahead of du Croisier. His behavior in the d'Esgrignon affair was the first step in this

direction. To begin with, he was an admirable representative of that section of the middle classes which

allows its petty passions to obscure the wider interests of the country; a class of crotchety politicians,

upholding the government one day and opposing it the next, compromising every cause and helping none;

helpless after they have done the mischief till they set about brewing more; unwilling to face their own

incompetence, thwarting authority while professing to serve it. With a compound of arrogance and humility

they demand of the people more submission than kings expect, and fret their souls because those above them

are not brought down to their level, as if greatness could be little, as if power existed without force.

President du Ronceret was a tall, spare man with a receding forehead and scanty, auburn hair. He was

walleyed, his complexion was blotched, his lips thin and hard, his scarcely audible voice came out like the

husky wheezings of asthma. He had for a wife a great, solemn, clumsy creature, tricked out in the most

ridiculous fashion, and outrageously overdressed. Mme. la Presidente gave herself the airs of a queen; she

wore vivid colors, and always appeared at balls adorned with the turban, dear to the British female, and

lovingly cultivated in outoftheway districts in France. Each of the pair had an income of four or five

thousand francs, which with the President's salary, reached a total of some twelve thousand. In spite of a

decided tendency to parsimony, vanity required that they should receive one evening in the week. Du Croisier

might import modern luxury into the town, M. and Mme. de Ronceret were faithful to the old traditions. They

had always lived in the oldfashioned house belonging to Mme. du Ronceret, and had made no changes in it

since their marriage. The house stood between a garden and a courtyard. The gray old gable end, with one

window in each story, gave upon the road. High walls enclosed the garden and the yard, but the space taken

up beneath them in the garden by a walk shaded with chestnut trees was filled in the yard by a row of

outbuildings. An old rustdevoured iron gate in the garden wall balanced the yard gateway, a huge,

doubleleaved carriage entrance with a buttress on either side, and a mighty shell on the top. The same shell

The whole place was gloomy, close, and airless. The row of irongated openings in the opposite wall, as you

entered, reminded you of prison windows. Every passerby could look in through the railings to see how the

garden grew; the flowers in the little square borders never seemed to thrive there.

The drawingroom on the ground floor was lighted by a single window on the side of the street, and a French

window above a flight of steps, which gave upon the garden. The diningroom on the other side of the great

antechamber, with its windows also looking out into the garden, was exactly the same size as the

drawingroom, and all three apartments were in harmony with the general air of gloom. It wearied your eyes

to look at the ceilings all divided up by huge painted crossbeams and adorned with a feeble lozenge pattern or

a rosette in the middle. The paint was old, startling in tint, and begrimed with smoke. The sun had faded the

heavy silk curtains in the drawingroom; the oldfashioned Beauvais tapestry which covered the

whitepainted furniture had lost all its color with wear. A Louis Quinze clock on the chimneypiece stood

between two extravagant, branched sconces filled with yellow wax candles, which the Presidente only lighted

on occasions when the oldfashioned rockcrystal chandelier emerged from its green wrapper. Three

cardtables, covered with threadbare baize, and a backgammon box, sufficed for the recreations of the

company; and Mme. du Ronceret treated them to such refreshments as cider, chestnuts, pastry puffs, glasses

of eau sucree, and homemade orgeat. For some time past she had made a practice of giving a party once a

fortnight, when tea and some pitiable attempts at pastry appeared to grace the occasion.

Once a quarter the du Roncerets gave a grand threecourse dinner, which made a great sensation in the town,

a dinner served up in execrable ware, but prepared with the science for which the provincial cook is

remarkable. It was a Gargantuan repast, which lasted for six whole hours, and by abundance the President

And so du Ronceret's life and its accessories were just what might have been expected from his character and

his false position. He felt dissatisfied at home without precisely knowing what was the matter; but he dared

not go to any expense to change existing conditions, and was only too glad to put by seven or eight thousand

francs every year, so as to leave his son Fabien a handsome private fortune. Fabien du Ronceret had no mind

for the magistracy, the bar, or the civil service, and his pronounced turn for doing nothing drove his parent to

On this head there was rivalry between the President and the Vice President, old M. Blondet. M. Blondet,

for a long time past, had been sedulously cultivating an acquaintance between his son and the Blandureau

family. The Blandureaus were welltodo linen manufacturers, with an only daughter, and it was on this

daughter that the President had fixed his choice of a wife for Fabien. Now, Joseph Blondet's marriage with

Mlle. Blandureau depended on his nomination to the post which his father, old Blondet, hoped to obtain for

him when he himself should retire. But President du Ronceret, in underhand ways, was thwarting the old

man's plans, and working indirectly upon the Blandureaus. Indeed, if it had not been for this affair of young

d'Esgrignon's, the astute President might have cut them out, father and son, for their rivals were very much

M. Blondet, the victim of the machiavelian President's intrigues, was one of the curious figures which lie

buried away in the provinces like old coins in a crypt. He was at that time a man of sixtyseven or

thereabouts, but he carried his years well; he was very tall, and in build reminded you of the canons of the

good old times. The smallpox had riddled his face with numberless dints, and spoilt the shape of his nose by

imparting to it a gimletlike twist; it was a countenance by no means lacking in character, very evenly tinted

with a diffused red, lighted up by a pair of bright little eyes, with a sardonic look in them, while a certain

Before the Revolution broke out, Blondet senior had been a barrister; afterwards he became the public

accuser, and one of the mildest of those formidable functionaries. Goodman Blondet, as they used to call him,

deadened the force of the new doctrines by acquiescing in them all, and putting none of them in practice. He

had been obliged to send one or two nobles to prison; but his further proceedings were marked with such

deliberation, that he brought them through to the 9th Thermidor with a dexterity which won respect for him

on all sides. As a matter of fact, Goodman Blondet ought to have been President of the Tribunal, but when the

courts of law were reorganized he had been set aside; Napoleon's aversion for Republicans was apt to

reappear in the smallest appointments under his government. The qualification of expublic accuser, written

in the margin of the list against Blondet's name, set the Emperor inquiring of Cambaceres whether there

might not be some scion of an ancient parliamentary stock to appoint instead. The consequence was that du

Ronceret, whose father had been a councillor of parliament, was nominated to the presidency; but, the

Emperor's repugnance notwithstanding, Cambaceres allowed Blondet to remain on the bench, saying that the

Blondet's talents, his knowledge of the old law of the land and subsequent legislation, should by rights have

brought him far in his profession; but he had this much in common with some few great spirits: he

entertained a prodigious contempt for his own special knowledge, and reserved all his pretentions, leisure,

and capacity for a second pursuit unconnected with the law. To this pursuit he gave his almost exclusive

attention. The good man was passionately fond of gardening. He was in correspondence with some of the

most celebrated amateurs; it was his ambition to create new species; he took an interest in botanical

discoveries, and lived, in short, in the world of flowers. Like all florists, he had a predilection for one

particular plant; the pelargonium was his especial favorite. The court, the cases that came before it, and his

outward life were as nothing to him compared with the inward life of fancies and abundant emotions which

the old man led. He fell more and more in love with his flowerseraglio; and the pains which he bestowed on

his garden, the sweet round of the labors of the months, held Goodman Blondet fast in his greenhouse. But

for that hobby he would have been a deputy under the Empire, and shone conspicuous beyond a doubt in the

His marriage was the second cause of his obscurity. As a man of forty, he was rash enough to marry a girl of

eighteen, by whom he had a son named Joseph in the first year of their marriage. Three years afterwards

Mme. Blondet, then the prettiest woman in the town, inspired in the prefect of the department a passion

which ended only with her death. The prefect was the father of her second son Emile; the whole town knew

this, old Blondet himself knew it. The wife who might have roused her husband's ambition, who might have

won him away from his flowers, positively encouraged the judge in his botanical tastes. She no more cared to

leave the place than the prefect cared to leave his prefecture so long as his mistress lived.

Blondet felt himself unequal at his age to a contest with a young wife. He sought consolation in his

greenhouse, and engaged a very pretty servantmaid to assist him to tend his everchanging bevy of beauties.

So while the judge potted, pricked out, watered, layered, slipped, blended, and induced his flowers to break,

Mme. Blondet spent his substance on the dress and finery in which she shone at the prefecture. One interest

alone had power to draw her away from the tender care of a romantic affection which the town came to

admire in the end; and this interest was Emile's education. The child of love was a bright and pretty boy,

while Joseph was no less heavy and plain featured. The old judge, blinded by paternal affection loved

For a dozen years M. Blondet bore his lot with perfect resignation. He shut his eyes to his wife's intrigue with

a dignified, wellbred composure, quite in the style of an eighteenth century grand seigneur; but, like all men

with a taste for a quiet life, he could cherish a profound dislike, and he hated his younger son. When his wife

died, therefore, in 1818, he turned the intruder out of the house, and packed him off to Paris to study law on

an allowance of twelve hundred francs for all resource, nor could any cry of distress extract another penny

from his purse. Emile Blondet would have gone under if it had not been for his real father.

M. Blondet's house was one of the prettiest in the town. It stood almost opposite the prefecture, with a neat

little court in front. A row of oldfashioned iron railings between two brickwork piers enclosed it from the

street; and a low wall, also of brick, with a second row of railings along the top, connected the piers with the

neighboring house. The little court, a space about ten fathoms in width by twenty in length, was cut in two by

a brick pathway which ran from the gate to the house door between a border on either side. Those borders

were always renewed; at every season of the year they exhibited a successful show of blossom, to the

admiration of the public. All along the back of the gardenbeds a quantity of climbing plants grew up and

covered the walls of the neighboring houses with a magnificent mantle; the brickwork piers were hidden in

clusters of honeysuckle; and, to crown all, in a couple of terracotta vases at the summit, a pair of

acclimatized cactuses displayed to the astonished eyes of the ignorant those thick leaves bristling with spiny

It was a plainlooking house, built of brick, with brickwork arches above the windows, and bright green

Venetian shutters to make it gay. Through the glass door you could look straight across the house to the

opposite glass door, at the end of a long passage, and down the central alley in the garden beyond; while

through the windows of the diningroom and drawingroom, which extended, like the passage from back to

front of the house, you could often catch further glimpses of the flowerbeds in a garden of about two acres

in extent. Seen from the road, the brickwork harmonized with the fresh flowers and shrubs, for two

centuries had overlaid it with mosses and green and russet tints. No one could pass through the town without

falling in love with a house with such charming surroundings, so covered with flowers and mosses to the

roofridge, where two pigeons of glazed crockery ware were perched by way of ornament.

M. Blondet possessed an income of about four thousand livres derived from land, besides the old house in the

town. He meant to avenge his wrongs legitimately enough. He would leave his house, his lands, his seat on

the bench to his son Joseph, and the whole town knew what he meant to do. He had made a will in that son's

favor; he had gone as far as the Code will permit a man to go in the way of disinheriting one child to benefit

another; and what was more, he had been putting by money for the past fifteen years to enable his lout of a

son to buy back from Emile that portion of his father's estate which could not legally be taken away from

Emile Blondet thus turned adrift had contrived to gain distinction in Paris, but so far it was rather a name than

a practical result. Emile's indolence, recklessness, and happygolucky ways drove his real father to despair;

and when that father died, a halfruined man, turned out of office by one of the political reactions so frequent

under the Restoration, it was with a mind uneasy as to the future of a man endowed with the most brilliant

Emile Blondet found support in a friendship with a Mlle. de Troisville, whom he had known before her

marriage with the Comte de Montcornet. His mother was living when the Troisvilles came back after the

emigration; she was related to the family, distantly it is true, but the connection was close enough to allow

her to introduce Emile to the house. She, poor woman, foresaw the future. She knew that when she died her

son would lose both mother and father, a thought which made death doubly bitter, so she tried to interest

others in him. She encouraged the liking that sprang up between Emile and the eldest daughter of the house

of Troisville; but while the liking was exceedingly strong on the young lady's part, a marriage was out of the

question. It was a romance on the pattern of Paul et Virginie. Mme. Blondet did what she could to teach her

son to look to the Troisvilles, to found a lasting attachment on a children's game of "makebelieve" love,

which was bound to end as boyandgirl romances usually do. When Mlle. de Troisville's marriage with

General Montcornet was announced, Mme. Blondet, a dying woman, went to the bride and solemnly

implored her never to abandon Emile, and to use her influence for him in society in Paris, whither the

Luckily for Emile, he was able to make his own way. He made his appearance, at the age of twenty, as one of

the masters of modern literature; and met with no less success in the society into which he was launched by

the father who at first could afford to bear the expense of the young man's extravagance. Perhaps Emile's

precocious celebrity and the good figure that he made strengthened the bonds of his friendship with the

Countess. Perhaps Mme. de Montcornet, with the Russian blood in her veins (her mother was the daughter of

the Princess Scherbelloff), might have cast off the friend of her childhood if he had been a poor man

struggling with all his might among the difficulties which beset a man of letters in Paris; but by the time that

the real strain of Emile's adventurous life began, their attachment was unalterable on either side. He was

looked upon as one of the leading lights of journalism when young d'Esgrignon met him at his first supper

party in Paris; his acknowledged position in the world of letters was very high, and he towered above his

reputation. Goodman Blondet had not the faintest conception of the power which the Constitutional

Government had given to the press; nobody ventured to talk in his presence of the son of whom he refused to

hear. And so it came to pass that he knew nothing of Emile whom he had cursed and Emile's greatness.

Old Blondet's integrity was as deeply rooted in him as his passion for flowers; he knew nothing but law and

botany. He would have interviews with litigants, listen to them, chat with them, and show them his flowers;

he would accept rare seeds from them; but once on the bench, no judge on earth was more impartial. Indeed,

his manner of proceeding was so well known, that litigants never went near him except to hand over some

document which might enlighten him in the performance of his duty, and nobody tried to throw dust in his

eyes. With his learning, his lights, and his way of holding his real talents cheap, he was so indispensable to

President du Ronceret, that, matrimonial schemes apart, that functionary would have done all that he could, in

an underhand way, to prevent the vicepresident from retiring in favor of his son. If the learned old man left

Goodman Blondet did not know that it was in Emile's power to fulfil all his wishes in a few hours. The

simplicity of his life was worthy of one of Plutarch's men. In the evening he looked over his cases; next

morning he worked among his flowers; and all day long he gave decisions on the bench. The pretty

maidservant, now of ripe age, and wrinkled like an Easter pippin, looked after the house, and they lived

according to the established customs of the strictest parsimony. Mlle. Cadot always carried the keys of her

cupboards and fruitloft about with her. She was indefatigable. She went to market herself, she cooked and

dusted and swept, and never missed mass of a morning. To give some idea of the domestic life of the

household, it will be enough to remark that the father and son never ate fruit till it was beginning to spoil,

because Mlle. Cadot always brought out anything that would not keep. No one in the house ever tasted the

luxury of new bread, and all the fast days in the calendar were punctually observed. The gardener was put on

rations like a soldier; the elderly Valideh always kept an eye upon him. And she, for her part, was so

deferentially treated, that she took her meals with the family, and in consequence was continually trotting to

Mlle. Blandureau's parents had consented to her marriage with Joseph Blondet upon one conditionthe

penniless and briefless barrister must be an assistant judge. So, with the desire of fitting his son to fill the

position, old M. Blondet racked his brains to hammer the law into his son's head by dint of lessons, so as to

make a cutanddried lawyer of him. As for Blondet junior, he spent almost every evening at the

Blandureaus' house, to which also young Fabien du Ronceret had been admitted since his return, without

Everything in this life of theirs was measured with an accuracy worthy of Gerard Dow's Money Changer; not

a grain of salt too much, not a single profit foregone; but the economical principles by which it was regulated

were relaxed in favor of the greenhouse and garden. "The garden was the master's craze," Mlle. Cadot used to

say. The master's blind fondness for Joseph was not a craze in her eyes; she shared the father's predilection;

she pampered Joseph; she darned his stockings; and would have been better pleased if the money spent on the

That garden was kept in marvelous order by a single man; the paths, covered with riversand, continually

turned over with the rake, meandered among the borders full of the rarest flowers. Here were all kinds of

color and scent, here were lizards on the walls, legions of little flowerpots standing out in the sun, regiments

of forks and hoes, and a host of innocent things, a combination of pleasant results to justify the gardener's

At the end of the greenhouse the judge had set up a grandstand, an amphitheatre of benches to hold some five

or six thousand pelargoniums in potsa splendid and famous show. People came to see his geraniums in

flower, not only from the neighborhood, but even from the departments round about. The Empress Marie

Louise, passing through the town, had honored the curiously kept greenhouse with a visit; so much was she

impressed with the sight, that she spoke of it to Napoleon, and the old judge received the Cross of the Legion

of Honor. But as the learned gardener never mingled in society at all, and went nowhere except to the

Blandureaus, he had no suspicion of the President's underhand manoeuvres; and others who could see the

President's intentions were far too much afraid of him to interfere or to warn the inoffensive Blondets.

As for Michu, that young man with his powerful connections gave much more thought to making himself

agreeable to the women in the upper social circles to which he was introduced by the CinqCygnes, than to

the extremely simple business of a provincial Tribunal. With his independent means (he had an income of

twelve thousand livres), he was courted by mothers of daughters, and led a frivolous life. He did just enough

at the Tribunal to satisfy his conscience, much as a schoolboy does his exercises, saying ditto on all

occasions, with a "Yes, dear President." But underneath the appearance of indifference lurked the unusual

powers of the Paris law student who had distinguished himself as one of the staff of prosecuting counsel

before he came to the provinces. He was accustomed to taking broad views of things; he could do rapidly

what the President and Blondet could only do after much thinking, and very often solved knotty points for

them. In delicate conjunctures the President and VicePresident took counsel with their junior, confided

thorny questions to him, and never failed to wonder at the readiness with which he brought back a task in

which old Blondet found nothing to criticise. Michu was sure of the influence of the most crabbed aristocrats,

and he was young and rich; he lived, therefore, above the level of departmental intrigues and pettinesses. He

was an indispensable man at picnics, he frisked with young ladies and paid court to their mothers, he danced

at balls, he gambled like a capitalist. In short, he played his part of young lawyer of fashion to admiration;

without, at the same time, compromising his dignity, which he knew how to assert at the right moment like a

man of spirit. He won golden opinions by the manner in which he threw himself into provincial ways,

without criticising them; and for these reasons, every one endeavored to make his time of exile endurable.

The public prosecutor was a lawyer of the highest ability; he had taken the plunge into political life, and was

one of the most distinguished speakers on the ministerialist benches. The President stood in awe of him; if he

had not been away in Paris at the time, no steps would have been taken against Victurnien; his dexterity, his

experience of business, would have prevented the whole affair. At that moment, however, he was in the

Chamber of Deputies, and the President and du Croisier had taken advantage of his absence to weave their

plot, calculating, with a certain ingenuity, that if once the law stepped in, and the matter was noised abroad,

As a matter of fact, no staff of prosecuting counsel in any Tribunal, at that particular time, would have taken

up a charge of forgery against the eldest son of one of the noblest houses in France without going into the

case at great length, and a special reference, in all probability, to the AttorneyGeneral. In such a case as this,

the authorities and the Government would have tried endless ways of compromising and hushing up an affair

which might send an imprudent young man to the hulks. They would very likely have done the same for a

Liberal family in a prominent position, so long as the Liberals were not too openly hostile to the throne and

the altar. So du Croisier's charge and the young Count's arrest had not been very easy to manage. The

M. Sauvager, a young Royalist barrister, had reached the position of deputy public prosecutor by dint of

subservience to the Ministry. In the absence of his chief he was head of the staff of counsel for prosecution,

and, consequently, it fell to him to take up the charge made by du Croisier. Sauvager was a selfmade man;

he had nothing but his stipend; and for that reason the authorities reckoned upon some one who had

everything to gain by devotion. The President now exploited the position. No sooner was the document with

the alleged forgery in du Croisier's hands, than Mme. la Presidente du Ronceret, prompted by her spouse, had

a long conversation with M. Sauvager. In the course of it she pointed out the uncertainties of a career in the

magistrature debout compared with the magistrature assise, and the advantages of the bench over the bar; she

showed how a freak on the part of some official, or a single false step, might ruin a man's career.

"If you are conscientious and give your conclusions against the powers that be, you are lost," continued she.

"Now, at this moment, you might turn your position to account to make a fine match that would put you

above unlucky chances for the rest of your life; you may marry a wife with fortune sufficient to land you on

the bench, in the magistrature assise. There is a fine chance for you. M. du Croisier will never have any

children; everybody knows why. His money, and his wife's as well, will go to his niece, Mlle. Duval. M.

Duval is an ironmaster, his purse is tolerably filled, to begin with, and his father is still alive, and has a little

property besides. The father and son have a million of francs between them; they will double it with du

Croisier's help, for du Croisier has business connections among great capitalists and manufacturers in Paris.

M. and Mme. Duval the younger would be certain to give their daughter to a suitor brought forward by du

Croisier, for he is sure to leave two fortunes to his niece; and, in all probability, he will settle the reversion of

his wife's property upon Mlle. Duval in the marriage contract, for Mme. du Croisier has no kin. You know

how du Croisier hates the d'Esgrignons. Do him a service, be his man, take up this charge of forgery which he

is going to make against young d'Esgrignon, and follow up the proceedings at once without consulting the

public prosecutor at Paris. And, then, pray Heaven that the Ministry dismisses you for doing your office

impartially, in spite of the powers that be; for if they do, your fortune is made! You will have a charming wife

and thirty thousand francs a year with her, to say nothing of four millions expectations in ten years' time."

In two evenings Sauvager was talked over. Both he and the President kept the affair a secret from old

Blondet, from Michu, and from the second member of the staff of prosecuting counsel. Feeling sure of

Blondet's impartiality on a question of fact, the President made certain of a majority without counting

Camusot. And now Camusot's unexpected defection had thrown everything out. What the President wanted

was a committal for trial before the public prosecutor got warning. How if Camusot or the second counsel for

And here some portion of Camusot's private history may perhaps explain how it came to pass that Chesnel

took it for granted that the examining magistrate would be on the d'Esgrignons' side, and how he had the

Camusot's father, a wellknown silk mercer in the Rue des Bourdonnais, was ambitious for the only son of

his first marriage, and brought him up to the law. When Camusot junior took a wife, he gained with her the

influence of an usher of the Royal cabinet, backstairs influence, it is true, but still sufficient, since it had

brought him his first appointment as justice of the peace, and the second as examining magistrate. At the time

of his marriage, his father only settled an income of six thousand francs upon him (the amount of his mother's

fortune, which he could legally claim), and as Mlle. Thirion brought him no more than twenty thousand

francs as her portion, the young couple knew the hardships of hidden poverty. The salary of a provincial

justice of the peace does not exceed fifteen hundred francs, while an examining magistrate's stipend is

augmented by something like a thousand francs, because his position entails expenses and extra work. The

post, therefore, is much coveted, though it is not permanent, and the work is heavy, and that was why Mme.

Camusot had just scolded her husband for allowing the President to read his thoughts.

Marie Cecile Amelie Thirion, after three years of marriage, perceived the blessing of Heaven upon it in the

regularity of two auspicious eventsthe births of a girl and a boy; but she prayed to be less blessed in the

future. A few more of such blessings would turn straitened means into distress. M. Camusot's father's money

was not likely to come to them for a long time; and, rich as he was, he would scarcely leave more than eight

or ten thousand francs a year to each of his children, four in number, for he had been married twice. And

besides, by the time that all "expectations," as matchmakers call them, were realized, would not the

magistrate have children of his own to settle in life? Any one can imagine the situation for a little woman

with plenty of sense and determination, and Mme. Camusot was such a woman. She did not refrain from

meddling in matters judicial. She had far too strong a sense of the gravity of a false step in her husband's

She was the only child of an old servant of Louis XVIII., a valet who had followed his master in his

wanderings in Italy, Courland, and England, till after the Restoration the King awarded him with the one

place that he could fill at Court, and made him usher by rotation to the royal cabinet. So in Amelie's home

there had been, as it were, a sort of reflection of the Court. Thirion used to tell her about the lords, and

ministers, and great men whom he announced and introduced and saw passing to and fro. The girl, brought up

at the gates of the Tuileries, had caught some tincture of the maxims practised there, and adopted the dogma

of passive obedience to authority. She had sagely judged that her husband, by ranging himself on the side of

the d'Esgrignons, would find favor with Mme. la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and with two powerful families

on whose influence with the King the Sieur Thirion could depend at an opportune moment. Camusot might

get an appointment at the first opportunity within the jurisdiction of Paris, and afterwards at Paris itself. That

promotion, dreamed of and longed for at every moment, was certain to have a salary of six thousand francs

attached to it, as well as the alleviation of living in her own father's house, or under the Camusots' roof, and

all the advantages of a father's fortune on either side. If the adage, "Out of sight is out of mind," holds good of

most women, it is particularly true where family feeling or royal or ministerial patronage is concerned. The

personal attendants of kings prosper at all times; you take an interest in a man, be it only a man in livery, if

Mme. Camusot, regarding herself as a bird of passage, had taken a little house in the Rue du Cygne.

Furnished lodgings there were none; the town was not enough of a thoroughfare, and the Camusots could not

afford to live at an inn like M. Michu. So the fair Parisian had no choice for it but to take such furniture as

she could find; and as she paid a very moderate rent, the house was remarkably ugly, albeit a certain

quaintness of detail was not wanting. It was built against a neighboring house in such a fashion that the side

with only one window in each story, gave upon the street, and the front looked out upon a yard where

rosebushes and buckhorn were growing along the wall on either side. On the farther side, opposite the

house, stood a shed, a roof over two brick arches. A little wicketgate gave entrance into the gloomy place

(made gloomier still by the great walnuttree which grew in the yard), but a double flight of steps, with an

elaborately wrought but rusteaten handrail, led to the house door. Inside the house there were two rooms

on each floor. The diningroom occupied that part of the ground floor nearest the street, and the kitchen lay

on the other side of a narrow passage almost wholly taken up by the wooden staircase. Of the two firstfloor

rooms, one did duty as the magistrate's study, the other as a bedroom, while the nursery and the servants'

bedroom stood above in the attics. There were no ceilings in the house; the crossbeams were simply

whitewashed and the spaces plastered over. Both rooms on the first floor and the diningroom below were

wainscoted and adorned with the labyrinthine designs which taxed the patience of the eighteenth century

joiner; but the carving had been painted a dingy gray most depressing to behold.

The magistrate's study looked as though it belonged to a provincial lawyer; it contained a big bureau, a

mahogany armchair, a law student's books, and shabby belongings transported from Paris. Mme. Camusot's

room was more of a native product; it boasted a blueand white scheme of decoration, a carpet, and that

anomalous kind of furniture which appears to be in the fashion, while it is simply some style that has failed in

Paris. As to the diningroom, it was nothing but an ordinary provincial diningroom, bare and chilly, with a

In this shabby room, with nothing to see but the walnuttree, the dark leaves growing against the walls, and

the almost deserted road beyond them, a somewhat lively and frivolous woman, accustomed to the

amusements and stir of Paris, used to sit all day long, day after day, and for the most part of the time alone,

though she received tiresome and inane visits which led her to think her loneliness preferable to empty

tittletattle. If she permitted herself the slightest gleam of intelligence, it gave rise to interminable comment

and embittered her condition. She occupied herself a great deal with her children, not so much from taste as

for the sake of an interest in her almost solitary life, and exercised her mind on the only subjects which she

could find to wit, the intrigues which went on around her, the ways of provincials, and the ambitions shut

in by their narrow horizons. So she very soon fathomed mysteries of which her husband had no idea. As she

sat at her window with a piece of intermittent embroidery work in her fingers, she did not see her woodshed

full of faggots nor the servant busy at the wash tub; she was looking out upon Paris, Paris where everything is

pleasure, everything is full of life. She dreamed of Paris gaieties, and shed tears because she must abide in

this dull prison of a country town. She was disconsolate because she lived in a peaceful district, where no

conspiracy, no great affair would ever occur. She saw herself doomed to sit under the shadow of the walnut

Mme. Camusot was a little, plump, fresh, fairhaired woman, with a very prominent forehead, a mouth which

receded, and a turnedup chin, a type of countenance which is passable in youth, but looks old before the

time. Her bright, quick eyes expressed her innocent desire to get on in the world, and the envy born of her

present inferior position, with rather too much candor; but still they lighted up her commonplace face and set

it off with a certain energy of feeling, which success was certain to extinguish in later life. At that time she

used to give a good deal of time and thought to her dresses, inventing trimmings and embroidering them; she

planned out her costumes with the maid whom she had brought with her from Paris, and so maintained the

reputation of Parisiennes in the provinces. Her caustic tongue was dreaded; she was not loved. In that keen,

investigating spirit peculiar to unoccupied women who are driven to find some occupation for empty days,

she had pondered the President's private opinions, until at length she discovered what he meant to do, and for

some time past she had advised Camusot to declare war. The young Count's affair was an excellent

opportunity. Was it not obviously Camusot's part to make a steppingstone of this criminal case by favoring

the d'Esgrignons, a family with power of a very different kind from the power of the du Croisier party?

"Sauvager will never marry Mlle. Duval. They are dangling her before him, but he will be the dupe of those

Machiavels in the ValNoble to whom he is going to sacrifice his position. Camusot, this affair, so

unfortunate as it is for the d'Esgrignons, so insidiously brought on by the President for du Croisier's benefit,

The shrewd Parisienne had likewise guessed the President's underhand manoeuvres with the Blandureaus,

and his object in baffling old Blondet's efforts, but she saw nothing to be gained by opening the eyes of father

or son to the perils of the situation; she was enjoying the beginning of the comedy; she knew about the

proposals made by Chesnel's successor on behalf of Fabien du Ronceret, but she did not suspect how

important that secret might be to her. If she or her husband were threatened by the President, Mme. Camusot

could threaten too, in her turn, to call the amateur gardener's attention to a scheme for carrying off the flower

Chesnel had not penetrated, like Mme. Camusot, into the means by which Sauvager had been won over; but

by dint of looking into the various lives and interests of the men grouped about the Lilies of the Tribunal, he

knew that he could count upon the public prosecutor, upon Camusot, and M. Michu. Two judges for the

d'Esgrignons would paralyze the rest. And, finally, Chesnel knew old Blondet well enough to feel sure that if

he ever swerved from impartiality, it would be for the sake of the work of his whole lifetime,to secure his

son's appointment. So Chesnel slept, full of confidence, on the resolve to go to M. Blondet and offer to

realize his so long cherished hopes, while he opened his eyes to President du Ronceret's treachery. Blondet

won over, he would take a peremptory tone with the examining magistrate, to whom he hoped to prove that if

Victurnien was not blameless, he had been merely imprudent; the whole thing should be shown in the light of

But Chesnel slept neither soundly nor for long. Before dawn he was awakened by his housekeeper. The most

bewitching person in this history, the most adorable youth on the face of the globe, Mme. la Duchesse de

Maufrigneuse herself, in man's attire, had driven alone from Paris in a caleche, and was waiting to see him.

"I have come to save him or to die with him," said she, addressing the notary, who thought that he was

dreaming. "I have brought a hundred thousand francs, given me by His Majesty out of his private purse, to

buy Victurnien's innocence, if his adversary can be bribed. If we fail utterly, I have brought poison to snatch

him away before anything takes place, before even the indictment is drawn up. But we shall not fail. I have

sent word to the public prosecutor; he is on the road behind me; he could not travel in my caleche, because he

Chesnel rose to the occasion and played up to the Duchess; he wrapped himself in his dressinggown, fell at

her feet, and kissed them, not without asking her pardon for forgetting himself in his joy.

"We are saved!" cried he; and gave orders to Brigitte to see that Mme. la Duchesse had all that she needed

after traveling post all night. He appealed to the fair Diane's spirit, by making her see that it was absolutely

necessary that she should visit the examining magistrate before daylight, lest any one should discover the

"And have I not a passport in due form?" quoth she, displaying a sheet of paper, wherein she was described

as M. le Vicomte Felix de Vandeness, Master of Requests, and His Majesty's private secretary. "And do I not

play my man's part well?" she added, running her fingers through her wig a la Titus, and twirling her riding

"O! Mme. la Duchesse, you are an angel!" cried Chesnel, with tears in his eyes. (She was destined always to

be an angel, even in man's attire.) "Button up your greatcoat, muffle yourself up to the eyes in your traveling

cloak, take my arm, and let us go as quickly as possible to Camusot's house before anybody can meet us."

The old notary felt his heart dead within him, but he thought it none the less necessary to humor the Duchess,

to laugh when she laughed, and shed tears when she wept; groaning in spirit, all the same, over the feminine

frivolity which could find matter for a jest while setting about a matter so serious. What would he not have

done to save the Count? While Chesnel dressed; Mme. de Maufrigneuse sipped the cup of coffee and cream

which Brigitte brought her, and agreed with herself that provincial women cooks are superior to Parisian

chefs, who despise the little details which make all the difference to an epicure. Thanks to Chesnel's taste for

delicate fare, Brigitte was found prepared to set an excellent meal before the Duchess.

"Ah! so there is a Mme. Camusot?" said the Duchess. "Then the affair may be managed."

"And so much the more readily, because the lady is visibly tired enough of living among us provincials; she

"You will judge how much to tell or to conceal," Chesnel replied humbly. "I am sure that she will be greatly

flattered to be the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse's hostess; you will be obliged to stay in her house until

"Is this Mme. Camusot a goodlooking woman?" asked the Duchess, with a coxcomb's air.

"Then she is sure to meddle in courthouse affairs," returned the Duchess. "Nowhere but in France, my dear

M. Chesnel, do you see women so much wedded to their husbands that they are wedded to their husband's

professions, work, or business as well. In Italy, England, and Germany, women make it a point of honor to

leave men to fight their own battles; they shut their eyes to their husbands' work as perseveringly as our

French citizens' wives do all that in them lies to understand the position of their jointstock partnership; is not

that what you call it in your legal language? Frenchwomen are so incredibly jealous in the conduct of their

married life, that they insist on knowing everything; and that is how, in the least difficulty, you feel the wife's

hand in the business; the Frenchwoman advises, guides, and warns her husband. And, truth to tell, the man is

none the worse off. In England, if a married man is put in prison for debt for twentyfour hours, his wife will

"Here we are, without meeting a soul on the way," said Chesnel. "You are the more sure of complete

ascendency here, Mme. la Duchesse, since Mme. Camusot's father is one Thirion, usher of the royal cabinet."

"And the King never thought of that!" exclaimed the Duchess. "He thinks of nothing! Thirion introduced us,

the Prince de Cadignan, M. de Vandeness, and me! We shall have it all our own way in this house. Settle

The maid, who was washing and dressing the children, showed the visitors into the little fireless

"Take that card to your mistress," said the Duchess, lowering her voice for the woman's ear; "nobody else is

At the sound of a woman's voice, and the sight of the handsome young man's face, the maid looked

"Wake M. Camusot," said Chesnel, "and tell him, that I am waiting to see him on important business," and

A few minutes later Mme. Camusot, in her dressinggown, sprang downstairs and brought the handsome

stranger into her room. She had pushed Camusot out of bed and into his study with all his clothes, bidding

him dress himself at once and wait there. The transformation scene had been brought about by a bit of

pasteboard with the words MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE MAUFRIGNEUSE engraved upon it. A daughter

"Well!" exclaimed the maidservant, left with Chesnel in the dining room, "Would not any one think that a

thunderbolt had dropped in among us? The master is dressing in his study; you can go upstairs."

Now that he was conscious of the support of a great lady who had the King's consent (by word of mouth) to

the measures about to be taken for rescuing the Comte d'Esgrignon, he spoke with an air of authority, which

served his cause much better with Camusot than the humility with which he would otherwise have

"Sir," said he, "the words let fall last evening may have surprised you, but they are serious. The house of

d'Esgrignon counts upon you for the proper conduct of investigations from which it must issue without a

"I shall pass over anything in your remarks, sir, which must be offensive to me personally, and obnoxious to

justice; for your position with regard to the d'Esgrignons excuses you up to a certain point, but"

"Pardon me, sir, if I interrupt you," said Chesnel. "I have just spoken aloud the things which your superiors

are thinking and dare not avow; though what those things are any intelligent man can guess, and you are an

intelligent man.Grant that the young man had acted imprudently, can you suppose that the sight of a

d'Esgrignon dragged into an Assize Court can be gratifying to the King, the Court, or the Ministry? Is it to the

interest of the kingdom, or of the country, that historic houses should fall? Is not the existence of a great

aristocracy, consecrated by time, a guarantee of that Equality which is the catchword of the Opposition at this

moment? Well and good; now not only has there not been the slightest imprudence, but we are innocent

"For the last two years, the Sieur du Croisier has regularly allowed M. le Comte d'Esgrignon to draw upon

him for very large sums," said Chesnel. "We are going to produce drafts for more than a hundred thousand

crowns, which he continually met; the amounts being remitted by mebear that well in mindeither before

or after the bills fell due. M. le Comte d'Esgrignon is in a position to produce a receipt for the sum paid by

him, before this bill, this alleged forgery was drawn. Can you fail to see in that case that this charge is a piece

of spite and party feeling? And a charge brought against the heir of a great house by one of the most

dangerous enemies of the Throne and Altar, what is it but an odious slander? There has been no more forgery

in this affair than there has been in my office. Summon Mme. du Croisier, who knows nothing as yet of the

charge of forgery; she will declare to you that I brought the money and paid it over to her, so that in her

husband's absence she might remit the amount for which he has not asked her. Examine du Croisier on the

point; he will tell you that he knows nothing of my payment to Mme. du Croisier.

"You may make such assertions as these, sir, in M. d'Esgrignon's salon, or in any other house where people

know nothing of business, and they may be believed; but no examining magistrate, unless he is a driveling

idiot, can imagine that a woman like Mme. du Croisier, so submissive as she is to her husband, has a hundred

thousand crowns lying in her desk at this moment, without saying a word to him; nor yet that an old notary

"The old notary, sir, had gone to Paris to put a stop to the young man's extravagance."

"I have not yet examined the Comte d'Esgrignon," Camusot began; "his answers will point out my duty."

"Sir," said Chesnel, seeing danger ahead, "the examination can be made in our interests or against them. But

there are two courses open to you: you can establish the fact on Mme. du Croisier's deposition that the

amount was deposited with her before the bill was drawn; or you can examine the unfortunate young man

implicated in this affair, and he in his confusion may remember nothing and commit himself. You will decide

which is the more crediblea slip of memory on the part of a woman in her ignorance of business, or a

"All this is beside the point," began Camusot; "the question is, whether M. le Comte d'Esgrignon has or has

not used the lower half of a letter addressed to him by du Croisier as a bill of exchange."

"Eh! and so he might," a voice cried suddenly, as Mme. Camusot broke in, followed by the handsome

"You will have the first vacant appointment as assistant judge at Paris, you are serving the King himself in

this affair; I have proof of it; you will not be forgotten," she said, lowering her voice in his ear. "This young

man that you see here is the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse; you must never have seen her, and do all that you

"Gentlemen," said Camusot, "even if the preliminary examination is conducted to prove the young Count's

innocence, can I answer for the view the court may take? M. Chesnel, and you also, my sweet, know what M.

"Tut, tut, tut!" said Mme. Camusot, "go yourself to M. Michu this morning, and tell him that the Count has

been arrested; you will be two against two in that case, I will be bound. MICHU comes from Paris, and you

At that very moment Mlle. Cadot's voice was heard in the doorway. She had brought a note, and was waiting

"M. le VicePresident begs M. Camusot to sit in audience today and for the next few days, so that there

"Then there is an end of the preliminary examination!" cried Mme. Camusot. "Did I not tell you, dear, that

they would play you some ugly trick? The President has gone off to slander you to the public prosecutor and

the President of the CourtRoyal. You will be changed before you can make the examination. Is that clear?"

"You will stay, monsieur," said the Duchess. "The public prosecutor is coming, I hope, in time."

"When the public prosecutor arrives," little Mme. Camusot said, with some heat, "he must find all

over.Yes, my dear, yes," she added, looking full at her amazed husband."Ah! old hypocrite of a

President, you are setting your wits against us; you shall remember it! You have a mind to help us to a dish of

your own making, you shall have two served up to you by your humble servant Cecile Amelie

Thirion!Poor old Blondet! It is lucky for him that the President has taken this journey to turn us out, for

now that great oaf of a Joseph Blondet will marry Mlle. Blandureau. I will let Father Blondet have some

seeds in return.As for you, Camusot, go to M. Michu's, while Mme. la Duchesse and I will go to find old

Blondet. You must expect to hear it said all over the town tomorrow that I took a walk with a lover this

Mme. Camusot took the Duchess' arm, and they went through the town by deserted streets to avoid any

unpleasant adventure on the way to the old VicePresident's house. Chesnel meanwhile conferred with the

young Count in prison; Camusot had arranged a stolen interview. Cookmaids, servants, and the other early

risers of a country town, seeing Mme. Camusot and the Duchess taking their way through the back streets,

took the young gentleman for an adorer from Paris. That evening, as Cecile Amelie had said, the news of her

behavior was circulated about the town, and more than one scandalous rumor was occasioned thereby. Mme.

Camusot and her supposed lover found old Blondet in his green house. He greeted his colleague's wife and

"I have the honor to introduce one of my husband's cousins," said Mme. Camusot, bringing forward the

Duchess; "he is one of the most distinguished horticulturists in Paris; and as he cannot spend more than one

day with us, on his way back from Brittany, and has heard of your flowers and plants, I have taken the liberty

"What can have taken M. le President away from home?" put in Mme. Camusot. "I will wager that his

"Exactly.This, monsieur, is the queerest of all cactuses," he continued, producing a flowerpot which

appeared to contain a piece of mildewed rattan; "it comes from Australia. You are very young, sir, to be a

"Dear M. Blondet, never mind your flowers," said Mme. Camusot. "YOU are concerned, you and your hopes,

"Yes," retorted she. "If you cultivated people a little more and your flowers a little less, you would know that

the dowry and the hopes you have sown, and watered, and tilled, and weeded are on the point of being

"Oh, nobody in the town will have the courage to fly in the President's face and warn you. I, however, do not

belong to the town, and, thanks to this obliging young man, I shall soon be going back to Paris; so I can

inform you that Chesnel's successor has made formal proposals for Mlle. Claire Blandureau's hand on behalf

of young du Ronceret, who is to have fifty thousand crowns from his parents. As for Fabien, he has made up

Old Blondet dropped the flowerpot which he had brought out for the Duchess to see.

"Oh, my cactus! Oh, my son! and Mlle. Blandureau! . . . Look here! the cactus flower is broken to pieces."

"No," Mme. Camusot answered, laughing; "everything can be put right. If you have a mind to see your son a

"Step this way, sir, and you will see my pelargoniums, an enchanting sight while they are in flower"

Then he added to Mme. Camusot, "Why did you speak of these matters while your cousin was present."

"All depends upon him," riposted Mme. Camusot. "Your son's appointment is lost for ever if you let fall a

"He is the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, sent here by His Majesty to save young d'Esgrignon, whom they

arrested yesterday on a charge of forgery brought against him by du Croisier. Mme. la Duchesse has authority

"My cactus is all right!" exclaimed Blondet, peering at his precious plant."Go on, I am listening."

"Take counsel with Camusot and Michu to hush up the affair as soon as possible, and your son will get the

appointment. It will come in time enough to baffle du Ronceret's underhand dealings with the Blandureaus.

Your son will be something better than assistant judge; he will have M. Camusot's post within the year. The

public prosecutor will be here today. M. Sauvager will be obliged to resign, I expect, after his conduct in this

affair. At the court my husband will show you documents which completely exonerate the Count and prove

Old Blondet went into the Olympic circus where his six thousand pelargoniums stood, and made his bow to

"Monsieur," said he, "if your wishes do not exceed the law, this thing may be done."

"Monsieur," returned the Duchess, "send in your resignation to M. Chesnel tomorrow, and I will promise

you that your son shall be appointed within the week; but you must not resign until you have had

confirmation of my promise from the public prosecutor. You men of law will come to a better understanding

among yourselves. Only let him know that the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse had pledged her word to you. And

The old judge kissed her hand and began recklessly to gather his best flowers for her.

"Can you think of it? Give them to madame," said the Duchess. "A young man should not have flowers about

"Before you go down to the court," added Mme. Camusot, "ask Chesnel's successor about those proposals

Old Blondet, quite overcome by this revelation of the President's duplicity, stood planted on his feet by the

wicket gate, looking after the two women as they hurried away through bystreets home again. The edifice

raised so painfully during ten years for his beloved son was crumbling visibly before his eyes. Was it

At halfpast nine, before the court was sitting, VicePresident Blondet, Camusot, and Michu met with

remarkable punctuality in the council chamber. Blondet locked the door with some precautions when

"Well, Mr. VicePresident," began Michu, "M. Sauvager, without consulting the public prosecutor, has

issued a warrant for the apprehension of one Comte d'Esgrignon, in order to serve a grudge borne against him

by one du Croisier, an enemy of the King's government. It is a regular topsyturvy affair. The President, for

his part, goes away, and thereby puts a stop to the preliminary examination! And we know nothing of the

"This is the first word I have heard of it," said the VicePresident. He was furious with the President for

stealing a march on him with the Blandureaus. Chesnel's successor, the du Roncerets' man, had just fallen

"It is lucky that we spoke to you about the matter, my dear master," said Camusot, "or you might have given

up all hope of seating your son on the bench or of marrying him to Mlle. Blandureau."

"But it is no question of my son, nor of his marriage," said the Vice President; "we are talking of young

"It seems that Chesnel deposited the amount to meet the bill with Mme. du Croisier," said Michu, "and a

crime has been made of a mere irregularity. According to the charge, the Count made use of the lower half of

a letter bearing du Croisier's signature as a draft which he cashed at the Kellers'."

"But why is du Croisier proceeding against him if the amount was paid in beforehand?" asked VicePresident

"He does not know that the money was deposited with his wife; or he pretends that he does not know," said

"Still it looks like a forgery to me," said old Blondet. No passion could obscure judicial clearsightedness in

"Do you think so?" returned Camusot. "But, at the outset, supposing that the Count had no business to draw

upon du Croisier, there would still be no forgery of the signature; and the Count believed that he had a right

to draw on Croisier when Chesnel advised him that the money had been placed to his credit."

"Well, then, where is the forgery?" asked Blondet. "It is the intent to defraud which constitutes forgery in a

"Oh, it is clear, if you take du Croisier's version for truth, that the signature was diverted from its purpose to

obtain a sum of money in spite of du Croisier's contrary injunction to his bankers," Camusot answered.

"Gentlemen," said Blondet, "this seems to me to be a mere triffle, a quibble.Suppose you had the money, I

ought perhaps to have waited until I had your authorization; but I, Comte d'Esgrignon, was pressed for

money, so I Come, come, your prosecution is a piece of revengeful spite. Forgery is defined by the law

as an attempt to obtain any advantage which rightfully belongs to another. There is no forgery here, according

to the letter of the Roman law, nor according to the spirit of modern jurisprudence (always from the point of a

civil action, for we are not here concerned with the falsification of public or authentic documents). Between

private individuals the essence of a forgery is the intent to defraud; where is it in this case? In what times are

we living, gentlemen? Here is the President going away to balk a preliminary examination which ought to be

over by this time! Until today I did not know M. le President, but he shall have the benefit of arrears; from

this time forth he shall draft his decisions himself. You must set about this affair with all possible speed, M.

"Yes," said Michu. "In my opinion, instead of letting the young man out on bail, we ought to pull him out of

this mess at once. Everything turns on the examination of du Croisier and his wife. You might summons them

to appear while the court is sitting, M. Camusot; take down their depositions before four o'clock, send in your

report to night, and we will give our decision in the morning before the court sits."

"We will settle what course to pursue while the barristers are pleading," said VicePresident Blondet,

At noon Mlle. Armande and the Bishop reached the Hotel d'Esgrignon; Chesnel and M. Couturier were there

to meet them. There was a sufficiently short conference between the prelate and Mme. du Croisier's director,

At eleven o'clock that morning du Croisier received a summons to appear in the examining magistrate's office

between one and two in the afternoon. Thither he betook himself, consumed by wellfounded suspicions. It

was impossible that the President should have foreseen the arrival of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse upon the

scene, the return of the public prosecutor, and the hasty confabulation of his learned brethren; so he had

omitted to trace out a plan for du Croisier's guidance in the event of the preliminary examination taking place.

Neither of the pair imagined that the proceedings would be hurried on in this way. Du Croisier obeyed the

summons at once; he wanted to know how M. Camusot was disposed to act. So he was compelled to answer

the questions put to him. Camusot addressed him in summary fashion with the six following inquiries:

"Was the signature on the bill alleged to be a forgery in your handwriting?Had you previously done

business with M. le Comte d'Esgrignon?Was not M. le Comte d'Esgrignon in the habit of drawing upon

you, with or without advice?Did you not write a letter authorizing M. d'Esgrignon to rely upon you at any

time? Had not Chesnel squared the account not once, but many times already?Were you not away from

All these questions the banker answered in the affirmative. In spite of wordy explanations, the magistrate

always brought him back to a "Yes" or "No." When the questions and answers alike had been resumed in the

"Was du Croisier aware that the money destined to meet the bill had been deposited with him, du Croisier,

according to Chesnel's declaration, and a letter of advice sent by the said Chesnel to the Comte d'Esgrignon,

That last question frightened du Croisier. He asked what was meant by it, and whether he was supposed to be

the defendant and M. le Comte d'Esgrignon the plaintiff? He called the magistrate's attention to the fact that if

"Justice is seeking information," said the magistrate, as he dismissed the witness, but not before he had taken

Chesnel, likewise summoned, came forward to explain the matter. The truth of his assertions was borne out

by Mme. du Croisier's deposition. The Count had already been examined. Prompted by Chesnel, he produced

du Croisier's first letter, in which he begged the Count to draw upon him without the insulting formality of

depositing the amount beforehand. The Comte d'Esgrignon next brought out a letter in Chesnel's handwriting,

by which the notary advised him of the deposit of a hundred thousand crowns with M. du Croisier. With such

primary facts as these to bring forward as evidence, the young Count's innocence was bound to emerge

Du Croisier went home from the court, his face white with rage, and the foam of repressed fury on his lips.

His wife was sitting by the fireside in the drawingroom at work upon a pair of slippers for him. She

"Madame," he stammered out, "what deposition is this that you made before the magistrate? You have

"I have saved you, monsieur," answered she. "If some day you will have the honor of connecting yourself

with the d'Esgrignons by marrying your niece to the Count, it will be entirely owing to my conduct to day."

"A miracle!" cried he. "Balaam's ass has spoken. Nothing will astonish me after this. And where are the

"Here they are," said she, pulling out a bundle of banknotes from beneath the cushions of her settee. "I have

not committed mortal sin by declaring that M. Chesnel gave them into my keeping."

"I was wrong there," said his wife, "but my mistake was all for your good. Your niece will be Marquise

d'Esgrignon some of these days, and you will perhaps be a deputy, if you behave well in this deplorable

Du Croisier, under stress of painful agitation, strode up and down his drawingroom; while his wife, in no

less agitation, awaited the result of this exercise. Du Croisier at length rang the bell.

"I am not at home to any one tonight," he said, when the man appeared; "shut the gates; and if any one calls,

tell them that your mistress and I have gone into the country. We shall start directly after dinner, and dinner

The great news was discussed that evening in every drawingroom; little shopkeepers, working folk, beggars,

the noblesse, the merchant classthe whole town, in short, was talking of the Comte d'Esgrignon's arrest on

a charge of forgery. The Comte d'Esgrignon would be tried in the Assize Court; he would be condemned and

branded. Most of those who cared for the honor of the family denied the fact. At nightfall Chesnel went to

Mme. Camusot and escorted the stranger to the Hotel d'Esgrignon. Poor Mlle. Armande was expecting him;

she led the fair Duchess to her own room, which she had given up to her, for his lordship the Bishop occupied

Victurnien's chamber; and, left alone with her guest, the noble woman glanced at the Duchess with most

"You owed help, indeed, madame, to the poor boy who ruined himself for your sake," she said, "the boy to

The Duchess had already made a woman's survey of Mlle. d'Esgrignon's room; the cold, bare, comfortless

chamber, that might have been a nun's cell, was like a picture of the life of the heroic woman before her. The

Duchess saw it allpast, present, and futurewith rising emotion, felt the incongruity of her presence, and

But in Mlle. Armande the Christian overcame Victurnien's aunt. "Ah, I was wrong; forgive me, Mme. la

Duchesse; you did not know how poor we were, and my nephew was incapable of the admission. And

And Mlle. Armande, withered and thin and white, but beautiful as those tall austere slender figures which

Mlle. Armande went downstairs to the salon, and found the Collection of Antiquities complete to a man.

Every one of them had come, partly to do honor to the Bishop, partly to rally round the Marquis; but Chesnel,

posted in the antechamber, warned each new arrival to say no word of the affair, that the aged Marquis might

never know that such a thing had been. The loyal Frank was quite capable of killing his son or du Croisier;

for either the one or the other must have been guilty of death in his eyes. It chanced, strangely enough, that he

talked more of Victurnien than usual; he was glad that his son had gone back to Paris. The King would give

Victurnien a place before very long; the King was interesting himself at last in the d'Esgrignons. And his

friends, their hearts dead within them, praised Victurnien's conduct to the skies. Mlle. Armande prepared the

way for her nephew's sudden appearance among them by remarking to her brother that Victurnien would be

"Bah!" said the Marquis, standing with his back to the hearth, "if he is doing well where he is, he ought to

stay there, and not be thinking of the joy it would give his old father to see him again. The King's service has

Scarcely one of those present heard the words without a shudder. Justice might give over a d'Esgrignon to the

executioner's branding iron. There was a dreadful pause. The old Marquise de Casteran could not keep back a

Next day at noon, in the sunny weather, a whole excited population was dispersed in groups along the high

street, which ran through the heart of the town, and nothing was talked of but the great affair. Was the Count

in prison or was he not?All at once the Comte d'Esgrignon's wellknown tilbury was seen driving down

the Rue SaintBlaise; it had evidently come from the Prefecture, the Count himself was on the box seat, and

by his side sat a charming young man, whom nobody recognized. The pair were laughing and talking and in

great spirits. They wore Bengal roses in their buttonholes. Altogether, it was a theatrical surprise which

At ten o'clock the court had decided to dismiss the charge, stating their very sufficient reasons for setting the

Count at liberty, in a document which contained a thunderbolt for du Croisier, in the shape of an

INASMUCH that gave the Count the right to institute proceedings for libel. Old Chesnel was walking up the

Grand Rue, as if by accident, telling all who cared to hear him that du Croisier had set the most shameful of

snares for the d'Esgrignons' honor, and that it was entirely owing to the forbearance and magnanimity of the

On the evening of that famous day, after the Marquis d'Esgrignon had gone to bed, the Count, Mlle.

Armande, and the Chevalier were left with the handsome young page, now about to return to Paris. The

charming cavalier's sex could not be hidden from the Chevalier, and he alone, besides the three officials and

"The house is saved," began Chesnel, "but after this shock it will take a hundred years to rise again. The debts

must be paid now; you must marry an heiress, M. le Comte, there is nothing left for you to do."

"It is better to marry than to die," she said. As she spoke she drew from her waistcoat pocket a tiny crystal

Mlle. Armande shrank away in horror. Old Chesnel took the fair Maufrigneuse's hand, and kissed it without

"Are you all out of your minds here?" continued the Duchess. "Do you really expect to live in the fifteenth

century when the rest of the world has reached the nineteenth? My dear children, there is no noblesse

nowadays; there is no aristocracy left! Napoleon's Code Civil made an end of the parchments, exactly as

cannon made an end of feudal castles. When you have some money, you will be very much more of nobles

than you are now. Marry anybody you please, Victurnien, you will raise your wife to your rank; that is the

most substantial privilege left to the French noblesse. Did not M. de Talleyrand marry Mme. Grandt without

compromising his position? Remember that Louis XIV. took the Widow Scarron for his wife."

"If the Comtesse d'Esgrignon were one du Croisier's niece, for instance, would you receive her?" asked

"Perhaps," replied the Duchess; "but the King, beyond all doubt, would be very glad to see her.So you do

not know what is going on in the world?" continued she, seeing the amazement in their faces. "Victurnien has

been in Paris; he knows how things go there. We had more influence under Napoleon. Marry Mlle. Duval,

Victurnien; she will be just as much Marquise d'Esgrignon as I am Duchesse de Maufrigneuse."

"Goodbye, Victurnien," said the Duchess, kissing her lover on the forehead; "we shall not see each other

again. Live on your lands; that is the best thing for you to do; the air of Paris is not at all good for you."

"Monsieur, you forget yourself strangely," the Duchess retorted coolly, as she laid aside her role of man and

mistress, and became not merely an angel again, but a duchess, and not only a duchess, but Moliere's

The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse made a stately bow to these four personages, and drew from the Chevalier his

Diane had disappeared. The crack of the postilion's whip told Victurnien that the fair romance of his first love

was over. While peril lasted, Diane could still see her lover in the young Count; but out of danger, she

Six months afterwards, Camusot received the appointment of assistant judge at Paris, and later he became an

examining magistrate. Goodman Blondet was made a councillor to the RoyalCourt; he held the post just

long enough to secure a retiring pension, and then went back to live in his pretty little house. Joseph Blondet

sat in his father's seat at the court till the end of his days; there was not the faintest chance of promotion for

him, but he became Mlle. Blandereau's husband; and she, no doubt, is leading today, in the little

flowercovered brick house, as dull a life as any carp in a marble basin. Michu and Camusot also received

the Cross of the Legion of Honor, while Blondet became an Officer. As for M. Sauvager, deputy public

prosecutor, he was sent to Corsica, to du Croisier's great relief; he had decidedly no mind to bestow his niece

Du Croisier himself, urged by President du Ronceret, appealed from the finding of the Tribunal to the

CourtRoyal, and lost his cause. The Liberals throughout the department held that little d'Esgrignon was

guilty; while the Royalists, on the other hand, told frightful stories of plots woven by "that abominable du

Croisier" to compass his revenge. A duel was fought indeed; the hazard of arms favored du Croisier, the

young Count was dangerously wounded, and his antagonist maintained his words. This affair embittered the

strife between the two parties; the Liberals brought it forward on all occasions. Meanwhile du Croisier never

could carry his election, and saw no hope of marrying his niece to the Count, especially after the duel.

A month after the decision of the Tribunal was confirmed in the Court Royal, Chesnel died, exhausted by

the dreadful strain, which had weakened and shaken him mentally and physically. He died in the hour of

victory, like some old faithful hound that has brought the boar to bay, and gets his death on the tusks. He died

as happily as might be, seeing that he left the great House all but ruined, and the heir in penury, bored to

death by an idle life, and without a hope of establishing himself. That bitter thought and his own exhaustion,

no doubt, hastened the old man's end. One great comfort came to him as he lay amid the wreck of so many

hopes, sinking under the burden of so many caresthe old Marquis, at his sister's entreaty, gave him back all

the old friendship. The great lord came to the little house in the Rue du Bercail, and sat by his old servant's

bedside, all unaware how much that servant had done and sacrificed for him. Chesnel sat upright, and

repeated Simeon's cry.The Marquis allowed them to bury Chesnel in the castle chapel; they laid him

crosswise at the foot of the tomb which was waiting for the Marquis himself, the last, in a sense, of the

And so died one of the last representatives of that great and beautiful thing, Service; giving to that often

discredited word its original meaning, the relation between feudal lord and servitor. That relation, only to be

found in some outoftheway province, or among a few old servants of the King, did honor alike to a

noblesse that could call forth such affection, and to a bourgeoisie that could conceive it. Such noble and

magnificent devotion is no longer possible among us. Noble houses have no servitors left; even as France has

no longer a King, nor an hereditary peerage, nor lands that are bound irrevocably to an historic house, that the

glorious names of the nation may be perpetuated. Chesnel was not merely one of the obscure great men of

private life; he was something morehe was a great fact. In his sustained selfdevotion is there not

something indefinably solemn and sublime, something that rises above the one beneficent deed, or the heroic

height which is reached by a moment's supreme effort? Chesnel's virtues belong essentially to the classes

which stand between the poverty of the people on the one hand, and the greatness of the aristocracy on the

other; for these can combine homely burgher virtues with the heroic ideals of the noble, enlightening both by

Victurnien was not well looked upon at Court; there was no more chance of a great match for him, nor a

place. His Majesty steadily refused to raise the d'Esgrignons to the peerage, the one royal favor which could

rescue Victurnien from his wretched position. It was impossible that he should marry a bourgeoise heiress in

his father's lifetime, so he was bound to live on shabbily under the paternal roof with memories of his two

years of splendor in Paris, and the lost love of a great lady to bear him company. He grew moody and

depressed, vegetating at home with a careworn aunt and a half heartbroken father, who attributed his son's

The Marquis died in 1830. The great d'Esgrignon, with a following of all the less infirm noblesse from the

Collection of Antiquities, went to wait upon Charles X. at Nonancourt; he paid his respects to his sovereign,

and swelled the meagre train of the fallen king. It was an act of courage which seems simple enough today,

By that time du Croisier's victory was complete. The new Marquis d'Esgrignon accepted Mlle. Duval as his

wife a week after his old father's death. His bride brought him three millions of francs for du Croisier and his

wife settled the reversion of their fortunes upon her in the marriagecontract. Du Croisier took occasion to

say during the ceremony that the d'Esgrignon family was the most honorable of all the ancient houses in

Some day the present Marquis d'Esgrignon will have an income of more than a hundred thousand crowns.

You may see him in Paris, for he comes to town every winter and leads a jolly bachelor life, while he treats

his wife with something more than the indifference of the grand seigneur of olden times; he takes no thought

"As for Mlle. d'Esgrignon," said Emile Blondet, to whom all the detail of the story is due, "if she is no longer

like the divinely fair woman whom I saw by glimpses in my childhood, she is decidedly, at the age of

sixtyseven, the most pathetic and interesting figure in the Collection of Antiquities. She queens it among

them still. I saw her when I made my last journey to my native place in search of the necessary papers for my

marriage. When my father knew who it was that I had married, he was struck dumb with amazement; he had

"As I took a walk around the town, I met Mlle. Armande. She looked taller than ever. I looked at her, and

thought of Marius among the ruins of Carthage. Had she not outlived her creed, and the beliefs that had been

destroyed? She is a sad and silent woman, with nothing of her old beauty left except the eyes, that shine with

an unearthly light. I watched her on her way to mass, with her book in her hand, and could not help thinking

Note: The Old Maid is a companion piece to The Collection of Antiquities. In other Addendum appearances

Blondet, Emile A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Modeste Mignon Another

Study of Woman The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve The Firm of Nucingen The Peasantry

Blondet, Virginie The Secrets of a Princess The Peasantry A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Another Study

Camusot de Marville Cousin Pons The Commission in Lunacy Scenes from a Cuortesan's Life

Camusot de Marville, Madame The Vendetta Cesar Birotteau Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Cousin Pons

Cardot (Parisian notary) The Muse of the Department A Man of Business Pierre Grassou The Middle Classes

Casteran, De The Chouans The Seamy Side of History The Old Maid Beatrix The Peasantry

Esgrignon, CharlesMarieVictorAngeCarol, Marquis d' (or Des Grignons) The Chouans The Old Maid

Esgrignon, Victurnien, Comte (then Marquis d') Letters of Two Brides A Man of Business The Secrets of a

Lenoncourt, Duc de The Lily of the Valley Cesar Birotteau The Old Maid The Gondreville Mystery Beatrix

Marsay, Henri de The Thirteen The Unconscious Humorists Another Study of Woman The Lily of the Valley

Father Goriot Ursule Mirouet A Marriage Settlement Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Letters of Two Brides The Ball at Sceaux Modest Mignon The Secrets of a Princess The Gondreville Mystery

Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de The Secrets of a Princess Modeste Mignon The Muse of the Department Scenes

from a Courtesan's Life Letters of Two Brides Another Study of Woman The Gondreville Mystery The

Troisville, Guibelin, Vicomte de The Seamy Side of History The Chouans The Old Maid The Peasantry