At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.....................................................................................................................1

Halfway down the Rue SaintDenis, almost at the corner of the Rue du PetitLion, there stood formerly one

of those delightful houses which enable historians to reconstruct old Paris by analogy. The threatening walls

of this tumbledown abode seemed to have been decorated with hieroglyphics. For what other name could the

passerby give to the Xs and Vs which the horizontal or diagonal timbers traced on the front, outlined by

little parallel cracks in the plaster? It was evident that every beam quivered in its mortices at the passing of

the lightest vehicle. This venerable structure was crowned by a triangular roof of which no example will, ere

long, be seen in Paris. This covering, warped by the extremes of the Paris climate, projected three feet over

the roadway, as much to protect the threshold from the rainfall as to shelter the wall of a loft and its sillless

dormerwindow. This upper story was built of planks, overlapping each other like slates, in order, no doubt,

One rainy morning in the month of March, a young man, carefully wrapped in his cloak, stood under the

awning of a shop opposite this old house, which he was studying with the enthusiasm of an antiquary. In

point of fact, this relic of the civic life of the sixteenth century offered more than one problem to the

consideration of an observer. Each story presented some singularity; on the first floor four tall, narrow

windows, close together, were filled as to the lower panes with boards, so as to produce the doubtful light by

which a clever salesman can ascribe to his goods the color his customers inquire for. The young man seemed

very scornful of this part of the house; his eyes had not yet rested on it. The windows of the second floor,

where the Venetian blinds were drawn up, revealing little dingy muslin curtains behind the large Bohemian

glass panes, did not interest him either. His attention was attracted to the third floor, to the modest

sashframes of wood, so clumsily wrought that they might have found a place in the Museum of Arts and

Crafts to illustrate the early efforts of French carpentry. These windows were glazed with small squares of

glass so green that, but for his good eyes, the young man could not have seen the bluechecked cotton

curtains which screened the mysteries of the room from profane eyes. Now and then the watcher, weary of

his fruitless contemplation, or of the silence in which the house was buried, like the whole neighborhood,

dropped his eyes towards the lower regions. An involuntary smile parted his lips each time he looked at the

A formidable wooden beam, resting on four pillars, which appeared to have bent under the weight of the

decrepit house, had been encrusted with as many coats of different paint as there are of rouge on an old

duchess' cheek. In the middle of this broad and fantastically carved joist there was an old painting

representing a cat playing rackets. This picture was what moved the young man to mirth. But it must be said

that the wittiest of modern painters could not invent so comical a caricature. The animal held in one of its

forepaws a racket as big as itself, and stood on its hind legs to aim at hitting an enormous ball, returned by a

man in a fine embroidered coat. Drawing, color, and accessories, all were treated in such a way as to suggest

that the artist had meant to make game of the shopowner and of the passing observer. Time, while impairing

this artless painting, had made it yet more grotesque by introducing some uncertain features which must have

puzzled the conscientious idler. For instance, the cat's tail had been eaten into in such a way that it might now

have been taken for the figure of a spectatorso long, and thick, and furry were the tails of our forefathers'

cats. To the right of the picture, on an azure field which illdisguised the decay of the wood, might be read

the name "Guillaume," and to the left, "Successor to Master Chevrel." Sun and rain had worn away most of

the gilding parsimoniously applied to the letters of this superscription, in which the Us and Vs had changed

To quench the pride of those who believe that the world is growing cleverer day by day, and that modern

humbug surpasses everything, it may be observed that these signs, of which the origin seems so whimsical to

many Paris merchants, are the dead pictures of once living pictures by which our roguish ancestors contrived

to tempt customers into their houses. Thus the Spinning Sow, the Green Monkey, and others, were animals in

cages whose skills astonished the passer by, and whose accomplishments prove the patience of the

fifteenth century artisan. Such curiosities did more to enrich their fortunate owners than the signs of

"Providence," "Goodfaith," Grace of God," and "Decapitation of John the Baptist," which may still be seen

However, our stranger was certainly not standing there to admire the cat, which a minute's attention sufficed

to stamp on his memory. The young man himself had his peculiarities. His cloak, folded after the manner of

an antique drapery, showed a smart pair of shoes, all the more remarkable in the midst of the Paris mud,

because he wore white silk stockings, on which the splashes betrayed his impatience. He had just come, no

doubt, from a wedding or a ball; for at this early hour he had in his hand a pair of white gloves, and his black

hair, now out of curl, and flowing over his shoulders, showed that it had been dressed a la Caracalla, a

fashion introduced as much by David's school of painting as by the mania for Greek and Roman styles which

In spite of the noise made by a few market gardeners, who, being late, rattled past towards the great

marketplace at a gallop, the busy street lay in a stillness of which the magic charm is known only to those

who have wandered through deserted Paris at the hours when its roar, hushed for a moment, rises and spreads

in the distance like the great voice of the sea. This strange young man must have seemed as curious to the

shopkeeping folk of the "Cat and Racket" as the "Cat and Racket" was to him. A dazzlingly white cravat

made his anxious face look even paler than it really was. The fire that flashed in his black eyes, gloomy and

sparkling by turns, was in harmony with the singular outline of his features, with his wide, flexible mouth,

hardened into a smile. His forehead, knit with violent annoyance, had a stamp of doom. Is not the forehead

the most prophetic feature of a man? When the stranger's brow expressed passion the furrows formed in it

were terrible in their strength and energy; but when he recovered his calmness, so easily upset, it beamed

with a luminous grace which gave great attractiveness to a countenance in which joy, grief, love, anger, or

scorn blazed out so contagiously that the coldest man could not fail to be impressed.

He was so thoroughly vexed by the time when the dormerwindow of the loft was suddenly flung open, that

he did not observe the apparition of three laughing faces, pink and white and chubby, but as vulgar as the face

of Commerce as it is seen in sculpture on certain monuments. These three faces, framed by the window,

recalled the puffy cherubs floating among the clouds that surround God the Father. The apprentices snuffed

up the exhalations of the street with an eagerness that showed how hot and poisonous the atmosphere of their

garret must be. After pointing to the singular sentinel, the most jovial, as he seemed, of the apprentices retired

and came back holding an instrument whose hard metal pipe is now superseded by a leather tube; and they all

grinned with mischief as they looked down on the loiterer, and sprinkled him with a fine white shower of

which the scent proved that three chins had just been shaved. Standing on tiptoe, in the farthest corner of their

loft, to enjoy their victim's rage, the lads ceased laughing on seeing the haughty indifference with which the

young man shook his cloak, and the intense contempt expressed by his face as he glanced up at the empty

At this moment a slender white hand threw up the lower half of one of the clumsy windows on the third floor

by the aid of the sash runners, of which the pulley so often suddenly gives way and releases the heavy panes

it ought to hold up. The watcher was then rewarded for his long waiting. The face of a young girl appeared,

as fresh as one of the white cups that bloom on the bosom of the waters, crowned by a frill of tumbled

muslin, which gave her head a look of exquisite innocence. Though wrapped in brown stuff, her neck and

shoulders gleamed here and there through little openings left by her movements in sleep. No expression of

embarrassment detracted from the candor of her face, or the calm look of eyes immortalized long since in the

sublime works of Raphael; here were the same grace, the same repose as in those Virgins, and now

proverbial. There was a delightful contrast between the cheeks of that face on which sleep had, as it were,

given high relief to a superabundance of life, and the antiquity of the heavy window with its clumsy shape

and black sill. Like those dayblowing flowers, which in the early morning have not yet unfurled their cups,

twisted by the chills of night, the girl, as yet hardly awake, let her blue eyes wander beyond the neighboring

roofs to look at the sky; then, from habit, she cast them down on the gloomy depths of the street, where they

immediately met those of her adorer. Vanity, no doubt, distressed her at being seen in undress; she started

back, the worn pulley gave way, and the sash fell with the rapid run, which in our day has earned for this

artless invention of our forefathers an odious name, Fenetre a la Guillotine. The vision had disappeared. To

During these little incidents the heavy inside shutters that protected the slight windows of the shop of the "Cat

and Racket" had been removed as if by magic. The old door with its knocker was opened back against the

wall of the entry by a manservant, apparently coeval with the sign, who, with a shaking hand, hung upon it a

square of cloth, on which were embroidered in yellow silk the words: "Guillaume, successor to Chevrel."

Many a passerby would have found it difficult to guess the class of trade carried on by Monsieur Guillaume.

Between the strong iron bars which protected his shop windows on the outside, certain packages, wrapped in

brown linen, were hardly visible, though as numerous as herrings swimming in a shoal. Notwithstanding the

primitive aspect of the Gothic front, Monsieur Guillaume, of all the merchant clothiers in Paris, was the one

whose stores were always the best provided, whose connections were the most extensive, and whose

commercial honesty never lay under the slightest suspicion. If some of his brethren in business made a

contract with the Government, and had not the required quantity of cloth, he was always ready to deliver it,

however large the number of pieces tendered for. The wily dealer knew a thousand ways of extracting the

largest profits without being obliged, like them, to court patrons, cringing to them, or making them costly

presents. When his fellowtradesmen could only pay in good bills of long date, he would mention his notary

as an accommodating man, and managed to get a second profit out of the bargain, thanks to this arrangement,

which had made it a proverb among the traders of the Rue SaintDenis: "Heaven preserve you from

The old merchant was to be seen standing on the threshold of his shop, as if by a miracle, the instant the

servant withdrew. Monsieur Guillaume looked at the Rue SaintDenis, at the neighboring shops, and at the

weather, like a man disembarking at Havre, and seeing France once more after a long voyage. Having

convinced himself that nothing had changed while he was asleep, he presently perceived the stranger on

guard, and he, on his part, gazed at the patriarchal draper as Humboldt may have scrutinized the first electric

eel he saw in America. Monsieur Guillaume wore loose black velvet breeches, pepper andsalt stockings,

and square toed shoes with silver buckles. His coat, with squarecut fronts, squarecut tails, and squarecut

collar clothed his slightly bent figure in greenish cloth, finished with white metal buttons, tawny from wear.

His gray hair was so accurately combed and flattened over his yellow pate that it made it look like a furrowed

field. His little green eyes, that might have been pierced with a gimlet, flashed beneath arches faintly tinged

with red in the place of eyebrows. Anxieties had wrinkled his forehead with as many horizontal lines as there

were creases in his coat. This colorless face expressed patience, commercial shrewdness, and the sort of wily

cupidity which is needful in business. At that time these old families were less rare than they are now, in

which the characteristic habits and costume of their calling, surviving in the midst of more recent civilization,

were preserved as cherished traditions, like the antediluvian remains found by Cuvier in the quarries.

The head of the Guillaume family was a notable upholder of ancient practices; he might be heard to regret the

Provost of Merchants, and never did he mention a decision of the Tribunal of Commerce without calling it

the Sentence of the Consuls. Up and dressed the first of the household, in obedience, no doubt, to these old

customs, he stood sternly awaiting the appearance of his three assistants, ready to scold them in case they

were late. These young disciples of Mercury knew nothing more terrible than the wordless assiduity with

which the master scrutinized their faces and their movements on Monday in search of evidence or traces of

their pranks. But at this moment the old clothier paid no heed to his apprentices; he was absorbed in trying to

divine the motive of the anxious looks which the young man in silk stockings and a cloak cast alternately at

his signboard and into the depths of his shop. The daylight was now brighter, and enabled the stranger to

discern the cashier's corner enclosed by a railing and screened by old green silk curtains, where were kept the

immense ledgers, the silent oracles of the house. The too inquisitive gazer seemed to covet this little nook,

and to be taking the plan of a diningroom at one side, lighted by a skylight, whence the family at meals

could easily see the smallest incident that might occur at the shopdoor. So much affection for his dwelling

seemed suspicious to a trader who had lived long enough to remember the law of maximum prices; Monsieur

Guillaume naturally thought that this sinister personage had an eye to the till of the Cat and Racket. After

quietly observing the mute duel which was going on between his master and the stranger, the eldest of the

apprentices, having seen that the young man was stealthily watching the windows of the third floor, ventured

to place himself on the stone flag where Monsieur Guillaume was standing. He took two steps out into the

street, raised his head, and fancied that he caught sight of Mademoiselle Augustine Guillaume in hasty

retreat. The draper, annoyed by his assistant's perspicacity, shot a side glance at him; but the draper and his

amorous apprentice were suddenly relieved from the fears which the young man's presence had excited in

their minds. He hailed a hackney cab on its way to a neighboring stand, and jumped into it with an air of

affected indifference. This departure was a balm to the hearts of the other two lads, who had been somewhat

"Well, gentlemen, what ails you that you are standing there with your arms folded?" said Monsieur

Guillaume to his three neophytes. "In former days, bless you, when I was in Master Chevrel's service, I

The old shopkeeper could not help smiling. Though two of these young fellows, who were confided to his

care by their fathers, rich manufacturers at Louviers and at Sedan, had only to ask and to have a hundred

thousand francs the day when they were old enough to settle in life, Guillaume regarded it as his duty to keep

them under the rod of an oldworld despotism, unknown nowadays in the showy modern shops, where the

apprentices expect to be rich men at thirty. He made them work like Negroes. These three assistants were

equal to a business which would harry ten such clerks as those whose sybaritical tastes now swell the

columns of the budget. Not a sound disturbed the peace of this solemn house, where the hinges were always

oiled, and where the meanest article of furniture showed the respectable cleanliness which reveals strict order

and economy. The most waggish of the three youths often amused himself by writing the date of its first

appearance on the Gruyere cheese which was left to their tender mercies at breakfast, and which it was their

pleasure to leave untouched. This bit of mischief, and a few others of the same stamp, would sometimes bring

a smile on the face of the younger of Guillaume's daughters, the pretty maiden who has just now appeared to

Though each of these apprentices, even the eldest, paid a round sum for his board, not one of them would

have been bold enough to remain at the master's table when dessert was served. When Madame Guillaume

talked of dressing the salad, the hapless youths trembled as they thought of the thrift with which her prudent

hand dispensed the oil. They could never think of spending a night away from the house without having

given, long before, a plausible reason for such an irregularity. Every Sunday, each in his turn, two of them

accompanied the Guillaume family to Mass at SaintLeu, and to vespers. Mesdemoiselles Virginie and

Augustine, simply attired in cotton print, each took the arm of an apprentice and walked in front, under the

piercing eye of their mother, who closed the little family procession with her husband, accustomed by her to

carry two large prayerbooks, bound in black morocco. The second apprentice received no salary. As for the

eldest, whose twelve years of perseverance and discretion had initiated him into the secrets of the house, he

was paid eight hundred francs a year as the reward of his labors. On certain family festivals he received as a

gratuity some little gift, to which Madame Guillaume's dry and wrinkled hand alone gave valuenetted

purses, which she took care to stuff with cotton wool, to show off the fancy stitches, braces of the strongest

make, or heavy silk stockings. Sometimes, but rarely, this prime minister was admitted to share the pleasures

of the family when they went into the country, or when, after waiting for months, they made up their mind to

exert the right acquired by taking a box at the theatre to command a piece which Paris had already forgotten.

As to the other assistants, the barrier of respect which formerly divided a master draper from his apprentices

was that they would have been more likely to steal a piece of cloth than to infringe this timehonored

etiquette. Such reserve may now appear ridiculous; but these old houses were a school of honesty and sound

morals. The masters adopted their apprentices. The young man's linen was cared for, mended, and often

replaced by the mistress of the house. If an apprentice fell ill, he was the object of truly maternal attention. In

a case of danger the master lavished his money in calling in the most celebrated physicians, for he was not

answerable to their parents merely for the good conduct and training of the lads. If one of them, whose

character was unimpeachable, suffered misfortune, these old tradesmen knew how to value the intelligence he

had displayed, and they did not hesitate to entrust the happiness of their daughters to men whom they had

long trusted with their fortunes. Guillaume was one of these men of the old school, and if he had their

ridiculous side, he had all their good qualities; and Joseph Lebas, the chief assistant, an orphan without any

fortune, was in his mind destined to be the husband of Virginie, his elder daughter. But Joseph did not share

the symmetrical ideas of his master, who would not for an empire have given his second daughter in marriage

before the elder. The unhappy assistant felt that his heart was wholly given to Mademoiselle Augustine, the

younger. In order to justify this passion, which had grown up in secret, it is necessary to inquire a little further

into the springs of the absolute government which ruled the old cloth merchant's household.

Guillaume had two daughters. The elder, Mademoiselle Virginie, was the very image of her mother. Madame

Guillaume, daughter of the Sieur Chevrel, sat so upright in the stool behind her desk, that more than once she

had heard some wag bet that she was a stuffed figure. Her long, thin face betrayed exaggerated piety. Devoid

of attractions or of amiable manners, Madame Guillaume commonly decorated her headthat of a woman

near on sixtywith a cap of a particular and unvarying shape, with long lappets, like that of a widow. In all

the neighborhood she was known as the "portress nun." Her speech was curt, and her movements had the stiff

precision of a semaphore. Her eye, with a gleam in it like a cat's, seemed to spite the world because she was

so ugly. Mademoiselle Virginie, brought up, like her younger sister, under the domestic rule of her mother,

had reached the age of eightandtwenty. Youth mitigated the graceless effect which her likeness to her

mother sometimes gave to her features, but maternal austerity had endowed her with two great qualities

which made up for everything. She was patient and gentle. Mademoiselle Augustine, who was but just

eighteen, was not like either her father or her mother. She was one of those daughters whose total absence of

any physical affinity with their parents makes one believe in the adage: "God gives children." Augustine was

little, or, to describe her more truly, delicately made. Full of gracious candor, a man of the world could have

found no fault in the charming girl beyond a certain meanness of gesture or vulgarity of attitude, and

sometimes a want of ease. Her silent and placid face was full of the transient melancholy which comes over

The two sisters, always plainly dressed, could not gratify the innate vanity of womanhood but by a luxury of

cleanliness which became them wonderfully, and made them harmonize with the polished counters and the

shining shelves, on which the old manservant never left a speck of dust, and with the oldworld simplicity

of all they saw about them. As their style of living compelled them to find the elements of happiness in

persistent work, Augustine and Virginie had hitherto always satisfied their mother, who secretly prided

herself on the perfect characters of her two daughters. It is easy to imagine the results of the training they had

received. Brought up to a commercial life, accustomed to hear nothing but dreary arguments and calculations

about trade, having studied nothing but grammar, bookkeeping, a little Biblehistory, and the history of

France in Le Ragois, and never reading any book but what their mother would sanction, their ideas had not

acquired much scope. They knew perfectly how to keep house; they were familiar with the prices of things;

they understood the difficulty of amassing money; they were economical, and had a great respect for the

qualities that make a man of business. Although their father was rich, they were as skilled in darning as in

embroidery; their mother often talked of having them taught to cook, so that they might know how to order a

dinner and scold a cook with due knowledge. They knew nothing of the pleasures of the world; and, seeing

how their parents spent their exemplary lives, they very rarely suffered their eyes to wander beyond the walls

of their hereditary home, which to their mother was the whole universe. The meetings to which family

When the great drawingroom on the second floor was to be prepared to receive companyMadame

Roguin, a Demoiselle Chevrel, fifteen months younger than her cousin, and bedecked with diamonds; young

Rabourdin, employed in the Finance Office; Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, the rich perfumer, and his wife,

known as Madame Cesar; Monsieur Camusot, the richest silk mercer in the Rue des Bourdonnais, with his

fatherin law, Monsieur Cardot, two or three old bankers, and some immaculate ladiesthe arrangements,

made necessary by the way in which everything was packed awaythe plate, the Dresden china, the

candlesticks, and the glassmade a variety in the monotonous lives of the three women, who came and went

and exerted themselves as nuns would to receive their bishop. Then, in the evening, when all three were tired

out with having wiped, rubbed, unpacked, and arranged all the gauds of the festival, as the girls helped their

mother to undress, Madame Guillaume would say to them, "Children, we have done nothing today."

When, on very great occasions, "the portress nun" allowed dancing, restricting the games of boston, whist,

and backgammon within the limits of her bedroom, such a concession was accounted as the most unhoped

felicity, and made them happier than going to the great balls, to two or three of which Guillaume would take

And once a year the worthy draper gave an entertainment, when he spared no expense. However rich and

fashionable the persons invited might be, they were careful not to be absent; for the most important houses on

the exchange had recourse to the immense credit, the fortune, or the timehonored experience of Monsieur

Guillaume. Still, the excellent merchant's daughters did not benefit as much as might be supposed by the

lessons the world has to offer to young spirits. At these parties, which were indeed set down in the ledger to

the credit of the house, they wore dresses the shabbiness of which made them blush. Their style of dancing

was not in any way remarkable, and their mother's surveillance did not allow of their holding any

conversation with their partners beyond Yes and No. Also, the law of the old sign of the Cat and Racket

commanded that they should be home by eleven o'clock, the hour when balls and fetes begin to be lively.

Thus their pleasures, which seemed to conform very fairly to their father's position, were often made insipid

As to their usual life, one remark will sufficiently paint it. Madame Guillaume required her daughters to be

dressed very early in the morning, to come down every day at the same hour, and she ordered their

employments with monastic regularity. Augustine, however, had been gifted by chance with a spirit lofty

enough to feel the emptiness of such a life. Her blue eyes would sometimes be raised as if to pierce the depths

of that gloomy staircase and those damp storerooms. After sounding the profound cloistral silence, she

seemed to be listening to remote, inarticulate revelations of the life of passion, which accounts feelings as of

higher value than things. And at such moments her cheek would flush, her idle hands would lay the muslin

sewing on the polished oak counter, and presently her mother would say in a voice, of which even the softest

tones were sour, "Augustine, my treasure, what are you thinking about?" It is possible that two romances

discovered by Augustine in the cupboard of a cook Madame Guillaume had lately dischargedHippolyte

Comte de Douglas and Le Comte de Commingesmay have contributed to develop the ideas of the young

girl, who had devoured them in secret, during the long nights of the past winter.

And so Augustine's expression of vague longing, her gentle voice, her jasmine skin, and her blue eyes had

lighted in poor Lebas' soul a flame as ardent as it was reverent. From an easily understood caprice, Augustine

felt no affection for the orphan; perhaps she did not know that he loved her. On the other hand, the senior

apprentice, with his long legs, his chestnut hair, his big hands and powerful frame, had found a secret admirer

in Mademoiselle Virginie, who, in spite of her dower of fifty thousand crowns, had as yet no suitor. Nothing

could be more natural than these two passions at crosspurposes, born in the silence of the dingy shop, as

violets bloom in the depths of a wood. The mute and constant looks which made the young people's eyes

meet by sheer need of change in the midst of persistent work and cloistered peace, was sure, sooner or later,

to give rise to feelings of love. The habit of seeing always the same face leads insensibly to our reading there

"At the pace at which that man goes, our girls will soon have to go on their knees to a suitor!" said Monsieur

Guillaume to himself, as he read the first decree by which Napoleon drew in advance on the conscript classes.

From that day the old merchant, grieved at seeing his eldest daughter fade, remembered how he had married

Mademoiselle Chevrel under much the same circumstances as those of Joseph Lebas and Virginie. A good bit

of business, to marry off his daughter, and discharge a sacred debt by repaying to an orphan the benefit he

had formerly received from his predecessor under similar conditions! Joseph Lebas, who was now

threeandthirty, was aware of the obstacle which a difference of fifteen years placed between Augustine and

himself. Being also too clearsighted not to understand Monsieur Guillaume's purpose, he knew his

inexorable principles well enough to feel sure that the second would never marry before the elder. So the

hapless assistant, whose heart was as warm as his legs were long and his chest deep, suffered in silence.

This was the state of the affairs in the tiny republic which, in the heart of the Rue SaintDenis, was not unlike

a dependency of La Trappe. But to give a full account of events as well as of feelings, it is needful to go back

to some months before the scene with which this story opens. At dusk one evening, a young man passing the

darkened shop of the Cat and Racket, had paused for a moment to gaze at a picture which might have arrested

every painter in the world. The shop was not yet lighted, and was as a dark cave beyond which the

diningroom was visible. A hanging lamp shed the yellow light which lends such charm to pictures of the

Dutch school. The white linen, the silver, the cut glass, were brilliant accessories, and made more picturesque

by strong contrasts of light and shade. The figures of the head of the family and his wife, the faces of the

apprentices, and the pure form of Augustine, near whom a fat chubbycheeked maid was standing, composed

so strange a group; the heads were so singular, and every face had so candid an expression; it was so easy to

read the peace, the silence, the modest way of life in this family, that to an artist accustomed to render nature,

there was something hopeless in any attempt to depict this scene, come upon by chance. The stranger was a

young painter, who, seven years before, had gained the first prize for painting. He had now just come back

from Rome. His soul, fullfed with poetry; his eyes, satiated with Raphael and Michael Angelo, thirsted for

real nature after long dwelling in the pompous land where art has everywhere left something grandiose. Right

or wrong, this was his personal feeling. His heart, which had long been a prey to the fire of Italian passion,

craved one of those modest and meditative maidens whom in Rome he had unfortunately seen only in

painting. From the enthusiasm produced in his excited fancy by the living picture before him, he naturally

passed to a profound admiration for the principal figure; Augustine seemed to be pensive, and did not eat; by

the arrangement of the lamp the light fell full on her face, and her bust seemed to move in a circle of fire,

which threw up the shape of her head and illuminated it with almost supernatural effect. The artist

involuntarily compared her to an exiled angel dreaming of heaven. An almost unknown emotion, a limpid,

seething love flooded his heart. After remaining a minute, overwhelmed by the weight of his ideas, he tore

The next day he went to his studio, and did not come out of it till he had placed on canvas the magic of the

scene of which the memory had, in a sense, made him a devotee; his happiness was incomplete till he should

possess a faithful portrait of his idol. He went many times past the house of the Cat and Racket; he even

ventured in once or twice, under a disguise, to get a closer view of the bewitching creature that Madame

Guillaume covered with her wing. For eight whole months, devoted to his love and to his brush, he was lost

to the sight of his most intimate friends forgetting the world, the theatre, poetry, music, and all his dearest

habits. One morning Girodet broke through all the barriers with which artists are familiar, and which they

know how to evade, went into his room, and woke him by asking, "What are you going to send to the Salon?"

The artist grasped his friend's hand, dragged him off to the studio, uncovered a small easel picture and a

portrait. After a long and eager study of the two masterpieces, Girodet threw himself on his comrade's neck

and hugged him, without speaking a word. His feelings could only be expressed as he felt themsoul to

They both knew that the finest portraits by Titian, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci, were the outcome of the

enthusiastic sentiments by which, indeed, under various conditions, every masterpiece is engendered. The

"How happy are you to be able to be in love, here, after coming back from Italy! But I do not advise you to

send such works as these to the Salon," the great painter went on. "You see, these two works will not be

appreciated. Such true coloring, such prodigious work, cannot yet be understood; the public is not

accustomed to such depths. The pictures we paint, my dear fellow, are mere screens. We should do better to

turn rhymes, and translate the antique poets! There is more glory to be looked for there than from our luckless

Notwithstanding this charitable advice, the two pictures were exhibited. The Interior made a revolution in

painting. It gave birth to the pictures of genre which pour into all our exhibitions in such prodigious quantity

that they might be supposed to be produced by machinery. As to the portrait, few artists have forgotten that

lifelike work; and the public, which as a body is sometimes discerning, awarded it the crown which Girodet

himself had hung over it. The two pictures were surrounded by a vast throng. They fought for places, as

women say. Speculators and moneyed men would have covered the canvas with double napoleons, but the

artist obstinately refused to sell or to make replicas. An enormous sum was offered him for the right of

Though these incidents occupied the world, they were not of a nature to penetrate the recesses of the monastic

solitude in the Rue Saint Denis. However, when paying a visit to Madame Guillaume, the notary's wife

spoke of the exhibition before Augustine, of whom she was very fond, and explained its purpose. Madame

Roguin's gossip naturally inspired Augustine with a wish to see the pictures, and with courage enough to ask

her cousin secretly to take her to the Louvre. Her cousin succeeded in the negotiations she opened with

Madame Guillaume for permission to release the young girl for two hours from her dull labors. Augustine

was thus able to make her way through the crowd to see the crowned work. A fit of trembling shook her like

an aspen leaf as she recognized herself. She was terrified, and looked about her to find Madame Roguin, from

whom she had been separated by a tide of people. At that moment her frightened eyes fell on the impassioned

face of the young painter. She at once recalled the figure of a loiterer whom, being curious, she had

"You see how love has inspired me," said the artist in the timid creature's ear, and she stood in dismay at the

She found supernatural courage to enable her to push through the crowd and join her cousin, who was still

struggling with the mass of people that hindered her from getting to the picture.

But there are moments, at the Salon, when two women are not always free to direct their steps through the

galleries. By the irregular course to which they were compelled by the press, Mademoiselle Guillaume and

her cousin were pushed to within a few steps of the second picture. Chance thus brought them, both together,

to where they could easily see the canvas made famous by fashion, for once in agreement with talent.

Madame Roguin's exclamation of surprise was lost in the hubbub and buzz of the crowd; Augustine

involuntarily shed tears at the sight of this wonderful study. Then, by an almost unaccountable impulse, she

laid her finger on her lips, as she perceived quite near her the ecstatic face of the young painter. The stranger

replied by a nod, and pointed to Madame Roguin, as a spoil sport, to show Augustine that he had

understood. This pantomime struck the young girl like hot coals on her flesh; she felt quite guilty as she

perceived that there was a compact between herself and the artist. The suffocating heat, the dazzling sight of

beautiful dresses, the bewilderment produced in Augustine's brain by the truth of coloring, the multitude of

living or painted figures, the profusion of gilt frames, gave her a sense of intoxication which doubled her

alarms. She would perhaps have fainted if an unknown rapture had not surged up in her heart to vivify her

whole being, in spite of this chaos of sensations. She nevertheless believed herself to be under the power of

the Devil, of whose awful snares she had been warned of by the thundering words of preachers. This moment

was to her like a moment of madness. She found herself accompanied to her cousin's carriage by the young

man, radiant with joy and love. Augustine, a prey to an agitation new to her experience, an intoxication which

seemed to abandon her to nature, listened to the eloquent voice of her heart, and looked again and again at the

young painter, betraying the emotion that came over her. Never had the bright rose of her cheeks shown in

stronger contrast with the whiteness of her skin. The artist saw her beauty in all its bloom, her maiden

modesty in all its glory. She herself felt a sort of rapture mingled with terror at thinking that her presence had

brought happiness to him whose name was on every lip, and whose talent lent immortality to transient scenes.

She was loved! It was impossible to doubt it. When she no longer saw the artist, these simple words still

echoed in her ear, "You see how love has inspired me!" And the throbs of her heart, as they grew deeper,

seemed a pain, her heated blood revealed so many unknown forces in her being. She affected a severe

headache to avoid replying to her cousin's questions concerning the pictures; but on their return Madame

Roguin could not forbear from speaking to Madame Guillaume of the fame that had fallen on the house of the

Cat and Racket, and Augustine quaked in every limb as she heard her mother say that she should go to the

Salon to see her house there. The young girl again declared herself suffering, and obtained leave to go to bed.

"That is what comes of sightseeing," exclaimed Monsieur Guillaume"a headache. And is it so very

amusing to see in a picture what you can see any day in your own street? Don't talk to me of your artists!

Like writers, they are a starveling crew. Why the devil need they choose my house to flout it in their

This remark did not protect art and thought from being condemned once again before the judgmentseat of

trade. As may be supposed, these speeches did not infuse much hope into Augustine, who, during the night,

gave herself up to the first meditations of love. The events of the day were like a dream, which it was a joy to

recall to her mind. She was initiated into the fears, the hopes, the remorse, all the ebb and flow of feeling

which could not fail to toss a heart so simple and timid as hers. What a void she perceived in this gloomy

house! What a treasure she found in her soul! To be the wife of a genius, to share his glory! What ravages

must such a vision make in the heart of a girl brought up among such a family! What hopes must it raise in a

young creature who, in the midst of sordid elements, had pined for a life of elegance! A sunbeam had fallen

into the prison. Augustine was suddenly in love. So many of her feelings were soothed that she succumbed

without reflection. At eighteen does not love hold a prism between the world and the eyes of a young girl?

She was incapable of suspecting the hard facts which result from the union of a loving woman with a man of

imagination, and she believed herself called to make him happy, not seeing any disparity between herself and

him. To her the future would be as the present. When, next day, her father and mother returned from the

Salon, their dejected faces proclaimed some disappointment. In the first place, the painter had removed the

two pictures; and then Madame Guillaume had lost her cashmere shawl. But the news that the pictures had

disappeared from the walls since her visit revealed to Augustine a delicacy of sentiment which a woman can

On the morning when, on his way home from a ball, Theodore de Sommervieuxfor this was the name

which fame had stamped on Augustine's hearthad been squirted on by the apprentices while awaiting the

appearance of his artless little friend, who certainly did not know that he was there, the lovers had seen each

other for the fourth time only since their meeting at the Salon. The difficulties which the rule of the house

placed in the way of the painter's ardent nature gave added violence to his passion for Augustine.

How could he get near to a young girl seated in a countinghouse between two such women as Mademoiselle

Virginie and Madame Guillaume? How could he correspond with her when her mother never left her side?

Ingenious, as lovers are, to imagine woes, Theodore saw a rival in one of the assistants, to whose interests he

supposed the others to be devoted. If he should evade these sons of Argus, he would yet be wrecked under the

stern eye of the old draper or of Madame Guillaume. The very vehemence of his passion hindered the young

painter from hitting on the ingenious expedients which, in prisoners and in lovers, seem to be the last effort of

intelligence spurred by a wild craving for liberty, or by the fire of love. Theodore wandered about the

neighborhood with the restlessness of a madman, as though movement might inspire him with some device.

After racking his imagination, it occurred to him to bribe the blowsy waitingmaid with gold. Thus a few

notes were exchanged at long intervals during the fortnight following the illstarred morning when Monsieur

Guillaume and Theodore had so scrutinized one another. At the present moment the young couple had agreed

to see each other at a certain hour of the day, and on Sunday, at SaintLeu, during Mass and vespers.

Augustine had sent her dear Theodore a list of the relations and friends of the family, to whom the young

painter tried to get access, in the hope of interesting, if it were possible, in his love affairs, one of these souls

absorbed in money and trade, to whom a genuine passion must appear a quite monstrous speculation, a thing

unheardof. Nothing meanwhile, was altered at the sign of the Cat and Racket. If Augustine was absent

minded, if, against all obedience to the domestic code, she stole up to her room to make signals by means of a

jar of flowers, if she sighed, if she were lost in thought, no one observed it, not even her mother. This will

cause some surprise to those who have entered into the spirit of the household, where an idea tainted with

poetry would be in startling contrast to persons and things, where no one could venture on a gesture or a look

which would not be seen and analyzed. Nothing, however, could be more natural: the quiet barque that

navigated the stormy waters of the Paris Exchange, under the flag of the Cat and Racket, was just now in the

toils of one of these tempests which, returning periodically, might be termed equinoctial. For the last

fortnight the five men forming the crew, with Madame Guillaume and Mademoiselle Virginie, had been

Every bale was turned over, and the length verified to ascertain the exact value of the remnant. The ticket

attached to each parcel was carefully examined to see at what time the piece had been bought. The retail price

was fixed. Monsieur Guillaume, always on his feet, his pen behind his ear, was like a captain commanding

the working of the ship. His sharp tones, spoken through a trapdoor, to inquire into the depths of the hold in

the cellarstore, gave utterance to the barbarous formulas of tradejargon, which find expression only in

cipher. "How much H. N. Z.?""All sold.""What is left of Q. X.?" Two ells.""At what

price?""Fiftyfive three.""Set down A. at three, with all of J. J., all of M. P., and what is left of V. D.

O." A hundred other injunctions equally intelligible were spouted over the counters like verses of modern

poetry, quoted by romantic spirits, to excite each other's enthusiasm for one of their poets. In the evening

Guillaume, shut up with his assistant and his wife, balanced his accounts, carried on the balance, wrote to

debtors in arrears, and made out bills. All three were busy over this enormous labor, of which the result could

be stated on a sheet of foolscap, proving to the head of the house that there was so much to the good in hard

cash, so much in goods, so much in bills and notes; that he did not owe a sou; that a hundred or two hundred

thousand francs were owing to him; that the capital had been increased; that the farmlands, the houses, or the

investments were extended, or repaired, or doubled. Whence it became necessary to begin again with

increased ardor, to accumulate more crownpieces, without its ever entering the brain of these laborious ants

Favored by this annual turmoil, the happy Augustine escaped the investigations of her Arguseyed relations.

At last, one Saturday evening, the stocktaking was finished. The figures of the sumtotal showed a row of

0's long enough to allow Guillaume for once to relax the stern rule as to dessert which reigned throughout the

year. The shrewd old draper rubbed his hands, and allowed his assistants to remain at table. The members of

the crew had hardly swallowed their thimbleful of some homemade liqueur, when the rumble of a carriage

was heard. The family party were going to see Cendrillon at the Varietes, while the two younger apprentices

each received a crown of six francs, with permission to go wherever they chose, provided they were in by

Notwithstanding this debauch, the old clothmerchant was shaving himself at six next morning, put on his

marooncolored coat, of which the glowing lights afforded him perennial enjoyment, fastened a pair of gold

buckles on the kneestraps of his ample satin breeches; and then, at about seven o'clock, while all were still

sleeping in the house, he made his way to the little office adjoining the shop on the first floor. Daylight came

in through a window, fortified by iron bars, and looking out on a small yard surrounded by such black walls

that it was very like a well. The old merchant opened the ironlined shutters, which were so familiar to him,

and threw up the lower half of the sash window. The icy air of the courtyard came in to cool the hot

The merchant remained standing, his hand resting on the greasy arm of a large cane chair lined with morocco,

of which the original hue had disappeared; he seemed to hesitate as to seating himself. He looked with

affection at the double desk, where his wife's seat, opposite his own, was fitted into a little niche in the wall.

He contemplated the numbered boxes, the files, the implements, the cash boxobjects all of immemorial

origin, and fancied himself in the room with the shade of Master Chevrel. He even pulled out the high stool

on which he had once sat in the presence of his departed master. This stool, covered with black leather, the

horsehair showing at every corneras it had long done, without, however, coming outhe placed with a

shaking hand on the very spot where his predecessor had put it, and then, with an emotion difficult to

describe, he pulled a bell, which rang at the head of Joseph Lebas' bed. When this decisive blow had been

struck, the old man, for whom, no doubt, these reminiscences were too much, took up three or four bills of

As the old master draper had never yet bid his assistant be seated in his presence, Joseph Lebas was startled.

"Well, I heard the day before yesterday Etienne and Co. had made their payments in gold."

"Oh, oh!" said the draper. "Well, one must be very ill to show one's bile. Let us speak of something

"Do not use newfangled words. Say the profits, Joseph. Do you know, my boy, that this result is partly

owing to you? And I do not intend to pay you a salary any longer. Madame Guillaume has suggested to me to

take you into partnership.'Guillaume and Lebas;' will not that make a good business name? We might add,

"Oh, Monsieur Guillaume, how have I deserved such kindness? I only do my duty. It was so much already

He was brushing the cuff of his left sleeve with his right hand, and dared not look at the old man, who smiled

as he thought that this modest young fellow no doubt needed, as he had needed once on a time, some

"To be sure," said Virginie's father, "you do not altogether deserve this favor, Joseph. You have not so much

confidence in me as I have in you." (The young man looked up quickly.) "You know all the secrets of the

cashbox. For the last two years I have told you almost all my concerns. I have sent you to travel in our

goods. In short, I have nothing on my conscience as regards you. But youyou have a soft place, and you

have never breathed a word of it." Joseph Lebas blushed. "Ah, ha!" cried Guillaume, "so you thought you

could deceive an old fox like me? When you knew that I had scented the Lecocq bankruptcy?"

"What, monsieur?" replied Joseph Lebas, looking at his master as keenly as his master looked at him, "you

"I know everything, you rascal," said the worthy and cunning old merchant, pulling the assistant's ear. "And I

"Yeswith fifty thousand crowns; and I will leave you as much by will, and we will start on our new career

under the name of a new firm. We will do good business yet, my boy!" added the old man, getting up and

flourishing his arms. "I tell you, soninlaw, there is nothing like trade. Those who ask what pleasure is to be

found in it are simpletons. To be on the scent of a good bargain, to hold your own on 'Change, to watch as

anxiously as at the gamingtable whether Etienne and Co. will fail or no, to see a regiment of Guards march

past all dressed in your cloth, to trip your neighbor uphonestly of course!to make the goods cheaper

than others can; then to carry out an undertaking which you have planned, which begins, grows, totters, and

succeeds! to know the workings of every house of business as well as a minister of police, so as never to

make a mistake; to hold up your head in the midst of wrecks, to have friends by correspondence in every

manufacturing town; is not that a perpetual game, Joseph? That is life, that is! I shall die in that harness, like

In the heat of his eager rhetoric, old Guillaume had scarcely looked at his assistant, who was weeping

"Well, well, boy," said the old man, touched, "you are happier than you know, by God! For she loves you. I

"Mademoiselle Augustine! Mademoiselle Augustine!" exclaimed Joseph Lebas in his rapture.

He was about to rush out of the room when he felt himself clutched by a hand of iron, and his astonished

"What has Augustine to do with this matter?" he asked, in a voice which instantly froze the luckless Joseph.

Much put out by his own want of perspicacity, Guillaume sat down again, and rested his long head in his

hands to consider the perplexing situation in which he found himself. Joseph Lebas, shamefaced and in

"Joseph," the draper said with frigid dignity, "I was speaking of Virginie. Love cannot be made to order, I

know. I know, too, that you can be trusted. We will forget all this. I will not let Augustine marry before

The young man, to whom love gave I know not what power of courage and eloquence, clasped his hand, and

spoke in his turnspoke for a quarter of an hour, with so much warmth and feeling, that he altered the

situation. If the question had been a matter of business the old tradesman would have had fixed principles to

guide his decision; but, tossed a thousand miles from commerce, on the ocean of sentiment, without a

compass, he floated, as he told himself, undecided in the face of such an unexpected event. Carried away by

"Deuce take it, Joseph, you must know that there are ten years between my two children. Mademoiselle

Chevrel was no beauty, still she has had nothing to complain of in me. Do as I did. Come, come, don't cry.

Can you be so silly? What is to be done? It can be managed perhaps. There is always some way out of a

scrape. And we men are not always devoted Celadons to our wivesyou understand? Madame Guillaume is

very pious. . . . Come. By Gad, boy, give your arm to Augustine this morning as we go to Mass."

These were the phrases spoken at random by the old draper, and their conclusion made the lover happy. He

was already thinking of a friend of his as a match for Mademoiselle Virginie, as he went out of the smoky

office, pressing his future fatherinlaw's hand, after saying with a knowing look that all would turn out for

"What will Madame Guillaume say to it?" was the idea that greatly troubled the worthy merchant when he

At breakfast Madame Guillaume and Virginie, to whom the draper had not yet confided his disappointment,

cast meaning glances at Joseph Lebas, who was extremely embarrassed. The young assistant's bashfulness

commended him to his motherinlaw's good graces. The matron became so cheerful that she smiled as she

looked at her husband, and allowed herself some little pleasantries of timehonored acceptance in such

simple families. She wondered whether Joseph or Virginie were the taller, to ask them to compare their

height. This preliminary fooling brought a cloud to the master's brow, and he even made such a point of

decorum that he desired Augustine to take the assistant's arm on their way to SaintLeu. Madame Guillaume,

surprised at this manly delicacy, honored her husband with a nod of approval. So the procession left the

"Does it not seem to you, Mademoiselle Augustine," said the assistant, and he trembled, "that the wife of a

merchant whose credit is as good as Monsieur Guillaume's, for instance, might enjoy herself a little more

than Madame your mother does? Might wear diamondsor keep a carriage? For my part, if I were to marry,

I should be glad to take all the work, and see my wife happy. I would not put her into the countinghouse. In

the drapery business, you see, a woman is not so necessary now as formerly. Monsieur Guillaume was quite

right to act as he didand besides, his wife liked it. But so long as a woman knows how to turn her hand to

the bookkeeping, the correspondence, the retail business, the orders, and her housekeeping, so as not to sit

idle, that is enough. At seven o'clock, when the shop is shut, I shall take my pleasures, go to the play, and into

"Yes, indeed, Monsieur Joseph. What do you think of painting? That is a fine calling."

Thus conversing, the family reached the Church of SaintLeu. There Madame Guillaume reasserted her

rights, and, for the first time, placed Augustine next herself, Virginie taking her place on the fourth chair, next

to Lebas. During the sermon all went well between Augustine and Theodore, who, standing behind a pillar,

worshiped his Madonna with fervent devotion; but at the elevation of the Host, Madame Guillaume

discovered, rather late, that her daughter Augustine was holding her prayerbook upside down. She was

about to speak to her strongly, when, lowering her veil, she interrupted her own devotions to look in the

direction where her daughter's eyes found attraction. By the help of her spectacles she saw the young artist,

whose fashionable elegance seemed to proclaim him a cavalry officer on leave rather than a tradesman of the

neighborhood. It is difficult to conceive of the state of violent agitation in which Madame Guillaume found

herselfshe, who flattered herself on having brought up her daughters to perfectionon discovering in

Augustine a clandestine passion of which her prudery and ignorance exaggerated the perils. She believed her

"Hold your book right way up, miss," she muttered in a low voice, tremulous with wrath. She snatched away

the telltale prayerbook and returned it with the letterpress right way up. "Do not allow your eyes to look

anywhere but at your prayers," she added, "or I shall have something to say to you. Your father and I will talk

These words came like a thunderbolt on poor Augustine. She felt faint; but, torn between the distress she felt

and the dread of causing a commotion in church she bravely concealed her anguish. It was, however, easy to

discern the stormy state of her soul from the trembling of her prayerbook, and the tears which dropped on

every page she turned. From the furious glare shot at him by Madame Guillaume the artist saw the peril into

which his love affair had fallen; he went out, with a raging soul, determined to venture all.

"Go to your room, miss!" said Madame Guillaume, on their return home; "we will send for you, but take care

The conference between the husband and wife was conducted so secretly that at first nothing was heard of it.

Virginie, however, who had tried to give her sister courage by a variety of gentle remonstrances, carried her

good nature so far as to listen at the door of her mother's bedroom where the discussion was held, to catch a

word or two. The first time she went down to the lower floor she heard her father exclaim, "Then, madame,

Virginie, inquisitive, went down again; but this time she stayed longer; she learned that Joseph Lebas loved

Augustine. It was written that on this memorable day, this house, generally so peaceful, should be a hell.

Monsieur Guillaume brought Joseph Lebas to despair by telling him of Augustine's love for a stranger. Lebas,

who had advised his friend to become a suitor for Mademoiselle Virginie, saw all his hopes wrecked.

Mademoiselle Virginie, overcome by hearing that Joseph had, in a way, refused her, had a sick headache. The

dispute that had arisen from the discussion between Monsieur and Madame Guillaume, when, for the third

time in their lives, they had been of antagonistic opinions, had shown itself in a terrible form. Finally, at

halfpast four in the afternoon, Augustine, pale, trembling, and with red eyes, was haled before her father and

mother. The poor child artlessly related the too brief tale of her love. Reassured by a speech from her father,

who promised to listen to her in silence, she gathered courage as she pronounced to her parents the name of

Theodore de Sommervieux, with a mischievous little emphasis on the aristocratic de. And yielding to the

unknown charm of talking of her feelings, she was brave enough to declare with innocent decision that she

loved Monsieur de Sommervieux, that she had written to him, and she added, with tears in her eyes: "To

"But, Augustine, you cannot surely know what a painter is?" cried her mother with horror.

"Madame Guillaume!" said the old man, compelling her to silence. "Augustine," he went on, "artists are

generally little better than beggars. They are too extravagant not to be always a bad sort. I served the late

Monsieur Joseph Vernet, the late Monsieur Lekain, and the late Monsieur Noverre. Oh, if you could only

know the tricks played on poor Father Chevrel by that Monsieur Noverre, by the Chevalier de SaintGeorges,

and especially by Monsieur Philidor! They are a set of rascals; I know them well! They all have a gab and

"Well, well, de Sommervieux, well and good. He can never have been half so sweet to you as Monsieur le

Chevalier de SaintGeorges was to me the day I got a verdict of the consuls against him. And in those days

"But, father, Monsieur Theodore is of good family, and he wrote me that he is rich; his father was called

At these words Monsieur Guillaume looked at his terrible better half, who, like an angry woman, sat tapping

the floor with her foot while keeping sullen silence; she avoided even casting wrathful looks at Augustine,

appearing to leave to Monsieur Guillaume the whole responsibility in so grave a matter, since her opinion

was not listened to. Nevertheless, in spite of her apparent selfcontrol, when she saw her husband giving way

so mildly under a catastrophe which had no concern with business, she exclaimed:

The sound of a carriage, which stopped at the door, interrupted the rating which the old draper already

quaked at. In a minute Madame Roguin was standing in the middle of the room, and looking at the actors in

this domestic scene: "I know all, my dear cousin," said she, with a patronizing air.

Madame Roguin made the great mistake of supposing that a Paris notary's wife could play the part of a

"I know all," she repeated, "and I have come into Noah's Ark, like the dove, with the olivebranch. I read that

allegory in the Genie du Christianisme," she added, turning to Madame Guillaume; "the allusion ought to

please you, cousin. Do you know," she went on, smiling at Augustine, "that Monsieur de Sommervieux is a

charming man? He gave me my portrait this morning, painted by a master's hand. It is worth at least six

thousand francs." And at these words she patted Monsieur Guillaume on the arm. The old draper could not

"I know Monsieur de Sommervieux very well," the Dove ran on. "He has come to my evenings this fortnight

past, and made them delightful. He has told me all his woes, and commissioned me to plead for him. I know

since this morning that he adores Augustine, and he shall have her. Ah, cousin, do not shake your head in

refusal. He will be created Baron, I can tell you, and has just been made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, by

the Emperor himself, at the Salon. Roguin is now his lawyer, and knows all his affairs. Well! Monsieur de

Sommervieux has twelve thousand francs a year in good landed estate. Do you know that the fatherinlaw

of such a man may get a rise in lifebe mayor of his arrondissement, for instance. Have we not seen

Monsieur Dupont become a Count of the Empire, and a senator, all because he went as mayor to congratulate

the Emperor on his entry into Vienna? Oh, this marriage must take place! For my part, I adore the dear young

man. His behavior to Augustine is only met with in romances. Be easy, little one, you shall be happy, and

every girl will wish she were in your place. Madame la Duchesse de Carigliano, who comes to my 'At

Homes,' raves about Monsieur de Sommervieux. Some spiteful people say she only comes to me to meet him;

as if a duchesse of yesterday was doing too much honor to a Chevrel, whose family have been respected

"Augustine," Madame Roguin went on, after a short pause, "I have seen the portrait. Heavens! How lovely it

is! Do you know that the Emperor wanted to have it? He laughed, and said to the Deputy High Constable that

if there were many women like that in his court while all the kings visited it, he should have no difficulty

The tempests with which the day had begun were to resemble those of nature, by ending in clear and serene

weather. Madame Roguin displayed so much address in her harangue, she was able to touch so many strings

in the dry hearts of Monsieur and Madame Guillaume, that at last she hit on one which she could work upon.

At this strange period commerce and finance were more than ever possessed by the crazy mania for seeking

alliance with rank; and the generals of the Empire took full advantage of this desire. Monsieur Guillaume, as

a singular exception, opposed this deplorable craving. His favorite axioms were that, to secure happiness, a

woman must marry a man of her own class; that every one was punished sooner or later for having climbed

too high; that love could so little endure under the worries of a household, that both husband and wife needed

sound good qualities to be happy, that it would not do for one to be far in advance of the other, because,

above everything, they must understand each other; if a man spoke Greek and his wife Latin, they might

come to die of hunger. He had himself invented this sort of adage. And he compared such marriages to

oldfashioned materials of mixed silk and wool. Still, there is so much vanity at the bottom of man's heart

that the prudence of the pilot who steered the Cat and Racket so wisely gave way before Madame Roguin's

aggressive volubility. Austere Madame Guillaume was the first to see in her daughter's affection a reason for

abdicating her principles and for consenting to receive Monsieur de Sommervieux, whom she promised

The old draper went to look for Joseph Lebas, and inform him of the state of affairs. At halfpast six, the

diningroom immortalized by the artist saw, united under its skylight, Monsieur and Madame Roguin, the

young painter and his charming Augustine, Joseph Lebas, who found his happiness in patience, and

Mademoiselle Virginie, convalescent from her headache. Monsieur and Madame Guillaume saw in

perspective both their children married, and the fortunes of the Cat and Racket once more in skilful hands.

Their satisfaction was at its height when, at dessert, Theodore made them a present of the wonderful picture

which they had failed to see, representing the interior of the old shop, and to which they all owed so much

"Isn't it pretty!" cried Guillaume. "And to think that any one would pay thirty thousand francs for that!"

"Drapery always comes out well," replied the painter. "We should be only too happy, we modern artists, if we

"So you like drapery!" cried old Guillaume. "Well, then, by Gad! shake hands on that, my young friend.

Since you can respect trade, we shall understand each other. And why should it be despised? The world

began with trade, since Adam sold Paradise for an apple. He did not strike a good bargain though!" And the

old man roared with honest laughter, encouraged by the champagne, which he sent round with a liberal hand.

The band that covered the young artist's eyes was so thick that he thought his future parents amiable. He was

not above enlivening them by a few jests in the best taste. So he too pleased every one. In the evening, when

the drawingroom, furnished with what Madame Guillaume called "everything handsome," was deserted, and

while she flitted from the table to the chimneypiece, from the candelabra to the tall candlesticks, hastily

blowing out the waxlights, the worthy draper, who was always clearsighted when money was in question,

"My dear child, you shall marry your Sommervieux since you insist; you may, if you like, risk your capital in

happiness. But I am not going to be hoodwinked by the thirty thousand francs to be made by spoiling good

canvas. Money that is lightly earned is lightly spent. Did I not hear that harebrained youngster declare this

evening that money was made round that it might roll. If it is round for spendthrifts, it is flat for saving folks

who pile it up. Now, my child, that fine gentleman talks of giving you carriages and diamonds! He has

money, let him spend it on you; so be it. It is no concern of mine. But as to what I can give you, I will not

have the crownpieces I have picked up with so much toil wasted in carriages and frippery. Those who spend

too fast never grow rich. A hundred thousand crowns, which is your fortune, will not buy up Paris. It is all

very well to look forward to a few hundred thousand francs to be yours some day; I shall keep you waiting

for them as long as possible, by Gad! So I took your lover aside, and a man who managed the Lecocq

bankruptcy had not much difficulty in persuading the artist to marry under a settlement of his wife's money

on herself. I will keep an eye on the marriage contract to see that what he is to settle on you is safely tied up.

So now, my child, I hope to be a grandfather, by Gad! I will begin at once to lay up for my grandchildren; but

swear to me, here and now, never to sign any papers relating to money without my advice; and if I go soon to

At these words, spoken in a gentle voice, the old man kissed his daughter on both cheeks. That night the

Some few months after this memorable Sunday the high altar of Saint Leu was the scene of two very

different weddings. Augustine and Theodore appeared in all the radiance of happiness, their eyes beaming

with love, dressed with elegance, while a fine carriage waited for them. Virginie, who had come in a good

hired fly with the rest of the family, humbly followed her younger sister, dressed in the simplest fashion like

a shadow necessary to the harmony of the picture. Monsieur Guillaume had exerted himself to the utmost in

the church to get Virginie married before Augustine, but the priests, high and low, persisted in addressing the

more elegant of the two brides. He heard some of his neighbors highly approving the good sense of

Mademoiselle Virginie, who was making, as they said, the more substantial match, and remaining faithful to

the neighborhood; while they fired a few taunts, prompted by envy of Augustine, who was marrying an artist

and a man of rank; adding, with a sort of dismay, that if the Guillaumes were ambitious, there was an end to

the business. An old fanmaker having remarked that such a prodigal would soon bring his wife to beggary,

father Guillaume prided himself in petto for his prudence in the matter of marriage settlements. In the

evening, after a splendid ball, followed by one of those substantial suppers of which the memory is dying out

in the present generation, Monsieur and Madame Guillaume remained in a fine house belonging to them in

the Rue du Colombier, where the wedding had been held; Monsieur and Madame Lebas returned in their fly

to the old home in the Rue SaintDenis, to steer the good ship Cat and Racket. The artist, intoxicated with

happiness, carried off his beloved Augustine, and eagerly lifting her out of their carriage when it reached the

The fever of passion which possessed Theodore made a year fly over the young couple without a single cloud

to dim the blue sky under which they lived. Life did not hang heavy on the lovers' hands. Theodore lavished

on every day inexhaustible fioriture of enjoyment, and he delighted to vary the transports of passion by the

soft languor of those hours of repose when souls soar so high that they seem to have forgotten all bodily

union. Augustine was too happy for reflection; she floated on an undulating tide of rapture; she thought she

could not do enough by abandoning herself to sanctioned and sacred married love; simple and artless, she had

no coquetry, no reserves, none of the dominion which a worldlyminded girl acquires over her husband by

ingenious caprice; she loved too well to calculate for the future, and never imagined that so exquisite a life

could come to an end. Happy in being her husband's sole delight, she believed that her inextinguishable love

would always be her greatest grace in his eyes, as her devotion and obedience would be a perennial charm.

And, indeed, the ecstasy of love had made her so brilliantly lovely that her beauty filled her with pride, and

gave her confidence that she could always reign over a man so easy to kindle as Monsieur de Sommervieux.

In the midst of her happiness, she was still the simple child who had lived in obscurity in the Rue

SaintDenis, and who never thought of acquiring the manners, the information, the tone of the world she had

to live in. Her words being the words of love, she revealed in them, no doubt, a certain pliancy of mind and a

certain refinement of speech; but she used the language common to all women when they find themselves

plunged in passion, which seems to be their element. When, by chance, Augustine expressed an idea that did

not harmonize with Theodore's, the young artist laughed, as we laugh at the first mistakes of a foreigner,

In spite of all this lovemaking, by the end of this year, as delightful as it was swift, Sommervieux felt one

morning the need for resuming his work and his old habits. His wife was expecting their first child. He saw

some friends again. During the tedious discomforts of the year when a young wife is nursing an infant for the

first time, he worked, no doubt, with zeal, but he occasionally sought diversion in the fashionable world. The

house which he was best pleased to frequent was that of the Duchesse de Carigliano, who had at last attracted

the celebrated artist to her parties. When Augustine was quite well again, and her boy no longer required the

assiduous care which debars a mother from social pleasures, Theodore had come to the stage of wishing to

know the joys of satisfied vanity to be found in society by a man who shows himself with a handsome

To figure in drawingrooms with the reflected lustre of her husband's fame, and to find other women envious

of her, was to Augustine a new harvest of pleasures; but it was the last gleam of conjugal happiness. She first

wounded her husband's vanity when, in spite of vain efforts, she betrayed her ignorance, the inelegance of her

language, and the narrowness of her ideas. Sommervieux's nature, subjugated for nearly two years and a half

by the first transports of love, now, in the calm of less new possession, recovered its bent and habits, for a

while diverted from their channel. Poetry, painting, and the subtle joys of imagination have inalienable rights

over a lofty spirit. These cravings of a powerful soul had not been starved in Theodore during these two

years; they had only found fresh pasture. As soon as the meadows of love had been ransacked, and the artist

had gathered roses and cornflowers as the children do, so greedily that he did not see that his hands could

hold no more, the scene changed. When the painter showed his wife the sketches for his finest compositions

he heard her exclaim, as her father had done, "How pretty!" This tepid admiration was not the outcome of

Augustine cared more for a look than for the finest picture. The only sublime she knew was that of the heart.

At last Theodore could not resist the evidence of the cruel facthis wife was insensible to poetry, she did not

dwell in his sphere, she could not follow him in all his vagaries, his inventions, his joys and his sorrows; she

walked groveling in the world of reality, while his head was in the skies. Common minds cannot appreciate

the perennial sufferings of a being who, while bound to another by the most intimate affections, is obliged

constantly to suppress the dearest flights of his soul, and to thrust down into the void those images which a

magic power compels him to create. To him the torture is all the more intolerable because his feeling towards

his companion enjoins, as its first law, that they should have no concealments, but mingle the aspirations of

their thought as perfectly as the effusions of their soul. The demands of nature are not to be cheated. She is as

inexorable as necessity, which is, indeed, a sort of social nature. Sommervieux took refuge in the peace and

silence of his studio, hoping that the habit of living with artists might mould his wife and develop in her the

dormant germs of lofty intelligence which some superior minds suppose must exist in every being. But

Augustine was too sincerely religious not to take fright at the tone of artists. At the first dinner Theodore

gave, she heard a young painter say, with the childlike lightness, which to her was unintelligible, and which

redeems a jest from the taint of profanity, "But, madame, your Paradise cannot be more beautiful than

Thus Augustine came among this sparkling set in a spirit of distrust which no one could fail to see. She was a

restraint on their freedom. Now an artist who feels restraint is pitiless; he stays away, or laughs it to scorn.

Madame Guillaume, among other absurdities, had an excessive notion of the dignity she considered the

prerogative of a married woman; and Augustine, though she had often made fun of it, could not help a slight

imitation of her mother's primness. This extreme propriety, which virtuous wives do not always avoid,

suggested a few epigrams in the form of sketches, in which the harmless jest was in such good taste that

Sommervieux could not take offence; and even if they had been more severe, these pleasantries were after all

only reprisals from his friends. Still, nothing could seem a trifle to a spirit so open as Theodore's to

impressions from without. A coldness insensibly crept over him, and inevitably spread. To attain conjugal

happiness we must climb a hill whose summit is a narrow ridge, close to a steep and slippery descent: the

painter's love was falling down it. He regarded his wife as incapable of appreciating the moral considerations

which justified him in his own eyes for his singular behavior to her, and believed himself quite innocent in

hiding from her thoughts she could not enter into, and peccadilloes outside the jurisdiction of a

bourgeois conscience. Augustine wrapped herself in sullen and silent grief. These unconfessed feelings

placed a shroud between the husband and wife which could not fail to grow thicker day by day. Though her

husband never failed in consideration for her, Augustine could not help trembling as she saw that he kept for

the outer world those treasures of wit and grace that he formerly would lay at her feet. She soon began to find

sinister meaning in the jocular speeches that are current in the world as to the inconstancy of men. She made

Three years after her marriage this pretty young woman, who dashed past in her handsome carriage, and lived

in a sphere of glory and riches to the envy of heedless folk incapable of taking a just view of the situations of

life, was a prey to intense grief. She lost her color; she reflected; she made comparisons; then sorrow

unfolded to her the first lessons of experience. She determined to restrict herself bravely within the round of

duty, hoping that by this generous conduct she might sooner or later win back her husband's love. But it was

not so. When Sommervieux, fired with work, came in from his studio, Augustine did not put away her work

so quickly but that the painter might find his wife mending the household linen, and his own, with all the care

of a good housewife. She supplied generously and without a murmur the money needed for his lavishness;

but in her anxiety to husband her dear Theodore's fortune, she was strictly economical for herself and in

certain details of domestic management. Such conduct is incompatible with the easygoing habits of artists,

who, at the end of their life, have enjoyed it so keenly that they never inquire into the causes of their ruin.

It is useless to note every tint of shadow by which the brilliant hues of their honeymoon were overcast till

they were lost in utter blackness. One evening poor Augustine, who had for some time heard her husband

speak with enthusiasm of the Duchesse de Carigliano, received from a friend certain malignantly charitable

warnings as to the nature of the attachment which Sommervieux had formed for this celebrated flirt of the

Imperial Court. At oneandtwenty, in all the splendor of youth and beauty, Augustine saw herself deserted

for a woman of sixandthirty. Feeling herself so wretched in the midst of a world of festivity which to her

was a blank, the poor little thing could no longer understand the admiration she excited, or the envy of which

she was the object. Her face assumed a different expression. Melancholy, tinged her features with the

sweetness of resignation and the pallor of scorned love. Ere long she too was courted by the most fascinating

men; but she remained lonely and virtuous. Some contemptuous words which escaped her husband filled her

with incredible despair. A sinister flash showed her the breaches which, as a result of her sordid education,

hindered the perfect union of her soul with Theodore's; she loved him well enough to absolve him and

condemn herself. She shed tears of blood, and perceived, too late, that there are mesalliances of the spirit as

well as of rank and habits. As she recalled the early raptures of their union, she understood the full extent of

that lost happiness, and accepted the conclusion that so rich a harvest of love was in itself a whole life, which

only sorrow could pay for. At the same time, she loved too truly to lose all hope. At oneandtwenty she

dared undertake to educate herself, and make her imagination, at least, worthy of that she admired. "If I am

Then, with all the strength of will, all the energy which every woman can display when she loves, Madame

de Sommervieux tried to alter her character, her manners, and her habits; but by dint of devouring books and

learning undauntedly, she only succeeded in becoming less ignorant. Lightness of wit and the graces of

conversation are a gift of nature, or the fruit of education begun in the cradle. She could appreciate music and

enjoy it, but she could not sing with taste. She understood literature and the beauties of poetry, but it was too

late to cultivate her refractory memory. She listened with pleasure to social conversation, but she could

contribute nothing brilliant. Her religious notions and homegrown prejudices were antagonistic to the

complete emancipation of her intelligence. Finally, a foregone conclusion against her had stolen into

Theodore's mind, and this she could not conquer. The artist would laugh, at those who flattered him about his

wife, and his irony had some foundation; he so overawed the pathetic young creature that, in his presence, or

alone with him, she trembled. Hampered by her too eager desire to please, her wits and her knowledge

vanished in one absorbing feeling. Even her fidelity vexed the unfaithful husband, who seemed to bid her do

wrong by stigmatizing her virtue as insensibility. Augustine tried in vain to abdicate her reason, to yield to

her husband's caprices and whims, to devote herself to the selfishness of his vanity. Her sacrifices bore no

fruit. Perhaps they had both let the moment slip when souls may meet in comprehension. One day the young

wife's too sensitive heart received one of those blows which so strain the bonds of feeling that they seem to

be broken. She withdrew into solitude. But before long a fatal idea suggested to her to seek counsel and

So one morning she made her way towards the grotesque facade of the humble, silent home where she had

spent her childhood. She sighed as she looked up at the sashwindow, whence one day she had sent her first

kiss to him who now shed as much sorrow as glory on her life. Nothing was changed in the cavern, where the

drapery business had, however, started on a new life. Augustine's sister filled her mother's old place at the

desk. The unhappy young woman met her brotherinlaw with his pen behind his ear; he hardly listened to

her, he was so full of business. The formidable symptoms of stocktaking were visible all round him; he

begged her to excuse him. She was received coldly enough by her sister, who owed her a grudge. In fact,

Augustine, in her finery, and stepping out of a handsome carriage, had never been to see her but when

passing by. The wife of the prudent Lebas, imagining that want of money was the prime cause of this early

call, tried to keep up a tone of reserve which more than once made Augustine smile. The painter's wife

perceived that, apart from the cap and lappets, her mother had found in Virginie a successor who could

uphold the ancient honor of the Cat and Racket. At breakfast she observed certain changes in the

management of the house which did honor to Lebas' good sense; the assistants did not rise before dessert;

they were allowed to talk, and the abundant meal spoke of ease without luxury. The fashionable woman

found some tickets for a box at the Francais, where she remembered having seen her sister from time to time.

Madame Lebas had a cashmere shawl over her shoulders, of which the value bore witness to her husband's

generosity to her. In short, the couple were keeping pace with the times. During the twothirds of the day she

spent there, Augustine was touched to the heart by the equable happiness, devoid, to be sure, of all emotion,

but equally free from storms, enjoyed by this wellmatched couple. They had accepted life as a commercial

enterprise, in which, above all, they must do credit to the business. Not finding any great love in her husband,

Virginie had set to work to create it. Having by degrees learned to esteem and care for his wife, the time that

his happiness had taken to germinate was to Joseph Lebas a guarantee of its durability. Hence, when

Augustine plaintively set forth her painful position, she had to face the deluge of commonplace morality

"The mischief is done, wife," said Joseph Lebas; "we must try to give our sister good advice." Then the clever

tradesman ponderously analyzed the resources which law and custom might offer Augustine as a means of

escape at this crisis; he ticketed every argument, so to speak, and arranged them in their degrees of weight

under various categories, as though they were articles of merchandise of different qualities; then he put them

in the scale, weighed them, and ended by showing the necessity for his sisterinlaw's taking violent steps

which could not satisfy the love she still had for her husband; and, indeed, the feeling had revived in all its

strength when she heard Joseph Lebas speak of legal proceedings. Augustine thanked them, and returned

home even more undecided than she had been before consulting them. She now ventured to go to the house in

the Rue du Colombier, intending to confide her troubles to her father and mother; for she was like a sick man

who, in his desperate plight, tries every prescription, and even puts faith in old wives' remedies.

The old people received their daughter with an effusiveness that touched her deeply. Her visit brought them

some little change, and that to them was worth a fortune. For the last four years they had gone their way like

navigators without a goal or a compass. Sitting by the chimney corner, they would talk over their disasters

under the old law of maximum, of their great investments in cloth, of the way they had weathered

bankruptcies, and, above all, the famous failure of Lecocq, Monsieur Guillaume's battle of Marengo. Then,

when they had exhausted the tale of lawsuits, they recapitulated the sum total of their most profitable

stocktakings, and told each other old stories of the SaintDenis quarter. At two o'clock old Guillaume went

to cast an eye on the business at the Cat and Racket; on his way back he called at all the shops, formerly the

rivals of his own, where the young proprietors hoped to inveigle the old draper into some risky discount,

which, as was his wont, he never refused pointblank. Two good Normandy horses were dying of their own

fat in the stables of the big house; Madame Guillaume never used them but to drag her on Sundays to high

Mass at the parish church. Three times a week the worthy couple kept open house. By the influence of his

soninlaw Sommervieux, Monsieur Guillaume had been named a member of the consulting board for the

clothing of the Army. Since her husband had stood so high in office, Madame Guillaume had decided that she

must receive; her rooms were so crammed with gold and silver ornaments, and furniture, tasteless but of

undoubted value, that the simplest room in the house looked like a chapel. Economy and expense seemed to

be struggling for the upper hand in every accessory. It was as though Monsieur Guillaume had looked to a

good investment, even in the purchase of a candlestick. In the midst of this bazaar, where splendor revealed

the owner's want of occupation, Sommervieux's famous picture filled the place of honor, and in it Monsieur

and Madame Guillaume found their chief consolation, turning their eyes, harnessed with eye glasses, twenty

times a day on this presentment of their past life, to them so active and amusing. The appearance of this

mansion and these rooms, where everything had an aroma of staleness and mediocrity, the spectacle offered

by these two beings, cast away, as it were, on a rock far from the world and the ideas which are life, startled

Augustine; she could here contemplate the sequel of the scene of which the first part had struck her at the

house of Lebasa life of stir without movement, a mechanical and instinctive existence like that of the

beaver; and then she felt an indefinable pride in her troubles, as she reflected that they had their source in

eighteen months of such happiness as, in her eyes, was worth a thousand lives like this; its vacuity seemed to

her horrible. However, she concealed this not very charitable feeling, and displayed for her parents her

newlyacquired accomplishments of mind, and the ingratiating tenderness that love had revealed to her,

disposing them to listen to her matrimonial grievances. Old people have a weakness for this kind of

confidence. Madame Guillaume wanted to know the most trivial details of that alien life, which to her seemed

almost fabulous. The travels of Baron da la Houtan, which she began again and again and never finished, told

"What, child, your husband shuts himself into a room with naked women! And you are so simple as to

As she uttered this exclamation, the grandmother laid her spectacles on a little worktable, shook her skirts,

and clasped her hands on her knees, raised by a footwarmer, her favorite pedestal.

"He took good care not to tell us that when he asked leave to marry you. If I had known it, I would never had

given my daughter to a man who followed such a trade. Religion forbids such horrors; they are immoral. And

"Then he gambles?" said Monsieur Guillaume. "In my day only gamblers stayed out so late."

"He must keep you up through dreadful nights waiting for him," said Madame Guillaume. "But you go to

"No, mamma, on the contrary, he is sometimes in very good spirits. Not unfrequently, indeed, when it is fine,

"The woods! At that hour? Then have you such a small set of rooms that his bedroom and his sittingroom

are not enough, and that he must run about? But it is just to give you cold that the wretch proposes such

expeditions. He wants to get rid of you. Did one ever hear of a man settled in life, a wellbehaved, quiet man

"But, my dear mother, you do not understand that he must have excitement to fire his genius. He is fond of

"I would make scenes for him, fine scenes!" cried Madame Guillaume, interrupting her daughter. "How can

you show any consideration to such a man? In the first place, I don't like his drinking water only; it is not

wholesome. Why does he object to see a woman eating? What queer notion is that! But he is mad. All you

tell us about him is impossible. A man cannot leave his home without a word, and never come back for ten

days. And then he tells you he has been to Dieppe to paint the sea. As if any one painted the sea! He crams

Augustine opened her lips to defend her husband; but Madame Guillaume enjoined silence with a wave of her

hand, which she obeyed by a survival of habit, and her mother went on in harsh tones: "Don't talk to me about

the man! He never set foot in church excepting to see you and to be married. People without religion are

capable of anything. Did Guillaume ever dream of hiding anything from me, of spending three days without

"My dear mother, you judge superior people too severely. If their ideas were the same as other folks', they

"Very well, then let men of genius stop at home and not get married. What! A man of genius is to make his

wife miserable? And because he is a genius it is all right! Genius, genius! It is not so very clever to say black

one minute and white the next, as he does, to interrupt other people, to dance such rigs at home, never to let

you know which foot you are to stand on, to compel his wife never to be amused unless my lord is in gay

"What are such 'imaginations'?" Madame Guillaume went on, interrupting her daughter again. "Fine ones his

are, my word! What possesses a man that all on a sudden, without consulting a doctor, he takes it into his

head to eat nothing but vegetables? If indeed it were from religious motives, it might do him some goodbut

he has no more religion than a Huguenot. Was there ever a man known who, like him, loved horses better

than his fellowcreatures, had his hair curled like a heathen, laid statues under muslin coverlets, shut his

shutters in broad day to work by lamplight? There, get along; if he were not so grossly immoral, he would

be fit to shut up in a lunatic asylum. Consult Monsieur Loraux, the priest at Saint Sulpice, ask his opinion

about it all, and he will tell you that your husband, does not behave like a Christian."

"Yes, I do believe. You loved him, and you can see none of these things. But I can remember in the early

days after your marriage. I met him in the ChampsElysees. He was on horseback. Well, at one minute he

was galloping as hard as he could tear, and then pulled up to a walk. I said to myself at that moment, 'There is

"Ah, ha!" cried Monsieur Guillaume, "how wise I was to have your money settled on yourself with such a

When Augustine was so imprudent as to set forth her serious grievances against her husband, the two old

people were speechless with indignation. But the word "divorce" was ere long spoken by Madame

Guillaume. At the sound of the word divorce the apathetic old draper seemed to wake up. Prompted by his

love for his daughter, and also by the excitement which the proceedings would bring into his uneventful life,

father Guillaume took up the matter. He made himself the leader of the application for a divorce, laid down

the lines of it, almost argued the case; he offered to be at all the charges, to see the lawyers, the pleaders, the

judges, to move heaven and earth. Madame de Sommervieux was frightened, she refused her father's

services, said she would not be separated from her husband even if she were ten times as unhappy, and talked

no more about her sorrows. After being overwhelmed by her parents with all the little wordless and consoling

kindnesses by which the old couple tried in vain to make up to her for her distress of heart, Augustine went

away, feeling the impossibility of making a superior mind intelligible to weak intellects. She had learned that

a wife must hide from every one, even from her parents, woes for which it is so difficult to find sympathy.

The storms and sufferings of the upper spheres are appreciated only by the lofty spirits who inhabit there. In

Thus poor Augustine found herself thrown back on the horror of her meditations, in the cold atmosphere of

her home. Study was indifferent to her, since study had not brought her back her husband's heart. Initiated

into the secret of these souls of fire, but bereft of their resources, she was compelled to share their sorrows

without sharing their pleasures. She was disgusted with the world, which to her seemed mean and small as

One evening an idea flashed upon her that lighted up her dark grief like a beam from heaven. Such an idea

could never have smiled on a heart less pure, less virtuous than hers. She determined to go to the Duchesse de

Carigliano, not to ask her to give her back her husband's heart, but to learn the arts by which it had been

captured; to engage the interest of this haughty fine lady for the mother of her lover's children; to appeal to

her and make her the instrument of her future happiness, since she was the cause of her present wretchedness.

So one day Augustine, timid as she was, but armed with supernatural courage, got into her carriage at two in

the afternoon to try for admittance to the boudoir of the famous coquette, who was never visible till that hour.

Madame de Sommervieux had not yet seen any of the ancient and magnificent mansions of the Faubourg

SaintGermain. As she made her way through the stately corridors, the handsome staircases, the vast

drawingroomsfull of flowers, though it was in the depth of winter, and decorated with the taste peculiar

to women born to opulence or to the elegant habits of the aristocracy, Augustine felt a terrible clutch at her

heart; she coveted the secrets of an elegance of which she had never had an idea; she breathed in an air of

grandeur which explained the attraction of the house for her husband. When she reached the private rooms of

the Duchess she was filled with jealousy and a sort of despair, as she admired the luxurious arrangement of

the furniture, the draperies and the hangings. Here disorder was a grace, here luxury affected a certain

contempt of splendor. The fragrance that floated in the warm air flattered the sense of smell without

offending it. The accessories of the rooms were in harmony with a view, through plateglass windows, of the

lawns in a garden planted with evergreen trees. It was all bewitching, and the art of it was not perceptible.

The whole spirit of the mistress of these rooms pervaded the drawingroom where Augustine awaited her.

She tried to divine her rival's character from the aspect of the scattered objects; but there was here something

as impenetrable in the disorder as in the symmetry, and to the simpleminded young wife all was a sealed

letter. All that she could discern was that, as a woman, the Duchess was a superior person. Then a painful

"Alas! And is it true," she wondered, "that a simple and loving heart is not allsufficient to an artist; that to

balance the weight of these powerful souls they need a union with feminine souls of a strength equal to their

own? If I had been brought up like this siren, our weapons at least might have been equal in the hour of

"But I am not at home!" The sharp, harsh words, though spoken in an undertone in the adjoining boudoir,

"You are an idiot! Show her in," replied the Duchess, whose voice was sweeter, and had assumed the dulcet

Augustine shyly entered the room. At the end of the dainty boudoir she saw the Duchess lounging luxuriously

on an ottoman covered with brown velvet and placed in the centre of a sort of apse outlined by soft folds of

white muslin over a yellow lining. Ornaments of gilt bronze, arranged with exquisite taste, enhanced this sort

of dais, under which the Duchess reclined like a Greek statue. The dark hue of the velvet gave relief to every

fascinating charm. A subdued light, friendly to her beauty, fell like a reflection rather than a direct

illumination. A few rare flowers raised their perfumed heads from costly Sevres vases. At the moment when

this picture was presented to Augustine's astonished eyes, she was approaching so noiselessly that she caught

a glance from those of the enchantress. This look seemed to say to some one whom Augustine did not at first

perceive, "Stay; you will see a pretty woman, and make her visit seem less of a bore."

"And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, madame?" she said with a most gracious smile.

Her silence was compulsory. The young woman saw before her a superfluous witness of the scene. This

personage was, of all the Colonels in the army, the youngest, the most fashionable, and the finest man. His

face, full of life and youth, but already expressive, was further enhanced by a small moustache twirled up into

points, and as black as jet, by a full imperial, by whiskers carefully combed, and a forest of black hair in some

disorder. He was whisking a riding whip with an air of ease and freedom which suited his selfsatisfied

expression and the elegance of his dress; the ribbons attached to his buttonhole were carelessly tied, and he

seemed to pride himself much more on his smart appearance than on his courage. Augustine looked at the

Duchesse de Carigliano, and indicated the Colonel by a sidelong glance. All its mute appeal was understood.

These words were spoken by the siren as though they were the result of an agreement made before

Augustine's arrival, and she winged them with a threatening look that the officer deserved perhaps for the

admiration he showed in gazing at the modest flower, which contrasted so well with the haughty Duchess.

The young fop bowed in silence, turned on the heels of his boots, and gracefully quitted the boudoir. At this

instant, Augustine, watching her rival, whose eyes seemed to follow the brilliant officer, detected in that

glance a sentiment of which the transient expression is known to every woman. She perceived with the

deepest anguish that her visit would be useless; this lady, full of artifice, was too greedy of homage not to

"Madame," said Augustine in a broken voice, "the step I am about to take will seem to you very strange; but

there is a madness of despair which ought to excuse anything. I understand only too well why Theodore

prefers your house to any other, and why your mind has so much power over his. Alas! I have only to look

into myself to find more than ample reasons. But I am devoted to my husband, madame. Two years of tears

have not effaced his image from my heart, though I have lost his. In my folly I dared to dream of a contest

with you; and I have come to you to ask you by what means I may triumph over yourself. Oh, madame,"

cried the young wife, ardently seizing the hand which her rival allowed her to hold, "I will never pray to God

for my own happiness with so much fervor as I will beseech Him for yours, if you will help me to win back

Sommervieux's regardI will not say his love. I have no hope but in you. Ah! tell me how you could please

him, and make him forget the first days" At these words Augustine broke down, suffocated with sobs

she could not suppress. Ashamed of her weakness, she hid her face in her handkerchief, which she bathed

"What a child you are, my dear little beauty!" said the Duchess, carried away by the novelty of such a scene,

and touched, in spite of herself, at receiving such homage from the most perfect virtue perhaps in Paris. She

took the young wife's handkerchief, and herself wiped the tears from her eyes, soothing her by a few

monosyllables murmured with gracious compassion. After a moment's silence the Duchess, grasping poor

Augustine's hands in both her ownhands that had a rare character of dignity and powerful beautysaid in

a gentle and friendly voice: "My first warning is to advise you not to weep so bitterly; tears are disfiguring.

We must learn to deal firmly with the sorrows that make us ill, for love does not linger long by a sickbed.

Melancholy, at first, no doubt, lends a certain attractive grace, but it ends by dragging the features and

blighting the loveliest face. And besides, our tyrants are so vain as to insist that their slaves should be always

"But, madame, it is not in my power not to feel. How is it possible, without suffering a thousand deaths, to

see the face which once beamed with love and gladness turn chill, colorless, and indifferent? I cannot control

"So much the worse, sweet child. But I fancy I know all your story. In the first place, if your husband is

unfaithful to you, understand clearly that I am not his accomplice. If I was anxious to have him in my

drawingroom, it was, I own, out of vanity; he was famous, and he went nowhere. I like you too much

already to tell you all the mad things he has done for my sake. I will only reveal one, because it may perhaps

help us to bring him back to you, and to punish him for the audacity of his behavior to me. He will end by

compromising me. I know the world too well, my dear, to abandon myself to the discretion of a too superior

man. You should know that one may allow them to court one, but marry themthat is a mistake! We women

ought to admire men of genius, and delight in them as a spectacle, but as to living with them? Never.No,

no. It is like wanting to find pleasure in inspecting the machinery of the opera instead of sitting in a box to

enjoy its brilliant illusions. But this misfortune has fallen on you, my poor child, has it not? Well, then, you

"Ah, madame, before coming in here, only seeing you as I came in, I already detected some arts of which I

"Well, come and see me sometimes, and it will not be long before you have mastered the knowledge of these

trifles, important, too, in their way. Outward things are, to fools, half of life; and in that matter more than one

clever man is a fool, in spite of all his talent. But I dare wager you never could refuse your Theodore

"Poor innocent, I could adore you for your simplicity. You should know that the more we love the less we

should allow a man, above all, a husband, to see the whole extent of our passion. The one who loves most is

tyrannized over, and, which is worse, is sooner or later neglected. The one who wishes to rule should"

"What, madame, must I then dissimulate, calculate, become false, form an artificial character, and live in it?

How is it possible to live in such a way? Can you" she hesitated; the Duchess smiled.

"My dear child," the great lady went on in a serious tone, "conjugal happiness has in all times been a

speculation, a business demanding particular attention. If you persist in talking passion while I am talking

marriage, we shall soon cease to understand each other. Listen to me," she went on, assuming a confidential

tone. "I have been in the way of seeing some of the superior men of our day. Those who have married have

for the most part chosen quite insignificant wives. Well, those wives governed them, as the Emperor governs

us; and if they were not loved, they were at least respected. I like secretsespecially those which concern

womenwell enough to have amused myself by seeking the clue to the riddle. Well, my sweet child, those

worthy women had the gift of analyzing their husbands' nature; instead of taking fright, like you, at their

superiority, they very acutely noted the qualities they lacked, and either by possessing those qualities, or by

feigning to possess them, they found means of making such a handsome display of them in their husbands'

eyes that in the end they impressed them. Also, I must tell you, all these souls which appear so lofty have just

a speck of madness in them, which we ought to know how to take advantage of. By firmly resolving to have

the upper hand and never deviating from that aim, by bringing all our actions to bear on it, all our ideas, our

cajolery, we subjugate these eminently capricious natures, which, by the very mutability of their thoughts,

"Good heavens!" cried the young wife in dismay. "And this is life. It is a warfare"

"In which we must always threaten," said the Duchess, laughing. "Our power is wholly factitious. And we

must never allow a man to despise us; it is impossible to recover from such a descent but by odious

manoeuvring. Come," she added, "I will give you a means of bringing your husband to his senses."

She rose with a smile to guide the young and guileless apprentice to conjugal arts through the labyrinth of her

palace. They came to a backstaircase, which led up to the reception rooms. As Madame de Carigliano

pressed the secret springlock of the door she stopped, looking at Augustine with an inimitable gleam of

shrewdness and grace. "The Duc de Carigliano adores me," said she. "Well, he dare not enter by this door

without my leave. And he is a man in the habit of commanding thousands of soldiers. He knows how to face

Augustine sighed. They entered a sumptuous gallery, where the painter's wife was led by the Duchess up to

the portrait painted by Theodore of Mademoiselle Guillaume. On seeing it, Augustine uttered a cry.

"My dear child, I asked for it merely to see what pitch of idiocy a man of genius may attain to. Sooner or later

I should have returned it to you, for I never expected the pleasure of seeing the original here face to face with

the copy. While we finish our conversation I will have it carried down to your carriage. And if, armed with

such a talisman, you are not your husband's mistress for a hundred years, you are not a woman, and you

Augustine kissed the Duchess' hand, and the lady clasped her to her heart, with all the more tenderness

because she would forget her by the morrow. This scene might perhaps have destroyed for ever the candor

and purity of a less virtuous woman than Augustine, for the astute politics of the higher social spheres were

no more consonant to Augustine than the narrow reasoning of Joseph Lebas, or Madame Guillaume's vapid

morality. Strange are the results of the false positions into which we may be brought by the slightest mistake

in the conduct of life! Augustine was like an Alpine cowherd surprised by an avalanche; if he hesitates, if he

listens to the shouts of his comrades, he is almost certainly lost. In such a crisis the heart steels itself or

Madame de Sommervieux returned home a prey to such agitation as it is difficult to describe. Her

conversation with the Duchesse de Carigliano had roused in her mind a crowd of contradictory thoughts. Like

the sheep in the fable, full of courage in the wolf's absence, she preached to herself, and laid down admirable

plans of conduct; she devised a thousand coquettish stratagems; she even talked to her husband, finding,

away from him, all the springs of true eloquence which never desert a woman; then, as she pictured to herself

Theodore's clear and steadfast gaze, she began to quake. When she asked whether monsieur were at home her

voice shook. On learning that he would not be in to dinner, she felt an unaccountable thrill of joy. Like a

criminal who has appealed against sentence of death, a respite, however short, seemed to her a lifetime. She

placed the portrait in her room, and waited for her husband in all the agonies of hope. That this venture must

decide her future life, she felt too keenly not to shiver at every sound, even the low ticking of the clock,

which seemed to aggravate her terrors by doling them out to her. She tried to cheat time by various devices.

The idea struck her of dressing in a way which would make her exactly like the portrait. Then, knowing her

husband's restless temper, she had her room lighted up with unusual brightness, feeling sure that when he

came in curiosity would bring him there at once. Midnight had struck when, at the call of the groom, the

street gate was opened, and the artist's carriage rumbled in over the stones of the silent courtyard.

"What is the meaning of this illumination?" asked Theodore in glad tones, as he came into her room.

Augustine skilfully seized the auspicious moment; she threw herself into her husband's arms, and pointed to

the portrait. The artist stood rigid as a rock, and his eyes turned alternately on Augustine, on the accusing

dress. The frightened wife, halfdead, as she watched her husband's changeful browthat terrible

browsaw the expressive furrows gathering like clouds; then she felt her blood curdling in her veins when,

The gentleness, or rather the exquisite sweetness of this angel's voice, might have touched a cannibal, but not

"It is worthy of her!" exclaimed the painter in a voice of thunder. "I will be avenged!" he cried, striding up

and down the room. "She shall die of shame; I will paint her! Yes, I will paint her as Messalina stealing out at

It would be odious to describe the whole scene. In the end the frenzy of passion prompted the artist to acts

and words which any woman not so young as Augustine would have ascribed to madness.

At eight o'clock next morning Madame Guillaume, surprising her daughter, found her pale, with red eyes, her

hair in disorder, holding a handkerchief soaked with tears, while she gazed at the floor strewn with the torn

fragments of a dress and the broken fragments of a large gilt pictureframe. Augustine, almost senseless with

"I don't know that the loss is very great!" cried the old mistress of the Cat and Racket. "It was like you, no

doubt; but I am told that there is a man on the boulevard who paints lovely portraits for fifty crowns."

"Poor child, you are quite right," replied Madame Guillaume, who misinterpreted the expression of her

daughter's glance at her. "True, my child, no one ever can love you as fondly as a mother. My darling, I guess

it all; but confide your sorrows to me, and I will comfort you. Did I not tell you long ago that the man was

Augustine laid a finger on her white lips, as if to implore a moment's silence. During this dreadful night

misery had led her to that patient resignation which in mothers and loving wives transcends in its effects all

human energy, and perhaps reveals in the heart of women the existence of certain chords which God has

An inscription engraved on a broken column in the cemetery at Montmartre states that Madame de

Sommervieux died at the age of twentyseven. In the simple words of this epitaph one of the timid creature's

friends can read the last scene of a tragedy. Every year, on the second of November, the solemn day of the

dead, he never passes this youthful monument without wondering whether it does not need a stronger woman

"The humble and modest flowers that bloom in the valley," he reflects, "perish perhaps when they are

transplanted too near the skies, to the region where storms gather and the sun is scorching."

Camusot A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment Cousin Pons The Muse of the

Cardot, JeanJeromeSeverin A Start in Life Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's

Carigliano, Duchesse de A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Peasantry The Member for Arcis

Sommervieux, Madame Theodore de (Augustine) At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Cesar Birotteau