An Old Maid ........................................................................................................................................................1

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

CHAPTER I. ONE OF MANY CHEVALIERS DE VALOIS ...............................................................1

CHAPTER II. SUSANNAH AND THE ELDERS ................................................................................6

CHAPTER III. ATHANASE ................................................................................................................15

CHAPTER IV. MADEMOISELLE CORMON ...................................................................................19

CHAPTER V. AN OLD MAID'S HOUSEHOLD ...............................................................................28

CHAPTER VI. FINAL DISAPPOINTMENT AND ITS FIRST RESULT .........................................43

CHAPTER VII. OTHER RESULTS ....................................................................................................57

Most persons have encountered, in certain provinces in France, a number of Chevaliers de Valois. One lived

in Normandy, another at Bourges, a third (with whom we have here to do) flourished in Alencon, and

doubtless the South possesses others. The number of the Valesian tribe is, however, of no consequence to the

present tale. All these chevaliers, among whom were doubtless some who were Valois as Louis XIV. was

Bourbon, knew so little of one another that it was not advisable to speak to one about the others. They were

all willing to leave the Bourbons in tranquil possession of the throne of France; for it was too plainly

established that Henri IV. became king for want of a male heir in the first Orleans branch called the Valois. If

there are any Valois, they descend from Charles de Valois, Duc d'Angouleme, son of Charles IX. and Marie

Touchet, the male line from whom ended, until proof to the contrary be produced, in the person of the Abbe

de Rothelin. The ValoisSaintRemy, who descended from Henri II., also came to an end in the famous

Each of these many chevaliers, if we may believe reports, was, like the Chevalier of Alencon, an old

gentleman, tall, thin, withered, and moneyless. He of Bourges had emigrated; he of Touraine hid himself; he

of Alencon fought in La Vendee and "chouanized" somewhat. The youth of the latter was spend in Paris,

where the Revolution overtook him when thirty years of age in the midst of his conquests and gallantries.

The Chevalier de Valois of Alencon was accepted by the highest aristocracy of the province as a genuine

Valois; and he distinguished himself, like the rest of his homonyms, by excellent manners, which proved him

a man of society. He dined out every day, and played cards every evening. He was thought witty, thanks to

his foible for relating a quantity of anecdotes on the reign of Louis XV. and the beginnings of the Revolution.

When these tales were heard for the first time, they were held to be well narrated. He had, moreover, the great

merit of not repeating his personal bons mots and of never speaking of his loveaffairs, though his smiles and

his airs and graces were delightfully indiscreet. The worthy gentleman used his privilege as a Voltairean

noble to stay away from mass; and great indulgence was shown to his irreligion because of his devotion to the

royal cause. One of his particular graces was the air and manner (imitated, no doubt, from Mole) with which

he took snuff from a gold box adorned with the portrait of the Princess Goritza,a charming Hungarian,

celebrated for her beauty in the last years of the reign of Louis XV. Having been attached during his youth to

that illustrious stranger, he still mentioned her with emotion. For her sake he had fought a duel with Monsieur

The chevalier, now fiftyeight years of age, owned to only fifty; and he might well allow himself that

innocent deception, for, among the other advantages granted to fair thin persons, he managed to preserve the

still youthful figure which saves men as well as women from an appearance of old age. Yes, remember this:

all of life, or rather all the elegance that expresses life, is in the figure. Among the chevalier's other

possessions must be counted an enormous nose with which nature had endowed him. This nose vigorously

divided a pale face into two sections which seemed to have no knowledge of each other, for one side would

redden under the process of digestion, while the other continued white. This fact is worthy of remark at a

period when physiology is so busy with the human heart. The incandescence, so to call it, was on the left

side. Though his long slim legs, supporting a lank body, and his pallid skin, were not indicative of health,

Monsieur de Valois ate like an ogre and declared he had a malady called in the provinces "hot liver," perhaps

to excuse his monstrous appetite. The circumstance of his singular flush confirmed this declaration; but in a

region where repasts are developed on the line of thirty or forty dishes and last four hours, the chevalier's

stomach would seem to have been a blessing bestowed by Providence on the good town of Alencon.

According to certain doctors, heat on the left side denotes a prodigal heart. The chevalier's gallantries

confirmed this scientific assertion, the responsibility for which does not rest, fortunately, on the historian.

In spite of these symptoms, Monsieur de Valois' constitution was vigorous, consequently longlived. If his

liver "heated," to use an oldfashioned word, his heart was not less inflammable. His face was wrinkled and

his hair silvered; but an intelligent observer would have recognized at once the stigmata of passion and the

furrows of pleasure which appeared in the crow'sfeet and the marchesdupalais, so prized at the court of

Cythera. Everything about this dainty chevalier bespoke the "ladies' man." He was so minute in his ablutions

that his cheeks were a pleasure to look upon; they seemed to have been laved in some miraculous water. The

part of his skull which his hair refused to cover shone like ivory. His eyebrows, like his hair, affected youth

by the care and regularity with which they were combed. His skin, already white, seemed to have been

extrawhitened by some secret compound. Without using perfumes, the chevalier exhaled a certain fragrance

of youth, that refreshed the atmosphere. His hands, which were those of a gentleman, and were cared for like

the hands of a pretty woman, attracted the eye to their rosy, wellshaped nails. In short, had it not been for

his magisterial and stupendous nose, the chevalier might have been thought a trifle too dainty.

We must here compel ourselves to spoil this portrait by the avowal of a littleness. The chevalier put cotton in

his ears, and wore, appended to them, two little earrings representing negroes' heads in diamonds, of

admirable workmanship. He clung to these singular appendages, explaining that since his ears had been bored

he had ceased to have headaches (he had had headaches). We do not present the chevalier as an accomplished

man; but surely we can pardon, in an old celibate whose heart sends so much blood to his left cheek, these

Besides, the Chevalier de Valois redeemed those negroes' heads by so many other graces that society felt

itself sufficiently compensated. He really took such immense trouble to conceal his age and give pleasure to

his friends. In the first place, we must call attention to the extreme care he gave to his linen, the only

distinction that well bred men can nowadays exhibit in their clothes. The linen of the chevalier was

invariably of a fineness and whiteness that were truly aristocratic. As for his coat, though remarkable for its

cleanliness, it was always half wornout, but without spots or creases. The preservation of that garment was

something marvellous to those who noticed the chevalier's highbred indifference to its shabbiness. He did

not go so far as to scrape the seams with glass,a refinement invented by the Prince of Wales; but he did

practice the rudiments of English elegance with a personal satisfaction little understood by the people of

Alencon. The world owes a great deal to persons who take such pains to please it. In this there is certainly

some accomplishment of that most difficult precept of the Gospel about rendering good for evil. This

freshness of ablution and all the other little cares harmonized charmingly with the blue eyes, the ivory teeth,

The only blemish was that this retired Adonis had nothing manly about him; he seemed to be employing this

toilet varnish to hide the ruins occasioned by the military service of gallantry only. But we must hasten to add

that his voice produced what might be called an antithesis to his blond delicacy. Unless you adopted the

opinion of certain observers of the human heart, and thought that the chevalier had the voice of his nose, his

organ of speech would have amazed you by its full and redundant sound. Without possessing the volume of

classical bass voices, the tone of it was pleasing from a slightly muffled quality like that of an English bugle,

The chevalier had repudiated the ridiculous costume still preserved by certain monarchical old men; he had

frankly modernized himself. He was always seen in a marooncolored coat with gilt buttons, halftight

breeches of poultdesoie with gold buckles, a white waistcoat without embroidery, and a tight cravat

showing no shirtcollar,a last vestige of the old French costume which he did not renounce, perhaps,

because it enabled him to show a neck like that of the sleekest abbe. His shoes were noticeable for their

square buckles, a style of which the present generation has no knowledge; these buckles were fastened to a

square of polished black leather. The chevalier allowed two watchchains to hang parallel to each other from

each of his waistcoat pockets,another vestige of the eighteenth century, which the Incroyables had not

disdained to use under the Directory. This transition costume, uniting as it did two centuries, was worn by the

chevalier with the highbred grace of an old French marquis, the secret of which is lost to France since the

The private life of this old bachelor was apparently open to all eyes, though in fact it was quite mysterious.

He lived in a lodging that was modest, to say the best of it, in the rue du Cours, on the second floor of a house

belonging to Madame Lardot, the best and busiest washerwoman in the town. This circumstance will explain

the excessive nicety of his linen. Illluck would have it that the day came when Alencon was guilty of

believing that the chevalier had not always comported himself as a gentleman should, and that in fact he was

secretly married in his old age to a certain Cesarine,the mother of a child which had had the impertinence

"He had given his hand," as a certain Monsieur du Bousquier remarked, "to the person who had long had him

This horrible calumny embittered the last days of the dainty chevalier all the more because, as the present

Scene will show, he had lost a hope long cherished to which he had made many sacrifices.

Madame Lardot leased to the chevalier two rooms on the second floor of her house, for the modest sum of

one hundred francs a year. The worthy gentleman dined out every day, returning only in time to go to bed.

His sole expense therefore was for breakfast, invariably composed of a cup of chocolate, with bread and

butter and fruits in their season. He made no fire except in the coldest winter, and then only enough to get up

by. Between eleven and four o'clock he walked about, went to read the papers, and paid visits. From the time

of his settling in Alencon he had nobly admitted his poverty, saying that his whole fortune consisted in an

annuity of six hundred francs a year, the sole remains of his former opulence,a property which obliged him

to see his man of business (who held the annuity papers) quarterly. In truth, one of the Alencon bankers paid

him every three months one hundred and fifty francs, sent down by Monsieur Bordin of Paris, the last of the

procureurs du Chatelet. Every one knew these details because the chevalier exacted the utmost secrecy from

Monsieur de Valois gathered the fruit of his misfortunes. His place at table was laid in all the most

distinguished houses in Alencon, and he was bidden to all soirees. His talents as a cardplayer, a narrator, an

amiable man of the highest breeding, were so well known and appreciated that parties would have seemed a

failure if the dainty connoisseur was absent. Masters of houses and their wives felt the need of his approving

grimace. When a young woman heard the chevalier say at a ball, "You are delightfully welldressed!" she

was more pleased at such praise than she would have been at mortifying a rival. Monsieur de Valois was the

only man who could perfectly pronounce certain phrases of the olden time. The words, "my heart," "my

jewel," "my little pet," "my queen," and the amorous diminutives of 1770, had a grace that was quite

irresistible when they came from his lips. In short, the chevalier had the privilege of superlatives. His

compliments, of which he was stingy, won the good graces of all the old women; he made himself agreeable

to every one, even to the officials of the government, from whom he wanted nothing. His behavior at cards

had a lofty distinction which everybody noticed: he never complained; he praised his adversaries when they

lost; he did not rebuke or teach his partners by showing them how they ought to have played. When, in the

course of a deal, those sickening dissertations on the game would take place, the chevalier invariably drew

out his snuffbox with a gesture that was worthy of Mole, looked at the Princess Goritza, raised the cover

with dignity, shook, sifted, massed the snuff, and gathered his pinch, so that by the time the cards were dealt

he had decorated both nostrils and replaced the princess in his waistcoat pocket,always on his left side. A

gentleman of the "good" century (in distinction from the "grand" century) could alone have invented that

compromise between contemptuous silence and a sarcasm which might not have been understood. He

accepted poor players and knew how to make the best of them. His delightful equability of temper made

His conversation, his manners, seemed bland, like his person. He endeavored to shock neither man nor

woman. Indulgent to defects both physical and mental, he listened patiently (by the help of the Princess

Goritza) to the many dull people who related to him the petty miseries of provincial life,an egg illboiled

for breakfast, coffee with feathered cream, burlesque details about health, disturbed sleep, dreams, visits. The

chevalier could call up a languishing look, he could take on a classic attitude to feign compassion, which

made him a most valuable listener; he could put in an "Ah!" and a "Bah!" and a "What DID you do?" with

charming appropriateness. He died without any one suspecting him of even an allusion to the tender passages

of his romance with the Princess Goritza. Has any one ever reflected on the service a dead sentiment can do

to society; how love may become both social and useful? This will serve to explain why, in spite of his

constant winning at play (he never left a salon without carrying off with him about six francs), the old

chevalier remained the spoilt darling of the town. His losseswhich, by the bye, he always proclaimed, were

All who know him declare that they have never met, not even in the Egyptian museum at Turin, so agreeable

a mummy. In no country in the world did parasitism ever take on so pleasant a form. Never did selfishness of

a most concentrated kind appear less forthputting, less offensive, than in this old gentleman; it stood him in

place of devoted friendship. If some one asked Monsieur de Valois to do him a little service which might

have discommoded him, that some one did not part from the worthy chevalier without being truly enchanted

with him, and quite convinced that he either could not do the service demanded, or that he should injure the

To explain the problematic existence of the chevalier, the historian, whom Truth, that cruel wanton, grasps by

the throat, is compelled to say that after the "glorious" sad days of July, Alencon discovered that the

chevalier's nightly winnings amounted to about one hundred and fifty francs every three months; and that the

clever old nobleman had had the pluck to send to himself his annuity in order not to appear in the eyes of a

community, which loves the main chance, to be entirely without resources. Many of his friends (he was by

that time dead, you will please remark) have contested mordicus this curious fact, declaring it to be a fable,

and upholding the Chevalier de Valois as a respectable and worthy gentleman whom the liberals calumniated.

Luckily for shrewd players, there are people to be found among the spectators who will always sustain them.

Ashamed of having to defend a piece of wrongdoing, they stoutly deny it. Do not accuse them of wilful

infatuation; such men have a sense of their dignity; governments set them the example of a virtue which

consists in burying their dead without chanting the Misere of their defeats. If the chevalier did allow himself

this bit of shrewd practice,which, by the bye, would have won him the regard of the Chevalier de Gramont,

a smile from the Baron de Foeneste, a shake of the hand from the Marquis de Moncade,was he any the less

that amiable guest, that witty talker, that imperturbable cardplayer, that famous teller of anecdotes, in whom

all Alencon took delight? Besides, in what way was this action, which is certainly within the rights of a man's

own will, in what way was it contrary to the ethics of a gentleman? When so many persons are forced to

pay annuities to others, what more natural than to pay one to his own best friend? But Laius is dead

To return to the period of which we are writing: after about fifteen years of this way of life the chevalier had

amassed ten thousand and some odd hundred francs. On the return of the Bourbons, one of his old friends, the

Marquis de Pombreton, formerly lieutenant in the Black mousquetaires, returned to himso he saidtwelve

hundred pistoles which he had lent to the marquis for the purpose of emigrating. This event made a sensation;

it was used later to refute the sarcasms of the "Constitutionnel," on the method employed by some emigres in

paying their debts. When this noble act of the Marquis de Pombreton was lauded before the chevalier, the

good man reddened even to his right cheek. Every one rejoiced frankly at this windfall for Monsieur de

Valois, who went about consulting moneyed people as to the safest manner of investing this fragment of his

past opulence. Confiding in the future of the Restoration, he finally placed his money on the GrandLivre at

the moment when the funds were at fiftysix francs and twentyfive centimes. Messieurs de Lenoncourt, de

Navarreins, de Verneuil, de Fontaine, and La Billardiere, to whom he was known, he said, obtained for him,

from the king's privy purse, a pension of three hundred francs, and sent him, moreover, the cross of Saint

Louis. Never was it known positively by what means the old chevalier obtained these two solemn

consecrations of his title and merits. But one thing is certain; the cross of SaintLouis authorized him to take

the rank of retired colonel in view of his service in the Catholic armies of the West.

Besides his fiction of an annuity, about which no one at the present time knew anything, the chevalier really

had, therefore, a bona fide income of a thousand francs. But in spite of this bettering of his circumstances, he

made no change in his life, manners, or appearance, except that the red ribbon made a fine effect on his

marooncolored coat, and completed, so to speak, the physiognomy of a gentleman. After 1802, the chevalier

sealed his letters with a very old seal, illengraved to be sure, by which the Casterans, the d'Esgrignons, the

Troisvilles were enabled to see that he bore: Party of France, two cottises gemelled gules, and gules, five

mascles or, placed end to end; on a chief sable, a cross argent. For crest, a knight's helmet. For motto:

"Valeo." Bearing such noble arms, the socalled bastard of the Valois had the right to get into all the royal

Many persons envied the quiet existence of this old bachelor, spent on whist, boston, backgammon, reversi,

and piquet, all well played, on dinners well digested, snuff gracefully inhaled, and tranquil walks about the

town. Nearly all Alencon believed this life to be exempt from ambitions and serious interests; but no man has

a life as simple as envious neighbors attribute to him. You will find in the most out ofthe way villages

human mollusks, creatures apparently dead, who have passions for lepidoptera or for conchology, let us

say,beings who will give themselves infinite pains about moths, butterflies, or the concha Veneris. Not

only did the chevalier have his own particular shells, but he cherished an ambitious desire which he pursued

with a craft so profound as to be worthy of Sixtus the Fifth: he wanted to marry a certain rich old maid, with

the intention, no doubt, of making her a steppingstone by which to reach the more elevated regions of the

court. There, then, lay the secret of his royal bearing and of his residence in Alencon.

On a Wednesday morning, early, toward the middle of spring, in the year 16,such was his mode of

reckoning,at the moment when the chevalier was putting on his old greenflowered damask

dressinggown, he heard, despite the cotton in his ears, the light step of a young girl who was running up the

stairway. Presently three taps were discreetly struck upon the door; then, without waiting for any response, a

"Ah! is it you, Suzanne?" said the Chevalier de Valois, without discontinuing his occupation, which was that

of stropping his razor. "What have you come for, my dear little jewel of mischief?"

"I have come to tell you something which may perhaps give you as much pleasure as pain?"

"Cesarine! much I care about your Cesarine!" she said with a saucy air, half serious, half indifferent.

This charming Suzanne, whose present comical performance was to exercise a great influence in the principal

personages of our history, was a workgirl at Madame Lardot's. One word here on the topography of the

house. The washrooms occupied the whole of the ground floor. The little courtyard was used to hang out on

wire cords embroidered handkerchiefs, collarets, capes, cuffs, frilled shirts, cravats, laces, embroidered

dresses,in short, all the fine linen of the best families of the town. The chevalier assumed to know from the

number of her capes in the wash how the loveaffairs of the wife of the prefect were going on. Though he

guessed much from observations of this kind, the chevalier was discretion itself; he was never betrayed into

an epigram (he had plenty of wit) which might have closed to him an agreeable salon. You are therefore to

consider Monsieur de Valois as a man of superior manners, whose talents, like those of many others, were

lost in a narrow sphere. Onlyfor, after all, he was a manhe permitted himself certain penetrating glances

which could make some women tremble; although they all loved him heartily as soon as they discovered the

depth of his discretion and the sympathy that he felt for their little weaknesses.

The head woman, Madame Lardot's factotum, an old maid of fortysix, hideous to behold, lived on the

opposite side of the passage to the chevalier. Above them were the attics where the linen was dried in winter.

Each apartment had two rooms,one lighted from the street, the other from the courtyard. Beneath the

chevalier's room there lived a paralytic, Madame Lardot's grandfather, an old buccaneer named Grevin, who

had served under Admiral Simeuse in India, and was now stonedeaf. As for Madame Lardot, who occupied

the other lodging on the first floor, she had so great a weakness for persons of condition that she may well

have been thought blind to the ways of the chevalier. To her, Monsieur de Valois was a despotic monarch

who did right in all things. Had any of her workwomen been guilty of a happiness attributed to the chevalier

she would have said, "He is so lovable!" Thus, though the house was of glass, like all provincial houses, it

A born confidant to all the little intrigues of the workrooms, the chevalier never passed the door, which

usually stood open, without giving something to his little ducks,chocolate, bonbons, ribbons, laces, gilt

crosses, and such like trifles adored by grisettes; consequently, the kind old gentleman was adored in return.

Women have an instinct which enables them to divine the men who love them, who like to be near them, and

exact no payment for gallantries. In this respect women have the instinct of dogs, who in a mixed company

The poor Chevalier de Valois retained from his former life the need of bestowing gallant protection, a quality

of the seigneurs of other days. Faithful to the system of the "petite maison," he liked to enrich women,the

only beings who know how to receive, because they can always return. But the poor chevalier could no

longer ruin himself for a mistress. Instead of the choicest bonbons wrapped in bankbills, he gallantly

presented paperbags full of toffee. Let us say to the glory of Alencon that the toffee was accepted with more

joy than la Duthe ever showed at a gilt service or a fine equipage offered by the Comte d'Artois. All these

grisettes fully understood the fallen majesty of the Chevalier de Valois, and they kept their private

familiarities with him a profound secret for his sake. If they were questioned about him in certain houses

when they carried home the linen, they always spoke respectfully of the chevalier, and made him out older

than he really was; they talked of him as a most respectable monsieur, whose life was a flower of sanctity; but

once in their own regions they perched on his shoulders like so many parrots. He liked to be told the secrets

which washerwomen discover in the bosom of households, and day after day these girls would tell him the

cancans which were going the round of Alencon. He called them his "petticoat gazettes," his "talking

feuilletons." Never did Monsieur de Sartines have spies more intelligent and less expensive, or minions who

showed more honor while displaying their rascality of mind. So it may be said that in the mornings, while

breakfasting, the chevalier usually amused himself as much as the saints in heaven.

Suzanne was one of his favorites, a clever, ambitious girl, made of the stuff of a Sophie Arnold, and

handsome withal, as the handsomest courtesan invited by Titian to pose on black velvet for a model of

Venus; although her face, fine about the eyes and forehead, degenerated, lower down, into commonness of

outline. Hers was a Norman beauty, fresh, highcolored, redundant, the flesh of Rubens covering the muscles

of the Farnese Hercules, and not the slender articulations of the Venus de' Medici, Apollo's graceful consort.

The particular point about the chevalier which would have made him noticeable from Paris to Pekin, was the

gentle paternity of his manner to grisettes. They reminded him of the illustrious operatic queens of his early

days, whose celebrity was European during a good third of the eighteenth century. It is certain that the old

gentleman, who had lived in days gone by with that feminine nation now as much forgotten as many other

great things,like the Jesuits, the Buccaneers, the Abbes, and the FarmersGeneral,had acquired an

irresistible good humor, a kindly ease, a laisseraller devoid of egotism, the self effacement of Jupiter with

Alcmene, of the king intending to be duped, who casts his thunderbolts to the devil, wants his Olympus full

of follies, little suppers, feminine profusionsbut with Juno out of the way, be it understood.

In spite of his old green damask dressinggown and the bareness of the room in which he sat, where the floor

was covered with a shabby tapestry in place of carpet, and the walls were hung with tavernpaper presenting

the profiles of Louis XVI. and members of his family, traced among the branches of a weeping willow with

other sentimentalities invented by royalism during the Terror,in spite of his ruins, the chevalier, trimming

his beard before a shabby old toilettable, draped with trumpery lace, exhaled an essence of the eighteenth

century. All the libertine graces of his youth reappeared; he seemed to have the wealth of three hundred

thousand francs of debt, while his visavis waited before the door. He was grand,like Berthier on the

"Monsieur le chevalier," replied Suzanne, drolly, "seems to me I needn't tell you anything; you've only to

And Suzanne presented a side view of herself which gave a sort of lawyer's comment to her words. The

chevalier, who, you must know, was a sly old bird, lowered his right eye on the grisette, still holding the

"Well, well, my little duck, we'll talk about that presently. But you are rather previous, it seems to me."

"Why, Monsieur le chevalier, ought I to wait until my mother beats me and Madame Lardot turns me off? If I

don't get away soon to Paris, I shall never be able to marry here, where men are so ridiculous."

"It can't be helped, my dear; society is changing; women are just as much victims to the present state of

things as the nobility themselves. After political overturn comes the overturn of morals. Alas! before long

woman won't exist" (he took out the cottonwool to arrange his ears): "she'll lose everything by rushing into

sentiment; she'll wring her nerves; goodbye to all the good little pleasures of our time, desired without

shame, accepted without nonsense." (He polished up the little negroes' heads.) "Women had hysterics in those

days to get their ends, but now" (he began to laugh) "their vapors end in charcoal. In short, marriage" (here he

picked up his pincers to remove a hair) "will become a thing intolerable; whereas it used to be so gay in my

day! The reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV.remember this, my childsaid farewell to the finest

"But, Monsieur le chevalier," said the grisette, "the matter now concerns the morals and honor of your poor

"Abandon her!" cried the chevalier, finishing his hair; "I'd sooner abandon my own name."

"Now, listen to me, you little mischief," said the chevalier, sitting down on a huge sofa, formerly called a

He drew the magnificent Suzanne before him, holding her legs between his knees. She let him do as he liked,

although in the street she was offish enough to other men, refusing their familiarities partly from decorum

and partly for contempt for their commonness. She now stood audaciously in front of the chevalier, who,

having fathomed in his day many other mysteries in minds that were far more wily, took in the situation at a

single glance. He knew very well that no young girl would joke about a real dishonor; but he took good care

"We slander ourselves," he said with inimitable craft; "we are as virtuous as that beautiful biblical girl whose

name we bear; we can always marry as we please, but we are thirsty for Paris, where charming

creaturesand we are no foolget rich without trouble. We want to go and see if the great capital of

pleasures hasn't some young Chevalier de Valois in store for us, with a carriage, diamonds, an operabox,

and so forth. Russians, Austrians, Britons, have millions on which we have an eye. Besides, we are patriotic;

we want to help France in getting back her money from the pockets of those gentry. Hey! hey! my dear little

devil's duck! it isn't a bad plan. The world you live in may cry out a bit, but success justifies all things. The

worst thing in this world, my dear, is to be without money; that's our disease, yours and mine. Now inasmuch

as we have plenty of wit, we thought it would be a good thing to parade our dear little honor, or dishonor, to

catch an old boy; but that old boy, my dear heart, knows the Alpha and Omega of female tricks,which

means that you could easier put salt on a sparrow's tail than to make me believe I have anything to do with

your little affair. Go to Paris, my dear; go at the cost of an old celibate, I won't prevent it; in fact, I'll help you,

for an old bachelor, Suzanne, is the natural moneybox of a young girl. But don't drag me into the matter.

Listen, my queen, you who know life pretty well; you would me great harm and give me much pain, harm,

because you would prevent my marriage in a town where people cling to morality; pain, because if you are in

trouble (which I deny, you sly puss!) I haven't a penny to get you out of it. I'm as poor as a church mouse;

you know that, my dear. Ah! if I marry Mademoiselle Cormon, if I am once more rich, of course I would

prefer you to Cesarine. You've always seemed to me as fine as the gold they gild on lead; you were made to

be the love of a great seigneur. I think you so clever that the trick you are trying to play off on me doesn't

surprise me one bit; I expected it. You are flinging the scabbard after the sword, and that's daring for a girl. It

takes nerve and superior ideas to do it, my angel, and therefore you have won my respectful esteem."

She colored, and did not dare to say more. The chevalier, with a single glance, had guessed and fathomed her

"Yes, yes! I understand: you want me to believe it," he said. "Well! I do believe it. But take my advice: go to

Monsieur du Bousquier. Haven't you taken linen there for the last six or eight months? I'm not asking what

went on between you; but I know the man: he has immense conceit; he is an old bachelor, and very rich; and

he only spends a quarter of a comfortable income. If you are as clever as I suppose, you can go to Paris at his

expense. There, run along, my little doe; go and twist him round your finger. Only, mind this: be as supple as

silk; at every word take a double turn round him and make a knot. He is a man to fear scandal, and if he has

given you a chance to put him in the pilloryin short, understand; threaten him with the ladies of the

Maternity Hospital. Besides, he's ambitious. A man succeeds through his wife, and you are handsome and

clever enough to make the fortune of a husband. Hey! the mischief! you could hold your own against all the

Suzanne, whose mind took in at a flash the chevalier's last words, was eager to run off to du Bousquier, but,

not wishing to depart too abruptly, she questioned the chevalier about Paris, all the while helping him to

dress. The chevalier, however, divined her desire to be off, and favored it by asking her to tell Cesarine to

bring up his chocolate, which Madame Lardot made for him every morning. Suzanne then slipped away to

Born of an old Alencon family, du Bousquier was a cross between the bourgeois and the country squire.

Finding himself without means on the death of his father, he went, like other ruined provincials, to Paris. On

the breaking out of the Revolution he took part in public affairs. In spite of revolutionary principles, which

made a hobby of republican honesty, the management of public business in those days was by no means

clean. A political spy, a stockjobber, a contractor, a man who confiscated in collusion with the syndic of a

commune the property of emigres in order to sell them and buy them in, a minister, and a general were all

equally engaged in public business. From 1793 to 1799 du Bousquier was commissary of provisions to the

French armies. He lived in a magnificent hotel and was one of the matadors of finance, did business with

Ouvrard, kept open house, and led the scandalous life of the period,the life of a Cincinnatus, on sacks of

corn harvested without trouble, stolen rations, "little houses" full of mistresses, in which were given splendid

The citizen du Bousquier was one of Barras' familiars; he was on the best of terms with Fouche, stood very

well with Bernadotte, and fully expected to become a minister by throwing himself into the party which

secretly caballed against Bonaparte until Marengo. If it had not been for Kellermann's charge and Desaix's

death, du Bousquier would probably have become a minister. He was one of the chief assistances of that

secret government whom Napoleon's luck send behind the scenes in 1793. (See "An Historical Mystery.")

The unexpected victory of Marengo was the defeat of that party who actually had their proclamations printed

Convinced of the impossibility of Bonaparte's triumph, du Bousquier staked the greater part of his property

on a fall in the Funds, and kept two couriers on the field of battle. The first started for Paris when Melas'

victory was certain; the second, starting four hours later, brought the news of the defeat of the Austrians. Du

Bousquier cursed Kellermann and Desaix; he dared not curse Bonaparte, who might owe him millions. This

alternative of millions to be earned and present ruin staring him in the face, deprived the purveyor of most of

his faculties: he became nearly imbecile for several days; the man had so abused his health by excesses that

when the thunderbolt fell upon him he had no strength to resist. The payment of his bills against the

Exchequer gave him some hopes for the future, but, in spite of all efforts to ingratiate himself, Napoleon's

hatred to the contractors who had speculated on his defeat made itself felt; du Bousquier was left without a

sou. The immorality of his private life, his intimacy with Barras and Bernadotte, displeased the First Consul

even more than his manoeuvres at the Bourse, and he struck du Bousquier's name from the list of the

Out of all his past opulence du Bousquier saved only twelve hundred francs a year from an investment in the

Grand Livre, which he had happened to place there by pure caprice, and which saved him from penury. A

man ruined by the First Consul interested the town of Alencon, to which he now returned, where royalism

was secretly dominant. Du Bousquier, furious against Bonaparte, relating stories against him of his meanness,

of Josephine's improprieties, and all the other scandalous anecdotes of the last ten years, was well received.

About this time, when he was somewhere between forty and fifty, du Bousquier's appearance was that of a

bachelor of thirtysix, of medium height, plump as a purveyor, proud of his vigorous calves, with a strongly

marked countenance, a flattened nose, the nostrils garnished with hair, black eyes with thick lashes, from

which darted shrewd glances like those of Monsieur de Talleyrand, though somewhat dulled. He still wore

republican whiskers and his hair very long; his hands, adorned with bunches of hair on each knuckle, showed

the power of his muscular system in their prominent blue veins. He had the chest of the Farnese Hercules, and

shoulders fit to carry the stocks. Such shoulders are seen nowadays only at Tortoni's. This wealth of

masculine vigor counted for much in du Bousquier's relations with others. And yet in him, as in the chevalier,

symptoms appeared which contrasted oddly with the general aspect of their persons. The late purveyor had

not the voice of his muscles. We do not mean that his voice was a mere thread, such as we sometimes hear

issuing from the mouth of these walruses; on the contrary, it was a strong voice, but stifled, an idea of which

can be given only by comparing it with the noise of a saw cutting into soft and moistened wood,the voice

In spite of the claims which the enmity of the First Consul gave Monsieur du Bousquier to enter the royalist

society of the province, he was not received in the seven or eight families who composed the faubourg

SaintGermain of Alencon, among whom the Chevalier de Valois was welcome. He had offered himself in

marriage, through her notary, to Mademoiselle Armande, sister of the most distinguished noble in the town;

to which offer he received a refusal. He consoled himself as best he could in the society of a dozen rich

families, former manufacturers of the old point d'Alencon, owners of pastures and cattle, or merchants doing

a wholesale business in linen, among whom, as he hoped, he might find a wealthy wife. In fact, all his hopes

now converged to the perspective of a fortunate marriage. He was not without a certain financial ability,

which many persons used to their profit. Like a ruined gambler who advises neophytes, he pointed out

enterprises and speculations, together with the means and chances of conducting them. He was thought a

good administrator, and it was often a question of making him mayor of Alencon; but the memory of his

underhand jobbery still clung to him, and he was never received at the prefecture. All the succeeding

governments, even that of the Hundred Days, refused to appoint him mayor of Alencon,a place he coveted,

which, could he have had it, would, he thought, have won him the hand of a certain old maid on whom his

Du Bousquier's aversion to the Imperial government had thrown him at first into the royalist circles of

Alencon, where he remained in spite of the rebuffs he received there; but when, after the first return of the

Bourbons, he was still excluded from the prefecture, that mortification inspired him with a hatred as deep as

it was secret against the royalists. He now returned to his old opinions, and became the leader of the liberal

party in Alencon, the invisible manipulator of elections, and did immense harm to the Restoration by the

cleverness of his underhand proceedings and the perfidy of his outward behavior. Du Bousquier, like all those

who live by their heads only, carried on his hatreds with the quiet tranquillity of a rivulet, feeble apparently,

but inexhaustible. His hatred was that of a negro, so peaceful that it deceived the enemy. His vengeance,

brooded over for fifteen years, was as yet satisfied by no victory, not even that of July, 1830.

It was not without some private intention that the Chevalier de Valois had turned Suzanne's designs upon

Monsieur du Bousquier. The liberal and the royalist had mutually divined each other in spite of the wide

dissimulation with which they hid their common hope from the rest of the town. The two old bachelors were

secretly rivals. Each had formed a plan to marry the Demoiselle Cormon, whom Monsieur de Valois had

mentioned to Suzanne. Both, ensconced in their idea and wearing the armor of apparent indifference, awaited

the moment when some lucky chance might deliver the old maid over to them. Thus, if the two old bachelors

had not been kept asunder by the two political systems of which they each offered a living expression, their

private rivalry would still have made them enemies. Epochs put their mark on men. These two individuals

proved the truth of that axiom by the opposing historic tints that were visible in their faces, in their

conversation, in their ideas, and in their clothes. One, abrupt, energetic, with loud, brusque manners, curt,

rude speech, dark in tone, in hair, in look, terrible apparently, in reality as impotent as an insurrection,

represented the republic admirably. The other, gentle and polished, elegant and nice, attaining his ends by the

slow and infallible means of diplomacy, faithful to good taste, was the express image of the old courtier

The two enemies met nearly every evening on the same ground. The war was courteous and benign on the

side of the chevalier; but du Bousquier showed less ceremony on his, though still preserving the outward

appearances demanded by society, for he did not wish to be driven from the place. They themselves fully

understood each other; but in spite of the shrewd observation which provincials bestow on the petty interests

of their own little centre, no one in the town suspected the rivalry of these two men. Monsieur le Chevalier de

Valois occupied a vantageground: he had never asked for the hand of Mademoiselle Cormon; whereas du

Bousquier, who entered the lists soon after his rejection by the most distinguished family in the place, had

been refused. But the chevalier believed that his rival had still such strong chances of success that he dealt

him this coup de Jarnac with a blade (namely, Suzanne) that was finely tempered for the purpose. The

chevalier had cast his plummetline into the waters of du Bousquier; and, as we shall see by the sequel, he

Suzanne tripped with a light foot from the rue du Cours, by the rue de la Porte de Seez and the rue du Bercail,

to the rue du Cygne, where, about five years earlier, du Bousquier had bought a little house built of gray Jura

stone, which is something between Breton slate and Norman granite. There he established himself more

comfortably than any householder in town; for he had managed to preserve certain furniture and decorations

from the days of his splendor. But provincial manners and morals obscured, little by little, the rays of this

fallen Sardanapalus; these vestiges of his former luxury now produced the effect of a glass chandelier in a

barn. Harmony, that bond of all work, human or divine, was lacking in great things as well as in little ones.

The stairs, up which everybody mounted without wiping their feet, were never polished; the walls, painted by

some wretched artisan of the neighborhood, were a terror to the eye; the stone mantelpiece, illcarved,

"swore" with the handsome clock, which was further degraded by the company of contemptible candlesticks.

Like the period which du Bousquier himself represented, the house was a jumble of dirt and magnificence.

Being considered a man of leisure, du Bousquier led the same parasite life as the chevalier; and he who does

not spend his income is always rich. His only servant was a sort of Jocrisse, a lad of the neighborhood, rather

a ninny, trained slowly and with difficulty to du Bousquier's requirements. His master had taught him, as he

might an orangoutang, to rub the floors, dust the furniture, black his boots, brush his coats, and bring a

lantern to guide him home at night if the weather were cloudy, and clogs if it rained. Like many other human

beings, this lad hadn't stuff enough in him for more than one vice; he was a glutton. Often, when du

Bousquier went to a grand dinner, he would take Rene to wait at table; on such occasions he made him take

off his blue cotton jacket, with its big pockets hanging round his hips, and always bulging with

handkerchiefs, claspknives, fruits, or a handful of nuts, and forced him to put on a regulation coat. Rene

would then stuff his fill with the other servants. This duty, which du Bousquier had turned into a reward, won

"You here, mademoiselle!" said Rene to Suzanne when she entered; "'t'isn't your day. We haven't any linen

The pretty girl went upstairs, leaving Rene to finish his porringer of buckwheat in boiled milk. Du Bousquier,

still in bed, was revolving in his mind his plans of fortune; for ambition was all that was left to him, as to

other men who have sucked dry the orange of pleasure. Ambition and play are inexhaustible; in a

wellorganized man the passions which proceed from the brain will always survive the passions of the heart.

"Here am I," said Suzanne, sitting down on the bed and jangling the curtainrings back along the rod with

"Monsieur," said Suzanne, gravely, "you must be astonished to see me here at this hour; but I find myself in a

"Don't you understand me?" said Suzanne. "I know," she continued, making a pretty little face, "how

ridiculous it is in a poor girl to come and nag at a man for what he thinks a mere nothing. But if you really

knew me, monsieur, if you knew all that I am capable of for a man who would attach himself to me as much

as I'm attached to you, you would never repent having married me. Of course it isn't here, in Alencon, that I

should be of service to you; but if we went to Paris, you would see where I could lead a man with your mind

and your capacities; and just at this time too, when they are remaking the government from top to toe.

Sobetween ourselves, be it saidIS what has happened a misfortune? Isn't it rather a piece of luck, which

"Monster! you'll never be a father!" said Suzanne, giving a tone of prophetic malediction to the words.

"Come, don't talk nonsense, Suzanne," replied du Bousquier; "I really think I am still dreaming."

Du Bousquier rubbed his cotton nightcap to the top of his head with a rotatory motion, which plainly

"He actually believes it!" thought Suzanne, "and he's flattered. Heaven! how easy it is to gull men!"

"Suzanne, what the devil must I do? It is so extraordinaryI, who thought The fact is that No, no, it

"With Mademoiselle Armande or Mademoiselle Cormon, who have both refused you? Listen to me,

Monsieur du Bousquier, my honor doesn't need gendarmes to drag you to the mayor's office. I sha'n't lack for

husbands, thank goodness! and I don't want a man who can't appreciate what I'm worth. But some day you'll

repent of the way you are behaving; for I tell you now that nothing on earth, neither gold nor silver, will

induce me to return the good thing that belongs to you, if you refuse to accept it today."

"Oh, monsieur!" cried the grisette, wrapping her virtue round her, "what do you take me for? I don't remind

you of the promises you made me, which have ruined a poor young girl whose only blame was to have as

Du Bousquier was torn with conflicting sentiments, joy, distrust, calculation. He had long determined to

marry Mademoiselle Cormon; for the Charter, on which he had just been ruminating, offered to his ambition,

through the half of her property, the political career of a deputy. Besides, his marriage with the old maid

would put him socially so high in the town that he would have great influence. Consequently, the storm

upraised by that malicious Suzanne drove him into the wildest embarrassment. Without this secret scheme, he

would have married Suzanne without hesitation. In which case, he could openly assume the leadership of the

liberal party in Alencon. After such a marriage he would, of course, renounce the best society and take up

with the bourgeois class of tradesmen, rich manufacturers and graziers, who would certainly carry him in

This solemn deliberation he did not conceal; he rubbed his hands over his head, displacing the cap which

covered its disastrous baldness. Suzanne, meantime, like all those persons who succeed beyond their hopes,

was silent and amazed. To hide her astonishment, she assumed the melancholy pose of an injured girl at the

mercy of her seducer; inwardly she was laughing like a grisette at her clever trick.

"My dear child," said du Bousquier at length, "I'm not to be taken in with such BOSH, not I!"

Such was the curt remark which ended du Bousquier's meditation. He plumed himself on belonging to the

class of cynical philosophers who could never be "taken in" by women,putting them, one and all, unto the

same category, as SUSPICIOUS. These strongminded persons are usually weak men who have a special

catechism in the matter of womenkind. To them the whole sex, from queens of France to milliners, are

essentially depraved, licentious, intriguing, not a little rascally, fundamentally deceitful, and incapable of

thought about anything but trifles. To them, women are evildoing queens, who must be allowed to dance

and sing and laugh as they please; they see nothing sacred or saintly in them, nor anything grand; to them

there is no poetry in the senses, only gross sensuality. Where such jurisprudence prevails, if a woman is not

perpetually tyrannized over, she reduces the man to the condition of a slave. Under this aspect du Bousquier

was again the antithesis of the chevalier. When he made his final remark, he flung his nightcap to the foot of

the bed, as Pope Gregory did the taper when he fulminated an excommunication; Suzanne then learned for

"Please to remember, Monsieur du Bousquier," she replied majestically, "that in coming here to tell you of

this matter I have done my duty; remember that I have offered you my hand, and asked for yours; but

remember also that I behaved with the dignity of a woman who respects herself. I have not abased myself to

weep like a silly fool; I have not insisted; I have not tormented you. You now know my situation. You must

see that I cannot stay in Alencon: my mother would beat me, and Madame Lardot rides a hobby of principles;

she'll turn me off. Poor workgirl that I am, must I go to the hospital? must I beg my bread? No! I'd rather

throw myself into the Brillante or the Sarthe. But isn't it better that I should go to Paris? My mother could

find an excuse to send me there,an uncle who wants me, or a dying aunt, or a lady who sends for me. But I

This extraordinary piece of news was far more startling to du Bousquier than to the Chevalier de Valois.

Suzanne's fiction introduced such confusion into the ideas of the old bachelor that he was literally incapable

of sober reflection. Without this agitation and without his inward delight (for vanity is a swindler which never

fails of its dupe), he would certainly have reflected that, supposing it were true, a girl like Suzanne, whose

heart was not yet spoiled, would have died a thousand deaths before beginning a discussion of this kind and

A flash of gayety lighted Suzanne's gray eyes as she heard these words; but the selfsatisfied du Bousquier

Du Bousquier then began bitter lamentations: he had the last payments to make on his house; the painter, the

mason, the upholsterers must be paid. Suzanne let him run on; she was listening for the figures. Du Bousquier

offered her three hundred francs. Suzanne made what is called on the stage a false exit; that is, she marched

"Stop, stop! where are you going?" said du Bousquier, uneasily. "This is what comes of a bachelor's life!"

thought he. "The devil take me if I ever did anything more than rumple her collar, and, lo and behold! she

"I'm going, monsieur," replied Suzanne, "to Madame Granson, the treasurer of the Maternity Society, who, to

"Yes," said Suzanne, "a relation of Mademoiselle Cormon, the president of the Maternity Society. Saving

your presence, the ladies of the town have created an institution to protect poor creatures from destroying

their infants, like that handsome Faustine of Argentan who was executed for it three years ago."

"Here, Suzanne," said du Bousquier, giving her a key, "open that secretary, and take out the bag you'll find

"Old cheat!" thought Suzanne, doing as he told her, "I'll tell about your false toupet."

She compared du Bousquier with that charming chevalier, who had given her nothing, it is true, but who had

"If you deceive me, Suzanne," cried du Bousquier, as he saw her with her hand in the drawer, "you"

"Monsieur," she said, interrupting him with ineffable impertinence, "wouldn't you have given me money if I

Recalled to a sense of gallantry, du Bousquier had a remembrance of past happiness and grunted his assent.

Suzanne took the bag and departed, after allowing the old bachelor to kiss her, which he did with an air that

seemed to say, "It is a right which costs me dear; but it is better than being harried by a lawyer in the court of

Suzanne hid the sack in a sort of gamebag made of osier which she had on her arm, all the while cursing du

Bousquier for his stinginess; for one thousand francs was the sum she wanted. Once tempted of the devil to

desire that sum, a girl will go far when she has set foot on the path of trickery. As she made her way along the

rue du Bercail, it came into her head that the Maternity Society, presided over by Mademoiselle Cormon,

might be induced to complete the sum at which she had reckoned her journey to Paris, which to a grisette of

Alencon seemed considerable. Besides, she hated du Bousquier. The latter had evidently feared a revelation

of his supposed misconduct to Madame Granson; and Suzanne, at the risk of not getting a penny from the

society, was possessed with the desire, on leaving Alencon, of entangling the old bachelor in the inextricable

meshes of a provincial slander. In all grisettes there is something of the malevolent mischief of a monkey.

Accordingly, Suzanne now went to see Madame Granson, composing her face to an expression of the deepest

Madame Granson, widow of a lieutenantcolonel of artillery killed at Jena, possessed, as her whole means of

livelihood, a meagre pension of nine hundred francs a year, and three hundred francs from property of her

own, plus a son whose support and education had eaten up all her savings. She occupied, in the rue du

Bercail, one of those melancholy groundfloor apartments which a traveller passing along the principal street

of a little provincial town can look through at a glance. The street door opened at the top of three steep steps;

a passage led to an interior courtyard, at the end of which was the staircase covered by a wooden gallery. On

one side of the passage was the diningroom and the kitchen; on the other side, a salon put to many uses, and

Athanase Granson, a young man twentythree years of age, who slept in an attic room above the second floor

of the house, added six hundred francs to the income of his poor mother, by the salary of a little place which

the influence of his relation, Mademoiselle Cormon, had obtained for him in the mayor's office, where he was

From these indications it is easy to imagine Madame Granson in her cold salon with its yellow curtains and

Utrecht velvet furniture, also yellow, as she straightened the round straw mats which were placed before each

chair, that visitors might not soil the redtiled floor while they sat there; after which she returned to her

cushioned armchair and little worktable placed beneath the portrait of the lieutenantcolonel of artillery

between two windows,a point from which her eye could rake the rue du Bercail and see all comers. She

was a good woman, dressed with bourgeois simplicity in keeping with her wan face furrowed by grief. The

rigorous humbleness of poverty made itself felt in all the accessories of this household, the very air of which

was charged with the stern and upright morals of the provinces. At this moment the son and mother were

together in the diningroom, where they were breakfasting with a cup of coffee, with bread and butter and

radishes. To make the pleasure which Suzanne's visit was to give to Madame Granson intelligible, we must

Athanase Granson was a thin and pale young man, of medium height, with a hollow face in which his two

black eyes, sparkling with thoughts, gave the effect of bits of coal. The rather irregular lines of his face, the

curve of his lips, a prominent chin, the fine modelling of his forehead, his melancholy countenance, caused

by a sense of his poverty warring with the powers that he felt within him, were all indications of repressed

and imprisoned talent. In any other place than the town of Alencon the mere aspect of his person would have

won him the assistance of superior men, or of women who are able to recognize genius in obscurity. If his

was not genius, it was at any rate the form and aspect of it; if he had not the actual force of a great heart, the

glow of such a heart was in his glance. Although he was capable of expressing the highest feeling, a casing of

timidity destroyed all the graces of his youth, just as the ice of poverty kept him from daring to put forth all

his powers. Provincial life, without an opening, without appreciation, without encouragement, described a

circle about him in which languished and died the power of thought,a power which as yet had scarcely

reached its dawn. Moreover, Athanase possessed that savage pride which poverty intensifies in noble minds,

exalting them in their struggle with men and things; although at their start in life it is an obstacle to their

advancement. Genius proceeds in two ways: either it takes its opportunitylike Napoleon, like

Molierethe moment that it sees it, or it waits to be sought when it has patiently revealed itself. Young

Granson belonged to that class of men of talent who distrust themselves and are easily discouraged. His soul

was contemplative. He lived more by thought than by action. Perhaps he might have seemed deficient or

incomplete to those who cannot conceive of genius without the sparkle of French passion; but he was

powerful in the world of mind, and he was liable to reach, through a series of emotions imperceptible to

common souls, those sudden determinations which make fools say of a man, "He is mad."

The contempt which the world pours out on poverty was death to Athanase; the enervating heat of solitude,

without a breath or current of air, relaxed the bow which ever strove to tighten itself; his soul grew weary in

this painful effort without results. Athanase was a man who might have taken his place among the glories of

France; but, eagle as he was, cooped in a cage without his proper nourishment, he was about to die of hunger

after contemplating with an ardent eye the fields of air and the mountain heights where genius soars. His

work in the city library escaped attention, and he buried in his soul his thoughts of fame, fearing that they

might injure him; but deeper than all lay buried within him the secret of his heart,a passion which

hollowed his cheeks and yellowed his brow. He loved his distant cousin, this very Mademoiselle Cormon

whom the Chevalier de Valois and du Bousquier, his hidden rivals, were stalking. This love had had its origin

in calculation. Mademoiselle Cormon was thought to be one of the richest persons in the town: the poor lad

had therefore been led to love her by desires for material happiness, by the hope, long indulged, of gilding

with comfort his mother's last years, by eager longing for the ease of life so needful to men who live by

thought; but this most innocent point of departure degraded his passion in his own eyes. Moreover, he feared

the ridicule the world would cast upon the love of a young man of twentythree for an old maid of forty.

And yet his passion was real; whatever may seem false about such a love elsewhere, it can be realized as a

fact in the provinces, where, manners and morals being without change or chance or movement or mystery,

marriage becomes a necessity of life. No family will accept a young man of dissolute habits. However natural

the liaison of a young man, like Athanase, with a handsome girl, like Suzanne, for instance, might seem in a

capital, it alarms provincial parents, and destroys the hopes of marriage of a poor young man when possibly

the fortune of a rich one might cause such an unfortunate antecedent to be overlooked. Between the depravity

of certain liaisons and a sincere love, a man of honor and no fortune will not hesitate: he prefers the

misfortunes of virtue to the evils of vice. But in the provinces women with whom a young man call fall in

love are rare. A rich young girl he cannot obtain in a region where all is calculation; a poor young girl he is

prevented from loving; it would be, as provincials say, marrying hunger and thirst. Such monkish solitude is,

These reflections explain why provincial life is so firmly based on marriage. Thus we find that ardent and

vigorous genius, forced to rely on the independence of its own poverty, quits these cold regions where

thought is persecuted by brutal indifference, where no woman is willing to be a sister of charity to a man of

Who will really understand Athanase Granson's love for Mademoiselle Cormon? Certainly neither rich

menthose sultans of society who fill their haremsnor middleclass men, who follow the wellbeaten

high road of prejudices; nor women who, not choosing to understand the passions of artists, impose the

yoke of their virtues upon men of genius, imagining that the two sexes are governed by the same laws.

Here, perhaps, we should appeal to those young men who suffer from the repression of their first desires at

the moment when all their forces are developing; to artists sick of their own genius smothering under the

pressure of poverty; to men of talent, persecuted and without influence, often without friends at the start, who

have ended by triumphing over that double anguish, equally agonizing, of soul and body. Such men will well

understand the lancinating pains of the cancer which was now consuming Athanase; they have gone through

those long and bitter deliberations made in presence of some grandiose purpose they had not the means to

carry out; they have endured those secret miscarriages in which the fructifying seed of genius falls on arid

soil. Such men know that the grandeur of desires is in proportion to the height and breadth of the imagination.

The higher they spring, the lower they fall; and how can it be that ties and bonds should not be broken by

such a fall? Their piercing eye has seenas did Athanase the brilliant future which awaited them, and

from which they fancied that only a thin gauze parted them; but that gauze through which their eyes could see

is changed by Society into a wall of iron. Impelled by a vocation, by a sentiment of art, they endeavor again

and again to live by sentiments which society as incessantly materializes. Alas! the provinces calculate and

arrange marriage with the one view of material comfort, and a poor artist or man of science is forbidden to

double its purpose and make it the saviour of his genius by securing to him the means of subsistence!

Moved by such ideas, Athanase Granson first thought of marriage with Mademoiselle Cormon as a means of

obtaining a livelihood which would be permanent. Thence he could rise to fame, and make his mother happy,

knowing at the same time that he was capable of faithfully loving his wife. But soon his own will created,

although he did not know it, a genuine passion. He began to study the old maid, and, by dint of the charm

which habit gives, he ended by seeing only her beauties and ignoring her defects.

In a young man of twentythree the senses count for much in love; their fire produces a sort of prism between

his eyes and the woman. From this point of view the clasp with which Beaumarchis' Cherubin seizes

Marceline is a stroke of genius. But when we reflect that in the utter isolation to which poverty condemned

poor Athanase, Mademoiselle Cormon was the only figure presented to his gaze, that she attracted his eye

incessantly, that all the light he had was concentrated on her, surely his love may be considered natural.

This sentiment, so carefully hidden, increased from day to day. Desires, sufferings, hopes, and meditations

swelled in quietness and silence the lake widening ever in the young man's breast, as hour by hour added its

drop of water to the volume. And the wider this inward circle, drawn by the imagination, aided by the senses,

grew, the more imposing Mademoiselle Cormon appeared to Athanase, and the more his own timidity

The mother had divined the truth. Like all provincial mothers, she calculated candidly in her own mind the

advantages of the match. She told herself that Mademoiselle Cormon would be very lucky to secure a

husband in a young man of twentythree, full of talent, who would always be an honor to his family and the

neighborhood; at the same time the obstacles which her son's want of fortune and Mademoiselle Cormon's

age presented to the marriage seemed to her almost insurmountable; she could think of nothing but patience

as being able to vanquish them. Like du Bousquier, like the Chevalier de Valois, she had a policy of her own;

she was on the watch for circumstances, awaiting the propitious moment for a move with the shrewdness of

maternal instinct. Madame Granson had no fears at all as to the chevalier, but she did suppose that du

Bousquier, although refused, retained certain hopes. As an able and underhand enemy to the latter, she did

him much secret harm in the interests of her son; from whom, by the bye, she carefully concealed all such

After this explanation it is easy to understand the importance which Suzanne's lie, confided to Madame

Granson, was about to acquire. What a weapon put into the hands of this charitable lady, the treasurer of the

Maternity Society! How she would gently and demurely spread the news while collecting assistance for the

At the present moment Athanase, leaning pensively on his elbow at the breakfast table, was twirling his

spoon in his empty cup and contemplating with a preoccupied eye the poor room with its red brick floor, its

straw chairs, its painted wooden buffet, its pink and white curtains chequered like a backgammon board,

which communicated with the kitchen through a glass door. As his back was to the chimney which his

mother faced, and as the chimney was opposite to the door, his pallid face, strongly lighted from the window,

framed in beautiful black hair, the eyes gleaming with despair and fiery with morning thoughts, was the first

object which met the eyes of the incoming Suzanne. The grisette, who belonged to a class which certainly has

the instinct of misery and the sufferings of the heart, suddenly felt that electric spark, darting from Heaven

knows where, which can never be explained, which some strong minds deny, but the sympathetic stroke of

which has been felt by many men and many women. It is at once a light which lightens the darkness of the

future, a presentiment of the sacred joys of a shared love, the certainty of mutual comprehension. Above all,

it is like the touch of a firm and able hand on the keyboard of the senses. The eyes are fascinated by an

irresistible attraction; the heart is stirred; the melodies of happiness echo in the soul and in the ears; a voice

cries out, "It is he!" Often reflection casts a douche of cold water on this boiling emotion, and all is over.

In a moment, as rapid as the flash of the lightning, Suzanne received the broadside of this emotion in her

heart. The flame of a real love burned up the evil weeds fostered by a libertine and dissipated life. She saw

how much she was losing of decency and value by accusing herself falsely. What had seemed to her a joke

the night before became to her eyes a serious charge against herself. She recoiled at her own success. But the

impossibility of any result; the poverty of the young man; a vague hope of enriching herself, of going to

Paris, and returning with full hands to say, "I love you! here are the means of happiness!" or mere fate, if you

The ambitious grisette asked with a timid air for a moment's interview with Madame Granson, who took her

at once into her bedchamber. When Suzanne came out she looked again at Athanase; he was still in the same

position, and the tears came into her eyes. As for Madame Granson, she was radiant with joy. At last she had

a weapon, and a terrible one, against du Bousquier; she could now deal him a mortal blow. She had of course

promised the poor seduced girl the support of all charitable ladies and that of the members of the Maternity

Society in particular; she foresaw a dozen visits which would occupy her whole day, and brew up a frightful

storm on the head of the guilty du Bousquier. The Chevalier de Valois, while foreseeing the turn the affair

would take, had really no idea of the scandal which would result from his own action.

"My dear child," said Madame Granson to her son, "we are to dine, you know, with Mademoiselle Cormon;

do take a little pains with your appearance. You are wrong to neglect your dress as you do. Put on that

handsome frilled shirt and your green coat of Elbeuf cloth. I have my reasons," she added slyly. "Besides,

Mademoiselle Cormon is going to Prebaudet, and many persons will doubtless call to bid her goodbye.

When a young man is marriageable he ought to take every means to make himself agreeable. If girls would

only tell the truth, heavens! my dear boy, you'd be astonished at what makes them fall in love. Often it

suffices for a man to ride past them at the head of a company of artillery, or show himself at a ball in tight

clothes. Sometimes a mere turn of the head, a melancholy attitude, makes them suppose a man's whole life;

they'll invent a romance to match the herowho is often a mere brute, but the marriage is made. Watch the

Chevalier de Valois: study him; copy his manners; see with what ease he presents himself; he never puts on a

stiff air, as you do. Talk a little more; one would really think you didn't know anything,you, who know

Athanase listened to his mother with a surprised but submissive air; then he rose, took his cap, and went off

He passed through the rue du ValNoble, where Mademoiselle Cormon lived,a little pleasure which he

"How little she knows that a young man is passing before her house who loves her well, who would be

faithful to her, who would never cause her any grief; who would leave her the entire management of her

fortune without interference. Good God! what fatality! here, side by side, in the same town, are two persons

in our mutual condition, and yet nothing can bring them together. Suppose I were to speak to her this

During this time Suzanne had returned to her mother's house thinking of Athanase; and, like many other

women who have longed to help an adored man beyond the limit of human powers, she felt herself capable of

It is now necessary to enter the house of this old maid toward whom so many interests are converging, where

the actors in this scene, with the exception of Suzanne, were all to meet this very evening. As for Suzanne,

that handsome individual bold enough to burn her ships like Alexander at her start in life, and to begin the

battle by a falsehood, she disappears from the stage, having introduced upon it a violent element of interest.

Her utmost wishes were gratified. She quitted her native town a few days later, well supplied with money and

good clothes, among which was a fine dress of green reps and a charming green bonnet lined with pink, the

gift of Monsieur de Valois, a present which she preferred to all the rest, even the money. If the chevalier

had gone to Paris in the days of her future brilliancy, she would certainly have left every one for him. Like

the chaste Susannah of the Bible, whom the Elders hardly saw, she established herself joyously and full of

hope in Paris, while all Alencon was deploring her misfortunes, for which the ladies of two Societies (Charity

and Maternity) manifested the liveliest sympathy. Though Suzanne is a fair specimen of those handsome

Norman women whom a learned physician reckons as comprising one third of her fallen class whom our

monstrous Paris absorbs, it must be stated that she remained in the upper and more decent regions of

gallantry. At an epoch when, as Monsieur de Valois said, Woman no longer existed, she was simply

"Madame du ValNoble"; in other days she would have rivalled the Rhodopes, the Imperias, the Ninons of

the past. One of the most distinguished writers of the Restoration has taken her under his protection; perhaps

he may marry her. He is a journalist, and consequently above public opinion, inasmuch as he manufactures it

In nearly all the secondclass prefectures of France there exists one salon which is the meetingground of

those considerable and well considered persons of the community who are, nevertheless, NOT the cream of

the best society. The master and mistress of such an establishment are counted among the leading persons of

the town; they are received wherever it may please them to visit; no fete is given, no formal or diplomatic

dinner takes place, to which they are not invited. But the chateau people, heads of families possessing great

estates, in short, the highest personages in the department, do not go to their houses; social intercourse

between them is carried on by cards from one to the other, and a dinner or soiree accepted and returned.

This salon, in which the lesser nobility, the clergy, and the magistracy meet together, exerts a great influence.

The judgment and mind of the region reside in that solid, unostentatious society, where each man knows the

resources of his neighbor, where complete indifference is shown to luxury and dress,pleasures which are

thought childish in comparison to that of obtaining ten or twelve acres of pasture land,a purchase coveted

for years, which has probably given rise to endless diplomatic combinations. Immovable in its prejudices,

good or evil, this social circle follows a beaten track, looking neither before it nor behind it. It accepts

nothing from Paris without long examination and trial; it rejects cashmeres as it does investments on the

GrandLivre; it scoffs at fashions and novelties; reads nothing, prefers ignorance, whether of science,

literature, or industrial inventions. It insists on the removal of a prefect when that official does not suit it; and

if the administration resists, it isolates him, after the manner of bees who wall up a snail in wax when it gets

In this society gossip is often turned into solemn verdicts. Young women are seldom seen there; when they

come it is to seek approbation of their conduct,a consecration of their selfimportance. This supremacy

granted to one house is apt to wound the sensibilities of other natives of the region, who console themselves

by adding up the cost it involves, and by which they profit. If it so happens that there is no fortune large

enough to keep open house in this way, the bigwigs of the place choose a place of meeting, as they did at

Alencon, in the house of some inoffensive person, whose settled life and character and position offers no

For some years the upper classes of Alencon had met in this way at the house of an old maid, whose fortune

was, unknown to herself, the aim and object of Madame Granson, her second cousin, and of the two old

bachelors whose secret hopes in that direction we have just unveiled. This lady lived with her maternal uncle,

a former grandvicar of the bishopric of Seez, once her guardian, and whose heir she was. The family of

which RoseMarieVictoire Cormon was the present representative had been in earlier days among the most

considerable in the province. Though belonging to the middle classes, she consorted with the nobility, among

whom she was more or less allied, her family having furnished, in past years, stewards to the Duc d'Alencon,

many magistrates to the long robe, and various bishops to the clergy. Monsieur de Sponde, the maternal

grandfather of Mademoiselle Cormon, was elected by the Nobility to the StatesGeneral, and Monsieur

Cormon, her father, by the TiersEtat, though neither accepted the mission. For the last hundred years the

daughters of the family had married nobles belonging to the provinces; consequently, this family had thrown

out so many suckers throughout the duchy as to appear on nearly all the genealogical trees. No bourgeois

The house in which Mademoiselle Cormon lived, build in Henri IV.'s time, by Pierre Cormon, the steward of

the last Duc d'Alencon, had always belonged to the family; and among the old maid's visible possessions this

one was particularly stimulating to the covetous desires of the two old lovers. Yet, far from producing

revenue, the house was a cause of expense. But it is so rare to find in the very centre of a provincial town a

private dwelling without unpleasant surroundings, handsome in outward structure and convenient within, that

This old mansion stands exactly in the middle of the rue du ValNoble. It is remarkable for the strength of its

construction,a style of building introduced by Marie de' Medici. Though built of granite,a stone which

is hard to work,its angles, and the casings of the doors and windows, are decorated with corner blocks cut

into diamond facets. It has only one clear story above the groundfloor; but the roof, rising steeply, has

several projecting windows, with carved spandrels rather elegantly enclosed in oaken frames, and externally

adorned with balustrades. Between each of these windows is a gargoyle presenting the fantastic jaws of an

animal without a body, vomiting the rain water upon large stones pierced with five holes. The two gables

are surmounted by leaden bouquets,a symbol of the bourgeoisie; for nobles alone had the privilege in

former days of having weathervanes. To right of the courtyard are the stables and coachhouse; to left, the

One side of the portecochere, being left open, allowed the passers in the street to see in the midst of the vast

courtyard a flowerbed, the raised earth of which was held in place by a low privet hedge. A few monthly

roses, pinkes, lilies, and Spanish broom filled this bed, around which in the summer season boxes of

paurestinus, pomegranates, and myrtle were placed. Struck by the scrupulous cleanliness of the courtyard and

its dependencies, a stranger would at once have divined that the place belonged to an old maid. The eye

which presided there must have been an unoccupied, ferreting eye; minutely careful, less from nature than for

want of something to do. An old maid, forced to employ her vacant days, could alone see to the grass being

hoed from between the paving stones, the tops of the walls kept clean, the broom continually going, and the

leather curtains of the coachhouse always closed. She alone would have introduced, out of busy idleness, a

sort of Dutch cleanliness into a house on the confines of Bretagne and Normandie,a region where they take

Never did the Chevalier de Valois, or du Bousquier, mount the steps of the double stairway leading to the

portico of this house without saying to himself, one, that it was fit for a peer of France, the other, that the

A glass door gave entrance from this portico into an antechamber, a species of gallery paved in red tiles and

wainscoted, which served as a hospital for the family portraits,some having an eye put out, others suffering

from a dislocated shoulder; this one held his hat in a hand that no longer existed; that one was a case of

amputation at the knee. Here were deposited the cloaks, clogs, overshoes, umbrellas, hoods, and pelisses of

the guests. It was an arsenal where each arrival left his baggage on arriving, and took it up when departing.

Along each wall was a bench for the servants who arrived with lanterns, and a large stove, to counteract the

The house was divided in two equal parts. On one side, toward the courtyard, was the well of the staircase, a

large diningroom looking to the garden, and an office or pantry which communicated with the kitchen. On

the other side was the salon, with four windows, beyond which were two smaller rooms,one looking on the

garden, and used as a boudoir, the other lighted from the courtyard, and used as a sort of office.

The upper floor contained a complete apartment for a family household, and a suite of rooms where the

venerable Abbe de Sponde had his abode. The garrets offered fine quarters to the rats and mice, whose

nocturnal performances were related by Mademoiselle Cormon to the Chevalier de Valois, with many

expressions of surprise at the inutility of her efforts to get rid of them. The garden, about half an acre in size,

is margined by the Brillante, so named from the particles of mica which sparkle in its bed elsewhere than in

the Val Noble, where its shallow waters are stained by the dyehouses, and loaded with refuse from the other

industries of the town. The shore opposite to Mademoiselle Cormon's garden is crowded with houses where a

variety of trades are carried on; happily for her, the occupants are quiet people,a baker, a cleaner, an

upholsterer, and several bourgeois. The garden, full of common flowers, ends in a natural terrace, forming a

quay, down which are several steps leading to the river. Imagine on the balustrade of this terrace a number of

tall vases of blue and white pottery, in which are gilliflowers; and to right and left, along the neighboring

walls, hedges of linden closely trimmed in, and you will gain an idea of the landscape, full of tranquil

chastity, modest cheerfulness, but commonplace withal, which surrounded the venerable edifice of the

Cormon family. What peace! what tranquillity! nothing pretentious, but nothing transitory; all seems eternal

The groundfloor is devoted wholly to the receptionrooms. The old, unchangeable provincial spirit

pervades them. The great square salon has four windows, modestly cased in woodwork painted gray. A single

oblong mirror is placed above the fireplace; the top of its frame represented the Dawn led by the Hours, and

painted in camaieu (two shades of one color). This style of painting infested the decorative art of the day,

especially above doorframes, where the artist displayed his eternal Seasons, and made you, in most houses

in the centre of France, abhor the odious Cupids, endlessly employed in skating, gleaning, twirling, or

garlanding one another with flowers. Each window was draped in green damask curtains, looped up by heavy

cords, which made them resemble a vast dais. The furniture, covered with tapestry, the woodwork, painted

and varnished, and remarkable for the twisted forms so much the fashion in the last century, bore scenes from

the fables of La Fontaine on the chairbacks; some of this tapestry had been mended. The ceiling was divided

at the centre of the room by a huge beam, from which depended an old chandelier of rock crystal swathed in

green gauze. On the fireplace were two vases in Sevres blue, and two old girandoles attached to the frame of

the mirror, and a clock, the subject of which, taken from the last scene of the "Deserteur," proved the

enormous popularity of Sedaine's work. This clock, of bronzegilt, bore eleven personages upon it, each

about four inches tall. At the back the Deserter was seen issuing from prison between the soldiers; in the

foreground the young woman lay fainting, and pointing to his pardon. On the walls of this salon were several

of the more recent portraits of the family,one or two by Rigaud, and three pastels by Latour. Four card

tables, a backgammon board, and a piquet table occupied the vast room, the only one in the house, by the bye,

The diningroom, paved in black and white stone, not ceiled, and its beams painted, was furnished with one

of those enormous sideboards with marble tops, required by the war waged in the provinces against the

human stomach. The walls, painted in fresco, represented a flowery trellis. The seats were of varnished cane,

and the doors of natural wood. All things about the place carried out the patriarchal air which emanated from

the inside as well as the outside of the house. The genius of the provinces preserved everything; nothing was

new or old, neither young nor decrepit. A cold precision made itself felt throughout.

Tourists in Normandy, Brittany, Maine, and Anjou must all have seen in the capitals of those provinces many

houses which resemble more or less that of the Cormons; for it is, in its way, an archetype of the burgher

houses in that region of France, and it deserves a place in this history because it serves to explain manners

and customs, and represents ideas. Who does not already feel that life must have been calm and

monotonously regular in this old edifice? It contained a library; but that was placed below the level of the

river. The books were well bound and shelved, and the dust, far from injuring them, only made them

valuable. They were preserved with the care given in these provinces deprived of vineyards to other native

products, desirable for their antique perfume, and issued by the presses of Bourgogne, Touraine, Gascogne,

and the South. The cost of transportation was too great to allow any but the best products to be imported.

The basis of Mademoiselle Cormon's society consisted of about one hundred and fifty persons; some went at

times to the country; others were occasionally ill; a few travelled about the department on business; but

certain of the faithful came every night (unless invited elsewhere), and so did certain others compelled by

duties or by habit to live permanently in the town. All the personages were of ripe age; few among them had

ever travelled; nearly all had spent their lives in the provinces, and some had taken part in the chouannerie.

The latter were beginning to speak fearlessly of that war, now that rewards were being showered on the

defenders of the good cause. Monsieur de Valois, one of the movers in the last uprising (during which the

Marquis de Montauran, betrayed by his mistress, perished in spite of the devotion of MarcheaTerre, now

tranquilly raising cattle for the market near Mayenne),Monsieur de Valois had, during the last six months,

given the key to several choice stratagems practised upon an old republican named Hulot, the commander of

a demibrigade stationed at Alencon from 1798 to 1800, who had left many memories in the place. [See "The

The women of this society took little pains with their dress, except on Wednesdays, when Mademoiselle

Cormon gave a dinner, on which occasion the guests invited on the previous Wednesday paid their "visit of

digestion." Wednesdays were gala days: the assembly was numerous; guests and visitors appeared in fiocchi;

some women brought their sewing, knitting, or worsted work; the young girls were not ashamed to make

patterns for the Alencon point lace, with the proceeds of which they paid for their personal expenses. Certain

husbands brought their wives out of policy, for young men were few in that house; not a word could be

whispered in any ear without attracting the attention of all; there was therefore no danger, either for young

Every evening, at six o'clock, the long antechamber received its furniture. Each habitue brought his cane, his

cloak, his lantern. All these persons knew each other so well, and their habits and ways were so familiarly

patriarchal, that if by chance the old Abbe de Sponde was lying down, or Mademoiselle Cormon was in her

chamber, neither Josette, the maid, nor Jacquelin, the manservant, nor Mariette, the cook, informed them.

The first comer received the second; then, when the company were sufficiently numerous for whist, piquet, or

boston, they began the game without awaiting either the Abbe de Sponde or mademoiselle. If it was dark,

Josette or Jacquelin would hasten to light the candles as soon as the first bell rang. Seeing the salon lighted

up, the abbe would slowly hurry to come down. Every evening the backgammon and the piquet tables, the

three boston tables, and the whist table were filled,which gave occupation to twentyfive or thirty persons;

but as many as forty were usually present. Jacquelin would then light the candles in the other rooms.

Between eight and nine o'clock the servants began to arrive in the antechamber to accompany their masters

home; and, short of a revolution, no one remained in the salon at ten o'clock. At that hour the guests were

departing in groups along the street, discoursing on the game, or continuing conversations on the land they

were covetous of buying, on the terms of some one's will, on quarrels among heirs, on the haughty

assumption of the aristocratic portion of the community. It was like Paris when the audience of a theatre

Certain persons who talk much of poesy and know nothing about it, declaim against the habits of life in the

provinces. But put your forehead in your left hand, rest one foot on the fender, and your elbow on your knee;

then, if you compass the idea of this quiet and uniform scene, this house and its interior, this company and its

interests, heightened by the pettiness of its intellect like goldleaf beaten between sheets of parchment, ask

yourself, What is human life? Try to decide between him who scribbles jokes on Egyptian obelisks, and him

who has "bostoned" for twenty years with Du Bousquier, Monsieur de Valois, Mademoiselle Cormon, the

judge of the court, the king's attorney, the Abbe de Sponde, Madame Granson, and tutti quanti. If the daily

and punctual return of the same steps to the same path is not happiness, it imitates happiness so well that men

driven by the storms of an agitated life to reflect upon the blessings of tranquillity would say that here was

To reckon the importance of Mademoiselle Cormon's salon at its true value, it will suffice to say that the born

statistician of the society, du Bousquier, had estimated that the persons who frequented it controlled one

hundred and thirtyone votes in the electoral college, and mustered among themselves eighteen hundred

The town of Alencon, however, was not entirely represented by this salon. The higher aristocracy had a salon

of their own; moreover, that of the receivergeneral was like an administration inn kept by the government,

where society danced, plotted, fluttered, loved, and supped. These two salons communicated by means of

certain mixed individuals with the house of Cormon, and viceversa; but the Cormon establishment sat

severely in judgment on the two other camps. The luxury of their dinners was criticised; the ices at their balls

were pondered; the behavior of the women, the dresses, and "novelties" there produced were discussed and

Mademoiselle Cormon, a species of firm, as one might say, under whose name was comprised an imposing

coterie, was naturally the aim and object of two ambitious men as deep and wily as the Chevalier de Valois

and du Bousquier. To the one as well as to the other, she meant election as deputy, resulting, for the noble, in

the peerage, for the purveyor, in a receivergeneralship. A leading salon is a difficult thing to create, whether

in Paris or the provinces, and here was one already created. To marry Mademoiselle Cormon was to reign in

Alencon. Athanase Granson, the only one of the three suitors for the hand of the old maid who no longer

To employ the jargon of the day, is there not a singular drama in the situation of these four personages?

Surely there is something odd and fantastic in three rivalries silently encompassing a woman who never

guessed their existence, in spite of an eager and legitimate desire to be married. And yet, though all these

circumstances make the spinsterhood of this old maid an extraordinary thing, it is not difficult to explain how

and why, in spite of her fortune and her three lovers, she was still unmarried. In the first place, Mademoiselle

Cormon, following the custom and rule of her house, had always desired to marry a nobleman; but from 1788

to 1798 public circumstances were very unfavorable to such pretensions. Though she wanted to be a woman

of condition, as the saying is, she was horribly afraid of the Revolutionary tribunal. The two sentiments,

equal in force, kept her stationary by a law as true in ethics as it is in statics. This state of uncertain

expectation is pleasing to unmarried women as long as they feel themselves young, and in a position to

choose a husband. France knows that the political system of Napoleon resulted in making many widows.

Under that regime heiresses were entirely out of proportion in numbers to the bachelors who wanted to

marry. When the Consulate restored internal order, external difficulties made the marriage of Mademoiselle

Cormon as difficult to arrange as it had been in the past. If, on the one hand, RoseMarie Victoire refused to

marry an old man, on the other, the fear of ridicule forbade her to marry a very young one.

In the provinces, families marry their sons early to escape the conscription. In addition to all this, she was

obstinately determined not to marry a soldier: she did not intend to take a man and then give him up to the

Emperor; she wanted him for herself alone. With these views, she found it therefore impossible, from 1804 to

1815, to enter the lists with young girls who were rivalling each other for suitable matches.

Besides her predilection for the nobility, Mademoiselle Cormon had another and very excusable mania: that

of being loved for herself. You could hardly believe the lengths to which this desire led her. She employed

her mind on setting traps for her possible lovers, in order to test their real sentiments. Her nets were so well

laid that the luckless suitors were all caught, and succumbed to the test she applied to them without their

knowledge. Mademoiselle Cormon did not study them; she watched them. A single word said heedlessly, a

joke (that she often was unable to understand), sufficed to make her reject an aspirant as unworthy: this one

had neither heart nor delicacy; that one told lies, and was not religious; a third only wanted to coin money

under the cloak of marriage; another was not of a nature to make a woman happy; here she suspected

hereditary gout; there certain immoral antecedents alarmed her. Like the Church, she required a noble priest

at her altar; she even wanted to be married for imaginary ugliness and pretended defects, just as other women

wish to be loved for the good qualities they have not, and for imaginary beauties. Mademoiselle Cormon's

ambition took its rise in the most delicate and sensitive feminine feeling; she longed to reward a lover by

revealing to him a thousand virtues after marriage, as other women then betray the imperfections they have

hitherto concealed. But she was ill understood. The noble woman met with none but common souls in whom

the reckoning of actual interests was paramount, and who knew nothing of the nobler calculations of

The farther she advanced towards that fatal epoch so adroitly called the "second youth," the more her distrust

increased. She affected to present herself in the most unfavorable light, and played her part so well that the

last wooers hesitated to link their fate to that of a person whose virtuous blindman'sbuff required an

amount of penetration that men who want the virtuous readymade would not bestow upon it. The constant

fear of being married for her money rendered her suspicious and uneasy beyond all reason. She turned to the

rich men; but the rich are in search of great marriages; she feared the poor men, in whom she denied the

disinterestedness she sought so eagerly. After each disappointment in marriage, the poor lady, led to despise

mankind, began to see them all in a false light. Her character acquired, necessarily, a secret misanthropy,

which threw a tinge of bitterness into her conversation, and some severity into her eyes. Celibacy gave to her

manners and habits a certain increasing rigidity; for she endeavored to sanctify herself in despair of fate.

Noble vengeance! she was cutting for God the rough diamond rejected by man. Before long public opinion

was against her; for society accepts the verdict an independent woman renders on herself by not marrying,

either through losing suitors or rejecting them. Everybody supposed that these rejections were founded on

secret reasons, always ill interpreted. One said she was deformed; another suggested some hidden fault; but

the poor girl was really as pure as a saint, as healthy as an infant, and full of loving kindness; Nature had

intended her for all the pleasures, all the joys, and all the fatigues of motherhood.

Mademoiselle Cormon did not possess in her person an obliging auxiliary to her desires. She had no other

beauty than that very improperly called la beaute du diable, which consists of a buxom freshness of youth that

the devil, theologically speaking, could never have,though perhaps the expression may be explained by the

constant desire that must surely possess him to cool and refresh himself. The feet of the heiress were broad

and flat. Her leg, which she often exposed to sight by her manner (be it said without malice) of lifting her

gown when it rained, could never have been taken for the leg of a woman. It was sinewy, with a thick

projecting calf like a sailor's. A stout waist, the plumpness of a wetnurse, strong dimpled arms, red hands,

were all in keeping with the swelling outlines and the fat whiteness of Norman beauty. Projecting eyes,

undecided in color, gave to her face, the rounded outline of which had no dignity, an air of surprise and

sheepish simplicity, which was suitable perhaps for an old maid. If Rose had not been, as she was, really

innocent, she would have seemed so. An aquiline nose contrasted curiously with the narrowness of her

forehead; for it is rare that that form of nose does not carry with it a fine brow. In spite of her thick red lips, a

sign of great kindliness, the forehead revealed too great a lack of ideas to allow of the heart being guided by

intellect; she was evidently benevolent without grace. How severely we reproach Virtue for its defects, and

Chestnut hair of extraordinary length gave to Rose Cormon's face a beauty which results from vigor and

abundance,the physical qualities most apparent in her person. In the days of her chief pretensions, Rose

affected to hold her head at the threequarter angle, in order to exhibit a very pretty ear, which detached itself

from the blueveined whiteness of her throat and temples, set off, as it was, by her wealth of hair. Seen thus

in a balldress, she might have seemed handsome. Her protuberant outlines and her vigorous health did, in

But, as years rolled on, this plumpness, encouraged by a tranquil, wholesome life, had insensibly so ill spread

itself over the whole of Mademoiselle Cormon's body that her primitive proportions were destroyed. At the

present moment, no corset could restore a pair of hips to the poor lady, who seemed to have been cast in a

single mould. The youthful harmony of her bosom existed no longer; and its excessive amplitude made the

spectator fear that if she stooped its heavy masses might topple her over. But nature had provided against this

by giving her a natural counterpoise, which rendered needless the deceitful adjunct of a bustle; in Rose

Cormon everything was genuine. Her chin, as it doubled, reduced the length of her neck, and hindered the

easy carriage of her head. Rose had no wrinkles, but she had folds of flesh; and jesters declared that to save

This ample person offered to a young man full of ardent desires like Athanase an attraction to which he had

succumbed. Young imaginations, essentially eager and courageous, like to rove upon these fine living sheets

of flesh. Rose was like a plump partridge attracting the knife of a gourmet. Many an elegant deep in debt

would very willingly have resigned himself to make the happiness of Mademoiselle Cormon. But, alas! the

poor girl was now forty years old. At this period, after vainly seeking to put into her life those interests which

make the Woman, and finding herself forced to be still unmarried, she fortified her virtue by stern religious

practices. She had recourse to religion, the great consoler of oppressed virginity. A confessor had, for the last

three years, directed Mademoiselle Cormon rather stupidly in the path of maceration; he advised the use of

scourging, which, if modern medical science is to be believed, produces an effect quite the contrary to that

These absurd practices were beginning to shed a monastic tint over the face of Rose Cormon, who now saw

with something like despair her white skin assuming the yellow tones which proclaim maturity. A slight

down on her upper lip, about the corners, began to spread and darken like a trail of smoke; her temples grew

shiny; decadence was beginning! It was authentic in Alencon that Mademoiselle Cormon suffered from rush

of blood to the head. She confided her ills to the Chevalier de Valois, enumerating her footbaths, and

consulting him as to refrigerants. On such occasions the shrewd old gentleman would pull out his snuffbox,

The chevalier would then brush away the snuff which had settled in the folds of his waistcoat or his paduasoy

breeches. To the world at large this gesture would have seemed very natural; but it always gave extreme

The violence of this hope without an object was so great that Rose was afraid to look a man in the face lest he

should perceive in her eyes the feelings that filled her soul. By a wilfulness, which was perhaps only the

continuation of her earlier methods, though she felt herself attracted toward the men who might still suit her,

she was so afraid of being accused of folly that she treated them ungraciously. Most persons in her society,

being incapable of appreciating her motives, which were always noble, explained her manner towards her

cocelibates as the revenge of a refusal received or expected. When the year 1815 began, Rose had reached

that fatal age which she dared not avow. She was fortytwo years old. Her desire for marriage then acquired

an intensity which bordered on monomania, for she saw plainly that all chance of progeny was about to

escape her; and the thing which in her celestial ignorance she desired above all things was the possession of

children. Not a person in all Alencon ever attributed to this virtuous woman a single desire for amorous

license. She loved, as it were, in bulk without the slightest imagination of love. Rose was a Catholic Agnes,

For some months past she had counted on chance. The disbandment of the Imperial troops and the

reorganization of the Royal army caused a change in the destination of many officers, who returned, some on

halfpay, others with or without a pension, to their native towns, all having a desire to counteract their

luckless fate, and to end their life in a way which might to Rose Cormon be a happy beginning of hers. It

would surely be strange if, among those who returned to Alencon or its neighborhood, no brave, honorable,

and, above all, sound and healthy officer of suitable age could be found, whose character would be a passport

among Bonaparte opinions; or some ci devant noble who, to regain his lost position, would join the ranks of

the royalists. This hope kept Mademoiselle Cormon in heart during the early months of that year. But, alas!

all the soldiers who thus returned were either too old or too young; too aggressively Bonapartist, or too

dissipated; in short, their several situations were out of keeping with the rank, fortune, and morals of

Mademoiselle Cormon, who now grew daily more and more desperate. The poor woman in vain prayed to

God to send her a husband with whom she could be piously happy: it was doubtless written above that she

should die both virgin and martyr; no man suitable for a husband presented himself. The conversations in her

salon every evening kept her informed of the arrival of all strangers in Alencon, and of the facts of their

fortunes, rank, and habits. But Alencon is not a town which attracts visitors; it is not on the road to any

capital; even sailors, travelling from Brest to Paris, never stop there. The poor woman ended by admitting to

herself that she was reduced to the aborigines. Her eye now began to assume a certain savage expression, to

which the malicious chevalier responded by a shrewd look as he drew out his snuffbox and gazed at the

Princess Goritza. Monsieur de Valois was well aware that in the feminine ethics of love fidelity to a first

But Mademoiselle Cormonwe must admit itwas wanting in intellect, and did not understand the

snuffbox performance. She redoubled her vigilance against "the evil spirit"; her rigid devotion and fixed

principles kept her cruel sufferings hidden among the mysteries of private life. Every evening, after the

company had left her, she thought of her lost youth, her faded bloom, the hopes of thwarted nature; and, all

the while immolating her passions at the feet of the Cross (like poems condemned to stay in a desk), she

resolved firmly that if, by chance, any suitor presented himself, to subject him to no tests, but to accept him at

once for whatever he might be. She even went so far as to think of marrying a sublieutenant, a man who

smoked tobacco, whom she proposed to render, by dint of care and kindness, one of the best men in the

But it was only in the silence of night watches that these fantastic marriages, in which she played the sublime

role of guardian angel, took place. The next day, though Josette found her mistress' bed in a tossed and

tumbled condition, Mademoiselle Cormon had recovered her dignity, and could only think of a man of forty,

The Abbe de Sponde was incapable of giving his niece the slightest aid in her matrimonial manoeuvres. The

worthy soul, now seventy years of age, attributed the disasters of the French Revolution to the design of

Providence, eager to punish a dissolute Church. He had therefore flung himself into the path, long since

abandoned, which anchorites once followed in order to reach heaven: he led an ascetic life without

proclaiming it, and without external credit. He hid from the world his works of charity, his continual prayers,

his penances; he thought that all priests should have acted thus during the days of wrath and terror, and he

preached by example. While presenting to the world a calm and smiling face, he had ended by detaching

himself utterly from earthly interests; his mind turned exclusively to sufferers, to the needs of the Church, and

to his own salvation. He left the management of his property to his niece, who gave him the income of it, and

to whom he paid a slender board in order to spend the surplus in secret alms and gifts to the Church.

All the abbe's affections were concentrated on his niece, who regarded him as a father, but an abstracted

father, unable to conceive the agitations of the flesh, and thanking God for maintaining his dear daughter in a

state of celibacy; for he had, from his youth up, adopted the principles of Saint John Chrysostom, who wrote

that "the virgin state is as far above the marriage state as the angel is above humanity." Accustomed to

reverence her uncle, Mademoiselle Cormon dared not initiate him into the desires which filled her soul for a

change of state. The worthy man, accustomed, on his side, to the ways of the house, would scarcely have

liked the introduction of a husband. Preoccupied by the sufferings he soothed, lost in the depths of prayer, the

Abbe de Sponde had periods of abstraction which the habitues of the house regarded as absentmindedness.

In any case, he talked little; but his silence was affable and benevolent. He was a man of great height and

spare, with grave and solemn manners, though his face expressed all gentle sentiments and an inward calm;

while his mere presence carried with it a sacred authority. He was very fond of the Voltairean chevalier.

Those two majestic relics of the nobility and clergy, though of very different habits and morals, recognized

each other by their generous traits. Besides, the chevalier was as unctuous with the abbe as he was paternal

Some persons may fancy that Mademoiselle Cormon used every means to attain her end; and that among the

legitimate lures of womanhood she devoted herself to dress, wore lownecked gowns, and employed the

negative coquetries of a magnificent display of arms. Not at all! She was as heroic and immovable in her

highnecked chemisette as a sentry in his box. Her gowns, bonnets, and chiffons were all cut and made by

the dressmaker and the milliner of Alencon, two humpbacked sisters, who were not without some taste. In

spite of the entreaties of these artists, Mademoiselle Cormon refused to employ the airy deceits of elegance;

she chose to be substantial in all things, flesh and feathers. But perhaps the heavy fashion of her gowns was

best suited to her cast of countenance. Let those laugh who will at this poor girl; you would have thought her

sublime, O generous souls! who care but little what form true feeling takes, but admire it where it IS.

Here some lightminded person may exclaim against the truth of this statement; they will say that there is not

in all France a girl so silly as to be ignorant of the art of angling for men; that Mademoiselle Cormon is one

of those monstrous exceptions which commonsense should prevent a writer from using as a type; that the

most virtuous and also the silliest girl who desires to catch her fish knows well how to bait the hook. But

these criticisms fall before the fact that the noble catholic, apostolic, and Roman religion is still erect in

Brittany and in the ancient duchy of Alencon. Faith and piety admit of no subtleties. Mademoiselle Cormon

trod the path of salvation, preferring the sorrows of her virginity so cruelly prolonged to the evils of trickery

and the sin of a snare. In a woman armed with a scourge virtue could never compromise; consequently both

love and selfinterest were forced to seek her, and seek her resolutely. And here let us have the courage to

make a cruel observation, in days when religion is nothing more than a useful means to some, and a poesy to

others. Devotion causes a moral ophthalmia. By some providential grace, it takes from souls on the road to

eternity the sight of many little earthly things. In a word, pious persons, devotes, are stupid on various points.

This stupidity proves with what force they turn their minds to celestial matters; although the Voltairean

Chevalier de Valois declared that it was difficult to decide whether stupid people became naturally pious, or

whether piety had the effect of making intelligent young women stupid. But reflect upon this carefully: the

purest catholic virtue, with its loving acceptance of all cups, with its pious submission to the will of God,

with its belief in the print of the divine finger on the clay of all earthly life, is the mysterious light which

glides into the innermost folds of human history, setting them in relief and magnifying them in the eyes of

those who still have Faith. Besides, if there be stupidity, why not concern ourselves with the sorrows of

stupidity as well as with the sorrows of genius? The former is a social element infinitely more abundant than

So, then, Mademoiselle Cormon was guilty in the eyes of the world of the divine ignorance of virgins. She

was no observer, and her behavior with her suitors proved it. At this very moment, a young girl of sixteen,

who had never opened a novel, would have read a hundred chapters of a love story in the eyes of Athanase

Granson, where Mademoiselle Cormon saw absolutely nothing. Shy herself, she never suspected shyness in

others; she did not recognize in the quavering tones of his speech the force of a sentiment he could not utter.

Capable of inventing those refinements of sentimental grandeur which hindered her marriage in her early

years, she yet could not recognize them in Athanase. This moral phenomenon will not seem surprising to

persons who know that the qualities of the heart are as distinct from those of the mind as the faculties of

genius are from the nobility of soul. A perfect, allrounded man is so rare that Socrates, one of the noblest

pearls of humanity, declared (as a phrenologist of that day) that he was born to be a scamp, and a very bad

one. A great general may save his country at Zurich, and take commissions from purveyors. A great musician

may conceive the sublimest music and commit a forgery. A woman of true feeling may be a fool. In short, a

devote may have a sublime soul and yet be unable to recognize the tones of a noble soul beside her. The

caprices produced by physical infirmities are equally to be met with in the mental and moral regions.

This good creature, who grieved at making her yearly preserves for no one but her uncle and herself, was

becoming almost ridiculous. Those who felt a sympathy for her on account of her good qualities, and others

on account of her defects, now made fun of her abortive marriages. More than one conversation was based on

what would become of so fine a property, together with the old maid's savings and her uncle's inheritance.

For some time past she had been suspected of being au fond, in spite of appearances, an "original." In the

provinces it was not permissible to be original: being original means having ideas that are not understood by

others; the provinces demand equality of mind as well as equality of manners and customs.

The marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon seemed, after 1804, a thing so problematical that the saying "married

like Mademoiselle Cormon" became proverbial in Alencon as applied to ridiculous failures. Surely the

sarcastic mood must be an imperative need in France, that so excellent a woman should excite the laughter of

Alencon. Not only did she receive the whole society of the place at her house, not only was she charitable,

pious, incapable of saying an unkind thing, but she was fully in accord with the spirit of the place and the

habits and customs of the inhabitants, who liked her as the symbol of their lives; she was absolutely inlaid

into the ways of the provinces; she had never quitted them; she imbibed all their prejudices; she espoused all

In spite of her income of eighteen thousand francs from landed property, a very considerable fortune in the

provinces, she lived on a footing with families who were less rich. When she went to her countryplace at

Prebaudet, she drove there in an old wicker carriole, hung on two straps of white leather, drawn by a wheezy

mare, and scarcely protected by two leather curtains rusty with age. This carriole, known to all the town, was

cared for by Jacquelin as though it were the finest coupe in all Paris. Mademoiselle valued it; she had used it

for twelve years,a fact to which she called attention with the triumphant joy of happy avarice. Most of the

inhabitants of the town were grateful to Mademoiselle Cormon for not humiliating them by the luxury she

could have displayed; we may even believe that had she imported a caleche from Paris they would have

gossiped more about that than about her various matrimonial failures. The most brilliant equipage would,

after all, have only taken her, like the old carriole, to Prebaudet. Now the provinces, which look solely to

results, care little about the beauty or elegance of the means, provided they are efficient.

To complete the picture of the internal habits and ways of this house, it is necessary to group around

Mademoiselle Cormon and the Abbe de Sponde Jacquelin, Josette, and Mariette, the cook, who employed

Jacquelin, a man of forty, short, fat, ruddy, and brown, with a face like a Breton sailor, had been in the

service of the house for twenty two years. He waited at table, groomed the mare, gardened, blacked the

abbe's boots, went on errands, chopped the wood, drove the carriole, and fetched the oats, straw, and hay

from Prebaudet. He sat in the antechamber during the evening, where he slept like a dormouse. He was in

love with Josette, a girl of thirty, whom Mademoiselle would have dismissed had she married him. So the

poor fond pair laid by their wages, and loved each other silently, waiting, hoping for mademoiselle's own

marriage, as the Jews are waiting for the Messiah. Josette, born between Alencon and Mortagne, was short

and plump; her face, which looked like a dirty apricot, was not wanting in sense and character; it was said

that she ruled her mistress. Josette and Jacquelin, sure of results, endeavored to hide an inward satisfaction

which allows it to be supposed that, as lovers, they had discounted the future. Mariette, the cook, who had

been fifteen years in the household, knew how to make all the dishes held in most honor in Alencon.

Perhaps we ought to count for much the fat old Norman brownbay mare, which drew Mademoiselle

Cormon to her countryseat at Prebaudet; for the five inhabitants of the house bore to this animal a maniacal

affection. She was called Penelope, and had served the family for eighteen years; but she was kept so

carefully and fed with such regularity that mademoiselle and Jacquelin both hoped to use her for ten years

longer. This beast was the subject of perpetual talk and occupation; it seemed as if poor Mademoiselle

Cormon, having no children on whom her repressed motherly feelings could expend themselves, had turned

The four faithful servantsfor Penelope's intelligence raised her to the level of the other good servants;

while they, on the other hand, had lowered themselves to the mute, submissive regularity of the beast went

and came daily in the same occupations with the infallible accuracy of mechanism. But, as they said in their

idiom, they had eaten their white bread first. Mademoiselle Cormon, like all persons nervously agitated by a

fixed idea, became hard to please, and nagging, less by nature than from the need of employing her activity.

Having no husband or children to occupy her, she fell back on petty details. She talked for hours about mere

"What can Josette be thinking of?" she exclaimed. "Josette is beginning to neglect things."

Mademoiselle inquired for eight days running whether Penelope had had her oats at two o'clock, because on

one occasion Jacquelin was a trifle late. Her narrow imagination spent itself on trifles. A layer of dust

forgotten by the featherduster, a slice of toast illmade by Mariette, Josette's delay in closing the blinds

when the sun came round to fade the colors of the furniture,all these great little things gave rise to serious

quarrels in which mademoiselle grew angry. "Everything was changing," she would cry; "she did not know

her own servants; the fact was she spoiled them!" On one occasion Josette gave her the "Journee du Chretien"

instead of the "Quinzaine de Paques." The whole town heard of this disaster the same evening. Mademoiselle

had been forced to leave the church and return home; and her sudden departure, upsetting the chairs, made

people suppose a catastrophe had happened. She was therefore obliged to explain the facts to her friends.

Mademoiselle Cormon was, without being aware of it, made happier by such little quarrels, which served as

cathartics to relieve her bitterness. The soul has its needs, and, like the body, its gymnastics. These

uncertainties of temper were accepted by Josette and Jacquelin as changes in the weather are accepted by

husbandmen. Those worthy souls remark, "It is fine today," or "It rains," without arraigning the heavens.

And so when they met in the morning the servants would wonder in what humor mademoiselle would get up,

Mademoiselle Cormon had ended, as it was natural she should end, in contemplating herself only in the

infinite pettinesses of her life. Herself and God, her confessor and the weekly wash, her preserves and the

church services, and her uncle to care for, absorbed her feeble intellect. To her the atoms of life were

magnified by an optic peculiar to persons who are selfish by nature or selfabsorbed by some accident. Her

perfect health gave alarming meaning to the least little derangement of her digestive organs. She lived under

the iron rod of the medical science of our forefathers, and took yearly four precautionary doses, strong

enough to have killed Penelope, though they seemed to rejuvenate her mistress. If Josette, when dressing her,

chanced to discover a little pimple on the still satiny shoulders of mademoiselle, it became the subject of

endless inquiries as to the various alimentary articles of the preceding week. And what a triumph when

Josette reminded her mistress of a certain hare that was rather "high," and had doubtless raised that accursed

pimple! With what joy they said to each other: "No doubt, no doubt, it WAS the hare!"

"Mariette overseasoned it," said mademoiselle. "I am always telling her to do so lightly for my uncle and for

"Just so," replied Mademoiselle; "she has no more memory than a hare, a very just remark."

Four times a year, at the beginning of each season, Mademoiselle Cormon went to pass a certain number of

days on her estate of Prebaudet. It was now the middle of May, the period at which she wished to see how her

appletrees had "snowed," a saying of that region which expressed the effect produced beneath the trees by

the falling of their blossoms. When the circular deposit of these fallen petals resembled a layer of snow the

owner of the trees might hope for an abundant supply of cider. While she thus gauged her vats, Mademoiselle

Cormon also attended to the repairs which the winter necessitated; she ordered the digging of her

flowerbeds and her vegetable garden, from which she supplied her table. Every season had its own business.

Mademoiselle always gave a dinner of farewell to her intimate friends the day before her departure, although

she was certain to see them again within three weeks. It was always a piece of news which echoed through

Alencon when Mademoiselle Cormon departed. All her visitors, especially those who had missed a visit,

came to bid her goodbye; the salon was thronged, and every one said farewell as though she were starting

for Calcutta. The next day the shopkeepers would stand at their doors to see the old carriole pass, and they

"Hey! my lad," replied the next man. "She's a worthy woman; if money always came into such hands we

Another said: "Dear me, I shouldn't be surprised if the vineyards were in bloom; here's Mademoiselle

"I'd marry her myself," said a wag; "in fact, the marriage is half made, for here's one consenting party; but

The Wednesday chosen by Suzanne to make known her scandal happened to be this farewell Wednesday,a

day on which Mademoiselle Cormon drove Josette distracted on the subject of packing. During the morning,

therefore, things had been said and done in the town which lent the utmost interest to this farewell meeting.

Madame Granson had gone the round of a dozen houses while the old maid was deliberating on the things she

needed for the journey; and the malicious Chevalier de Valois was playing piquet with Mademoiselle

Armande, sister of a distinguished old marquis, and the queen of the salon of the aristocrats. If it was not

uninteresting to any one to see what figure the seducer would cut that evening, it was all important for the

chevalier and Madame Granson to know how Mademoiselle Cormon would take the news in her double

capacity of marriageable woman and president of the Maternity Society. As for the innocent du Bousquier, he

was taking a walk on the promenade, and beginning to suspect that Suzanne had tricked him; this suspicion

On gala days the table was laid at Mademoiselle Cormon's about half past three o'clock. At that period the

fashionable people of Alencon dined at four. Under the Empire they still dined as in former times at halfpast

two; but then they supped! One of the pleasures which Mademoiselle Cormon valued most was (without

meaning any malice, although the fact certainly rests on egotism) the unspeakable satisfaction she derived

from seeing herself dressed as mistress of the house to receive her guests. When she was thus under arms a

ray of hope would glide into the darkness of her heart; a voice told her that nature had not so abundantly

provided for her in vain, and that some man, brave and enterprising, would surely present himself. Her desire

was refreshed like her person; she contemplated herself in her heavy stuffs with a sort of intoxication, and

this satisfaction continued when she descended the stairs to cast her redoubtable eye on the salon, the

dinnertable, and the boudoir. She would then walk about with the naive contentment of the rich,who

remember at all moments that they are rich and will never want for anything. She looked at her eternal

furniture, her curiosities, her lacquers, and said to herself that all these fine things wanted was a master. After

admiring the diningroom, and the oblong dinnertable, on which was spread a snow white cloth adorned

with twenty covers placed at equal distances; after verifying the squadron of bottles she had ordered to be

brought up, and which all bore honorable labels; after carefully verifying the names written on little bits of

paper in the trembling handwriting of the abbe (the only duty he assumed in the household, and one which

gave rise to grave discussions on the place of each guest),after going through all these preliminary acts

mademoiselle went, in her fine clothes, to her uncle, who was accustomed at this, the best hour in the day, to

take his walk on the terrace which overlooked the Brillante, where he could listen to the warble of birds

which were resting in the coppice, unafraid of either sportsmen or children. At such times of waiting she

never joined the Abbe de Sponde without asking him some ridiculous question, in order to draw the old man

into a discussion which might serve to amuse him. And her reason was this, which will serve to complete

Mademoiselle Cormon regarded it as one of her duties to talk; not that she was talkative, for she had

unfortunately too few ideas, and did not know enough phrases to converse readily. But she believed she was

accomplishing one of the social duties enjoined by religion, which orders us to make ourselves agreeable to

our neighbor. This obligation cost her so much that she consulted her director, the Abbe Couturier, upon the

subject of this honest but puerile civility. In spite of the humble remark of his penitent, confessing the inward

labor of her mind in finding anything to say, the old priest, rigid on the point of discipline, read her a passage

from SaintFrancois de Sales on the duties of women in society, which dwelt on the decent gayety of pious

Christian women, who were bound to reserve their sternness for themselves, and to be amiable and pleasing

in their homes, and see that their neighbors enjoyed themselves. Thus, filled with a sense of duty, and

wishing, at all costs, to obey her director, who bade her converse with amenity, the poor soul perspired in her

corset when the talk around her languished, so much did she suffer from the effort of emitting ideas in order

to revive it. Under such circumstances she would put forth the silliest statements, such as: "No one can be in

two places at onceunless it is a little bird," by which she one day roused, and not without success, a

discussion on the ubiquity of the apostles, which she was unable to comprehend. Such efforts at conversation

won her the appellation of "that good Mademoiselle Cormon," which, from the lips of the beaux esprits of

society, means that she was as ignorant as a carp, and rather a poor fool; but many persons of her own calibre

Sometimes she would put such absurd questions (always for the purpose of fulfilling her duties to society,

and making herself agreeable to her guests) that everybody burst out laughing. She asked, for instance, what

the government did with the taxes they were always receiving; and why the Bible had not been printed in the

days of Jesus Christ, inasmuch as it was written by Moses. Her mental powers were those of the English

"country gentleman" who, hearing constant mention of "posterity" in the House of Commons, rose to make

the speech that has since become celebrated: "Gentlemen," he said, "I hear much talk in this place about

Under these circumstances the heroic Chevalier de Valois would bring to the succor of the old maid all the

powers of his clever diplomacy, whenever he saw the pitiless smile of wiser heads. The old gentleman, who

loved to assist women, turned Mademoiselle Cormon's sayings into wit by sustaining them paradoxically, and

he often covered the retreat so well that it seemed as if the good woman had said nothing silly. She asserted

very seriously one evening that she did not see any difference between an ox and a bull. The dear chevalier

instantly arrested the peals of laughter by asserting that there was only the difference between a sheep and a

But the Chevalier de Valois served an ungrateful dame, for never did Mademoiselle Cormon comprehend his

chivalrous services. Observing that the conversation grew lively, she simply thought that she was not so

stupid as she was,the result being that she settled down into her ignorance with some complacency; she

lost her timidity, and acquired a selfpossession which gave to her "speeches" something of the solemnity

with which the British enunciate their patriotic absurdities,the selfconceit of stupidity, as it may be called.

As she approached her uncle, on this occasion, with a majestic step, she was ruminating over a question that

might draw him from a silence, which always troubled her, for she feared he was dull.

"Uncle," she said, leaning on his arm and clinging to his side (this was one of her fictions; for she said to

herself "If I had a husband I should do just so"),"uncle, if everything here below happens according to the

"Certainly," replied the abbe, gravely. The worthy man, who cherished his niece, always allowed her to tear

"And yet, as nothing prevents me from marrying tomorrow if I choose, His will can be destroyed by mine?"

"That would be true if we knew what was really the will of God," replied the former prior of the Sorbonne.

The poor woman, who expected to draw her uncle into a matrimonial discussion by an argument ad

omnipotentem, was stupefied; but persons of obtuse mind have the terrible logic of children, which consists

"But, uncle, God did not make women intending them not to marry; otherwise they ought all to stay

unmarried; if not, they ought all to marry. There's great injustice in the distribution of parts."

"Daughter," said the worthy abbe, "you are blaming the Church, which declares celibacy to be the better way

"But if the Church is right, and all the world were good Catholics, wouldn't the human race come to an end,

That remark brought a smile of satisfaction to the lips of the poor woman, and confirmed her in the good

opinion she was beginning to acquire about herself. That is how the world, our friends, and our enemies are

At this moment the conversation was interrupted by the successive arrival of the guests. On these ceremonial

days, friendly familiarities were exchanged between the servants of the house and the company. Mariette

"Ah, Monsieur du Ronceret, I've cooked the cauliflowers au gratin expressly for you, for mademoiselle

knows how you like them; and she said to me: 'Now don't forget, Mariette, for Monsieur du Ronceret is

"That good Mademoiselle Cormon!" ejaculated the chief legal authority of the town. "Mariette, did you steep

The chiefjustice was not above entering the chamber of council where Mariette held court; he cast the eye of

"Goodday, madame," said Josette to Madame Granson, who courted the maid. "Mademoiselle has thought

As for the Chevalier de Valois, he remarked to Mariette, in the easy tone of a great seigneur who condescends

"Well, my dear cordonbleu, to whom I should give the cross of the Legion of honor, is there some little

"Yes, yes, Monsieur de Valois,a hare sent from Prebaudet; weighs fourteen pounds."

Du Bousquier was not invited. Mademoiselle Cormon, faithful to the system which we know of, treated that

fiftyyearold suitor extremely ill, although she felt inexplicable sentiments towards him in the depths of her

heart. She had refused him; yet at times she repented; and a presentiment that she should yet marry him,

together with a terror at the idea which prevented her from wishing for the marriage, assailed her. Her mind,

stimulated by these feelings, was much occupied by du Bousquier. Without being aware of it, she was

influenced by the herculean form of the republican. Madame Granson and the Chevalier de Valois, although

they could not explain to themselves Mademoiselle Cormon's inconsistencies, had detected her naive glances

in that direction, the meaning of which seemed clear enough to make them both resolve to ruin the hopes of

Two guests, whose functions excused them, kept the dinner waiting. One was Monsieur du Coudrai, the

recorder of mortgages; the other Monsieur Choisnel, former bailiff to the house of Esgrignon, and now the

notary of the upper aristocracy, by whom he was received with a distinction due to his virtues; he was also a

man of considerable wealth. When the two belated guests arrived, Jacquelin said to them as he saw them

No doubt the assembled stomachs were impatient; for on the appearance of the register of mortgageswho

had no defect except that of having married for her money an intolerable old woman, and of perpetrating

endless puns, at which he was the first to laughthe gentle murmur by which such latecomers are

welcomed arose. While awaiting the official announcement of dinner, the company were sauntering on the

terrace above the river, and gazing at the waterplants, the mosaic of the currents, and the various pretty

details of the houses clustering across the river, their old wooden galleries, their mouldering window

frames, their little gardens where clothes were drying, the cabinet maker's shop,in short, the many details

of a small community to which the vicinity of a river, a weeping willow, flowers, rosebushes, added a

The chevalier studied all faces, for he knew that his firebrand had been very successfully introduced into the

chief houses of the place. But no one as yet referred openly to the great news of Suzanne and du Bousquier.

Provincials possess in the highest degree the art of distilling gossip; the right moment for openly discussing

this strange affair had not arrived; it was first necessary that all present should put themselves on record. So

This was the PIANO of the scandal; the RINFORZANDO would break forth as soon as the first course had

been removed. Suddenly Monsieur de Valois's eyes lighted on Madame Granson, arrayed in her green hat

with bunches of auriculas, and beaming with evident joy. Was it merely the joy of opening the concert?

Though such a piece of news was like a gold mine to work in the monotonous lives of these personages, the

observant and distrustful chevalier thought he recognized in the worthy woman a far more extended

sentiment; namely, the joy caused by the triumph of selfinterest. Instantly he turned to examine Athanase,

and detected him in the significant silence of deep meditation. Presently, a look cast by the young man on

Mademoiselle Cormon carried to the soul of the chevalier a sudden gleam. That momentary flash of lightning

Monsieur de Valois now approached Mademoiselle Cormon, and offered his arm. The old maid's feeling to

the chevalier was that of respectful consideration; and certainly his name, together with the position he

occupied among the aristocratic constellations of the department made him the most brilliant ornament of her

salon. In her inmost mind Mademoiselle Cormon had wished for the last dozen years to become Madame de

Valois. That name was like the branch of a tree, to which the ideas which SWARMED in her mind about

rank, nobility, and the external qualities of a husband had fastened. But, though the Chevalier de Valois was

the man chosen by her heart, and mind, and ambition, that elderly ruin, combed and curled like a little Saint

John in a procession, alarmed Mademoiselle Cormon. She saw the gentleman in him, but she could not see a

husband. The indifference which the chevalier affected as to marriage, above all, the apparent purity of his

morals in a house which abounded in grisettes, did singular harm in her mind to Monsieur de Valois against

his expectations. The worthy man, who showed such judgment in the matter of his annuity, was at fault here.

Without being herself aware of it, the thoughts of Mademoiselle Cormon on the too virtuous chevalier might

Observers of the human heart have remarked the leaning of pious women toward scamps; some have

expressed surprise at this taste, considering it opposed to Christian virtue. But, in the first place, what nobler

destiny can you offer to a virtuous woman than to purify, like charcoal, the muddy waters of vice? How is it

some observers fail to see that these noble creatures, obliged by the sternness of their own principles never to

infringe on conjugal fidelity, must naturally desire a husband of wider practical experience than their own?

The scamps of social life are great men in love. Thus the poor woman groaned in spirit at finding her chosen

vessel parted into two pieces. God alone could solder together a Chevalier de Valois and a du Bousquier.

In order to explain the importance of the few words which the chevalier and Mademoiselle Cormon are about

to say to each other, it is necessary to reveal two serious matters which agitated the town, and about which

opinions were divided; besides, du Bousquier was mysteriously connected with them.

One concerns the rector of Alencon, who had formerly taken the constitutional oath, and who was now

conquering the repugnance of the Catholics by a display of the highest virtues. He was Cheverus on a small

scale, and became in time so fully appreciated that when he died the whole town mourned him. Mademoiselle

Cormon and the Abbe de Sponde belonged to that "little Church," sublime in its orthodoxy, which was to the

court of Rome what the Ultras were to be to Louis XVIII. The abbe, more especially, refused to recognize a

Church which had compromised with the constitutionals. The rector was therefore not received in the

Cormon household, whose sympathies were all given to the curate of SaintLeonard, the aristocratic parish

of Alencon. Du Bousquier, that fanatic liberal now concealed under the skin of a royalist, knowing how

necessary rallying points are to all discontents (which are really at the bottom of all oppositions), had drawn

the sympathies of the middle classes around the rector. So much for the first case; the second was this:

Under the secret inspiration of du Bousquier the idea of building a theatre had dawned on Alencon. The

henchmen of the purveyor did not know their Mohammed; and they thought they were ardent in carrying out

their own conception. Athanase Granson was one of the warmest partisans for the theatre; and of late he had

urged at the mayor's office a cause which all the other young clerks had eagerly adopted.

The chevalier, as we have said, offered his arm to the old maid for a turn on the terrace. She accepted it, not

without thanking him by a happy look for this attention, to which the chevalier replied by motioning toward

"Mademoiselle," he began, "you have so much sense and judgment in social proprieties, and also, you are

"Ought you not," he continued, "to use the influence you have over his mother and over himself by saving

him from perdition? He is not very religious, as you know; indeed he approves of the rector; but that is not

all; there is something far more serious; isn't he throwing himself headlong into an opposition without

considering what influence his present conduct may exert upon his future? He is working for the construction

of a theatre. In this affair he is simply the dupe of that disguised republican du Bousquier"

"Good gracious! Monsieur de Valois," she replied; "his mother is always telling me he has so much mind,

"Which doesn't think at all!" cried the recorder of mortgages. "I caught your words on the fly. I present my

compliments to Monsieur de Valois," he added, bowing to that gentleman with much emphasis.

The chevalier returned the salutation stiffly, and drew Mademoiselle Cormon toward some flowerpots at a

little distance, in order to show the interrupter that he did not choose to be spied upon.

"How is it possible," he continued, lowering his voice, and leaning towards Mademoiselle Cormon's ear, "that

a young man brought up in those detestable lyceums should have ideas? Only sound morals and noble habits

will ever produce great ideas and a true love. It is easy to see by a mere look at him that the poor lad is likely

to be imbecile, and come, perhaps, to some sad end. See how pale and haggard he is!"

"His mother declares he works too hard," replied the old maid, innocently. "He sits up late, and for what?

reading books and writing! What business ought to require a young man to write at night?"

"It exhausts him," replied the chevalier, trying to bring the old maid's thoughts back to the ground where he

hoped to inspire her with horror for her youthful lover. "The morals of those Imperial lyceums are really

"Oh, yes!" said the ingenuous creature. "They march the pupils about with drums at their head. The masters

have no more religion than pagans. And they put the poor lads in uniform, as if they were troops. What

"And behold the product!" said the chevalier, motioning to Athanase. "In my day, young men were not so shy

of looking at a pretty woman. As for him, he drops his eyes whenever he sees you. That young man frightens

me because I am really interested in him. Tell him not to intrigue with the Bonapartists, as he is now doing

about that theatre. When all these petty folks cease to ask for it insurrectionally, which to my mind is the

synonym of constitutionally,the government will build it. Besides which, tell his mother to keep an eye on

"Oh, I'm sure she will prevent him from seeing those halfpay, questionable people. I'll talk to her," said

Mademoiselle Cormon, "for he might lose his place in the mayor's office; and then what would he and his

As Monsieur de Talleyrand said of his wife, so the chevalier said to himself, looking at Mademoiselle

"Find me another as stupid! Good powers! isn't virtue which drives out intellect vice? But what an adorable

Remember that this monologue, addressed to the Princess Goritza, was mentally uttered while he took a

Madame Granson had divined that the chevalier was talking about Athanase. Eager to know the result of the

conversation, she followed Mademoiselle Cormon, who was now approaching the young man with much

dignity. But at this moment Jacquelin appeared to announce that mademoiselle was served. The old maid

gave a glance of appeal to the chevalier; but the gallant recorder of mortgages, who was beginning to see in

the manners of that gentleman the barrier which the provincial nobles were setting up about this time between

themselves and the bourgeoisie, made the most of his chance to cut out Monsieur de Valois. He was close to

Mademoiselle Cormon, and promptly offered his arm, which she found herself compelled to accept. The

"Mademoiselle Cormon, my dear lady," he said to her, walking slowly after all the other guests, "feels the

liveliest interest in your dear Athanase; but I fear it will vanish through his own fault. He is irreligious and

liberal; he is agitating this matter of the theatre; he frequents the Bonapartists; he takes the side of that rector.

Such conduct may make him lose his place in the mayor's office. You know with what care the government is

beginning to weed out such opinions. If your dear Athanase loses his place, where can he find other

employment? I advise him not to get himself in bad odor with the administration."

"Monsieur le Chevalier," said the poor frightened mother, "how grateful I am to you! You are right: my son is

The chevalier had long since fathomed the nature of Athanase, and recognized in it that unyielding element of

republican convictions to which in his youth a young man is willing to sacrifice everything, carried away by

the word "liberty," so illdefined and so little understood, but which to persons disdained by fate is a banner

of revolt; and to such, revolt is vengeance. Athanase would certainly persist in that faith, for his opinions

were woven in with his artistic sorrows, with his bitter contemplation of the social state. He was ignorant of

the fact that at thirtysix years of age,the period of life when a man has judged men and social interests

and relations,the opinions for which he was ready to sacrifice his future would be modified in him, as they

are in all men of real superiority. To remain faithful to the Left side of Alencon was to gain the aversion of

Thus we see that this society, so peaceful in appearance, was internally as agitated as any diplomatic circle,

where craft, ability, and passions group themselves around the grave questions of an empire. The guests were

now seated at the table laden with the first course, which they ate as provincials eat, without shame at

possessing a good appetite, and not as in Paris, where it seems as if jaws gnashed under sumptuary laws,

which made it their business to contradict the laws of anatomy. In Paris people eat with their teeth, and trifle

with their pleasure; in the provinces things are done naturally, and interest is perhaps rather too much

concentrated on the grand and universal means of existence to which God has condemned his creatures.

It was at the end of the first course that Mademoiselle Cormon made the most celebrated of her "speeches"; it

was talked about for fully two years, and is still told at the gatherings of the lesser bourgeoisie whenever the

The conversation, becoming lively as the penultimate entree was reached, had turned naturally on the affair

of the theatre and the constitutionally sworn rector. In the first fervor of royalty, during the year 1816, those

who later were called Jesuits were all for the expulsion of the Abbe Francois from his parish. Du Bousquier,

suspected by Monsieur de Valois of sustaining the priest and being at the bottom of the theatre intrigues, and

on whose back the adroit chevalier would in any case have put those sins with his customary cleverness, was

in the dock with no lawyer to defend him. Athanase, the only guest loyal enough to stand by du Bousquier,

had not the nerve to emit his ideas in the presence of those potentates of Alencon, whom in his heart he

thought stupid. None but provincial youths now retain a respectful demeanor before men of a certain age, and

dare neither to censure nor contradict them. The talk, diminished under the effect of certain delicious ducks

dressed with olives, was falling flat. Mademoiselle Cormon, feeling the necessity of maintaining it against

her own ducks, attempted to defend du Bousquier, who was being represented as a pernicious fomenter of

"As for me," she said, "I thought that Monsieur du Bousquier cared chiefly for childish things."

Under existing circumstances the remark had enormous success. Mademoiselle Cormon obtained a great

triumph; she brought the nose of the Princess Goritza flat on the table. The chevalier, who little expected such

an apt remark from his Dulcinea, was so amazed that he could at first find no words to express his

admiration; he applauded noiselessly, as they do at the Opera, tapping his fingers together to imitate applause.

"She is adorably witty," he said to Madame Granson. "I always said that some day she would unmask her

The Homeric laugh thus raised having subsided, Mademoiselle Cormon asked the reason of her success. Then

began the FORTE of the gossip. Du Bousquier was depicted as a species of celibate Pere Gigogne, a monster,

who for the last fifteen years had kept the Foundling Hospital supplied. His immoral habits were at last

revealed! these Parisian saturnalias were the result of them, etc., etc. Conducted by the Chevalier de Valois, a

most able leader of an orchestra of this kind, the opening of the CANCAN was magnificent.

"I really don't know," he said, "what should hinder a du Bousquier from marrying a Mademoiselle Suzanne

What'shername. What IS her name, do you know? Suzette! Though I have lodgings at Madame Lardot's, I

know her girls only by sight. If this Suzette is a tall, fine, saucy girl, with gray eyes, a slim waist, and a pretty

foot, whom I have occasionally seen, and whose behavior always seemed to me extremely insolent, she is far

superior in manners to du Bousquier. Besides, the girl has the nobility of beauty; from that point of view the

marriage would be a poor one for her; she might do better. You know how the Emperor Joseph had the

curiosity to see the du Barry at Luciennes. He offered her his arm to walk about, and the poor thing was so

surprised at the honor that she hesitated to accept it: 'Beauty is ever a queen,' said the Emperor. And he, you

know, was an AustrianGerman," added the chevalier. "But I can tell you that Germany, which is thought

here very rustic, is a land of noble chivalry and fine manners, especially in Poland and Hungary, where"

Here the chevalier stopped, fearing to slip into some allusion to his personal happiness; he took out his

snuffbox, and confided the rest of his remarks to the princess, who had smiled upon him for thirtysix years

"But it was, I think, the Emperor Joseph who made it, and not Louis XV.," remarked Mademoiselle Cormon,

"Mademoiselle," said the chevalier, observing the malicious glance exchanged between the judge, the notary,

and the recorder, "Madame du Barry was the Suzanne of Louis XV.,a circumstance well known to scamps

like ourselves, but unsuitable for the knowledge of young ladies. Your ignorance proves you to be a flawless

The Abbe de Sponde looked graciously at the Chevalier de Valois, and nodded his head in sign of his

"If you mix up Louis XV. and this girl Suzanne, how am I to know history?" replied Mademoiselle Cormon,

angelically, glad to see that the dish of ducks was empty at last, and the conversation so ready to revive that

"Poor girl!" said the Abbe de Sponde. "When a great misfortune happens, charity, which is divine love, and

as blind as pagan love, ought not to look into the causes of it. Niece, you are president of the Maternity

Society; you must succor that poor girl, who will now find it difficult to marry."

"If he is an honorable man he ought to do so," said Madame Granson; "but really, to tell the truth, my dog has

"Azor is, however, a good purveyor," said the recorder of mortgages, with the air of saying a witty thing.

At dessert du Bousquier was still the topic of conversation, having given rise to various little jokes which the

wine rendered sparkling. Following the example of the recorder, each guest capped his neighbor's joke with

another: Du Bousquier was a father, but not a confessor; he was father less; he was father LY; he was not a

"Nor can he be a fosterfather," said the Abbe de Sponde, with a gravity which stopped the laughter.

The Church and the nobility descended thus into the arena of puns, without, however, losing their dignity.

"Hush!" exclaimed the recorder of mortgages. "I hear the creaking of du Bousquier's boots."

It usually happens that a man is ignorant of rumors that are afloat about him. A whole town may be talking of

his affairs; may calumniate and decry him, but if he has no good friends, he will know nothing about it. Now

the innocent du Bousquier was superb in his ignorance. No one had told him as yet of Suzanne's revelations;

he therefore appeared very jaunty and slightly conceited when the company, leaving the diningroom,

returned to the salon for their coffee; several other guests had meantime assembled for the evening.

Mademoiselle Cormon, from a sense of shamefacedness, dared not look at the terrible seducer. She seized

upon Athanase, and began to lecture him with the queerest platitudes about royalist politics and religious

morality. Not possessing, like the Chevalier de Valois, a snuffbox adorned with a princess, by the help of

which he could stand this torrent of silliness, the poor poet listened to the words of her whom he loved with a

stupid air, gazing, meanwhile, at her enormous bust, which held itself before him in that still repose which is

the attribute of all great masses. His love produced in him a sort of intoxication which changed the shrill

voice of the old maid into a soft murmur, and her flat remarks into witty speeches. Love is a maker of false

coin, continually changing copper pennies into goldpieces, and sometimes turning its real gold into copper.

This final sentence struck the ear of the absorbed young man like one of those noises which wake us with a

Mademoiselle Cormon rose hastily, and looked at du Bousquier, who at that moment resembled the stout god

of Fable which the Republic stamped upon her coins. She walked up to Madame Granson, and said in her

"My dear friend, you son is an idiot. That lyceum has ruined him," she added, remembering the insistence

What a catastrophe! Unknown to himself, the luckless Athanase had had an occasion to fling an ember of his

own fire upon the pile of brush gathered in the heart of the old maid. Had he listened to her, he might have

made her, then and there, perceive his passion; for, in the agitated state of Mademoiselle Cormon's mind, a

single word would have sufficed. But that stupid absorption in his own sentiments, which characterizes

young and true love, had ruined him, as a child full of life sometimes kills itself out of ignorance.

"Nothing; well, I can explain that," she thought to herself, putting off till the next day all further reflection on

the matter, and attaching but little importance to Mademoiselle Cormon's words; for she fully believed that

du Bousquier was forever lost in the old maid's esteem after the revelation of that evening.

Soon the four tables were filled with their sixteen players. Four persons were playing piquet,an expensive

game, at which the most money was lost. Monsieur Choisnel, the procureurduroi, and two ladies went into

the boudoir for a game at backgammon. The glass lustres were lighted; and then the flower of Mademoiselle

Cormon's company gathered before the fireplace, on sofas, and around the tables, and each couple said to her

On this occasion the mistress of the house appeared preoccupied. Madame Granson was the first to perceive

the quite unnatural state of the old maid's mind,Mademoiselle Cormon was thinking!

"What are you thinking of, cousin?" she said at last, finding her seated in the boudoir.

"I am thinking," she replied, "of that poor girl. As the president of the Maternity Society, I will give you fifty

"Fifty francs!" cried Madame Granson. "But you have never given as much as that."

That immoral speech coming from the heart of the old maid staggered the treasurer of the Maternity Society.

"Upon my word," said Madame Granson, "du Bousquier is not only a monster, he is a villain. When a man

has done a wrong like that, he ought to pay the indemnity. Isn't it his place rather than ours to look after the

girl?who, to tell you the truth, seems to me rather questionable; there are plenty of better men in Alencon

than that cynic du Bousquier. A girl must be depraved, indeed, to go after him."

"Cynic! Your son teaches you to talk Latin, my dear, which is wholly incomprehensible. Certainly I don't

wish to excuse Monsieur du Bousquier; but pray explain to me why a woman is depraved because she prefers

"My dear cousin, suppose you married my son Athanase; nothing could be more natural. He is young and

handsome, full of promise, and he will be the glory of Alencon; and yet everybody will exclaim against you:

evil tongues will say all sorts of things; jealous women will accuse you of depravity,but what will that

matter? you will be loved, and loved truly. If Athanase seemed to you an idiot, my dear, it is that he has too

many ideas; extremes meet. He lives the life of a girl of fifteen; he has never wallowed in the impurities of

Paris, not he! Well, change the terms, as my poor husband used to say; it is the same thing with du Bousquier

in connection with Suzanne. YOU would be calumniated; but in the case of du Bousquier, the charge would

"No more than if you were talking Greek," replied Mademoiselle Cormon, who opened her eyes wide, and

"Well, cousin, if I must dot all the i's, it is impossible for Suzanne to love du Bousquier. And if the heart

Here Madame Granson said to herself, as the chevalier had previously thought: "My poor cousin is altogether

too innocent; such stupidity passes all bounds!Dear child," she continued aloud, "it seems to me that

"True," said the old maid; "he is a man!a man whose personal appearance makes him dangerous enough

"By not receiving him in your house until he marries. You owe it to good morals and to religion to manifest

"On my return from Prebaudet we will talk further of this, my dear Madame Granson. I will consult my uncle

and the Abbe Couturier," said Mademoiselle Cormon, returning to the salon, where the animation was now at

The lights, the group of women in their best clothes, the solemn tone, the dignified air of the assembly, made

Mademoiselle Cormon not a little proud of her company. To many persons nothing better could be seen in

At this moment du Bousquier, who was playing whist with the chevalier and two old ladies,Madame du

Coudrai and Madame du Ronceret,was the object of deep but silent curiosity. A few young women

arrived, who, under pretext of watching the game, gazed fixedly at him in so singular a manner, though slyly,

that the old bachelor began to think that there must be some deficiency in his toilet.

"Can my false front be crooked?" he asked himself, seized by one of those anxieties which beset old

He took advantage of a lost trick, which ended a seventh rubber, to rise and leave the table.

That speech naturally made the rounds of the salon, where every one exclaimed on the exquisite taste of the

Du Bousquier went to look at himself in a little oblong mirror, placed above the "Deserter," but he saw

After innumerable repetitions of the same text, varied in all keys, the departure of the company took place

about ten o'clock, through the long antechamber, Mademoiselle Cormon conducting certain of her favorite

guests to the portico. There the groups parted; some followed the Bretagne road towards the chateau; the

others went in the direction of the river Sarthe. Then began the usual conversation, which for twenty years

had echoed at that hour through this particular street of Alencon. It was invariably:

"How that poor abbe fails! Did you notice that he slept? He does not know what cards he holds; he is getting

"You beat us; but when you play with Monsieur de Valois you never do otherwise."

"True; and don't you know there are three hundred and sixtyfive days a year? At that price his gains are the

"Here you are at home, monsieur and madame, how lucky you are, while we have half the town to cross!"

"I don't pity you; you could afford a carriage, and dispense with the fatigue of going on foot."

"Ah, monsieur! we have a daughter to marry, which takes off one wheel, and the support of our son in Paris

"What else can be done with a young man? Besides, there's no shame in serving the king."

Sometimes a discussion on ciders and flax, always couched in the same terms, and returning at the same time

of year, was continued on the homeward way. If any observer of human customs had lived in this street, he

would have known the months and seasons by simply overhearing the conversations.

On this occasion it was exclusively jocose; for du Bousquier, who chanced to march alone in front of the

groups, was humming the well known air,little thinking of its appropriateness,"Tender woman! hear

the warble of the birds," etc. To some, du Bousquier was a strong man and a misjudged man. Ever since he

had been confirmed in his present office by a royal decree, Monsieur du Ronceret had been in favor of du

Bousquier. To others the purveyor seemed dangerous,a man of bad habits, capable of anything. In the

provinces, as in Paris, men before the public eye are like that statue in the fine allegorical tale of Addison, for

which two knights on arriving near it fought; for one saw it white, the other saw it black. Then, when they

were both off their horses, they saw it was white one side and black the other. A third knight coming along

"It is high time now to spread a rumor of my marriage with Mademoiselle Cormon. It will leak out from the

d'Esgrignon salon, and go straight to the bishop at Seez, and so get round through the grand vicars to the

curate of SaintLeonard's, who will be certain to tell it to the Abbe Couturier; and Mademoiselle Cormon

will get the shot in her upper works. The old Marquis d'Esgrignon shall invite the Abbe de Sponde to dinner,

so as to stop all gossip about Mademoiselle Cormon if I decide against her, or about me if she refuses me.

The abbe shall be well cajoled; and Mademoiselle Cormon will certainly not hold out against a visit from

Mademoiselle Armande, who will show her the grandeur and future chances of such an alliance. The abbe's

property is undoubtedly as much as three hundred thousand; her own savings must amount to more than two

hundred thousand; she has her house and Prebaudet and fifteen thousand francs a year. A word to my friend

the Comte de Fontaine, and I should be mayor of Alencon tomorrow, and deputy. Then, once seated on the

As soon as she reached home Madame Granson had a lively argument with her son, who could not be made

to see the connection which existed between his love and his political opinions. It was the first quarrel that

The next day, Mademoiselle Cormon, packed into the old carriole with Josette, and looking like a pyramid on

a vast sea of parcels, drove up the rue SaintBlaise on her way to Prebaudet, where she was overtaken by an

event which hurried on her marriage,an event entirely unlooked for by either Madame Granson, du

Bousquier, Monsieur de Valois, or Mademoiselle Cormon himself. Chance is the greatest of all artificers.

The day after her arrival at Prebaudet, she was innocently employed, about eight o'clock in the morning, in

listening, as she breakfasted, to the various reports of her keeper and her gardener, when Jacquelin made a

"Mademoiselle," he cried, out of breath, "Monsieur l'abbe sends you an express, the son of Mere Grosmort,

with a letter. The lad left Alencon before daylight, and he has just arrived; he ran like Penelope! Can't I give

"Quick! quick!" cried Mademoiselle Cormon, as soon as she had read the first lines. "Tell Jacquelin to

harness Penelope Get ready, Josette; pack up everything in half an hour. We must go back to town"

"Jacquelin!" called Josette, excited by the sentiment she saw on her mistress's face.

"The house is on fire!" muttered Josette, piqued at the silence her mistress kept as to the contents of the letter,

"Finish your coffee, at any rate, mademoiselle; don't excite your blood; just see how red you are."

"Am I red, Josette?" she said, going to a mirror, from which the quicksilver was peeling, and which presented

"Good heavens!" thought Mademoiselle Cormon, "suppose I should look ugly! Come, Josette; come, my

dear, dress me at once; I want to be ready before Jacquelin has harnessed Penelope. If you can't pack my

If you have thoroughly comprehended the positive monomania to which the desire of marriage had brought

Mademoiselle Cormon, you will share her emotion. The worthy uncle announced in this sudden missive that

Monsieur de Troisville, of the Russian army during the Emigration, grandson of one of his best friends, was

desirous of retiring to Alencon, and asked his, the abbe's hospitality, on the ground of his friendship for his

grandfather, the Vicomte de Troisville. The old abbe, alarmed at the responsibility, entreated his niece to

return instantly and help him to receive this guest, and do the honors of the house; for the viscount's letter had

After reading this missive could there be a question of the demands of Prebaudet? The keeper and the

gardener, witnesses to Mademoiselle Cormon's excitement, stood aside and awaited her orders. But when, as

she was about to leave the room, they stopped her to ask for instructions, for the first time in her life the

despotic old maid, who saw to everything at Prebaudet with her own eyes, said, to their stupefaction, "Do

what you like." This from a mistress who carried her administration to the point of counting her fruits, and

marking them so as to order their consumption according to the number and condition of each!

"I believe I'm dreaming," thought Josette, as she saw her mistress flying down the staircase like an elephant

Presently, in spite of a driving rain, Mademoiselle Cormon drove away from Prebaudet, leaving her

factotums with the reins on their necks. Jacquelin dared not take upon himself to hasten the usual little trot of

the peaceable Penelope, who, like the beautiful queen whose name she bore, had an appearance of making as

many steps backward as she made forward. Impatient with the pace, mademoiselle ordered Jacquelin in a

sharp voice to drive at a gallop, with the whip, if necessary, to the great astonishment of the poor beast, so

afraid was she of not having time to arrange the house suitably to receive Monsieur de Troisville. She

calculated that the grandson of her uncle's friend was probably about forty years of age; a soldier just from

service was undoubtedly a bachelor; and she resolved, her uncle aiding, not to let Monsieur de Troisville quit

their house in the condition he entered it. Though Penelope galloped, Mademoiselle Cormon, absorbed in

thoughts of her trousseau and the weddingday, declared again and again that Jacquelin made no way at all.

She twisted about in the carriole without replying to Josette's questions, and talked to herself like a person

The carriole at last arrived in the main street of Alencon, called the rue SaintBlaise at the end toward

Montagne, but near the hotel du More it takes the name of the rue de la PortedeSeez, and becomes the rue

du Bercail as it enters the road to Brittany. If the departure of Mademoiselle Cormon made a great noise in

Alencon, it is easy to imagine the uproar caused by her sudden return on the following day, in a pouring rain

which beat her face without her apparently minding it. Penelope at a full gallop was observed by every one,

and Jacquelin's grin, the early hour, the parcels stuffed into the carriole topsyturvy, and the evident

The property of the house of Troisville lay between Alencon and Mortagne. Josette knew the various

branches of the family. A word dropped by mademoiselle as they entered Alencon had put Josette on the

scent of the affair; and a discussion having started between them, it was settled that the expected de Troisville

must be between forty and fortytwo years of age, a bachelor, and neither rich nor poor. Mademoiselle

"And to think that my uncle told me nothing! thinks of nothing! inquires nothing! That's my uncle all over.

Have you never remarked that, under circumstances such as these, old maids become, like Richard III.,

keenwitted, fierce, bold, promissory,if one may so use the word,and, like inebriate clerks, no longer in

Immediately the town of Alencon, speedily informed from the farther end of the rue de SaintBlaise to the

gate of Seez of this precipitate return, accompanied by singular circumstances, was perturbed throughout its

viscera, both public and domestic. Cooks, shopkeepers, street passengers, told the news from door to door;

thence it rose to the upper regions. Soon the words: "Mademoiselle Cormon has returned!" burst like a

bombshell into all households. At that moment Jacquelin was descending from his wooden seat (polished by

a process unknown to cabinetmakers), on which he perched in front of the carriole. He opened the great

green gate, round at the top, and closed in sign of mourning; for during Mademoiselle Cormon's absence the

evening assemblies did not take place. The faithful invited the Abbe de Sponde to their several houses; and

Monsieur de Valois paid his debt by inviting him to dine at the Marquis d'Esgrignon's. Jacquelin, having

opened the gate, called familiarly to Penelope, whom he had left in the middle of the street. That animal,

accustomed to this proceeding, turned in of herself, and circled round the courtyard in a manner to avoid

injuring the flowerbed. Jacquelin then took her bridle, and led the carriage to the portico.

Jacquelin and Josette were by this time on the first step of the portico, holding out their hands to manoeuvre

the exit of their mistress from the carriole as she pulled herself up by the sides of the vehicle and clung to the

curtains. Mademoiselle then threw herself into their arms; because for the last two years she dared not risk

her weight on the iron step, affixed to the frame of the carriage by a horrible mechanism of clumsy bolts.

When Mademoiselle Cormon reached the level of the portico she looked about her courtyard with an air of

"There's something in the wind," whispered Jacquelin, as Mariette passed the carriole.

"Mariette, what provisions have you in the house?" asked Mademoiselle Cormon, sitting down on the bench

"I haven't anything," replied Mariette, with her hands on her hips. "Mademoiselle knows very well that

during her absence Monsieur l'abbe dines out every day. Yesterday I went to fetch him from Mademoiselle

"He thinks of nothing! he ought to have told you to go to market. Mariette, go at once; and without wasting

money, don't spare it; get all there is that is good and delicate. Go to the diligence office and see if you can

"Good heavens! Mariette, don't stop to chatter. The person my uncle expects may arrive at any moment. If we

Mariette turned back to Penelope in a lather, and looked at Jacquelin as if she would say, "Mademoiselle has

"Now, Josette," continued the old maid, "let us see where we had better put Monsieur de Troisville to sleep."

With what joy she said the words, "Put Monsieur de Troisville" (pronounced Treville) "to sleep." How many

"The bishop's room? No; that's too near mine," said Mademoiselle Cormon. "All very well for monseigneur;

"Well, then, mademoiselle, why not arrange a bed in your boudoir? It is easily done; and there's a fireplace.

"You are right, Josette. Go yourself to Moreau; consult with him what to do; I authorize you to get what is

wanted. If the bed could be put up tonight without Monsieur de Troisville observing it (in case Monsieur de

Troisville arrives while Moreau is here), I should like it. If Moreau won't engage to do this, then I must put

Monsieur de Troisville in the green room, although Monsieur de Troisville would be so very near to me."

"Stop! explain the matter to Jacquelin," she cried, in a loud nervous tone. "Tell HIM to go to Moreau; I must

be dressed! Fancy if Monsieur de Troisville surprised me as I am now! and my uncle not here to receive him!

"Always Penelope! Penelope this, Penelope that! Is Penelope the mistress of this house?"

"Then let her starve!" cried Mademoiselle Cormon; "provided I marry," she thought to herself.

Hearing these words, which seemed to her like homicide, Josette stood still for a moment, speechless. Then,

Thus all things conspired on this fateful day to produce the great scenic effect which decided the future life of

Mademoiselle Cormon. The town was already topsyturvy in mind, as a consequence of the five

extraordinary circumstances which accompanied Mademoiselle Cormon's return; to wit, the pouring rain;

Penelope at a gallop, in a lather, and blown; the early hour; the parcels halfpacked; and the singular air of

the excited old maid. But when Mariette made an invasion of the market, and bought all the best things; when

Jacquelin went to the principal upholsterer in Alencon, two doors from the church, in search of a bed,there

was matter for the gravest conjectures. These extraordinary events were discussed on all sides; they occupied

the minds of every one, even Mademoiselle Armande herself, with whom was Monsieur de Valois. Within

two days the town of Alencon had been agitated by such startling events that certain good women were heard

to remark that the world was coming to an end. This last news, however, resolved itself into a single question,

The Abbe de Sponde, adroitly questioned when he left SaintLeonard's to take his daily walk with the Abbe

Couturier, replied with his usual kindliness that he expected the Vicomte de Troisville, a nobleman in the

service of Russia during the Emigration, who was returning to Alencon to settle there. From two to five

o'clock a species of labial telegraphy went on throughout the town; and all the inhabitants learned that

Mademoiselle Cormon had at last found a husband by letter, and was about to marry the Vicomte de

Troisville. Some said, "Moreau has sold them a bed." The bed was six feet wide in that quarter; it was four

feet wide at Madame Granson's, in the rue du Bercail; but it was reduced to a simple couch at Monsieur du

Ronceret's, where du Bousquier was dining. The lesser bourgeoisie declared that the cost was eleven hundred

francs. But generally it was thought that, as to this, rumor was counting the chickens before they were

hatched. In other quarters it was said that Mariette had made such a raid on the market that the price of carp

had risen. At the end of the rue SaintBlaise, Penelope had dropped dead. This decease was doubted in the

house of the receivergeneral; but at the Prefecture it was authenticated that the poor beast had expired as she

turned into the courtyard of the hotel Cormon, with such velocity had the old maid flown to meet her

husband. The harnessmaker, who lived at the corner of the rue de Seez, was bold enough to call at the house

and ask if anything had happened to Mademoiselle Cormon's carriage, in order to discover whether Penelope

was really dead. From the end of the rue SaintBlaise to the end of the rue du Bercail, it was then made

known that, thanks to Jacquelin's devotion, Penelope, that silent victim of her mistress's impetuosity, still

Along the road to Brittany the Vicomte de Troisville was stated to be a younger son without a penny, for the

estates in Perche belonged to the Marquis de Troisville, peer of France, who had children; the marriage would

be, therefore, an enormous piece of luck for a poor emigre. The aristocracy along that road approved of the

marriage; Mademoiselle Cormon could not do better with her money. But among the Bourgeoisie, the

Vicomte de Troisville was a Russian general who had fought against France, and was now returning with a

great fortune made at the court of SaintPetersburg; he was a FOREIGNER; one of those ALLIES so hated

by the liberals; the Abbe de Sponde had slyly negotiated this marriage. All the persons who had a right to call

During this transurban excitement, which made that of Suzanne almost a forgotten affair, Mademoiselle was

not less agitated; she was filled with a variety of novel emotions. Looking about her salon, dining room, and

boudoir, cruel apprehensions took possession of her. A species of demon showed her with a sneer her

oldfashioned luxury. The handsome things she had admired from her youth up she suddenly suspected of

age and absurdity. In short, she felt that fear which takes possession of nearly all authors when they read over

a work they have hitherto thought proof against every exacting or blase critic: new situations seem timeworn;

the bestturned and most highly polished phrases limp and squint; metaphors and images grin or contradict

each other; whatsoever is false strikes the eye. In like manner this poor woman trembled lest she should see

on the lips of Monsieur de Troisville a smile of contempt for this episcopal salon; she dreaded the cold look

he might cast over that ancient diningroom; in short, she feared the frame might injure and age the portrait.

Suppose these antiquities should cast a reflected light of old age upon herself? This question made her flesh

creep. She would gladly, at that moment, spend half her savings on refitting her house if some fairy wand

could do it in a moment. Where is the general who has not trembled on the eve of a battle? The poor woman

"Madame la Vicomtesse de Troisville," she said to herself; "a noble name! Our property will go to a good

She fell a prey to an irritation which made every fibre of her nerves quiver to all their papillae, long sunk in

flesh. Her blood, lashed by this new hope, was in motion. She felt the strength to converse, if necessary, with

It is useless to relate the activity with which Josette, Jacquelin, Mariette, Moreau, and his agents went about

their functions. It was like the busyness of ants about their eggs. All that daily care had already rendered neat

and clean was again gone over and brushed and rubbed and scrubbed. The china of ceremony saw the light;

the damask linen marked "A, B, C" was drawn from depths where it lay under a triple guard of wrappings,

still further defended by formidable lines of pins. Above all, Mademoiselle Cormon sacrificed on the altar of

her hopes three bottles of the famous liqueurs of Madame Amphoux, the most illustrious of all the distillers

of the tropics,a name very dear to gourmets. Thanks to the devotion of her lieutenants, mademoiselle was

soon ready for the conflict. The different weaponsfurniture, cookery, provisions, in short, all the various

munitions of war, together with a body of reserve forceswere ready along the whole line. Jacquelin,

Mariette, and Josette received orders to appear in full dress. The garden was raked. The old maid regretted

that she couldn't come to an understanding with the nightingales nesting in the trees, in order to obtain their

At last, about four o'clock, at the very moment when the Abbe de Sponde returned home, and just as

mademoiselle began to think she had set the table with the best plate and linen and prepared the choicest

True enough; heralded by all this gossip, a postchaise, in which was a single gentleman, made so great a

sensation coming down the rue SaintBlaise and turning into the rue du Cours that several little gamains and

some grown persons followed it, and stood in groups about the gate of the hotel Cormon to see it enter.

Jacquelin, who foresaw his own marriage in that of his mistress, had also heard the click clack in the rue

SaintBlaise, and had opened wide the gates into the courtyard. The postilion, a friend of his, took pride in

making a fine turnin, and drew up sharply before the portico. The abbe came forward to greet his guest,

whose carriage was emptied with a speed that highwaymen might put into the operation; the chaise itself was

rolled into the coachhouse, the gates closed, and in a few moments all signs of Monsieur de Troisville's

arrival had disappeared. Never did two chemicals blend into each other with greater rapidity than the hotel

Mademoiselle, whose heart was beating like a lizard caught by a herdsman, sat heroically still on her sofa,

beside the fire in the salon. Josette opened the door; and the Vicomte de Troisville, followed by the Abbe de

"Niece, this is Monsieur le Vicomte de Troisville, the grandson of one of my old schoolmates; Monsieur de

The Vicomte de Troisville was, to paint him in two words, du Bousquier ennobled. Between the two men

there was precisely the difference which separates the vulgar style from the noble style. If they had both been

present, the most fanatic liberal would not have denied the existence of aristocracy. The viscount's strength

had all the distinction of elegance; his figure had preserved its magnificent dignity. He had blue eyes, black

hair, an olive skin, and looked to be about fortysix years of age. You might have thought him a handsome

Spaniard preserved in the ice of Russia. His manner, carriage, and attitude, all denoted a diplomat who had

seen Europe. His dress was that of a wellbred traveller. As he seemed fatigued, the abbe offered to show

him to his room, and was much amazed when his niece threw open the door of the boudoir, transformed into

Mademoiselle Cormon and her uncle then left the noble stranger to attend to his own affairs, aided by

Jacquelin, who brought up his luggage, and went themselves to walk beside the river until their guest had

made his toilet. Although the Abbe de Sponde chanced to be even more absentminded than usual,

Mademoiselle Cormon was not less preoccupied. They both walked on in silence. The old maid had never

before met any man as seductive as this Olympean viscount. She might have said to herself, as the Germans

do, "This is my ideal!" instead of which she felt herself bound from head to foot, and could only say, "Here's

my affair!" Then she flew to Mariette to know if the dinner could be put back a while without loss of

"I'm sure I don't know," replied the abbe, who was thinking of a discussion on mercy, lately begun between

the Abbe Couturier and himself. "Monsieur de Troisville wrote me that he wanted to buy a house here. If he

was married, he wouldn't come alone on such an errand," added the abbe, carelessly, not conceiving the idea

"He is a younger son of the younger branch," replied her uncle. "His grandfather commanded a squadron, but

"Young man!" exclaimed the old maid. "It seems to me, uncle, that he must be at least fortyfive." She felt

"Yes," said the abbe; "but to a poor priest of seventy, Rose, a man of forty seems a youth."

All Alencon knew by this time that Monsieur de Troisville had arrived at the Cormons. The traveller soon

rejoined his hosts, and began to admire the Brillante, the garden, and the house.

"Monsieur l'abbe," he said, "my whole ambition is to have a house like this." The old maid fancied a

declaration lurked in that speech, and she lowered her eyes. "You must enjoy it very much, mademoiselle,"

"How could it be otherwise? It has been in our family since 1574, the period at which one of our ancestors,

steward to the Duc d'Alencon, acquired the land and built the house," replied Mademoiselle Cormon. "It is

Jacquelin announced dinner. Monsieur de Troisville offered his arm to the happy woman, who endeavored

not to lean too heavily upon it; she feared, as usual, to seem to make advances.

"Everything is so harmonious here," said the viscount, as he seated himself at table.

"Yes, our trees are full of birds, which give us concerts for nothing; no one ever frightens them; and the

"I was speaking of the interior of the house," remarked the viscount, who did not trouble himself to observe

Mademoiselle Cormon, and therefore did not perceive the dulness of her mind. "Everything is so in

"Ah! taxes are high, are they?" said the viscount, preoccupied with his own ideas.

"I don't know," replied the abbe. "My niece manages the property of each of us."

"Taxes are not of much importance to the rich," said Mademoiselle Cormon, not wishing to be thought

miserly. "As for the furniture, I shall leave it as it is, and change nothing,unless I marry; and then, of

"You have noble principles, mademoiselle," said the viscount, smiling. "You will make one happy man."

The viscount complimented Mademoiselle Cormon on the excellence of her service and the admirable

arrangements of the house, remarking that he had supposed the provinces behind the age in that respect; but,

"What can that word mean?" she thought. "Oh, where is the chevalier to explain it to me?

'Comfortable,'there seem to be several words in it. Well, courage!" she said to herself. "I can't be expected

to answer a foreign language But," she continued aloud, feeling her tongue untied by the eloquence which

nearly all human creatures find in momentous circumstances, "we have a very brilliant society here,

monsieur. It assembles at my house, and you shall judge of it this evening, for some of my faithful friends

have no doubt heard of my return and your arrival. Among them is the Chevalier de Valois, a seigneur of the

old court, a man of infinite wit and taste; then there is Monsieur le Marquis d'Esgrignon and Mademoiselle

Armande, his sister" (she bit her tongue with vexation),"a woman remarkable in her way," she added. "She

resolved to remain unmarried in order to leave all her fortune to her brother and nephew."

"Alencon is very gay," continued the old maid, now fairly launched. "There's much amusement: the

receivergeneral gives balls; the prefect is an amiable man; and Monseigneur the bishop sometimes honors

"Well, then," said the viscount, smiling, "I have done wisely to come back, like the hare, to die in my form."

The conversation continued on generalities. By one of those mysterious unknown and undefinable faculties,

Mademoiselle Cormon found in her brain, under the pressure of her desire to be agreeable, all the phrases and

opinions of the Chevalier de Valois. It was like a duel in which the devil himself pointed the pistol. Never

was any adversary better aimed at. The viscount was far too wellbred to speak of the excellence of the

dinner; but his silence was praise. As he drank the delicious wines which Jacquelin served to him profusely,

he seemed to feel he was with friends, and to meet them with pleasure; for the true connoisseur does not

applaud, he enjoys. He inquired the price of land, of houses, of estates; he made Mademoiselle Cormon

describe at length the confluence of the Sarthe and the Brillante; he expressed surprise that the town was

placed so far from the river, and seemed to be much interested in the topography of the place.

The silent abbe left his niece to throw the dice of conversation; and she truly felt that she pleased Monsieur

de Troisville, who smiled at her gracefully, and committed himself during this dinner far more than her most

eager suitors had ever done in ten days. Imagine, therefore, the little attentions with which he was petted; you

might have thought him a cherished lover, whose return brought joy to the household. Mademoiselle foresaw

the moment when the viscount wanted bread; she watched his every look; when he turned his head she

adroitly put upon his plate a portion of some dish he seemed to like; had he been a gourmand, she would

almost have killed him; but what a delightful specimen of the attentions she would show to a husband! She

did not commit the folly of depreciating herself; on the contrary, she set every sail bravely, ran up all her

flags, assumed the bearing of the queen of Alencon, and boasted of her excellent preserves. In fact, she fished

for compliments in speaking of herself, for she saw that she pleased the viscount; the truth being that her

At dessert she heard, not without emotions of delight, certain sounds in the antechamber and salon which

denoted the arrival of her usual guests. She called the attention of her uncle and Monsieur de Troisville to this

prompt attendance as a proof of the affection that was felt for her; whereas it was really the result of the

poignant curiosity which had seized upon the town. Impatient to show herself in all her glory, Mademoiselle

Cormon told Jacquelin to serve coffee and liqueurs in the salon, where he presently set out, in view of the

whole company, a magnificent liqueurstand of Dresden china which saw the light only twice a year. This

circumstance was taken note of by the company, standing ready to gossip over the merest trifle:

"The deuce!" muttered du Bousquier. "Actually Madame Amphoux's liqueurs, which they only serve at the

"Undoubtedly the marriage was arranged a year ago by letter," said the chiefjustice du Ronceret. "The

postmaster tells me his office has received letters postmarked Odessa for more than a year."

Madame Granson trembled. The Chevalier de Valois, though he had dined with the appetite of four men,

turned pale even to the left section of his face. Feeling that he was about to betray himself, he said hastily,

Mademoiselle Cormon appeared so radiant, so triumphant, that the company thought her handsome. This

extraordinary brilliancy was not the effect of sentiment only. Since early morning her blood had been

whirling tempestuously within her, and her nerves were agitated by the presentiment of some great crisis. It

required all these circumstances combined to make her so unlike herself. With what joy did she now make

her solemn presentation of the viscount to the chevalier, the chevalier to the viscount, and all Alencon to

By an accident wholly explainable, the viscount and chevalier, aristocrats by nature, came instantly into

unison; they recognized each other at once as men belonging to the same sphere. Accordingly, they began to

converse together, standing before the fireplace. A circle formed around them; and their conversation, though

uttered in a low voice, was listened to in religious silence. To give the effect of this scene it is necessary to

dramatize it, and to picture Mademoiselle Cormon occupied in pouring out the coffee of her imaginary suitor,

Monsieur de Valois. "Monsieur le vicomte has come, I am told, to settle in Alencon?"

Monsieur de Troisville. "Yes, monsieur, I am looking for a house." [Mademoiselle Cormon, cup in hand,

turns round.] "It must be a large house" [Mademoiselle Cormon offers him the cup] "to lodge my whole

Monsieur de Troisville. "Yes, for the last sixteen years, to a daughter of the Princess Scherbellof."

Mademoiselle Cormon fainted; du Bousquier, who saw her stagger, sprang forward and received her in his

arms; some one opened the door and allowed him to pass out with his enormous burden. The fiery republican,

instructed by Josette, found strength to carry the old maid to her bedroom, where he laid her out on the bed.

Josette, armed with scissors, cut the corset, which was terribly tight. Du Bousquier flung water on

Mademoiselle Cormon's face and bosom, which, released from the corset, overflowed like the Loire in flood.

The poor woman opened her eyes, saw du Bousquier, and gave a cry of modesty at the sight of him. Du

Bousquier retired at once, leaving six women, at the head of whom was Madame Granson, radiant with joy,

What had the Chevalier de Valois been about all this time? Faithful to his system, he had covered the retreat.

"That poor Mademoiselle Cormon," he said to Monsieur de Troisville, gazing at the assembly, whose

laughter was repressed by his cool aristocratic glances, "her blood is horribly out of order; she wouldn't be

"She came back this morning in the rain," said the Abbe de Sponde, "and she may have taken cold. It won't

"She told me yesterday she had not had one for three months, adding that she was afraid it would play her a

"Ha! so you are married?" said Jacquelin to himself as he looked at Monsieur de Troisville, who was quietly

The faithful servant espoused his mistress's disappointment; he divined it, and he promptly carried away the

liqueurs of Madame Amphoux, which were offered to a bachelor, and not to the husband of a Russian

All these details were noticed and laughed at. The Abbe de Sponde knew the object of Monsieur de

Troisville's journey; but, absentminded as usual, he forgot it, not supposing that his niece could have the

slightest interest in Monsieur de Troisville's marriage. As for the viscount, preoccupied with the object of his

journey, and, like many husbands, not eager to talk about his wife, he had had no occasion to say he was

Du Bousquier reappeared, and was questioned furiously. One of the six women came down soon after, and

announced that Mademoiselle Cormon was much better, and that the doctor had come. She intended to stay in

bed, as it was necessary to bleed her. The salon was now full. Mademoiselle Cormon's absence allowed the

ladies present to discuss the tragicomic sceneembellished, extended, historified, embroidered, wreathed,

colored, and adornedwhich had just taken place, and which, on the morrow, was destined to occupy all

"That good Monsieur du Bousquier! how well he carried you!" said Josette to her mistress. "He was really

Throughout the morning of the next day every circumstance of the late comedy was known in the household

of Alencon, andlet us say it to the shame of that town,they caused inextinguishable laughter. But on that

day Mademoiselle Cormon (much benefited by the bleeding) would have seemed sublime even to the boldest

scoffers, had they witnessed the noble dignity, the splendid Christian resignation which influenced her as she

gave her arm to her involuntary deceiver to go into breakfast. Cruel jesters! why could you not have seen her

"Madame de Troisville will have difficulty in finding a suitable house; do me the favor, monsieur, of

"But, mademoiselle, I have two sons and two daughters; we should greatly inconvenience you."

"I made you the same offer in the answer I wrote to your letter," said the abbe; "but you did not receive it."

The poor woman stopped. Josette sighed. Neither the viscount nor the abbe observed anything amiss. After

breakfast the Abbe de Sponde carried off his guest, as agreed upon the previous evening, to show him the

various houses in Alencon which could be bought, and the lots of lands on which he might build.

Left alone in the salon, Mademoiselle Cormon said to Josette, with a deeply distressed air, "My child, I am

"They don't know what they say, your gentlemen: sometimes they declare that he robbed the republic; he

"That girl has an amazing amount of sense," thought Mademoiselle Cormon, who remained alone, a prey to

She saw plainly that a prompt marriage was the only way to silence the town. This last checkmate, so

evidently mortifying, was of a nature to drive her into some extreme action; for persons deficient in mind find

difficulty in getting out of any path, either good or evil, into which they have entered.

Each of the two old bachelors had fully understood the situation in which Mademoiselle Cormon was about

to find herself; consequently, each resolved to call in the course of that morning to ask after her health, and

take occasion, in bachelor language, to "press his point." Monsieur de Valois considered that such an

occasion demanded a painstaking toilet; he therefore took a bath and groomed himself with extraordinary

care. For the first and last time Cesarine observed him putting on with incredible art a suspicion of rouge. Du

Bousquier, on the other hand, that coarse republican, spurred by a brisk will, paid no attention to his dress,

Such little things decide the fortunes of men, as they do of empires. Kellerman's charge at Marengo, Blucher's

arrival at Waterloo, Louis XIV.'s disdain for Prince Eugene, the rector of Denain,all these great causes of

fortune or catastrophe history has recorded; but no one ever profits by them to avoid the small neglects of

their own life. Consequently, observe what happens: the Duchesse de Langeais (see "History of the

Thirteen") makes herself a nun for the lack of ten minutes' patience; Judge Popinot (see "Commission in

Lunacy") puts off till the morrow the duty of examining the Marquis d'Espard; Charles Grandet (see "Eugenie

Grandet") goes to Paris from Bordeaux instead of returning by Nantes; and such events are called chance or

fatality! A touch of rouge carefully applied destroyed the hopes of the Chevalier de Valois; could that

nobleman perish in any other way? He had lived by the Graces, and he was doomed to die by their hand.

While the chevalier was giving this last touch to his toilet the rough du Bousquier was entering the salon of

the desolate old maid. This entrance produced a thought in Mademoiselle Cormon's mind which was

favorable to the republican, although in all other respects the Chevalier de Valois held the advantages.

"Mademoiselle, you will not, I trust, think my eagerness importunate. I could not trust to my stupid Rene to

"I am perfectly recovered," she replied, in a tone of emotion. "I thank you, Monsieur du Bousquier," she

added, after a slight pause, and in a significant tone of voice, "for the trouble you have taken, and for that

She remembered having been in his arms, and that again seemed to her an order from heaven. She had been

seen for the first time by a man with her laces cut, her treasures violently bursting from their casket.

Here Mademoiselle Cormon looked at du Bousquier as she had never yet looked at any man in the world.

Thus encouraged, the purveyor cast upon the old maid a glance which reached her heart.

"I would," he said, "that that moment had given me the right to keep you as mine forever" [she listened with a

delighted air]; "as you lay fainting upon that bed, you were enchanting. I have never in my life seen a more

beautiful person,and I have seen many handsome women. Plump ladies have this advantage: they are

"I fear you are making fun of me," said the old maid, "and that is not kind when all the town will probably

"As true as my name is du Bousquier, mademoiselle, I have never changed in my feelings toward you; and

The old maid's eyes were lowered. There was a moment of cruel silence for du Bousquier, and then

Mademoiselle Cormon decided on her course. She raised her eyelids; tears flowed from her eyes, and she

"If that is so, monsieur," she said, in a trembling voice, "promise me to live in a Christian manner, and not

oppose my religious customs, but to leave me the right to select my confessors, and I will grant you my

"But," she said, allowing him to kiss it, "one thing more I must require of you."

"Alas!" returned the old maid. "For my sake, I must ask you to take upon yourself a sin which I feel to be

enormous,for to lie is one of the capital sins. But you will confess it, will you not? We will do penance for

it together" [they looked at each other tenderly]. "Besides, it may be one of those lies which the Church

"Can she be as Suzanne says she is?" thought du Bousquier. "What luck! Well, mademoiselle, what is it?" he

"To say that this marriage has been agreed upon between us for the last six months."

"Charming woman," said the purveyor, in the tone of a man willing to devote himself, "such sacrifices can be

At this moment the door opened; the betrothed pair, looking round to see who entered, beheld the delightful,

She smiled at the chevalier, feeling a weight upon her heart. Monsieur de Valois, remarkably young and

seductive, had the air of a Lauzun re entering the apartments of the Grande Mademoiselle in the Palais

"Hey! dear du Bousquier," said he, in a jaunty tone, so sure was he of success, "Monsieur de Troisville and

"Faith!" said du Bousquier, "if the Vicomte de Troisville wants it, it it is his for forty thousand francs. It is

useless to me now. If mademoiselle will permitit must soon be known Mademoiselle, may I tell it?

Yes! Well, then, be the first, MY DEAR CHEVALIER, to hear" [Mademoiselle Cormon dropped her eyes]

"of the honor that mademoiselle has done me, the secret of which I have kept for some months. We shall be

married in a few days; the contract is already drawn, and we shall sign it tomorrow. You see, therefore, that

my house in the rue du Cygne is useless to me. I have been privately looking for a purchaser for some time;

and the Abbe de Sponde, who knew that fact, has naturally taken Monsieur de Troisville to see the house."

This falsehood bore such an appearance of truth that the chevalier was taken in by it. That "my dear

chevalier" was like the revenge taken by Peter the Great on Charles XII. at Pultawa for all his past defeats.

Du Bousquier revenged himself deliciously for the thousand little shafts he had long borne in silence; but in

his triumph he made a lively youthful gesture by running his hands through his hair, and in so doing

"I congratulate you both," said the chevalier, with an agreeable air; "and I wish that the marriage may end like

took a pinch of snuff. "But, monsieur," he added satirically, "you forgetthat you are wearing a false front."

Du Bousquier blushed. The false front was hanging half a dozen inches from his skull. Mademoiselle

Cormon raised her eyes, saw that skull in all its nudity, and lowered them, abashed. Du Bousquier cast upon

The chevalier thought he had recovered his advantage. But Mademoiselle Cormon was not a woman to

understand the connection which the chevalier intimated between his congratulatory wish and the false front.

Besides, even if she had comprehended it, her word was passed, her hand given. Monsieur de Valois saw at

once that all was lost. The innocent woman, with the two now silent men before her, wished, true to her sense

"Why not play a game of piquet together?" she said artlessly, without the slightest malice.

Du Bousquier smiled, and went, as the future master of the house, to fetch the piquet table. Whether the

Chevalier de Valois lost his head, or whether he wanted to stay and study the causes of his disaster and

remedy it, certain it is that he allowed himself to be led like a lamb to the slaughter. He had received the most

violent knockdown blow that ever struck a man; any nobleman would have lost his senses for less.

The Abbe de Sponde and the Vicomte de Troisville soon returned. Mademoiselle Cormon instantly rose,

hurried into the antechamber, and took her uncle apart to tell him her resolution. Learning that the house in

the rue du Cygne exactly suited the viscount, she begged her future husband to do her the kindness to tell him

that her uncle knew it was for sale. She dared not confide that lie to the abbe, fearing his absentmindedness.

The lie, however, prospered better than if it had been a virtuous action. In the course of that evening all

Alencon heard the news. For the last four days the town had had as much to think of as during the fatal days

of 1814 and 1815. Some laughed; others admitted the marriage. These blamed it; those approved it. The

middle classes of Alencon rejoiced; they regarded it as a victory. The next day, among friends, the Chevalier

"The Cormons end as they began; there's only a hand's breadth between a steward and a purveyor."

The news of Mademoiselle Cormon's choice stabbed poor Athanase Granson to the heart; but he showed no

outward sign of the terrible agitation within him. When he first heard of the marriage he was at the house of

the chiefjustice, du Ronceret, where his mother was playing boston. Madame Granson looked at her son in a

mirror, and thought him pale; but he had been so all day, for a vague rumor of the matter had already reached

Mademoiselle Cormon was the card on which Athanase had staked his life; and the cold presentiment of a

catastrophe was already upon him. When the soul and the imagination have magnified a misfortune and made

it too heavy for the shoulders and the brain to bear; when a hope long cherished, the realization of which

would pacify the vulture feeding on the heart, is balked, and the man has faith neither in himself, despite his

powers, nor in the future, despite of the Divine power, then that man is lost. Athanase was a fruit of the

Imperial system of education. Fatality, the Emperor's religion, had filtered down from the throne to the lowest

ranks of the army and the benches of the lyceums. Athanase sat still, with his eyes fixed on Madame du

Ronceret's cards, in a stupor that might so well pass for indifference that Madame Granson herself was

deceived about his feelings. This apparent unconcern explained her son's refusal to make a sacrifice for this

marriage of his LIBERAL opinions,the term "liberal" having lately been created for the Emperor

After that fatal evening the young man took to rambling among the picturesque regions of the Sarthe, the

banks of which are much frequented by sketchers who come to Alencon for points of view. Windmills are

there, and the river is gay in the meadows. The shores of the Sarthe are bordered with beautiful trees, well

grouped. Though the landscape is flat, it is not without those modest graces which distinguish France, where

the eye is never wearied by the brilliancy of Oriental skies, nor saddened by constant fog. The place is

solitary. In the provinces no one pays much attention to a fine view, either because provincials are blases on

the beauty around them, or because they have no poesy in their souls. If there exists in the provinces a mall, a

promenade, a vantageground from which a fine view can be obtained, that is the point to which no one goes.

Athanase was fond of this solitude, enlivened by the sparkling water, where the fields were the first to green

under the earliest smiling of the springtide sun. Those persons who saw him sitting beneath a poplar, and who

"I know what it is," the mother would reply; hinting that he was meditating over some great work.

Athanase no longer took part in politics: he ceased to have opinions; but he appeared at times quite

gay,gay with the satire of those who think to insult a whole world with their own individual scorn. This

young man, outside of all the ideas and all the pleasures of the provinces, interested few persons; he was not

even an object of curiosity. If persons spoke of him to his mother, it was for her sake, not his. There was not a

single soul in Alencon that sympathized with his; not a woman, not a friend came near to dry his tears; they

dropped into the Sarthe. If the gorgeous Suzanne had happened that way, how many young miseries might

She did come, however. Suzanne's ambition was early excited by the tale of a strange adventure which had

happened at the tavern of the More,a tale which had taken possession of her childish brain. A Parisian

woman, beautiful as the angels, was sent by Fouche to entangle the Marquis de Montauran, otherwise called

"The Gars," in a loveaffair (see "The Chouans"). She met him at the tavern of the More on his return from

an expedition to Mortagne; she cajoled him, made him love her, and then betrayed him. That fantastic

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

Garsdazzled Suzanne; she longed to grow up in order to play upon men. Some months after her hasty

departure she passed through her native town with an artist on his way to Brittany. She wanted to see

Fougeres, where the adventure of the Marquis de Montauran culminated, and to stand upon the scene of that

picturesque war, the tragedies of which, still so little known, had filled her childish mind. Besides this, she

had a fancy to pass through Alencon so elegantly equipped that no one could recognize her; to put her mother

above the reach of necessity, and also to send to poor Athanase, in a delicate manner, a sum of

money,which in our age is to genius what in the middle ages was the charger and the coat of mail that

One month passed away in the strangest uncertainties respecting the marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon. A

party of unbelievers denied the marriage altogether; the believers, on the other hand, affirmed it. At the end of

two weeks, the faction of unbelief received a vigorous blow in the sale of du Bousquier's house to the

Marquis de Troisville, who only wanted a simple establishment in Alencon, intending to go to Paris after the

death of the Princess Scherbellof; he proposed to await that inheritance in retirement, and then to reconstitute

his estates. This seemed positive. The unbelievers, however, were not crushed. They declared that du

Bousquier, married or not, had made an excellent sale, for the house had only cost him twentyseven

thousand francs. The believers were depressed by this practical observation of the incredulous. Choisnel,

Mademoiselle Cormon's notary, asserted the latter, had heard nothing about the marriage contract; but the

believers, still firm in their faith, carried off, on the twentieth day, a signal victory: Monsieur Lepressoir, the

notary of the liberals, went to Mademoiselle Cormon's house, and the contract was signed.

This was the first of the numerous sacrifices which Mademoiselle Cormon was destined to make to her

husband. Du Bousquier bore the deepest hatred to Choisnel; to him he owed the refusal of the hand of

Mademoiselle Armande,a refusal which, as he believed, had influenced that of Mademoiselle Cormon.

This circumstance alone made the marriage drag along. Mademoiselle received several anonymous letters.

She learned, to her great astonishment, that Suzanne was as truly a virgin as herself so far as du Bousquier

was concerned, for that seducer with the false toupet could never be the hero of any such adventure.

Mademoiselle Cormon disdained anonymous letters; but she wrote to Suzanne herself, on the ground of

enlightening the Maternity Society. Suzanne, who had no doubt heard of du Bousquier's proposed marriage,

acknowledged her trick, sent a thousand francs to the society, and did all the harm she could to the old

purveyor. Mademoiselle Cormon convoked the Maternity Society, which held a special meeting at which it

was voted that the association would not in future assist any misfortunes about to happen, but solely those

In spite of all these various events which kept the town in the choicest gossip, the banns were published in the

churches and at the mayor's office. Athanase prepared the deeds. As a matter of propriety and public decency,

the bride retired to Prebaudet, where du Bousquier, bearing sumptuous and horrible bouquets, betook himself

At last, on a dull and rainy morning in June, the marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon and the Sieur du

Bousquier took place at noon in the parish church of Alencon, in sight of the whole town. The bridal pair

went from their own house to the mayor's office, and from the mayor's office to the church in an open

caleche, a magnificent vehicle for Alencon, which du Bousquier had sent for secretly to Paris. The loss of the

old carriole was a species of calamity in the eyes of the community. The harnessmaker of the Porte de Seez

bemoaned it, for he lost the fifty francs a year which it cost in repairs. Alencon saw with alarm the possibility

of luxury being thus introduced into the town. Every one feared a rise in the price of rents and provisions, and

a coming invasion of Parisian furniture. Some persons were sufficiently pricked by curiosity to give ten sous

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

"If we bought our own horses," said the Ronceret circle, "we couldn't sell them to those who come to buy."

Stupid as it was, this reasoning seemed sound; for surely such a course would prevent the region from

grasping the money of foreigners. In the eyes of the provinces wealth consisted less in the rapid turning over

of money than in sterile accumulation. It may be mentioned here that Penelope succumbed to a pleurisy

Madame Granson, Mariette, Madame du Coudrai, Madame du Ronceret, and through them the whole town,

remarked that Madame du Bousquier entered the church WITH HER LEFT FOOT,an omen all the more

dreadful because the term Left was beginning to acquire a political meaning. The priest whose duty it was to

read the opening formula opened his book by chance at the De Profundis. Thus the marriage was

accompanied by circumstances so fateful, so alarming, so annihilating that no one dared to augur well of it.

Matters, in fact, went from bad to worse. There was no wedding party; the married pair departed immediately

for Prebaudet. Parisian customs, said the community, were about to triumph over timehonored provincial

The marriage of Jacquelin and Josette now took place: it was gay; and they were the only two persons in

Alencon who refuted the sinister prophecies relating to the marriage of their mistress.

Du Bousquier determined to use the proceeds of the sale of his late residence in restoring and modernizing

the hotel Cormon. He decided to remain through two seasons at Prebaudet, and took the Abbe de Sponde

with them. This news spread terror through the town, where every individual felt that du Bousquier was about

to drag the community into the fatal path of "comfort." This fear increased when the inhabitants of Alencon

saw the bridegroom driving in from Prebaudet one morning to inspect his works, in a fine tilbury drawn by a

new horse, having Rene at his side in livery. The first act of his administration had been to place his wife's

savings on the GrandLivre, which was then quoted at 67 fr. 50 cent. In the space of one year, during which

he played constantly for a rise, he made himself a personal fortune almost as considerable as that of his wife.

But all these foreboding prophecies, these perturbing innovations, were superseded and surpassed by an event

On the very evening of the ceremony, Athanase and his mother were sitting, after their dinner, over a little

"Well, we will go this evening to the du Roncerets', inasmuch as we have lost Mademoiselle Cormon," said

Madame Granson. "Heavens! how shall I ever accustom myself to call her Madame du Bousquier! that name

Athanase looked at his mother with a constrained and melancholy air; he could not smile; but he seemed to

wish to welcome that naive sentiment which soothed his wound, though it could not cure his anguish.

"Mamma," he said, in the voice of his childhood, so tender was it, and using the name he had abandoned for

several years,"my dear mamma, do not let us go out just yet; it is so pleasant here before the fire."

The mother heard, without comprehending, that supreme prayer of a mortal sorrow.

"Yes, let us stay, my child," she said. "I like much better to talk with you and listen to your projects than to

"You are so handsome tonight I love to look at you. Besides, I am in a current of ideas which harmonize

"And where we shall still suffer, my poor Athanase, until your works succeed. For myself, I am trained to

poverty; but you, my treasure! to see your youth go by without a joy! nothing but toil for my poor boy in life!

That thought is like an illness to a mother; it tortures me at night; it wakes me in the morning. O God! what

She left her sofa, took a little chair, and sat close to Athanase, so as to lay her head on the bosom of her child.

There is always the grace of love in true motherhood. Athanase kissed her on the eyes, on her gray hair, on

her forehead, with the sacred desire of laying his soul wherever he applied his lips.

"I shall never succeed," he said, trying to deceive his mother as to the fatal resolution he was revolving in his

"Pooh! don't get discouraged. As you often say, thought can do all things. With ten bottles of ink, ten reams

of paper, and his powerful will, Luther upset all Europe. Well, you'll make yourself famous; you will do good

things by the same means which he used to do evil things. Haven't you said so yourself? For my part, I listen

to you; I understand you a great deal more than you think I do,for I still bear you in my bosom, and your

"I shall never succeed here, mamma; and I don't want you to witness the sight of my struggles, my misery,

"And I wish to be at your side," replied his mother, proudly. "Suffer without your mother!that poor mother

who would be your servant if necessary; who will efface herself rather than injure you; your mother, who will

"But I wish it, nevertheless. If not, you will lose me; this double grief, yours and mine, is killing me. You

"So this is what you have been brooding?" she said. "They told me right. Do you really mean to go?"

"You will not go without telling me; without warning me? You must have an outfit and money. I have some

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

The mother and the son went out. Athanase left his mother at the door of the house where she intended to

pass the evening. He looked long at the light which came through the shutters; he clung closely to the wall,

and a frenzied joy came over him when he presently heard his mother say, "He has great independence of

He reached the noble poplar beneath which he had meditated so much for the last forty days, and where he

had placed two heavy stones on which he now sat down. He contemplated that beautiful nature lighted by the

moon; he reviewed once more the glorious future he had longed for; he passed through towns that were

stirred by his name; he heard the applauding crowds; he breathed the incense of his fame; he adored that life

long dreamed of; radiant, he sprang to radiant triumphs; he raised his stature; he evoked his illusions to bid

them farewell in a last Olympic feast. The magic had been potent for a moment; but now it vanished forever.

In that awful hour he clung to the beautiful tree to which, as to a friend, he had attached himself; then he put

the two stones into the pockets of his overcoat, which he buttoned across his breast. He had come

intentionally without a hat. He now went to the deep pool he had long selected, and glided into it resolutely,

When, at halfpast nine o'clock, Madame Granson returned home, her servant said nothing of Athanase, but

"A pretty trick he has played me!" she thought. "And his linen! and the money! Well, he will write to me, and

then I'll follow him. These poor children think they are so much cleverer than their fathers and mothers."

During the preceding morning the Sarthe had risen to a height foreseen by the fisherman. These sudden rises

of muddy water brought eels from their various runlets. It so happened that a fisherman had spread his net at

the very place where poor Athanase had flung himself, believing that no one would ever find him. About six

o'clock in the morning the man drew in his net, and with it the young body. The few friends of the poor

mother took every precaution in preparing her to receive the dreadful remains. The news of this suicide made,

as may well be supposed, a great excitement in Alencon. The poor young man of genius had no protector the

night before, but on the morrow of his death a thousand voices cried aloud, "I would have helped him." It is

The suicide was explained by the Chevalier de Valois. He revealed, in a spirit of revenge, the artless, sincere,

and genuine love of Athanase for Mademoiselle Cormon. Madame Granson, enlightened by the chevalier,

remembered a thousand little circumstances which confirmed the chevalier's statement. The story then

became touching, and many women wept over it. Madame Granson's grief was silent, concentrated, and little

understood. There are two forms of mourning for mothers. Often the world can enter fully into the nature of

their loss: their son, admired, appreciated, young, perhaps handsome, with a noble path before him, leading to

fortune, possibly to fame, excites universal regret; society joins in the grief, and alleviates while it magnifies

it. But there is another sorrow of mothers who alone know what their child was really; who alone have

received his smiles and observed the treasures of a life too soon cut short. That sorrow hides its woe, the

blackness of which surpasses all other mourning; it cannot be described; happily there are but few women

Before Madame du Bousquier returned to town, Madame du Ronceret, one of her good friends, had driven

out to Prebaudet to fling this corpse upon the roses of her joy, to show her the love she had ignored, and

sweetly shed a thousand drops of wormwood into the honey of her bridal month. As Madame du Bousquier

drove back to Alencon, she chanced to meet Madame Granson at the corner of the rue ValNoble. The glance

of the mother, dying of her grief, struck to the heart of the poor woman. A thousand maledictions, a thousand

flaming reproaches, were in that look: Madame du Bousquier was horrorstruck; that glance predicted and

The evening after the catastrophe, Madame Granson, one of the persons most opposed to the rector of the

town, and who had hitherto supported the minister of SaintLeonard, began to tremble as she thought of the

inflexible Catholic doctrines professed by her own party. After placing her son's body in its shroud with her

own hands, thinking of the mother of the Saviour, she went, with a soul convulsed by anguish, to the house of

the hated rector. There she found the modest priest in an outer room, engaged in putting away the flax and

yarns with which he supplied poor women, in order that they might never be wholly out of work,a form of

charity which saved many who were incapable of begging from actual penury. The rector left his yarns and

hastened to take Madame Granson into his diningroom, where the wretched mother noticed, as she looked at

"Monsieur l'abbe," she said, "I have come to implore you" She burst into tears, unable to continue.

"I know what brings you," replied the saintly man. "I must trust to you, madame, and to your relation,

Madame du Bousquier, to pacify Monseigneur the Bishop at Seez. Yes, I will pray for your unhappy child;

yes, I will say the masses. But we must avoid all scandal, and give no opportunity for eviljudging persons to

"Yes, yes, as you think best; if only he may lie in consecrated ground," said the poor mother, taking the

Toward midnight a coffin was clandestinely borne to the parish church by four young men, comrades whom

Athanase had liked the best. A few friends of Madame Granson, women dressed in black, and veiled, were

present; and half a dozen other young men who had been somewhat intimate with this lost genius. Four

torches flickered on the coffin, which was covered with crape. The rector, assisted by one discreet choirboy,

said the mortuary mass. Then the body of the suicide was noiselessly carried to a corner of the cemetery,

where a black wooden cross, without inscription, was all that indicated its place hereafter to the mother.

Athanase lived and died in shadow. No voice was raised to blame the rector; the bishop kept silence. The

Some months later, the poor woman, half beside herself with grief, and moved by one of those inexplicable

thirsts which misery feels to steep its lips in the bitter chalice, determined to see the spot where her son was

drowned. Her instinct may have told her that thoughts of his could be recovered beneath that poplar; perhaps,

too, she desired to see what his eyes had seen for the last time. Some mothers would die of the sight; others

give themselves up to it in saintly adoration. Patient anatomists of human nature cannot too often enunciate

the truths before which all educations, laws, and philosophical systems must give way. Let us repeat

continually: it is absurd to force sentiments into one formula: appearing as they do, in each individual man,

they combine with the elements that form his nature and take his own physiognomy.

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

That woman wept as the mother wept. It was Suzanne. Arriving that morning at the hotel du More, she had

been told of the catastrophe. If poor Athanase had been living, she meant to do as many noble souls, who are

moneyless, dream of doing, and as the rich never think of doing,she meant to have sent him several

thousand francs, writing up the envelope the words: "Money due to your father from a comrade who makes

restitution to you." This tender scheme had been arranged by Suzanne during her journey.

The courtesan caught sight of Madame Granson and moved rapidly away, whispering as she passed her, "I

Suzanne, faithful to her nature, did not leave Alencon on this occasion without changing the

orangeblossoms of the bride to rue. She was the first to declare that Madame du Bousquier would never be

anything but Mademoiselle Cormon. With one stab of her tongue she revenged poor Athanase and her dear

Alencon now witnessed a suicide that was slower and quite differently pitiful from that of poor Athanase,

who was quickly forgotten by society, which always makes haste to forget its dead. The poor Chevalier de

Valois died in life; his suicide was a daily occurrence for fourteen years. Three months after the du Bousquier

marriage society remarked, not without astonishment, that the linen of the chevalier was frayed and rusty, that

his hair was irregularly combed and brushed. With a frowsy head the Chevalier de Valois could no longer be

said to exist! A few of his ivory teeth deserted, though the keenest observers of human life were unable to

discover to what body they had hitherto belonged, whether to a foreign legion or whether they were

indigenous, vegetable or animal; whether age had pulled them from the chevalier's mouth, or whether they

were left forgotten in the drawer of his dressingtable. The cravat was crooked, indifferent to elegance. The

negroes' heads grew pale with dust and grease. The wrinkles of the face were blackened and puckered; the

skin became parchment. The nails, neglected, were often seen, alas! with a black velvet edging. The waistcoat

was tracked and stained with droppings which spread upon its surface like autumn leaves. The cotton in the

ears was seldom changed. Sadness reigned upon that brow, and slipped its yellowing tints into the depths of

each furrow. In short, the ruins, hitherto so cleverly hidden, now showed through the cracks and crevices of

that fine edifice, and proved the power of the soul over the body; for the fair and dainty man, the cavalier, the

young blood, died when hope deserted him. Until then the nose of the chevalier was ever delicate and nice;

never had a damp black blotch, nor an amber drop fall from it; but now that nose, smeared with tobacco

around the nostrils, degraded by the driblets which took advantage of the natural gutter placed between itself

and the upper lip,that nose, which no longer cared to seem agreeable, revealed the infinite pains which the

chevalier had formerly taken with his person, and made observers comprehend, by the extent of its

degradation, the greatness and persistence of the man's designs upon Mademoiselle Cormon.

Alas, too, the anecdotes went the way of the teeth; the clever sayings grew rare. The appetite, however,

remained; the old nobleman saved nothing but his stomach from the wreck of his hopes; though he languidly

prepared his pinches of snuff, he ate alarming dinners. Perhaps you will more fully understand the disaster

that this marriage was to the mind and heart of the chevalier when you learn that his intercourse with the

One day he appeared in Mademoiselle Armande's salon with the calf of his leg on the shinbone. This

bankruptcy of the graces was, I do assure you, terrible, and struck all Alencon with horror. The late young

man had become an old one; this human being, who, by the breakingdown of his spirit, had passed at once

from fifty to ninety years of age, frightened society. Besides, his secret was betrayed; he had waited and

watched for Mademoiselle Cormon; he had, like a patient hunter, adjusted his aim for ten whole years, and

finally had missed the game! In short, the impotent Republic had won the day from Valiant Chivalry, and

that, too, under the Restoration! Form triumphed; mind was vanquished by matter, diplomacy by insurrection.

And, O final blow! a mortified grisette revealed the secret of the chevalier's mornings, and he now passed for

a libertine. The liberals cast at his door all the foundlings hitherto attributed to du Bousquier. But the

faubourg SaintGermain of Alencon accepted them proudly: it even said, "That poor chevalier, what else

could he do?" The faubourg pitied him, gathered him closer to their circle, and brought back a few rare smiles

to his face; but frightful enmity was piled upon the head of du Bousquier. Eleven persons deserted the

The old maid's marriage had a signal effect in defining the two parties in Alencon. The salon d'Esgrignon

represented the upper aristocracy (the returning Troisvilles attached themselves to it); the Cormon salon

represented, under the clever influence of du Bousquier, that fatal class of opinions which, without being

truly liberal or resolutely royalist, gave birth to the 221 on that famous day when the struggle openly began

between the most august, grandest, and only true power, ROYALTY, and the most false, most changeful,

most oppressive of all powers,the power called PARLIAMENTARY, which elective assemblies exercise.

The Abbe de Sponde, after his return from Prebaudet, bore many and continual sufferings, which he kept

within his breast, saying no word of them to his niece. But to Mademoiselle Armande he opened his heart,

admitting that, folly for folly, he would much have preferred the Chevalier de Valois to Monsieur du

Bousquier. Never would the dear chevalier have had the bad taste to contradict and oppose a poor old man

who had but a few days more to live; du Bousquier had destroyed everything in the good old home. The abbe

"Mademoiselle, I haven't even the little grove where I have walked for fifty years. My beloved lindens are all

cut down! At the moment of my death the Republic appears to me more than ever under the form of a

"You must pardon your niece," said the Chevalier de Valois. "Republican ideas are the first error of youth

which seeks for liberty; later it finds it the worst of despotisms,that of an impotent canaille. Your poor

"What will become of me in a house where naked women are painted on the walls?" said the poor abbe.

Like Kant, who was unable to collect his thoughts after the firtree at which he was accustomed to gaze

while meditating was cut down, so the poor abbe could never attain the ardor of his former prayers while

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

"It was best," said Madame du Bousquier, without thinking so; but the Abbe Couterier had authorized her to

These restorations destroyed all the venerable dignity, cordiality, and patriarchal air of the old house. Like the

Chevalier de Valois, whose personal neglect might be called an abdication, the bourgeois dignity of the

Cormon salon no longer existed when it was turned to white and gold, with mahogany ottomans covered in

blue satin. The diningroom, adorned in modern taste, was colder in tone than it used to be, and the dinners

were eaten with less appetite than formerly. Monsieur du Coudrai declared that he felt his puns stick in his

throat as he glanced at the figures painted on the walls, which looked him out of countenance. Externally, the

house was still provincial; but internally everything revealed the purveyor of the Directory and the bad taste

of the moneychanger,for instance, columns in stucco, glass doors, Greek mouldings, meaningless

outlines, all styles conglomerated, magnificence out of place and out of season.

The town of Alencon gabbled for two weeks over this luxury, which seemed unparalleled; but a few months

later the community was proud of it, and several rich manufacturers restored their houses and set up fine

The Abbe de Sponde was among the first to perceive the secret unhappiness this marriage now brought to the

private life of his beloved niece. The character of noble simplicity which had hitherto ruled their lives was

lost during the first winter, when du Bousquier gave two balls every month. Oh, to hear violins and profane

music at these worldly entertainments in the sacred old house! The abbe prayed on his knees while the revels

lasted. Next the political system of the sober salon was slowly perverted. The abbe fathomed du Bousquier;

he shuddered at his imperious tone; he saw the tears in his niece's eyes when she felt herself losing all control

over her own property; for her husband now left nothing in her hands but the management of the linen, the

table, and things of a kind which are the lot of women. Rose had no longer any orders to give. Monsieur's will

was alone regarded by Jacquelin, now become coachman, by Rene, the groom, and by the chef, who came

from Paris, Mariette being reduced to kitchen maid. Madame du Bousquier had no one to rule but Josette.

Who knows what it costs to relinquish the delights of power? If the triumph of the will is one of the

intoxicating pleasures in the lives of great men, it is the ALL of life to narrow minds. One must needs have

been a minister dismissed from power to comprehend the bitter pain which came upon Madame du Bousquier

when she found herself reduced to this absolute servitude. She often got into the carriage against her will; she

saw herself surrounded by servants who were distasteful to her; she no longer had the handling of her dear

All imposed limits make the human being desire to go beyond them. The keenest sufferings come from the

thwarting of selfwill. The beginning of this state of things was, however, rosecolored. Every concession

made to marital authority was an effect of the love which the poor woman felt for her husband. Du Bousquier

behaved, in the first instance, admirably to his wife: he was wise; he was excellent; he gave her the best of

reasons for each new encroachment. So for the first two years of her marriage Madame du Bousquier

appeared to be satisfied. She had that deliberate, demure little air which distinguishes young women who

have married for love. The rush of blood to her head no longer tormented her. This appearance of satisfaction

routed the scoffers, contradicted certain rumors about du Bousquier, and puzzled all observers of the human

heart. RoseMarieVictoire was so afraid that if she displeased her husband or opposed him, she would lose

his affection and be deprived of his company, that she would willingly have sacrificed all to him, even her

uncle. Her silly little forms of pleasure deceived even the poor abbe for a time, who endured his own trials all

Alencon at first thought the same. But there was one man more difficult to deceive than the whole town put

together. The Chevalier de Valois, who had taken refuge on the Sacred Mount of the upper aristocracy, now

passed his life at the d'Esgrignons. He listened to the gossip and the gabble, and he thought day and night

The poor abbe fully understood the baseness of this first and last love of his niece; he shuddered as, little by

little, he perceived the hypocritical nature of his nephew and his treacherous manoeuvres. Though du

Bousquier restrained himself, as he thought of the abbe's property, and wished not to cause him vexation, it

was his hand that dealt the blow that sent the old priest to his grave. If you will interpret the word

INTOLERANCE as FIRMNESS OF PRINCIPLE, if you do not wish to condemn in the catholic soul of the

Abbe de Sponde the stoicism which Walter Scott has made you admire in the puritan soul of Jeanie Deans'

father; if you are willing to recognize in the Roman Church the Potius mori quam foedari that you admire in

republican tenets,you will understand the sorrow of the Abbe de Sponde when he saw in his niece's salon

the apostate priest, the renegade, the pervert, the heretic, that enemy of the Church, the guilty taker of the

Constitutional oath. Du Bousquier, whose secret ambition was to lay down the law to the town, wished, as a

first proof of his power, to reconcile the minister of SaintLeonard with the rector of the parish, and he

succeeded. His wife thought he had accomplished a work of peace where the immovable abbe saw only

treachery. The bishop came to visit du Bousquier, and seemed glad of the cessation of hostilities. The virtues

of the Abbe Francois had conquered prejudice, except that of the aged Roman Catholic, who exclaimed with

In 1819, the property of the Abbe de Sponde increased Madame du Bousquier's income from real estate to

twentyfive thousand francs without counting Prebaudet or the house in the ValNoble. About this time du

Bousquier returned to his wife the capital of her savings which she had yielded to him; and he made her use it

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

department, for the estates of the Abbe de Sponde also adjoined it. Du Bousquier thus passed for one of the

richest men of the department. This able man, the constant candidate of the liberals, missing by seven or eight

votes only in all the electoral battles fought under the Restoration, and who ostensibly repudiated the liberals

by trying to be elected as a ministerial royalist (without ever being able to conquer the aversion of the

administration),this rancorous republican, mad with ambition, resolved to rival the royalism and

aristocracy of Alencon at the moment when they once more had the upper hand. He strengthened himself

with the Church by the deceitful appearance of a wellfeigned piety: he accompanied his wife to mass; he

gave money for the convents of the town; he assisted the congregation of the SacreCoeur; he took sides with

the clergy on all occasions when the clergy came into collision with the town, the department, or the State.

Secretly supported by the liberals, protected by the Church, calling himself a constitutional royalist, he kept

beside the aristocracy of the department in the one hope of ruining it,and he did ruin it. Ever on the watch

for the faults and blunders of the nobility and the government, he laid plans for his vengeance against the

"chateaupeople," and especially against the d'Esgrignons, in whose bosom he was one day to thrust a

Among other benefits to the town he gave money liberally to revive the manufacture of point d'Alencon; he

renewed the trade in linens, and the town had a factory. Inscribing himself thus upon the interests and heart of

the masses, by doing what the royalists did not do, du Bousquier did not really risk a farthing. Backed by his

fortune, he could afford to wait results which enterprising persons who involve themselves are forced to

Du Bousquier now posed as a banker. This miniature Lafitte was a partner in all new enterprises, taking good

security. He served himself while apparently serving the interests of the community. He was the prime mover

of insurance companies, the protector of new enterprises for public conveyance; he suggested petitions for

asking the administration for the necessary roads and bridges. Thus warned, the government considered this

action an encroachment of its own authority. A struggle was begun injudiciously, for the good of the

community compelled the authorities to yield in the end. Du Bousquier embittered the provincial nobility

against the court nobility and the peerage; and finally he brought about the shocking adhesion of a strong

party of constitutional royalists to the warfare sustained by the "Journal des Debats," and M. de

Chateaubriand against the throne, an ungrateful opposition based on ignoble interests, which was one

Thus du Bousquier, in common with the class he represented, had the satisfaction of beholding the funeral of

royalty. The old republican, smothered with masses, who for fifteen years had played that comedy to satisfy

his vendetta, himself threw down with his own hand the white flag of the mayoralty to the applause of the

multitude. No man in France cast upon the new throne raised in August, 1830, a glance of more intoxicated,

joyous vengeance. The accession of the Younger Branch was the triumph of the Revolution. To him the

victory of the tricolor meant the resurrection of Montagne, which this time should surely bring the nobility

down to the dust by means more certain than that of the guillotine, because less violent. The peerage without

heredity; the National Guard, which puts on the same campbed the corner grocer and the marquis; the

abolition of the entails demanded by a bourgeois lawyer; the Catholic Church deprived of its supremacy; and

all the other legislative inventions of August, 1830,were to du Bousquier the wisest possible application of

Since 1830 this man has been a receivergeneral. He relied for his advancement on his relations with the Duc

d'Orleans, father of Louis Philippe, and with Monsieur de Folmon, formerly steward to the Duchessdowager

of Orleans. He receives about eighty thousand francs a year. In the eyes of the people about him Monsieur du

Bousquier is a man of means,a respectable man, steady in his principles, upright, and obliging. Alencon

owes to him its connection with the industrial movement by which Brittany may possibly some day be joined

to what is popularly called modern civilization. Alencon, which up to 1816 could boast of only two private

carriages, saw, without amazement, in the course of ten years, coupes, landaus, tilburies, and cabriolets

rolling through her streets. The burghers and the landowners, alarmed at first lest the price of everything

should increase, recognized later that this increase in the style of living had a contrary effect upon their

revenues. The prophetic remark of du Ronceret, "Du Bousquier is a very strong man," was adopted by the

But, unhappily for the wife, that saying has a double meaning. The husband does not in any way resemble the

public politician. This great citizen, so liberal to the world about him, so kindly inspired with love for his

native place, is a despot in his own house, and utterly devoid of conjugal affection. This man, so profoundly

astute, hypocritical, and sly; this Cromwell of the ValNoble,behaves in his home as he behaves to the

aristocracy, whom he caresses in hopes to throttle them. Like his friend Bernadotte, he wears a velvet glove

upon his iron hand. His wife has given him no children. Suzanne's remark and the chevalier's insinuations

were therefore justified. But the liberal bourgeoisie, the constitutionalroyalistbourgeoisie, the

countrysquires, the magistracy, and the "church party" laid the blame on Madame du Bousquier. "She was

too old," they said; "Monsieur du Bousquier had married her too late. Besides, it was very lucky for the poor

woman; it was dangerous at her age to bear children!" When Madame du Bousquier confided, weeping, her

periodic despair to Mesdames du Coudrai and du Ronceret, those ladies would reply,

"But you are crazy, my dear; you don't know what you are wishing for; a child would be your death."

Many men, whose hopes were fastened on du Bousquier's triumph, sang his praises to their wives, who in

"You are very lucky, dear, to have married such an able man; you'll escape the misery of women whose

husbands are men without energy, incapable of managing their property, or bringing up their children."

"Your husband is making you queen of the department, my love. He'll never leave you embarrassed, not he!

"You are hard to please, my dear Madame du Bousquier. I assure you that all the women in town envy you

Misjudged by society, which began by blaming her, the pious woman found ample opportunity in her home

to display her virtues. She lived in tears, but she never ceased to present to others a placid face. To so

Christian a soul a certain thought which pecked forever at her heart was a crime: "I loved the Chevalier de

Valois," it said; "but I have married du Bousquier." The love of poor Athanase Granson also rose like a

phantom of remorse, and pursued her even in her dreams. The death of her uncle, whose griefs at the last

burst forth, made her life still more sorrowful; for she now felt the suffering her uncle must have endured in

witnessing the change of political and religious opinion in the old house. Sorrow often falls like a

thunderbolt, as it did on Madame Granson; but in this old maid it slowly spread like a drop of oil, which

The Chevalier de Valois was the malicious manipulator who brought about the crowning misfortune of

Madame du Bousquier's life. His heart was set on undeceiving her pious simplicity; for the chevalier, expert

in love, divined du Bousquier, the married man, as he had divined du Bousquier, the bachelor. But the wary

republican was difficult of attack. His salon was, of course, closed to the Chevalier de Valois, as to all those

who, in the early days of his marriage, had slighted the Cormon mansion. He was, moreover, impervious to

ridicule; he possessed a vast fortune; he reigned in Alencon; he cared as little for his wife as Richard III.

cared for the dead horse which had helped him win a battle. To please her husband, Madame du Bousquier

had broken off relations with the d'Esgrignon household, where she went no longer, except that sometimes

when her husband left her during his trips to Paris, she would pay a brief visit to Mademoiselle Armande.

About three years after her marriage, at the time of the Abbe de Sponde's death, Mademoiselle Armande

joined Madame du Bousquier as they were leaving SaintLeonard's, where they had gone to hear a requiem

said for him. The generous demoiselle thought that on this occasion she owed her sympathy to the niece in

trouble. They walked together, talking of the dear deceased, until they reached the forbidden house, into

which Mademoiselle Armande enticed Madame du Bousquier by the charm of her manner and conversation.

The poor desolate woman was glad to talk of her uncle with one whom he truly loved. Moreover, she wanted

to receive the condolences of the old marquis, whom she had not seen for nearly three years. It was half past

one o'clock, and she found at the hotel d'Esgrignon the Chevalier de Valois, who had come to dinner. As he

"Well, dear, virtuous, and beloved lady," he said, in a tone of emotion, "we have lost our sainted friend; we

share your grief. Yes, your loss is as keenly felt here as in your own home,more so," he added, alluding to

After a few more words of funeral oration, in which all present spoke from the heart, the chevalier took

Madame du Bousquier's arm, and, gallantly placing it within his own, pressed it adoringly as he led her to the

Hearing that "Yes," Madame de Troisville, the daughter of the Princess Scherbellof, and the old Marquise de

Casteran came up and joined the chevalier, together with Mademoiselle Armande. They all went to walk in

the garden until dinner was served, without any perception on the part of Madame du Bousquier that a little

conspiracy was afoot. "We have her! now let us find out the secret of the case," were the words written in the

"To make your happiness complete," said Mademoiselle Armande, "you ought to have children,a fine lad

"I have heard it said that you were the one to blame in the matter, and that you feared the dangers of a

"I!" she said artlessly. "I would buy a child with a hundred years of purgatory if I could."

On the question thus started a discussion arose, conducted by Madame de Troisville and the old Marquise de

Casteran with such delicacy and adroitness that the poor victim revealed, without being aware of it, the

secrets of her house. Mademoiselle Armande had taken the chevalier's arm, and walked away so as to leave

the three women free to discuss wedlock. Madame du Bousquier was then enlightened on the various

deceptions of her marriage; and as she was still the same simpleton she had always been, she amused her

Although at first the deceptive marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon made a laugh throughout the town, which

was soon initiated into the story of the case, before long Madame du Bousquier won the esteem and sympathy

of all the women. The fact that Mademoiselle Cormon had flung herself headlong into marriage without

succeeding in being married, made everybody laugh at her; but when they learned the exceptional position in

which the sternness of her religious principles placed her, all the world admired her. "That poor Madame du

Thus the chevalier contrived to render du Bousquier both ridiculous and odious for a time; but ridicule ends

by weakening; when all had said their say about him, the gossip died out. Besides, at fiftyseven years of age

the dumb republican seemed to many people to have a right to retire. This affair, however, envenomed the

hatred which du Bousquier already bore to the house of Esgrignon to such a degree that it made him pitiless

when the day of vengeance came. [See "The Gallery of Antiquities."] Madame du Bousquier received orders

never again to set foot into that house. By way of reprisals upon the chevalier for the trick thus played him,

du Bousquier, who had just created the journal called the "Courrier de l'Orne," caused the following notice to

"Bonds to the amount of one thousand francs a year will be paid to any person who can prove the existence of

Although her marriage was essentially negative, Madame du Bousquier saw some advantages in it: was it not

better to interest herself in the most remarkable man in the town than to live alone? Du Bousquier was

preferable to a dog, or cat, or those canaries that spinsters love. He showed for his wife a sentiment more real

and less selfish than that which is felt by servants, confessors, and hopeful heirs. Later in life she came to

consider her husband as the instrument of divine wrath; for she then saw innumerable sins in her former

desires for marriage; she regarded herself as justly punished for the sorrow she had brought on Madame

Granson, and for the hastened death of her uncle. Obedient to that religion which commands us to kiss the rod

with which the punishment is inflicted, she praised her husband, and publicly approved him. But in the

confessional, or at night, when praying, she wept often, imploring God's forgiveness for the apostasy of the

man who thought the contrary of what he professed, and who desired the destruction of the aristocracy and

With all her feelings bruised and immolated within her, compelled by duty to make her husband happy,

attached to him by a certain indefinable affection, born, perhaps, of habit, her life became one perpetual

contradiction. She had married a man whose conduct and opinions she hated, but whom she was bound to

care for with dutiful tenderness. Often she walked with the angels when du Bousquier ate her preserves or

thought the dinner good. She watched to see that his slightest wish was satisfied. If he tore off the cover of his

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

If du Bousquier had a journey to take, she was anxious about his trunk, his linen; she took the most minute

precautions for his material benefit. If he went to Prebaudet, she consulted the barometer the evening before

to know if the weather would be fine. She watched for his will in his eyes, like a dog which hears and sees its

master while sleeping. When the stout du Bousquier, touched by this scrupulous love, would take her round

the waist and kiss her forehead, saying, "What a good woman you are!" tears of pleasure would come into the

eyes of the poor creature. It is probably that du Bousquier felt himself obliged to make certain concessions

which obtained for him the respect of RoseMarieVictoire; for Catholic virtue does not require a

dissimulation as complete as that of Madame du Bousquier. Often the good saint sat mutely by and listened

to the hatred of men who concealed themselves under the cloak of constitutional royalists. She shuddered as

she foresaw the ruin of the Church. Occasionally she risked a stupid word, an observation which du

The worries of such an existence ended by stupefying Madame du Bousquier, who found it easier and also

more dignified to concentrate her intelligence on her own thoughts and resign herself to lead a life that was

purely animal. She then adopted the submission of a slave, and regarded it as a meritorious deed to accept the

degradation in which her husband placed her. The fulfilment of his will never once caused her to murmur.

The timid sheep went henceforth in the way the shepherd led her; she gave herself up to the severest religious

practices, and thought no more of Satan and his works and vanities. Thus she presented to the eyes of the

world a union of all Christian virtues; and du Bousquier was certainly one of the luckiest men in the kingdom

"She will be a simpleton to her last breath," said the former collector, who, however, dined with her twice a

This history would be strangely incomplete if no mention were made of the coincidence of the Chevalier de

Valois's death occurring at the same time as that of Suzanne's mother. The chevalier died with the monarchy,

in August, 1830. He had joined the cortege of Charles X. at Nonancourt, and piously escorted it to Cherbourg

with the Troisvilles, Casterans, d'Esgrignons, Verneuils, etc. The old gentleman had taken with him fifty

thousand francs,the sum to which his savings then amounted. He offered them to one of the faithful friends

of the king for transmission to his master, speaking of his approaching death, and declaring that the money

came originally from the goodness of the king, and, moreover, that the property of the last of the Valois

belonged of right to the crown. It is not known whether the fervor of his zeal conquered the reluctance of the

Bourbon, who abandoned his fine kingdom of France without carrying away with him a farthing, and who

ought to have been touched by the devotion of the chevalier. It is certain, however, that Cesarine, the

residuary legate of the old man, received from his estate only six hundred francs a year. The chevalier

returned to Alencon, cruelly weakened by grief and by fatigue; he died on the very day when Charles X.

Madame du ValNoble and her protector, who was just then afraid of the vengeance of the liberal party, were

glad of a pretext to remain incognito in the village where Suzanne's mother died. At the sale of the chevalier's

effects, which took place at that time, Suzanne, anxious to obtain a souvenir of her first and last friend,

pushed up the price of the famous snuffbox, which was finally knocked down to her for a thousand francs.

The portrait of the Princess Goritza was alone worth that sum. Two years later, a young dandy, who was

making a collection of the fine snuffboxes of the last century, obtained from Madame du ValNoble the

chevalier's treasure. The charming confidant of many a love and the pleasure of an old age is now on

exhibition in a species of private museum. If the dead could know what happens after them, the chevalier's

If this history has no other effect than to inspire the possessors of precious relics with holy fear, and induce

them to make codicils to secure these touching souvenirs of joys that are no more by bequeathing them to

loving hands, it will have done an immense service to the chivalrous and romantic portion of the community;

but it does, in truth, contain a far higher moral. Does it not show the necessity for a new species of education?

Does it not invoke, from the enlightened solicitude of the ministers of Public Instruction, the creation of

chairs of anthropology,a science in which Germany outstrips us? Modern myths are even less understood

than ancient ones, harried as we are with myths. Myths are pressing us from every point; they serve all

theories, they explain all questions. They are, according to human ideas, the torches of history; they would

save empires from revolution if only the professors of history would force the explanations they give into the

mind of the provincial masses. If Mademoiselle Cormon had been a reader or a student, and if there had

existed in the department of the Orne a professor of anthropology, or even had she read Ariosto, the frightful

disasters of her conjugal life would never have occurred. She would probably have known why the Italian

poet makes Angelica prefer Medoro, who was a blond Chevalier de Valois, to Orlando, whose mare was

dead, and who knew no better than to fly into a passion. Is not Medoro the mythic form for all courtiers of

feminine royalty, and Orlando the myth of disorderly, furious, and impotent revolutions, which destroy but

cannot produce? We publish, but without assuming any responsibility for it, this opinion of a pupil of

No information has reached us as to the fate of the negroes' heads in diamonds. You may see Madame du

ValNoble every evening at the Opera. Thanks to the education given her by the Chevalier de Valois, she has

Madame du Bousquier still lives; is not that as much as to say she still suffers? After reaching the age of

sixtythe period at which women allow themselves to make confessionsshe said confidentially to

Madame du Coudrai, that she had never been able to endure the idea of dying an old maid.

(Note: The Collection of Antiquities is a companion piece to The Old Maid. In other Addendum appearances

Bordin The Gondreville Mystery The Seamy Side of History The Commission in Lunacy

Bousquier, Du (or Du Croisier or Du Bourguier) The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece) The

Bousquier, Madame du (du Croisier) (Mlle. Cormon) The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Casteran, De The Chouans The Seamy Side of History The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Chesnel (or Choisnel) The Seamy Side of History The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Esgrignon, CharlesMarieVictorAngeCarol, Marquis d' (or Des Grignons) The Chouans The Collection

Esgrignon, MarieArmandeClaire d' The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Gaillard, Madame Theodore (Suzanne) A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment

Lenoncourt, Duc de The Lily of the Valley Cesar Birotteau The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Navarreins, Duc de Colonel Chabert The Muse of the Department The Thirteen The Peasantry Scenes from a

Courtesan's Life The Country Parson The Magic Skin The Gondreville Mystery The Secrets of a Princess

Troisville, Guibelin, Vicomte de The Seamy Side of History The Chouans The Collection of Antiquities

Valois, Chevalier de The Chouans The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)