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A Study of Woman,

Another Study of Woman,

and La Grande Breteche

Honoré de Balzac

Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley,

Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell



A Study of Woman

Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION

To the Marquis Jean-Charles di Negro.



A Study of Woman

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A Study of WomanThe Marquise de Listomere is one of those young women who have been brought up in the spirit of the Restoration. She has principles,she fasts, takes the sacrament, and goes to balls and operas veryelegantly dressed; her confessor permits her to combine themundane with sanctity. Always in conformity with the Church and

with the world, she presents a living image of the present day, whichseems to have taken the word “legality” for its motto. The conduct ofthe marquise shows precisely enough religious devotion to attainunder a new Maintenon to the gloomy piety of the last days of LouisXIV., and enough worldliness to adopt the habits of gallantry of thefirst years of that reign, should it ever be revived. At the presentmoment she is strictly virtuous from policy, possibly frominclination. Married for the last seven years to the Marquis deListomere, one of those deputies who expect a peerage, she may also

consider that such conduct will promote the ambitions of her family.Some women are reserving their opinion of her until the momentwhen Monsieur de Listomere becomes a peer of France, when sheherself will be thirty-six years of age,—a period of life when mostwomen discover that they are the dupes of social laws.

The marquis is a rather insignificant man. He stands well at court;his good qualities are as negative as his defects; the former can nomore make him a reputation for virtue than the latter can give him

the sort of glamor cast by vice. As deputy, he never speaks, but hevotes RIGHT. He behaves in his own home as he does in theChamber. Consequently, he is held to be one of the best husbands inFrance. Though not susceptible of lively interest, he never scolds,unless, to be sure, he is kept waiting. His friends have named him“dull weather,”—aptly enough, for there is neither clear light nortotal darkness about him. He is like all the ministers who havesucceeded one another in France since the Charter. A woman withprinciples could not have fallen into better hands. It is certainly a

great thing for a virtuous woman to have married a man incapable offollies.



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Occasionally some fops have been sufficiently impertinent to pressthe hand of the marquise while dancing with her. They gainednothing in return but contemptuous glances; all were made to feel

the shock of that insulting indifference which, like a spring frost,destroys the germs of flattering hopes. Beaux, wits, and fops, menwhose sentiments are fed by sucking their canes, those of a greatname, or a great fame, those of the highest or the lowest rank in herown world, they all blanch before her. She has conquered the right toconverse as long and as often as she chooses with the men who seemto her agreeable, without being entered on the tablets of gossip.Certain coquettish women are capable of following a plan of thiskind for seven years in order to gratify their fancies later; but to

suppose any such reservations in the Marquise de Listomere would be to calumniate her.

I have had the happiness of knowing this phoenix. She talks well; Iknow how to listen; consequently I please her, and I go to herparties. That, in fact, was the object of my ambition.

Neither plain nor pretty, Madame de Listomere has white teeth, adazzling skin, and very red lips; she is tall and well-made; her foot is

small and slender, and she does not put it forth; her eyes, far from being dulled like those of so many Parisian women, have a gentleglow which becomes quite magical if, by chance, she is animated. Asoul is then divined behind that rather indefinite form. If she takesan interest in the conversation she displays a grace which isotherwise buried beneath the precautions of cold demeanor, andthen she is charming. She does not seek success, but she obtains it.We find that for which we do not seek: that saying is so often truethat some day it will be turned into a proverb. It is, in fact, the moral

of this adventure, which I should not allow myself to tell if it werenot echoing at the present moment through all the salons of Paris.

The Marquise de Listomere danced, about a month ago, with ayoung man as modest as he is lively, full of good qualities, butexhibiting, chiefly, his defects. He is ardent, but he laughs at ardor;he has talent, and he hides it; he plays the learned man witharistocrats, and the aristocrat with learned men. Eugene de Rastignacis one of those extremely clever young men who try all things, and

seem to sound others to discover what the future has in store. Whileawaiting the age of ambition, he scoffs at everything; he has graceand originality, two rare qualities because the one is apt to excludethe other. On this occasion he talked for nearly half an hour with



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madame de Listomere, without any predetermined idea of pleasingher. As they followed the caprices of conversation, which, beginningwith the opera of “Guillaume Tell,” had reached the topic of the

duties of women, he looked at the marquise, more than once, in amanner that embarrassed her; then he left her and did not speak toher again for the rest of the evening. He danced, played at ecarte, lostsome money, and went home to bed. I have the honor to assure youthat the affair happened precisely thus. I add nothing, and I suppressnothing.

The next morning Rastignac woke late and stayed in bed, givinghimself up to one of those matutinal reveries in the course of which a

young man glides like a sylph under many a silken, or cashmere, orcotton drapery. The heavier the body from its weight of sleep, themore active the mind. Rastignac finally got up, without yawningover-much as many ill-bred persons are apt to do. He rang for hisvalet, ordered tea, and drank immoderately of it when it came;which will not seem extraordinary to persons who like tea; but toexplain the circumstance to others, who regard that beverage as apanacea for indigestion, I will add that Eugene was, by this time,writing letters. He was comfortably seated, with his feet more

frequently on the andirons than, properly, on the rug. Ah! to haveone‘s feet on the polished bar which connects the two griffins of afender, and to think of our love in our dressing-gown is so delightfula thing that I deeply regret the fact of having neither mistress, norfender, nor dressing-gown.

The first letter which Eugene wrote was soon finished; he folded andsealed it, and laid it before him without adding the address. Thesecond letter, begun at eleven o‘clock, was not finished till mid-day.

The four pages were closely filled.

“That woman keeps running in my head,” he muttered, as he foldedthis second epistle and laid it before him, intending to direct it assoon as he had ended his involuntary revery.

He crossed the two flaps of his flowered dressing-gown, put his feeton a stool, slipped his hands into the pockets of his red cashmeretrousers, and lay back in a delightful easy-chair with side wings, the

seat and back of which described an angle of one hundred andtwenty degrees. He stopped drinking tea and remained motionless,his eyes fixed on the gilded hand which formed the knob of hisshovel, but without seeing either hand or shovel. He ceased even to



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poke the fire, —a vast mistake! Isn‘t it one of our greatest pleasuresto play with the fire when we think of women? Our minds findspeeches in those tiny blue flames which suddenly dart up and

babble on the hearth. We interpret as we please the strong, harshtones of a “burgundian.”

Here I must pause to put before all ignorant persons an explanationof that word, derived from a very distinguished etymologist whowishes his name kept secret.

“Burgundian” is the name given, since the reign of Charles VI., tothose noisy detonations, the result of which is to fling upon the

carpet or the clothes a little coal or ember, the trifling nucleus of aconflagration. Heat or fire releases, they say, a bubble of air left inthe heart of the wood by a gnawing worm. “Inde amor, inde burgundus.” We tremble when we see the structure we had socarefully erected between the logs rolling down like an avalanche.Oh! to build and stir and play with fire when we love is the materialdevelopment of our thoughts.

It was at this moment that I entered the room. Rastignac gave a jump

and said:—

“Ah! there you are, dear Horace; how long have you been here?”

“Just come.”

“Ah!”

He took up the two letters, directed them, and rang for his servant.

“Take these,” he said, “and deliver them.”

Joseph departed without a word; admirable servant!

We began to talk of the expedition to Morea, to which I was anxiousto be appointed as physician. Eugene remarked that I should lose agreat deal of time if I left Paris. We then conversed on variousmatters, and I think you will be glad if I suppress the conversation.

When the Marquise de Listomere rose, about half-past two in theafternoon of that day, her waiting-maid, Caroline, gave her a letter



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which she read while Caroline was doing her hair (an imprudencewhich many young women are thoughtless enough to commit).

“Dear angel of love,” said the letter, “treasure of my life andhappiness—”

At these words the marquise was about to fling the letter in the fire; but there came into her head a fancy—which all virtuous womenwill readily understand—to see how a man who began a letter inthat style could possibly end it. When she had turned the fourthpage and read it, she let her arms drop like a person much fatigued.

“Caroline, go and ask who left this letter.”

“Madame, I received it myself from the valet of Monsieur le Baronde Rastignac.”

After that there was silence for some time.

“Does Madame intend to dress?” asked Caroline at last.

“No— He is certainly a most impertinent man,” reflected themarquise.

I request all women to imagine for themselves the reflections ofwhich this was the first.

Madame de Listomere ended hers by a formal decision to forbid herporter to admit Monsieur de Rastignac, and to show him, herself,something more than disdain when she met him in society; for his

insolence far surpassed that of other men which the marquise hadended by overlooking. At first she thought of keeping the letter; buton second thoughts she burned it.

“Madame had just received such a fine love-letter; and she read it,”said Caroline to the housemaid.

“I should never have thought that of madame,” replied the other,quite surprised.

That evening Madame de Listomere went to a party at the Marquisde Beauseant‘s, where Rastignac would probably betake himself. Itwas Saturday. The Marquis de Beauseant was in some way a



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connection of Monsieur de Rastignac, and the young man was notlikely to miss coming. By two in the morning Madame de Listomere,who had gone there solely for the purpose of crushing Eugene by her

coldness, discovered that she was waiting in vain. A brilliant man—Stendhal—has given the fantastic name of “crystallization” to theprocess which Madame de Listomere‘s thoughts went through before, during, and after this evening.

Four days later Eugene was scolding his valet.

“Ah ca! Joseph; I shall soon have to send you away, my lad.”

“What is it, monsieur?”

“You do nothing but make mistakes. Where did you carry thoseletters I gave you Saturday?”

Joseph became stolid. Like a statue in some cathedral porch, he stoodmotionless, entirely absorbed in the labors of imagination. Suddenlyhe smiled idiotically, and said:—

“Monsieur, one was for the Marquise de Listomere, the other was forMonsieur‘s lawyer.”

“You are certain of what you say?”

Joseph was speechless. I saw plainly that I must interfere, as Ihappened to be again in Eugene‘s apartment.

“Joseph is right,” I said.

Eugene turned and looked at me.

“I read the addresses quite involuntarily, and—”

“And,” interrupted Eugene, “one of them was not for Madame deNucingen?”

“No, by all the devils, it was not. Consequently, I supposed, my dear

fellow, that your heart was wandering from the rue Saint-Lazare tothe rue Saint-Dominique.”



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Eugene struck his forehead with the flat of his hand and began tolaugh; by which Joseph perceived that the blame was not on him.

Now, there are certain morals to this tale on which young men had better reflect. First mistake: Eugene thought it would be amusing tomake Madame de Listomere laugh at the blunder which had madeher the recipient of a love-letter which was not intended for her.Second mistake: he did not call on Madame de Listomere for severaldays after the adventure, thus allowing the thoughts of that virtuousyoung woman to crystallize. There were other mistakes which I willhere pass over in silence, in order to give the ladies the pleasure ofdeducing them, “ex professo,” to those who are unable to guess

them.

Eugene at last went to call upon the marquise; but, on attempting topass into the house, the porter stopped him, saying that Madame lamarquise was out. As he was getting back into his carriage theMarquis de Listomere came home.

“Come in, Eugene,” he said. “My wife is at home.”

Pray excuse the marquis. A husband, however good he may be,never attains perfection. As they went up the staircase Rastignacperceived at least a dozen blunders in worldly wisdom which had,unaccountably, slipped into this page of the glorious book of his life.

When Madame de Listomere saw her husband ushering in Eugeneshe could not help blushing. The young baron saw that suddencolor. If the most humble-minded man retains in the depths of hissoul a certain conceit of which he never rids himself, any more than a

woman ever rids herself of coquetry, who shall blame Eugene if hedid say softly in his own mind: “What! that fortress, too?” Sothinking, he posed in his cravat. Young men may not be grasping butthey like to get a new coin in their collection.

Monsieur de Listomere seized the “Gazette de France,” which hesaw on the mantelpiece, and carried it to a window, to obtain, by journalistic help, an opinion of his own on the state of France.

A woman, even a prude, is never long embarrassed, howeverdifficult may be the position in which she finds herself; she seemsalways to have on hand the fig-leaf which our mother Eve bequeathed to her. Consequently, when Eugene, interpreting, in



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favor of his vanity, the refusal to admit him, bowed to Madame deListomere in a tolerably intentional manner, she veiled her thoughts behind one of those feminine smiles which are more impenetrable

than the words of a king.

“Are you unwell, madame? You denied yourself to visitors.”

“I am well, monsieur.”

“Perhaps you were going out?”

“Not at all.”

“You expected some one?”

“No one.”

“If my visit is indiscreet you must blame Monsieur le marquis. I hadalready accepted your mysterious denial, when he himself came up,and introduced me into the sanctuary.”

“Monsieur de Listomere is not in my confidence on this point. It isnot always prudent to put a husband in possession of certainsecrets.”

The firm and gentle tones in which the marquise said these words,and the imposing glance which she cast upon Rastignac made himaware that he had posed in his cravat a trifle prematurely.

“Madame, I understand you,” he said, laughing. “I ought, therefore,

to be doubly thankful that Monsieur le marquis met me; he affordsme an opportunity to offer you excuses which might be full ofdanger were you not kindness itself.”

The marquise looked at the young man with an air of some surprise, but she answered with dignity:—

“Monsieur, silence on your part will be the best excuse. As for me, Ipromise you entire forgetfulness, and the pardon which you scarcely

deserve.”

“Madame,” said Rastignac, hastily, “pardon is not needed wherethere was no offence. The letter,” he added, in a low voice, “which



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you received, and which you must have thought extremelyunbecoming, was not intended for you.”

The marquise could not help smiling, though she wished to seemoffended.

“Why deceive?” she said, with a disdainful air, although the tones ofher voice were gentle. “Now that I have duly scolded you, I amwilling to laugh at a subterfuge which is not without cleverness. Iknow many women who would be taken in by it: ‘Heavens! how heloves me!' they would say.”

Here the marquise gave a forced laugh, and then added, in a tone ofindulgence:—

“If we desire to continue friends let there be no more mistakes , ofwhich it is impossible that I should be the dupe.”

“Upon my honor, madame, you are so—far more than you think,”replied Eugene.

“What are you talking about?” asked Monsieur de Listomere, who,for the last minute, had been listening to the conversation, themeaning of which he could not penetrate.

“Oh! nothing that would interest you,” replied his wife.

Monsieur de Listomere tranquilly returned to the reading of hispaper, and presently said:—

“Ah! Madame de Mortsauf is dead; your poor brother has, no doubt,gone to Clochegourde.”

“Are you aware, monsieur,” resumed the marquise, turning toEugene, “that what you have just said is a great impertinence?”

“If I did not know the strictness of your principles,” he answered,naively, “I should think that you wished either to give me ideaswhich I deny myself, or else to tear a secret from me. But perhaps

you are only amusing yourself with me.”

The marquise smiled. That smile annoyed Eugene.



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“Madame,” he said, “can you still believe in an offence I have notcommitted? I earnestly hope that chance may not enable you todiscover the name of the person who ought to have read that letter.”

“What! can it be still Madame de Nucingen?” cried Madame deListomere, more eager to penetrate that secret than to revenge herselffor the impertinence of the young man‘s speeches.

Eugene colored. A man must be more than twenty-five years of agenot to blush at being taxed with a fidelity that women laugh at—inorder, perhaps, not to show that they envy it. However, he repliedwith tolerable self-possession:—

“Why not, madame?”

Such are the blunders we all make at twenty-five.

This speech caused a violent commotion in Madame de Listomere‘s bosom; but Rastignac did not yet know how to analyze a woman‘sface by a rapid or sidelong glance. The lips of the marquise paled, but that was all. She rang the bell for wood, and so constrained

Rastignac to rise and take his leave.

“If that be so,” said the marquise, stopping Eugene with a cold andrigid manner, “you will find it difficult to explain, monsieur, whyyour pen should, by accident, write my name. A name, written on aletter, is not a friend‘s opera-hat, which you might have taken,carelessly, on leaving a ball.”

Eugene, discomfited, looked at the marquise with an air that was

both stupid and conceited. He felt that he was becoming ridiculous;and after stammering a few juvenile phrases he left the room.

A few days later the marquise acquired undeniable proofs thatEugene had told the truth. For the last fortnight she has not beenseen in society.

The marquis tells all those who ask him the reason of thisseclusion:—

“My wife has an inflammation of the stomach.”



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But I, her physician, who am now attending her, know it is reallynothing more than a slight nervous attack, which she is making themost of in order to stay quietly at home.



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ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the HumanComedy.

Bianchon, HoraceFather GoriotThe Atheist‘s MassCesar BirotteauThe Commission in Lunacy

Lost IllusionsA Distinguished Provincial at ParisA Bachelor‘s EstablishmentThe Secrets of a PrincessThe Government ClerksPierretteA Study of WomanScenes from a Courtesan‘s LifeHonorine

The Seamy Side of HistoryThe Magic SkinA Second HomeA Prince of BohemiaLetters of Two BridesThe Muse of the DepartmentThe Imaginary MistressThe Middle ClassesCousin Betty

The Country ParsonIn addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:

Another Study of Woman

JosephThe Magic Skin

Listomere, Marquis deThe Lily of the Valley

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Listomere, Marquise deThe Lily of the Valley



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Lost IllusionsA Distinguished Provincial at ParisA Daughter of Eve

Rastignac, Eugene deFather GoriotA Distinguished Provincial at ParisScenes from a Courtesan‘s LifeThe Ball at SceauxThe InterdictionAnother Study of WomanThe Magic Skin

The Secrets of a PrincessA Daughter of EveThe Gondreville MysteryThe Firm of NucingenCousin BettyThe Member for ArcisThe Unconscious Humorists



Another Study of

Woman

Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell

DEDICATION

To Leon Gozlan

as a Token of Literary Good-fellowship.




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Another Studyof Woman

At Paris there are almost always two separate parties going on atevery ball and rout. First, an official party, composed of the persons

invited, a fashionable and much-bored circle. Each one grimaces forhis neighbor‘s eye; most of the younger women are there for oneperson only; when each woman has assured herself that for that oneshe is the handsomest woman in the room, and that the opinion isperhaps shared by a few others, a few insignificant phrases areexchanged, as: “Do you think of going away soon to La Crampade?”“How well Madame de Portenduere sang!” “Who is that littlewoman with such a load of diamonds?” Or, after firing off somesmart epigrams, which give transient pleasure, and leave wounds

that rankle long, the groups thin out, the mere lookers on go away,and the waxlights burn down to the sconces.

The mistress of the house then waylays a few artists, amusing peopleor intimate friends, saying, “Do not go yet; we will have a snug littlesupper.” These collect in some small room. The second, the realparty, now begins; a party where, as of old, every one can hear whatis said, conversation is general, each one is bound to be witty and tocontribute to the amusement of all. Everything is made to tell, honest

laughter takes the place of the gloom which in company saddens theprettiest faces. In short, where the rout ends pleasure begins.

The Rout, a cold display of luxury, a review of self-conceits in fulldress, is one of those English inventions which tend to mechanize other nations. England seems bent on seeing the whole world as dullas itself, and dull in the same way. So this second party is, in someFrench houses, a happy protest on the part of the old spirit of ourlight-hearted people. Only, unfortunately, so few houses protest; and

the reason is a simple one. If we no longer have many suppersnowadays, it is because never, under any rule, have there been fewermen placed, established, and successful than under the reign ofLouis Philippe, when the Revolution began again, lawfully.




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Everybody is on the march some whither, or trotting at the heels ofFortune. Time has become the costliest commodity, so no one canafford the lavish extravagance of going home to-morrow morning

and getting up late. Hence, there is no second soiree now but at thehouses of women rich enough to entertain, and since July 1830 suchwomen may be counted in Paris.

In spite of the covert opposition of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, twoor three women, among them Madame d‘Espard and Mademoiselledes Touches, have not chosen to give up the share of influence theyexercised in Paris, and have not closed their houses.

The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches is noted in Paris as being thelast refuge where the old French wit has found a home, with itsreserved depths, its myriad subtle byways, and its exquisitepoliteness. You will there still find grace of manner notwithstandingthe conventionalities of courtesy, perfect freedom of talknotwithstanding the reserve which is natural to persons of breeding,and, above all, a liberal flow of ideas. No one there thinks of keepinghis thought for a play; and no one regards a story as material for a book. In short, the hideous skeleton of literature at bay never stalks

there, on the prowl for a clever sally or an interesting subject.

The memory of one of these evenings especially dwells with me, less by reason of a confidence in which the illustrious de Marsay openedup one of the deepest recesses of woman‘s heart, than on account ofthe reflections to which his narrative gave rise, as to the changes thathave taken place in the French woman since the fateful revolution of July.

On that evening chance had brought together several persons, whoseindisputable merits have won them European reputations. This isnot a piece of flattery addressed to France, for there were a goodmany foreigners present. And, indeed, the men who most shonewere not the most famous. Ingenious repartee, acute remarks,admirable banter, pictures sketched with brilliant precision, allsparkled and flowed without elaboration, were poured out withoutdisdain, but without effort, and were exquisitely expressed anddelicately appreciated. The men of the world especially were

conspicuous for their really artistic grace and spirit.

Elsewhere in Europe you will find elegant manners, cordiality,genial fellowship, and knowledge; but only in Paris, in this drawing-




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room, and those to which I have alluded, does the particular witabound which gives an agreeable and changeful unity to all thesesocial qualities, an indescribable river-like flow which makes this

profusion of ideas, of definitions, of anecdotes, of historicalincidents, meander with ease. Paris, the capital of taste, alonepossesses the science which makes conversation a tourney in whicheach type of wit is condensed into a shaft, each speaker utters hisphrase and casts his experience in a word, in which every one findsamusement, relaxation, and exercise. Here, then, alone, will youexchange ideas; here you need not, like the dolphin in the fable,carry a monkey on your shoulders; here you will be understood, andwill not risk staking your gold pieces against base metal.

Here, again, secrets neatly betrayed, and talk, light or deep, play andeddy, changing their aspect and hue at every phrase. Eager criticismand crisp anecdotes lead on from one to the next. All eyes arelistening, a gesture asks a question, and an expressive look gives theanswer. In short, and in a word, everything is wit and mind.

The phenomenon of speech, which, when duly studied and wellhandled, is the power of the actor and the story-teller, had never so

completely bewitched me. Nor was I alone under the influence of itsspell; we all spent a delightful evening. The conversation had driftedinto anecdote, and brought out in its rushing course some curiousconfessions, several portraits, and a thousand follies, which makethis enchanting improvisation impossible to record; still, by settingthese things down in all their natural freshness and abruptness, theirelusive divarications, you may perhaps feel the charm of a realFrench evening, taken at the moment when the most engagingfamiliarity makes each one forget his own interests, his personal

conceit, or, if you like, his pretensions.

At about two in the morning, as supper ended, no one was leftsitting round the table but intimate friends, proved by intercourse offifteen years, and some persons of great taste and good breeding,who knew the world. By tacit agreement, perfectly carried out, atsupper every one renounced his pretensions to importance. Perfectequality set the tone. But indeed there was no one present who wasnot very proud of being himself.

Mademoiselle des Touches always insists on her guests remaining attable till they leave, having frequently remarked the change which amove produces in the spirit of a party. Between the dining-room and




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the drawing-room the charm is destroyed. According to Sterne, theideas of an author after shaving are different from those he had before. If Sterne is right, may it not be boldly asserted that the frame

of mind of a party at table is not the same as that of the same personsreturned to the drawing-room? The atmosphere is not heady, the eyeno longer contemplates the brilliant disorder of the dessert, lost arethe happy effects of that laxness of mood, that benevolence whichcomes over us while we remain in the humor peculiar to the well-filled man, settled comfortably on one of the springy chairs whichare made in these days. Perhaps we are not more ready to talk face toface with the dessert and in the society of good wine, during thedelightful interval when every one may sit with an elbow on the

table and his head resting on his hand. Not only does every one liketo talk then, but also to listen. Digestion, which is almost alwaysattent, is loquacious or silent, as characters differ. Then every onefinds his opportunity.

Was not this preamble necessary to make you know the charm of thenarrative, by which a celebrated man, now dead, depicted theinnocent jesuistry of women, painting it with the subtlety peculiar topersons who have seen much of the world, and which makes

statesmen such delightful storytellers when, like Prince Talleyrandand Prince Metternich, they vouchsafe to tell a story?

De Marsay, prime minister for some six months, had already givenproofs of superior capabilities. Those who had known him long werenot indeed surprised to see him display all the talents and variousaptitudes of a statesman; still it might yet be a question whether hewould prove to be a solid politician, or had merely been moulded inthe fire of circumstance. This question had just been asked by a man

whom he had made a prefet, a man of wit and observation, who hadfor a long time been a journalist, and who admired de Marsaywithout infusing into his admiration that dash of acrid criticism bywhich, in Paris, one superior man excuses himself from admiringanother.

“Was there ever,” said he, “in your former life, any event, anythought or wish which told you what your vocation was?” askedEmile Blondet; “for we all, like Newton, have our apple, which falls

and leads us to the spot where our faculties develop—”

“Yes,” said de Marsay; “I will tell you about it.”




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Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, de Marsay‘sintimate friends,—all settled themselves comfortably, each in hisfavorite attitude, to look at the Minister. Need it be said that the

servants had left, that the doors were shut, and the curtains drawnover them? The silence was so complete that the murmurs of thecoachmen‘s voices could be heard from the courtyard, and thepawing and champing made by horses when asking to be taken backto their stable.

“The statesman, my friends, exists by one single quality,” said theMinister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert knife.“To wit: the power of always being master of himself; of profiting

more or less, under all circumstances, by every event, howeverfortuitous; in short, of having within himself a cold and disinterestedother self, who looks on as a spectator at all the changes of life,noting our passions and our sentiments, and whispering to us inevery case the judgment of a sort of moral ready-reckoner.”

“That explains why a statesman is so rare a thing in France,” said oldLord Dudley.

“From a sentimental point of view, this is horrible,” the Ministerwent on. “Hence, when such a phenomenon is seen in a young man—Richelieu, who, when warned overnight by a letter of Concini‘speril, slept till midday, when his benefactor was killed at teno‘clock—or say Pitt, or Napoleon, he was a monster. I became such amonster at a very early age, thanks to a woman.”

“I fancied,” said Madame de Montcornet with a smile, “that morepoliticians were undone by us than we could make.”

“The monster of which I speak is a monster just because hewithstands you,” replied de Marsay, with a little ironical bow.

“If this is a love-story,” the Baronne de Nucingen interposed, “Irequest that it may not be interrupted by any reflections.”

“Reflection is so antipathetic to it!” cried Joseph Bridau.

“I was seventeen,” de Marsay went on; “the Restoration was beingconsolidated; my old friends know how impetuous and fervid I wasthen. I was in love for the first time, and I was—I may say so now—one of the handsomest young fellows in Paris. I had youth and good




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looks, two advantages due to good fortune, but of which we are allas proud as of a conquest. I must be silent as to the rest.—Like allyouths, I was in love with a woman six years older than myself. No

one of you here,” said he, looking carefully round the table, “cansuspect her name or recognize her. Ronquerolles alone, at the time,ever guessed my secret. He had kept it well, but I should have fearedhis smile. However, he is gone,” said the Minister, looking round.

“He would not stay to supper,” said Madame de Nucingen.

“For six months, possessed by my passion,” de Marsay went on,“but incapable of suspecting that it had overmastered me, I had

abandoned myself to that rapturous idolatry which is at once thetriumph and the frail joy of the young. I treasured her old gloves; Idrank an infusion of the flowers she had worn; I got out of bed atnight to go and gaze at her window. All my blood rushed to myheart when I inhaled the perfume she used. I was miles away fromknowing that woman is a stove with a marble casing.”

“Oh! spare us your terrible verdicts,” cried Madame de Montcornetwith a smile.

“I believe I should have crushed with my scorn the philosopher whofirst uttered this terrible but profoundly true thought,” said deMarsay. “You are all far too keen-sighted for me to say any more onthat point. These few words will remind you of your own follies.

“A great lady if ever there was one, a widow without children—oh!all was perfect—my idol would shut herself up to mark my linenwith her hair; in short, she responded to my madness by her own.

And how can we fail to believe in passion when it has the guaranteeof madness?

“We each devoted all our minds to concealing a love so perfect andso beautiful from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. Andwhat charm we found in our escapades! Of her I will say nothing.She was perfection then, and to this day is considered one of themost beautiful women in Paris; but at that time a man would haveendured death to win one of her glances. She had been left with an

amount of fortune sufficient for a woman who had loved and wasadored; but the Restoration, to which she owed renewed lustre,made it seem inadequate in comparison with her name. In myposition I was so fatuous as never to dream of a suspicion. Though




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my jealousy would have been of a hundred and twenty Othello-power, that terrible passion slumbered in me as gold in the nugget. Iwould have ordered my servant to thrash me if I had been so base as

ever to doubt the purity of that angel—so fragile and so strong, sofair, so artless, pure, spotless, and whose blue eyes allowed my gazeto sound it to the very depths of her heart with adorablesubmissiveness. Never was there the slightest hesitancy in herattitude, her look, or word; always white and fresh, and ready for theBeloved like the Oriental Lily of the ‘Song of Songs!' Ah! myfriends!” sadly exclaimed the Minister, grown young again, “a manmust hit his head very hard on the marble to dispel that poem!”

This cry of nature, finding an echo in the listeners, spurred thecuriosity he had excited in them with so much skill.

“Every morning, riding Sultan—the fine horse you sent me fromEngland,” de Marsay went on, addressing Lord Dudley, “I rode pasther open carriage, the horses’ pace being intentionally reduced to awalk, and read the order of the day signaled to me by the flowers ofher bouquet in case we were unable to exchange a few words.Though we saw each other almost every evening in society, and she

wrote to me every day, to deceive the curious and mislead theobservant we had adopted a scheme of conduct: never to look ateach other; to avoid meeting; to speak ill of each other. Self-admiration, swagger, or playing the disdained swain,—all these oldmanoeuvres are not to compare on either part with a false passionprofessed for an indifferent person and an air of indifferencetowards the true idol. If two lovers will only play that game, theworld will always be deceived; but then they must be very secure ofeach other.

“Her stalking-horse was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold andsanctimonious, whom she never received at her own house. Thislittle comedy was performed for the benefit of simpletons anddrawing-room circles, who laughed at it. Marriage was never spokenof between us; six years’ difference of age might give her pause; sheknew nothing of my fortune, of which, on principle, I have alwayskept the secret. I, on my part, fascinated by her wit and manners, bythe extent of her knowledge and her experience of the world, would

have married her without a thought. At the same time, her reservecharmed me. If she had been the first to speak of marriage in acertain tone, I might perhaps have noted it as vulgar in thataccomplished soul.




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“Six months, full and perfect—a diamond of the purest water! Thathas been my portion of love in this base world.

“One morning, attacked by the feverish stiffness which marks the beginning of a cold, I wrote her a line to put off one of those secretfestivals which are buried under the roofs of Paris like pearls in thesea. No sooner was the letter sent than remorse seized me: she willnot believe that I am ill! thought I. She was wont to affect jealousyand suspiciousness.—When jealousy is genuine,” said de Marsay,interrupting himself, “it is the visible sign of an unique passion.”

“Why?” asked the Princesse de Cadignan eagerly.

“Unique and true love,” said de Marsay, “produces a sort ofcorporeal apathy attuned to the contemplation into which one falls.Then the mind complicates everything; it works on itself, pictures itsfancies, turns them into reality and torment; and such jealousy is asdelightful as it is distressing.”

A foreign minister smiled as, by the light of memory, he felt the truthof this remark.

“Besides,” de Marsay went on, “I said to myself, why miss a happyhour? Was it not better to go, even though feverish? And, then, if shelearns that I am ill, I believe her capable of hurrying here andcompromising herself. I made an effort; I wrote a second letter, andcarried it myself, for my confidential servant was now gone. Theriver lay between us. I had to cross Paris; but at last, within a suitabledistance of her house, I caught sight of a messenger; I charged him tohave the note sent up to her at once, and I had the happy idea of

driving past her door in a hackney cab to see whether she might not by chance receive the two letters together. At the moment when Iarrived it was two o‘clock; the great gate opened to admit a carriage.Whose? —That of the stalking-horse!

“It is fifteen years since—well, even while I tell the tale, I, theexhausted orator, the Minister dried up by the friction of public business, I still feel a surging in my heart and the hot blood aboutmy diaphragm. At the end of an hour I passed once more; the

carriage was still in the courtyard! My note no doubt was in theporter‘s hands. At last, at half-past three, the carriage drove out. Icould observe my rival‘s expression; he was grave, and did notsmile; but he was in love, and no doubt there was business in hand.




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“I went to keep my appointment; the queen of my heart met me; Isaw her calm, pure, serene. And here I must confess that I havealways thought that Othello was not only stupid, but showed very

bad taste. Only a man who is half a Negro could behave so: indeedShakespeare felt this when he called his play ‘The Moor of Venice.'The sight of the woman we love is such a balm to the heart that itmust dispel anguish, doubt, and sorrow. All my rage vanished. Icould smile again. Hence this cheerfulness, which at my age nowwould be the most atrocious dissimulation, was the result of myyouth and my love. My jealousy once buried, I had the power ofobservation. My ailing condition was evident; the horrible doubtsthat had fermented in me increased it. At last I found an opening for

putting in these words: ‘You have had no one with you thismorning?' making a pretext of the uneasiness I had felt in the fearlest she should have disposed of her time after receiving my firstnote.—‘Ah!' she exclaimed, ‘only a man could have such ideas! As ifI could think of anything but your suffering. Till the moment when Ireceived your second note I could think only of how I could contriveto see you.'—‘And you were alone?'—‘Alone,' said she, looking atme with a face of innocence so perfect that it must have been hisdistrust of such a look as that which made the Moor kill Desdemona.

As she lived alone in the house, the word was a fearful lie. Onesingle lie destroys the absolute confidence which to some souls is thevery foundation of happiness.

“To explain to you what passed in me at that moment it must beassumed that we have an internal self of which the exterior I is butthe husk; that this self, as brilliant as light, is as fragile as a shade —well, that beautiful self was in me thenceforth for ever shrouded incrape. Yes; I felt a cold and fleshless hand cast over me the winding-

sheet of experience, dooming me to the eternal mourning into whichthe first betrayal plunges the soul. As I cast my eyes down that shemight not observe my dizziness, this proud thought somewhatrestored my strength: ‘If she is deceiving you, she is unworthy ofyou!'

“I ascribed my sudden reddening and the tears which started to myeyes to an attack of pain, and the sweet creature insisted on drivingme home with the blinds of the cab drawn. On the way she was full

of a solicitude and tenderness that might have deceived the Moor ofVenice whom I have taken as a standard of comparison. Indeed, ifthat great child were to hesitate two seconds longer, every intelligentspectator feels that he would ask Desdemona‘s forgiveness. Thus,




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killing the woman is the act of a boy.—She wept as we parted, somuch was she distressed at being unable to nurse me herself. Shewished she were my valet, in whose happiness she found a cause of

envy, and all this was as elegantly expressed, oh! as Clarissa mighthave written in her happiness. There is always a precious ape in theprettiest and most angelic woman!”

At these words all the women looked down, as if hurt by this brutaltruth so brutally stated.

“I will say nothing of the night, nor of the week I spent,” de Marsaywent on. “I discovered that I was a statesman.”

It was so well said that we all uttered an admiring exclamation.

“As I thought over the really cruel vengeance to be taken on awoman,” said de Marsay, continuing his story, “with infernalingenuity—for, as we had loved each other, some terrible andirreparable revenges were possible—I despised myself, I felt howcommon I was, I insensibly formulated a horrible code—that ofIndulgence. In taking vengeance on a woman, do we not in fact

admit that there is but one for us, that we cannot do without her?And, then, is revenge the way to win her back? If she is notindispensable, if there are other women in the world, why not granther the right to change which we assume?

“This, of course, applies only to passion; in any other sense it would be socially wrong. Nothing more clearly proves the necessity forindissoluble marriage than the instability of passion. The two sexesmust be chained up, like wild beasts as they are, by inevitable law,

deaf and mute. Eliminate revenge, and infidelity in love is nothing.Those who believe that for them there is but one woman in the worldmust be in favor of vengeance, and then there is but one form of it —that of Othello.

“Mine was different.”

The words produced in each of us the imperceptible movementwhich newspaper writers represent in Parliamentary reports by the

words: great sensation.

“Cured of my cold, and of my pure, absolute, divine love, I flungmyself into an adventure, of which the heroine was charming, and of




27

a style of beauty utterly opposed to that of my deceiving angel. Itook care not to quarrel with this clever woman, who was so good anactress, for I doubt whether true love can give such gracious delights

as those lavished by such a dexterous fraud. Such refined hypocrisyis as good as virtue.—I am not speaking to you Englishwomen, mylady,” said the Minister, suavely, addressing Lady Barimore, LordDudley‘s daughter. “I tried to be the same lover.

“I wished to have some of my hair worked up for my new angel, andI went to a skilled artist who at that time dwelt in the Rue Boucher.The man had a monopoly of capillary keepsakes, and I mention hisaddress for the benefit of those who have not much hair; he has

plenty of every kind and every color. After I had explained myorder, he showed me his work. I then saw achievements of patiencesurpassing those which the story books ascribe to fairies, or whichare executed by prisoners. He brought me up to date as to thecaprices and fashions governing the use of hair. ‘For the last year,'said he, ‘there has been a rage for marking linen with hair; happily Ihad a fine collection of hair and skilled needlewomen,'—on hearingthis a suspicion flashed upon me; I took out my handkerchief andsaid, ‘So this was done in your shop, with false hair?'—He looked at

the handkerchief, and said, ‘Ay! that lady was very particular, sheinsisted on verifying the tint of the hair. My wife herself markedthose handkerchiefs. You have there, sir, one of the finest pieces ofwork we have ever executed.' Before this last ray of light I mighthave believed something—might have taken a woman‘s word. I leftthe shop still having faith in pleasure, but where love was concernedI was as atheistical as a mathematician.

“Two months later I was sitting by the side of the ethereal being in

her boudoir, on her sofa; I was holding one of her hands—they werevery beautiful—and we scaled the Alps of sentiment, culling theirsweetest flowers, and pulling off the daisy-petals; there is always amoment when one pulls daisies to pieces, even if it is in a drawing-room and there are no daisies. At the intensest moment oftenderness, and when we are most in love, love is so well aware ofits own short duration that we are irresistibly urged to ask, ‘Do youlove me? Will you love me always?' I seized the elegiac moment, sowarm, so flowery, so full-blown, to lead her to tell her most

delightful lies, in the enchanting language of love. Charlottedisplayed her choicest allurements: She could not live without me; Iwas to her the only man in the world; she feared to weary me, because my presence bereft her of all her wits; with me, all her




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faculties were lost in love; she was indeed too tender to escapealarms; for the last six months she had been seeking some way to bind me to her eternally, and God alone knew that secret; in short, I

was her god!”

The women who heard de Marsay seemed offended by seeingthemselves so well acted, for he seconded the words by airs, andsidelong attitudes, and mincing grimaces which were quite illusory.

“At the very moment when I might have believed these adorablefalsehoods, as I still held her right hand in mine, I said to her, ‘Whenare you to marry the Duke?'

“The thrust was so direct, my gaze met hers so boldly, and her handlay so tightly in mine, that her start, slight as it was, could not bedisguised; her eyes fell before mine, and a faint blush colored hercheeks.—‘The Duke! What do you mean?' she said, affecting greatastonishment.—‘I know everything,' replied I; ‘and in my opinion,you should delay no longer; he is rich; he is a duke; but he is morethan devout, he is religious! I am sure, therefore, that you have beenfaithful to me, thanks to his scruples. You cannot imagine how

urgently necessary it is that you should compromise him withhimself and with God; short of that you will never bring him to thepoint.' —‘Is this a dream?' said she, pushing her hair from herforehead, fifteen years before Malibran, with the gesture whichMalibran has made so famous.—‘Come, do not be childish, myangel,' said I, trying to take her hands; but she folded them beforeher with a little prudish and indignant mein.—‘Marry him, you havemy permission,' said I, replying to this gesture by using the formalvous instead of tu. ‘Nay, better, I beg you to do so.'—‘But,' cried she,

falling at my knees, ‘there is some horrible mistake; I love no one inthe world but you; you may demand any proofs you please.'—‘Rise,my dear,' said I, ‘and do me the honor of being truthful.'—‘As beforeGod.'—‘Do you doubt my love?'—‘No.'—‘Nor my fidelity?'—‘No.'—‘Well, I have committed the greatest crime,' I went on. ‘I havedoubted your love and your fidelity. Between two intoxications Ilooked calmly about me.'—‘Calmly!' sighed she. ‘That is enough,Henri; you no longer love me.'

“She had at once found, you perceive, a loophole for escape. Inscenes like these an adverb is dangerous. But, happily, curiositymade her add: ‘And what did you see? Have I ever spoken of theDuke excepting in public? Have you detected in my eyes—?'—‘No,'




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said I, ‘but in his. And you have eight times made me go to Saint-Thomas d‘Aquin to see you listening to the same mass as he.'—‘Ah!'she exclaimed, ‘then I have made you jealous!'—Oh! I only wish I

could be!' said I, admiring the pliancy of her quick intelligence, andthese acrobatic feats which can only be successful in the eyes of the blind. ‘But by dint of going to church I have become veryincredulous. On the day of my first cold, and your first treachery,when you thought I was in bed, you received the Duke, and you toldme you had seen no one.'—‘Do you know that your conduct isinfamous?'—‘In what respect? I consider your marriage to the Dukean excellent arrangement; he gives you a great name, the only rankthat suits you, a brilliant and distinguished position. You will be one

of the queens of Paris. I should be doing you a wrong if I placed anyobstacle in the way of this prospect, this distinguished life, thissplendid alliance. Ah! Charlotte, some day you will do me justice bydiscovering how unlike my character is to that of other young men.You would have been compelled to deceive me; yes, you would havefound it very difficult to break with me, for he watches you. It is timethat we should part, for the Duke is rigidly virtuous. You must turnprude; I advise you to do so. The Duke is vain; he will be proud ofhis wife.'—‘Oh!' cried she, bursting into tears, ‘Henri, if only you had

spoken! Yes, if you had chosen’—it was I who was to blame, youunderstand—‘we would have gone to live all our days in a corner,married, happy, and defied the world.'—‘Well, it is too late now,'said I, kissing her hands, and putting on a victimized air.—‘GoodGod! But I can undo it all!' said she.—‘No, you have gone too farwith the Duke. I ought indeed to go a journey to part us moreeffectually. We should both have reason to fear our own affection—'—‘Henri, do you think the Duke has any suspicions?' I was still‘Henri,' but the tu was lost for ever.—‘I do not think so,' I replied,

assuming the manner of a friend; ‘but be as devout as possible,reconcile yourself to God, for the Duke waits for proofs; he hesitates,you must bring him to the point.'

“She rose, and walked twice round the boudoir in real or affectedagitation; then she no doubt found an attitude and a look beseemingthe new state of affairs, for she stopped in front of me, held out herhand, and said in a voice broken by emotion, ‘Well, Henri, you areloyal, noble, and a charming man; I shall never forget you.'

“These were admirable tactics. She was bewitching in this transitionof feeling, indispensable to the situation in which she wished toplace herself in regard to me. I fell into the attitude, the manners, and




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the look of a man so deeply distressed, that I saw her too newlyassumed dignity giving way; she looked at me, took my hand, drewme along almost, threw me on the sofa, but quite gently, and said

after a moment‘s silence, ‘I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow.Do you love me?'—‘Oh! yes.'—‘Well, then, what will become ofyou?'”

At this point the women all looked at each other.

“Though I can still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still laugh at herexpression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that I must die,or at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy,” de Marsay went on.

“Oh! do not laugh yet!” he said to his listeners; “there is better tocome. I looked at her very tenderly after a pause, and said to her,‘Yes, that is what I have been wondering.'—‘Well, what will you do?'—‘I asked myself that the day after my cold.'—‘And—?' she askedwith eager anxiety.—‘And I have made advances to the little lady towhom I was supposed to be attached.'

“Charlotte started up from the sofa like a frightened doe, tremblinglike a leaf, gave me one of those looks in which women forgo all their

dignity, all their modesty, their refinement, and even their grace, thesparkling glitter of a hunted viper‘s eye when driven into a corner,and said, ‘And I have loved this man! I have struggled! I have—' Onthis last thought, which I leave you to guess, she made the mostimpressive pause I ever heard.—‘Good God!' she cried, ‘howunhappy are we women! we never can be loved. To you there isnothing serious in the purest feelings. But never mind; when youcheat us you still are our dupes!'—‘I see that plainly,' said I, with astricken air; ‘you have far too much wit in your anger for your heart

to suffer from it.'—This modest epigram increased her rage; shefound some tears of vexation. ‘You disgust me with the world andwith life.' she said; ‘you snatch away all my illusions; you depravemy heart.'

“She said to me all that I had a right to say to her, and with a simpleeffrontery, an artless audacity, which would certainly have nailedany man but me on the spot.—‘What is to become of us poor womenin a state of society such as Louis XVIII.‘s charter made it?' —

(Imagine how her words had run away with her.)—‘Yes, indeed, weare born to suffer. In matters of passion we are always superior toyou, and you are beneath all loyalty. There is no honesty in yourhearts. To you love is a game in which you always cheat.'—‘My




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dear,' said I, ‘to take anything serious in society nowadays would belike making romantic love to an actress.'—‘What a shameless betrayal! It was deliberately planned!'—‘No, only a rational issue.'—

‘Good-bye, Monsieur de Marsay,' said she; ‘you have deceived mehorribly.' —‘Surely,' I replied, taking up a submissive attitude,‘Madame la Duchesse will not remember Charlotte‘s grievances?'—‘Certainly,' she answered bitterly.—‘Then, in fact, you hate me?'—She bowed, and I said to myself, ‘There is something still left!'

“The feeling she had when I parted from her allowed her to believethat she still had something to avenge. Well, my friends, I havecarefully studied the lives of men who have had great success with

women, but I do not believe that the Marechal de Richelieu, orLauzun, or Louis de Valois ever effected a more judicious retreat atthe first attempt. As to my mind and heart, they were cast in a mouldthen and there, once for all, and the power of control I thus acquiredover the thoughtless impulses which make us commit so manyfollies gained me the admirable presence of mind you all know.”

“How deeply I pity the second!” exclaimed the Baronne deNucingen.

A scarcely perceptible smile on de Marsay‘s pale lips made Delphinede Nucingen color.

“How we do forget!” said the Baron de Nucingen.

The great banker‘s simplicity was so extremely droll, that his wife,who was de Marsay‘s “second,” could not help laughing like everyone else.

“You are all ready to condemn the woman,” said Lady Dudley.“Well, I quite understand that she did not regard her marriage as anact of inconstancy. Men will never distinguish between constancyand fidelity.—I know the woman whose story Monsieur de Marsayhas told us, and she is one of the last of your truly great ladies.”

“Alas! my lady, you are right,” replied de Marsay. “For very nearlyfifty years we have been looking on at the progressive ruin of all

social distinctions. We ought to have saved our women from thisgreat wreck, but the Civil Code has swept its leveling influence overtheir heads. However terrible the words, they must be spoken:Duchesses are vanishing, and marquises too! As to the baronesses—I




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must apologize to Madame de Nucingen, who will become acountess when her husband is made a peer of France—baronesseshave never succeeded in getting people to take them seriously.”

“Aristocracy begins with the viscountess,” said Blondet with a smile.

“Countesses will survive,” said de Marsay. “An elegant woman will be more or less of a countess—a countess of the Empire or ofyesterday, a countess of the old block, or, as they say in Italy, acountess by courtesy. But as to the great lady, she died out with thedignified splendor of the last century, with powder, patches, high-heeled slippers, and stiff bodices with a delta stomacher of bows.

Duchesses in these days can pass through a door without any needto widen it for their hoops. The Empire saw the last of gowns withtrains! I am still puzzled to understand how a sovereign who wishedto see his drawing-room swept by ducal satin and velvet did notmake indestructible laws. Napoleon never guessed the results of theCode he was so proud of. That man, by creating duchesses, foundedthe race of our ‘ladies’ of to-day—the indirect offspring of hislegislation.”

“It was logic, handled as a hammer by boys just out of school and byobscure journalists, which demolished the splendors of the socialstate,” said the Comte de Vandenesse. “In these days every roguewho can hold his head straight in his collar, cover his manly bosomwith half an ell of satin by way of a cuirass, display a brow whereapocryphal genius gleams under curling locks, and strut in a pair ofpatent-leather pumps graced by silk socks which cost six francs,screws his eye-glass into one of his eye-sockets by puckering up hischeek, and whether he be an attorney‘s clerk, a contractor‘s son, or a

banker‘s bastard, he stares impertinently at the prettiest duchess,appraises her as she walks downstairs, and says to his friend—dressed by Buisson, as we all are, and mounted in patent-leather likeany duke himself—‘There, my boy, that is a perfect lady.'”

“You have not known how to form a party,” said Lord Dudley; “itwill be a long time yet before you have a policy. You talk a great dealin France about organizing labor, and you have not yet organizedproperty. So this is what happens: Any duke—and even in the time

of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. there were some left who had twohundred thousand francs a year, a magnificent residence, and asumptuous train of servants—well, such a duke could live like agreat lord. The last of these great gentlemen in France was the Prince




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de Talleyrand.—This duke leaves four children, two of them girls.Granting that he has great luck in marrying them all well, each ofthese descendants will have but sixty or eighty thousand francs a

year now; each is the father or mother of children, and consequentlyobliged to live with the strictest economy in a flat on the groundfloor or first floor of a large house. Who knows if they may not even be hunting a fortune? Henceforth the eldest son‘s wife, a duchess inname only, has no carriage, no people, no opera-box, no time toherself. She has not her own rooms in the family mansion, nor herfortune, nor her pretty toys; she is buried in trade; she buys socks forher dear little children, nurses them herself, and keeps an eye on hergirls, whom she no longer sends to school at a convent. Thus your

noblest dames have been turned into worthy brood-hens.”

“Alas! it is true,” said Joseph Bridau. “In our day we cannot showthose beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden agesof the French Monarchy. The great lady‘s fan is broken. A womanhas nothing now to blush for; she need not slander or whisper, hideher face or reveal it. A fan is of no use now but for fanning herself.When once a thing is no more than what it is, it is too useful to be aform of luxury.”

“Everything in France has aided and abetted the ‘perfect lady,'” saidDaniel d‘Arthez. “The aristocracy has acknowledged her byretreating to the recesses of its landed estates, where it has hiddenitself to die—emigrating inland before the march of ideas, as of oldto foreign lands before that of the masses. The women who couldhave founded European salons , could have guided opinion andturned it inside out like a glove, could have ruled the world byruling the men of art or of intellect who ought to have ruled it, have

committed the blunder of abandoning their ground; they wereashamed of having to fight against the citizen class drunk withpower, and rushing out on to the stage of the world, there to be cutto pieces perhaps by the barbarians who are at its heels. Hence,where the middle class insist on seeing princesses, these are reallyonly ladylike young women. In these days princes can find no greatladies whom they may compromise; they cannot even confer honoron a woman taken up at random. The Duc de Bourbon was the lastprince to avail himself of this privilege.”

“And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it,” said LordDudley.




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“Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share theiropera-box with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher by a hair‘s breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of

the citizen class and those of the nobility—not altogether noble noraltogether bourgeoises ,” said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.

“The press has fallen heir to the Woman,” exclaimed Rastignac. “Sheno longer has the quality of a spoken feuilleton—delightful calumniesgraced by elegant language. We read feuilletons written in a dialectwhich changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful asan undertaker‘s mute, and as light as the lead of their type. Frenchconversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in

a revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in oldmansions where a press groans in the place where formerly elegantcompany used to meet.”

“The knell of the highest society is tolling,” said a Russian Prince.“Do you hear it? And the first stroke is your modern word lady.”

“You are right, Prince,” said de Marsay. “The ‘perfect lady,' issuingfrom the ranks of the nobility, or sprouting from the citizen class,

and the product of every soil, even of the provinces is the expressionof these times, a last remaining embodiment of good taste, grace, wit,and distinction, all combined, but dwarfed. We shall see no moregreat ladies in France, but there will be ‘ladies’ for a long time,elected by public opinion to form an upper chamber of women, andwho will be among the fair sex what a ‘gentleman’ is in England.”

“And that they call progress!” exclaimed Mademoiselle des Touches.“I should like to know where the progress lies?”

“Why, in this,” said Madame de Nucingen. “Formerly a womanmight have the voice of a fish-seller, the walk of a grenadier, the faceof an impudent courtesan, her hair too high on her forehead, a largefoot, a thick hand—she was a great lady in spite of it all; but in thesedays, even if she were a Montmorency—if a Montmorency wouldever be such a creature—she would not be a lady.”

“But what do you mean by a ‘perfect lady’?” asked Count Adam

Laginski.




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“She is a modern product, a deplorable triumph of the electivesystem as applied to the fair sex,” said the Minister. “Everyrevolution has a word of its own which epitomizes and depicts it.”

“You are right,” said the Russian, who had come to make a literaryreputation in Paris. “The explanation of certain words added fromtime to time to your beautiful language would make a magnificenthistory. Organize , for instance, is the word of the Empire, and sumsup Napoleon completely.”

“But all that does not explain what is meant by a lady!” the youngPole exclaimed, with some impatience.

“Well, I will tell you,” said Emile Blondet to Count Adam. “One finemorning you go for a saunter in Paris. It is past two, but five has notyet struck. You see a woman coming towards you; your first glanceat her is like the preface to a good book, it leads you to expect aworld of elegance and refinement. Like a botanist over hill and dalein his pursuit of plants, among the vulgarities of Paris life you haveat last found a rare flower. This woman is attended by two verydistinguished-looking men, of whom one, at any rate, wears an

order; or else a servant out of livery follows her at a distance of tenyards. She displays no gaudy colors, no open-worked stockings, noover-elaborate waist-buckle, no embroidered frills to her drawersfussing round her ankles. You will see that she is shod with prunellashoes, with sandals crossed over extremely fine cotton stockings, orplain gray silk stockings; or perhaps she wears boots of the mostexquisite simplicity. You notice that her gown is made of a neat andinexpensive material, but made in a way that surprises more thanone woman of the middle class; it is almost always a long pelisse,

with bows to fasten it, and neatly bound with fine cord or animperceptible braid. The Unknown has a way of her own inwrapping herself in her shawl or mantilla; she knows how to draw itround her from her hips to her neck, outlining a carapace, as it were,which would make an ordinary woman look like a turtle, but whichin her sets off the most beautiful forms while concealing them. Howdoes she do it? This secret she keeps, though unguarded by anypatent.

“As she walks she gives herself a little concentric and harmonioustwist, which makes her supple or dangerous slenderness writheunder the stuff, as a snake does under the green gauze of tremblinggrass. Is it to an angel or a devil that she owes the graceful




36

undulation which plays under her long black silk cape, stirs its lacefrill, sheds an airy balm, and what I should like to call the breeze of aParisienne? You may recognize over her arms, round her waist,

about her throat, a science of drapery recalling the antiqueMnemosyne.

“Oh! how thoroughly she understands the cut of her gait—forgivethe expression. Study the way she puts her foot forward mouldingher skirt with such a decent preciseness that the passer-by is filledwith admiration, mingled with desire, but subdued by deep respect.When an Englishwoman attempts this step, she looks like agrenadier marching forward to attack a redoubt. The women of Paris

have a genius for walking. The municipality really owed themasphalt footwalks.

“Our Unknown jostles no one. If she wants to pass, she waits withproud humility till some one makes way. The distinction peculiar toa well-bred woman betrays itself, especially in the way she holds hershawl or cloak crossed over her bosom. Even as she walks she has alittle air of serene dignity, like Raphael‘s Madonnas in their frames.Her aspect, at once quiet and disdainful, makes the most insolent

dandy step aside for her.

“Her bonnet, remarkable for its simplicity, is trimmed with crispribbons; there may be flowers in it, but the cleverest of such womenwear only bows. Feathers demand a carriage; flowers are too showy.Beneath it you see the fresh unworn face of a woman who, withoutconceit, is sure of herself; who looks at nothing, and sees everything;whose vanity, satiated by being constantly gratified, stamps her facewith an indifference which piques your curiosity. She knows that she

is looked at, she knows that everybody, even women, turn round tosee her again. And she threads her way through Paris like agossamer, spotless and pure.

“This delightful species affects the hottest latitudes, the cleanestlongitudes of Paris; you will meet her between the 10th and 110thArcade of the Rue de Rivoli; along the line of the Boulevards fromthe equator of the Passage des Panoramas, where the products ofIndia flourish, where the warmest creations of industry are

displayed, to the Cape of the Madeleine; in the least muddy districtsof the citizen quarters, between No. 30 and No. 130 of the Rue duFaubourg Saint-Honore. During the winter, she haunts the terrace ofthe Feuillants, but not the asphalt pavement that lies parallel.




37

According to the weather, she may be seen flying in the Avenue ofthe Champs-Elysees, which is bounded on the east by the PlaceLouis XV., on the west by the Avenue de Marigny, to the south by

the road, to the north by the gardens of the Faubourg Saint-Honore.Never is this pretty variety of woman to be seen in the hyperboreanregions of the Rue Saint-Denis, never in the Kamtschatka of miry,narrow, commercial streets, never anywhere in bad weather. Theseflowers of Paris, blooming only in Oriental weather, perfume thehighways; and after five o‘clock fold up like morning-glory flowers.The women you will see later, looking a little like them, are would- be ladies; while the fair Unknown, your Beatrice of a day, is a‘perfect lady.'

“It is not very easy for a foreigner, my dear Count, to recognize thedifferences by which the observer emeritus distinguishes them—women are such consummate actresses; but they are glaring in theeyes of Parisians: hooks ill fastened, strings showing loops of rusty-white tape through a gaping slit in the back, rubbed shoe-leather,ironed bonnet-strings, an over-full skirt, an over-tight waist. You willsee a certain effort in the intentional droop of the eyelid. There issomething conventional in the attitude.

“As to the bourgeoise , the citizen womankind, she cannot possibly bemistaken for the spell cast over you by the Unknown. She is bustling,and goes out in all weathers, trots about, comes, goes, gazes, doesnot know whether she will or will not go into a shop. Where the ladyknows just what she wants and what she is doing, the townswomanis undecided, tucks up her skirts to cross a gutter, dragging a child by the hand, which compels her to look out for the vehicles; she is amother in public, and talks to her daughter; she carries money in her

bag, and has open-work stockings on her feet; in winter, she wears a boa over her fur cloak; in summer, a shawl and a scarf; she isaccomplished in the redundancies of dress.

“You will meet the fair Unknown again at the Italiens, at the Opera,at a ball. She will then appear under such a different aspect that youwould think them two beings devoid of any analogy. The womanhas emerged from those mysterious garments like a butterfly fromits silky cocoon. She serves up, like some rare dainty, to your

lavished eyes, the forms which her bodice scarcely revealed in themorning. At the theatre she never mounts higher than the secondtier, excepting at the Italiens. You can there watch at your leisure thestudied deliberateness of her movements. The enchanting deceiver




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plays off all the little political artifices of her sex so naturally as toexclude all idea of art or premeditation. If she has a royally beautifulhand, the most perspicacious beholder will believe that it is

absolutely necessary that she should twist, or refix, or push aside theringlet or curl she plays with. If she has some dignity of profile, youwill be persuaded that she is giving irony or grace to what she saysto her neighbor, sitting in such a position as to produce the magicaleffect of the ‘lost profile,' so dear to great painters, by which thecheek catches the high light, the nose is shown in clear outline, thenostrils are transparently rosy, the forehead squarely modeled, theeye has its spangle of fire, but fixed on space, and the whiteroundness of the chin is accentuated by a line of light. If she has a

pretty foot, she will throw herself on a sofa with the coquettish graceof a cat in the sunshine, her feet outstretched without your feelingthat her attitude is anything but the most charming model ever givento a sculptor by lassitude.

“Only the perfect lady is quite at her ease in full dress; nothinginconveniences her. You will never see her, like the woman of thecitizen class, pulling up a refractory shoulder-strap, or pushingdown a rebellious whalebone, or looking whether her tucker is doing

its office of faithful guardian to two treasures of dazzling whiteness,or glancing in the mirrors to see if her head-dress is keeping its place.Her toilet is always in harmony with her character; she had had timeto study herself, to learn what becomes her, for she has long knownwhat does not suit her. You will not find her as you go out; shevanishes before the end of the play. If by chance she is to be seen,calm and stately, on the stairs, she is experiencing some violentemotion; she has to bestow a glance, to receive a promise. Perhapsshe goes down so slowly on purpose to gratify the vanity of a slave

whom she sometimes obeys. If your meeting takes place at a ball oran evening party, you will gather the honey, natural or affected ofher insinuating voice; her empty words will enchant you, and shewill know how to give them the value of thought by her inimitable bearing.”

“To be such a woman, is it not necessary to be very clever?” askedthe Polish Count.

“It is necessary to have great taste,” replied the Princesse deCadignan.

“And in France taste is more than cleverness,” said the Russian.




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“This woman‘s cleverness is the triumph of a purely plastic art,”Blondet went on. “You will not know what she said, but you will befascinated. She will toss her head, or gently shrug her white

shoulders; she will gild an insignificant speech with a charming poutand smile; or throw a Voltairean epigram into an ‘Indeed!' an ‘Ah!' a‘What then!' A jerk of her head will be her most pertinent form ofquestioning; she will give meaning to the movement by which shetwirls a vinaigrette hanging to her finger by a ring. She gets anartificial grandeur out of superlative trivialities; she simply dropsher hand impressively, letting it fall over the arm of her chair asdewdrops hang on the cup of a flower, and all is said—she haspronounced judgment beyond appeal, to the apprehension of the

most obtuse. She knows how to listen to you; she gives you theopportunity of shining, and—I ask your modesty—those momentsare rare?”

The candid simplicity of the young Pole, to whom Blondet spoke,made all the party shout with laughter.

“Now, you will not talk for half-an-hour with a bourgeoise withouther alluding to her husband in one way or another,” Blondet went

on with unperturbed gravity; “whereas, even if you know that yourlady is married, she will have the delicacy to conceal her husband soeffectually that it will need the enterprise of Christopher Columbusto discover him. Often you will fail in the attempt single-handed. Ifyou have had no opportunity of inquiring, towards the end of theevening you detect her gazing fixedly at a middle-aged man wearinga decoration, who bows and goes out. She has ordered her carriage,and goes.

“You are not the rose, but you have been with the rose, and you goto bed under the golden canopy of a delicious dream, which will lastperhaps after Sleep, with his heavy finger, has opened the ivorygates of the temple of dreams.

“The lady, when she is at home, sees no one before four; she isshrewd enough always to keep you waiting. In her house you willfind everything in good taste; her luxury is for hourly use, and dulyrenewed; you will see nothing under glass shades, no rags of

wrappings hanging about, and looking like a pantry. You will findthe staircase warmed. Flowers on all sides will charm your sight—flowers, the only gift she accepts, and those only from certain people,for nosegays live but a day; they give pleasure, and must be




40

replaced; to her they are, as in the East, a symbol and a promise. Thecostly toys of fashion lie about, but not so as to suggest a museum ora curiosity shop. You will find her sitting by the fire in a low chair,

from which she will not rise to greet you. Her talk will not now bewhat it was at the ball; there she was our creditor; in her own homeshe owes you the pleasure of her wit. These are the shades of whichthe lady is a marvelous mistress. What she likes in you is a man toswell her circle, an object for the cares and attentions which suchwomen are now happy to bestow. Therefore, to attract you to herdrawing-room, she will be bewitchingly charming. This especially iswhere you feel how isolated women are nowadays, and why theywant a little world of their own, to which they may seem a

constellation. Conversation is impossible without generalities.”

“Yes,” said de Marsay, “you have truly hit the fault of our age. Theepigram—a volume in a word—no longer strikes, as it did in theeighteenth century, at persons or at things, but at squalid events, andit dies in a day.”

“Hence,” said Blondet, “the intelligence of the lady, if she has any,consists in casting doubts on everything. Here lies the great

difference between two women; the townswoman is certainlyvirtuous; the lady does not know yet whether she is, or whether shealways will be; she hesitates and struggles where the other refusespoint-blank and falls full length. This hesitancy in everything is oneof the last graces left to her by our horrible times. She rarely goes tochurch, but she will talk to you of religion; and if you have the goodtaste to affect Free-thought, she will try to convert you, for you willhave opened the way for the stereotyped phrases, the head-shakingand gestures understood by all these women: ‘For shame! I thought

you had too much sense to attack religion. Society is tottering, andyou deprive it of its support. Why, religion at this moment meansyou and me; it is property, and the future of our children! Ah! let usnot be selfish! Individualism is the disease of the age, and religion isthe only remedy; it unites families which your laws put asunder,'and so forth. Then she plunges into some neo-Christian speechsprinkled with political notions which is neither Catholic norProtestant—but moral? Oh! deuced moral!—in which you mayrecognize a fag end of every material woven by modern doctrines, at

loggerheads together.”

The women could not help laughing at the airs by which Blondetillustrated his satire.




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“This explanation, dear Count Adam,” said Blondet, turning to thePole, “will have proved to you that the ‘perfect lady’ represents theintellectual no less than the political muddle, just as she is

surrounded by the showy and not very lasting products of anindustry which is always aiming at destroying its work in order toreplace it by something else. When you leave her you say to yourself:She certainly has superior ideas! And you believe it all the more because she will have sounded your heart with a delicate touch, andhave asked you your secrets; she affects ignorance, to learneverything; there are some things she never knows, not even whenshe knows them. You alone will be uneasy, you will know nothing ofthe state of her heart. The great ladies of old flaunted their love-

affairs, with newspapers and advertisements; in these days the ladyhas her little passion neatly ruled like a sheet of music with itscrotchets and quavers and minims, its rests, its pauses, its sharps tosign the key. A mere weak women, she is anxious not to compromiseher love, or her husband, or the future of her children. Name,position, and fortune are no longer flags so respected as to protect allkinds of merchandise on board. The whole aristocracy no longeradvances in a body to screen the lady. She has not, like the great ladyof the past, the demeanor of lofty antagonism; she can crush nothing

under foot, it is she who would be crushed. Thus she is apt at Jesuitical mezzo termine , she is a creature of equivocal compromises,of guarded proprieties, of anonymous passions steered between tworeef-bound shores. She is as much afraid of her servants as anEnglishwoman who lives in dread of a trial in the divorce-court. Thiswoman—so free at a ball, so attractive out walking—is a slave athome; she is never independent but in perfect privacy, ortheoretically. She must preserve herself in her position as a lady. Thisis her task.

“For in our day a woman repudiated by her husband, reduced to ameagre allowance, with no carriage, no luxury, no opera-box, noneof the divine accessories of the toilet, is no longer a wife, a maid, or atownswoman; she is adrift, and becomes a chattel. The Carmeliteswill not receive a married woman; it would be bigamy. Would herlover still have anything to say to her? That is the question. Thusyour perfect lady may perhaps give occasion to calumny, never toslander.”

“It is all so horribly true,” said the Princesse de Cadignan.




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“And so,” said Blondet, “our ‘perfect lady’ lives between Englishhypocrisy and the delightful frankness of the eighteenth century—a bastard system, symptomatic of an age in which nothing that grows

up is at all like the thing that has vanished, in which transition leadsnowhere, everything is a matter of degree; all the great figures shrinkinto the background, and distinction is purely personal. I am fullyconvinced that it is impossible for a woman, even if she were bornclose to a throne, to acquire before the age of five-and-twenty theencyclopaedic knowledge of trifles, the practice of manoeuvring, theimportant small things, the musical tones and harmony of coloring,the angelic bedevilments and innocent cunning, the speech and thesilence, the seriousness and the banter, the wit and the obtuseness,

the diplomacy and the ignorance which make up the perfect lady.”

“And where, in accordance with the sketch you have drawn,” saidMademoiselle des Touches to Emile Blondet, “would you class thefemale author? Is she a perfect lady, a woman comme il faut?”

“When she has no genius, she is a woman comme il n‘en faut pas ,”Blondet replied, emphasizing the words with a stolen glance, whichmight make them seem praise frankly addressed to Camille Maupin.

“This epigram is not mine, but Napoleon‘s,” he added.

“You need not owe Napoleon any grudge on that score,” saidCanalis, with an emphatic tone and gesture. “It was one of hisweaknesses to be jealous of literary genius—for he had his meanpoints. Who will ever explain, depict, or understand Napoleon? Aman represented with his arms folded, and who did everything, whowas the greatest force ever known, the most concentrated, the mostmordant, the most acid of all forces; a singular genius who carried

armed civilization in every direction without fixing it anywhere; aman who could do everything because he willed everything; aprodigious phenomenon of will, conquering an illness by a battle,and yet doomed to die of disease in bed after living in the midst of ball and bullets; a man with a code and a sword in his brain, wordand deed; a clear-sighted spirit that foresaw everything but his ownfall; a capricious politician who risked men by handfuls out ofeconomy, and who spared three heads —those of Talleyrand, ofPozzo de Borgo, and of Metternich, diplomatists whose death would

have saved the French Empire, and who seemed to him of greaterweight than thousands of soldiers; a man to whom nature, as a rareprivilege, had given a heart in a frame of bronze; mirthful and kindat midnight amid women, and next morning manipulating Europe




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as a young girl might amuse herself by splashing water in her bath!Hypocritical and generous; loving tawdriness and simplicity; devoidof taste, but protecting the arts; and in spite of these antitheses, really

great in everything by instinct or by temperament; Caesar at five-and-twenty, Cromwell at thirty; and then, like my grocer buried inPere Lachaise, a good husband and a good father. In short, heimprovised public works, empires, kings, codes, verses, a romance—and all with more range than precision. Did he not aim at making allEurope France? And after making us weigh on the earth in such away as to change the laws of gravitation, he left us poorer than onthe day when he first laid hands on us; while he, who had taken anempire by his name, lost his name on the frontier of his empire in a

sea of blood and soldiers. A man all thought and all action, whocomprehended Desaix and Fouche.”

“All despotism and all justice at the right moments. The true king!”said de Marsay.

“Ah! vat a pleashre it is to dichest vile you talk,” said Baron deNucingen.

“But do you suppose that the treat we are giving you is a commonone?” asked Joseph Bridau. “If you had to pay for the charms ofconversation as you do for those of dancing or of music, your fortunewould be inadequate! There is no second performance of the sameflash of wit.”

“And are we really so much deteriorated as these gentlemen think?”said the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing the women with a smileat once sceptical and ironical. “Because, in these days, under a

regime which makes everything small, you prefer small dishes, smallrooms, small pictures, small articles, small newspapers, small books,does that prove that women too have grown smaller? Why shouldthe human heart change because you change your coat? In all agesthe passions remain the same. I know cases of beautiful devotion, ofsublime sufferings, which lack the publicity—the glory, if youchoose—which formerly gave lustre to the errors of some women.But though one may not have saved a King of France, one is not theless an Agnes Sorel. Do you believe that our dear Marquise d‘Espard

is not the peer of Madame Doublet, or Madame du Deffant, in whoserooms so much evil was spoken and done? Is not Taglioni a matchfor Camargo? or Malibran the equal of Saint-Huberti? Are not ourpoets superior to those of the eighteenth century? If at this moment,




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through the fault of the Grocers who govern us, we have not a styleof our own, had not the Empire its distinguishing stamp as the age ofLouis XV. had, and was not its splendor fabulous? Have the sciences

lost anything?”

“I am quite of your opinion, madame; the women of this age aretruly great,” replied the Comte de Vandenesse. “When posterityshall have followed us, will not Madame Recamier appear inproportions as fine as those of the most beautiful women of the past?We have made so much history that historians will be lacking. Theage of Louis XIV. had but one Madame de Sevigne; we have athousand now in Paris who certainly write better than she did, and

who do not publish their letters. Whether the Frenchwoman becalled ‘perfect lady,' or great lady, she will always be the womanamong women.

“Emile Blondet has given us a picture of the fascinations of a womanof the day; but, at need, this creature who bridles or shows off, whochirps out the ideas of Mr. This and Mr. That, would be heroic. Andit must be said, your faults, mesdames, are all the more poetical, because they must always and under all circumstances be

surrounded by greater perils. I have seen much of the world, I havestudied it perhaps too late; but in cases where the illegality of yourfeelings might be excused, I have always observed the effects of Iknow not what chance—which you may call Providence—inevitablyoverwhelming such as we consider light women.”

“I hope,” said Madame de Vandenesse, “that we can be great inother ways—”

“Oh, let the Comte de Vandenesse preach to us!” exclaimed Madamede Serizy.

“With all the more reason because he has preached a great deal byexample,” said the Baronne de Nucingen.

“On my honor!” said General de Montriveau, “in all the dramas—aword you are very fond of,” he said, looking at Blondet—“in whichthe finger of God has been visible, the most frightful I ever knew was

very near being by my act—”

“Well, tell us all about it!” cried Lady Barimore; “I love to shudder!”




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“It is the taste of a virtuous woman,” replied de Marsay, looking atLord Dudley‘s lovely daughter.

“During the campaign of 1812,” General de Montriveau began, “Iwas the involuntary cause of a terrible disaster which may be of useto you, Doctor Bianchon,” turning to me, “since, while devotingyourself to the human body, you concern yourself a good deal withthe mind; it may tend to solve some of the problems of the will.

“I was going through my second campaign; I enjoyed danger, andlaughed at everything, like the young and foolish lieutenant ofartillery that I was. When we reached the Beresina, the army had, as

you know, lost all discipline, and had forgotten military obedience. Itwas a medley of men of all nations, instinctively making their wayfrom north to south. The soldiers would drive a general in rags and bare-foot away from their fire if he brought neither wood norvictuals. After the passage of this famous river disorder did notdiminish. I had come quietly and alone, without food, out of themarshes of Zembin, and was wandering in search of a house where Imight be taken in. Finding none or driven away from those I cameacross, happily towards evening I perceived a wretched little Polish

farm, of which nothing can give you any idea unless you have seenthe wooden houses of Lower Normandy, or the poorest farm- buildings of la Beauce. These dwellings consist of a single room, withone end divided off by a wooden partition, the smaller divisionserving as a store-room for forage.

“In the darkness of twilight I could just see a faint smoke risingabove this house. Hoping to find there some comrades morecompassionate than those I had hitherto addressed, I boldly walked

as far as the farm. On going in, I found the table laid. Several officers,and with them a woman—a common sight enough—were eatingpotatoes, some horseflesh broiled over the charcoal, and some frozen beetroots. I recognized among the company two or three artillerycaptains of the regiment in which I had first served. I was welcomedwith a shout of acclamation, which would have amazed me greatlyon the other side of the Beresina; but at this moment the cold wasless intense; my fellow-officers were resting, they were warm, theyhad food, and the room, strewn with trusses of straw, gave the

promise of a delightful night. We did not ask for so much in thosedays. My comrades could be philanthropists gratis—one of thecommonest ways of being philanthropic. I sat down to eat on one ofthe bundles of straw.




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“At the end of the table, by the side of the door opening into thesmaller room full of straw and hay, sat my old colonel, one of themost extraordinary men I ever saw among all the mixed collection of

men it has been my lot to meet. He was an Italian. Now, wheneverhuman nature is truly fine in the lands of the South, it is reallysublime. I do not know whether you have ever observed the extremefairness of Italians when they are fair. It is exquisite, especially underan artificial light. When I read the fantastical portrait of ColonelOudet sketched by Charles Nodier, I found my own sensations inevery one of his elegant phrases. Italian, then, as were most of theofficers of his regiment, which had, in fact, been borrowed by theEmperor from Eugene‘s army, my colonel was a tall man, at least

eight or nine inches above the standard, and was admirablyproportioned—a little stout perhaps, but prodigiously powerful,active, and clean-limbed as a greyhound. His black hair in abundantcurls showed up his complexion, as white as a woman‘s; he hadsmall hands, a shapely foot, a pleasant mouth, and an aquiline nosedelicately formed, of which the tip used to become naturally pinchedand white whenever he was angry, as happened often. Hisirascibility was so far beyond belief that I will tell you nothing aboutit; you will have the opportunity of judging of it. No one could be

calm in his presence. I alone, perhaps, was not afraid of him; he hadindeed taken such a singular fancy to me that he thought everythingI did right. When he was in a rage his brow was knit and the musclesof the middle of his forehead set in a delta, or, to be more explicit, inRedgauntlet‘s horseshoe. This mark was, perhaps, even moreterrifying than the magnetic flashes of his blue eyes. His whole framequivered, and his strength, great as it was in his normal state, became almost unbounded.

“He spoke with a strong guttural roll. His voice, at least as powerfulas that of Charles Nordier‘s Oudet, threw an incredible fulness oftone into the syllable or the consonant in which this burr wassounded. Though this faulty pronunciation was at times a grace,when commanding his men, or when he was excited, you cannotimagine, unless you had heard it, what force was expressed by thisaccent, which at Paris is so common. When the Colonel wasquiescent, his blue eyes were angelically sweet, and his smooth browhad a most charming expression. On parade, or with the army of

Italy, not a man could compare with him. Indeed, d‘Orsay himself,the handsome d‘Orsay, was eclipsed by our colonel on the occasionof the last review held by Napoleon before the invasion of Russia.




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“Everything was in contrasts in this exceptional man. Passion liveson contrast. Hence you need not ask whether he exerted over womenthe irresistible influences to which our nature yields”—and the

general looked at the Princesse de Cadignan—“as vitreous matter ismoulded under the pipe of the glass-blower; still, by a singularfatality—an observer might perhaps explain the phenomenon—theColonel was not a lady-killer, or was indifferent to such successes.

“To give you an idea of his violence, I will tell you in a few wordswhat I once saw him do in a paroxysm of fury. We were draggingour guns up a very narrow road, bordered by a somewhat high slopeon one side, and by thickets on the other. When we were half-way

up we met another regiment of artillery, its colonel marching at thehead. This colonel wanted to make the captain who was at the headof our foremost battery back down again. The captain, of course,refused; but the colonel of the other regiment signed to his foremost battery to advance, and in spite of the care the driver took to keepamong the scrub, the wheel of the first gun struck our captain‘s rightleg and broke it, throwing him over on the near side of his horse. Allthis was the work of a moment. Our Colonel, who was but a littleway off, guessed that there was a quarrel; he galloped up, riding

among the guns at the risk of falling with his horse‘s four feet in theair, and reached the spot, face to face with the other colonel, at thevery moment when the captain fell, calling out ‘Help!' No, our Italiancolonel was no longer human! Foam like the froth of champagne roseto his lips; he roared inarticulately like a lion. Incapable of uttering aword, or even a cry, he made a terrific signal to his antagonist,pointing to the wood and drawing his sword. The two colonels wentaside. In two seconds we saw our Colonel‘s opponent stretched onthe ground, his skull split in two. The soldiers of his regiment backed

—yes, by heaven, and pretty quickly too.

“The captain, who had been so nearly crushed, and who lay yelpingin the puddle where the gun carriage had thrown him, had an Italianwife, a beautiful Sicilian of Messina, who was not indifferent to ourColonel. This circumstance had aggravated his rage. He was pledgedto protect the husband, bound to defend him as he would havedefended the woman herself.

“Now, in the hovel beyond Zembin, where I was so well received,this captain was sitting opposite to me, and his wife was at the otherend of the table, facing the Colonel. This Sicilian was a little womannamed Rosina, very dark, but with all the fire of the Southern sun in




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her black almond-shaped eyes. At this moment she was deplorablythin; her face was covered with dust, like fruit exposed to thedrought of a highroad. Scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by

marches, her hair in disorder, and clinging together under a piece ofa shawl tied close over her head, still she had the graces of a woman;her movements were engaging, her small rose mouth and whiteteeth, the outline of her features and figure, charms which misery,cold, and neglect had not altogether defaced, still suggested love toany man who could think of a woman. Rosina had one of thoseframes which are fragile in appearance, but wiry and full of spring.Her husband, a gentleman of Piedmont, had a face expressive ofironical simplicity, if it is allowable to ally the two words. Brave and

well informed, he seemed to know nothing of the connections whichhad subsisted between his wife and the Colonel for three years past.I ascribed this unconcern to Italian manners, or to some domesticsecret; yet there was in the man‘s countenance one feature whichalways filled me with involuntary distrust. His under lip, which wasthin and very restless, turned down at the corners instead of turningup, and this, as I thought, betrayed a streak of cruelty in a characterwhich seemed so phlegmatic and indolent.

“As you may suppose the conversation was not very sparkling whenI went in. My weary comrades ate in silence; of course, they askedme some questions, and we related our misadventures, mingled withreflections on the campaign, the generals, their mistakes, theRussians, and the cold. A minute after my arrival the colonel, havingfinished his meagre meal, wiped his moustache, bid us good-night,shot a black look at the Italian woman, saying, ‘Rosina?' and then,without waiting for a reply, went into the little barn full of hay, to bed. The meaning of the Colonel‘s utterance was self-evident. The

young wife replied by an indescribable gesture, expressing all theannoyance she could not feel at seeing her thralldom thus flauntedwithout human decency, and the offence to her dignity as a woman,and to her husband. But there was, too, in the rigid setting of herfeatures and the tight knitting of her brows a sort of presentiment;perhaps she foresaw her fate. Rosina remained quietly in her place.

“A minute later, and apparently when the Colonel was snug in hiscouch of straw or hay, he repeated, ‘Rosina?'

“The tone of this second call was even more brutally questioningthan the first. The Colonel‘s strong burr, and the length which theItalian language allows to be given to vowels and the final syllable,




49

concentrated all the man‘s despotism, impatience, and strength ofwill. Rosina turned pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and went tothe Colonel.

“All the party sat in utter silence; I, unluckily, after looking at themall, began to laugh, and then they all laughed too.—‘Tu ridi? —youlaugh?' said the husband.

“‘On my honor, old comrade,' said I, becoming serious again, ‘Iconfess that I was wrong; I ask your pardon a thousand times, and ifyou are not satisfied by my apologies I am ready to give yousatisfaction.'

“‘Oh! it is not you who are wrong, it is I!' he replied coldly.

“Thereupon we all lay down in the room, and before long all weresound asleep.

“Next morning each one, without rousing his neighbor or seekingcompanionship, set out again on his way, with that selfishness whichmade our rout one of the most horrible dramas of self-seeking,

melancholy, and horror which ever was enacted under heaven.Nevertheless, at about seven or eight hundred paces from our shelterwe, most of us, met again and walked on together, like geese led inflocks by a child‘s wilful tyranny. The same necessity urged us all.

“Having reached a knoll where we could still see the farmhousewhere we had spent the night, we heard sounds resembling the roarof lions in the desert, the bellowing of bulls—no, it was a noisewhich can be compared to no known cry. And yet, mingling with

this horrible and ominous roar, we could hear a woman‘s feeblescream. We all looked round, seized by I know not what impulse ofterror; we no longer saw the house, but a huge bonfire. Thefarmhouse had been barricaded, and was in flames. Swirls of smoke borne on the wind brought us hoarse cries and an indescribablepungent smell. A few yards behind, the captain was quietlyapproaching to join our caravan; we gazed at him in silence, for noone dared question him; but he, understanding our curiosity,pointed to his breast with the forefinger of his right hand, and,

waving the left in the direction of the fire, he said, ‘Son‘io.'

“We all walked on without saying a word to him.”




50

“There is nothing more terrible than the revolt of a sheep,” said deMarsay.

“It would be frightful to let us leave with this horrible picture in ourmemory,” said Madame de Montcornet. “I shall dream of it—”

“And what was the punishment of Monsieur de Marsay‘s ‘First’?”said Lord Dudley, smiling.

“When the English are in jest, their foils have the buttons on,” saidBlondet.

“Monsieur Bianchon can tell us, for he saw her dying,” replied deMarsay, turning to me.

“Yes,” said I; “and her end was one of the most beautiful I ever saw.The Duke and I had spent the night by the dying woman‘s pillow;pulmonary consumption, in the last stage, left no hope; she hadtaken the sacrament the day before. The Duke had fallen asleep. TheDuchess, waking at about four in the morning, signed to me in themost touching way, with a friendly smile, to bid me leave him to

rest, and she meanwhile was about to die. She had becomeincredibly thin, but her face had preserved its really sublime outlineand features. Her pallor made her skin look like porcelain with alight within. Her bright eyes and color contrasted with this languidlyelegant complexion, and her countenance was full of expressivecalm. She seemed to pity the Duke, and the feeling had its origin in alofty tenderness which, as death approached, seemed to know no bounds. The silence was absolute. The room, softly lighted by alamp, looked like every sickroom at the hour of death.

“At this moment the clock struck. The Duke awoke, and was indespair at having fallen asleep. I did not see the gesture ofimpatience by which he manifested the regret he felt at having lostsight of his wife for a few of the last minutes vouchsafed to him; butit is quite certain that any one but the dying woman might havemisunderstood it. A busy statesman, always thinking of the interestsof France, the Duke had a thousand odd ways on the surface, such asoften lead to a man of genius being mistaken for a madman, and of

which the explanation lies in the exquisiteness and exacting needs oftheir intellect. He came to seat himself in an armchair by his wife‘sside, and looked fixedly at her. The dying woman put her hand out alittle way, took her husband‘s and clasped it feebly; and in a low but




51

agitated voice she said, ‘My poor dear, who is left to understand younow?' Then she died, looking at him.”

“The stories the doctor tells us,” said the Comte de Vandenesse,“always leave a deep impression.”

“But a sweet one,” said Mademoiselle des Touches, rising.

PARIS, June 1839-42.




53

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the HumanComedy.

Bianchon, HoraceFather GoriotThe Atheist‘s MassCesar BirotteauThe Commission in Lunacy

Lost IllusionsA Distinguished Provincial at ParisA Bachelor‘s EstablishmentThe Secrets of a PrincessThe Government ClerksPierretteA Study of WomanScenes from a Courtesan‘s LifeHonorine

The Seamy Side of HistoryThe Magic SkinA Second HomeA Prince of BohemiaLetters of Two BridesThe Muse of the DepartmentThe Imaginary MistressThe Middle ClassesCousin Betty

The Country ParsonIn addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:

La Grande Breteche

Blondet, Emile Jealousies of a Country TownA Distinguished Provincial at ParisScenes from a Courtesan‘s LifeModeste Mignon

The Secrets of a PrincessA Daughter of EveThe Firm of NucingenThe Peasantry




54

Blondet, Virginie (Madame Montcornet) Jealousies of a Country TownThe Secrets of a Princess

The PeasantryA Distinguished Provincial at ParisThe Member for ArcisA Daughter of Eve

Bridau, JosephThe PurseA Bachelor‘s EstablishmentA Distinguished Provincial at Paris

A Start in LifeModeste MignonPierre GrassouLetters of Two BridesCousin BettyThe Member for Arcis

Canalis, Constant-Cyr-Melchior, Baron deLetters of Two Brides

A Distinguished Provincial at ParisModeste MignonThe Magic SkinA Start in LifeBeatrixThe Unconscious HumoristsThe Member for Arcis

Dudley, Lord

The Lily of the ValleyThe ThirteenA Man of BusinessA Daughter of Eve

Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquised’

The Commission in LunacyA Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Scenes from a Courtesan‘s LifeLetters of Two BridesThe Gondreville MysteryThe Secrets of a Princess




55

A Daughter of EveBeatrix

Laginski, Comte Adam MitgislasThe Imaginary MistressCousin Betty

Marsay, Henri deThe ThirteenThe Unconscious HumoristsThe Lily of the ValleyFather Goriot

Jealousies of a Country TownUrsule MirouetA Marriage SettlementLost IllusionsA Distinguished Provincial at ParisLetters of Two BridesThe Ball at SceauxModeste MignonThe Secrets of a Princess

The Gondreville MysteryA Daughter of Eve

Maufrigneuse, Duchesse deThe Secrets of a PrincessModeste Mignon Jealousies of a Country TownThe Muse of the DepartmentScenes from a Courtesan‘s Life

Letters of Two BridesThe Gondreville MysteryThe Member for Arcis

Montriveau, General Marquis Armand deThe ThirteenFather GoriotLost IllusionsA Distinguished Provincial at Paris

PierretteThe Member for Arcis

Nucingen, Baron Frederic de




56

The Firm of NucingenFather GoriotPierrette

Cesar BirotteauLost IllusionsA Distinguished Provincial at ParisScenes from a Courtesan‘s LifeThe Secrets of a PrincessA Man of BusinessCousin BettyThe Muse of the DepartmentThe Unconscious Humorists

Nucingen, Baronne Delphine deFather GoriotThe ThirteenEugenie GrandetCesar BirotteauMelmoth ReconciledLost IllusionsA Distinguished Provincial at Paris

The Commission in LunacyScenes from a Courtesan‘s LifeModeste MignonThe Firm of NucingenA Daughter of EveThe Member for Arcis

Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien deUrsule Mirouet

Beatrix

Rastignac, Eugene deFather GoriotA Distinguished Provincial at ParisScenes from a Courtesan‘s LifeThe Ball at SceauxThe Commission in LunacyA Study of Woman

The Magic SkinThe Secrets of a PrincessA Daughter of EveThe Gondreville Mystery




57

The Firm of NucingenCousin BettyThe Member for Arcis

The Unconscious Humorists

Ronquerolles, Marquis deThe Imaginary MistressThe PeasantryUrsule MirouetA Woman of ThirtyThe ThirteenThe Member for Arcis

Serizy, Comtesse deA Start in LifeThe ThirteenUrsule MirouetA Woman of ThirtyScenes from a Courtesan‘s Life

The Imaginary Mistress

Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite desBeatrixLost IllusionsA Distinguished Provincial at ParisA Bachelor‘s EstablishmentA Daughter of EveHonorineBeatrix

The Muse of the Department

Vandenesse, Comte Felix deThe Lily of the ValleyLost IllusionsA Distinguished Provincial at ParisCesar BirotteauLetters of Two BridesA Start in Life

The Marriage SettlementThe Secrets of a PrincessThe Gondreville MysteryA Daughter of Eve



La Grande Breteche(Sequel to

Another Study of Woman)

Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell



La Grande Breteche

61

La Grande Breteche

“Ah! madame,” replied the doctor, “I have some appalling stories inmy collection. But each one has its proper hour in a conversation—you know the pretty jest recorded by Chamfort, and said to the Ducde Fronsac: ‘Between your sally and the present moment lie ten

bottles of champagne.'”

“But it is two in the morning, and the story of Rosina has preparedus,” said the mistress of the house.

“Tell us, Monsieur Bianchon!” was the cry on every side.

The obliging doctor bowed, and silence reigned.

“At about a hundred paces from Vendome, on the banks of theLoir,” said he, “stands an old brown house, crowned with very highroofs, and so completely isolated that there is nothing near it, noteven a fetid tannery or a squalid tavern, such as are commonly seenoutside small towns. In front of this house is a garden down to theriver, where the box shrubs, formerly clipped close to edge thewalks, now straggle at their own will. A few willows, rooted in thestream, have grown up quickly like an enclosing fence, and half hidethe house. The wild plants we call weeds have clothed the bank with

their beautiful luxuriance. The fruit-trees, neglected for these tenyears past, no longer bear a crop, and their suckers have formed athicket. The espaliers are like a copse. The paths, once graveled, areovergrown with purslane; but, to be accurate there is no trace of apath.

“Looking down from the hilltop, to which cling the ruins of the oldcastle of the Dukes of Vendome, the only spot whence the eye cansee into this enclosure, we think that at a time, difficult now to

determine, this spot of earth must have been the joy of some countrygentleman devoted to roses and tulips, in a word, to horticulture, butabove all a lover of choice fruit. An arbor is visible, or rather thewreck of an arbor, and under it a table still stands not entirely



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destroyed by time. At the aspect of this garden that is no more, thenegative joys of the peaceful life of the provinces may be divined aswe divine the history of a worthy tradesman when we read the

epitaph on his tomb. To complete the mournful and tenderimpressions which seize the soul, on one of the walls there is asundial graced with this homely Christian motto, ‘Ultimam cogita.'

“The roof of this house is dreadfully dilapidated; the outside shuttersare always closed; the balconies are hung with swallows’ nests; thedoors are for ever shut. Straggling grasses have outlined theflagstones of the steps with green; the ironwork is rusty. Moon andsun, winter, summer, and snow have eaten into the wood, warped

the boards, peeled off the paint. The dreary silence is broken only by birds and cats, polecats, rats, and mice, free to scamper round, andfight, and eat each other. An invisible hand has written over it all:‘Mystery.'

“If, prompted by curiosity, you go to look at this house from thestreet, you will see a large gate, with a round-arched top; thechildren have made many holes in it. I learned later that this doorhad been blocked for ten years. Through these irregular breaches

you will see that the side towards the courtyard is in perfectharmony with the side towards the garden. The same ruin prevails.Tufts of weeds outline the paving-stones; the walls are scored byenormous cracks, and the blackened coping is laced with a thousandfestoons of pellitory. The stone steps are disjointed; the bell-cord isrotten; the gutter-spouts broken. What fire from heaven could havefallen there? By what decree has salt been sown on this dwelling?Has God been mocked here? Or was France betrayed? These are thequestions we ask ourselves. Reptiles crawl over it, but give no reply.

This empty and deserted house is a vast enigma of which the answeris known to none.

“It was formerly a little domain, held in fief, and is known as LaGrande Breteche. During my stay at Vendome, where Despleins hadleft me in charge of a rich patient, the sight of this strange dwelling became one of my keenest pleasures. Was it not far better than aruin? Certain memories of indisputable authenticity attachthemselves to a ruin; but this house, still standing, though being

slowly destroyed by an avenging hand, contained a secret, anunrevealed thought. At the very least, it testified to a caprice. Morethan once in the evening I boarded the hedge, run wild, whichsurrounded the enclosure. I braved scratches, I got into this



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ownerless garden, this plot which was no longer public or private; Ilingered there for hours gazing at the disorder. I would not, as theprice of the story to which this strange scene no doubt was due, have

asked a single question of any gossiping native. On that spot I wovedelightful romances, and abandoned myself to little debauches ofmelancholy which enchanted me. If I had known the reason—perhaps quite commonplace—of this neglect, I should have lost theunwritten poetry which intoxicated me. To me this refugerepresented the most various phases of human life, shadowed bymisfortune; sometimes the peace of the graveyard without the dead,who speak in the language of epitaphs; one day I saw in it the homeof lepers; another, the house of the Atridae; but, above all, I found

there provincial life, with its contemplative ideas, its hour-glassexistence. I often wept there, I never laughed.

“More than once I felt involuntary terrors as I heard overhead thedull hum of the wings of some hurrying wood-pigeon. The earth isdank; you must be on the watch for lizards, vipers, and frogs,wandering about with the wild freedom of nature; above all, youmust have no fear of cold, for in a few moments you feel an icy cloaksettle on your shoulders, like the Commendatore‘s hand on Don

Giovanni‘s neck.

“One evening I felt a shudder; the wind had turned an old rustyweathercock, and the creaking sounded like a cry from the house, atthe very moment when I was finishing a gloomy drama to accountfor this monumental embodiment of woe. I returned to my inn, lostin gloomy thoughts. When I had supped, the hostess came into myroom with an air of mystery, and said, ‘Monsieur, here is MonsieurRegnault.'

“‘Who is Monsieur Regnault?'

“‘What, sir, do you not know Monsieur Regnault?—Well, that‘s odd,'said she, leaving the room.

“On a sudden I saw a man appear, tall, slim, dressed in black, hat inhand, who came in like a ram ready to butt his opponent, showing areceding forehead, a small pointed head, and a colorless face of the

hue of a glass of dirty water. You would have taken him for anusher. The stranger wore an old coat, much worn at the seams; buthe had a diamond in his shirt frill, and gold rings in his ears.



La Grande Breteche

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“‘Monsieur,' said I, ‘whom have I the honor of addressing?'—Hetook a chair, placed himself in front of my fire, put his hat on mytable, and answered while he rubbed his hands: ‘Dear me, it is very

cold. —Monsieur, I am Monsieur Regnault.'

“I was encouraging myself by saying to myself, ‘Il bondo cani! Seek!'

“‘I am,' he went on, ‘notary at Vendome.'

“‘I am delighted to hear it, monsieur,' I exclaimed. ‘But I am not in aposition to make a will for reasons best known to myself.'

“‘One moment!' said he, holding up his hand as though to gainsilence. ‘Allow me, monsieur, allow me! I am informed that yousometimes go to walk in the garden of la Grande Breteche.'

“‘Yes, monsieur.'

“‘One moment!' said he, repeating his gesture. ‘That constitutes amisdemeanor. Monsieur, as executor under the will of the lateComtesse de Merret, I come in her name to beg you to discontinue

the practice. One moment! I am not a Turk, and do not wish to makea crime of it. And besides, you are free to be ignorant of thecircumstances which compel me to leave the finest mansion inVendome to fall into ruin. Nevertheless, monsieur, you must be aman of education, and you should know that the laws forbid, underheavy penalties, any trespass on enclosed property. A hedge is thesame as a wall. But, the state in which the place is left may be anexcuse for your curiosity. For my part, I should be quite content tomake you free to come and go in the house; but being bound to

respect the will of the testatrix, I have the honor, monsieur, to begthat you will go into the garden no more. I myself, monsieur, sincethe will was read, have never set foot in the house, which, as I hadthe honor of informing you, is part of the estate of the late Madamede Merret. We have done nothing there but verify the number ofdoors and windows to assess the taxes I have to pay annually out ofthe funds left for that purpose by the late Madame de Merret. Ah!my dear sir, her will made a great commotion in the town.'

“The good man paused to blow his nose. I respected his volubility,perfectly understanding that the administration of Madame deMerret‘s estate had been the most important event of his life, hisreputation, his glory, his Restoration. As I was forced to bid farewell



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to my beautiful reveries and romances, I was to reject learning thetruth on official authority.

“‘Monsieur,' said I, ‘would it be indiscreet if I were to ask you thereasons for such eccentricity?'

“At these words an expression, which revealed all the pleasurewhich men feel who are accustomed to ride a hobby, overspread thelawyer‘s countenance. He pulled up the collar of his shirt with an air,took out his snuffbox, opened it, and offered me a pinch; on myrefusing, he took a large one. He was happy! A man who has nohobby does not know all the good to be got out of life. A hobby is the

happy medium between a passion and a monomania. At thismoment I understood the whole bearing of Sterne‘s charmingpassion, and had a perfect idea of the delight with which my uncleToby, encouraged by Trim, bestrode his hobby-horse.

“‘Monsieur,' said Monsieur Regnault, ‘I was head-clerk in MonsieurRoguin‘s office, in Paris. A first-rate house, which you may haveheard mentioned? No! An unfortunate bankruptcy made itfamous.—Not having money enough to purchase a practice in Paris

at the price to which they were run up in 1816, I came here and bought my predecessor‘s business. I had relations in Vendome;among others, a wealthy aunt, who allowed me to marry herdaughter.—Monsieur,' he went on after a little pause, ‘three monthsafter being licensed by the Keeper of the Seals, one evening, as I wasgoing to bed—it was before my marriage—I was sent for by Madamela Comtesse de Merret, to her Chateau of Merret. Her maid, a goodgirl, who is now a servant in this inn, was waiting at my door withthe Countess’ own carriage. Ah! one moment! I ought to tell you that

Monsieur le Comte de Merret had gone to Paris to die two months before I came here. He came to a miserable end, flinging himself intoevery kind of dissipation. You understand?

“‘On the day when he left, Madame la Comtesse had quitted laGrand Breteche, having dismantled it. Some people even say that shehad burnt all the furniture, the hangings—in short, all the chattelsand furniture whatever used in furnishing the premises now let bythe said M.—(Dear, what am I saying? I beg your pardon, I thought I

was dictating a lease.)—In short, that she burnt everything in themeadow at Merret. Have you been to Merret, monsieur?—No,' saidhe, answering himself, ‘Ah, it is a very fine place.'



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“‘For about three months previously,' he went on, with a jerk of hishead, ‘the Count and Countess had lived in a very eccentric way;they admitted no visitors; Madame lived on the ground-floor, and

Monsieur on the first floor. When the Countess was left alone, shewas never seen excepting at church. Subsequently, at home, at thechateau, she refused to see the friends, whether gentlemen or ladies,who went to call on her. She was already very much altered whenshe left la Grande Breteche to go to Merret. That dear lady—I saydear lady, for it was she who gave me this diamond, but indeed Isaw her but once—that kind lady was very ill; she had, no doubt,given up all hope, for she died without choosing to send for a doctor;indeed, many of our ladies fancied she was not quite right in her

head. Well, sir, my curiosity was strangely excited by hearing thatMadame de Merret had need of my services. Nor was I the onlyperson who took an interest in the affair. That very night, though itwas already late, all the town knew that I was going to Merret.

“‘The waiting-woman replied but vaguely to the questions I askedher on the way; nevertheless, she told me that her mistress hadreceived the Sacrament in the course of the day at the hands of theCure of Merret, and seemed unlikely to live through the night. It was

about eleven when I reached the chateau. I went up the greatstaircase. After crossing some large, lofty, dark rooms, diabolicallycold and damp, I reached the state bedroom where the Countess lay.From the rumors that were current concerning this lady (monsieur, Ishould never end if I were to repeat all the tales that were told abouther), I had imagined her a coquette. Imagine, then, that I had greatdifficulty in seeing her in the great bed where she was lying. To besure, to light this enormous room, with old-fashioned heavycornices, and so thick with dust that merely to see it was enough to

make you sneeze, she had only an old Argand lamp. Ah! but youhave not been to Merret. Well, the bed is one of those old world beds, with a high tester hung with flowered chintz. A small tablestood by the bed, on which I saw an “Imitation of Christ,” which, bythe way, I bought for my wife, as well as the lamp. There were also adeep armchair for her confidential maid, and two small chairs. Therewas no fire. That was all the furniture, not enough to fill ten lines inan inventory.

“‘My dear sir, if you had seen, as I then saw, that vast room, paperedand hung with brown, you would have felt yourself transported intoa scene of a romance. It was icy, nay more, funereal,' and he lifted hishand with a theatrical gesture and paused.



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“‘By dint of seeking, as I approached the bed, at last I saw Madamede Merret, under the glimmer of the lamp, which fell on the pillows.Her face was as yellow as wax, and as narrow as two folded hands.

The Countess had a lace cap showing her abundant hair, but aswhite as linen thread. She was sitting up in bed, and seemed to keepupright with great difficulty. Her large black eyes, dimmed by fever,no doubt, and half-dead already, hardly moved under the bony archof her eyebrows.—There,' he added, pointing to his own brow. ‘Herforehead was clammy; her fleshless hands were like bones coveredwith soft skin; the veins and muscles were perfectly visible. She musthave been very handsome; but at this moment I was startled into anindescribable emotion at the sight. Never, said those who wrapped

her in her shroud, had any living creature been so emaciated andlived. In short, it was awful to behold! Sickness so consumed thatwoman, that she was no more than a phantom. Her lips, which werepale violet, seemed to me not to move when she spoke to me.

“‘Though my profession has familiarized me with such spectacles, by calling me not infrequently to the bedside of the dying to recordtheir last wishes, I confess that families in tears and the agonies Ihave seen were as nothing in comparison with this lonely and silent

woman in her vast chateau. I heard not the least sound, I did notperceive the movement which the sufferer‘s breathing ought to havegiven to the sheets that covered her, and I stood motionless,absorbed in looking at her in a sort of stupor. In fancy I am there still.At last her large eyes moved; she tried to raise her right hand, but itfell back on the bed, and she uttered these words, which came like a breath, for her voice was no longer a voice: “I have waited for youwith the greatest impatience.” A bright flush rose to her cheeks. Itwas a great effort to her to speak.

”’“Madame,” I began. She signed to me to be silent. At that momentthe old housekeeper rose and said in my ear, “Do not speak;Madame la Comtesse is not in a state to bear the slightest noise, andwhat you say might agitate her.”

“‘I sat down. A few instants after, Madame de Merret collected allher remaining strength to move her right hand, and slipped it, notwithout infinite difficulty, under the bolster; she then paused a

moment. With a last effort she withdrew her hand; and when she brought out a sealed paper, drops of perspiration rolled from her brow. “I place my will in your hands—Oh! God! Oh!” and that was



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all. She clutched a crucifix that lay on the bed, lifted it hastily to herlips, and died.

“‘The expression of her eyes still makes me shudder as I think of it.She must have suffered much! There was joy in her last glance, and itremained stamped on her dead eyes.

“‘I brought away the will, and when it was opened I found thatMadame de Merret had appointed me her executor. She left thewhole of her property to the hospital at Vendome excepting a fewlegacies. But these were her instructions as relating to la GrandeBreteche: She ordered me to leave the place, for fifty years counting

from the day of her death, in the state in which it might be at thetime of her death, forbidding any one, whoever he might be, to enterthe apartments, prohibiting any repairs whatever, and even settlinga salary to pay watchmen if it were needful to secure the absolutefulfilment of her intentions. At the expiration of that term, if the willof the testatrix has been duly carried out, the house is to become theproperty of my heirs, for, as you know, a notary cannot take a bequest. Otherwise la Grande Breteche reverts to the heirs-at-law, but on condition of fulfilling certain conditions set forth in a codicil

to the will, which is not to be opened till the expiration of the saidterm of fifty years. The will has not been disputed, so—' Andwithout finishing his sentence, the lanky notary looked at me withan air of triumph; I made him quite happy by offering him mycongratulations.

“‘Monsieur,' I said in conclusion, ‘you have so vividly impressed methat I fancy I see the dying woman whiter than her sheets; herglittering eyes frighten me; I shall dream of her to-night.—But you

must have formed some idea as to the instructions contained in thatextraordinary will.'

“‘Monsieur,' said he, with comical reticence, ‘I never allow myself tocriticise the conduct of a person who honors me with the gift of adiamond.'

“However, I soon loosened the tongue of the discreet notary ofVendome, who communicated to me, not without long digressions,

the opinions of the deep politicians of both sexes whose judgmentsare law in Vendome. But these opinions were so contradictory, sodiffuse, that I was near falling asleep in spite of the interest I felt inthis authentic history. The notary‘s ponderous voice and



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monotonous accent, accustomed no doubt to listen to himself and tomake himself listened to by his clients or fellow-townsmen, were toomuch for my curiosity. Happily, he soon went away.

“‘Ah, ha, monsieur,' said he on the stairs, ‘a good many personswould be glad to live five-and-forty years longer; but—one moment!'and he laid the first finger of his right hand to his nostril with acunning look, as much as to say, ‘Mark my words!—To last as longas that—as long as that,' said he, ‘you must not be past sixty now.'

“I closed my door, having been roused from my apathy by this lastspeech, which the notary thought very funny; then I sat down in my

armchair, with my feet on the fire-dogs. I had lost myself in aromance a la Radcliffe, constructed on the juridical base given me byMonsieur Regnault, when the door, opened by a woman‘s cautioushand, turned on the hinges. I saw my landlady come in, a buxom,florid dame, always good-humored, who had missed her calling inlife. She was a Fleming, who ought to have seen the light in a picture by Teniers.

“‘Well, monsieur,' said she, ‘Monsieur Regnault has no doubt been

giving you his history of la Grande Breteche?'

“‘Yes, Madame Lepas.'

“‘And what did he tell you?'

“I repeated in a few words the creepy and sinister story of Madamede Merret. At each sentence my hostess put her head forward,looking at me with an innkeeper‘s keen scrutiny, a happy

compromise between the instinct of a police constable, the astutenessof a spy, and the cunning of a dealer.

“‘My good Madame Lepas,' said I as I ended, ‘you seem to knowmore about it. Heh? If not, why have you come up to me?'

“‘On my word, as an honest woman—'

“‘Do not swear; your eyes are big with a secret. You knew Monsieur

de Merret; what sort of man was he?'

“‘Monsieur de Merret—well, you see he was a man you never couldsee the top of, he was so tall! A very good gentleman, from Picardy,



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and who had, as we say, his head close to his cap. He paid foreverything down, so as never to have difficulties with any one. Hewas hot-tempered, you see! All our ladies liked him very much.'

“‘Because he was hot-tempered?' I asked her.

“‘Well, may be,' said she; ‘and you may suppose, sir, that a man hadto have something to show for a figurehead before he could marryMadame de Merret, who, without any reflection on others, was thehandsomest and richest heiress in our parts. She had about twentythousand francs a year. All the town was at the wedding; the bridewas pretty and sweet-looking, quite a gem of a woman. Oh, they

were a handsome couple in their day!'

“‘And were they happy together?'

“‘Hm, hm! so-so—so far as can be guessed, for, as you may suppose,we of the common sort were not hail-fellow-well-met with them.—Madame de Merret was a kind woman and very pleasant, who hadno doubt sometimes to put up with her husband‘s tantrums. Butthough he was rather haughty, we were fond of him. After all, it was

his place to behave so. When a man is a born nobleman, you see—'

“‘Still, there must have been some catastrophe for Monsieur andMadame de Merret to part so violently?'

“‘I did not say there was any catastrophe, sir. I know nothing aboutit.'

“‘Indeed. Well, now, I am sure you know everything.'

“‘Well, sir, I will tell you the whole story.—When I saw MonsieurRegnault go up to see you, it struck me that he would speak to youabout Madame de Merret as having to do with la Grande Breteche.That put it into my head to ask your advice, sir, seeming to me thatyou are a man of good judgment and incapable of playing a poorwoman like me false—for I never did any one a wrong, and yet I amtormented by my conscience. Up to now I have never dared to say aword to the people of these parts; they are all chatter-mags, with

tongues like knives. And never till now, sir, have I had any travelerhere who stayed so long in the inn as you have, and to whom I couldtell the history of the fifteen thousand francs—'



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“‘My dear Madame Lepas, if there is anything in your story of anature to compromise me,' I said, interrupting the flow of her words,‘I would not hear it for all the world.'

“‘You need have no fears,' said she; ‘you will see.'

“Her eagerness made me suspect that I was not the only person towhom my worthy landlady had communicated the secret of which Iwas to be the sole possessor, but I listened.

“‘Monsieur,' said she, ‘when the Emperor sent the Spaniards here,prisoners of war and others, I was required to lodge at the charge of

the Government a young Spaniard sent to Vendome on parole.Notwithstanding his parole, he had to show himself every day to thesub-prefect. He was a Spanish grandee—neither more nor less. Hehad a name in os and dia , something like Bagos de Feredia. I wrotehis name down in my books, and you may see it if you like. Ah! hewas a handsome young fellow for a Spaniard, who are all ugly theysay. He was not more than five feet two or three in height, but sowell made; and he had little hands that he kept so beautifully! Ah!you should have seen them. He had as many brushes for his hands

as a woman has for her toilet. He had thick, black hair, a flame in hiseye, a somewhat coppery complexion, but which I admired all thesame. He wore the finest linen I have ever seen, though I have hadprincesses to lodge here, and, among others, General Bertrand, theDuc and Duchesse d‘Abrantes, Monsieur Descazes, and the King ofSpain. He did not eat much, but he had such polite and amiableways that it was impossible to owe him a grudge for that. Oh! I wasvery fond of him, though he did not say four words to me in a day,and it was impossible to have the least bit of talk with him; if he was

spoken to, he did not answer; it is a way, a mania they all have, itwould seem.

“‘He read his breviary like a priest, and went to mass and all theservices quite regularly. And where did he post himself?—we foundthis out later.—Within two yards of Madame de Merret‘s chapel. Ashe took that place the very first time he entered the church, no oneimagined that there was any purpose in it. Besides, he never raisedhis nose above his book, poor young man! And then, monsieur, of an

evening he went for a walk on the hill among the ruins of the oldcastle. It was his only amusement, poor man; it reminded him of hisnative land. They say that Spain is all hills!



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“‘One evening, a few days after he was sent here, he was out verylate. I was rather uneasy when he did not come in till just on thestroke of midnight; but we all got used to his whims; he took the key

of the door, and we never sat up for him. He lived in a house belonging to us in the Rue des Casernes. Well, then, one of ourstable-boys told us one evening that, going down to wash the horsesin the river, he fancied he had seen the Spanish Grandee swimmingsome little way off, just like a fish. When he came in, I told him to becareful of the weeds, and he seemed put out at having been seen inthe water.

“‘At last, monsieur, one day, or rather one morning, we did not find

him in his room; he had not come back. By hunting through histhings, I found a written paper in the drawer of his table, with fiftypieces of Spanish gold of the kind they call doubloons, worth aboutfive thousand francs; and in a little sealed box ten thousand francsworth of diamonds. The paper said that in case he should not return,he left us this money and these diamonds in trust to found masses tothank God for his escape and for his salvation.

“‘At that time I still had my husband, who ran off in search of him.

And this is the queer part of the story: he brought back theSpaniard‘s clothes, which he had found under a big stone on a sort of breakwater along the river bank, nearly opposite la Grande Breteche.My husband went so early that no one saw him. After reading theletter, he burnt the clothes, and, in obedience to Count Feredia‘swish, we announced that he had escaped.

“‘The sub-prefect set all the constabulary at his heels; but, pshaw! hewas never caught. Lepas believed that the Spaniard had drowned

himself. I, sir, have never thought so; I believe, on the contrary, thathe had something to do with the business about Madame de Merret,seeing that Rosalie told me that the crucifix her mistress was so fondof that she had it buried with her, was made of ebony and silver;now in the early days of his stay here, Monsieur Feredia had one ofebony and silver which I never saw later.—And now, monsieur, donot you say that I need have no remorse about the Spaniard‘s fifteenthousand francs? Are they not really and truly mine?'

“‘Certainly.—But have you never tried to question Rosalie?' said I.

“‘Oh, to be sure I have, sir. But what is to be done? That girl is like awall. She knows something, but it is impossible to make her talk.'



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“After chatting with me for a few minutes, my hostess left me a preyto vague and sinister thoughts, to romantic curiosity, and a religiousdread, not unlike the deep emotion which comes upon us when we

go into a dark church at night and discern a feeble light glimmeringunder a lofty vault—a dim figure glides across—the sweep of agown or of a priest‘s cassock is audible—and we shiver! La GrandeBreteche, with its rank grasses, its shuttered windows, its rusty iron-work, its locked doors, its deserted rooms, suddenly rose before mein fantastic vividness. I tried to get into the mysterious dwelling tosearch out the heart of this solemn story, this drama which hadkilled three persons.

“Rosalie became in my eyes the most interesting being in Vendome.As I studied her, I detected signs of an inmost thought, in spite of the blooming health that glowed in her dimpled face. There was in hersoul some element of ruth or of hope; her manner suggested a secret,like the expression of devout souls who pray in excess, or of a girlwho has killed her child and for ever hears its last cry. Nevertheless,she was simple and clumsy in her ways; her vacant smile hadnothing criminal in it, and you would have pronounced her innocentonly from seeing the large red and blue checked kerchief that

covered her stalwart bust, tucked into the tight-laced bodice of alilac- and white-striped gown. ‘No,' said I to myself, ‘I will not quitVendome without knowing the whole history of la Grande Breteche.To achieve this end, I will make love to Rosalie if it provesnecessary.'

“‘Rosalie!' said I one evening.

“‘Your servant, sir?'

“‘You are not married?' She started a little.

“‘Oh! there is no lack of men if ever I take a fancy to be miserable!'she replied, laughing. She got over her agitation at once; for everywoman, from the highest lady to the inn-servant inclusive, has anative presence of mind.

“‘Yes; you are fresh and good-looking enough never to lack lovers!

But tell me, Rosalie, why did you become an inn-servant on leavingMadame de Merret? Did she not leave you some little annuity?'



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“‘Oh yes, sir. But my place here is the best in all the town ofVendome.'

“This reply was such an one as judges and attorneys call evasive.Rosalie, as it seemed to me, held in this romantic affair the place ofthe middle square of the chess-board: she was at the very centre ofthe interest and of the truth; she appeared to me to be tied into theknot of it. It was not a case for ordinary love-making; this girlcontained the last chapter of a romance, and from that moment allmy attentions were devoted to Rosalie. By dint of studying the girl, Iobserved in her, as in every woman whom we make our rulingthought, a variety of good qualities; she was clean and neat; she was

handsome, I need not say; she soon was possessed of every charmthat desire can lend to a woman in whatever rank of life. A fortnightafter the notary‘s visit, one evening, or rather one morning, in thesmall hours, I said to Rosalie:

“‘Come, tell me all you know about Madame de Merret.'

“‘Oh!' she said, ‘I will tell you; but keep the secret carefully.'

“‘All right, my child; I will keep all your secrets with a thief‘s honor,which is the most loyal known.'

“‘If it is all the same to you,' said she, ‘I would rather it should bewith your own.'

“Thereupon she set her head-kerchief straight, and settled herself totell the tale; for there is no doubt a particular attitude of confidenceand security is necessary to the telling of a narrative. The best tales

are told at a certain hour—just as we are all here at table. No oneever told a story well standing up, or fasting.

“If I were to reproduce exactly Rosalie‘s diffuse eloquence, a wholevolume would scarcely contain it. Now, as the event of which shegave me a confused account stands exactly midway between thenotary‘s gossip and that of Madame Lepas, as precisely as themiddle term of a rule-of-three sum stands between the first andthird, I have only to relate it in as few words as may be. I shall

therefore be brief.

“The room at la Grande Breteche in which Madame de Merret sleptwas on the ground floor; a little cupboard in the wall, about four feet



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deep, served her to hang her dresses in. Three months before theevening of which I have to relate the events, Madame de Merret had been seriously ailing, so much so that her husband had left her to

herself, and had his own bedroom on the first floor. By one of thoseaccidents which it is impossible to foresee, he came in that eveningtwo hours later than usual from the club, where he went to read thepapers and talk politics with the residents in the neighborhood. Hiswife supposed him to have come in, to be in bed and asleep. But theinvasion of France had been the subject of a very animateddiscussion; the game of billiards had waxed vehement; he had lostforty francs, an enormous sum at Vendome, where everybody isthrifty, and where social habits are restrained within the bounds of a

simplicity worthy of all praise, and the foundation perhaps of a formof true happiness which no Parisian would care for.

“For some time past Monsieur de Merret had been satisfied to askRosalie whether his wife was in bed; on the girl‘s replying always inthe affirmative, he at once went to his own room, with the good faiththat comes of habit and confidence. But this evening, on coming in,he took it into his head to go to see Madame de Merret, to tell her ofhis ill-luck, and perhaps to find consolation. During dinner he had

observed that his wife was very becomingly dressed; he reflected ashe came home from the club that his wife was certainly much better,that convalescence had improved her beauty, discovering it, ashusbands discover everything, a little too late. Instead of callingRosalie, who was in the kitchen at the moment watching the cookand the coachman playing a puzzling hand at cards, Monsieur deMerret made his way to his wife‘s room by the light of his lantern,which he set down at the lowest step of the stairs. His step, easy torecognize, rang under the vaulted passage.

“At the instant when the gentleman turned the key to enter his wife‘sroom, he fancied he heard the door shut of the closet of which I havespoken; but when he went in, Madame de Merret was alone,standing in front of the fireplace. The unsuspecting husband fanciedthat Rosalie was in the cupboard; nevertheless, a doubt, ringing inhis ears like a peal of bells, put him on his guard; he looked at hiswife, and read in her eyes an indescribably anxious and hauntedexpression.

“‘You are very late,' said she.—Her voice, usually so clear and sweet,struck him as being slightly husky.



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“Monsieur de Merret made no reply, for at this moment Rosaliecame in. This was like a thunder-clap. He walked up and down theroom, going from one window to another at a regular pace, his arms

folded.

“‘Have you had bad news, or are you ill?' his wife asked himtimidly, while Rosalie helped her to undress. He made no reply.

“‘You can go, Rosalie,' said Madame de Merret to her maid; ‘I canput in my curl-papers myself.'—She scented disaster at the mereaspect of her husband‘s face, and wished to be alone with him. Assoon as Rosalie was gone, or supposed to be gone, for she lingered a

few minutes in the passage, Monsieur de Merret came and stoodfacing his wife, and said coldly, ‘Madame, there is some one in yourcupboard!' She looked at her husband calmly, and replied quitesimply, ‘No, monsieur.'

“This ‘No’ wrung Monsieur de Merret‘s heart; he did not believe it;and yet his wife had never appeared purer or more saintly than sheseemed to be at this moment. He rose to go and open the closet door.Madame de Merret took his hand, stopped him, looked at him sadly,

and said in a voice of strange emotion, ‘Remember, if you shouldfind no one there, everything must be at an end between you andme.'

“The extraordinary dignity of his wife‘s attitude filled him with deepesteem for her, and inspired him with one of those resolves whichneed only a grander stage to become immortal.

“‘No, Josephine,' he said, ‘I will not open it. In either event we

should be parted for ever. Listen; I know all the purity of your soul, Iknow you lead a saintly life, and would not commit a deadly sin tosave your life.'—At these words Madame de Merret looked at herhusband with a haggard stare.—‘See, here is your crucifix,' he wenton. ‘Swear to me before God that there is no one in there; I will believe you—I will never open that door.'

“Madame de Merret took up the crucifix and said, ‘I swear it.'

“‘Louder,' said her husband; ‘and repeat: “I swear before God thatthere is nobody in that closet.”’ She repeated the words withoutflinching.



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“‘That will do,' said Monsieur de Merret coldly. After a moment‘ssilence: ‘You have there a fine piece of work which I never saw before,' said he, examining the crucifix of ebony and silver, very

artistically wrought.

“‘I found it at Duvivier‘s; last year when that troop of Spanishprisoners came through Vendome, he bought it of a Spanish monk.'

“‘Indeed,' said Monsieur de Merret, hanging the crucifix on its nail;and he rang the bell.

“He had to wait for Rosalie. Monsieur de Merret went forward

quickly to meet her, led her into the bay of the window that lookedon to the garden, and said to her in an undertone:

“‘I know that Gorenflot wants to marry you, that poverty aloneprevents your setting up house, and that you told him you wouldnot be his wife till he found means to become a master mason.—Well, go and fetch him; tell him to come here with his trowel andtools. Contrive to wake no one in his house but himself. His rewardwill be beyond your wishes. Above all, go out without saying a

word—or else!' and he frowned.

“Rosalie was going, and he called her back. ‘Here, take my latch-key,' said he.

“‘Jean!' Monsieur de Merret called in a voice of thunder down thepassage. Jean, who was both coachman and confidential servant, lefthis cards and came.

“‘Go to bed, all of you,' said his master, beckoning him to come close;and the gentleman added in a whisper, ‘When they are all asleep —mind, asleep—you understand?—come down and tell me.'

“Monsieur de Merret, who had never lost sight of his wife whilegiving his orders, quietly came back to her at the fireside, and beganto tell her the details of the game of billiards and the discussion atthe club. When Rosalie returned she found Monsieur and Madamede Merret conversing amiably.

“Not long before this Monsieur de Merret had had new ceilingsmade to all the reception-rooms on the ground floor. Plaster is veryscarce at Vendome; the price is enhanced by the cost of carriage; the



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gentleman had therefore had a considerable quantity delivered tohim, knowing that he could always find purchasers for what might be left. It was this circumstance which suggested the plan he carried

out.

“‘Gorenflot is here, sir,' said Rosalie in a whisper.

“‘Tell him to come in,' said her master aloud.

“Madame de Merret turned paler when she saw the mason.

“‘Gorenflot,' said her husband, ‘go and fetch some bricks from the

coach-house; bring enough to wall up the door of this cupboard; youcan use the plaster that is left for cement.' Then, dragging Rosalieand the workman close to him—‘Listen, Gorenflot,' said he, in a lowvoice, ‘you are to sleep here to-night; but to-morrow morning youshall have a passport to take you abroad to a place I will tell you of. Iwill give you six thousand francs for your journey. You must live inthat town for ten years; if you find you do not like it, you may settlein another, but it must be in the same country. Go through Paris andwait there till I join you. I will there give you an agreement for six

thousand francs more, to be paid to you on your return, providedyou have carried out the conditions of the bargain. For that price youare to keep perfect silence as to what you have to do this night. Toyou, Rosalie, I will secure ten thousand francs, which will not bepaid to you till your wedding day, and on condition of yourmarrying Gorenflot; but, to get married, you must hold your tongue.If not, no wedding gift!'

“‘Rosalie,' said Madame de Merret, ‘come and brush my hair.'

“Her husband quietly walked up and down the room, keeping aneye on the door, on the mason, and on his wife, but without anyinsulting display of suspicion. Gorenflot could not help makingsome noise. Madame de Merret seized a moment when he wasunloading some bricks, and when her husband was at the other endof the room to say to Rosalie: ‘My dear child, I will give you athousand francs a year if only you will tell Gorenflot to leave a crackat the bottom.' Then she added aloud quite coolly: ‘You had better

help him.'

“Monsieur and Madame de Merret were silent all the time whileGorenflot was walling up the door. This silence was intentional on



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the husband‘s part; he did not wish to give his wife the opportunityof saying anything with a double meaning. On Madame de Merret‘sside it was pride or prudence. When the wall was half built up the

cunning mason took advantage of his master‘s back being turned to break one of the two panes in the top of the door with a blow of hispick. By this Madame de Merret understood that Rosalie had spokento Gorenflot. They all three then saw the face of a dark, gloomy-looking man, with black hair and flaming eyes.

“Before her husband turned round again the poor woman hadnodded to the stranger, to whom the signal was meant to convey,‘Hope.'

“At four o‘clock, as the day was dawning, for it was the month ofSeptember, the work was done. The mason was placed in charge of Jean, and Monsieur de Merret slept in his wife‘s room.

“Next morning when he got up he said with apparent carelessness,‘Oh, by the way, I must go to the Maire for the passport.' He put onhis hat, took two or three steps towards the door, paused, and tookthe crucifix. His wife was trembling with joy.

“‘He will go to Duvivier‘s,' thought she.

“As soon as he had left, Madame de Merret rang for Rosalie, andthen in a terrible voice she cried: ‘The pick! Bring the pick! and set towork. I saw how Gorenflot did it yesterday; we shall have time tomake a gap and build it up again.'

“In an instant Rosalie had brought her mistress a sort of cleaver; she,

with a vehemence of which no words can give an idea, set to work todemolish the wall. She had already got out a few bricks, when,turning to deal a stronger blow than before, she saw behind herMonsieur de Merret. She fainted away.

“‘Lay madame on her bed,' said he coldly.

“Foreseeing what would certainly happen in his absence, he had laidthis trap for his wife; he had merely written to the Maire and sent for

Duvivier. The jeweler arrived just as the disorder in the room had been repaired.



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“‘Duvivier,' asked Monsieur de Merret, ‘did not you buy somecrucifixes of the Spaniards who passed through the town?'

“‘No, monsieur.'

“‘Very good; thank you,' said he, flashing a tiger‘s glare at his wife.‘Jean,' he added, turning to his confidential valet, ‘you can serve mymeals here in Madame de Merret‘s room. She is ill, and I shall notleave her till she recovers.'

“The cruel man remained in his wife‘s room for twenty days. Duringthe earlier time, when there was some little noise in the closet, and

Josephine wanted to intercede for the dying man, he said, withoutallowing her to utter a word, ‘You swore on the Cross that there wasno one there.'”

After this story all the ladies rose from table, and thus the spellunder which Bianchon had held them was broken. But there weresome among them who had almost shivered at the last words.



La Grande Breteche

ADDENDUM

The following personage appears in other stories of the HumanComedy.

Bianchon, HoraceFather GoriotThe Atheist’s MassCesar Birotteau

The Commission in LunacyLost IllusionsA Distinguished Provincial at ParisA Bachelor’s EstablishmentThe Secrets of a PrincessThe Government ClerksPierretteA Study of WomanScenes from a Courtesan’s Life

HonorineThe Seamy Side of HistoryThe Magic SkinA Second HomeA Prince of BohemiaLetters of Two BridesThe Muse of the DepartmentThe Imaginary MistressThe Middle Classes

Cousin BettyThe Country Parson

In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:Another Study of Woman

balzac, honore de - a study of woman another study of woman

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