»;OF'CAIIFOR{^ 't?iHva8n-^^ 6 %«iAiNnattV^ ^OFCAIIFO^^ ^OFCAI 4? v< ^lOSAVCflfj-^ //sajAiNft-ayiV ^iUBRARYQc. ^^lUBRARYOc, AWrUNIVER% ^•tfOJITYDJO^ %0JnV3JO^ &Aavaanv^ ^6>Aavaan# .^WEUNIVERS/A >^tllBRARYQ^ AMEUNIVER% CO - ^•lOSANCElfj-^ g Otf %jnv3jo^ "??AMVMf!n"\^ .\WEUNIVER% Viii iiiJ*\ l51) ^•lOSANCElfj}> o ^ - ,.fHlAt>Jn'U\ AOFCAllFOftfc, ^OFCA >&JlHV«flll^>J^ *V<9Aavj ^•lOSANCElfT^ ^/^aaAiNnavvv^ -j^^lUBRARYO^^ ^lUBRARYQ^. AWEUNIVERS/^ ^ojiiYOjo'^ '^*oj;iv3jo'»^ ^OFCAtlFO^^ ^OFCAllFOff^ .^MEUNIVERi•/A < =3 A>:10SA! o 6 ';§' %i§DNVsm^ "^/iiiaAiNfliW^^ %oiimi^'^ '^ojiivojo^' ^WEUNIVERS•/^ .vVOSANCElfXA ^OFCAllFOi?^ ^OfCAllFOi?^ ^TJinNVSOV^ %auiNniwv^ ^avaaii-i^ "^^Aavaaiiv^ ^ 1 li— ^ ^ 33 ^OFCAIIFOR^ A^lllBRARYQ^ "^^OillVDJO^^ ^OFCAIIFO^ ^\\E•UNIVER% o A>:lOSANCElfju ^ajAiNaaivv^ 5.WEUNIVER% ^lOSANCEl£r^ ^0Aav8an-i>J^ ^(?Aavaani^ ?XUBRARYac. ^lUBRARYO^, ^(tfOJITVJJO'^ ^^OJIIVDJO^ .\\^EUNIVER% A>10S ^JVlJDKVSOl^ "^aMINfl'JWV ^5r ■OFCAUFO/?,, y< ^mmi I /r. avaaiiiv*' ^ § 1 1/-^ ^ ^lUBRARYO/ \WEUNIVOfS//v ^V -^ -^^ ** '^' M. GUILLAUME AND THEODORE But, at this moment, the old draper paid, no attention to his apprentices ; he zvas biisily study- ing the motive of the anxiety with which the yoimg man in the cloak and silk socks alternately sur- veyed his signboard and the recesses of his shop. THE NOVELS OF HONORE DE BALZAC NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH THE HOUSE OF THE CAT AND RACKET THE DANCE A T SCEA UX THE PURSE THE VENDETTA BY MAY TOMLINSON WITH FIVE ETCHINGS BY LEON LAMBERT, XAVIER LE SUEUR AND RICARDO DE LOS RIOS, AFTER DRAWINGS BY EDOUARD TOUDOUZE IN. ONE VOLUME PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY GEORGE BARRIE & SON, PHILADELPHIA COPYRIGHTED, 1896, BY G. B. & SON P9 o THE HOUSE OF THE CAT AND RACKET 189936 TO MADEMOISELLE MARIE DE MONTHEAU (3) THE HOUSE OF THE CAT AND RACKET * In the middle of Rue Saint-Denis, almost at the corner of Rue du Petit-Lion, there existed but lately, one of those houses so valuable to the his- torian, in facilitating his task of reconstructing ancient Paris by analogy. The tottering walls of this dilapidated house seemed to have been checkered with hieroglyphics. What better name could the chance observer give to the X and V, traced upon the facade by transversal or diagonal pieces of wood, indicated in the white- wash by narrow parallel crevices? The lightest carriage in passing by evidently shook every rafter in its mortice. This venerable edifice was surmounted by a tri- angular roof whose like will soon become extinct in Paris. Distorted by the inclemency of the Parisian climate this roof projected three feet over the road, as much to screen the threshold of the door from rain as to shelter the wall of an attic, and its window without a sill. This last story was built of planks nailed one over the other like slates, doubtless to prevent the overburdening of this fragile structure. One rainy morning in March, a young man, care- fully wrapt in his cloak, stood under the porch of a (5) 6 THE HOUSE OF shop opposite this old house, examining it with the enthusiasm of an arch^ologist. And certainly this fragment of the Sixteenth Century bourgeoisie pre- sented to an observer more than one problem. Each story had some peculiarity; the ground-floor had four long, narrow windows, close together, the lower parts crossed by squares of wood in order to pro- duce the doubtful light by the help of which the materials of a clever tradesman assume the colors desired by his customers. The young man seemed indifferent to this essential part of the house, he did not even appear to notice it. The windows of the second story above, with their raised blinds showing little red muslin curtains through large panes of Bohemian glass, had still less interest for him. His attention was wholly centred in the humble windows of the third story, in the modest windows whose rudely fashioned woodwork de- served a place in the Conservatoire of Arts and Trades, as a specimen of the primitive efforts of French joinery. So green were the little panes of these windows that had it not been for his excellent eyesight, the young man would not have been able to discern the linen curtains, with their pattern of blue squares, that hid the mysteries of this room from the eyes of the profane. But tired of his pro- fitless contemplation, or of the silence in which the house, as well as the whole neighborhood, was wrapt, the watcher every now and then bent his gaze upon the lower regions. An involuntary smile played upon his lips each time he looked at the THE CAT AND RACKET 7 shop, where, in fact, features sufficiently amusing might be seen. A tremendous piece of wood, hori- zontally supported by four posts that were appa- rently bent by the weight of this decrepit old house, had been adorned with as many layers of paint as the cheek of an old duchess is covered with rouge. In the middle of this delicately-carved beam was an old picture representing a cat playing at ball. It was this canvas that roused the young man's mirth. But it must be confessed that the most in- telligent of modern painters could not have origi- nated a more comical caricature. In one of his front paws the animal was holding a racket as big as himself, he was standing up on his hind legs to aim at an enormous ball returned to him by a gentleman in an embroidered coat. Design, color and acces- sories, all combined to suggest that the artist wished to mock at the tradesman and the passers-by. This picture had become still more ludicrous owing to the modifications made by time, which rendered the outlines so uncertain as to greatly puz- zle the unconscious idler. Thus the cat's spotted tail stood out in such a way that it might have been taken for a spectator. So big, erect and thick were the tails of our ancestors' cats. To the right of the picture, upon an azure ground that only imperfectly disguised the rottenness of the wood, passers-by might read: GUILLAUME, and to the left: SUCCESSOR TO THE SlEUR CHEVREL. The sun and rain had worn away most of the gold so sparingly applied to the letters of this inscription, 8 THE HOUSE OF in which the letter U took the place of V and vice versa, according to the rules of our ancient orthog- raphy. In order to humble the pride of those who believe that the world grows daily more intelligent and that modern charlatanism surpasses everything, it is as well to here observe that these signboards, whose etymology appears strange to more than one Parisian tradesman, are dead pictures of living pic- tures by which our rogues of ancestors succeeded in attracting customers to their shops. Thus the Spin- ning Sow, the Green Monkey, etc., were animals in cages, whose cleverness was the astonishment of passers-by, and whose training testified to the patience of the Fifteenth Century industrial. Such curiosities enriched their lucky owners more quickly than the Providence, the Good Faith, the Grace of God, and the Beheading of John the Baptist that are still to be seen in Rue Saint-Denis. However, the stranger most assuredly was not staying there to admire the cat, that one moment's attention sufficed to engrave upon the memory. This young man also had his peculiarities. The classic folds of his cloak revealed his elegantly shod feet, which were all the more conspicuous in the depths of the Paris mud, on account of the white silk socks whose spattered condition testified to his impatience. No doubt he came from a wedding or ball, for at this early hour he held a pair of white gloves, and his uncurled black locks, scattered over his shoulders, indicated a coiffure after the st3'le of Caracalla, brought into fashion not less by the school of David, than by the THE CAT AND RACKET 9 infatuation for Greek and Roman customs that marked the early years of this century. Despite the noise caused by several belated market gar- deners galloping past to the great market there was a magic in the quiet of this usually busy street that is known to those only who have wandered through deserted Paris at those times when her uproar, lulled for a space, revives and murmurs in the dis- tance like the great voice of the sea. This young stranger must have appeared as peculiar to the tradesman of the Cat and Racket as the Cat and Racket did to him. A dazzling white tie caused his anxious face to appear paler than it really was. The alternately gloomy and eager light flashing in his black eyes harmonized with the strange outlines of his face, and with his large and sinuous mouth, which contracted when he smiled. His forehead was wrinkled as if under the influence of some strong annoyance and bore a somewhat terrible ex- pression, is not the brow the most prophetic feature in man? When distorted by anger, there was something almost terrifying in the force with which the lines gathered in the stranger's fore- head; but when it recovered its easily disturbed composure, it wore the bright charm that formed the attraction of this physiognomy, in which joy, pain, love, anger and scorn were expressed in so speaking a manner that the most cold-blooded man must have been moved by it. When the attic window was hastily opened, the unknown was so thoroughly out of temper that he did not see three 10 THE HOUSE OF merry faces, all round, pink and white, as much alike as the figures of Commerce carved on certain monuments. These three faces, framed by the window, recalled the chubby angel heads pictured as scattered in the clouds around the Almighty. The apprentices inhaled the emanations from the street with an avidity that testified to the hot and vitiated atmosphere of their garret. After pointing to the strange looking sentinel, the clerk who seemed the merriest of the three, disappeared, and presently returned holding a stiff metal instrument which has lately been superseded by the more sup- ple strop; then, maliciously watching the idler they sprinkled him with a fine whitish shower which, from its perfume, showed that the three chins had just been shaved. Retreating on tiptoe to the back of their attic to enjoy their victim's rage, the clerks stopped laughing when they saw the careless scorn with which the young man shook his cloak, and the profound contempt depicted in his face as he lifted his eyes to the empty window. At this moment, a white and delicate hand raised toward the moulding the lower part of one of the rough windows in the third story by means of those cords whose pulley often drops the heavy frame it is meant to support. The loafer was then rewarded for his long waiting. The face of a young girl appeared, fresh as one of those lilies that flower upon the bosom of the waters, crowned by a ruche of rumpled muslin that gave her head a wonderfully innocent look. Although clothed in some dark material her THE CAT AND RACKET II neck and shoulders could be seen, thanks to some slight openings which her movements during sleep had made. No expression of constraint could alter the ingenuity of this face or the serenity of eyes for- ever immortalized in Raphael's sublime composi- tions; there was the same grace, the same tranquil- lity as that of the proverbial Madonna. The youthful cheeks, upon which slumber had laid, as it were, a superabundance of life, made a charming contrast to the massive old window with its rough outlines and blackened sill. The young girl, barely awake, rested her blue eyes on the neighboring roofs and looked up at the sky like those flowers that morning fmds with petals still unfurled; then, from force of habit she lowered them to the dingy regions of the street, where they promptly encountered those of her adorer; coquettishly ashamed of being seen en deshabille, she hastily withdrew, the worn- out pulley revolved, the window fell with a rapidity that within our days has gained an invidious repu- tation for our ancestors' simple invention, and the vision disappeared. It seemed to the young man as if the brightest morning star had been hidden by a cloud. During these little incidents the heavy inside shutters protecting the thin panes of the shop of the Cat and Racket, had been removed as if by magic. The old, knockered door was thrown back against the inner wall of the house by a servant who was probably a contemporary of the signboard, to which, with a shaky hand, he fastened a square 12 THE HOUSE OF cloth embroidered in yellow silk with the name GuiLLAUME, Successor to Chevrel. It would have puzzled more than one passer-by to guess the nature of Monsieur Guillaume's trade. The great iron bars protecting the exterior of the shop prevented a good view of the brown linen pack- ets that were as numerous as herrings in the ocean. In spite of the apparent simplicity of this Gothic front, Monsieur Guillaume's shops were the best stocked of all the merchant drapers in Paris, he had the most extensive connections, and his commercial honesty was above the least suspicion. If any of his fellow tradesmen concluded a bargain with the government without having the required quantity of cloth, he was always ready to supply them, no matter how great the number of pieces tendered for. The wily merchant knew a thousand ways of accru- ing the greatest profit without being obliged, as they were, to have recourse to patrons, to practise mean tricks, or give rich presents. If his fellow tradesmen could only repay him in safe long-dated drafts, he would refer them to his notary as being an accommodating man, for he knew how to get a double profit out of the transaction, thanks to the expedient that gave rise to the prover- bial saying amongst the tradesmen of Rue Saint- Denis, "God preserve you from Monsieur Guil- laume's notary!" as indicating a heavy discount. As the servant retired the old merchant appeared, as if by some miracle, upon the threshold of his shop. Monsieur Guillaume surveyed the Rue Saint- THE CAT AND RACKET 1 3 Denis, the neighboring shops and the weather, with the interest of a man landing at Havre and seeing France again after a long journey. Duly convinced that nothing had changed during his sleep, he then perceived the stranger on guard, who, on his side, contemplated the patriarchal draper, just as Humboldt might have examined the first electric gymnotus that he saw in America. Monsieur Guillaume wore wide black velvet breeches, variegated stockings and square-toe shoes with silver buckles. His slightly bent body was incased in a square-tail coat, of a greenish cloth, with square flaps and a square collar, trimmed with big white metal buttons, reddened with wear. His gray hair was so precisely flattened and combed on his yellow skull that it looked like a furrowed field. His little green eyes, like gimlet holes, shone be- neath two arches outlined by a slight redness in the place of eyebrows. Anxiety had traced as many horizontal wrinkles on his forehead as there were creases in his coat The sallow face indicated patience, commercial pru- dence and that species of sly cupidity required in business. At that time it was no such rare thing as it is now-a-days, to see these old families preserv- ing, like precious traditions, the customs and dress peculiar to their calling, and who dwelling in the midst of modern civil ization are 1 ike the antediluvian remains discovered in quarries by Cuvier. The head of the Guillaume family was one of these remarkable guardians of ancient customs; he was 14 THE HOUSE OF often caught regretting the "Mayors of Paris;" and he never spoke of a decision of the Commercial Court of Justice but as o. Sentence of the Consuls. Being the first of his household to rise, no doubt in virtue of these practises, he was resolutely awaiting the arrival of his three clerks in order to scold them should they be late. These young disciples of Mer- cury dreaded nothing so much as the silent activity with which, on Monday morning, the master scrutinized their faces and movements, seeking evidences or traces of their escapades. But, at this moment, the old draper paid no attention to his ap- prentices; he was busily studying the motive of the anxiety with which the young man in the cloak and silk socks alternately surveyed his signboard and the recesses of his shop. The growing daylight showed up the wired office hung round with old green silk curtains, where were kept the huge day-books, dumb oracles of the house. The inquisitive stranger seemed to be gloating over the little place, and to be taking a plan of the side dining-room, lighted by a skylight whence the as- sembled family, during meals, could easily see the slightest accident that might occur on the threshold of the shop. So great an affection for his house ap- peared suspicious to a merchant who had suffered the administration of the Maximum.* Monsieur Guillaume naturally imagined that this sinister figure had designs upon the till of the Cat and *The Convention of 1793 passed a law ordaining that merchants should not exceed a fixed price in selling the necessities of life. THE CAT AND RACKET 15 Racket. After a discreet enjoyment of the silent duel going on between his master and the stranger, the oldest of the clerks, seeing the young man stealthily eyeing the windows of the third story, ventured to stand on the same flagstone as Monsieur Guillaume. He took two steps into the street, lifted his head, and fancied he saw Mademoiselle Augustine retiring precipitately. Displeased at the perspicacity of his head clerk, the draper looked askant at him; but, all of a sudden, the mutual ap- prehensions excited by this loiterer's presence in the minds of the merchant and the amorous clerk were quieted. The stranger hailed a cab that was making for a neighboring stand and hastily jumped in with a delusive affectation of unconcern. This departure brought a certain comfort to the hearts of the other clerks who were somewhat anxious at recognizing the victim of their joke. "Well, sirs, what are you staying there with your arms folded for.?" said Monsieur Guillaume to his three neophytes. "Why! Bless my soul ! In times gone by when I was with the Sieur Chevrel, I would already have examined more than two pieces of cloth." "It was light much earlier then.?" said the second clerk, upon whom this task devolved. The old merchant could not help smiling. Al- though two of these young people entrusted to his care by their fathers— rich manufacturers of Lou- viers and Sedan— only had to ask for one hundred thousand francs to have them on the day when they l6 THE HOUSE OF were old enough to set up for themselves, Guil- laume believed it to be his duty to keep them under the rod of an antiquated despotism, unknown in these days of magnificent modern shops where the clerks expect to be rich at thirty; he made them work like niggers. As to the three clerks, they were equal to as much work as would have tired out ten of those officials whose sybaritism now swells the columns of the budget. No noise broke the still- ness of this solemn household, where the hinges seemed always oiled, and the smallest piece of fur- niture was so respectably clean as to proclaim a rigid order and economy. The most mischievous of the clerks would often amuse himself writing the date of its original receipt upon the Gruyere cheese that was abandoned to them at luncheon and that it pleased them to spare. This trick and others of a similar character would sometimes draw a smile from the youngest of Monsieur Guillaume's two daughters, the pretty virgin who had just appeared to the fascinated stranger. Although each of the apprentices, and even the oldest one, paid a large sum for board, not one of them would have dared remain at the master's table after the dessert had been served. When Madame Guillaume spoke of dressing the salad these poor youths trembled at the thought of how sparingly her prudent hand could pour the oil. They might not venture to spend a night out without giving a plausible reason for this irregularity a long time beforehand. Every Sunday, in town, two of the clerks accompanied the THE CAT AND RACKET 1 7 Guillaume family to Mass and Vespers at Saint-Leu. Mademoiselles Virginie and Augustine, modestly- dressed in print gowns, each took the arm of a clerk and walked on in front under their mother's piercing eye, who brought up the rear of this little domestic procession with her husband, who used to carry for her two big prayer-books bound in black morocco. The second clerk had no salary. As for the one whom twelve years of perseverance and discretion had initiated into the secrets of the busi- ness, he received eight hundred francs as the reward for his labors. At certain family festivities he was favored with a few presents whose value was en- hanced only by the dry and wrinkled hand of Ma- dame Guillaume: beaded purses that she carefully filled with cotton to show up their open-work design, strongly made braces, or heavy silk stock- ings. Sometimes, but very rarely, this prime min- ister was allowed a share in the family pleasures, whether they went into the country, or whether, after waiting months, they decided to avail them- selves of their right, in applying for a box, to ask for a play that Paris no longer thought anything of. As for the three other clerks, the barrier of respect that formerly separated a master draper from his apprentices was so firmly fixed between them and the old merchant that they could more easily have stolen a piece of cloth than upset this sacred etiquette. This reserve may appear ridiculous now-a-days, but these old firms were schools of morality and 2 l8 THE HOUSE OF honesty. The masters adopted their apprentices. A young man's linen was attended to, mended and sometimes renewed by the mistress of the house. If a clerk fell ill he was the object of true moth- erly care. In case of danger, the master spared no money in sending for the most distinguished doc- tors; for he was not answerable to the parents of these young people for their morals and acquire- ments alone. If one of them, with an honorable character, met with disaster, these old merchants knew how to appreciate the intelligence that they had helped to develop and did not hesitate to entrust their daughter's happiness to one in whose hands they had so long trusted their wealth. Guillaume was one of these old-fashioned men, and if he possessed their absurdities he also had all their qualities; and so Joseph Lebas, his head clerk and a penniless orphan was, in his opinion, the future husband of his eldest daughter, Virginie. But Joseph did not share his master's symmetrical projects, who would never, for a kingdom, have allowed his second daughter to marry before the first. The unfortunate clerk felt that his heart was wholly set upon Mademoiselle Augustine, the younger. In order clearly to understand this passion, that had grown secretly, it is necessary to further dis- cover the spirit of despotic government that ruled the house of the old merchant draper. Guillaume had two daughters. The elder. Made- moiselle Virginie, was the perfect image of her THE CAT AND RACKET I9 mother. Madame Guillaume, daughter of the Sieur Chevrel, held herself so upright on the seat at her desk, that more than once she overheard some wags betting that she was impaled. Her thin, long face betrayed an extreme piety. Without charm or pleasant manners, Madame Guillaume habitually decked her almost sexagenarian head with a cap of unvarying shape trimmed with lappets like that of a window. The whole neighborhood called her "la soeurtouriere. "* Her speech was curt and her ges- tures something like the jerky movements of the telegraph. Her clear, cat-like eye, seemed to bear a grudge against the whole world because she was ugly. Mademoiselle Virginie, brought up like her younger sister under the mother's despotic laws, was now twenty-eight years old. Youth lessened the un- pleasant expression that her likeness to her mother sometimes gave to her face; but the maternal sever- ity had endowed her with two great qualities that counter-balanced all; she was meek and patient. Mademoiselle Augustine, barely eighteen, was like neither father nor mother. She was one of those offsprings that, in the absence of all physical link with their parents, give credence to the prudish saying, "God sends children." Augustine was slight, or, to describe her more accurately, delicate. Graceful, and full of ingenuousness, no man of the world could have reproached this charming creature with anything but awkward gestures or certain underbred attitudes, and sometimes a want of ease. *Touriere: i.e. the attendant of the turning box in convents. 20 THE HOUSE OF Her quiet, still face breathed that transient melan- choly that possesses all young girls who are too weak to venture any resistance to a mother's will. Always quietly dressed, the two sisters could only gratify a woman's innate coquetry by an excess of neatness which became them wonderfully and was in keeping with the shining counters, with the shelves which the old servant kept spotless, and with the old-fashioned simplicity of all around them. Forced by their way of life to seek happi- ness in persistent industry, Augustine and Virginie up till now, had given nothing but satisfaction to their mother, who secretly congratulated herself upon the perfection of their characters. It is easy to imagine the results of the education they had received. Brought up in trade, accustomed to hear nothing but dismally mercantile discussions and cal- culations, having learnt nothing beyond grammar, bookkeeping, a little Jewish history, French history in Le Ragois, and reading no authors but those whose books were approved of by their mother, their ideas were very limited; they knew how to keep house perfectly, they knew the cost of things, they appreciated the difficulties that are experienced in amassing money, they were economical and had a deep respect for commercial qualities. In spite of their father's income, they could darn as skilfully as they could embroider; their mother often spoke of teaching them to cook, in order that they might know how to order a dinner and know their reasons for scolding a cook. Ignorant of the pleasures of THE CAT AND RACKET 21 the world, and seeing how the exemplary life of their parents was passed, they very seldom noticed anything beyond the precincts of the old patrimonial home which, to their mother, constituted the uni- verse. The gatherings at the family solemnities formed the whole sum of their earthly joys. When the big drawing-room on the second story was opened to receive Madame Roguin, a demoiselle Chevrel, fifteen years younger than her cousin, who wore diamonds; the young Rabourdin, assistant manager of the Treasury; Monsieur Cesar Birot- teau, a rich perfumer and his wife, called Madame Cesar; Monsieur Camusot the richest silk mer- chant in the Rue des Bourdonnais, and his father- in-law, Monsieur Cardot; two or three old bankers and their irreproachable wives; then, the prepara- tions necessitated by the manner in which the silver, Dresden china, lights and glass were wrapt up, made a diversion in the monotonous lives of these three women, who ran about like nuns preparing for their bishop's reception. Then, when, at night, all three were tired out with cleaning, rubbing, un- packing and arranging the decorations for the feast, and the two young girls were helping their mother to bed, Madame Guillaume would say: "We have done nothing to-day, my dears!" When, during these solemn assembl ies, the "sceur touriere" allowed dancing, shutting up the boston, whist and tric-trac parties in her bedroom, this privi- lege was considered as one of the most unexpected delights, and gave as much pleasure as when 22 THE HOUSE OF Guillaume took his daughters to two or three big balls during the Carnival. Finally, once a year the honest draper gave a party on which he spared no expense. However rich and fashionable the guests invited, they took care not to miss it; because the most important houses in the place resorted to the enormous credit, fortune, or long tried experience of Monsieur Guillaume. But the worthy merchant's two daughters did not profit as much as might have been supposed by the opportunities society offers to young people. At these gatherings they wore dresses that were entered in the bill books of the house, but whose shabbiness made them ashamed. Their dancing was nothing remarkable, and the ma- ternal supervision forbade any further conversation than "yes" and "no" with their partners. Besides, the laws of the old ensign of the Cat and Racket, ordained that all must be home by eleven, just when the 1 ife of balls and parties was beginning. Thus, though outwardly consistent with their father's means, their pleasures were often dull ow- ing to circumstances arising from the habits and principles of the family. As to their ordinary life, a word will complete the picture. Madame Guil- laume insisted that her two girls should be dressed very early, that they should come down every day at the same time, and should arrange their occupa- tions with monastic regularity. And yet, by some chance, Augustine had a soul that was capable of feeling the emptiness of such an existence. Some- times her blue eyes would be raised as if to pierce THE CAT AND RACKET 23 the depths of the gloomy staircase and damp ware- houses. After having fathomed the silence of this cloister she would seem to be listening afar to the vague revelations of that impassioned life that sets more value on feelings than things. At these moments her face would flush, her idle hands would drop the white musl in on to the pol ished oak counter, and presently her mother would say in a voice that was always sour in spite of the loving tone: "Augustine! what are you thinking of, my dar- ling?" Perhaps Hippolyte, Comte de Douglas, and Le Comte de Comminges, two novels belonging to a cook whom Madame Guillaume had recently dismissed, and which Augustine had found in a cupboard may have contributed to the development of this young girl's ideas, for she had secretly devoured them during the long evenings of the last winter. Her ex- pressions of vague longing, her sweet voice, her jas- mine skin and blue eyes had consequently inflamed the heart of the unfortunate Lebas, with a love that was as strong as it was respectful. By some caprice that can be readily understood, Augustine felt no sort of attraction for the orphan ; perhaps it was because she was unconscious of his love for her. In return the long legs, chestnut hair, large hands and robust appearance of the head clerk found a secret admirer in Mademoiselle Virginie, who, in spite of her dowry of 50,000 crowns had never been sought in marriage by anyone. There was nothing more natural than these two inverted passions born in 24 THE HOUSE OF the silence of these obscure counters, as violets bloom in the depths of a wood. The mute and con- stant contemplation that these young people ex- changed, from the need of distraction in the midst of prolonged work and religious quiet, was bound sooner or later to excite feelings of love. The habit of constantly seeing one face unconsciously leads to the discovery of the soul's qualities and ends in effacing its imperfections. "Atthe rate this man is going, it will not be long before our daughters will have to kneel to a suitor!" said Monsieur Guillaume to himself in reading the first order with which Napoleon drew upon the con- scripts. From that day, in despair at seeing his eldest daughter fading, the old merchant recal led how he had married Mademoiselle Chevrel under very nearly the same conditions as those of Joseph Lehas and Virginie. What a glorious thing it would be to marry his daughter and acquit himself of a sacred debt, by giving an orphan the same blessing that he himself had formerly received, under the same cir- cumstances, from his predecessor. Being thirty- three years old, Joseph Lebas thought of the obstacles that the difference of fifteen years placed between Augustine and himself. Besides being intelligent enough to see through Monsieur Guil- laume's plans, he also knew his inexorable princi- ples well enough to be certain that the younger would never marry before the elder. So the poor clerk, whose heart was as good as his legs were long and his frame was big, suffered in silence. THE CAT AND RACKET 25 Such was the state of affairs in this little repub- lic in the middle of the Rue Saint-Denis, resembling nothing so much as a branch of the Trappists. But, in order to give a strict account of external events as well as sentiments, it will be necessary to go back several months before the scene with which this story opens. * A young man, once passing at nightfall in front of the dark shop of the Cat and Racket, stopped for a moment to contemplate a picture that would have held all the painters in the world. The shop, as yetunlighted, formed a black ground at the end of which could be seen the merchant's dining-room. An astral lamp shed that yellow light that gives so much charm to the pictures of the Dutch school. The snowy linen, the silver and glass, formed brilliant accessories, which the vivid contrasts between the light and shade only served to exaggerate. The face of the head of the family and that of his wife, those of the clerks and the pure outlines of Augustine, behind whom stood a big, fat-cheeked girl, composed so curious a group, — the heads were so original and each bore so open an ex- pression, — one could so well imagine the peace, still- ness and unpretending life of this family, that, for an artist accustomed to depicting Nature, there was something hopeless in attempting to convey this casual scene. The passer-by was a young artist, who, seven years before, had carried off the Grand Prix for painting. He had just returned from Rome. Nourished upon poetry and satiated with Raphael and Michael Angelo, his soul and eyes thirsted for real nature after a long residence in a stately land overspread with the grandeur of Art. Right or (27; 28 THE HOUSE OF wrong such was his personal feeling. Given up for so long to fierce Italian passions his heart longed for one of those simple, placid virgins whom unfor- tunately he could only fmd in paintings at Rome. From the enthusiasm excited in his ardent soul by the artless tableau that he was watching, he very naturally passed into a profound admiration for the principal figure. Augustine seemed pensive and was no longer eating; by some arrangement of the lamps by which the light fell entirely on her face, her bust appeared to be moving in a circle of fire that showed up the outline of her head more vividly than the rest and illuminated it in a way that was half supernatural. Involuntarily the artist likened her to an exiled angel thinking of heaven. An almost unknown sensation, a clear and burning love, inun- dated his heart. Stopping for a moment as if crushed beneath the weight of his ideas, he tore himself away from his happiness and went home unable to eat or sleep. The next day he entered his studio not to leave it until he had set down on can- vas the magic of this scene, at the recollection of which he became almost fanatical. His happiness was incomplete without a faithful portrait of his idol. He passed by the Cat and Racket several times, he even dared to go in two or three times, disguised, in order to obtain a closer view of the lovely creature under the wing of Madame Guil- laume. For eight whole months, devoted to his love and his brushes, he remained invisible to his most intimate friends, indifferent to society, poetry, THE CAT AND RACKET 29 theatres, music and his most cherished habits. One morning Girodet infringing the orders that artists recognize and know how to evade, succeeded in finding him, and woke him up with this question : — "What are you sending to the Salon?" The artist seized his friend's hand, dragged him to the studio and uncovered a small easel picture and a portrait After a slow and eager contempla- tion of the two masterpieces Girodet threw his arms round his friend and embraced him, unable to speak. His emotions could only be expressed as he felt them, heart to heart. "You are in love?" said Girodet. Both knew that the most beautiful portraits by Raphael, Titian, and Leonardo de Vinci are owing to exalted feelings which, after all, under diverse conditions, are responsible for all masterpieces. For all answer the young artist bent his head. "How lucky you are to be in love, after returning from Italy ! I do not advise you to place such works as these in the salon," added the great painter. "You see, these two pictures will not be under- stood. These realistic tints, and wonderful work cannot yet be appreciated. The public is not ac- customed to so much depth. The pictures we paint, my good friend, are screens, fire screens. See here, we had much better write verses and translate the ancients ! We may expect more glory from that than from our miserable canvas." In spite of this charitable advice the two can- vases were exhibited. The picture of the interior 30 THE HOUSE OF caused a revolution in painting. It gave birtli to the genre-paintings of whicli such an enormous quantity are imported into our exhibitions that one might almost believe they are obtained by some purely mechanical process. As for the portrait, there are few artists who do not recollect that living canvas, to which the public, as a whole, occasionally just, awarded the wreath that Girodet himself placed upon it. A huge crowd surrounded the two pictures — "A perfect crush," as women say. Speculators and nobles offered to cover the two canvases with double napoleons; the artist obsti- nately refused to sell them or to reproduce them. He was offered a large sum for his consent to en- grave them, but the dealers were no more successful than the amateurs. Although society in general was talking of this event, it was not of a nature to reach the heart of the little desert in the Rue Saint- Denis; nevertheless, whilst paying a visit to Ma- dame Guillaume, the solicitor's wife spoke about the exhibition before Augustine, whom she dearly loved, and explained the purpose of it to her. Madame Roguin's chatter naturally inspired her with a wish to see the pictures and gave her the courage to secretly ask her cousin to take her to the Louvre. The cousin was successful in prevailing upon Ma- dame Guillaume to give her permission to snatch her little cousin from her dreary work for about two hours. So the young girl made her way through the crowd to the crowned picture. She shook like a leaf when she recognized herself. She was afraid THE CAT AND RACKET 3 1 and looked round for Madame Roguin, from whom she had been separated by the surging crowd. At this moment her terrified eyes met the glowing face of the young artist She suddenly recollected it as that of a stroller whom she had often noticed with curiosity, thinking he was a new neighbor. "You see how love has inspired me!" whispered the artist to the timid creature who stood aghast at these words. A supernatural courage helped her to break through the crowd and rejoin her cousin, who was still struggling through the masses that barred her way to the picture. "You will be suffocated !" cried Augustine, "come away!" But there are moments in the salon when two solitary women are not always able to make their way through the galleries. Mademoiselle Guillaume and her cousin, in consequence of the surging move- ments of the crowd were pushed to within a few feet of the second picture. Chance decreed that together they should approach the canvas to which fashion, for once in accordance with art, had awarded the palm of glory. The exclamation of surprise that broke from the solicitor's wife was lost in the hub- bub and buzzing of the crowd; as for Augustine she was involuntarily crying at sight of this marvelous painting, and, prompted by some inexplicable feel- ing, she placed her fmger on her lips when she saw the ecstatic face of the young artist quite close to her. The unknown nodded in reply and indicated 32 THE HOUSE OF Madame Roguin as a wet blanket, in order to show Augustine she was understood. The poor girl grew hot as fire at this pantomime and felt herself guilty in supposing she had entered into a compact with the artist. The stifling heat, the incessant sight of the most dazzling toilettes, the giddiness produced by the variety of colors, the multitude of painted and liv- ing figures, and the profusion of gilded frames, caused her to feel a sort of intoxication that in- creased her fears. She might perhaps have fainted, had she not, in spite of this chaos of sensations, ex- perienced a strange joy in her secret heart, that quickened her whole being. Nevertheless she be- lieved herself to be under the influence of the demon whose terrible snares she had heard predicted in the thundering eloquence of the pulpit. This moment for her was a moment of madness. She pictured herself escorted to her cousin's carriage by this young man, beaming with love and happiness. A prey to an entirely new irritation and an intoxica- tion that yielded her in some measure to nature, Augustine listened to the eloquent voice of her heart, and looked at the young painter several times, plainly showing the trouble that possessed her. The carnation of her cheeks had never formed a stronger contrast to the whiteness of her skin. The artist then saw this beauty at its best, this modesty in all its glory. Augustine felt a sort of joy min- gled with terror in the thought that her presence gave happiness to one whose name was on every THE CAT AND RACKET 33 lip, and whose talent gave immortality to fleeting impressions. He loved her! It was impossible to doubt it. When she could no longer see him these simple words re-echoed in her heart — "You see how love has inspired me!" So strongly had her ardent blood roused strange forces within her that the deep- ening thrills seemed to her painful. She feigned a bad headache in order to avoid her cousin's ques- tions about the pictures; but, on their return Ma- dame Roguin could not resist speaking to Madame Guillaume of the celebrity acquired by the Cat and Racket and Augustine trembled in every limb when she heard her mother say she would go to the Salon to see her house. The young girl complained again of the pain she suffered, and obtained permission to go to bed. "Headache!" cried Monsieur Guillaume, "that is all one gains at all these shows. Is it very amusing to see in a painting a thing that one can see any day in our street.? Don't talk to me of these artists who, like authors, are all starving wretches. What the devil is the necessity for their taking my house to vilify it in their pictures.'"' ' ' Perhaps it may hel p us to sel 1 a few extra pieces of cloth," said Joseph Lebas. But this observation did not prevent a second condemnation of the arts and ideas at the tribunal of Trade. As may well be supposed, these disser- tations did not give any great hope to Augustine, who gave herself up during the night to her first meditations upon Love. The events of that day 3 34 THE HOUSE OF were like a dream that she loved to recall in her thoughts. She was a victim of all the fears, hopes, regrets and all the uncertainties of feelings that must delude a simple, timid soul like her own. How empty this dark house now seemed, and what a treasure she had found in her soul ! What havoc this idea was to work in the heart of a child brought up in the bosom of such a family! What hopes might it not raise in a young girl who, hitherto reared upon ordinary principles, had always longed for a superior life! A ray of sunlight shone into this prison. Augustine suddenly loved! So many feelings were flattered at the same time that she succumbed without the least calculation. Is not Love's prism thrown between the world and the eyes of a young girl eighteen years of age.-" Inca- pable of foreseeing the terrible shocks that result from an alliance between a loving woman and a man of imagination, she believed herself destined to make his happiness, without perceiving any in- congruity between herself and him. Her present was her future. The next day when her father and mother returned from the Salon, their lengthened faces indicated some disappointment. In the first place the artist had removed the two pictures; and then Madame Guillaume had lost her cashmere shawl. The knowledge that the pictures had dis- appeared after her visit to the Salon was a revela- tion to Augustine of a delicacy of feeling that women always, and even instinctively, appreciate. The morning that Theodore de Sommervieux — such THE CAT AND RACKET 35 was the name of the celebrity engraved upon Augus- tine's heart — returning from a ball, was sprinkled by the clerks of the Cat and Racket — whilst he was waiting for the vision of his simple little friend — who most assuredly did not know he was there — was the fourth time only that the two lovers had seen each other since the scene in the Salon. The obstacles that the regime of the Guillaume house presented to the artist's impetuous character, only served to increase his passion for Augustine with a strength that can easily be imagined. How was it possible to approach a young girl seated at a counter between two such women as Mademoiselle Virginie and Madame Guillaume? How correspond with her when her mother never left her? Apt, like all lovers, to imagine misfor- tunes, Theodore fancied he had a rival in one of the clerks, and supposed the others to be in the interests of his rival. Even if he escaped so many Argus eyes, he pictured himself falling under the stern gaze of the old merchant or of Madame Guillaume. On all sides barriers and hopelessness! The very violence of his passion prevented the young painter from resorting to those ingenious expedients that with prisoners as well as lovers, seem to be the final efforts of a brain that is stimulated by a mad desire for liberty or by the ardor of love. So Theodore rushed about the neighborhood with the activity of a madman, as if motion could inspire him with some stratagem. Having thoroughly racked his imagination he bethought himself of bribing the 36 THE HOUSE OF fat-cheeked servant. Several letters were then ex- changed from time to time during the fortnight that followed the unlucky morning when Monsieur Guii- laume and Theodore had scrutinized each other so well. For the present, the two young people agreed to see each other at a certain hour of the day, and on Sundays at Saint-Leu during Mass and Ves- pers. Augustine had sent her beloved Theodore a list of the family friends and relations, to whom the young artist tried to gain access, in hopes of excit- ing some interest in his love affairs, in one of these people who were absorbed in money and trade, and to whom a genuine passion would seem the most absurd and unheard of speculation. Otherwise there was no change in the ways of the Cat and Racket. If Augustine were absent-minded; if, against every kind of rule in the domestic chart she went to her room, thanks to a pot of flowers, to arrange some signals; if she sighed, in fact, if she were at all thoughtful, nobody, not even her mother, was aware of it. This state of affairs might some- what surprise those who understood the spirit of the house, where any thought infected with poetry must have formed a contrast to the people and the things, where nobody could indulge in a gesture or look that was not seen and analyzed. And yet nothing could be more natural ; the quiet vessel navigating the stormy sea of the Place de Paris, under the flag of the Cat and Racket, was a prey to one of those gales which, from their periodic returns, might be termed equinoctial. THE CAT AND RACKET 37 For fifteen days the five men of the crew, Madame Guillaume and Mademoiselle Virginie had devoted themselves to the stupendous labor known as an inventory. They moved all the bales and measured the pieces to ascertain the exact value of the remnants. The card attached to each packet was carefully examined to see when the cloth had been bought The present price was affixed. Mon- sieur Guillaume looked like a captain directing manoeuvres, standing all the time, with his measure in his hand and his pen behind his ear. His shrill voice passing through a peephole in communicating with the depths of the hatchway of the basement uttered these barbarous commercial terms, that can only be expressed in enigmas: "How much of H- N-Z.? Take it away— How much left of Q-X-? — Two ells — What price .?— Five-five-three — Carry to 3 A all J- J, all M-P, and the remainder of V-D-O." Thousands of equally intelligible phrases sounded across the counters like verses of modern poetry that romanticists might have been quoting to each other to indulge their enthusiasm for one of their parts. In the evening Guillaume, closeted with his clerk and his wife, settled the accounts, entered afresh, wrote to those in arrears and made up the bills. All three prepared this enormous task, the result being written on a square of foolscap, and proved to the house Guillaume that it had so much in cash, so much in goods, so much in drafts and bills; that it owed not a penny, but was owed one or two hundred thousand francs ; that the capital 189936 38 THE HOUSE OF THE CAT AND RACKET had augmented; that the leases, houses and funds were to be increased, repaired or renewed. From all this arose the necessity of amassing more money with renewed ardor, these industrious ants never dreaming of asking — "To what purpose?" Under cover of this annual tumult Augustine luckily es- caped their Argus-like investigation. At last, one Saturday night the closing of the inventory took place. Upon this occasion the figures in the assets presented so many ciphers that Guillaume relaxed the severity of the orders that prevailed all the year round at dessert. The cunning draper rubbed his hands and allowed his clerks to remain at table. Each man had hardly finished his demi verre of home-made liqueur, when the rumbling of a carriage was heard. The family went to see Cinderella at the Varietes whilst to each of the two youngest clerks was given a six-franc piece and permission to go where he pleased, provided he came in at midnight. On Sunday morning, in spite of this debaucii, the old merchant draper shaved at six o'clock, put on his chestnut colored coat — whose magnificent lustre always gave him the same pleasure, — fastened gold buckles in the flaps of his ample silk breeches; then, towards seven, when the whole house was still wrapt in slumber, he went to the little closet adjoining his shop on the first story. Daylight came through a window armed with great iron bars, that overlooked a little square courtyard framed in such dark walls that it was not at all un- like a well. The old tradesman opened the sheet- iron shutters with which he was so familiar, and lifted half the window by sliding it in its groove. The icy air from the yard freshened the stuffy atmosphere of the closet, which had that odor pecu- liar to offices. The merchant stood, resting his hand on the greasy arm of a cane arm-chair lined with faded morocco, as if uncertain whether to sit down or not. His expression softened as he looked at the office with two desks, where his wife's place, opposite his own, was arranged in a small arch con- trived in the wall. He looked at the numbered half-sheets, the string, the implements, the instru- ments for marking the cloth, and the till, objects of an immemorial origin, and he fancied he could see himself once more before the conjured-up spirit of (39) 40 THE HOUSE OF the Sieur Chevrel. He drew forward the identical stool upon which he had sat in the presence of his defunct master. This stool, upholstered in black leather, with the horsehair that had long been escaping from the corners, he placed with trembling hands in the same spot as his predecessor had done; then in an indescribable state of agitation he pulled the bell that communicated with the head of Joseph Lebas's bed. Having made this decisive move, the old man, doubtless overcome by these recollections, took up two or three bills of exchange that had been presented to him, and was looking over them with unseeing eyes, when Joseph Lebas suddenly ap- peared. "Sit down there," said Guillaume pointing to the stool. As the old master had never bidden his clerk sit in his presence, Joseph Lebas trembled. "What do you think of these drafts.?" asked Guillaume. "They will not be paid." "What.?" "Why, the day before yesterday I knew that Etienne & Co. had made all payments in gold." "Oh! oh!" cried the clothier, "one must be very sick to bring up bile. Let's talk of something else. Joseph, the inventory is finished." "Yes sir, and the dividend is one of the finest you have ever had." "Don't use those modern words — Call it 'pro- ceeds,' Joseph. Do you know, my boy, that we THE CAT AND RACKET 4I owe these results in a small measure to you? there- fore, I no longer wish you to receive any salary. Madame Guillaume has suggested to me to offer you a share in the business. Eh! Joseph! 'Guillaume and Lebas. ' Would not these names make a fine firm ? One might add 'And Company' to round off the signature." Joseph Lebas's eyes filled with tears which he tried to hide. "Ah! Monsieur Guillaume! What have I done to deserve so much goodness? I have only done my duty. You did a great deal in even interesting your- self in a poor orph " He rubbed his cuffs one over the other, and dared not look at the old man, who smiled as he thought that this youth, like himself in times gone by, needed encouragement to make a complete explana- tion. "And yet," continued Virginie's father, "you hardly deserve this favor Joseph! You do not place as much confidence in me as I do in you" — the clerk suddenly raised his head — "you know the secret of the till. For two years I have told you nearly all my affairs. I have made you travel for fabrics — In short — to you I have bared my heart — But you ? — you have an attachment of which you have not told me a single word" — Joseph Lebas reddened — "Hal ha!" cried Guillaume, "you think you can de- ceive an old fox like myself? 1, who, as you know, found out the insolvent Lecoq!" "How, sir," answered Lebas, looking at his 42 THE HOUSE OF master as intently as the latter looked at him,"how ! you know that I love?" "I know all, you rascal !" said the venerable and cunning merchant, pulling his ear — "And I forgive you; I did the same thing myself." "And will you give her to me?" "Yes, with fifty thousand crowns, and I shall leave you as much again, and we will continue with a new firm. We will brew fresh business, my boy!" cried the old merchant, getting up and waving his arms. "You see, my son-in-law, trade is the only thing! Those who ask what pleasure is to be got out of it are fools. To be in the track of business — to know how to manage on the spot — to wait with the eagerness of a gambler to see if Etienne & Company are going bankrupt — to see a regiment of the Imperial Guard passing by, dressed in our cloth, to trip up a neighbor, honestly of course! to manu- facture cheaper than others — to follow a business that is first sketched out, that begins, increases, tot- ters and finally succeeds — to know like the police all the resources of the mercantile firms in order to make no mistakes, — to stand erect in the face of failure — to possess friends, through correspondence, in all the manufacturing towns ; — is not this a never- ending amusement, Joseph? But it is life! 1 shall die in the midst of such work, like old Chevrel, taking things, however, at my ease." In the heat of his most vigorous extemporizing, old Guillaume had hard'y looked at his clerk, who was weeping bitterly. THE CAT AND RACKET 43 "Why, Joseph! my poor boy, what is the mat- ter?" "Oh! I love her so, so much, Monsieur Guil- laume, that my heart fails me, I fancy — " "Well, boy," said the merchant softening, "you are luckier than you think — by Jove! for she loves you. I know it!" and he winked his little green eyes as he looked at his clerk. "Mademoiselle Augustine! Mademoiselle Augus- tine!" cried Joseph Lebas in his excitement. He was rushing out of the closet when he was ar- rested by a hand of iron and his master, horrified, swung him swiftly round in front of him. "What has Augustine to do with this matter.?" asked Guillaume, whose tone of voice promptly froze the unfortunate Joseph Lebas. "Is it not she — whom — I love.-'" stammered the clerk. Disconcerted at his own want of perspicacity, Guillaume sat down again and buried his peaked head in his hands to think out the strange position in which he was placed. Joseph Lebas remained standing, ashamed and distressed. "Joseph," resumed the merchant, with cold dig- nity, "I was speaking of Virginie. I know that love cannot be made to order. 1 trust your discretion and we will forget what has occurred. 1 will never allow Augustine to marry before Virginie. Your interest will be ten per cent." Inspired by love with an incredible degree of courage and eloquence, the clerk clasped his hands, 44 THE HOUSE OF began to speak, and for a quarter of an hour spoke to Guillaume with so much heat and feeling that the position of affairs was changed. Had it been some commercial business the old merchant would have decided it by fixed rules; but, as he would have put it, cast a thousand miles away from commerce on a sea of sentiment without a compass, he floated irresolutely before so original an occur- rence. Carried away by his natural goodness of heart, he beat about the bush for a little while. "But, deuce take it! Joseph, you are not una- ware of the fact that there is ten years' difference between my two children! Mademoiselle Chevrel was certainly not beautiful, but then she could not complain about me. Do as 1 did. Come now, do not weep any more! How silly you are! What more do you want? Perhaps it will all come right, we will see. There is always some way out of a difficulty. We men are not always sentimental lovers about our wives — You understand? Madame Guillaume is very prejudiced and — Well, then! Hang it all! my boy, give your arm to Augustine this morning going to Mass!" Such were the random sentences jerked out by Guillaume. The inference with which they con- cluded enraptured the love-sick clerk; he was already thinking of one of his friends for Mademoi- selle Virginie when he came out of the smoky closet squeezing his future father-in-law's hand, after having said to him with a look of intelligence that all would be arranged for the best. THE CAT AND RACKET 45 "What will Madame Guillaume think?" This idea greatly worried the worthy merchant when he was alone. At luncheon, Madame Guillaume and Virginie, from whom the master had temporarily concealed his disappointment, looked somewhat slily at Jo- seph Lebas, who was greatly embarrassed. The bashful ness of the clerk won him favor with his mother-in-law. The old lady became so lively that she actually smiled at Monsieur Guillaume, and indulged in several little jokes used from time immemorial in this simple family. She called the heights of Virginie and Joseph in question, so as to have their measure. This preparatory nonsense clouded the brow of the head of the family and he even affected such a love of decorum that he ordered Augustine to take the head clerk's arm going to Saint-Leu. Madame Guillaume, astonished at this masculine delicacy, honored her husband with an approving nod. So the procession left the house in an order that could suggest no spiteful interpretation to the neighbors. "Do you not think, Mademoiselle Augustine," said the trembling clerk, "that the wife of a mer- chant, who has so much influence, like Monsieur Guillaume for instance, might amuse herself a little more than Madame does, might wear diamonds or ride in a carriage.'' As for me, if I were to marry, I should do all the work, and see my wife happy. 46 THE HOUSE OF I should not put her in my office. You see, in the cloth business women are no longer so necessary as formerly. Monsieur Guillaume was quite right to act as he did, and besides, it was his wife's choice. But it is sufficient if a woman knows enough to lend a hand with the accounts, correspon- dence, retailing, orders, or her household, so as not to be idle — that is all. At seven o'clock, when the shop would be closed, 1 would amuse myself — I should go to the play or into society — but you are not listening?" "Oh! yes, Monsieur Joseph. What do you say to painting.? That is a splendid calling." "Yes, I know a master house painter, Monsieur Lourdois, who is rich." And chatting in this way, the family arrived at the church of Saint-Leu. There, Madame Guillaume reasserted her rights, and for the first time, placed Augustine by her side. Virginie took the fourth chair next to Lebas. Dur- ing the sermon, all went well between Augustine and Theodore, who, standing behind a pillar, was praying to his Madonna with fervor ; but, during the raising of the Host, Madame Guillaume noticed, a little late in the day, that her daughter Augustine held her prayer-book upside down. She was on the point of giving her a good scolding when, lowering her veil, she suspended her lecture and followed the directions of the young girl's eyes. By the help of her spectacles she saw the young artist, whose fashionable elegance gave him the ap- pearance of some cavalry officer off duty, rather THE CAT AND RACKET 47 than a merchant of the quariier. It is difficult to imagine the furious condition of Madame Guillaume — who flattered herself that she had brought up her daughters to perfection — when she discovered a clandestine love in Augustine's heart, the danger of which her prudishness and ignorance greatly exag- gerated. She believed her daughter to be polluted to the heart. "Hold your book the right way, Mademoiselle," she said in a low voice, but shaking with rage. She hastily snatched the accusing prayer-book and replaced it in such a way that the letters re- sumed their natural order. "You had better not look anywhere else but at your prayers," she added, "or you will have me to deal with. After Mass, your father and 1 will have something to say to you." These words came like a thunderbolt to poor Augustine. She felt herself giving way; but strug- gling with the pain she felt and the fear of causing a scandal in the church, she had the courage to hide her agonies. And yet it is easy to imagine the vio- lent state of mind she was in when she saw her prayer-book shaking and the tears falling on each page as she turned it. By the furious glance that Madame Guillaume hurled at him, the artist saw the danger with which his love was threatened and he went out, his heart full of anger, determined to dare all. "Goto your room. Mademoiselle," said Madame Guillaume to her daughter upon reaching the house. 48 THE HOUSE OF "we will call you, and above all, do not dare to come out." The conference between the husband and wife was so secret, that at first nothing transpired. But Virginie, who had encouraged her sister with a thousand kindly representations, carried her kind- ness to the extent of slipping to the door of her mother's bedroom where the discussion was takins; place, in order to gather a few words. The first time she went from the third to the second story, she heard her father crying: "Then you wish to kill your daughter, Madame?" "My poor child," said Virginie to her tearful sister, "papa is defending you." "And what do they intend to do to Theodore?" asked the simple creature. The inquisitive Virginie went down once more; but this time she stayed longer; she learnt that Lebas loved Augustine. It was fated that upon this memorable day, this ordinarily peaceful house- hold should become a pandemonium. Monsieur Guillaume distracted Joseph Lebas when he con- fided to him that Augustine loved a stranger. Lebas, who had advised his friend to propose for Mademoi- selle Virginie saw all his hopes dashed to the ground. Mademoiselle Virginie, overcome with the know- ledge that Joseph had in some sort of way refused her, was seized with a sick headache. The discord sown between husband and wife by the discussion they had had together, when, for the third time in their lives, their opinions differed, showed itself THE CAT AND RACKET 49 in a terrible manner. Atlast four hours after noon, Augustine, pale, trembling and with reddened eyes, appeared before her father and mother. The poor child naively related the brief history of her love. Reassured by her father, who had promised to listen in silence, she took a certain courage in pronouncing the name of her beloved Theodore de Sommervieux before her parents, and mischievously emphasized the aristocratic de. Abandoning herself to the strange pleasure of talking of her feelings, she mustered up sufficient audacity to declare with an innocent firmness that she loved Monsieur de Som- mervieux, that she had written to him, and she added with tears in her eyes : "It would make me miserable to sacrifice me to another." "But, Augustine, do you not know that he is nothing but a painter.?" cried her horrified mother. "Madame Guillaume!" said the old man, silenc- ing his wife. — "Augustine," said he, "artists are generally good-for-nothings. — They are too extrava- gant to be anything but worthless fellows. I sup- plied the late Monsieur Joseph Vernet, the late Monsieur Lekain and the late Monsieur Noverre. Ah! if you but knew the tricks that this Monsieur Noverre, Monsieur le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and above all Monsieur Philidor played upon that poor father Chevrel ! They are a queer lot, I know well ; they all chatter so, and have such ways — ah ! your Monsieur Sumer — Somm — " "De Sommervieux, father!" 4 50 THE HOUSE OF "Well, de Sommervieux, be it! He would never have been as amiable to you as Monsieur le Cheva- lier de Saint-Georges was to me — the day that I obtained a decision of the consuls against him. Indeed the people of rank were always so in former times." "But, father. Monsieur Theodore is of noble birth and has written to me that he is rich. His father was the Chevalier de Sommervieux before the Revo- lution." At these words, Monsieur Guillaume looked at his formidable half, who, in feminine contrariness, was tapping the floor with her foot and maintaining a gloomy silence; she even avoided turning her angry eyes toward Augustine, and appeared to leave the responsibility of so grave a matter to Monsieur Guillaume since her advice was not heeded; never- theless, in spite of her apparent phlegm, when she saw her husband resigning himself so meekly to a ca- tastrophe that was in no sense commercial, she cried: "Really, sir! you show a weakness with your daughters — but — ' ' The noise of a carriage stopping at the door, sud- denly interrupted the reprimand that the old mer- chant already dreaded. In a moment Madame Roguin entered the room, and looking at the three performers in this domestic drama: "I know all, my cousin," she said with a patronizing air. Madame Roguin's one fault was that of believing THE CAT AND RACKET 51 that the wife of a Parisian notary can play the role of a great lady. "1 know all," she repeated, "and I come into Noah's ark like the dove with the olive branch. I read this allegory in the Genie du Christianisme," she said turning to Madame Guillaume, "the com- parison ought to please you, cousin. Do you know," she added smiling at Augustine, "that Monsieur de Sommervieux is a charming man ? He gave me my own portrait to-day painted by a master's hand. It is worth at least six thousand francs." At these words she gently tapped Monsieur Guil- laume on the arm. The old merchant could not resist pouting his lips in a way that was peculiar to him. "I know Monsieur de Sommervieux very well," continued the dove, "for the last fortnight he has come to my soirees, and is the life of them. He has told me all his troubles and has enlisted me as his advo- cate. I know from this morning that he adores Augustine, and he will have her. Ah! cousin do not shake your head like that in token of refusal. Know then, that he is to be created baron, and has just been appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the Emperor himself at the Salon. "Roguin has become his notary and knows all his affairs. Well then. Monsieur de Sommervieux pos- sesses in good landed property twelve thousand francs a year. Do you know that the father-in-law of such a man might become something, mayor of his arrondissement for instance! Did you not see 52 THE HOUSE OF how Monsieur Dupont was made a Count of the Empire and Senator, for having gone, in his capa- city as mayor, to congratulate the Emperor upon his entry into Vienna? Oh! this marriage will take place. 1 adore him, I do, this good young man. Such bearing as his toward Augustine is only to be found in novels. There, my little one, you will be happy, and all the world will envy you. Madame la Duchessede Carigliano, who comes to my soirees, dotes upon Monsieur Sommervieux. Some spiteful tongues say she comes only on his account, as if a duchess of yesterday could be out of place in the house of a Chevrel whose family can boast of a century of good bourgeoisie. — Augustine!" resumed Madame Roguin after a short pause, "1 have seen the portrait. Goodness ! how beautiful it is ! Do you know the Emperor wished to see it.? He said laughingly to the Vice-Constable that if many such women as that were at Court whilst so many kings came there, it would be hard to maintain the peace of Europe. Is that not flattering.?" The storms with which this day had begun were like those of Nature, bringing back calm, serene weather. Madame Roguin was so bewitching in the course of conversation, she knew so well what chords to strike at once in the dry hearts of Monsieur and Madame Guillaume, that she ended by finding one of which she took advantage. At this singular epoch trade and finance were more than ever pos- sessed by the foolish mania of allying themselves with noblemen, and the generals of the Empire were THE CAT AND RACKET 53 not slow to profit by this inclination. Monsieur Guillaume was singularly opposed to this deplor- able passion. His favorite axioms were, that to be happy a woman should marry a man of her own class; retribution sooner or later overtook those who soared too high ; — love withstood so little the worries of housekeeping that each must seek sound qualities in the other in order to be happy; one of the two must not know more than the other, because above all they should understand each other; a husband who spoke Greek and the wife Latin ran the risk of dying of hunger. He had invented this sort of proverb. He would compare such marriages to old silk and woolen stuffs where the silk always finished by cutting the wool. And yet, so much vanity lies at the bottom of man's heart, that the prudence of the pilot who so well guided the Cat and Racket, succumbed to the aggressive volubility of Madame Roguin. The severe Madame Guil- laume was the first to find motives in her daughter's inclination to induce her to act contrary to her prin- ciples and consent to receive Monsieur de Sommer- vieux at the house, secretly determined to submit him to a close examination. The old merchant went to find Lebas and informed him of the state of things. At half-past six, under the glass roof of the dining-room rendered famous by the painter, were assembled Madame and Monsieur Roguin, the young artist and his charming Augustine, Joseph Lebas, who took his good fortune patiently, and Mademoiselle Virginie, whose headache had 54 THE HOUSE OF vanished. Monsieur and Madame Guillaume saw a vision of their children established and the future of the Cat and Racket intrusted to skilful hands. Their satisfaction was complete, when, at dessert, Theodore presented them with the marvel- ous picture that they had not seen, and that depicted the interior of their old shop, to which so much happiness was due. "How nice it is!" cried Guillaume. "To think that anyone would give thirty thousand francs for that—" "And there are my lappets!" said Madame Guil- laume. "And those unfolded stuffs," added Lebas, "one could almost take hold of them." "Draperies always paint well," answered the artist, "we should be too fortunate, we modern artists, if we could attain the perfection of antique drapery." "Then you like drapery?" cried father Guil- laume. "Well, shake hands, my young friend. As you have such a good opinion of trade we shall agree. Well ! and why should it be despised? The world began that way since Adam sold Paradise for an apple, though, to be sure that was not a first-rate speculation!" And the old merchant, elated by the champagne that he was freely circulating, burst into a loud, hearty laugh. So blinded was the young artist that he thought his future relatives delightful. He was not above enlivening them with a few tales in good taste. And so he pleased everybody. THE CAT AND RACKET 55 At night, when the smartly furnished salon, as Monsieur Guillaume expressed it, was deserted; while Madame Guillaume was trotting from table to chimney-piece, from candelabra to candle, hastily blowing out the lights, the worthy merchant, always clear-sighted in a matter of business or money, drew Augustine to his side; and, having seated her on his knee, delivered her this discourse: "My dear child, you shall marry your Sommer- vieux, as you wish to; you may risk your capital of happiness. But I take no stock in these thirty thousand francs that are earned by spoiling good canvas. Money that comes so fast goes as quickly. Did I not hear that young scatterbrain saying to-night that if money was round it was made to roll ? If it is round for extravagant people, it is flat for econom- ical people who pile it up. Now, my child, that handsome boy talks of giving you carriages and diamonds. He has money, let him spend it on you ! well and good! I have nothing to say to that. But as to what I shall give you, I do not wish money pocketed with so much difficulty to vanish in car- riages and gewgaws. He who spends too much is never rich. You cannot buy all Paris even with the hundred thousand crowns of your dowry. It is all very well for you to inherit several hundreds of thousands of francs one day, but, by Jingo! I'll make you wait for it as long as possible. So I drew your intended into a corner, and, for a man who managed the bankrupt Lecoq it was not difficult to obtain an artist's consent to marry with the wife's 56 THE HOUSE OF estate separate. I shall attend to the contract in order to clearly stipulate the settlements he pro- poses to make. You see, my child, I hope to be a grandfather, and hang it all ! I wish to look after my grandchildren already; swear to me here never to sign a deed of money without my advice; and if I am gone to join old Chevrel, swear to me you will consult young Lebas, your brother-in-law. Promise me." "Yes, father, I swear it to you." As she said these words in a low voice the old man kissed his daughter on both cheeks. That night, all the lovers slept almost as peacefully as Monsieur and Madame Guillaume. A few months after this memorable Sunday, the high altar of Saint-Leu witnessed two very differ- ent weddings. Augustine and Theodore came in all the glamor of happiness; their eyes full of love, dressed in the most elegant attire, attended by a brilliant train. Virginie, arrived in a livery coach with her family, and, leaning upon her father's arm, meekly followed her younger sister in simple fmery, like some shadow that was indispensable to the harmonies of the picture. Monsieur Guillaume had taken the greatest pains imaginable to arrange that Virginie should be married in church before Augustine ; but he had the mortification of seeing the principal and lesser clergy alike addressing the most elegant of the brides on every occasion. He heard some of his neighbors particularly approv- ing Mademoiselle Virginie's good sense, who, they THE CAT AND RACKET 57 said, was making by far the best marriage and re- mained true to the quartier; whilst they launched several envious sneers at Augustine, who was mar- rying an artist, a nobleman; they added with a sort of dismay that if the Guillaumes soared too high, the cloth business was lost Overhearing an old fan merchant saying that "that spendthrift would soon bring her to want," old Guillaume inwardly congratulated himself upon his foresight in the matrimonial agreement. That night after a sump- tuous ball, followed by one of those abundant sup- pers that are fast dying out in the present generation, Monsieur and Madame Guillaume remained at their mansion in the Rue du Colombier where the wed- ding had taken place; Monsieur and Madame Lebas returned in their hack to the old house in the Rue Saint-Denis to look after the wreck of the Cat and Racket ; the artist intoxicated with joy, took his beloved Augustine in his arms, hastily carried her off when their brougham reached the Rue des Trois- Freres, and led her into a room adorned by every art. * The transport of passion that possessed Theodore lasted the young couple almost an entire year with- out the least cloud to darken the blue sky above. Existence for these two lovers had no burdens. Over each day Theodore distributed incredible beauties of pleasure, he loved to vary the excesses of passion with the luxurious languor of a repose in which the soul is so lost in ecstasy that it seems to forget any bodily union. Incapable of thought, the happy Augustine gave herself up to the undulating course of her delight. She fancied she was not doing enough in wholly abandoning herself to the lawful, holy love of marriage; besides, simple and na'ive, she knew neither the coquetry of refusal, nor the power that a young woman of the world can ex- ercise over a husband by ingenious caprices; she loved too well to look into the future and imagined that so delicious a life could never cease. Happy, then, in being her husband's sole pleasure, she be- lieved that this inextinguishable love would always be her most beautiful adornment, as her devotion and submission were to be an eternal attraction. In short, the joy of love had made her so radiant that her beauty had roused her pride and gave her a consciousness of always being able to influence as susceptible a man as Monsieur de Sommervieux. Thus her position of wife had taught her no lessons (59; 60 THE HOUSE OF but those of love. In the midst of this happiness she remained the ignorant little girl who used to live in the obscurity of the Rue Saint-Denis, and never thought of adopting the style, attainments or tone of the society in which she was to live. Her words being those of love, she displayed a sort of versatility of mind and a certain delicacy of expression ; but she used the language common to all women when they find themselves plunged into a passion that seems to be their natural element. If by any chance she expressed an idea that jarred upon Theodore, the young artist would laugh at it as one does at the first mistakes of a foreigner, which end by becoming wearisome if they are not corrected. In spite of so much love, at the end of this year which had flown as delightfully as it had rapidly, Sommervieux one morning felt the need of resuming work and his old habits. His wife was pregnant. He went amongst his friends again. During the tedious delays of the year when a young wife nurses a child for the first time, he doubtless worked with zeal ; but now and then he sought dis- traction in society. The house to which he went most willingly was that of the Duchesse de Carig- liano, who had finally attracted the celebrated artist. When Augustine had recovered and her son no longer required those constant attentions that deprive a mother of the pleasures of society, Theo- dore set his heart upon testing the gratification of amour propre bestowed by society upon a man when he appears with a beautiful woman, an object of THE CAT AND RACKET 6l envy and admiration. To make her appearance in salons with all the eclat borrowed from her hus- band's fame, to see the jealousy of other women, was a new source of pleasure to Augustine; but it was the last reflex of his conjugal happiness. She began by offending her husband's vanity, when, in spite of fruitless efforts, she betrayed her ignorance, the impropriety of her language, and the narrow- ness of her ideas. Sommervieux's temperament, restrained for nearly two and a half y^ars by the first transports of love, now resumed with a tran- quillity of a less recent acquisition, the habits and inclinations which had been for a while diverted from their course. Poetry, painting, and the ex- quisite delights of imagination assert indefeasible rights over lofty minds. These exigencies of a forceful soul had not been suppressed these two years, they had only found new pastures. When the fields of Love had been overrun and the artist, childlike, had so greedily gathered the roses and cornflowers that he did not see that his hands could hold no more, the scene changed. If the artist showed his wife the sketches of his most beautiful compositions, she would exclaim just as old Guil- laume might have done: "How pretty!" This lukewarm admiration did not spring from a con- scientious perception, but from a loving, implicit trust Augustine preferred one look to the most beautiful picture. The only loftiness she recog- nized was that of the heart. Finally, Theodore could no longer shut his eyes to a cruel truth; his 62 THE HOUSE OF wife was insensible to poetry, she did not inhabit his sphere, she did not follow him in all his ca- prices, in his improvisations, his joys or sorrows; she walked in a commonplace way in a substantial world, whilst he was in the clouds. Ordinary peo- ple cannot appreciate the constant sufferings of a being, who, united to another by the closest of all intimacies, is continually forced to suppress the most valuable expansions of his mind and to restore to nothingness the images that a magic power forces him to create. For such a one, this torture is all the more cruel, because the feeling that he bears to his companion demands, as its first precept, that they should never conceal anything from each other, and that the effusions of the mind should mingle as well as the outpourings of the soul. The prompt- ings of nature are not to be disobeyed with im- punity; she is as inexorable as necessity, which is most assuredly a kind of social nature. Sommer- vieux took refuge in the peace and silence of his studio, hoping that the habit of living with artists might improve his wife and develop in her the torpid germs of a higher intelligence which some superior people believe to be pre-existing in every- one; but Augustine was too sincerely religious not to be alarmed by the tone of the artists. At the first dinner given by Theodore, she heard a young artist say with that childish airiness that she failed to see, and that absolves a jest from any profanity: "But, madame, is not your Heaven more beautiful THE CAT AND RACKET 63 than Raphael's Trarisfigtiraiion? Well, I am tired of looking at it." So Augustine exhibited in this witty society a spirit of diffidence that escaped nobody's observa- tion; she embarrassed everyone. An uncomfortable artist is merciless; he either flies or he scoffs. Amongst her other absurdities Madame Guillaume had always exaggerated the dignity which she sup- posed suitable to a married woman; and though often teased about it, Augustine could not refrain from a weak imitation of the maternal prudishness. This exaggeration of modesty that virtuous women do not always avoid, inspired several pencilled epigrams, whose innocent playfulness was in too good taste to offend Sommervieux. Even had these jokes been a little more cruel, they would after all only have been retaliations practised upon him by his friends. But to a soul so easily susceptible to outside impressions, nothing is a trifle. And so he insensibly felt a coldness that could but go on in- creasing. To attain conjugal happiness a mountain has to be scaled where a narrow platform is close to a very steep and slippery bank, and the artist's love was rapidly descending it. He deemed his wife incapable of appreciating the moral considera- tions which, in his own eyes, justified his singular attitude towards her, and believed himself perfectly innocent in hiding from her the thoughts that she could not understand and the deviations that do not come under the jurisdiction of a bourgeois con- science. Augustine shut herself up in silent. 64 THE HOUSE OF gloomy sorrow. These secret feelings placed a veil between husband and wife that could but thicken day by day. Although her husband never failed to show her every consideration, Augustine could not help quivering when she saw him reserving for society the treasures of talent and grace that he had formerly laid at her feet. Very soon she put a fatal construction upon the witty conversations society holds upon the inconstancy of men. She did not com- plain, but her attitude was equivalent to reproaches. Three years after her marriage, this young and pretty woman, who drove by so radiantly in her brilliant carriage, who lived in a sphere of glory and wealth envied by careless people incapable of justly estimating the conditions of life, was a prey to terrible grief ; her color faded, she reflected and compared; and then misery revealed to her the first texts of experience. She resolved bravely to con- tinue her round of duties, hoping that this generous conduct might sooner or later restore her husband's love; but it was not so. WhenSommervieux, weary with work, came out of his studio, Augustine could not hide her work so quickly but that the painter could see that his wife was mending his own and the house linen with all the care of a thrifty house- keeper. She generously and uncomplainingly provided the money for all her husband's extrava- gances ; but, in her desire to preserve her beloved Theodore's wealth she practised economy herself, as well as in certain details of the domestic admin- istration. This behavior is incompatible with the THE CAT AND RACKET 65 carelessness of artists, who, at the end of their careers, have so much enjoyed life, that they never seek the cause of their ruin. There is no need to follow each degradation of color with which the brilliant tint of their honeymoon disappeared and left them in a great darkness. One evening, the wretched Augustine, who had for a long time heard her husband speaking enthusiastically of the Duch- esse de Carigliano, received from a friend some maliciously charitable warnings as to the nature of the attachment that Sommervieux entertained for this celebrated coquette of the Imperial Court. Augustine saw herself at twenty-one, in all the flush of youth and beauty, abandoned for a woman of thirty-six. Conscious of her misery in the midst of society and entertainments that to her were empty, the poor little thing no longer cared for the admiration she excited, or for the envy she inspired. Her face wore a new expression. Melancholy had laid upon her features the meekness of resignation and the pallor of a despised love. It was not long before she was courted by the most fascinating men; but she remained alone and vir- tuous. Two or three disdainful words dropped by her husband, filled her with an incredible despair. A fatal glimmer dimly revealed to her the deficiency of touch that in consequence of her poor education, hindered the perfect union of her soul with Theo- dore's; she loved him well enough to forgive him and condemn herself. She wept tears of blood and recognized too late that there can be misalliances of 5 66 THE HOUSE OF mind as well as those of manner and rank. In mus- ing upon the early delights of her union she summed up the extent of the past happiness and admitted to herself that so rich a harvest of love was a whole lifetime that could only be expiated by misery. However, she was too sincerely in love to lose all hope. Accordingly, she ventured at twenty-one years old to educate herself and to make her imagi- nation at least worthy of the one she admired. "If I am not a poet," she said to herself, "I shall at least understand poetry." And then, displaying all the force of will and energy which all women possess when they love, Madame de Sommervieux attempted to change her character, her manners and her customs; but, whilst devouring books and studying with zeal, she only succeeded in becoming less ignorant Versatility of mind and charms of conversation are a gift of nature or the results of education from the cradle. She could appreciate music and enjoy it, but sang with- out taste. She understood literature and the beauties of poetry, but it was too late to instil them into her rebellious memory. She listened with pleasure to the conversations of society to which she herself contributed nothing brilliant. Her religious ideas and childish prejudices prevented the complete emancipation of her intelligence. In short, a prejudice against her had insinuated itself into Theodore's mind which she could not overcome. The artist scoffed at those who praised his wife, and his jests were often enough justifiable; he THE CAT AND RACKET 67 overawed this pathetic young creature to such a degree that in his presence, or when they were tete- a-tgte, she trembled. Embarrassed by her over- whelming desire to please, she felt her intelligence and acquirements vanishing into mere sentiment. Her constancy even annoyed this faithless husband, who seemed to be urging her to make mistakes by accusing her virtue of insensibility. Augustine vainly strove, against her judgment, to adapt herself to her husband's caprices and whims, and to devote herself to his egotistical vanity; she did not reap the benefit of her sacrifices. It may be that they had both missed the moment which might have brought them together. One day the young wife's over-sensitive heart received one of those shocks that wrench the bonds of sentiment so hard, that it seems as if they must be broken. She isolated her- self. But soon a fatal idea prompted her to seek consolation and advice in the bosom of her family. So one morning she turned in the direction of the grotesque fagade of the humble and silent house where her childhood had been passed. She sighed as she looked at the window from which, one day, she had blown the first kiss to him who to-day brought as much fame as misery into her life. Nothing was changed in the retreat where, however, the drapery business was reviving. Augustine's sister occupied her mother's place at the old-fash- ioned desk. The unhappy girl met her brother-in- law with his pen behind his ear, but he seemed almost too busy to listen to her; the formidable 68 THE HOUSE OF signals of a general inventory were going on around him; and so he left her with an excuse. She was somewhat coldly received by her sister, who bore her some ill-will. For Augustine, radiant in her pretty carriage, had only paid her sister flying visits. The wife of the prudent Lebas, thinking that money was the primary object of this morning call, tried to maintain a reserve that made Augustine smile more than once. The painter's wife per- ceived that, save for lappets in the cap, her mother had found in Virginie a successor who kept up the ancient credit of the Cat and Racket. At lunch she noticed certain changes in the regime of the house that did credit to Joseph Lebas's good sense; the clerks remained for dessert, they were allowed to speak, and the abundance of food indicated comfort without luxury. The young beauty came upon some tickets for a box at the "Frangais, " where she remembered having seen her sister from time to time. The richness of the cashmere shawl worn by Madame Lebas attested the generosity shown to her by her husband. In fact, husband and wife pro- gressed with the times. Augustine was quickly filled with emotion when, during two-thirds of the day, she observed the even happiness — not enthu- siastic it is true, but, on the other hand, unruffled — that this well -assorted couple enjoyed. They looked upon life as a commercial enterprise in which it behooved them, before everything else, to do credit to their business. Meeting with no ex- treme love from her husband, the wife set herself to THE CAT AND RACKET 69 create it. Led unconsciously to respect and cherish Virginie, the time that happiness took to dawn for Joseph Lebas and his wife was a pledge of duration. So when the plaintive Augustine disclosed her mis- erable situation she had to endure the deluge of commonplaces with which the ethics of the Rue Saint-Denis supplied her sister. "The mischief is done, my wife," said Joseph Lebas, "we must try to give good advice to our sister." And then the skilful merchant thoroughly ana- lyzed the resources that the laws and customs might offer as an escape for Augustine in this crisis; he numbered all the considerations, so to speak, ar- ranged them according to their efficiency in a species of category, as if it were a question of mer- chandise of divers qualities ; then he balanced them, weighed them, and concluded by explaining the necessity for his sister-in-law to take a strong course, which did not satisfy the love she still felt for her husband; indeed, this sentiment revived in all its force when she heard Joseph Lebas talk of legal proceedings. Augustine thanked her two friends, and returned home more undecided than she had been before she consulted them. She then ven- tured to the old house in the Rue du Colombier, with the intention of confiding her misfortunes to her father and mother, for she was like a sick per- son who, in a state of despair, tries all receipts and even relies upon the remedies of an old woman. The old couple welcomed their daughter with an 70 THE HOUSE OF effusion that touched her. Her visit brought them a distraction which to them was worth a fortune. For four years they had gone through life like mariners without aim or compass. Seated by their fireside they would remind each other of all the dis- asters of the Maximum, their bygone purchases of cloth, the way in which they had avoided bank- ruptcy, and, above all, the celebrated failure of Lecoq, old Guillaume's Battle of Marengo. And then, when they had exhausted the old lawsuits, they would recapitulate the additions to their most profitable inventories, and would tell each other once more the old stories of the Quartier Saint- Denis. At two o'clock, old Guillaume would go and cast an eye over the establishment of the Cat and Racket ; on his way home, he would stop at all the shops, formerly his rivals, whose young pro- prietors hoped to draw the old merchant into some hazardous discount, which, as was his wont, he never positively refused. Two good Normandy horses were dying of fat in the stables of the man- sion ; they were never used except to draw Madame Guillaume every Sunday to the High Mass of her parish. Three times a week this worthy couple held open house. Thanks to the influence of his son-in-law Sommervieux, old Guillaume had been appointed member of the consulting committee for the clothing of the troops. Since her husband's promotion to such an important place in the admin- istration, Madame Guillaume determined to keep up appearances ; her apartments were crowded with so THE CAT AND RACKET J I many gold and silver ornaments, and tasteless but certainly valuable furniture, that the simplest room resembled a chapel. Economy and extravagance seemed to be struggling in each accessory of this house. One might have thought that Monsieur Guillaume had invested in silver even down to the acquisition of a candlestick. In the middle of this bazaar, the wealth of which betrayed the leisure of husband and wife, Sommervieux's cele- brated picture had been given the place of honor, and was the comfort of Monsieur and Madame Guil- laume, who, twenty times a day, would turn their spectacled eyes towards this likeness of their former existence, which for them had been so active and amusing. The aspect of this house and these rooms where all was redolent of old age and mediocrity; the spectacle presented by these two beings who seemed to be stranded upon a golden rock far from the world and all life-giving thought, surprised Augustine; she was now contemplating the second part of the picture, the first part of which had struck her at Joseph Lebas's; that of a restless though in- active life, a sort of mechanical instinctive existence like a beaver's; she then felt an indescribable pride in her sorrows, in the thought that they had sprung from a happiness of eighteen months which in her eyes was worth a thousand such lives as this whose emptiness seemed so horrible to her. But she concealed this somewhat uncharitable sentiment, and exerted for her old parents all the fresh charms of her mind and the tender coquetries revealed to 72 THE HOUSE OF her by love, and disposed them to listen favorably to her matrimonial grievances. Old people have a weakness for this particular kind of confidence. Madame Guillaume insisted upon hearing the minutest details of this strange life, which, to her, seemed almost fictitious. The Travels of the Baron de la Hoiitan, which she was always beginning and never finishing, told her of nothing more extraordi- nary respecting the Canadian savages. "What! child! your husband shuts himself up with naked women and you are simpleton enough to believe that he draws them ?" After this remark the grandmother placed her glasses upon a little workbox, shook her skirts and folded her hands upon her knees that were raised on a footwarmer, her favorite pedestal. "But, mother, all artists are obliged to have models." "He took good care not to tell us all that when he proposed to you. Had I known it, I would never have given my daughter to a man who followed such a trade. Religion forbids such hor- rors, it is immoral. At what hour did you say he comes in?" "Well, at one or two o'clock — " Husband and wife looked at each other in pro- found astonishment. "Does he gamble then?" said Monsieur Guil- laume, "in my time it was only gamblers who came home so late." Augustine's face repudiated this accusation. THE CAT AND RACKET 73 "He must make you spend some cruel nights waiting for him," continued Madame Guillaume, "but no, you go to bed, do you not? And when he has lost, the monster wakes you up." "No, mother, on the contrary, he is sometimes very cheerful. Very often even, when it is fine, he wants me to get up and go in the woods." "In the woods, at those hours? You must have very small apartments that he should not be con- tent with his room, or his salon, and must run out to — But the rascal proposes these excursions to give you cold. He wants to get rid of you. Did one ever see a married man, with a peaceful trade, gal- loping round like this as if he were a surly dog? " "But, mother, you do not understand that he needs excitement to develop his talents. He loves scenes that — " "Ah! I'd make some fine scenes for him, I would!" cried Madame Guillaume, interrupting her daughter, "how can you keep house with such a man? To begin with I object to his drinking nothing but water. It is not healthy. Why does he object to seeing women eat? What an extraor- dinary creature! But he must be mad — All that you tell us is impossible. A man cannot leave his house without breathing a word and only return ten days afterwards. He told you that he went to Dieppe to paint the sea; does one paint the sea? He tells you nonsensical stories." Augustine was opening her lips to defend her husband, but Madame Guillaume silenced her with 74 THE HOUSE OF a gesture which from force of habit she obeyed, and her mother exclaimed sharply: "Look here, don't talk to me of such a man! he has never set foot inside a church except to stare at you and to marry you. People without religion are capable of anything. Has Guillaume ever seen fit to hide anything from me; to remain three days without saying a word and then to chatter like a blind magpie?" "My dear mother, you judge clever people too harshly. If they had the same ideas as other peo- ple they would no longer be talented." "Well then, let talented people stay at home and not marry. What! a talented man makes his wife miserable! and because he has talent it is right.? Talent! talent! It does not require much talent to blow hot and cold every minute as he does, to cut people short, to behave cruelly at home, to drive you to your wit's end, to prevent a woman amusing herself until monsieur is in a good temper, to be sad when he is sad." "But, mother, the characteristic of these imagi- nations — " "And what are these imaginations?" resumed Madame Guillaume, again interrupting her daugh- ter. "Faith! he has some fme ones. What is a man who is suddenly seized with a whim for eating nothing but vegetables, without a doctor's advice? Still, if it were for religion, his diet might be of some good to nim ; but he has no more than a Huguenot. Has one ever known a man who loves THE CAT AND RACKET 75 his horses, as he does, more than his fellow crea- tures, curl his hair like a heathen, lay statues under muslin, and shut up the windows by day so as to work by lamplight? Oh! don't talk to me; if he were not so grossly immoral he would be fit for the madhouse. Consult Monsieur Loraux, the Vicar of Saint-Sulpice, ask his opinion of all this, and he will tell you that your husband does not be- have like a Christian — " "Oh! mother can you believe — " "Yes, I do believe it! You loved him and were blind to these things. But about the early days of his marriage, I recollected having met him in the Champs-Elysees. He was riding. Well, at times he would go at full gallop, then he would stop and go at a walk. I then said to myself, 'There goes a man who has no judgment' " "Ah!" cried Monsieur Guillaume, rubbing his hands, "how right I was to insist upon your having a separate estate from that oddity !" When Augustine was imprudent enough to relate the real grievances that she had to disclose against her husband, the aged couple were mute with indig- nation. The word "divorce" was very soon pro- nounced by Madame Guillaume. At the mention of divorce the indolent merchant became like one awakened. Stimulated by his love for his daughter as much as by the excitement that the prospect of a lawsuit would bring into his uneventful life, old Guillaume began to speak. He headed the application for divorce, directed it, 76 THE HOUSE OF and almost pleaded, he offered to be responsible for all the expenses, to see the judges, solicitors and barristers, to move heaven and earth. Madame de Sommervieux, terrified, refused her father's help, said that she would not be separated from her hus- band were she ten times more unhappy, and spoke no more of her troubles. After her parents had overwhelmed her with all the little dumb and com- forting attentions with which they vainly attempted to compensate her for her aching heart, Augustine left, feeling how impossible it is to obtain a fair judgment for great men from those of a weaker in- telligence. She learnt that a wife had better con- ceal from the whole world, even from parents, those troubles that so rarely meet with any sympathy. The storms and sufferings in higher spheres are only appreciated by the lofty spirits who inhabit them. We can only be judged in everything by our equals. Poor Augustine found herself thus once more in the chilly atmosphere of her home, abandoned to the horror of her thoughts. She no longer cared to study since it had failed to restore her husband's love. Initiated into the mysteries of these fiery souls, but deprived of their resources, she shared abundantly in their sufferings without partaking of their pleasures. She was disgusted with society which seemed to her mean and petty beside the issues of passion. In fact, her life was a failure. One evening, she was struck with a thought that came like a heavenly ray to shine upon her gloomy THE CAT AND RACKET ^^ sorrow. Only a heart as pure and virtuous as her own could have been pleased with this idea. She resolved to go to the Duchesse de Carigliano, not to ask her to give back her husband's affections, but to acquaint herself with the wiles that had stolen them away, to interest this proud woman of the world in the mother of her friend's children, to soften her, and make her a party to her future hap' piness as she now was the instrument of her present misery. So one day, the timid Augustine, armed with a supernatural courage, drove in her carriage at two o'clock to attempt an entry into the boudoir of this famous coquette, who was invisible up to that hour. Madame de Sommervieux was not yet familiar with the old and sumptuous houses of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. When she traversed the stately vestibules, the grand staircases, the immense reception rooms, filled with flowers in spite of the severity of the winter, and decorated with the taste peculiar to women who are born in the midst of wealth or with the distinguished ways of the aris- tocracy, Augustine's heart grew terribly heavy; she envied the secret of this elegance of which she had never had a notion, she breathed an air of grandeur which explained to her the attraction this house possessed for her husband. When she reached the private apartments of the duchess, she felt jealousy and a kind of despair mingling with her admiration of the voluptuous arrangements of furniture, draperies and hangings. Here, disorder was a charm ; and luxury affected a species of scorn 78 THE HOUSE OF of wealth. The perfumes that filled this soft atmosphere pleased the sense of smell without offending it. The accessories of the room harmon- ized with a view, obtained through a reflecting mir- ror, of the lawn of a garden planted with green trees. It was all fascinating, with no perceptible effort The genius of the mistress of these apart- ments pervaded the whole salon in which Augustine was waiting. She tried to guess the character of her rival from the appearance of the things scattered about; but there was something impenetrable alike in the confusion and the symmetry, and to the sim- ple Augustine they were secrets. All that she could gather from them was that the duchess was as clever as she was womanly. Then a sad thought came to her. "Alas! can it be true," she said to herself, "that a loving and simple heart is not enough for an artist, and, to balance the weight of these great minds, must they be united to feminine minds that are as powerful as their own ? Had 1 been brought up like this siren, at least our weapons would have been equal in the fight." "But 1 am not at home." These curt, sharp words, although spoken in a low voice in the adjoining boudoir, were overheard by Augustine, whose heart quaked. "But the lady is there," answered the lady's maid. "How stupid you are; show her in!" said the duchess whose softened voice suddenly assumed the THE CAT AND RACKET 79 kindly accent of good breeding. Evidently she then wished to be overheard. Augustine advanced timidly. At the far end of this cool boudoir she saw the duchess voluptuously reclining on a green velvet ottoman placed in the centre of a kind of semicircle formed by soft folds of muslin stretched upon a yel- low background. Some gilded bronze ornaments arranged with exquisite taste still further enriched this species of dais upon which the duchess was resting like some antique statue. The deep color of the velvet enhanced every means of seduction. The subdued light, so favorable to her beauty, seemed more of a reflection than a light. Some rare flowers raised their scented heads from the richest Sevres vases. At the moment this scene met Augustine's astonished eyes, she was treading so softly that she was in time to intercept a look from the enchantress. This look seemed to say to some one at first unnoticed by the painter's wife: "Stay here, you will see a pretty woman and make it less tiresome for me." When she perceived Augustine the duchess rose and made her sit by her side. "To what do I owe the honor of this visit, ma- dame?" she asked with a charming smile. "Why so much insincerity?" thought Augustine, who only bent her head in answer. The silence was forced. The young wife saw before her one witness too many to this scene. This person was the youngest, the most elegant, and 80 THE HOUSE OF best formed colonel in the army. His plain clothes set off the graces of his person. His lively, youthful, and just then very expressive face was rendered still more animated by small moustaches black as jet, twirled up at the ends, a thick imperial, carefully combed, whiskers and a forest of rather untidy hair. He was toying with a riding whip with a display of ease and freedom that became the satis- fied expression of his physiognomy, as well as the elegance of his dress; the ribbons in his buttonhole were carelessly tied and he seemed much more proud of his appearance than of his courage. Augustine glanced from the duchess to the colonel with an appealing look that was understood. "Well, good-bye, d'Aiglemont; we shall meet again in the Bois de Boulogne." The siren said this as if it were the result of an agreement prior to Augustine's arrival. She accompanied the words with a threatening look which perhaps the officer deserved for the admiration he expressed in contemplating the modest flower who contrasted so well with the proud duchess. The young dandy bowed in silence, turned on his heels and gracefully left the boudoir. Augustine, watch- ing her rival, who seemed to be following the bril- liant officer with her eyes, surprised in her glance a feeling whose fleeting expressions all women know. She reflected with the deepest sorrow that her visit was going to be useless; this artificial duchess was too greedy of homage to be pitiful. "Madame," said Augustine in broken accents, THE CAT AND RACKET 8l "the application that I am now about to make to you will seem to you very extraordinary, but despair has its madness and ought to excuse all. I understand only too well why Theodore prefers your house to all others, and why your mind exercises such an influence over him. Alas! I only have to look into myself to fmd more than sufficient reason. But, madame, I adore my husband. Two years spent in weeping have not washed his image from my heart, although I may have lost his. In my distraction I dared to conceive the idea of pitting myself against you; and I come to you to ask by what means I can triumph over yourself. Oh! ma- dame!" cried the young wife, eagerly seizing the hand that her rival let her take, "never will I pray to God for my own happiness as I will for yours, if you will help me to recover, — I do not say the love — but the friendship of Sommervieux. My only hope is in you. Ah! tell me how you have been able to please him and make him forget the early days of " and here, Augustine, choked by irre- pressible sobs, was forced to pause. Ashamed of her weakness, she buried her face in her handker- chief, which she drenched with tears. "Are you not childish, my dear little woman?" said the duchess, who, won over by the novelty of the scene and softened in spite of herself in receiv- ing tribute from possibly the most perfect virtue in all Paris, took the handkerchief from the younger woman and herself wiped her eyes, murmuring caressing monosyllables with a gracious pity. 6 82 THE HOUSE OF After a moment's silence, the coquette, impris- oning poor Augustine's pretty hands in her own, which possessed the rare quality of great beauty and power, said to her in a gentle, affectionate voice : "In the first place, I would advise you not to cry like this, tears are disfiguring. One must learn to resign one's self to troubles that make one morbid, for love does not stay long upon a bed of sorrow. Melancholy has at first a certain charm that pleases, but in the long run it draws the features and withers the loveliest face. Then, our tyrants are selfish enough to will that their slaves should always be cheerful." "Oh! madame, it is not entirely my fault that I do not feel it. Is it not dying a thousand deaths to see a cold, lifeless, and indifferent face where formerly it beamed with love and joy? I do not know how to regulate my affections." "So much the worse, my dear little woman; but I think I already know your whole history. In the first place, you may rest assured that if your hus- band has been unfaithful to you, I am not his ac- complice. If 1 set my heart upon having him in my salon, it was, I must confess, from vanity; he was famous and would go nowhere. I like you already too much to tell you all the follies he has committed on my account I will only inform you of one, be- cause it will perhaps help us to lead him back to you and punish him for his audacity to me. He will end by compromising me. I know the world THE CAT AND RACKET 83 too well, my dear, to place myself at the mercy of too great a man. You may let them make love to you, but it is a mistake to marry them. We women can admire men of genius and enjoy them as we would a play, but live with them? Never! Why! it is like taking pleasure in going behind the scenes at the opera instead of enjoying its brilliant illu- sions from a box. But with you, my poor child, the mischief is done, is it not.? Well then you must try to secure yourself against tyranny." "Ah! madame! before coming in here and seeing you, I already recognized several unsuspected arti- fices." "Well then, come and see me sometimes, and it will not be long before you master the science of these trifles, which, nevertheless, are rather impor- tant. To fools, the better half of life consists in externals; and, as to that, more than one man of talent finds himself a fool in spite of all his intelli- gence. But I dare wager that you have never known how to refuse anything to Theodore?" "How can one refuse anything to the man one loves?" "Poor little innocent, I should adore you for your simplicity. You must know then that the more we love the less must we let a man, especially a hus- band, see the extent of our passion. It is the one who loves the most who is tyrannized over, and, what is worse, is sooner or later deserted. The one who wishes to rule must — " "What! madame? is it necessary to dissimulate? 84 THE HOUSE OF calculate, become false, acquire an artificial charac- ter, and for always? oh! how can one live so? Can you — ?" She hesitated. The duchess smiled. **My dear," answered the great lady gravely, "conjugal happiness, at all times, has been a specu- lation, a matter that requires particular attention. If you talk passion whilst I talk marriage we shall never come to an understanding. Listen to me," she continued in a confidential tone, "I have seen some of the greatest men of our time. Those who are married, are with very few exceptions, united to women who are nonentities. Well, these very women rule them as we are ruled by the Emperor, and, if they are not loved, they are at least respected. I am fond enough of mysteries, above all, those that concern ourselves, to have amused myself seeking a solution to this enigma. Well, my angel, these good wives had a talent for analyzing their hus- bands' characters; and without being frightened, like you, at their superiority, they had shrewdly remarked the qualities which they themselves lacked; and, whether they really possessed such accomplishments or whether they pretended to possess them, they found means of making such a display of them to their husbands that they ended by deceiving them. In short, let me tell you once more that these seemingly great souls all have some little grain of foolishness that we ought to know how to cultivate. By firmly resolving to govern them, by never swerving from this end, by bringing THE CAT AND RACKET 8$ all our actions, our ideas and our coquetries to bear accordingly, we master these eminently capri- cious minds, who, from the very instability of their thoughts, give us the means wherewith to influence them." "Heavens!" cried the horrified wife, "Such then is life! It is a fight — " "In which you must always threaten," answered the duchess laughing. "Our power is entirely imaginary. You must also never let a man despise you; it is impossible to retrieve such a downfall save by odious tactics. Come," she added, "I will give you a means with which you may enchain your husband." She rose smiling to guide the young and innocent apprentice to these conjugal stratagems, through the mazes of her miniature palace. They both came to a private staircase, communicating with the recep- tion rooms. When the duchess had turned the secret lock of the door she stopped and looked at Augustine with an inimitably arch and charming air. "See here! the Due de Carigliano adores me. Well, he dare not pass this door without my permission. And he is a man who is accustomed to commanding thousands of soldiers. He knows how to face a battery; but — before me — he is afraid." Augustine sighed. They came to a sumptuous gallery, where the duchess led the artist's wife to the portrait Theodore had painted of Mademoiselle Guillaume. At this sight Augustine gave a cry. 86 THE HOUSE OF "I knew it was no longer at home," she said, "but— here!" "My dear little one, I only exacted it to see what degree of stupidity a man of genius could attain. Sooner or later I should have returned it to you, for I did not expect the pleasure of seeing the original here before the copy. Whilst we finish our conver- sation I will nave it put in your carriage. If, armed with this talisman, you are not mistress of your husband for a hundred years, you are not a woman, and you deserve your fate!" Augustine kissed the hand of the duchess, who pressed her to her heart and kissed her with a ten- derness that was all the more lively in that it would be forgotten the next day. This scene would per- haps have forever ruined the candor and purity of a less virtuous woman than Augustine, to whom the secrets revealed by the duchess might have been equally salutary or disastrous, for the astute policy of the higher social spheres pleased Augustine no better than Joseph Lebas's narrow reasoning or Madame Guillaume's foolish moralizing. Strange result of the false positions in which we are placed by the least mistake in life! Augustine at this moment resembled a shepherd overtaken by an avalanche on the Alps; if he hesitates or listens to his companion's cries, he is generally lost. In so great a crisis the heart either breaks or hardens. Madame de Sommervieux reached home in a state of agitation difficult to describe. Her con- versation with the Duchesse de Carigliano had THE CAT AND RACKET 87 awakened a crowd of conflicting ideas. It was like the sheep in the fable: brave enough in the wolf's absence, she lectured herself and laid out admirable plans for her behavior; she imagined a thousand coquettish stratagems ; she even spoke to her hus- band, recovering, away from him, all the resources of the genuine eloquence that never deserts a woman; then, thinking of Theodore's fixed, keen eye, she already trembled. Her voice failed when she asked if monsieur was at home. When she heard that he would not be in to dinner, she felt an unaccountable relief; like a criminal who obtains an appeal against sentence of death, any delay no matter how short, seemed to her an entire lifetime. She placed the portrait in her room, and waited for her husband in all the agonies of expectation. She foresaw only too well that this attempt was to de- cide her whole future, not to shiver at every kind of noise, even at the murmur of the clock that only seemed to augment her terrors in timing them. She tried to kill time by a thousand devices. She hit upon the idea of dressing herself exactly like the portrait. Then, knowing her husband's inquiring nature, she had her room lighted in an unusual manner, feeling certain that when he came in curi- osity would bring him to her. Midnight sounded when, at the postilion's cry, the door of the house opened. The artist's carriage rumbled over the pavement of the quiet court. "What does this illumination mean?" asked The- odore joyfully entering his wife's room. 88 THE HOUSE OF Augustine skilfully seizing so favorable a moment, threw her arms round her husband's neck and pointed to the portrait. The artist stood as still as a rock, looking alter- nately at Augustine and the tell-tale canvas. The timid wife, half-dead, who was watching the chang- ing terrible brow, saw the portentous frown gather- ing like the clouds; then she thought her blood would have curdled in her veins when with a flam- ing look and a deep hollow voice she was asked: "Where did you find this picture?" "The Duchesse de Carigliano returned it tome." "You asked her for it?" "I did not know she had it." The sweetness or rather the bewitching melody of this angel voice would have softened a savage, but not an artist who was suffering the tortures of wounded vanity. "It is just like her!" thundered the artist, "I'll have my revenge," he said, striding up and down, "she shall die of shame; I will paint her ! Yes! I will exhibit her with the features of Messalina stealing by night from the palace of Claudius." "Theodore!" — faltered a faint voice. "I'll kill her!" "My love!" "She loves this little cavalry colonel because he rides well — " "Theodore!" "Eh! leave me!" said the artist to his wife in a voice that was almost a roar. THE DUCHESS AND AUGUSTINE They came to a suinptnoits gallery, where the duchess led tlie artist's ivife to the portrait Theodore had painted of Mademoiselle Guillaiime. At tins sight Augustine gave a cry. " / knew it xvas no longer at home',' she said, " but— here ! " Lit fJttCvr IT Lit fJuC' THE CAT AND RACKET 89 It would be invidious to describe this scene, in which the frenzy of rage drove the artist to words and acts that a less experienced woman than Augus- tine would have attributed to insanity. The next day at eight in the morning, Madame Guillaume found her daughter, with a white face, red eyes and disordered hair, holding a tear-soaked handkerchief, staring at the scattered fragments of a torn canvas and the remnants of a big gilt frame that lay in pieces on the floor. Augustine, almost unconscious from grief, pointed to the wreck with a gesture full of despair. "There's a loss!" cried the old regent of the Cat and Racket ; "it certainly was a good likeness; but I hear there is a man on the boulevard who makes charming portraits for fifty ecus." "Oh! mother!"— "Poor little one, you are quite right!" answered Madame Guillaume, who misinterpreted the mean- ing of the look her daughter gave her. — "Come, my child, one is never loved so tenderly as by one's mother. My darling! lean guess all; but come and tell me all your troubles, I will comfort you. Did I not tell you that man was mad.-* Your maid has told me some fme tales — But he must be a regu- lar monster!" Augustine put her finger to her pale lips, as if imploring her mother to be silent for a moment. During this awful night, sorrow had taught her that patient resignation which, in mothers and women who love, surpasses human strength in its results 90 THE HOUSE OF THE CAT AND RACKET and, it may be, reveals the existence of certain chords in a woman's heart that God has denied to men. An inscription cut on a tombstone in the cemetery Montmartre tells that Madame de Sommervieux died at the age of twenty-seven. In the simple lines of this epitaph, a friend of this timid creature sees the last scene of a drama. Every year, on the solemn day of the second of November, he never passes this early grave without asking himself whether the powerful grasp of genius does not re- quire a stronger woman than was Augustine. "It may be," he said to himself, "that lowly, modest flowers born in the valleys die when they are transplanted too close to the skies, in regions where tempests are formed and the sun scorches. " Maffliers, October, 1829. THE DANCE AT SCEAUX (91) TO HENRI DE BALZAC, His brother HONORE. (93) THE DANCE AT SCEAUX The Comte de Fontaine, head of one of the oldest families of Poitou, had intelligently and bravely served the cause of the Bourbons during the war waged against the Republic by the Vendeans. After escaping all the dangers which threatened the Roy- alist leaders during this stormy period of contem- porary history, he would say gaily: "I am one of those who were killed on the steps of the throne !" This joke bore some truth from a man who had been left for dead on the bloody day of the Quatre- Chemins. Although ruined by confiscations, this loyal Vendean constantly refused the lucrative posts offered him by the Emperor Napoleon. Faithful to his aristocratic creed, he had blindly followed its maxims when he deemed it convenient to choose a wife. In spite of the allurements of a rich revolu- tionary parvenu who set a high price on this alliance, he married a Mademoiselle de Kergarouet, penniless, but of one of the oldest families in Brittany. The Restoration found Monsieur de Fontaine en- cumbered with a large family. Although it never entered the generous gentleman's head to solicit favors, nevertheless, yielding to his wife's wishes, he left his estate, whose small revenue barely sufficed (95) 96 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX for the needs of his children, and came to Paris. Saddened by the avidity with which his former comrades scrambled for constitutional posts and titles, he was on the point of returning to his prop- erty, when he received an official letter, in which a rather well-known Excellency informed him of his appointment to the rank of Field-Marshal, in pur- suance of the decree which allowed officers of the Catholic forces to count the first twenty years of the reign of Louis XVIII. as years of service. Several days after, the Vendean still further received, with- out any application, and officially, the Cross of the Legion of Honor and that of Saint-Louis. Shaken in his resolution by these successive favors, which he believed due to the monarch's recollection of him, he was no longer content with leading his family, as he had hitherto religiously done, every Sunday, to cry, "Vive le roi!" — in the Hall of the Marshals, at the Tuileries, when the princes were going to chapel, — he begged the favor of a special interview. This audience, very promptly granted, was in no sense private. The royal salon was full of old servants whose powdered heads, looked at from a certain height, were like a carpet of snow. There, the nobleman recognized some old companions who received him with somewhat cold looks; but the princes seemed to him adorable, an enthusiastic ex- pression which escaped him when the most gracious of his masters, to whom the count believed himself only known by name, came and squeezed his hand and declared him to be the truest of the Vendeans. THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 97 In spite of this ovation, not one of these august per- sonages had any idea of asking him for an account of his losses or of the money so generously poured into the coffers of the Catholic army. He per- ceived, a little too late, that he had fought at his own expense. Toward the end of the evening, he thought he might risk a witty allusion to the state of his affairs, similar to those of many other gentlemen. His Majesty laughed heartily enough, — every word bearing the stamp of wit had the advantage of pleasing him — but he replied, nevertheless, with one of those royal jests whose gentleness is more formidable than the anger of a reprimand. One of the king's most intimate confidants lost no time in approaching the scheming Vendean, to whom he in- timated, in a subtle, polished phrase, that the time for settling with the rulers had not yet arrived; there were on hand several accounts much more in arrears than his own, and that were no doubt likely to form the history of the Revolution. The count discreetly retired from the venerable group forming a respectful semicircle before the august family; then, after having, not without diffi- culty, disengaged his sword from amongst the slen- der legs in which it had become entangled, he walked across the court of the Tuileries to the cab he had left on the quay. With the restive spirit that distinguished the noblemen of the old stamp whose memory of the League and the Barricades was not yet dimmed, he complained in the cab, 7 98 THE DANCE AT SCEALIX aloud and in a compromising manner, about the change that had taken place at Court. "Formerly," he said to himself, "everyone talked freely to the king of his little affairs, the seigneurs could ask favors and money of him when they pleased, and to-day is it to be an offence to seek the reim- bursement of sums raised for his service? 'Sdeathl the Cross of Saint-Louis and the rank of Field-Mar- shal are not worth the three hundred thousand pounds that I spent in fine style in the royal cause. I shall speak to the king again, to his face, and in his cabinet." This occurrence chilled Monsieur de Fontaine's zeal all the more as his requests for an audience always remained unanswered. Moreover, he saw the intruders of the Empire succeeding to some of the offices which, under the ancient monarchy, had been reserved for the higher families. "All is lost," he said to himself one morning, "decidedly, the king has never been anything but a revolutionary. But for monsieur, who never de- grades himself and who consoles his faithful ser- vants, I do not know into whose hands the crown of France might not fall if this regime continues. Their cursed constitutional system is the very worst of all governments, and can never answer in France. Louis XVIII. and Monsieur Beugnot spoiled every- thing for us at Saint-Ouen. " In despair the count was preparing to return to his estate, nobly abandoning his clairhs to any indemnity. At this moment, the events of the THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 99 twentieth of March foretold a fresh storm that threatened to ingulf the lawful king and his sup- porters. Like those generous people who never dismiss a servant on a rainy day, Monsieur de Fontaine borrowed from his estate to follow the overthrown monarchy, not knowing whether this participation in emigration would be any more pro- pitious to him than his past devotion had been; but, after having observed that the companions in exile were in greater favor than the heroes who had formerly protested, sword in hand, against the establishment of the Republic, he may perhaps have hoped to profit more by this journey abroad than by an active and perilous service at home. His courtier-like calculations were not any of those empty speculations that promise such superb results on paper, and ruin in their fulfillment. He was, therefore, according to the saying of one of our wittiest and cleverest diplomatists, one of the five hundred faithful servants who shared the court's exile at Ghent, and one of the fifty thousand who returned. During this short absence of royalty, Monsieur de Fontaine had the good fortune to be employed by Louis XVIll., and hit upon more than one occasion of giving the king proofs of great political honesty and sincere attachment. One evening when the monarch had nothing bet- ter to do, he recalled the bon mot said by Monsieur de Fontaine at the Tuileries. The old Vendean did not let such an opportunity escape, and related his story ingeniously enough so that the king, who 100 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX never forgot anything, might remember it in due time. The august scholar remarked the shrewd turn given to some reports, the drawing up of which had been intrusted to the discreet nobleman. This little accomplishment inscribed Monsieur de Fontaine in the king's memory, as being amongst the most loyal servants of his crown. Upon the second return, the count was one of tliose special envoys who traveled through the districts, with authority to absolutely judge the abettors of the rebellion; but he used his terrible power moderately. As soon as this tempo- rary magistracy ceased, the grand-marshal took one of the seats in the Council of State, became deputy, spoke little, listened much, and considerably changed his opinions. Several circumstances, un- known to biographers, advanced him sufficiently in the prince's intimacy, for the malicious monarch to thus address him one day as he came in : "Friend Fontaine, I would not presume to ap- point you director-general or minister ! Neither you nor I, if we were officials, would keep our places, on account of our opinions. The representative gov- ernment is so far good in that it saves us the trouble we formerly had in ourselves dismissing our Secre- taries of State. Our council is a veritable inn, to which public opinion often sends us queer travelers; but after all we shall always know where to find a place for our faithful servants." This mocking overture was followed by an order giving Monsieur de Fontaine an administration in the domain extraordinary of the Crown. In THE DANCE AT SCEAUX lOI consequence of the intelligent attention with which he would listen to the sarcasms of his royal friend, his name was on His Majesty's lips every time that it became necessary to create a commission whose members were to be lucratively paid. He had the good sense to say nothing of the favor with which the monarch honored him and knew how to preserve it by a piquant manner of narrating, in one of those familiar chats in which Louis XVIII. delighted as much as in agreeably written notes, political anec- dotes, or, if one may use such an expression, the diplomatic or parliamentary cancans which abounded at that time. It is well known that the details of his gowvernementabilite — a word adopted by the august jester — amused him infinitely. Thanks to the good sense, intelligence and shrewdness of Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine, every member of his numer- ous family, however young he might be, finished — as he humorously remarked to his master — by alighting like a silk worm on the leaves of the budget. Thus, through the kindness of the king, his eldest son attained an eminent position in the per- manent magistracy. The second, a plain captain before the Restoration, obtained an order immedi- ately after his return from Ghent; then, favored by the agitations of 1815, during which regulations were disregarded, he passed into the Royal Guard, repassed into the body guard, returned to the line, and, after the affair of the Trocadero found himself a lieutenant-general with a command in the guard. The youngest, appointed sub-prefect, soon became I02 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX maitre des requetes and director of a municipal ad- ministration of the city of Paris, where he found himself secure from legislative storms. These quiet favors, secret as the preference bestowed upon the count, showered down unremarked. Although the father and the three sons might each have had sinecures enough to enjoy an income from the budget almost equal to that of a director-general, their political success excited nobody's envy. In these early days of the first establishment of the constitutional system, very few people had any ac- curate ideas concerning the peaceful regions of the budget, where shrewd favorites knew how to find an equivalent for their ruined abbeys. Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine, who but lately boasted that he had not read the Charter and showed so much bitterness against the avidity of the courtiers, was not long in proving to his august master that he un- derstood the character and resources of the represen- tative as well as he did. And yet, in spite of the security of the careers opened to his three sons, in spite of the pecuniary advantages resulting from the holding of the four positions. Monsieur de Fon- taine was the head of too numerous a family to be able to re-establish his fortunes either promptly or easily. His three sons were rich in prospects, favor and talent; but he had three daughters and feared to weary the king's kindness. He contrived to speak of only one of these virgins who were in such haste to light their torches. The king had too much good taste to leave his work incomplete. The marriage THE DANCE AT SCEAUX IO3 of the eldest with a collector-general, Planat de Baudry, was decided by one of those royal phrases that cost nothing and are worth millions. One evening when the monarch was out of humor, he smiled at learning the existence of another demoiselle de Fontaine, whom he married to a young magistrate, of bourgeois extraction, it is true, but rich, full of talent, and whom he created a baron. When, the following year, the Vendean mentioned Mademoiselle Emilie de Fontaine, the king replied, in his little sour voice: "Amicus Plato, sed magis arnica Natio." Then, several days after, he regaled his friend Fontaine with a somewhat silly quatrain that he called an epigram and in which he rallied him on his three daughters so cleverly produced in the form of a trinity. If history is to be believed, the mon- arch had sought his bonmot in the unity of the three divine beings. "If only the King would deign to change his epi- gram into an epithalamium .?" said the count, try- ing to turn this fancy to his own advantage. "If I see the rhyme, I do not see the reason," answered the King stiffly, in no way relishing this joke upon his poetry, however mild it might be. From that day, his dealings with Monsieur de Fontaine were less gracious. Kings are more given to perversity than one would think. Like almost all youngest children, Emilie de Fontaine was a Benjamin, spoiled by everyone. The monarch's coolness caused the count all the more pain in that 104 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX there never was a more difficult marriage to arrange than that of this darling daughter. To understand all these obstacles, it is necessary to penetrate within the precincts of the beautiful house in which the administrator lived at the expense of the Civil List Emilie had spent her childhood on the Fon- taine estate enjoying the abundance that suffices for the early pleasures of youth ; her least wishes were law to her sisters, brothers, her mother and even her father. All her relations doted upon her. Arriving at a sensible age just at the time when her family was loaded with fortune's favors, the en- chantment of her life continued. The luxuries of Paris seemed to her quite as natural as the profu- sion of flowers and fruit and the rural wealth that constituted the happiness of her early years. Just as she had met with no sort of contradiction when in childhood she wished to satisfy her glad desires, so she found herself obeyed when at fourteen years of age she was launched into the vortex of society. Thus gradually accustomed to the gratifications of wealth, refinement of dress, elegance of gilded salons and carriages, became as necessary to her as the genuine or false compliments of flattery, as the entertainments and vanities of the Court. Like most spoiled children, she tyrannized over those who loved her, and reserved her coquetries for those who were indifferent to her. Her faults only grew in proportion as she did, and her parents were soon to reap the bitter fruits of this fatal training. At nineteen Emilie de Fontaine had not yet made her THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 105 choice from amongst the numerous young men that Monsieur de Fontaine's policy assembled at their entertainments. Although still very young, she enjoyed in society all the independence that a woman can have. Like kings, she had no friends, and found herself everywhere an object of attention of which a better disposition than her own would perhaps not have been able to stand the test. No man, not even an old one, had the strength to con- tradict the opinions of a young girl whose mere glance could awaken love in a cold heart Brought up with more care than her sisters, she painted fairly well, spoke Italian and English, and played the piano in the most distracting manner; lastly, her voice, improved by the best masters, had a tone that gave irresistible charm to her singing. Intel- lectual and fed upon every kind of literature, she might have made one believe, as Mascarille says, that people of rank come into the world fully edu- cated. She argued fluently about Italian or Flemish painting, on the Middle Ages or the Renaissance; judged old or new books indiscriminately, and brought out the faults in a work with cruel charm of wit. Her simplest sentence was received by the adoring crowd as the Turks would difetfa of the Sul- tan. In this way she dazzled artificial people; as to more profound persons, her natural tact helped her to recognize them; and for them she would dis- play so much coquetry that, by the help of her charms, she could escape their examination. This fascinating polish covered an indifferent heart, the I06 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX opinion, common to many young girls, that nobody lived in a sufficiently exalted sphere to understand her perfection of mind, and a pride that relied as much upon her birth as her beauty. In the absence of any strong feeling which sooner or later lays waste a woman's heart, she spent her youthful ardor in an immoderate love of distinction, and showed the deepest contempt for commoners. Very imper- tinent to the new nobility, she strove her utmost so that her parents should rank on an equal footing with the most illustrious families of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. These sentiments had not escaped Monsieur de Fontaine's observing eye, who more than once, at the time of the marriage of his two eldest daughters, had had to lament Emilie's sarcasms and witticisms. Logical persons would have been astonished to have seen the old Vendean giving his eldest daughter to a collector-general who, it is true, possessed several old manorial estates, but whose name was not pre- ceded by that particle to which the throne owed so many defenders, and the second to a magistrate too recently created baron to overlook the fact that the father had sold fagots. This remarkable change in the noble's ideas just when he was attaining his sixtieth year, a period at which men rarely aban- don their beliefs, was not only due to the deplor- able residence in modern Babylon, where all provincial people end by losing their crudeness; the Comte de Fontaine's new political conscience was still more the result of the king's advice and THE DANCE AT SCEAUX IO7 friendship. This philosopher prince had delighted in converting the Vendean to the ideas exacted by the progress of the nineteenth century and the ren- ovation of the monarchy. Louis XVill. wanted to blend parties as Napoleon had blended things and men. The legitimate king, perhaps as clever as his rival, proceeded the reverse way. The last head of the House of Bourbon was as eager to please the commons and the people of the Empire, by re- pressing the clergy, as the first of the Napoleons had been anxious to win over the great noblemen and to endow the Church. Confident of the royal opinion, the Councillor of State had insensibly be- come one of the most influential and wisest heads of the moderate party that earnestly desired, in the name of national interest, the merging of opinions. He preached the expensive principles of constitu- tional government and promoted with all his power the game of political seesaw that enabled his mas- ter to govern France in the midst of agitations. Perhaps Monsieur de Fontaine flattered himself he could attain the peerage by one of those legislative squalls whose strange effects at that time surprised the oldest politicians. One of his most fixed prin- ciples consisted in no longer recognizing any other nobility in France than the peerage, whose families were the only ones who had privileges. "A nobility without privileges," he said, "is a handle without a knife." As far removed from La Fayette's party as from that of De la Bourdonnaye, he zealously undertook I08 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX a general reconciliation from which a new era and a brilliant destiny for France was to arise. He tried to convince the families who frequented fash- ionable circles and those he visited, of the few fav- orable chances afforded in future by a military career or the administration. He persuaded mothers to launch their children into independent and indus- trial professions, by giving them to understand that military offices and the higher functions of the gov- ernment would finally belong quite constitutionally to the younger sons of noble families in the peerage. According to him, the nation had acquired so large a share in the administration by its elective assem- bly, by offices in the magistracy and those in finance, which, said he, would always be as formerly the appanage of notabilities of the commons. The new ideas of the head of the De Fontaine family and the wise alliances resulting from them for his two elder girls, had met with vigorous resistance in the heart of his household. The Comtesse de Fontaine remained faithful to the old beliefs, which could not be renounced by a woman who belonged to the Rohans on her mother's side. Although she was for a while opposed to the happiness and good fortune in store for her two elder daughters, she submitted to those secret considerations that hus- band and wife confide to each other, when their heads rest upon the same pillow. Monsieur de Fontaine coldly demonstrated to his wife, by close calculations, that living in Paris, the necessity of keeping up appearances there, the splendor of the THE DANCE AT SCEAUX IO9 house which compensated them for the privations so bravely shared in the depths of La Vendee, the outlay spent upon their sons, absorbed the greater part of their budgetary revenue. So they must seize, as a heaven-sent favor, the chance offered them of providing so richly for their daughters. Would they not one day enjoy sixty, eighty, a hundred thousand francs income? Such advan- tageous marriages were not to be met with every day for dowerless girls. In short, it was time to think of economizing to improve the estate of De Fontaine and to re-establish the old territorial for- tune of the family. The comtesse yielded to such persuasive arguments, as all mothers would have done in her place, although perhaps with a better grace; but she declared that her daughter Emilie, at least, should marry in such a way as to satisfy the pride which she had unfortunately contributed to develop in this young soul. Thus the events that ought to have bestowed happiness upon this family introduced a slight leaven of discord. The collector-general and the young magistrate were objects of a chill ceremony that the comtesse and her daughter Emilie were well-skilled in. Their etiquette found ample ground for exercising their domestic tyrannies; the lieutenant-general married Mademoiselle Mongenod, daughter of a rich banker ; the president very sensi- bly married a young lady whose father, million- aire two or three times over, had traded in salt; finally, the third brother proved his adherence to his no THE DANCE AT SCEAUX plebeian doctrines by taking to wife Mademoiselle Grosset^te, only daughter of the collector-general at Bourges. The three sisters-in-law and the two brothers-in-law found so many charms and personal advantages in remaining in the lofty sphere of political magnates and in the circles of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, that they all united in forming a small court around the haughty Emilie This treaty between interest and pride was, nevertheless, not so well cemented but that the young sovereign often excited revolutions in her little State. Scenes, that good breeding could not retract, maintained be- tween all the members of this influential family a scoffmg disposition, which without perceptibly altering the friendship shown in public, in private sometimes degenerated into not very charitable sentiments. Thus the wife of the lieutenant-gen- eral, now a baroness, believed herself quite as noble as a Kergarouet and presumed that a hundred thou- sand francs solid income gave her the right to be as impertinent as her sister-in-law Emilie, to whom she often ironically wished a happy marriage in announcing to her that the daughter of such and such a peer had just married some plain monsieur so-and-so. The wife of the Vicomte de Fontaine amused herself by surpassing Emilie in the good taste and richness for which her dress, her furni- ture and carriages were remarkable. The mocking air with which the sisters and brothers-in-law some- times received the pretensions made by Mademoi- selle de Fontaine roused in her a wrath hardly THE DANCE AT SCEAUX III appeased by a shower of epigrams. When the head of the family met with any coolness in the tacit and precarious friendship of the monarch, he trembled all the more that, in consequence of the satirical defiance of her sisters, his darling daughter had never had more ambitious views. In the midst of these circumstances, and when the little domestic fight was becoming very serious, the monarch, in whose favor Monsieur de Fontaine be- lieved himself re-established, was attacked by the illness of which he was to die. The great politi- cian who had so well known how to guide his ves- sel amidst the storms was not long in succumbing. Uncertain of the favor to come, the Count de Fon- taine then made the greatest efforts to gather the most select of the marriageable young men round his youngest daughter. Those who have attempted to solve the difficult problem offered by the marriage of a proud and capricious daughter will perhaps un- derstand the trouble taken by the poor Vendean. Had it been completed to the satisfaction of his beloved child, this last enterprise would have nobly crowned the career that the comte had pursued for ten years in Paris. From the way in which his family usurped the salaries of all departments, they might have been compared to the House of Austria, which, by its coalition, threatens to invade all Europe. There- fore the old Vendean was not to be discouraged in presenting suitors, so much had he his daughter's happiness at heart; but nothing could be more 112 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX ludicrous than the way in which the impertinent creature passed sentence upon and judged the merits of her adorers. One would have said that like one of the princesses in the Thousand and One Nights, Emilie was rich enough and beautiful enough to have the right to choose amongst all the princes in the world; her objections were each more facetious than the other; one was too heavy in the legs or was knock-kneed, another was short-sighted, this one was called Durand, that one limped, nearly all seemed to her too fat. Livelier, more charming and merrier than ever after having rejected two or three suitors, she threw herself into winter festiv- ities and ran to balls where her piercing eyes would examine the celebrities of the day, and she would amuse herself by inviting the proposals that she always declined. Nature had endowed her richly with all the ad- vantages indispensable to this role of Celimene. Tall and slender, Emilie de Fontaine possessed a bearing that was imposing or playful, as she chose. Her rather long neck allowed her to take charming attitudes of disdain and impertinence. She pro- vided herself with an abundant repertory of those nods and feminine gestures that interpret hints and smiles so cruelly or so favorably. Beautiful black hair, thick and strongly arched eyebrows, lent her face an expression of pride that coquetry, as much as her mirror, had taught her to render terrible or to soften by the fixity or the gentleness of her look, by the immobility or the light inflections of her lips, THE DANCE AT SCEAUX II3 by the coldness or graciousness of her smile. When Emilie wanted to secure a heart, her pure voice was not wanting in sweetness, but she could at the same time impart a sort of curt clearness to it when she undertook to paralyze the indiscreet tongue of a cavalier. Her white face and snowy forehead were like the limpid surface of a lake that alternately ruffles at the touch of a breeze or resumes its joyful serenity when the air is quiet. More than one young man, a victim of her disdain, accused her of playing a part; but she would vindicate herself by inspiring the slanderers with a desire to please her and by subjecting them to the scorn of her coquetry. Amidst all the fashionable young girls, none knew better than she how to assume an air of haughtiness in receiving the salutation of a man of talent, or how to use that insulting politeness which makes inferiors of our equals, or to pour out her imperti- nence on all who attempted to place themselves on a level with her. She seemed, wherever she went, to receive homage rather than compliments, and even for a princess, her appearance and manners would have converted the chair in which she might be seated, into an imperial throne. Monsieur de Fontaine discovered too late how the bringing-up of his best-loved daughter had been warped by the tenderness of the whole family. The admiration that the world first shows to a young person, but which it does not take long in avenging, had still further elated Emilie's pride, and increased her self-confidence. A universal s 114 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX compliance had developed in her the egoism natural to spoiled children, who, like royalty, make fun of all who approach them. For the present, the grace of youth and the charm of talent hid from all eyes these faults, all the more odious in a woman in that she can only please by devotion and self-renuncia- tion; but nothing escapes the eye of a good father; Monsieur de Fontaine often tried to explain to his daughter the principal pages of the enigmatical book of life. Vain attempt! he too often had to bemoan the capricious intractableness and the iron- ical wisdom of his daughter to persevere with so difficult a task as that of correcting so mischievous a disposition. He contented himself with occasion- ally giving advice full of gentleness and kindness; but he suffered the pain of seeing his tenderest words glancing over his daughter's heart as if it had been of marble. A father's eyes open so late, that it required more than one proof for the old Vendean to perceive the condescending air with which his daughter vouchsafed him scanty caresses. She was like those children, who seem to say to their mother: "Make haste and kiss me so that I may go and play." Upon the whole, Emilie deigned to have some tenderness for her parents. But often, from some sudden caprice that seems inexplicable in young girls, she would isolate her- self and hardly appear ; she would complain that she had to share the love of her father and mother with too many people, she became jealous of every- body, even of her brothers and sisters. Then, after THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 115 having taken great pains to produce a desert all round her, this strange girl would blame all nature for her imaginary solitude and her voluntary suffer- ings. Armed with her twenty years' experience she blamed fate because, not knowing that the first principle of happiness lies within ourselves, she demanded it from the realities of life. She would have fled to the ends of the earth to avoid marriages similar to those of her two sisters; and, notwith- standing, she felt an awful jealousy in her heart in seeing them married, rich, and happy. At last, she sometimes caused her mother — victim of her proceedings as much as was Monsieur de Fontaine — to think that she was a little crack-brained. This aberration was sufficiently explicable; there is nothing more common than this secret pride in the hearts of young persons belonging to families rank- ing high in the social ladder, and gifted by nature with great beauty. Most of them are persuaded that their mothers, having reached forty or fifty years of age, can neither sympathize with their youthful minds, nor enter into their fancies. They imagine that most mothers, jealous of their daugh- ters, wish to dress them according to their own ideas with the premeditated design of eclipsing them or robbing them of their tribute. From this, there often arise secret tears or quiet revolt against the imaginary maternal tyranny. In the midst of these sorrows, which become real, though built upon imaginary grounds, they further have a mania for composing a theme for their existence and Il6 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX prophesy for themselves a brilliant horoscope; their magic consists in taking their dreams as realities; they secretly resolve, in their lengthy meditations, that they will grant their love and hand only to the man who shall possess such and such an advantage; they form a type in their imaginations which their intended, willing or unwilling, must resemble. After having experienced life and made the serious reflections that come with years, by dint of seeing the world and its prosaic course, by dint of unhappy examples, the bright colors of their ideal figure become extinct; then they find themselves one fine day, in the course of time, quite astonished at being happy without the nuptial poetry of their dreams. According to this poetry. Mademoiselle Emilie de Fontaine had, in her frail wisdom, resolved upon a programme to which her suitor must conform in order to be accepted. Hence, her scorn and sarcasms. "Although young and of the old nobility," she had said to herself, "he must be a peer of France or the eldest son of a peer. It would be unbearable not to see my coat-of-arms painted on the panels of my carriage in the middle of the fluttering folds of an azure mantle, and not to stroll with princes on the days of Longchamp in the great walk of the Champs-Elysees. Moreover, my father says that that will one day be the highest dignity in France. 1 want him to be a military man, reserving to my- self the right of making him tender his resignation, and I want him to be decorated so that they may present arms to us." THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 17 These rare qualifications would be of no use if this imaginary being did not possess in addition, a great amiability, a handsome appearance, intellect, and if he were not slender. Thinness, this grace of body, however transitory, particularly in a government representative, was a strict stipulation. Mademoiselle de Fontaine had a certain ideal standard which served as a model. The young man who, at the first glance, did not fulfill the desired conditions never obtained even a second look. "Oh! mon Dieu! see how fat that man is!" was her highest expression of contempt. According to her, men of a decent corpulence were incapable of sentiment, bad husbands and un- worthy of entering civilized society. Although em- bonpoint m\g\\t be a beauty much sought after in the East, it seemed to her a misfortune in women; but, in a man, it was a crime. These paradoxical opinions were amusing owing to a certain liveliness of elocution. Nevertheless, the count felt that later on his daughter's affectations, whose absurdity would be detected by certain women who were as clear-sighted as they were uncharitable, would become a fatal subject of ridicule. He dreaded lest his daughter's odd ideas might turn into vulgarity. He trembled lest the pitiless world should be already jeering at a person who remained so long on the scenes without giving any conclusion to the comedy she was playing. More than one actor, smarting under a refusal, seemed to be awaiting the least Il8 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX unlucky incident to avenge himself. Idle and in- different people were beginning to weary of it; admiration is always an effort for the human spe- cies. The old Vendean knew better than anyone that if it is necessary to be skilful in choosing the right moment of appearing upon the boards of soci- ety, those of the Court, in a drawing-room or on the stage, it was still more difficult to walk off oppor- tunely. So, during the first winter following the accession of Charles X. to the throne, he redoubled his efforts, conjointly with his three sons and his sons-in-law, to assemble in his salons the best matches that Paris and the different provincial depu- tations could offer. The splendor of his entertain- ments, the magnificence of his dining-room and his dinners flavored with truffles, vied with the famous repasts with which the ministers of the period se- cured the votes of their parliamentary soldiers. The honorable deputy was at that time pointed out as one of the most powerful corrupters of the legislative honesty of that illustrious Chamber which appeared to be dying of indigestion. Strange! his attempts to marry his daughter secured him a dazzling popularity. He may perhaps have found some secret advantage in selling his truffles twice over. This accusation, proceeding from certain liberal scoffers who made up for the scarcity of their adherents in the Chamber by the abundance of their words, was in no way successful. The con- duct of thepoitevin nobleman was generally so noble and so honorable, that he was never submitted to THE DANCE AT SCEAUX II9 one of those epigrams with which the spiteful jour- nals of this period attacked the three hundred voters of the Centre, the ministers, the cooks, the directors- general, the princes of the trencher and the upholders of office who supported the Villele admin- istration. At the end of this campaign, during which Monsieur de Fontaine had repeatedly fought all his troops, he fancied that his collectors of suitors would not be, this time, a phantasmagoria to his daughter. He felt a certain inward satisfaction at having well fulfilled his duty as a father. Then, after having left no stone unturned, he hoped that amidst so many hearts offered to the capricious Emilie there might be found at least one whom she would single out. Incapable of renewing this effort and tired, besides, of his daughter's conduct, he re- solved to consult her, towards the end of Lent, one morning when his vote was not so urgently required at the sitting of the Chamber. Whilst a valet artistically arranged upon his yellow skull the delta of powder which, with the hanging side curls, com- pleted his venerable headdress, Emilie's father ordered his old valet-de-chambre, not without secret trepidation, to go and tell the proud young lady to appear immediately before the head of the family. "Joseph," he said, the moment he had finished his coiffure, "take away this towel, pull the cur- tains, put those chairs in order, shake the hearthrug and put it back quite straight, wipe everything. Come now! open the window and let a little air into my closet." The count repeated his orders, put I20 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX Joseph out of breath, who, understanding his mas- ter's purpose, restored some freshness to this room which was naturally the most untidy in the whole house, and succeeded in communicating some sort of harmony to the masses of accounts, half-sheets, books and furniture of this sanctuary in which the interests of the royal domain were debated. When Joseph had finished putting some small order into this chaos and placing conspicuously, as in a linendraper's shop, the things that might be the nicest to look at, or by their colors produce a sort of bureaucratic poetry, he stopped in the middle of the labyrinth of papers spread in some places upon the carpet, admired himself for a moment, tossed his head and went out. The poor sinecurist did not share the good opinion of his servant. Before seating himself in his enormous armchair, he cast round a look of distrust, examined his dressing-gown with an air of hostility, brushed from it several grains of snuff, carefully wiped his nose, arranged the shovel and tongs, stirred up the fire, drew up the flaps of his slippers, threw back his little pigtail which had lodged horizontally between the collar of his vest and that of his dressing-gown, and returned it to its perpendicular position; then he gave a thrust with the broom at the cinders on a hearth that testified to the obstinacy of his catarrh. Finally the old man did not sit down until after he had once more reviewed his closet, hoping that nothing in it might call forth those equally droll and impertinent THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 121 remarks with which his daughter had a habit of answering his wise counsel. Upon this occasion he did not want to compromise his paternal dignity. He daintily took a pinch of snuff and coughed two or three times as if he were preparing to request the call of the House; he heard his daughter's light step, she came in humming an air from // Barbiere. "Good-morning, father. What do you want with me this morning?" After these words, thrown off as if they were a flourish to the tune she was singing, she kissed the count, not with that familiar tenderness which makes the filial feeling so sweet, but with the light indifference of a mistress who is sure of pleasing, whatever she may do. "My dear child," said Monsieur de Fontaine, gravely, "I sent for you in order to talk very seri- ously with you about your future. The necessity for you now to choose a husband in such a way as to ensure your lasting happiness — " "My good father," answered Emilie, using the most caressing tone of voice to interrupt him, "it seems to me that the armistice we agreed upon regarding my suitors has not yet expired." "Emilie, to-day let us stop joking on so impor- tant a subject. For some time, the efforts of those who truly love you, dear child, have been combined to procure you a suitable marriage and you will be guilty of ingratitude in lightly receiving the proofs of interest which I am not the only one to lavish upon you." 122 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX While listening to these words, and after darting a maliciously inquiring glance at the furniture of the paternal cabinet, the young girl went and took the chair that appeared to have been the least used by petitioners, drew it herself to the other side of the fireplace so as to face her father, struck so solemn an attitude that it was almost impossible not to see signs of derision, and crossed her arms over the rich trimming of a tippet a la neige, piti- lessly crumpling its numerous frills of tulle. After a laughing side-glance at her old father's anxious face, she broke the silence. "I have never heard you say, dear father, that government transacted its correspondence in a dressing-gown. But," she added, smiling, "no matter, the people must not be particular. Let us hear your legal projects and your official presenta- tions." "I shall not always have the patience to make them for you, foolish child! Listen, Emilie. I do not intend any longer to compromise my character, to which my children owe part of their prosperity, by recruiting this regiment of partners that you put to flight every spring. You have already been the foolish cause of many dangerous misunderstandings with certain families. I hope that you will now better understand the difficulties of your position and of ours. You are twenty-two years old, child, and you ought to have been married three years ago. Your brothers and your two sisters are all prosperously and happily settled. But, my child. THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 123 the expenses incurred in these marriages and the style of the establishment you oblige your mother to maintain have drained our income to such an extent, that I shall barely be able to give you a hundred thousand francs dowry. From to-day, I must think of your mother's future, for she ought not to be sac- rificed to her children. Emilie, if 1 were to be taken away, Madame de Fontaine could not be left to the mercy of anyone, and must continue to enjoy the comforts with which I have too late compensated her for her devotion during my misfortunes. You see, my child, that the slenderness of your dowry could not harmonize with your ideas of grandeur. It will still be a sacrifice 1 have never made for any other of my children, but they have generously agreed never to take advantage of the interest we are taking in a well-beloved child." "In their position!" said Emilie ironically, toss- ing her head. "My child, never depreciate thus those who love you. You must know that only generous people are poor! The rich always have excellent reasons for not giving up twenty thousand francs to a rela- tion. Well, don't sulk, my child, and let us talk rationally. Amongst the marriageable young men, have you not remarked Monsieur de Manerville?" "Oh! he says '^eu' instead of ' jeu,' he always looks at his feet because he thinks they are small, and looks at himself in the glass! Besides, he is fair, and I don't like fair people." "Well then, Monsieur de Beaudenard .''" 124 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX "He is not noble. He is badly made and fat. Certainly he is dark. These two gentlemen ought to agree to unite their incomes, and let the first give his body and name to the second who should keep his hair, and then — perhaps — " "What have you against Monsieur de Rastignac ?" "Madame de Nucingen has made him her bank- er," she said, maliciously. "And the Vicomte de Portenduere, our relative?" "A boy who dances badly, and, moreover, has no money. In short, father, these men have no title. I must be at least a countess as my mother is." "Then you have seen nobody this winter who—?" "No, father.' "What do you want then?" "The son of a peer of France." "My child, you are mad!" said Monsieur de Fon- taine, rising. But he suddenly lifted his eyes to heaven, seem- ing to gather a fresh measure of resignation from some religious thought; then, looking at his child with a look of fatherly pity, which became one of emotion, he took her hand, squeezed it, and said to her sadly : "God is my witness, poor misguided creature! I have conscientiously fulfilled my duty as a father toward you— what do I say, conscientiously? with all tenderness, my Emilie. Yes, God knows, this winter 1 have brought you more than one upright man whose qualities, morals and character were THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 125 well-known to me, and all seemed worthy of you. My child, my task is complete. From to-day, I give you the disposal of your own lot, feeling both happy and unhappy in finding myself relieved of the heaviest of paternal obligations. I do not know if you will much longer hear a voice which, unfor- tunately, has never been severe ; but remember that conjugal happiness is not so much based upon bril- liant qualities and upon wealth, as upon a mutual esteem. This happiness is, naturally, modest and quiet. Go, my child; my approbation is insured for him whom you present to me as son-in-law; but, if you become unhappy, remember that you will have no right to accuse your father. I will not refuse to make overtures and help you; only, let your choice be serious and decisive; I will not twice endanger the respect due to my gray hairs." The affection shown her by her father, and the solemn tone which he put into his impressive speech, deeply touched Mademoiselle de Fontaine; but she concealed her emotion, jumped on to the count's knees, who, all trembling, had seated himself, and covered him with the gentlest caresses, and petted him so charmingly that the old man's brow cleared. When Emilie thought her father had recovered from his painful emotion, she said to him in a low voice: "Thank you very much for your kind care, dear father. You had tidied your room to receive your beloved daughter. Perhaps you did not think to find her so foolish and rebellious. But, father, is it so very difficult to marry a peer of France? You 126 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX said that they were made by the dozen. Ah ! at least you will not refuse me advice." "No, no, poor child, and I shall say more than once, 'Take care!' You must remember that the peerage is too recent a department of our gouverne- mentabilite as the late king used to say, for peers to possess any great fortunes. Those who are rich want to become still more so. The wealthiest of all the members of our peerage has not half the income possessed by the poorest lord in the Upper House in England. But, the peers of France will all seek rich heiresses for their sons, no matter where they come from. The necessity under which they all are for making money matches will last more than two centuries. It is possible that in waiting for the lucky chance you wish for, a search that may cost you your best years, your charms — for there are many marriages for love in our century — your charms, I say, may work a miracle. When experi- ence is hidden beneath such a fresh face as yours, one may hope for marvels. In the first place, have you not a facility for recognizing virtue according to the greater or less size of the figure? That is no small accomplishment. I also need not warn so wise a person as yourself of the difficulties of the enterprise. I am certain that you will never take it for granted that a stranger has good sense because he has a pleasing face, or virtues because he has a fine shape. In fact, I am entirely of your opinion that all sons of peers are under an obligation of having a particular air and a distinctive manner. THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 27 Although now-a-days nothing stamps high rank, these young men may possess 3. je ne sais quoi which reveals them to you. Moreover, you hold your heart in hand like a good rider who never lets his horse stumble. Good luck to you, my child!" "You are laughing at me, father. Well then, I declare I would rather go and die in Mademoiselle de Conde's convent, than not become the wife of a peer of France." She escaped from her father's arms, and, proud of being her own mistress, went off singing the air Cara non dubitare from Matrimonio Segreto. As it happened, the family that day was celebrating the anniversary of a domestic birthday. At dessert, Madame Planat, wife of the receiver-general and Emilie's elder, spoke rather openly of a young American, owning an immense fortune, who, pas- sionately in love with her sister, had made her an extremely brilliant offer. "He is a banker, I think," said Emilie, carelessly. "I don't like financiers." "But, Emilie," answered the Baron de Villaine, husband to Mademoiselle de Fontaine's second sis- ter, "you don't like the magistracy any better, so that 1 hardly see, if you repulse untitled men, from what class you are to select a husband." "Especially, Emilie, with your system of thin- ness, " added the lieutenant-general. "1 know what 1 want," answered the young girl. "My sister requires a fine name, a handsome young man, a brilliant future," said the Baronne de 128 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX Fontaine, "and a hundred thousand francs income; in short, Monsieur de Marsay, for instance!" "I know, my dear sister," returned Emilie, "that I shall not make such an absurd marriage as many that I have seen. However, to avoid these nuptial discussions, I declare that I shall look upon those who talk to me of marriage as inimical to my peace." An uncle of Emilie's, a vice-admiral who in con- sequence of the law of indemnity had just increased his fortune by an income of twenty thousand pounds, an old septuagenarian who was privileged to say hard truths to his great-niece, whom he adored, cried, in order to divert the sharpness of this con- versation : "Don't tease my poor Emilie! don't you see she is waiting for the Due de Bordeaux's coming of age ?" A general laugh greeted the old man's joke. "Take care I do not marry you, old fool !" retorted the young girl, whose last words were happily deadened by the noise. "Children," said Madame de Fontaine to soften this impertinence, "Emilie, like the rest of you, will only consult her mother." "Oh! mon Dieu! I shall only consult myself in a matter that concerns none but myself," said Ma- demoiselle de Fontaine very distinctly. All eyes were then directed to the head of the family. Everyone seemed curious to see how he would manage to preserve his dignity. The vener- able Vendean not only enjoyed great esteem in THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 29 society, but, more fortunate than many fathers, he was also appreciated by his family, all the mem- bers of which had known how to recognize the solid qualities which had helped him to make the fortune of all who belonged to him; he was also associated with that profound respect shown by English fami- lies and several aristocratic houses on the continent to a representative of the genealogical tree. There was a deep silence, and the eyes of the guests traveled alternately from the spoiled child's sulky and haughty countenance, to the stern faces of Mon- sieur and Madame de Fontaine. "I have left Emilie mistress of her own fate," was the answer that fell from the count in a deep voice. The relations and guests then looked at Mademoi- selle de Fontaine with curiosity, mingled with pity. These words seemed to indicate that the paternal kindness was tired of struggling with a character that the family knew to be incorrigible. The sons- in-law murmured, and the brothers smiled mock- ingly at their wives. From that time, each ceased to be interested in the marriage of the proud girl. Her old uncle was the only one who, in his capacity of old sailor, dared to tack round her and encounter her sallies, without being afraid of giving her shot for shot. When the fine weather came after the vote of the budget, this family, true pattern of parliamentary families on the other side of the Channel, who have a finger in all the administrations and ten votes in 9 130 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX the Commons, fled, like a lot of birds, to the beauti- ful sites of Aulnay, Antony and Ch^tenay. The wealthy receiver-general had recently purchased, in his parts, a country-house for his wife, who only remained in Paris during the sessions. Although the lovely Emilie despised plebeians, this feeling was not carried so far as to disdain the advantages of the fortune amassed by the bourgeois; so she accompanied her sister to her sumptuous villa, not so much out of love for the members of her family who went there, but because good breeding imperi- ously demands that every self-respecting woman should leave Paris during the summer. The green fields of Sceaux admirably fulfilled the conditions exacted by good breeding and the discharge of pub- lic functions. As it is rather doubtful whether the fame of the country ball at Sceaux has ever reached beyond the limits of the province of the Seine, it is necessary to give some particulars about this weekly festivity which, from its importance, threatened to become an institution. The surroundings of the little town of Sceaux enjoy a reputation, due to scenery which is considered lovely. Possibly it is very common- place and only owes its celebrity to the stupidity of the Paris bourgeois, who, in leaving the abyss of bricks in which they are buried, would be disposed to admire the plains of Beauce. And yet the ro- mantic shades of Aulnay, the hills of Antony, and the valley of Bievre being inhabited by several artists who have traveled, by strangers, very fas- tidious people, and by numbers of pretty women who are not wanting in style, it is to be presumed that the Parisians have some excuse. But Sceaux has one other attraction which appeals no less forci- bly to the Parisian. In the middle of a garden from whence some delicious views are obtained, is an immense rotunda, open on all sides, the dome of which — as airy as it is big — is supported by grace- ful pillars. This rustic dais shelters a dancing-hall. It was no uncommon thing for the most strait-laced proprietors of the neighborhood to emigrate once or twice during the season to this palace of rustic (131) 132 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX Terpsichore, either in brilliant cavalcades, or in those elegant and light carriages that sprinkle phil- osophic pedestrians with dust. The hope of meet- ing some of the society women and of being seen by them, the hope — less seldom baffled — of seeing the young peasant women, as subtle as judges, brought together on Sundays, at the ball of Sceaux, number- less swarms of lawyers' clerks, disciples of Escula- pius, and young men whose white complexion and bloom are sustained by the damp air of the Parisian back-shops. The foundations of a good many bourgeois marriages are also laid to the strains of the orches- tra that occupies the centre of this circular hall. If the roof could speak, what love affairs could it not relate? This interesting medley at that time gave more piquancy to the ball of Sceaux than the two or three other dances in the neighborhood of Paris, its rotunda, the beauty of its position and the pleas- ures of its garden giving it indisputable advantages over any others. Emilie was the first to express a wish to go and make one of the crowd at this merry ball of the district, promising herself great pleasure in joining this assembly. Everyone was astonished at her desire to wander into the heart of such a crowd; but do not great folks keenly enjoy the un- known? Mademoiselle de Fontaine amused herself by picturing all these cockney figures, fancied her- self leaving the memory in more than one bourgeois heart of a bewitching glance and smile, already chuckled over the affectations of the dancers, and THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 33 sharpened her pencils for the scenes with which she expected to adorn the pages of her satirical album. Sunday did not arrive fast enough to suit her im- patience. The party from the Planat house set out on foot, in order not to commit the indiscretion of numbering as people who wished to honor the ball with their presence. They had dined early. In fact, the month of May favored this aristocratic es- capade with one of her finest nights. Mademoi- selle de Fontaine was quite surprised at finding, under the rotunda, several quadrilles composed of persons who appeared to belong to good society. She certainly saw here and there some young peo- ple who seemed to have spent the savings of a month to make a show for one day, and observed several couples whose unmixed joy argued nothing conjugal ; but she only had to glean instead of reap- ing. She was surprised to see pleasure dressed in cambric strongly resembling pleasure decked in satin, and the bourgeoisie dancing with as much grace as — sometimes more than — the nobility. Most of the dresses were simple and neatly arranged. Those who, in this assembly, represented the lords of the land, that is to say, the peasants, remained in their corner with incredible politeness. Mademoi- selle de Fontaine, to a certain extent, even had to examine the different elements composing this gath- ering before she could find one object of derision. But she had neither the time to devote herself to her malicious criticisms, nor the leisure to hear many of those striking remarks preserved by caricaturists 134 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX with delight. The haughty creature suddenly met in this vast field, a flower — the metaphor is season- able — whose brilliancy and color worked upon her imagination with all the fascination of a novelty. It often happens that we look at a dress, hangings, or a white paper with so much absent-mindedness that we do not immediately perceive a spot or some brilliant point which later on suddenly strikes our eye as if it had come there at the moment only that we notice it; by some kind of moral phe- nomena rather like this. Mademoiselle de Fontaine recognized in a young man the model of exterior perfection that she had dreamed of so long. Seated on one of those rough chairs that formed the necessary circle round the hall, she had placed herself at the extremity of the group made by the family so that she might be able to get up or stretch forward, as she liked, in conforming herself to the living pictures and groups presented in this hall, just as at the exhibitions at the Musee, she would impertinently turn her eyeglass upon a person who might happen to be two feet away, and would make her reflections upon them as if she were criticising or praising a study of a head, or a genre painting. Her eyes, after having wandered over this vast an- imated canvas, were suddenly arrested by this figure which seemed to have been purposely placed in one corner of the tableau, in the most charming way, like some character out of all proportion to the rest. The dreamy, solitary stranger was leaning lightly against one of the columns that supported THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 35 the roof, with his arms crossed and holding himself as if he were posing to an artist for his picture. Although full of elegance and pride this attitude was free from affectation. No sign went to show that he had placed his face at three-quarters and slightly bent his head to the right, like Alexander or Lord Byron and some other great men, with the sole object of attracting attention. His fixed gaze followed the movements of one of the dancers, be- traying some deep feeling. His slender, graceful figure recalled the splendid proportions of Apollo. Beautiful black hair curled naturally on his high forehead. With a single glance Mademoiselle de Fontaine noticed the nicety of his linen, his fresh kid gloves evidently from the best maker, and his small feet, well shod in boots of Irish leather. He wore none of the horrid gewgaws with which the old dandies of the National Guard or the Lovelaces of the counting-house were loaded. Only a black ribbon, to which his eyeglass was hung, fluttered over a waistcoat of irreproachable cut. The fastid- ious Emilie had never seen the eyes of any man shadowed by such long, curved eyelashes. Melan- choly and passion breathed in this face, which was distinguished by an olive-colored, manly complex- ion. His mouth seemed always ready to smile and to lift the corners of two eloquent lips ; but this ten- dency, far from being the result of gaiety, rather revealed a kind of sad charm. There was too much promise in the head, too much distinction in the appearance, for anyone to have said, "What a 136 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX handsome man, or a fine man!" One wished to know him. Looking at the stranger, the sharpest observer could not have avoided taking him for some man of talent attracted to this village festivity by some powerful interest. This stock of observation did not cost Emilie more than a moment's attention, during which this privileged man, submitted to a severe analysis, became the object of a secret admiration. She did not say, "He must be a peer of France!" but, "Oh! if he is noble, and he must be — " Without concluding her thought, she suddenly rose, and went, followed by her brother the lieuten- ant-general, toward the column, apparently looking at the lively quadrilles; but, by an optical trick well known to women, she did not miss the young man's slightest movement, as she approached. The stranger politely moved off to make way for the two newcomers and leaned against another column. Emilie, as much piqued by the stranger's politeness as if it had been an impertinence, began to talk to her brother, raising her voice much more than good breeding required; she moved her head about, re- doubled her gestures and laughed without much object, not so much to amuse her brother as to at- tract the attention of the imperturbable stranger. None of these little stratagems succeeded. Ma- demoiselle de Fontaine then followed the direction of the young man's eyes, and perceived the cause of this indifference. hi the middle of the quadrille in front of her, was THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 37 dancing a pale young girl, like those Scotch divini- ties placed by Girodet in his enormous composition of Ossian receiving the French Warriors. Emilie thought she recognized in her an illustrious lady who had for some time inhabited a neighboring country-house. Her cavalier was a youth of fifteen with red hands, nankeen breeches, blue coat, and white shoes, which showed that her love of dancing exceeded her fastidiousness in the choice of partners. Her movements did not show the effects of her ap- parent weakness; but a slight blush already tinged her white cheeks and her color began to revive. Mademoiselle de Fontaine approached the quad- rille so as to be able to examine the stranger the moment she returned to her place, whilst the vis-a- vis repeated the figure she was doing. But the un- known stepped forward, leaned toward the pretty dancer, and the inquisitive Emilie could distinctly hear these words, although spoken in a voice that was both imperious and gentle: "Clara, my child, don't dance any more." Clara gave a little pout, nodded her head in token of obedience, and finished by smiling. After the quadrille, the young man took all a lover's care in wrapping a cashmere shawl round the young girl's shoulders, and made her sit where she was sheltered from the wind. Then presently, Mademoiselle de Fontaine, who saw them rise and walk round the enclosure like people preparing to leave, found some means of following them under the pretext of admiring the sights of the garden. 138 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX Her brother lent himself with mischievous good- nature to the caprices of this rather aimless walk. Emilie then saw this handsome couple getting into an elegant tilbury held by a mounted servant in livery; just as the young man, from the height of his seat was adjusting his reins, he first gave her one of those glances that one casts vaguely at a big crowd ; then she had the slender satisfaction of see- ing him turn his head twice, and the strange young lady did the same. Was it jealousy? "I presume that as you have now seen enough of the garden," said the brother, "we can go back to the dance." "Willingly," she replied, "do you think she is a relation of Lady Dudley?" "Lady Dudley may have a relation staying with her," answered the Baron de Fontaine, "but not a young lady." The next day Mademoiselle de Fontaine ex- pressed a wish to ride. By degrees she accustomed her old uncle and her brothers to accompanying her on certain early rides, very good, she said, for her health. She showed a singular partiality for the surroundings of the village in which Lady Dudley lived. In spite of her cavalry manoeuvres, she did not see the stranger again so soon as the glad pur- suit to which she was devoting herself had led her to hope. She went again several times to the ball of Sceaux, without succeeding in finding the young Englishman who had fallen from the skies to domi- nate and beautify her dreams. Although nothing THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 39 Stimulates the dawning love of a young girl more than an obstacle, there were, nevertheless, moments when Mademoiselle de Fontaine was on the point of giving up her strange and secret pursuit, almost despairing of the success of her enterprise, whose singularity may give some idea of the boldness of her character. In fact, she might have gone round the village of Ch^tenay for a long time without see- ing her stranger. The young Clara, since that was the name overheard by Mademoiselle de Fontaine, was not English, and the supposed stranger did not inhabit the flowery, perfumed groves of Chatenay. One evening, Emilie was out on horseback with her uncle, who since the fme weather had enjoyed a fairly long cessation of hostilities from the gout, when they met Lady Dudley. Beside the illustrious lady in her barouche was Monsieur de Vaudenesse. Emilie recognized the handsome couple, and her suppositions were dissipated in a moment like dreams. Vexed like all women disappointed in an expecta- tion, she turned back so quickly, that her uncle had the greatest trouble in the world in following her, so far had she urged on her pony. "Apparently I have grown too old to understand people of twenty, " said the sailor to himself, put- ting his horse at a gallop, "or perhaps youth is not what it was in the old days. But what is the mat- ter with my niece ? There she is walking as slowly as a gendarme patrol ing the streets of Paris. One might think she wanted to hem in that honest 140 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX bourgeois who looks to me like an author musing over his poems, for I think he has an album in his hand. Upon my word, I am an idiot! May it not be the young man for whom we are searching?" At this thought, the old sailor slackened his horse's speed, so as to come up to his niece without any noise. The vice-admiral had committed too much mischief in the year 1771 and after, a period of our annals when gallantry was in favor, not to guess at once that Emilie had, by the greatest chance, met the unknown of the Sceaux ball. In spite of the mist spread by age over his gray eyes, the Comte de Kergarouet recognized the signs of an unusual agitation in his niece, despite the immobil- ity she tried to impart to her face. The young girl's piercing eyes were fixed in a sort of stupor upon the stranger quietly walking before her. "Good!" said the sailor to himself, "she will follow him as a merchant vessel follows a pirate. Then, when she sees him disappearing, she will be in despair at not knowing who it is she loves, and whether it is a marquis or a bourgeois. Really, young heads ought always to have an old fogy by them, like myself — " He suddenly urged his horse along in such a way as to start off his niece's, and passed so rapidly be- tween her and the young pedestrian that he forced him on to the green bank bordering the roadside. Immediately pulling up his horse the count cried: "Could you not have stood aside?" "Ah! I beg your pardon, sir," answered the THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 141 stranger, "I did not know it was my place to apolo- gize to you for having very nearly upset me." "Eh! friend, stop that," sharply replied the sailor, assuming a sneering tone of voice which was somewhat insulting. At the same time, the count lifted his whip as if to whip his horse and touched his interlocutor's shoulder, saying: "A liberal bourgeois is a reasoner, all reasoners ought to be sensible." The young man climbed down the bank at this sar- casm; crossed his arms and answered very angrily: "Sir, I can hardly believe, from your white hairs, that you still amuse yourself seeking duels." "White hair ?" cried the sailor, interrupting him, "you lie in your throat! it is only gray." A quarrel thus begun, grew so heated in a few seconds, that the young adversary forgot the moder- ate tone he had forced himself to maintain. Just as the Comte de Kergarouet saw his niece coming up with all the signs of eager anxiety, he was giv- ing his name to his antagonist bidding him keep silence before the young lady entrusted to his care. The stranger could not help smiling and gave the old sailor a card, pointing out that he lived in a country house at Chevreuse, and rapidly disap- peared after having indicated it to him. "You nearly hurt that poor fellow, child," said the count hastening to meet Emilie, "you no longer know how to hold in your horse. You leave me there to compromise my dignity in covering your 142 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX follies; whilst, had you remained, one of your looks or one of your polite words, one of those you say so prettily when you are not impertinent, would have mended all, even had you broken his arm." "Eh! my dear uncle, it was your horse, and not mine, which caused this accident. I really think that you must not ride any more, you are not as good a cavalier as you were last year. But instead of talking nothings — " "The deuce! nothings! Then it is nothing if you are impertinent to your uncle!" "Ought we not to go and see if that young man is hurt? He limps, uncle, do look." "No, he runs. Ah! I lectured him severely." "Ah! uncle, I recognize you there." "Stop, niece!" said the count stopping Emilie's horse by the bridle; "I do not see the necessity of making advances to some shopkeeper who is only too lucky in being thrown down by a charming young girl or by the commander of La Belle-Poule." "Why do you think he is a common man, my dear uncle.? It seems to me that he has very refined manners." "Everyone has manners now-a-days, my niece." "No, uncle, everyone has not got the air and ap- pearance that comes from frequenting drawing- rooms, and I will willingly lay you a wager that this young man is noble." "You had not much time to examine him." "But it is not the first time I have seen him." "And it is not the first time either, that you have THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 143 looked for him," replied the admiral laughing. Emilie reddened; her uncle amused himself by- leaving her some time in confusion, then he said to her, "Emilie, you know that I love you as if you were my own child, just because you are the only one of the family who has that legitimate pride that good birth gives. Deuce! child, who would have thought that good principles would become so rare? Well, I want to be your confidant. My dear little one, I see that you are not indifferent to this young gentleman. Hush! they would make fun of us in the family if we embarked under a bad flag. You know what that means. So let me help you, my niece. Let us both keep the secret, and I promise to bring him to you in the drawing-room." "And when, uncle.-'" "To-morrow." "But, dear uncle, I shall not be bound in any way?" "Not at all, and you may bombard him, burn and leave him like an old carack if it pleases you. He will not be the first, eh?" "How good you are, uncle!" As soon as the count got in, he put on his spec- tacles, secretly drew the card from his pocket and read: Maximilien Longueville, Rue du Sentier. "Rest in peace, my dear niece," he said to Emi- lie, "you may harpoon him in all ease of con- science, he belongs to one of our historic families; 144 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX and, if he is not a peer of France, he will inev- itably become one." "How do you know so many things?" "That is my secret." "Then you know his name.?" The count silently nodded his gray head, which was rather like an old oak trunk with a few leaves curled up by the autumn cold fluttering round it; at this sign, his niece came to try upon him the un- failing power of her coquetries. An adept in the art of cajoling the old sailor, she lavished upon him the most infantile caresses, the most tender words; she even went so far as to kiss him, in order to ob- tain the revelation of so important a secret. The old man, who passed his days playing at such scenes with his niece, and which often cost him the price of a set of gems or his box at the Italiens, was pleased to let her implore him and particularly to caress him. But, as he spun out his pleasure too long, Emilie became vexed, passed from caresses to sarcasms, and sulked, then returned, overcome by curiosity. The diplomatic sailor exacted a solemn promise from his niece that for the future she would be more modest, more gentle, less wilful, less extravagant, and, above all, tell him everything. The treaty concluded and signed by a kiss which he laid on Emilie's white forehead, he led her into a corner of the drawing-room, sat her on his knee, placed his two thumbs over the card so as to hide it, letter by letter disclosed the name of Longueville, and THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 145 obstinately refused to let her see more. This occur- rence only intensified Mademoiselle de Fontaine's secret sentiment, and she spent the greater part of the night unfolding the brightest of the dreams upon which she had fed her hopes. At last, thanks to the chance so often prayed for, Emil ie nov/ saw some- thing quite different from idle fancy in the source of the imaginary riches with which she gilded her conjugal life. Like all young people, ignorant of the dangers of love and marriage, she was madly fond of the delusive externals of marriage and love. Does this not mean that her sentiment arose like al- most all Youth's fancies, sweet and cruel errors that exercise so fatal an influence over the lives of young girls who are inexperienced enough to trust the care of their future happiness to themselves.? The next morning before Emilie was awake, her uncle had hurried to Chevreuse. Seeing in the yard of an elegant house the young man whom he had pur- posely insulted the previous day, he went toward him with the affectionate politeness of the elders of the old Court. "Eh! my dear sir, who would have thought that I should quarrel at seventy-three years of age, with the son or grandson of one of my best friends ? I am a vice-admiral, sir. From that you will gather that I think as little of a duel as I do of smoking a cigar. In my day, two young people could not be- come friends until they had seen the color of each other's blood. But, ventre-de-biche ! yesterday in capacity of sailor I had too much rum on board and 10 146 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX I foundered on you. Shake hands! I would rather take a hundred rebuffs from a Longueville than cause the least pain to his family." A certain coldness that the young man tried to show the Comte de Kergarouet could not withstand the frank kindness of his manners, and he allowed him to squeeze his hand. "You were going to ride," said the count, "do not let me disturb you. But, if you have no plans, come with me. I invite you to dine to-day at the Planat house. My nephew, the Comte de Fontaine, is a man you ought to know. Ah ! morbleu, I hope to compensate you for my rudeness by presenting you to five of the prettiest women in Paris. Eh! eh! young man, your brow clears. I like young men and I like to see them happy. Their pleasure reminds me of the good years of my youth when intrigues were no more lacking than duels. How gay those times were! To-day, one reasons and disquiets one's self over everything, as if there never had been any fifteenth or sixteenth century. " "But, sir, are we not right? The sixteenth cen- tury only gave religious liberty to Europe, and the nineteenth has given it freedom of pol — " "Ah! don't let us talk politics. 1 am an ultra old fogy you see. But I would not prevent young men from being revolutionaries as long as they leave the king the liberty of scattering their mobs." A few feet from there, when the count and his young companion we»'e in the middle of the wood, the sailor saw a rather slender birch tree, stopped THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 47 his horse, took one of his pistols, and the ball lodged in the middle of the tree fifteen feet away. "You see, my dear fellow, that I fear no duel," he said with comical gravity, looking at Monsieur Longueville. "Neither do 1," replied the latter, who promptly loaded a pistol, aimed at the hole made by the count's ball, and placed his own close to the mark. "There's a well brought-up young man," cried the sailor with a kind of enthusiasm. During the walk he took with the man he already looked upon as his nephew, he found a thousand opportunities of questioning him on all those trifles of which a perfect knowledge constituted, according to his particular code, an accomplished gentleman. "Have you any debts?" he finally asked his companion after many questions. "No, sir." "What! you pay for all that is suppl ied to you .?" "Exactly, sir; otherwise we should lose all credit and every kind of respect." "But at least you have more than one mistress? Ah! you blush, my friend? Morals are much changed. With these ideas of legal order, Kantism and liberty, youth is spoiled. You have neither Guimard nor Duthe, nor creditors, and you don't know heraldry; but, my young friend, you are not educated! Know that he who does not commit his follies in springtime commits them in winter. If I have eighty thousand francs income at seventy- three, it is because I ran through the capital at 148 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX thirty — oh ! with my wife, of course, honorably, quite honorably. Nevertheless, your shortcomings will not prevent me from introducing you to the Planat house. Remember that you promised to come, and I shall expect you." "What an extraordinary little old man," said young Longueville to himself; "he is vigorous and fresh; but, although he may wish to appear good- natured, I shall not trust him." The next day, toward four o'clock, when the company was scattered in the drawing-rooms and billiard-rooms, a servant announced to the inmates of the Planat house: Monsieur de Longueville. At the name of the old Comte de Kergarouet's favorite, everyone, down to the player who was going to miss a ball, came hurrying, as much to watch Ma- demoiselle de Fontaine's face, as to judge the human phoenix who had deserved honorable men- tion to the detriment of so many rivals. A simple, refined dress, manners full of ease, polite ways, a sweet voice of a tone that vibrated the heart's chords, gained Monsieur Longueville the good will of all the family. He did not seem strange to the luxury of the pompous receiver-general's house. Although his conversation was that of a man of the world, everyone could easily guess that he had received the most brilliant education and that his acquirements were as solid as they were extensive. He so happily hit upon the right word in a rather trifling discussion raised by the old sailor upon naval constructions, that one of the ladies observed that he seemed to have come from the Ecole Poly- technique. "I think, madame," he replied, "one may con- sider it a cause for pride to have gone into it." In spite of eager entreaties, he politely, but (149) I50 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX firmly, resisted the desire they expressed to keep him to dine, and fixed the attention of the ladies by saying that he was Hippocrate to a young sister whose delicate health demanded great care. "Monsieur is no doubt a doctor?" ironically asked one of Emilie's sisters-in-law, "Monsieur came from the Ecole Polytechnique," kindly answered Mademoiselle de Fontaine, whose face glowed with the richest color directly she learned that the young girl at the dance was Mon- sieur de Longueville's sister. "But, my dear, one can be a doctor and yet have been at the Ecole Polytechnique; is that not so, monsieur?" "Madame, there is nothing against it," replied the young man. All eyes turned upon Emilie, who was looking at the fascinating stranger with a sort of anxious curi- osity. She breathed more freely when he added, not without a smile: "I have not the honor of being a doctor, madame, and 1 have even given up entering the profession of civil engineering in order to keep my indepen- dence." "And you did well," said the count, "but how can you look upon being a doctor as an honor?" added the great Breton. "Ah! my youngfriend, for a man like you — " "Monsieur le Comte, I infinitely respect all pro- fessions that have a useful end in view." "Eh! then we are agreed; you respect those THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 151 professions I imagine, as a young man respects a matron." Monsieur de Longueville's visit was neither too long nor too short. He left the moment he per- ceived he had pleased everybody and that every- one's curiosity about him was aroused. "He's a cunning fellow," said the count, coming back to the drawing-room after seeing him out. Mademoiselle de Fontaine, who alone was in the secret of this visit, had dressed herself rather ele- gantly so as to attract the young man's notice; but she had the petty mortification of seeing that he did not pay her as much attention as she thought she deserved. The family were rather surprised at the silence in which she had wrapt herself. For new-comers Emilie ordinarily exerted her coquetry, her witty chatter, and the inexhaustible eloquence of her glance and attitudes. Whether the sweet voice and attractive manners of the young man had charmed her, or she was seriously in love and this feeling had wrought a change in her, her demeanor had lost all affectation. Simple and natural, she must doubtless have seemed more beautiful. Sev- eral of her sisters and an old lady friend of the family, judged this behavior a refinement of coquetry. They supposed that, thinking the young man worthy of her, Emilie intended showing her gifts but by degrees, in order to dazzle him all of a sudden when she had pleased him. All the members of the family were curious to know what this capricious girl thought of the stranger; but 152 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX when, during dinner, each one delighted in endow- ing Monsieur Longueville with some new quality, whilst claiming to have been the only one to dis- cover it. Mademoiselle de Fontaine remained silent for some time; a slight sarcasm from her uncle sud- denly roused her from her apathy, she said in a rather epigrammatical way that this divine perfec- tion must conceal some great fault, and that she should be very careful not to judge so clever a man at first sight "Those who please everybody please nobody," she added, "and the worst of all faults is to have none." Like all young girls who are in love, Emilie flat- tered herself with the hope of hiding her feeling in the depths of her heart by deceiving the Argus eyes that surrounded her; but, at the end of a fortnight, there was not a single member of this numerous family but was initiated into this little domestic secret. At Monsieur Longueville's third visit, Emilie believed she had something to do with it. This discovery caused her such an intoxicating pleasure, that, in thinking it over, she was aston- ished. In that there was something painful to her pride. Accustomed to forming the centre of society, she was obliged to acknowledge a force that drew her out of herself; she tried to rebel, but she could not drive the young man's fascinating image from her heart. After that there soon arose anxiety. Two qualities in Monsieur Longueville very unfavor- able to the general curiosity, were an unexpected THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 153 reserve and modesty. The artifices dispersed in Emilie's conversation and the traps she laid for wringing some particulars about himself from the young man, he knew how to baffle with the skill of a diplomatist who wishes to hide secrets. If she spoke of painting, Monsieur Longueville answered as a connoisseur. If she played, the young man proved without conceit that he was as good at the piano. One evening he enchanted all the company by joining his delicious voice to Emilie's in one of Cimarosa's most beautiful duets; but, when they tried to enquire if he were an artist, he put them off with so much gracefulness, that he did not leave these women, so skilled in the art of divining sen- timents, the possibility of discovering to what social sphere he belonged. No matter with what boldness the old uncle threw the grappling irons on to this vessel, Longueville nimbly escaped in order to maintain the charm of mystery; and he was able all the more easily to remain the handsome stranger at the Planat house, in that curiosity did not over- step the bounds of politeness. Emilie, tormented by this reserve, hoped to gain more from the sister than the brother in this kind of confidence. Sec- onded by her uncle, who managed this manoeuvre as well as he would that of a ship, she tried to bring upon the scenes the hitherto silent character of Ma- demoiselle Clara Longueville. The house party soon showed the greatest desire to know so amiable a person, and to procure her some amusement. An informal dance was proposed and accepted. The 154 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX ladies did not completely despair of making a young girl of sixteen talk. In spite of these little clouds, gathered by sus- picion and raised by curiosity, a great light per- vaded Mademoiselle de Fontaine's soul, deliciously rejoicing in the life that brought her nearer another. She was beginning to understand social relations. Whether happiness makes us better, or whether she was too much absorbed to tease others, she became less caustic, more forbearing, more gentle. The change in her character delighted her astonished family. Perhaps, after all, her egotism was being transformed into love. To look for the arrival of her timid and secret adorer was an intense joy. Without a single word of passion having been spoken, she knew she was loved, and delighted in skilfully displaying for the young stranger the treasures of an education that showed itself to be so varied. She too saw that she was being carefully observed, and then she tried to conquer the faults that her bringing-up had encouraged. Was it not a first tribute to love, and was she not fiercely re- proaching herself ? She wanted to please and she fascinated; she loved and she was idolized. Her family, knowing she was well protected by her pride, gave her sufficient liberty to taste those little childish pleasures that lend so much charm and force to a first love. More than once, the young man and Mademoiselle de Fontaine walked alone in the alleys of this park where nature was decked like a woman for a dance. More than once, they THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 55 held these aimless, featureless conversations in which the most senseless sentences are those that hide the most feeling. Together they often ad- mired the setting sun and its rich colors. They gathered marguerites to pick them to pieces, and sang the most impassioned duets using melodies from Pergolese or Rossini, like faithful interpreters, to express their secrets. The day of the dance arrived. Clara Longueville and her brother, whom the servants persisted in dignifying with the noble particle, were the heroes of the evening. For the first time in her life. Made- moiselle de Fontaine saw a young girl's triumph with pleasure. She lavished with sincerity on Clara those graceful caresses and little attentions that women only ordinarily exchange to excite the jealousy of men. Emilie had an object, she wanted to surprise secrets. But, in her capacity of woman. Mademoiselle Longueville at least was equal, and showed more finesse and ingenuity than her brother ; she had not even the appearance of being reserved and knew how to hold conversation on subjects un- connected with material interests, whilst putting into it so much charm, that Mademoiselle de Fon- taine conceived a sort of envy of her and surnamed her the Siren. Although Emilie had formed the in- tention of making Clara talk, it was Clara who questioned Emilie; she wanted to judge her, and was judged by her; she was often vexed at having let her character appear in several answers mis- chievously extorted from her by Clara, whose 156 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX modest, candid air repudiated all suspicion of per- fidy. There was a moment when Mademoiselle de Fontaine seemed vexed at having been provoked by Clara into an imprudent tirade against commoners. "Mademoiselle," this charming creature said to her, "I have heard Maximilien speak so much of you, that I have the most lively desire to know you out of affection for him ; but to wish to know you, is it not to wish to love you?" "My dear Clara, I was afraid of displeasing you by speaking like that against those who are not noble." "Oh! do not be afraid. Now-a-days, these sorts of discussions are objectless. As for me, they do not affect me; I am outside the question." However ambitious this answer might be, it caused Mademoiselle de Fontaine to feel great joy; for, like all passionate people, she construed it as oracles are read, in whatever sense it agreed with her desires, and came back to the dance more joy- ous than ever in looking at Longueville, whose manners and elegance perhaps surpassed those of her imaginary type. She felt all the more satisfac- tion in reflecting that he was noble, her black eyes shone, she danced with all the pleasure one feels in the presence of the person one loves. The two lovers had never understood each other better than at this moment; and more than once they felt the tips of their fingers thrill and tremble when the rules of the quadrille joined them. This handsome couple reached the beginning of THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 57 autumn in the midst of festivities and country pleasures, gently yielding themselves to the current of the sweetest feeling in life, whilst strengthening it by all the thousand little incidents that can be imagined; love is always alike in some respects. Each studied the other, as much as one can when in love. "In short, never has a love affair turned so rapidly into a love marriage," said the old uncle, following the two young people with his eyes, as a naturalist examines an insect under the microscope. This word frightened Monsieur and Madame de Fon- taine. The old Vendean ceased to be as altogether indifferent to his daughter's marriage as he had but lately promised to be. He went to Paris to seek information, but found none. Alarmed by this mystery, and not yet knowing what would be the result of the enquiry about the Longueville family that he had begged a Parisian administrator to under- take for him, he thought he ought to advise his daughter to behave cautiously. The paternal hint was received with feigned obedience full of irony. "At least, my dear Emilie, if you love him, do not confess it to him." "Father, it is true that I love him; but I shall wait for your permission before I tell him so." "And yet, Emilie, reflect that as yet you know nothing cf his family or position." "And if I do know nothing, I am very glad. But, father, you wished to see me married, you gave me liberty to make my choice, and it is irrev- ocably made; what more do you want?" 158 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX "We must know, dear child, if the man you have chosen is son of a peer of France," ironically re- plied the venerable gentleman. Emilie was silent for a moment Presently she raised her head, looked at her father and said with a kind of anxiety: "Are the Longuevilles — ?" " — Extinct in the person of the old Due de Ro- stein-Limbourg, who perished on the scaffold in 1793. He was the last offspring of the last younger branch." "But, father, there are some very good families, issue of bastards. French history swarms with princes who put bars upon their shields." "Your ideas have considerably changed," said the old gentleman smiling. The next day was the last that the Fontaine fam- ily were to spend at the house of the Planats. Emilie, much disturbed by her father's advice, waited with eager impatience for the hour at which young Longueville was in the habit of coming, in order to obtain an explanation from him. She went out after dinner to walk alone in the park, directing her steps toward the grove where they exchanged confidences, knowing the eager young man would seek her there and, while running, she reflected on the best way of surprising so important a secret without compromising herself; no easy thing to do! Up to the present, no direct avowal had sanctioned the feeling that united her to this stranger. She had secretly enjoyed, like Maximilien, the sweetness of THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 59 a first love; but, each as proud as the other, it seemed as if both feared to confess their love. Maximilien Longueville, inspired by Clara with sufficiently well-founded suspicions of Emilie's character, found himself alternately carried away by the violence of a young man's passion, and restrained by a wish to know and test the woman to whom he was to entrust his happiness. His love did not prevent him from recognizing in Emilie the prejudices which spoiled this youthful nature; but he wanted to know whether she loved him before he strove against them, for he would no more risk the fate of his love than he would his life. He had, therefore, constantly adhered to a silence that his look, attitude and the least of his actions belied. On the other hand, a young girl's natural pride, further increased in Mademoiselle de Fontaine by the foolish vanity with which her birth and beauty inspired her, prevented her from anticipating a declaration that her growing passion sometimes inclined her to solicit So the two lovers had in- stinctively grasped their situation without explain- ing their secret motives to each other. There are moments in life when vagueness pleases young people. From the very fact that both had hesitated so long before speaking, they both seemed to be cruelly sporting with their expectation. One sought to discover whether he was loved, from the effort that an avowal would cost the pride of his haughty mistress, the other every moment hoped to see an over-respectful silence broken. l60 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX Seated on a rustic bench Emilie was thinking over the events that had just happened during these three delightful months. Her father's suspicions were the last fears that could touch her, she even refuted them with two or three of those reflections that to a young and inexperienced girl seemed triumphant Above all, she agreed with herself that she could not possibly have deceived herself. During the whole season, she had never remarked in Maximilien a single gesture or a single word that might indicate a common origin or occupation; much better, his manner in discussions betrayed him to be a man engaged in the higher interests of the country. "Besides," she said to herself, "a member of the administration, a financier or a merchant, would never have had leisure to remain a whole season making love to me in the midst of the fields and woods, spending time as freely as a nobleman with a whole lifetime, exempt from care, before him." She was giving herelf up to a course of medita- tion far more interesting to her than these prelimi- nary thoughts, when a light rustling of the leaves told her that for the last minute Maximilien had been gazing at her, doubtless with admiration. "Do you know that it is very wrong to surprise young girls in this way?" she said to him, smiling. "Particularly when they are thinking of their secrets?" answered Maximilien slyly. "Why should 1 not have mine? You surely have yours!" THE DANCE AT SCEAUX l6l "Then you were really thinking of your secrets?" he returned, laughing. "No, I was considering yours. Mine, I know them." "But," gently exclaimed the young man, seizing Mademoiselle de Fontaine's am and drawing it within his own, "perhaps my secrets are yours and yours are mine." After having gone several steps, they found themselves under a clump of trees wrapt in the colors of the setting sun as if in a red-brown cloud. This natural magic imparted a kind of solemnity to the moment. The young man's bold and eager action and above all the fluttering of his burning heart, rapidly pulsating against Emilie's arm, threw her into an excitement that was all the more intense in that she was stirred only by the most simple and innocent of occurrences. The reserve in which young girls in high life live, gives an incredible force to the outbursts of their feelings, and is one of the greatest dangers that can attack them when they meet with an impassioned lover. Never had Emilie's and Maximilien's eyes said so many of those things that one dare not speak. Victims of this intoxication, they readily forgot the little stip- ulations of pride and the cold considerations of distrust. At first they could not even express themselves but by a pressure of hands which served to interpret their happy thoughts. "Monsieur, I have a question to ask you," said Mademoiselle de Fontaine in a trembling, anxious II 1 62 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX voice, after a long silence and after having walked a few steps with a certain slowness; "but, I beg of you to remember that it is in some degree required of me by the rather strange position in which I find myself placed toward my family." A pause, terrifying to Emilie, followed these sentences, which she had almost stammered out. During the moment that this silence lasted, this proud young girl dared not encounter the piercing look of the man she loved, for she had a secret con- sciousness of the meanness of the following words she added : "Are you a nobleman.?" When she had uttered these last words, she wished she were at the bottom of a lake. "Mademoiselle," gravely replied Longueville, whose changed face acquired a sort of severe dig- nity, "I promise to give a straightforward answer to this demand when you shall have answered with sincerity that which I shall make of you." He dropped the arm of the young girl, who sud- denly felt herself alone in life, and said to her: "With what purpose do you question me about my birth?" She remained motionless, cold and dumb. "Mademoiselle," continued Maximilien, "do not let us go any further if we do not understand each other. I love you, " he said in a deep and tender tone. "Well!" he added, with a glad look at hearing the joyous exclamation that the young girl could not restrain, "why ask me if I am noble?" THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 63 "Would he speak thus if he were not so?" cried an inner voice that Emilie felt springing from the bottom of her heart. She gracefully lifted her head, seemed to draw new life from the young man's eyes and held out her arm to him as if to conclude a fresh alliance. "You believed I had my heart greatly set upon titles?" she asked with mischievous archness. "I have no title to offer my wife," he answered, half gay, half serious, "but, if I take her from a high rank and from those whom the paternal fortune has accustomed to luxury and the pleasures of wealth, I know to what my choice binds me. Love gives everything," he added gaily, "but only to lovers. As to married people, they must have a little more than the sky's canopy and the meadow's carpet." "He is rich," she thought, "as to titles, perhaps he wishes to test me! Some one has told him that I am partial to the nobility, and that I will marry none but a peer of France. My humbugging sisters must have played me this trick. — I assure you, mon- sieur," she said aloud, "that I have had very ex- aggerated ideas of life and society; but, to-day," she continued, intentionally looking at him in such a way as to turn him crazy, "I know where lie a woman's true riches." "I am anxious to believe that you disguise noth- ing," he answered with gentle gravity, "but, this winter, my dear Emilie, perhaps in less than two months, I shall be proud of what I may be able to 1 64 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX offer you, if you care for the gratifications of wealth. It will be the only secret that I shall keep here," he said pointing to his heart, "for, on its success depends my happiness, I dare not say our — " "Oh! say it! say it!" It was in the midst of the sweetest converse that they slowly returned to join the company in the drawing-room. Never had Mademoiselle de Fon- taine found her lover more pleasing or more clever; his slender figure, his winning manners, seemed to her still more charming since the conversation which, in some measure, had secured her the pos- session of a heart that was worthy the envy of all women. They sang an Italian duet with so much expression, that the party applauded them enthusi- astically. Their good-bye assumed a conventional tone under which they concealed their happiness. In short, to the young girl this day became a chain to bind her still more closely to the stranger's destiny. The force and dignity he had just dis- played in the scene in which they had mutually revealed their feelings had perhaps forced from Mademoiselle de Fontaine that respect without which true love cannot exist. When she was alone with her father in the drawing-room, the venerable Vendean approached her, took her hands affection- ately, and asked her if she had obtained any light upon Monsieur Longueville's family and fortune. "Yes, dear father," she replied, "I am happier than 1 could ever have wished. In fact, Monsieur Longueville is the only man that I would marry." THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 165 "That's right, Emilie," answered the count, "I know what it remains for me to do." "Do you know of any obstacle?" she asked with real anxiety. "My dear child, this young man is an absolute stranger; but, as long as he is not a dishonest man, from the moment you love him he is as dear to me as a son." "A dishonest man!" replied Emilie; "I am quite easy. My uncle, who introduced him to us, can answer for him. Say, dear uncle, has he been a filibuster, pirate, corsair?" "I knew that I was going to be dragged into it," cried the old sailor, waking up. He looked round the salon, but his niece had vanished like Saint Elmo's fire, to use her favorite expression. "Well, uncle," resumed Monsieur de Fontaine, "how could you have hidden from us all you knew about this young man ? Yet you must have re- marked our anxiety. Is Monsieur deLonguevilleof good family?" "I do not know him from Adam or Eve," cried the Comte de Kergarouet "Trusting to the tact of this little elf, I brought her Saint-Preux to her by a way known to myself. I know that this boy fires a pistol admirably, hunts very well, plays billiards, chess and backgammon marvelously; he fences and rides like the late Chevalier de Saint-Georges. His knowledge is comparatively as rich as our vine- yards. He calculates like Barreme, draws, dances, and sings well. Eh! deuce take it! — what is the 166 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX matter with you, you people? If that does not make a perfect gentleman, show me a bourgeois who knows all that, find me a man who lives as honor- ably as he does? Does he work? Does he com- promise his dignity by going into offices, to bow down to parvenus that you call directors-general? He walks upright. He is a man. But, however, I have just found in my waistcoat pocket the card he gave me when he thought I wanted to cut his throat, poor simpleton! — Now-a-days young people are not at all sharp. — Here it is." "Rue du Sentier, No. 5," said Monsieur de Fon- taine, trying to recall, from amongst all the infor- mation he had obtained, that which might relate to the young stranger. "What the devil does this mean? Messieurs Pal ma, Werbrust and Company, whose chief trade is in muslins, calicoes and printed cottons, wholesale, live there. Good! I have it! Longueville, the deputy, has an interest in their house. Yes, but I only know Longueville to have a son of thirty-two, who is not at all like our man, and to whom he is giving fifty thousand francs income in order to marry him to a minister's daugh- ter; he wants to be made a peer like anybody else. I have never heard him speak of this Maximilien. Has he a daughter? Who is this Clara? However, it is possible for more than one intriguer to be called Longueville. But is not the house of Palma, Werbrust and Company half ruined by a speculation in Mexico or the Indies? 1 will clear this all up." THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 67 "You talk to yourself as if you were on the stage, and you seem to count me as a mere cipher," sud- denly said the old sailor. "Do you not know, that if he is a gentleman, I have more than one bag in my hatchway to supply his want of fortune?" "As to that, if he is a son of Longueville, he needs nothing; but," said Monsieur de Fontaine, shaking his head, "his father did not even purchase an office entitling to nobility. Before the Revolu- tion, he was a solicitor; and the de he has assumed since the Restoration belongs to him about as much as half his wealth." "Bah! bah! lucky for those whose fathers have been hanged!" gaily cried the sailor. Two or three days after this memorable day, and on one of those beautiful mornings in November that show the Parisians their boulevards cleaned by the sharp cold of an early frost. Mademoiselle de Fontaine, attired in a new fur that she wanted to bring into fashion, went out with the two sisters-in- law upon whom she had formerly vented the most epigrams. The inclination to try a very elegant carriage and dresses that were to set the style for winter fashions, tempted these three women to a Parisian drive far less than the wish to see a cape that one of their friends had noticed in a handsome linen shop at the corner of the Rue de la Paix. When the three ladies entered the shop, Madame la Baronne de Fontaine pulled Emilie by the sleeve and pointed out Maximilien Longueville, seated at the cashier's desk engaged, with mercantile grace. 168 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX in giving change for a gold piece to the needle- woman with whom he seemed to be debating. The "handsome stranger" held several patterns in his hand which left no doubt as to his respectable profession. Without anyone's observation, Emi- lie was seized with an icy shiver. Nevertheless, thanks to the breeding of good society, she com- pletely concealed her inward rage, and answered her sister, "I knew it!" with a depth of intonation and such an inimitable accent as the most famous actress of the day would have envied. She ad- vanced toward the desk. Longueville raised his head, put the patterns in his pocket with distracting sang-froid, bowed to Mademoiselle de Fontaine and approached her with a penetrating look. "Mademoiselle," he said to the shopwoman, who followed him with a very anxious air, "I will send and settle this account ; my establ ishment expects it. But, here, '■' he added in a whisper to the young v/oman, giving her a thousand-franc bill, "take it; it shall be a matter between us. — I hope you will forgive me, mademoiselle," he said turning to Emi- lie, "you will be kind enough to excuse the tyranny exercised by business." "But it seems to me, monsieur, that it is of ex- treme indifference to me," replied Mademoiselle de Fontaine, looking at him with an assurance and an air of scornful carelessness that might have led any- one to believe that she was seeing him for the first time. IN THE RUE DE LA PAIX When the tJiree ladies entered the shop, Madame la Baronne de Fontaine pnllcd Einilie by the sleeve and pointed out Maximilien Longueville, seated at the cashier s desk engaged, zvith mercantile grace, in giving change for a gold piece to the needle- woman with whom he seemed to be debating. The "handsome stranger" held several patterns in his liand. rit^y^-^XZi^ ■/iit/y. '■&■ '.'Ji. >• .'-i-tn ~"*»''««»>SfSSEi' - L- - THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 69 '•Are you speaking seriously ?" asked Maximilien in a broken voice. Emilie turned her back upon him with exquisite impertinence. These few words, spoken in a low voice, had escaped the curiosity of the two sisters- in-law. When, after taking the cape, the three ladies had regained their carriage, Emilie, who found herself sitting in front, could not help taking in with her last look the depth of this odious shop, where she saw Maximilien standing with his arms crossed, in the attitude of a man who had risen above the misfortune which had attacked him so suddenly. Their eyes met and darted two im- placable glances. Each hoped that the other loving heart had been cruelly wounded. In one moment, they found themselves as far from one another as if one had been in China and the other in Green- land. Is not vanity a blast that withers every- thing? A prey to the most violent struggle that can agitate a young girl's heart, Mademoiselle de Fontaine reaped the fullest harvest of sorrow that ever prejudice and narrowness have sown in a human soul. Her face, but lately so fresh and vel- vety, was streaked with yellow tints, red stains, and every now and then her white cheeks would turn suddenly green. In the hope of hiding her trouble from her sisters, she would laughingly point to a passer-by or a ridiculous toilette; but the laugh was convulsive. She felt herself more keenly wounded by the compassionate silence of her sisters than by any epigrams with which they might have I70 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX avenged themselves. She exerted all her skill to draw them into a conversation in which she tried to give vent to her anger by senseless paradoxes and overwhelming tradesmen with the most cutting insults and vulgar epigrams. Upon her return home she was seized with a fever that was at first of a somewhat dangerous nature. At the end of a month her parents and the doctor's care restored her to the prayers of her family. Everyone hoped that this lesson would be sufficiently severe to subdue Emilie, who gradually resumed her old habits and rushed anew into society. She said there was no shame in being deceived. "If, like her father, she had any influence in the Chamber," she said, "she would promote a law or- daining that tradesmen, especially calico-merchants, should be marked on the forehead like the sheep of Berri, down to the third generation." She would have given to nobles alone the right to wear those old French coats that were so becom- ing to Louis XV. 's courtiers. To hear her, there might have been some misfortune to the monarchy in the lack of any visible difference between a mer- chant and a peer of France. Thousands of other jests, readily understood, rapidly followed each other when any unforeseen accident set her off on the subject. But those who loved Emilie noticed a tinge of melancholy through these sneers. Evidently, Maximilien Longueville always reigned in the bot- tom of this unaccountable heart. Now and then she would become as gentle as she was during the brief THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 171 season that saw the birth of her love, and some- times she would be more unbearable than ever. Everyone excused the caprices of a temper that sprang from a sorrow that was both secret and known. The Comte de Kergarouet obtained some little influence over her, thanks to an excess of ex- travagance, a species of consolation that rarely misses its effect upon young Parisian women. The first time Mademoiselle de Fontaine went to a ball, was at the house of the Neapolitan Ambassador. The moment she took her place in the most bril- liant of the quadrilles, she saw Longueville a few steps from her, giving a slight nod of the head to her partner. "Is that young man one of your friends.-"' she asked her cavalier with a scornful air. "He is only my brother," he replied. Emilie could not suppress a start. "Ah!" he resumed enthusiastically, "there is the best soul in the world — " "Do you know my name?" asked Emilie eagerly interrupting him. "No, mademoiselle. It is a crime, I confess, not to have retained a name that is on all lips, I ought to say, in all hearts; but I have good excuse; I have just come from Germany. My ambassador, who is in Paris on his holiday, sent me here to-night as chaperon to his amiable wife, whom you see in the corner over there." "A truly tragic face," said Emilie, after having scrutinized the ambassadress. 172 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX "And yet she always looks like that at a ball," replied the young man laughing. "I must make her dance! But I wanted some compensation." Mademoiselle de Fontaine bowed. "1 was much astonished," continued the talkative secretary of the Embassy, "at finding my brother here. Upon arriving at Vienna, I heard the poor boy was ill in bed. I had counted upon seeing him before coming to the ball; but politics do not always allow us leisure for family affection. The padrofia del/a casa did not permit me to visit my dear Maximilien. " "Your brother is not, like you, in diplomacy?" said Emilie. "No," sighed the secretary, "the poor boy sacri- ficed himself for me! He and my sister Clara gave up my father's fortune, in order that he might reunite the entail in my person. My father dreams of the peerage like all those who vote for the ministry. He has a promise of being mentioned," he added in a low voice. "After having amassed some capital, my brother then joined a banking establishment; and I know he has just made a speculation in Brazil that may make him a millionaire. You see me greatly delighted at having contributed to his suc- cess by my diplomatic relations. I am even now impatiently awaiting a dispatch from the Brazilian Legation which I hope will cheer him up. How do you think he looks?" "But your brother's face does not strike me as being that of a man who thinks of money." THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 73 With a single glance the young diplomat scruti- nized the outwardly calm face of his partner. "What!" he said smiling, "do young ladies then also divine the thoughts of love through taciturn brows?" "Your brother is in love?" she asked, allowing a gesture of curiosity to escape her. "Yes. My sister Clara, to whom he shows all a mother's care, wrote to me that he became en- amored, this summer, of a most beautiful lady; but since then I have had no news of his love affairs. Would you believe that the poor boy used to get up at five in the morning to go and dispatch his busi- ness so as to be able to be at the country house of the fair one by four o'clock ? So he ruined a charm- ing racer that I had sent him. Forgive me for chattering, mademoiselle; I am only just home from Germany. For a year I have not heard French spoken correctly, I have been deprived of French faces and satiated with Germans, so much so, that in my mad patriotism, I believe I should speak to the ghost of a Parisian lamp-post. Then, if I chatter with more unconstraint than quite be- comes a diplomat, the fault lies with you, made- moiselle. Were you not the one to point out my brother ? When he is mentioned I am inexhaust- ible. I would like to be able to tell the whole world how good and generous he is. It was a ques- tion of nothing less than one hundred thousand francs income brought in by the Longueville estate !" However Mademoiselle de Fontaine obtained these 174 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX important disclosures, it was partly owing to the skill with which she questioned her confiding cav- alier, from the moment she learned that he was the brother of her despised lover. "Did it not distress you to see your brother selling muslin and calico?" asked Emilie after they had gone through the third figure of the quadrille. "How did you know that?" asked the diplomat. "Thank heaven! although streams of words es- cape me, yet I have learned the art of saying only what I intend, like all other diplomatic novices that I know." "You told me, I assure you." Monsieur de Longueville looked at Mademoiselle de Fontaine with an astonishment full of sagacity. A suspicion entered his mind. He alternately ex- amined his brother's eyes and those of his partner, guessed all, clasped his hands together, raised his eyes to the ceiling, began to laugh, and said: "I am an idiot! You are the most beautiful woman at the ball, my brother looks at you stealth- ily, he dances in spite of the fever, and you pre- tend not to see him. Make him happy," he said as he led her back to her old uncle, "I shall not be jealous; but I shall always tremble a little when 1 call you sister — " And yet the two lovers were to be as inexorable one as the other. Towards two in the morning, a collation was served in an immense gallery, where, in order to leave persons of the same circle free to assemble, the tables had been arranged as they are THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 175 at a restaurant By one of those accidents that always happen to lovers, Mademoiselle de Fontaine found herself at a table next to the one at which the most distinguished people were seated. Maxi- milien was one of this group. Emilie, listening attentively to her neighbors' talking, was able to overhear one of those conversations that are readily taken up between young women and young men who have the charm and appearance of Maximilien Longueville. Speaking to the young banker was a Neapolitan duchess, whose eyes flashed, and whose snowy skin had the lustre of satin. The intimacy that young Longueville pretended to share with her, wounded Mademoiselle de Fontaine all the more as she bore her lover twenty times more tenderness than she had formerly yielded him. "Yes, monsieur, in my country, true love knows how to make all kinds of sacrifice," said the duch- ess, simpering. "Then you are more impassioned than French womenare," said Maximilien, whose burning glance fell upon Emilie; "they are all vanity." "Monsieur," answered the young girl quickly, "is it not a shame to slander one's country? De- votion exists in all nations." "Do you believe, mademoiselle," replied the Italian with a sardonic smile, "that a Parisian is capable of following her lover wherever he goes.-"' "Ah! let us understand each other, madame. One goes into the desert to live in a tent, but one does not go to sit in a shop." 176 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX She ended her sentiment with a scornful gesture. Thus twice the fatal influence of her education ruined her dawning happiness, and caused her to miss her vocation. Maximilien's apparent coldness and a woman's smile wrung from her one of those sarcasms whose treacherous gratifications always tempted her. "Mademoiselle," said Longueville in a low voice, under cover of the noise made by the ladies in ris- ing from table, "no one will wish for your welfare more ardently than I shall ; allow me to assure you of this in bidding you good-bye. In two or three days I start for Italy." "With a duchess, no doubt?" "No, mademoiselle, but with a mortal malady perhaps." "Is not that a fancy?" asked Emilie looking at him anxiously. "No," he said, "some wounds never heal." "You will not go!" said the imperious girl smil- ing. "I shall go," gravely replied Maximilien. "You will find me married on your return, I warn you," she said coquettishly. "I hope so." "Impertinent!" she cried, "he avenges himself cruelly enough!" A fortnight after, Maximilien Longueville left with his sister Clara for the warm, poetical regions of beautiful Italy, leaving Mademoiselle de Fon- taine a victim to the fiercest regrets. The young THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 177 secretary of the embassy took up his brother's cud- gels, and brilliantly avenged Emilie's scorn by pub- lishing the reason of the rupture between the two lovers. He repaid his partner with interest for the sarcasms she had formerly flung at Maximilien, and often drew a smile from more than one Excel- lency with his description of the beautiful enemy of the shop, the amazon who preached a crusade against bankers, the young girl whose love had evaporated before half a piece of muslin. The Comte de Fontaine was obliged to exert his influence to procure a mission in Russia for Auguste Longueville, so as to free his daughter from the ridicule which this young and dangerous persecutor liberally poured upon her. Before long, the minis- try, being forced to raise an enlistment of peers to strengthen aristocratic votes that were wavering in the higher Chamber before the voice of a famous writer, nominated Monsieur Guiraiidin de Longue- ville peer of France and viscount Monsieur de Fontaine also obtained a peerage, a reward which was due as much to his fidelity in bad times as to his name, which was disrespectful to the hereditary Chamber. About this time, Emilie, now of age, doubtless made some serious reflections upon life, for her tone and manner perceptibly changed; instead of em- ploying herself making rude remarks to her uncle, she would bring him his crutch with a persevering tenderness that made all the wags laugh; she offered him her arm, rode in his carriage, and 12 178 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX accompanied him in all his walks; she even per- suaded him that she loved the smell of a pipe, and would read him his beloved qtwtidienne in the midst of puffs of tobacco which the old sailor would pur- posely send at her; she learned piquet in order to play with the old count ; finally, this whimsical young woman would listen patiently to periodic accounts of the engagement of La Belle-Potde, the manoeuvers of La J/ille-de-Paris, Monsieur de Suffren's first ex- pedition, or the Battle of Aboukir. Although the old sailor had often declared he knew his longitude and latitude too well ever to be captured by a young corvette, one fine morning all fashionable circles in Paris heard of the marriage of Mademoiselle de Fon- taine and the Comte de Kergarouet. The young countess gave splendid entertainments to divert her mind; but she doubtless found nothing at the bottom of this vortex ; splendor but imperfectly hid the void and misery of her suffering soul ; most of the time, in spite of outbursts of artificial gaiety, her beauti- ful face told of a secret melancholy. Nevertheless, Emilie lavished attentions on her old husband, who would often say, going to his room at night to the joyous strains of an orchestra: "1 don't know myself any longer. Had I to wait until I was seventy-three to embark as pilot on LA Belle-Emilie, after twenty years at the matrimo- nial galleys!" The countess's conduct was marked by such se- verity, that the sharpest critic could have found nothing to fmd fault with. Observers thought that THE DANCE AT SCEAUX 1 79 the vice-admiral liad reserved liis right to dispose of his fortune so as to strengthen his hold upon his wife ; a supposition which was most unjust both to uncle and niece. The attitude of husband and wife was so cleverly managed that young men, inter- ested in discovering the secret of the household, were unable to fmd out whether the old count treated his wife as husband or father. He was often heard to say that he had picked up his niece as a shipwrecked person, and that, in the old days, he had never taken advantage of hospitality when he happened to save an enemy from the fury of a storm. Although the countess aimed at reigning in Paris and tried to be on a par with the Duchesses de Maufrigneuse, de Chaulieu, the Marquises d'Espard and d'Aiglemont, the Comtesses Feraud, de Mont- cornet, de Restaud, Madame de Camps and Made- moiselle des Touches, she would not yield to the love of the young Vicomte de Portenduere, who idolized her. Two years after her marriage, in one of those old-fashioned circles of the Faubourg Saint-Germain where they admired his character as being worthy of olden times, Emilie heard Monsieur le Vicomte de Longueville announced; and, in the corner of the salon where she was playing piquet with the bishop of Persepolis no one could see her agitation; in turning her head, she had seen her old lover entering in all the glory of youth. Through the death of his father and his brother, who was killed by the rigorous climate of St. Petersburg, Maximilien came into 180 THE DANCE AT SCEAUX possession of the hereditary feathers in the peerage cap; his fortune equaled his acquirements and his merit; even the day before, his youthful, burning eloquence had electrified the assembly. At this moment he appeared, to the sorrowful countess, free and adorned with all the advantages she had for- merly desired in her ideal standard. All the mothers with marriageable daughters made coquet- tish advances to a young man endowed with all the virtues they attributed to him while admiring his grace; but Emilie knew, better than anyone else, that the Vicomte de Longueville possessed a firm- ness of character in which a prudent woman fore- sees a pledge of happiness. She looked over at the admiral, who, to use his familiar expression, seemed likely to stand by his ship for a long time to come, and cursed the errors of her childhood. At this moment, Monsieur de Persepolis said to her with episcopal grace : "Fair lady, you have discarded the king of hearts, I have won. But do not regret the loss of your money, I will keep it for my beloved seminaries." Paris, December, 1829. THE PURSE (i8i) TO SOFKA Have you never noticed, mademoiselle, that, in placing two adoring figures beside a beautiful saint, no painter or sculptor of the Middle Ages has ever failed to give them a filial resemblance? When you see your name amongst those that are dear to me and under whose patronage I place my works, remember this touching harmony, and you will find in this less of homage than the expression of brotherly affection vowed to you by Your servant De Balzac. (183) tty.»*««