OTHER RESULTS
The news of Mademoiselle Cormon's choice stabbed poor Athanase Gransonto the heart; but he showed no outward sign of the terrible agitationwithin him. When he first heard of the marriage he was at the house ofthe chief-justice, du Ronceret, where his mother was playing boston.Madame Granson looked at her son in a mirror, and thought him pale;but he had been so all day, for a vague rumor of the matter hadalready reached him.
Mademoiselle Cormon was the card on which Athanase had staked hislife; and the cold presentiment of a catastrophe was already upon him.When the soul and the imagination have magnified a misfortune and madeit too heavy for the shoulders and the brain to bear; when a hope longcherished, the realization of which would pacify the vulture feedingon the heart, is balked, and the man has faith neither in himself,despite his powers, nor in the future, despite of the Divine power,--then that man is lost. Athanase was a fruit of the Imperial systemof education. Fatality, the Emperor's religion, had filtered down fromthe throne to the lowest ranks of the army and the benches of thelyceums. Athanase sat still, with his eyes fixed on Madame duRonceret's cards, in a stupor that might so well pass for indifferencethat Madame Granson herself was deceived about his feelings. Thisapparent unconcern explained her son's refusal to make a sacrifice forthis marriage of his liberal opinions,--the term "liberal" havinglately been created for the Emperor Alexander by, I think, Madame deStael, through the lips of Benjamin Constant.
After that fatal evening the young man took to rambling among thepicturesque regions of the Sarthe, the banks of which are muchfrequented by sketchers who come to Alencon for points of view.Windmills are there, and the river is gay in the meadows. The shoresof the Sarthe are bordered with beautiful trees, well grouped. Thoughthe landscape is flat, it is not without those modest graces whichdistinguish France, where the eye is never wearied by the brilliancyof Oriental skies, nor saddened by constant fog. The place issolitary. In the provinces no one pays much attention to a fine view,either because provincials are blases on the beauty around them, orbecause they have no poesy in their souls. If there exists in theprovinces a mall, a promenade, a vantage-ground from which a fine viewcan be obtained, that is the point to which no one goes. Athanase wasfond of this solitude, enlivened by the sparkling water, where thefields were the first to green under the earliest smiling of thespringtide sun. Those persons who saw him sitting beneath a poplar,and who noticed the vacant eye which he turned to them, would say toMadame Granson:--
"Something is the matter with your son."
"I know what it is," the mother would reply; hinting that he wasmeditating over some great work.
Athanase no longer took part in politics: he ceased to have opinions;but he appeared at times quite gay,--gay with the satire of those whothink to insult a whole world with their own individual scorn. Thisyoung man, outside of all the ideas and all the pleasures of theprovinces, interested few persons; he was not even an object ofcuriosity. If persons spoke of him to his mother, it was for her sake,not his. There was not a single soul in Alencon that sympathized withhis; not a woman, not a friend came near to dry his tears; theydropped into the Sarthe. If the gorgeous Suzanne had happened thatway, how many young miseries might have been born of the meeting! forthe two would surely have loved each other.
She did come, however. Suzanne's ambition was early excited by thetale of a strange adventure which had happened at the tavern of theMore,--a tale which had taken possession of her childish brain. AParisian woman, beautiful as the angels, was sent by Fouche toentangle the Marquis de Montauran, otherwise called "The Gars," in alove-affair (see "The Chouans"). She met him at the tavern of the Moreon his return from an expedition to Mortagne; she cajoled him, madehim love her, and then betrayed him. That fantastic power--the powerof beauty over mankind; in fact, the whole story of Marie de Verneuiland the Gars--dazzled Suzanne; she longed to grow up in order to playupon men. Some months after her hasty departure she passed through hernative town with an artist on his way to Brittany. She wanted to seeFougeres, where the adventure of the Marquis de Montauran culminated,and to stand upon the scene of that picturesque war, the tragedies ofwhich, still so little known, had filled her childish mind. Besidesthis, she had a fancy to pass through Alencon so elegantly equippedthat no one could recognize her; to put her mother above the reach ofnecessity, and also to send to poor Athanase, in a delicate manner, asum of money,--which in our age is to genius what in the middle ageswas the charger and the coat of mail that Rebecca conveyed to Ivanhoe.
One month passed away in the strangest uncertainties respecting themarriage of Mademoiselle Cormon. A party of unbelievers denied themarriage altogether; the believers, on the other hand, affirmed it. Atthe end of two weeks, the faction of unbelief received a vigorous blowin the sale of du Bousquier's house to the Marquis de Troisville, whoonly wanted a simple establishment in Alencon, intending to go toParis after the death of the Princess Scherbellof; he proposed toawait that inheritance in retirement, and then to reconstitute hisestates. This seemed positive. The unbelievers, however, were notcrushed. They declared that du Bousquier, married or not, had made anexcellent sale, for the house had only cost him twenty-seven thousandfrancs. The believers were depressed by this practical observation ofthe incredulous. Choisnel, Mademoiselle Cormon's notary, asserted thelatter, had heard nothing about the marriage contract; but thebelievers, still firm in their faith, carried off, on the twentiethday, a signal victory: Monsieur Lepressoir, the notary of theliberals, went to Mademoiselle Cormon's house, and the contract wassigned.
This was the first of the numerous sacrifices which MademoiselleCormon was destined to make to her husband. Du Bousquier bore thedeepest hatred to Choisnel; to him he owed the refusal of the hand ofMademoiselle Armande,--a refusal which, as he believed, had influencedthat of Mademoiselle Cormon. This circumstance alone made the marriagedrag along. Mademoiselle received several anonymous letters. Shelearned, to her great astonishment, that Suzanne was as truly a virginas herself so far as du Bousquier was concerned, for that seducer withthe false toupet could never be the hero of any such adventure.Mademoiselle Cormon disdained anonymous letters; but she wrote toSuzanne herself, on the ground of enlightening the Maternity Society.Suzanne, who had no doubt heard of du Bousquier's proposed marriage,acknowledged her trick, sent a thousand francs to the society, and didall the harm she could to the old purveyor. Mademoiselle Cormonconvoked the Maternity Society, which held a special meeting at whichit was voted that the association would not in future assist anymisfortunes about to happen, but solely those that had happened.
In spite of all these various events which kept the town in thechoicest gossip, the banns were published in the churches and at themayor's office. Athanase prepared the deeds. As a matter of proprietyand public decency, the bride retired to Prebaudet, where duBousquier, bearing sumptuous and horrible bouquets, betook himselfevery morning, returning home for dinner.
At last, on a dull and rainy morning in June, the marriage ofMademoiselle Cormon and the Sieur du Bousquier took place at noon inthe parish church of Alencon, in sight of the whole town. The bridalpair went from their own house to the mayor's office, and from themayor's office to the church in an open caleche, a magnificent vehiclefor Alencon, which du Bousquier had sent for secretly to Paris. Theloss of the old carriole was a species of calamity in the eyes of thecommunity. The harness-maker of the Porte de Seez bemoaned it, for helost the fifty francs a year which it cost in repairs. Alencon sawwith alarm the possibility of luxury being thus introduced into thetown. Every one feared a rise in the price of rents and provisions,and a coming invasion of Parisian furniture. Some persons weresufficiently pricked by curiosity to give ten sous to Jacquelin toallow them a close inspection of the vehicle which threatened to upsetthe whole economy of the region. A pair of horses, bought inNormandie, were also most alarming.
"If we bought our own horses," said the Ronceret circle, "we couldn'tsell them to those who come to buy."
Stupid as it was, this reasoning seemed sound; for surely such acourse would prevent the region from grasping the money of foreigners.In the eyes of the provinces wealth consisted less in the rapidturning over of money than in sterile accumulation. It may bementioned here that Penelope succumbed to a pleurisy which sheacquired about six weeks before the marriage; nothing could save her.
Madame Granson, Mariette, Madame du Coudrai, Madame du Ronceret, andthrough them the whole town, remarked that Madame du Bousquier enteredthe church with her left foot,--an omen all the more dreadful becausethe term Left was beginning to acquire a political meaning. The priestwhose duty it was to read the opening formula opened his book bychance at the De Profundis. Thus the marriage was accompanied bycircumstances so fateful, so alarming, so annihilating that no onedared to augur well of it. Matters, in fact, went from bad to worse.There was no wedding party; the married pair departed immediately forPrebaudet. Parisian customs, said the community, were about to triumphover time-honored provincial ways.
The marriage of Jacquelin and Josette now took place: it was gay; andthey were the only two persons in Alencon who refuted the sinisterprophecies relating to the marriage of their mistress.
Du Bousquier determined to use the proceeds of the sale of his lateresidence in restoring and modernizing the hotel Cormon. He decided toremain through two seasons at Prebaudet, and took the Abbe de Spondewith them. This news spread terror through the town, where everyindividual felt that du Bousquier was about to drag the community intothe fatal path of "comfort." This fear increased when the inhabitantsof Alencon saw the bridegroom driving in from Prebaudet one morning toinspect his works, in a fine tilbury drawn by a new horse, having Reneat his side in livery. The first act of his administration had been toplace his wife's savings on the Grand-Livre, which was then quoted at67 fr. 50 cent. In the space of one year, during which he playedconstantly for a rise, he made himself a personal fortune almost asconsiderable as that of his wife.
But all these foreboding prophecies, these perturbing innovations,were superseded and surpassed by an event connected with this marriagewhich gave a still more fatal aspect to it.
On the very evening of the ceremony, Athanase and his mother weresitting, after their dinner, over a little fire of fagots, which theservant lighted usually at dessert.
"Well, we will go this evening to the du Roncerets', inasmuch as wehave lost Mademoiselle Cormon," said Madame Granson. "Heavens! howshall I ever accustom myself to call her Madame du Bousquier! thatname burns my lips."
Athanase looked at his mother with a constrained and melancholy air;he could not smile; but he seemed to wish to welcome that naivesentiment which soothed his wound, though it could not cure hisanguish.
"Mamma," he said, in the voice of his childhood, so tender was it, andusing the name he had abandoned for several years,--"my dear mamma, donot let us go out just yet; it is so pleasant here before the fire."
The mother heard, without comprehending, that supreme prayer of amortal sorrow.
"Yes, let us stay, my child," she said. "I like much better to talkwith you and listen to your projects than to play at boston and losemy money."
"You are so handsome to-night I love to look at you. Besides, I am ina current of ideas which harmonize with this poor little salon wherewe have suffered so much."
"And where we shall still suffer, my poor Athanase, until your workssucceed. For myself, I am trained to poverty; but you, my treasure! tosee your youth go by without a joy! nothing but toil for my poor boyin life! That thought is like an illness to a mother; it tortures meat night; it wakes me in the morning. O God! what have I done? forwhat crime dost thou punish me thus?"
She left her sofa, took a little chair, and sat close to Athanase, soas to lay her head on the bosom of her child. There is always thegrace of love in true motherhood. Athanase kissed her on the eyes, onher gray hair, on her forehead, with the sacred desire of laying hissoul wherever he applied his lips.
"I shall never succeed," he said, trying to deceive his mother as tothe fatal resolution he was revolving in his mind.
"Pooh! don't get discouraged. As you often say, thought can do allthings. With ten bottles of ink, ten reams of paper, and his powerfulwill, Luther upset all Europe. Well, you'll make yourself famous; youwill do good things by the same means which he used to do evil things.Haven't you said so yourself? For my part, I listen to you; Iunderstand you a great deal more than you think I do,--for I stillbear you in my bosom, and your every thought still stirs me as yourslightest motion did in other days."
"I shall never succeed here, mamma; and I don't want you to witnessthe sight of my struggles, my misery, my anguish. Oh, mother, let meleave Alencon! I want to suffer away from you."
"And I wish to be at your side," replied his mother, proudly. "Sufferwithout your mother!--that poor mother who would be your servant ifnecessary; who will efface herself rather than injure you; yourmother, who will never shame you. No, no, Athanase; we must not part."
Athanase clung to his mother with the ardor of a dying man who clingsto life.
"But I wish it, nevertheless. If not, you will lose me; this doublegrief, yours and mine, is killing me. You would rather I lived thandied?"
Madame Granson looked at her son with a haggard eye.
"So this is what you have been brooding?" she said. "They told meright. Do you really mean to go?"
"Yes."
"You will not go without telling me; without warning me? You must havean outfit and money. I have some louis sewn into my petticoat; I shallgive them to you."
Athanase wept.
"That's all I wanted to tell you," he said. "Now I'll take you to thedu Roncerets'. Come."
The mother and the son went out. Athanase left his mother at the doorof the house where she intended to pass the evening. He looked long atthe light which came through the shutters; he clung closely to thewall, and a frenzied joy came over him when he presently heard hismother say, "He has great independence of heart."
"Poor mother! I have deceived her," he cried, as he made his way tothe Sarthe.
He reached the noble poplar beneath which he had meditated so much forthe last forty days, and where he had placed two heavy stones on whichhe now sat down. He contemplated that beautiful nature lighted by themoon; he reviewed once more the glorious future he had longed for; hepassed through towns that were stirred by his name; he heard theapplauding crowds; he breathed the incense of his fame; he adored thatlife long dreamed of; radiant, he sprang to radiant triumphs; heraised his stature; he evoked his illusions to bid them farewell in alast Olympic feast. The magic had been potent for a moment; but now itvanished forever. In that awful hour he clung to the beautiful tree towhich, as to a friend, he had attached himself; then he put the twostones into the pockets of his overcoat, which he buttoned across hisbreast. He had come intentionally without a hat. He now went to thedeep pool he had long selected, and glided into it resolutely, tryingto make as little noise as possible, and, in fact, making scarcelyany.
When, at half-past nine o'clock, Madame Granson returned home, herservant said nothing of Athanase, but gave her a letter. She opened itand read these few words,--
"My good mother, I have departed; don't be angry with me."
"A pretty trick he has played me!" she thought. "And his linen! andthe money! Well, he will write to me, and then I'll follow him. Thesepoor children think they are so much cleverer than their fathers andmothers."
And she went to bed in peace.
During the preceding morning the Sarthe had risen to a height foreseenby the fisherman. These sudden rises of muddy water brought eels fromtheir various runlets. It so happened that a fisherman had spread hisnet at the very place where poor Athanase had flung himself, believingthat no one would ever find him. About six o'clock in the morning theman drew in his net, and with it the young body. The few friends ofthe poor mother took every precaution in preparing her to receive thedreadful remains. The news of this suicide made, as may well besupposed, a great excitement in Alencon. The poor young man of geniushad no protector the night before, but on the morrow of his death athousand voices cried aloud, "I would have helped him." It is so easyand convenient to be charitable gratis!
The suicide was explained by the Chevalier de Valois. He revealed, ina spirit of revenge, the artless, sincere, and genuine love ofAthanase for Mademoiselle Cormon. Madame Granson, enlightened by thechevalier, remembered a thousand little circumstances which confirmedthe chevalier's statement. The story then became touching, and manywomen wept over it. Madame Granson's grief was silent, concentrated,and little understood. There are two forms of mourning for mothers.Often the world can enter fully into the nature of their loss: theirson, admired, appreciated, young, perhaps handsome, with a noble pathbefore him, leading to fortune, possibly to fame, excites universalregret; society joins in the grief, and alleviates while it magnifiesit. But there is another sorrow of mothers who alone know what theirchild was really; who alone have received his smiles and observed thetreasures of a life too soon cut short. That sorrow hides its woe, theblackness of which surpasses all other mourning; it cannot bedescribed; happily there are but few women whose heart-strings arethus severed.
Before Madame du Bousquier returned to town, Madame du Ronceret, oneof her good friends, had driven out to Prebaudet to fling this corpseupon the roses of her joy, to show her the love she had ignored, andsweetly shed a thousand drops of wormwood into the honey of her bridalmonth. As Madame du Bousquier drove back to Alencon, she chanced tomeet Madame Granson at the corner of the rue Val-Noble. The glance ofthe mother, dying of her grief, struck to the heart of the poor woman.A thousand maledictions, a thousand flaming reproaches, were in thatlook: Madame du Bousquier was horror-struck; that glance predicted andcalled down evil upon her head.
The evening after the catastrophe, Madame Granson, one of the personsmost opposed to the rector of the town, and who had hitherto supportedthe minister of Saint-Leonard, began to tremble as she thought of theinflexible Catholic doctrines professed by her own party. Afterplacing her son's body in its shroud with her own hands, thinking ofthe mother of the Saviour, she went, with a soul convulsed by anguish,to the house of the hated rector. There she found the modest priest inan outer room, engaged in putting away the flax and yarns with whichhe supplied poor women, in order that they might never be wholly outof work,--a form of charity which saved many who were incapable ofbegging from actual penury. The rector left his yarns and hastened totake Madame Granson into his dining-room, where the wretched mothernoticed, as she looked at his supper, the frugal method of his ownliving.
"Monsieur l'abbe," she said, "I have come to implore you--" She burstinto tears, unable to continue.
"I know what brings you," replied the saintly man. "I must trust toyou, madame, and to your relation, Madame du Bousquier, to pacifyMonseigneur the Bishop at Seez. Yes, I will pray for your unhappychild; yes, I will say the masses. But we must avoid all scandal, andgive no opportunity for evil-judging persons to assemble in thechurch. I alone, without other clergy, at night--"
"Yes, yes, as you think best; if only he may lie in consecratedground," said the poor mother, taking the priest's hand and kissingit.
Toward midnight a coffin was clandestinely borne to the parish churchby four young men, comrades whom Athanase had liked the best. A fewfriends of Madame Granson, women dressed in black, and veiled, werepresent; and half a dozen other young men who had been somewhatintimate with this lost genius. Four torches flickered on the coffin,which was covered with crape. The rector, assisted by one discreetchoirboy, said the mortuary mass. Then the body of the suicide wasnoiselessly carried to a corner of the cemetery, where a black woodencross, without inscription, was all that indicated its place hereafterto the mother. Athanase lived and died in shadow. No voice was raisedto blame the rector; the bishop kept silence. The piety of the motherredeemed the impiety of the son's last act.
Some months later, the poor woman, half beside herself with grief, andmoved by one of those inexplicable thirsts which misery feels to steepits lips in the bitter chalice, determined to see the spot where herson was drowned. Her instinct may have told her that thoughts of hiscould be recovered beneath that poplar; perhaps, too, she desired tosee what his eyes had seen for the last time. Some mothers would dieof the sight; others give themselves up to it in saintly adoration.Patient anatomists of human nature cannot too often enunciate thetruths before which all educations, laws, and philosophical systemsmust give way. Let us repeat continually: it is absurd to forcesentiments into one formula: appearing as they do, in each individualman, they combine with the elements that form his nature and take hisown physiognomy.
Madame Granson, as she stood on that fatal spot, saw a woman approachit, who exclaimed,--
"Was it here?"
That woman wept as the mother wept. It was Suzanne. Arriving thatmorning at the hotel du More, she had been told of the catastrophe. Ifpoor Athanase had been living, she meant to do as many noble souls,who are moneyless, dream of doing, and as the rich never think ofdoing,--she meant to have sent him several thousand francs, writing upthe envelope the words: "Money due to your father from a comrade whomakes restitution to you." This tender scheme had been arranged bySuzanne during her journey.
The courtesan caught sight of Madame Granson and moved rapidly away,whispering as she passed her, "I loved him!"
Suzanne, faithful to her nature, did not leave Alencon on thisoccasion without changing the orange-blossoms of the bride to rue. Shewas the first to declare that Madame du Bousquier would never beanything but Mademoiselle Cormon. With one stab of her tongue sherevenged poor Athanase and her dear chevalier.
Alencon now witnessed a suicide that was slower and quite differentlypitiful from that of poor Athanase, who was quickly forgotten bysociety, which always makes haste to forget its dead. The poorChevalier de Valois died in life; his suicide was a daily occurrencefor fourteen years. Three months after the du Bousquier marriagesociety remarked, not without astonishment, that the linen of thechevalier was frayed and rusty, that his hair was irregularly combedand brushed. With a frowsy head the Chevalier de Valois could nolonger be said to exist! A few of his ivory teeth deserted, though thekeenest observers of human life were unable to discover to what bodythey had hitherto belonged, whether to a foreign legion or whetherthey were indigenous, vegetable or animal; whether age had pulled themfrom the chevalier's mouth, or whether they were left forgotten in thedrawer of his dressing-table. The cravat was crooked, indifferent toelegance. The negroes' heads grew pale with dust and grease. Thewrinkles of the face were blackened and puckered; the skin becameparchment. The nails, neglected, were often seen, alas! with a blackvelvet edging. The waistcoat was tracked and stained with droppingswhich spread upon its surface like autumn leaves. The cotton in theears was seldom changed. Sadness reigned upon that brow, and slippedits yellowing tints into the depths of each furrow. In short, theruins, hitherto so cleverly hidden, now showed through the cracks andcrevices of that fine edifice, and proved the power of the soul overthe body; for the fair and dainty man, the cavalier, the young blood,died when hope deserted him. Until then the nose of the chevalier wasever delicate and nice; never had a damp black blotch, nor an amberdrop fall from it; but now that nose, smeared with tobacco around thenostrils, degraded by the driblets which took advantage of the naturalgutter placed between itself and the upper lip,--that nose, which nolonger cared to seem agreeable, revealed the infinite pains which thechevalier had formerly taken with his person, and made observerscomprehend, by the extent of its degradation, the greatness andpersistence of the man's designs upon Mademoiselle Cormon.
Alas, too, the anecdotes went the way of the teeth; the clever sayingsgrew rare. The appetite, however, remained; the old nobleman savednothing but his stomach from the wreck of his hopes; though helanguidly prepared his pinches of snuff, he ate alarming dinners.Perhaps you will more fully understand the disaster that this marriagewas to the mind and heart of the chevalier when you learn that hisintercourse with the Princess Goritza became less frequent.
One day he appeared in Mademoiselle Armande's salon with the calf ofhis leg on the shin-bone. This bankruptcy of the graces was, I doassure you, terrible, and struck all Alencon with horror. The lateyoung man had become an old one; this human being, who, by thebreaking-down of his spirit, had passed at once from fifty to ninetyyears of age, frightened society. Besides, his secret was betrayed; hehad waited and watched for Mademoiselle Cormon; he had, like a patienthunter, adjusted his aim for ten whole years, and finally had missedthe game! In short, the impotent Republic had won the day from ValiantChivalry, and that, too, under the Restoration! Form triumphed; mindwas vanquished by matter, diplomacy by insurrection. And, O finalblow! a mortified grisette revealed the secret of the chevalier'smornings, and he now passed for a libertine. The liberals cast at hisdoor all the foundlings hitherto attributed to du Bousquier. But thefaubourg Saint-Germain of Alencon accepted them proudly: it even said,"That poor chevalier, what else could he do?" The faubourg pitied him,gathered him closer to their circle, and brought back a few raresmiles to his face; but frightful enmity was piled upon the head of duBousquier. Eleven persons deserted the Cormon salon, and passed tothat of the d'Esgrignons.
The old maid's marriage had a signal effect in defining the twoparties in Alencon. The salon d'Esgrignon represented the upperaristocracy (the returning Troisvilles attached themselves to it); theCormon salon represented, under the clever influence of du Bousquier,that fatal class of opinions which, without being truly liberal orresolutely royalist, gave birth to the 221 on that famous day when thestruggle openly began between the most august, grandest, and only truepower, royalty, and the most false, most changeful, most oppressive ofall powers,--the power called parliamentary, which elective assembliesexercise. The salon du Ronceret, secretly allied to the Cormon salon,was boldly liberal.
The Abbe de Sponde, after his return from Prebaudet, bore many andcontinual sufferings, which he kept within his breast, saying no wordof them to his niece. But to Mademoiselle Armande he opened his heart,admitting that, folly for folly, he would much have preferred theChevalier de Valois to Monsieur du Bousquier. Never would the dearchevalier have had the bad taste to contradict and oppose a poor oldman who had but a few days more to live; du Bousquier had destroyedeverything in the good old home. The abbe said, with scanty tearsmoistening his aged eyes,--
"Mademoiselle, I haven't even the little grove where I have walked forfifty years. My beloved lindens are all cut down! At the moment of mydeath the Republic appears to me more than ever under the form of ahorrible destruction of the Home."
"You must pardon your niece," said the Chevalier de Valois."Republican ideas are the first error of youth which seeks forliberty; later it finds it the worst of despotisms,--that of animpotent canaille. Your poor niece is punished where she sinned."
"What will become of me in a house where naked women are painted onthe walls?" said the poor abbe. "Where shall I find other lindensbeneath which to read my breviary?"
Like Kant, who was unable to collect his thoughts after the fir-treeat which he was accustomed to gaze while meditating was cut down, sothe poor abbe could never attain the ardor of his former prayers whilewalking up and down the shadeless paths. Du Bousquier had planted anEnglish garden.
"It was best," said Madame du Bousquier, without thinking so; but theAbbe Couterier had authorized her to commit many wrongs to please herhusband.
These restorations destroyed all the venerable dignity, cordiality,and patriarchal air of the old house. Like the Chevalier de Valois,whose personal neglect might be called an abdication, the bourgeoisdignity of the Cormon salon no longer existed when it was turned towhite and gold, with mahogany ottomans covered in blue satin. Thedining-room, adorned in modern taste, was colder in tone than it usedto be, and the dinners were eaten with less appetite than formerly.Monsieur du Coudrai declared that he felt his puns stick in his throatas he glanced at the figures painted on the walls, which looked himout of countenance. Externally, the house was still provincial; butinternally everything revealed the purveyor of the Directory and thebad taste of the money-changer,--for instance, columns in stucco,glass doors, Greek mouldings, meaningless outlines, all stylesconglomerated, magnificence out of place and out of season.
The town of Alencon gabbled for two weeks over this luxury, whichseemed unparalleled; but a few months later the community was proud ofit, and several rich manufacturers restored their houses and set upfine salons. Modern furniture came into the town, and astral lampswere seen!
The Abbe de Sponde was among the first to perceive the secretunhappiness this marriage now brought to the private life of hisbeloved niece. The character of noble simplicity which had hithertoruled their lives was lost during the first winter, when du Bousquiergave two balls every month. Oh, to hear violins and profane music atthese worldly entertainments in the sacred old house! The abbe prayedon his knees while the revels lasted. Next the political system of thesober salon was slowly perverted. The abbe fathomed du Bousquier; heshuddered at his imperious tone; he saw the tears in his niece's eyeswhen she felt herself losing all control over her own property; forher husband now left nothing in her hands but the management of thelinen, the table, and things of a kind which are the lot of women.Rose had no longer any orders to give. Monsieur's will was aloneregarded by Jacquelin, now become coachman, by Rene, the groom, and bythe chef, who came from Paris, Mariette being reduced to kitchen maid.Madame du Bousquier had no one to rule but Josette. Who knows what itcosts to relinquish the delights of power? If the triumph of the willis one of the intoxicating pleasures in the lives of great men, it isthe ALL of life to narrow minds. One must needs have been a ministerdismissed from power to comprehend the bitter pain which came uponMadame du Bousquier when she found herself reduced to this absoluteservitude. She often got into the carriage against her will; she sawherself surrounded by servants who were distasteful to her; she nolonger had the handling of her dear money,--she who had known herselffree to spend money, and did not spend it.
All imposed limits make the human being desire to go beyond them. Thekeenest sufferings come from the thwarting of self-will. The beginningof this state of things was, however, rose-colored. Every concessionmade to marital authority was an effect of the love which the poorwoman felt for her husband. Du Bousquier behaved, in the firstinstance, admirably to his wife: he was wise; he was excellent; hegave her the best of reasons for each new encroachment. So for thefirst two years of her marriage Madame du Bousquier appeared to besatisfied. She had that deliberate, demure little air whichdistinguishes young women who have married for love. The rush of bloodto her head no longer tormented her. This appearance of satisfactionrouted the scoffers, contradicted certain rumors about du Bousquier,and puzzled all observers of the human heart. Rose-Marie-Victoire wasso afraid that if she displeased her husband or opposed him, she wouldlose his affection and be deprived of his company, that she wouldwillingly have sacrificed all to him, even her uncle. Her silly littleforms of pleasure deceived even the poor abbe for a time, who enduredhis own trials all the better for thinking that his niece was happy,after all.
Alencon at first thought the same. But there was one man moredifficult to deceive than the whole town put together. The Chevalierde Valois, who had taken refuge on the Sacred Mount of the upperaristocracy, now passed his life at the d'Esgrignons. He listened tothe gossip and the gabble, and he thought day and night upon hisvengeance. He meant to strike du Bousquier to the heart.
The poor abbe fully understood the baseness of this first and lastlove of his niece; he shuddered as, little by little, he perceived thehypocritical nature of his nephew and his treacherous manoeuvres.Though du Bousquier restrained himself, as he thought of the abbe'sproperty, and wished not to cause him vexation, it was his hand thatdealt the blow that sent the old priest to his grave. If you willinterpret the word intolerance as firmness of principle, if you donot wish to condemn in the catholic soul of the Abbe de Sponde thestoicism which Walter Scott has made you admire in the puritan soul ofJeanie Deans' father; if you are willing to recognize in the RomanChurch the Potius mori quam foedari that you admire in republicantenets,--you will understand the sorrow of the Abbe de Sponde when hesaw in his niece's salon the apostate priest, the renegade, thepervert, the heretic, that enemy of the Church, the guilty taker ofthe Constitutional oath. Du Bousquier, whose secret ambition was tolay down the law to the town, wished, as a first proof of his power,to reconcile the minister of Saint-Leonard with the rector of theparish, and he succeeded. His wife thought he had accomplished a workof peace where the immovable abbe saw only treachery. The bishop cameto visit du Bousquier, and seemed glad of the cessation ofhostilities. The virtues of the Abbe Francois had conquered prejudice,except that of the aged Roman Catholic, who exclaimed with Cornelle,"Alas! what virtues do you make me hate!"
The abbe died when orthodoxy thus expired in the diocese.
In 1819, the property of the Abbe de Sponde increased Madame duBousquier's income from real estate to twenty-five thousand francswithout counting Prebaudet or the house in the Val-Noble. About thistime du Bousquier returned to his wife the capital of her savingswhich she had yielded to him; and he made her use it in purchasinglands contiguous to Prebaudet, which made that domain one of the mostconsiderable in the department, for the estates of the Abbe de Spondealso adjoined it. Du Bousquier thus passed for one of the richest menof the department. This able man, the constant candidate of theliberals, missing by seven or eight votes only in all the electoralbattles fought under the Restoration, and who ostensibly repudiatedthe liberals by trying to be elected as a ministerial royalist(without ever being able to conquer the aversion of theadministration),--this rancorous republican, mad with ambition,resolved to rival the royalism and aristocracy of Alencon at themoment when they once more had the upper hand. He strengthened himselfwith the Church by the deceitful appearance of a well-feigned piety:he accompanied his wife to mass; he gave money for the convents of thetown; he assisted the congregation of the Sacre-Coeur; he took sideswith the clergy on all occasions when the clergy came into collisionwith the town, the department, or the State. Secretly supported by theliberals, protected by the Church, calling himself a constitutionalroyalist, he kept beside the aristocracy of the department in the onehope of ruining it,--and he did ruin it. Ever on the watch for thefaults and blunders of the nobility and the government, he laid plansfor his vengeance against the "chateau-people," and especially againstthe d'Esgrignons, in whose bosom he was one day to thrust a poisoneddagger.
Among other benefits to the town he gave money liberally to revive themanufacture of point d'Alencon; he renewed the trade in linens, andthe town had a factory. Inscribing himself thus upon the interests andheart of the masses, by doing what the royalists did not do, duBousquier did not really risk a farthing. Backed by his fortune, hecould afford to wait results which enterprising persons who involvethemselves are forced to abandon to luckier successors.
Du Bousquier now posed as a banker. This miniature Lafitte was apartner in all new enterprises, taking good security. He servedhimself while apparently serving the interests of the community. Hewas the prime mover of insurance companies, the protector of newenterprises for public conveyance; he suggested petitions for askingthe administration for the necessary roads and bridges. Thus warned,the government considered this action an encroachment of its ownauthority. A struggle was begun injudiciously, for the good of thecommunity compelled the authorities to yield in the end. Du Bousquierembittered the provincial nobility against the court nobility and thepeerage; and finally he brought about the shocking adhesion of astrong party of constitutional royalists to the warfare sustained bythe "Journal des Debats," and M. de Chateaubriand against the throne,--an ungrateful opposition based on ignoble interests, which was onecause of the triumph of the bourgeoisie and journalism in 1830.
Thus du Bousquier, in common with the class he represented, had thesatisfaction of beholding the funeral of royalty. The old republican,smothered with masses, who for fifteen years had played that comedy tosatisfy his vendetta, himself threw down with his own hand the whiteflag of the mayoralty to the applause of the multitude. No man inFrance cast upon the new throne raised in August, 1830, a glance ofmore intoxicated, joyous vengeance. The accession of the YoungerBranch was the triumph of the Revolution. To him the victory of thetricolor meant the resurrection of Montagne, which this time shouldsurely bring the nobility down to the dust by means more certain thanthat of the guillotine, because less violent. The peerage withoutheredity; the National Guard, which puts on the same camp-bed thecorner grocer and the marquis; the abolition of the entails demandedby a bourgeois lawyer; the Catholic Church deprived of its supremacy;and all the other legislative inventions of August, 1830,--were to duBousquier the wisest possible application of the principles of 1793.
Since 1830 this man has been a receiver-general. He relied for hisadvancement on his relations with the Duc d'Orleans, father of LouisPhilippe, and with Monsieur de Folmon, formerly steward to theDuchess-dowager of Orleans. He receives about eighty thousand francs ayear. In the eyes of the people about him Monsieur du Bousquier is aman of means,--a respectable man, steady in his principles, upright,and obliging. Alencon owes to him its connection with the industrialmovement by which Brittany may possibly some day be joined to what ispopularly called modern civilization. Alencon, which up to 1816 couldboast of only two private carriages, saw, without amazement, in thecourse of ten years, coupes, landaus, tilburies, and cabrioletsrolling through her streets. The burghers and the land-owners, alarmedat first lest the price of everything should increase, recognizedlater that this increase in the style of living had a contrary effectupon their revenues. The prophetic remark of du Ronceret, "DuBousquier is a very strong man," was adopted by the wholecountry-side.
But, unhappily for the wife, that saying has a double meaning. Thehusband does not in any way resemble the public politician. This greatcitizen, so liberal to the world about him, so kindly inspired withlove for his native place, is a despot in his own house, and utterlydevoid of conjugal affection. This man, so profoundly astute,hypocritical, and sly; this Cromwell of the Val-Noble,--behaves in hishome as he behaves to the aristocracy, whom he caresses in hopes tothrottle them. Like his friend Bernadotte, he wears a velvet gloveupon his iron hand. His wife has given him no children. Suzanne'sremark and the chevalier's insinuations were therefore justified. Butthe liberal bourgeoisie, the constitutional-royalist-bourgeoisie, thecountry-squires, the magistracy, and the "church party" laid the blameon Madame du Bousquier. "She was too old," they said; "Monsieur duBousquier had married her too late. Besides, it was very lucky for thepoor woman; it was dangerous at her age to bear children!" When Madamedu Bousquier confided, weeping, her periodic despair to Mesdames duCoudrai and du Ronceret, those ladies would reply,--
"But you are crazy, my dear; you don't know what you are wishing for;a child would be your death."
Many men, whose hopes were fastened on du Bousquier's triumph, sanghis praises to their wives, who in turn repeated them to the poor wifein some such speech as this:--
"You are very lucky, dear, to have married such an able man; you'llescape the misery of women whose husbands are men without energy,incapable of managing their property, or bringing up their children."
"Your husband is making you queen of the department, my love. He'llnever leave you embarrassed, not he! Why, he leads all Alencon."
"But I wish," said the poor wife, "that he gave less time to thepublic and--"
"You are hard to please, my dear Madame du Bousquier. I assure youthat all the women in town envy you your husband."
Misjudged by society, which began by blaming her, the pious womanfound ample opportunity in her home to display her virtues. She livedin tears, but she never ceased to present to others a placid face. Toso Christian a soul a certain thought which pecked forever at herheart was a crime: "I loved the Chevalier de Valois," it said; "but Ihave married du Bousquier." The love of poor Athanase Granson alsorose like a phantom of remorse, and pursued her even in her dreams.The death of her uncle, whose griefs at the last burst forth, made herlife still more sorrowful; for she now felt the suffering her unclemust have endured in witnessing the change of political and religiousopinion in the old house. Sorrow often falls like a thunderbolt, as itdid on Madame Granson; but in this old maid it slowly spread like adrop of oil, which never leaves the stuff that slowly imbibes it.
The Chevalier de Valois was the malicious manipulator who broughtabout the crowning misfortune of Madame du Bousquier's life. His heartwas set on undeceiving her pious simplicity; for the chevalier, expertin love, divined du Bousquier, the married man, as he had divined duBousquier, the bachelor. But the wary republican was difficult ofattack. His salon was, of course, closed to the Chevalier de Valois,as to all those who, in the early days of his marriage, had slightedthe Cormon mansion. He was, moreover, impervious to ridicule; hepossessed a vast fortune; he reigned in Alencon; he cared as littlefor his wife as Richard III. cared for the dead horse which had helpedhim win a battle. To please her husband, Madame du Bousquier hadbroken off relations with the d'Esgrignon household, where she went nolonger, except that sometimes when her husband left her during histrips to Paris, she would pay a brief visit to Mademoiselle Armande.
About three years after her marriage, at the time of the Abbe deSponde's death, Mademoiselle Armande joined Madame du Bousquier asthey were leaving Saint-Leonard's, where they had gone to hear arequiem said for him. The generous demoiselle thought that on thisoccasion she owed her sympathy to the niece in trouble. They walkedtogether, talking of the dear deceased, until they reached theforbidden house, into which Mademoiselle Armande enticed Madame duBousquier by the charm of her manner and conversation. The poordesolate woman was glad to talk of her uncle with one whom he trulyloved. Moreover, she wanted to receive the condolences of the oldmarquis, whom she had not seen for nearly three years. It washalf-past one o'clock, and she found at the hotel d'Esgrignon theChevalier de Valois, who had come to dinner. As he bowed to her, hetook her by the hands.
"Well, dear, virtuous, and beloved lady," he said, in a tone ofemotion, "we have lost our sainted friend; we share your grief. Yes,your loss is as keenly felt here as in your own home,--more so," headded, alluding to du Bousquier.
After a few more words of funeral oration, in which all present spokefrom the heart, the chevalier took Madame du Bousquier's arm, and,gallantly placing it within his own, pressed it adoringly as he ledher to the recess of a window.
"Are you happy?" he said in a fatherly voice.
"Yes," she said, dropping her eyes.
Hearing that "Yes," Madame de Troisville, the daughter of the PrincessScherbellof, and the old Marquise de Casteran came up and joined thechevalier, together with Mademoiselle Armande. They all went to walkin the garden until dinner was served, without any perception on thepart of Madame du Bousquier that a little conspiracy was afoot. "Wehave her! now let us find out the secret of the case," were the wordswritten in the eyes of all present.
"To make your happiness complete," said Mademoiselle Armande, "youought to have children,--a fine lad like my nephew--"
Tears seemed to start in Madame du Bousquier's eyes.
"I have heard it said that you were the one to blame in the matter,and that you feared the dangers of a pregnancy," said the chevalier.
"I!" she said artlessly. "I would buy a child with a hundred years ofpurgatory if I could."
On the question thus started a discussion arose, conducted by Madamede Troisville and the old Marquise de Casteran with such delicacy andadroitness that the poor victim revealed, without being aware of it,the secrets of her house. Mademoiselle Armande had taken thechevalier's arm, and walked away so as to leave the three women freeto discuss wedlock. Madame du Bousquier was then enlightened on thevarious deceptions of her marriage; and as she was still the samesimpleton she had always been, she amused her advisers by delightfulnaivetes.
Although at first the deceptive marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon made alaugh throughout the town, which was soon initiated into the story ofthe case, before long Madame du Bousquier won the esteem and sympathyof all the women. The fact that Mademoiselle Cormon had flung herselfheadlong into marriage without succeeding in being married, madeeverybody laugh at her; but when they learned the exceptional positionin which the sternness of her religious principles placed her, all theworld admired her. "That poor Madame du Bousquier" took the place of"That good Mademoiselle Cormon."
Thus the chevalier contrived to render du Bousquier both ridiculousand odious for a time; but ridicule ends by weakening; when all hadsaid their say about him, the gossip died out. Besides, at fifty-sevenyears of age the dumb republican seemed to many people to have a rightto retire. This affair, however, envenomed the hatred which duBousquier already bore to the house of Esgrignon to such a degree thatit made him pitiless when the day of vengeance came. [See "The Galleryof Antiquities."] Madame du Bousquier received orders never again toset foot into that house. By way of reprisals upon the chevalier forthe trick thus played him, du Bousquier, who had just created thejournal called the "Courrier de l'Orne," caused the following noticeto be inserted in it:--
"Bonds to the amount of one thousand francs a year will be paid to any person who can prove the existence of one Monsieur de Pombreton before, during, or after the Emigration."
Although her marriage was essentially negative, Madame du Bousquiersaw some advantages in it: was it not better to interest herself inthe most remarkable man in the town than to live alone? Du Bousquierwas preferable to a dog, or cat, or those canaries that spinsterslove. He showed for his wife a sentiment more real and less selfishthan that which is felt by servants, confessors, and hopeful heirs.Later in life she came to consider her husband as the instrument ofdivine wrath; for she then saw innumerable sins in her former desiresfor marriage; she regarded herself as justly punished for the sorrowshe had brought on Madame Granson, and for the hastened death of heruncle. Obedient to that religion which commands us to kiss the rodwith which the punishment is inflicted, she praised her husband, andpublicly approved him. But in the confessional, or at night, whenpraying, she wept often, imploring God's forgiveness for the apostasyof the man who thought the contrary of what he professed, and whodesired the destruction of the aristocracy and the Church,--the tworeligions of the house of Cormon.
With all her feelings bruised and immolated within her, compelled byduty to make her husband happy, attached to him by a certainindefinable affection, born, perhaps, of habit, her life became oneperpetual contradiction. She had married a man whose conduct andopinions she hated, but whom she was bound to care for with dutifultenderness. Often she walked with the angels when du Bousquier ate herpreserves or thought the dinner good. She watched to see that hisslightest wish was satisfied. If he tore off the cover of hisnewspaper and left it on a table, instead of throwing it away, shewould say:--
"Rene, leave that where it is; monsieur did not place it there withoutintention."
If du Bousquier had a journey to take, she was anxious about histrunk, his linen; she took the most minute precautions for hismaterial benefit. If he went to Prebaudet, she consulted the barometerthe evening before to know if the weather would be fine. She watchedfor his will in his eyes, like a dog which hears and sees its masterwhile sleeping. When the stout du Bousquier, touched by thisscrupulous love, would take her round the waist and kiss her forehead,saying, "What a good woman you are!" tears of pleasure would come intothe eyes of the poor creature. It is probably that du Bousquier felthimself obliged to make certain concessions which obtained for him therespect of Rose-Marie-Victoire; for Catholic virtue does not require adissimulation as complete as that of Madame du Bousquier. Often thegood saint sat mutely by and listened to the hatred of men whoconcealed themselves under the cloak of constitutional royalists. Sheshuddered as she foresaw the ruin of the Church. Occasionally sherisked a stupid word, an observation which du Bousquier cut short witha glance.
The worries of such an existence ended by stupefying Madame duBousquier, who found it easier and also more dignified to concentrateher intelligence on her own thoughts and resign herself to lead a lifethat was purely animal. She then adopted the submission of a slave,and regarded it as a meritorious deed to accept the degradation inwhich her husband placed her. The fulfilment of his will never oncecaused her to murmur. The timid sheep went henceforth in the way theshepherd led her; she gave herself up to the severest religiouspractices, and thought no more of Satan and his works and vanities.Thus she presented to the eyes of the world a union of all Christianvirtues; and du Bousquier was certainly one of the luckiest men in thekingdom of France and of Navarre.
"She will be a simpleton to her last breath," said the formercollector, who, however, dined with her twice a week.
This history would be strangely incomplete if no mention were made ofthe coincidence of the Chevalier de Valois's death occurring at thesame time as that of Suzanne's mother. The chevalier died with themonarchy, in August, 1830. He had joined the cortege of Charles X. atNonancourt, and piously escorted it to Cherbourg with the Troisvilles,Casterans, d'Esgrignons, Verneuils, etc. The old gentleman had takenwith him fifty thousand francs,--the sum to which his savings thenamounted. He offered them to one of the faithful friends of the kingfor transmission to his master, speaking of his approaching death, anddeclaring that the money came originally from the goodness of theking, and, moreover, that the property of the last of the Valoisbelonged of right to the crown. It is not known whether the fervor ofhis zeal conquered the reluctance of the Bourbon, who abandoned hisfine kingdom of France without carrying away with him a farthing, andwho ought to have been touched by the devotion of the chevalier. It iscertain, however, that Cesarine, the residuary legate of the old man,received from his estate only six hundred francs a year. The chevalierreturned to Alencon, cruelly weakened by grief and by fatigue; he diedon the very day when Charles X. arrived on a foreign shore.
Madame du Val-Noble and her protector, who was just then afraid of thevengeance of the liberal party, were glad of a pretext to remainincognito in the village where Suzanne's mother died. At the sale ofthe chevalier's effects, which took place at that time, Suzanne,anxious to obtain a souvenir of her first and last friend, pushed upthe price of the famous snuff-box, which was finally knocked down toher for a thousand francs. The portrait of the Princess Goritza wasalone worth that sum. Two years later, a young dandy, who was making acollection of the fine snuff-boxes of the last century, obtained fromMadame du Val-Noble the chevalier's treasure. The charming confidantof many a love and the pleasure of an old age is now on exhibition ina species of private museum. If the dead could know what happens afterthem, the chevalier's head would surely blush upon its left cheek.
If this history has no other effect than to inspire the possessors ofprecious relics with holy fear, and induce them to make codicils tosecure these touching souvenirs of joys that are no more bybequeathing them to loving hands, it will have done an immense serviceto the chivalrous and romantic portion of the community; but it does,in truth, contain a far higher moral. Does it not show the necessityfor a new species of education? Does it not invoke, from theenlightened solicitude of the ministers of Public Instruction, thecreation of chairs of anthropology,--a science in which Germanyoutstrips us? Modern myths are even less understood than ancient ones,harried as we are with myths. Myths are pressing us from every point;they serve all theories, they explain all questions. They are,according to human ideas, the torches of history; they would saveempires from revolution if only the professors of history would forcethe explanations they give into the mind of the provincial masses. IfMademoiselle Cormon had been a reader or a student, and if there hadexisted in the department of the Orne a professor of anthropology, oreven had she read Ariosto, the frightful disasters of her conjugallife would never have occurred. She would probably have known why theItalian poet makes Angelica prefer Medoro, who was a blond Chevalierde Valois, to Orlando, whose mare was dead, and who knew no betterthan to fly into a passion. Is not Medoro the mythic form for allcourtiers of feminine royalty, and Orlando the myth of disorderly,furious, and impotent revolutions, which destroy but cannot produce?We publish, but without assuming any responsibility for it, thisopinion of a pupil of Monsieur Ballanche.
No information has reached us as to the fate of the negroes' heads indiamonds. You may see Madame du Val-Noble every evening at the Opera.Thanks to the education given her by the Chevalier de Valois, she hasalmost the air of a well-bred woman.
Madame du Bousquier still lives; is not that as much as to say shestill suffers? After reaching the age of sixty--the period at whichwomen allow themselves to make confessions--she said confidentially toMadame du Coudrai, that she had never been able to endure the idea ofdying an old maid.
THE END.
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