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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/469-0.txt b/469-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39993af --- /dev/null +++ b/469-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5967 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Duchesse de Langeais, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Duchesse de Langeais + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Ellen Marriage + +Release Date: March, 1996 [Etext #469] +Posting Date: February 20, 2010 +Last Updated: November 22, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + + + + + +THE DUCHESSE OF LANGEAIS + + +By Honore De Balzac + + +Translated by Ellen Marriage + + + +Preparer’s Note: + + The Duchesse of Langeais is the second part of a trilogy. Part + one is entitled Ferragus and part three is The Girl with the + Golden Eyes. The three stories are frequently combined under the + title The Thirteen. + + + To Franz Liszt + + + + + +THE DUCHESSE OF LANGEAIS + +In a Spanish city on an island in the Mediterranean, there stands a +convent of the Order of Barefoot Carmelites, where the rule instituted +by St. Theresa is still preserved with all the first rigor of the +reformation brought about by that illustrious woman. Extraordinary as +this may seem, it is none the less true. Almost every religious house +in the Peninsula, or in Europe for that matter, was either destroyed or +disorganized by the outbreak of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic +wars; but as this island was protected through those times by the +English fleet, its wealthy convent and peaceable inhabitants were secure +from the general trouble and spoliation. The storms of many kinds which +shook the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century spent their +force before they reached those cliffs at so short a distance from the +coast of Andalusia. + +If the rumour of the Emperor’s name so much as reached the shore of the +island, it is doubtful whether the holy women kneeling in the cloisters +grasped the reality of his dream-like progress of glory, or the majesty +that blazed in flame across kingdom after kingdom during his meteor +life. + +In the minds of the Roman Catholic world, the convent stood out +pre-eminent for a stern discipline which nothing had changed; the purity +of its rule had attracted unhappy women from the furthest parts of +Europe, women deprived of all human ties, sighing after the long suicide +accomplished in the breast of God. No convent, indeed, was so well +fitted for that complete detachment of the soul from all earthly things, +which is demanded by the religious life, albeit on the continent of +Europe there are many convents magnificently adapted to the purpose +of their existence. Buried away in the loneliest valleys, hanging +in mid-air on the steepest mountainsides, set down on the brink +of precipices, in every place man has sought for the poetry of the +Infinite, the solemn awe of Silence; in every place man has striven to +draw closer to God, seeking Him on mountain peaks, in the depths below +the crags, at the cliff’s edge; and everywhere man has found God. But +nowhere, save on this half-European, half-African ledge of rock could +you find so many different harmonies, combining so to raise the soul, +that the sharpest pain comes to be like other memories; the strongest +impressions are dulled, till the sorrows of life are laid to rest in the +depths. + +The convent stands on the highest point of the crags at the uttermost +end of the island. On the side towards the sea the rock was once rent +sheer away in some globe-cataclysm; it rises up a straight wall from +the base where the waves gnaw at the stone below high-water mark. Any +assault is made impossible by the dangerous reefs that stretch far out +to sea, with the sparkling waves of the Mediterranean playing over them. +So, only from the sea can you discern the square mass of the convent +built conformably to the minute rules laid down as to the shape, height, +doors, and windows of monastic buildings. From the side of the town, the +church completely hides the solid structure of the cloisters and their +roofs, covered with broad slabs of stone impervious to sun or storm or +gales of wind. + +The church itself, built by the munificence of a Spanish family, is the +crowning edifice of the town. Its fine, bold front gives an imposing +and picturesque look to the little city in the sea. The sight of such +a city, with its close-huddled roofs, arranged for the most part +amphitheatre-wise above a picturesque harbour, and crowned by a glorious +cathedral front with triple-arched Gothic doorways, belfry towers, and +filigree spires, is a spectacle surely in every way the sublimest on +earth. Religion towering above daily life, to put men continually +in mind of the End and the way, is in truth a thoroughly Spanish +conception. But now surround this picture by the Mediterranean, and a +burning sky, imagine a few palms here and there, a few stunted evergreen +trees mingling their waving leaves with the motionless flowers and +foliage of carved stone; look out over the reef with its white fringes +of foam in contrast to the sapphire sea; and then turn to the city, with +its galleries and terraces whither the townsfolk come to take the air +among their flowers of an evening, above the houses and the tops of the +trees in their little gardens; add a few sails down in the harbour; and +lastly, in the stillness of falling night, listen to the organ music, +the chanting of the services, the wonderful sound of bells pealing out +over the open sea. There is sound and silence everywhere; oftener still +there is silence over all. + +The church is divided within into a sombre mysterious nave and narrow +aisles. For some reason, probably because the winds are so high, the +architect was unable to build the flying buttresses and intervening +chapels which adorn almost all cathedrals, nor are there openings of any +kind in the walls which support the weight of the roof. Outside there +is simply the heavy wall structure, a solid mass of grey stone further +strengthened by huge piers placed at intervals. Inside, the nave and its +little side galleries are lighted entirely by the great stained-glass +rose-window suspended by a miracle of art above the centre doorway; for +upon that side the exposure permits of the display of lacework in stone +and of other beauties peculiar to the style improperly called Gothic. + +The larger part of the nave and aisles was left for the townsfolk, who +came and went and heard mass there. The choir was shut off from the +rest of the church by a grating and thick folds of brown curtain, left +slightly apart in the middle in such a way that nothing of the choir +could be seen from the church except the high altar and the officiating +priest. The grating itself was divided up by the pillars which supported +the organ loft; and this part of the structure, with its carved wooden +columns, completed the line of the arcading in the gallery carried by +the shafts in the nave. If any inquisitive person, therefore, had been +bold enough to climb upon the narrow balustrade in the gallery to look +down into the choir, he could have seen nothing but the tall eight-sided +windows of stained glass beyond the high altar. + +At the time of the French expedition into Spain to establish Ferdinand +VII once more on the throne, a French general came to the island after +the taking of Cadiz, ostensibly to require the recognition of the King’s +Government, really to see the convent and to find some means of +entering it. The undertaking was certainly a delicate one; but a man of +passionate temper, whose life had been, as it were, but one series of +poems in action, a man who all his life long had lived romances instead +of writing them, a man pre-eminently a Doer, was sure to be tempted by a +deed which seemed to be impossible. + +To open the doors of a convent of nuns by lawful means! The metropolitan +or the Pope would scarcely have permitted it! And as for force or +stratagem--might not any indiscretion cost him his position, his whole +career as a soldier, and the end in view to boot? The Duc d’Angouleme +was still in Spain; and of all the crimes which a man in favour with the +Commander-in-Chief might commit, this one alone was certain to find him +inexorable. The General had asked for the mission to gratify private +motives of curiosity, though never was curiosity more hopeless. This +final attempt was a matter of conscience. The Carmelite convent on the +island was the only nunnery in Spain which had baffled his search. + +As he crossed from the mainland, scarcely an hour’s distance, he felt a +presentiment that his hopes were to be fulfilled; and afterwards, when +as yet he had seen nothing of the convent but its walls, and of the nuns +not so much as their robes; while he had merely heard the chanting of +the service, there were dim auguries under the walls and in the sound of +the voices to justify his frail hope. And, indeed, however faint those +so unaccountable presentiments might be, never was human passion more +vehemently excited than the General’s curiosity at that moment. There +are no small events for the heart; the heart exaggerates everything; the +heart weighs the fall of a fourteen-year-old Empire and the dropping of +a woman’s glove in the same scales, and the glove is nearly always +the heavier of the two. So here are the facts in all their prosaic +simplicity. The facts first, the emotions will follow. + +An hour after the General landed on the island, the royal authority was +re-established there. Some few Constitutional Spaniards who had found +their way thither after the fall of Cadiz were allowed to charter +a vessel and sail for London. So there was neither resistance nor +reaction. But the change of government could not be effected in the +little town without a mass, at which the two divisions under the +General’s command were obliged to be present. Now, it was upon this mass +that the General had built his hopes of gaining some information as +to the sisters in the convent; he was quite unaware how absolutely the +Carmelites were cut off from the world; but he knew that there might be +among them one whom he held dearer than life, dearer than honour. + +His hopes were cruelly dashed at once. Mass, it is true, was celebrated +in state. In honour of such a solemnity, the curtains which always hid +the choir were drawn back to display its riches, its valuable paintings +and shrines so bright with gems that they eclipsed the glories of +the ex-votos of gold and silver hung up by sailors of the port on +the columns in the nave. But all the nuns had taken refuge in the +organ-loft. And yet, in spite of this first check, during this very mass +of thanksgiving, the most intimately thrilling drama that ever set a +man’s heart beating opened out widely before him. + +The sister who played the organ aroused such intense enthusiasm, that +not a single man regretted that he had come to the service. Even the men +in the ranks were delighted, and the officers were in ecstasy. As for +the General, he was seemingly calm and indifferent. The sensations +stirred in him as the sister played one piece after another belong to +the small number of things which it is not lawful to utter; words are +powerless to express them; like death, God, eternity, they can only be +realised through their one point of contact with humanity. Strangely +enough, the organ music seemed to belong to the school of Rossini, the +musician who brings most human passion into his art. + +Some day his works, by their number and extent, will receive the +reverence due to the Homer of music. From among all the scores that we +owe to his great genius, the nun seemed to have chosen _Moses in Egypt_ +for special study, doubtless because the spirit of sacred music finds +therein its supreme expression. Perhaps the soul of the great musician, +so gloriously known to Europe, and the soul of this unknown executant +had met in the intuitive apprehension of the same poetry. So at least +thought two dilettanti officers who must have missed the Theatre Favart +in Spain. + +At last in the _Te Deum_ no one could fail to discern a French soul in +the sudden change that came over the music. Joy for the victory of the +Most Christian King evidently stirred this nun’s heart to the depths. +She was a Frenchwoman beyond mistake. Soon the love of country shone +out, breaking forth like shafts of light from the fugue, as the sister +introduced variations with all a Parisienne’s fastidious taste, and +blended vague suggestions of our grandest national airs with her music. +A Spaniard’s fingers would not have brought this warmth into a +graceful tribute paid to the victorious arms of France. The musician’s +nationality was revealed. + +“We find France everywhere, it seems,” said one of the men. + +The General had left the church during the _Te Deum_; he could not +listen any longer. The nun’s music had been a revelation of a woman +loved to frenzy; a woman so carefully hidden from the world’s eyes, +so deeply buried in the bosom of the Church, that hitherto the most +ingenious and persistent efforts made by men who brought great influence +and unusual powers to bear upon the search had failed to find her. The +suspicion aroused in the General’s heart became all but a certainty with +the vague reminiscence of a sad, delicious melody, the air of _Fleuve +du Tage_. The woman he loved had played the prelude to the ballad in +a boudoir in Paris, how often! and now this nun had chosen the song +to express an exile’s longing, amid the joy of those that triumphed. +Terrible sensation! To hope for the resurrection of a lost love, to find +her only to know that she was lost, to catch a mysterious glimpse of her +after five years--five years, in which the pent-up passion, chafing +in an empty life, had grown the mightier for every fruitless effort to +satisfy it! + +Who has not known, at least once in his life, what it is to lose some +precious thing; and after hunting through his papers, ransacking his +memory, and turning his house upside down; after one or two days spent +in vain search, and hope, and despair; after a prodigious expenditure +of the liveliest irritation of soul, who has not known the ineffable +pleasure of finding that all-important nothing which had come to be a +king of monomania? Very good. Now, spread that fury of search over five +years; put a woman, put a heart, put love in the place of the trifle; +transpose the monomania into the key of high passion; and, furthermore, +let the seeker be a man of ardent temper, with a lion’s heart and a +leonine head and mane, a man to inspire awe and fear in those who come +in contact with him--realise this, and you may, perhaps, understand why +the General walked abruptly out of the church when the first notes of +a ballad, which he used to hear with a rapture of delight in a +gilt-paneled boudoir, began to vibrate along the aisles of the church in +the sea. + +The General walked away down the steep street which led to the port, and +only stopped when he could not hear the deep notes of the organ. Unable +to think of anything but the love which broke out in volcanic eruption, +filling his heart with fire, he only knew that the _Te Deum_ was over +when the Spanish congregation came pouring out of the church. Feeling +that his behaviour and attitude might seem ridiculous, he went back to +head the procession, telling the alcalde and the governor that, feeling +suddenly faint, he had gone out into the air. Casting about for a plea +for prolonging his stay, it at once occurred to him to make the most of +this excuse, framed on the spur of the moment. He declined, on a plea of +increasing indisposition, to preside at the banquet given by the town +to the French officers, betook himself to his bed, and sent a message to +the Major-General, to the effect that temporary illness obliged him +to leave the Colonel in command of the troops for the time being. +This commonplace but very plausible stratagem relieved him of all +responsibility for the time necessary to carry out his plans. The +General, nothing if not “catholic and monarchical,” took occasion to +inform himself of the hours of the services, and manifested the greatest +zeal for the performance of his religious duties, piety which caused no +remark in Spain. + +The very next day, while the division was marching out of the town, the +General went to the convent to be present at vespers. He found an empty +church. The townsfolk, devout though they were, had all gone down to the +quay to watch the embarkation of the troops. He felt glad to be the only +man there. He tramped noisily up the nave, clanking his spurs till the +vaulted roof rang with the sound; he coughed, he talked aloud to himself +to let the nuns know, and more particularly to let the organist know +that if the troops were gone, one Frenchman was left behind. Was this +singular warning heard and understood? He thought so. It seemed to him +that in the _Magnificat_ the organ made response which was borne to him +on the vibrating air. The nun’s spirit found wings in music and fled +towards him, throbbing with the rhythmical pulse of the sounds. Then, in +all its might, the music burst forth and filled the church with warmth. +The Song of Joy set apart in the sublime liturgy of Latin Christianity +to express the exaltation of the soul in the presence of the glory of +the ever-living God, became the utterance of a heart almost terrified by +its gladness in the presence of the glory of a mortal love; a love that +yet lived, a love that had risen to trouble her even beyond the grave in +which the nun is laid, that she may rise again as the bride of Christ. + +The organ is in truth the grandest, the most daring, the most +magnificent of all instruments invented by human genius. It is a whole +orchestra in itself. It can express anything in response to a skilled +touch. Surely it is in some sort a pedestal on which the soul poises for +a flight forth into space, essaying on her course to draw picture after +picture in an endless series, to paint human life, to cross the Infinite +that separates heaven from earth? And the longer a dreamer listens to +those giant harmonies, the better he realizes that nothing save this +hundred-voiced choir on earth can fill all the space between kneeling +men, and a God hidden by the blinding light of the Sanctuary. The music +is the one interpreter strong enough to bear up the prayers of humanity +to heaven, prayer in its omnipotent moods, prayer tinged by the +melancholy of many different natures, coloured by meditative ecstasy, +upspringing with the impulse of repentance--blended with the myriad +fancies of every creed. Yes. In those long vaulted aisles the melodies +inspired by the sense of things divine are blended with a grandeur +unknown before, are decked with new glory and might. Out of the dim +daylight, and the deep silence broken by the chanting of the choir in +response to the thunder of the organ, a veil is woven for God, and the +brightness of His attributes shines through it. + +And this wealth of holy things seemed to be flung down like a grain of +incense upon the fragile altar raised to Love beneath the eternal throne +of a jealous and avenging God. Indeed, in the joy of the nun there +was little of that awe and gravity which should harmonize with the +solemnities of the _Magnificat_. She had enriched the music with +graceful variations, earthly gladness throbbing through the rhythm of +each. In such brilliant quivering notes some great singer might strive +to find a voice for her love, her melodies fluttered as a bird flutters +about her mate. There were moments when she seemed to leap back into +the past, to dally there now with laughter, now with tears. Her changing +moods, as it were, ran riot. She was like a woman excited and happy over +her lover’s return. + +But at length, after the swaying fugues of delirium, after the +marvellous rendering of a vision of the past, a revulsion swept over the +soul that thus found utterance for itself. With a swift transition from +the major to the minor, the organist told her hearer of her present lot. +She gave the story of long melancholy broodings, of the slow course +of her moral malady. How day by day she deadened the senses, how every +night cut off one more thought, how her heart was slowly reduced +to ashes. The sadness deepened shade after shade through languid +modulations, and in a little while the echoes were pouring out a torrent +of grief. Then on a sudden, high notes rang out like the voices of +angels singing together, as if to tell the lost but not forgotten lover +that their spirits now could only meet in heaven. Pathetic hope! Then +followed the _Amen_. No more joy, no more tears in the air, no sadness, +no regrets. The _Amen_ was the return to God. The final chord was deep, +solemn, even terrible; for the last rumblings of the bass sent a shiver +through the audience that raised the hair on their heads; the nun shook +out her veiling of crepe, and seemed to sink again into the grave from +which she had risen for a moment. Slowly the reverberations died away; +it seemed as if the church, but now so full of light, had returned to +thick darkness. + +The General had been caught up and borne swiftly away by this +strong-winged spirit; he had followed the course of its flight from +beginning to end. He understood to the fullest extent the imagery of +that burning symphony; for him the chords reached deep and far. For +him, as for the sister, the poem meant future, present, and past. Is +not music, and even opera music, a sort of text, which a susceptible +or poetic temper, or a sore and stricken heart, may expand as memories +shall determine? If a musician must needs have the heart of a poet, must +not the listener too be in a manner a poet and a lover to hear all that +lies in great music? Religion, love, and music--what are they but a +threefold expression of the same fact, of that craving for expansion +which stirs in every noble soul. And these three forms of poetry ascend +to God, in whom all passion on earth finds its end. Wherefore the holy +human trinity finds a place amid the infinite glories of God; of God, +whom we always represent surrounded with the fires of love and seistrons +of gold--music and light and harmony. Is not He the Cause and the End of +all our strivings? + +The French General guessed rightly that here in the desert, on this bare +rock in the sea, the nun had seized upon music as an outpouring of the +passion that still consumed her. Was this her manner of offering up her +love as a sacrifice to God? Or was it Love exultant in triumph over God? +The questions were hard to answer. But one thing at least the General +could not mistake--in this heart, dead to the world, the fire of passion +burned as fiercely as in his own. + +Vespers over, he went back to the alcalde with whom he was staying. +In the all-absorbing joy which comes in such full measure when a +satisfaction sought long and painfully is attained at last, he could see +nothing beyond this--he was still loved! In her heart love had grown +in loneliness, even as his love had grown stronger as he surmounted one +barrier after another which this woman had set between them! The glow of +soul came to its natural end. There followed a longing to see her again, +to contend with God for her, to snatch her away--a rash scheme, which +appealed to a daring nature. He went to bed, when the meal was over, to +avoid questions; to be alone and think at his ease; and he lay absorbed +by deep thought till day broke. + +He rose only to go to mass. He went to the church and knelt close to +the screen, with his forehead touching the curtain; he would have torn +a hole in it if he had been alone, but his host had come with him out of +politeness, and the least imprudence might compromise the whole future +of his love, and ruin the new hopes. + +The organ sounded, but it was another player, and not the nun of the +last two days whose hands touched the keys. It was all colorless and +cold for the General. Was the woman he loved prostrated by emotion which +well-nigh overcame a strong man’s heart? Had she so fully realised and +shared an unchanged, longed-for love, that now she lay dying on her bed +in her cell? While innumerable thoughts of this kind perplexed his mind, +the voice of the woman he worshipped rang out close beside him; he knew +its clear resonant soprano. It was her voice, with that faint tremor in +it which gave it all the charm that shyness and diffidence gives to a +young girl; her voice, distinct from the mass of singing as a _prima +donna’s_ in the chorus of a finale. It was like a golden or silver +thread in dark frieze. + +It was she! There could be no mistake. Parisienne now as ever, she had +not laid coquetry aside when she threw off worldly adornments for the +veil and the Carmelite’s coarse serge. She who had affirmed her love +last evening in the praise sent up to God, seemed now to say to her +lover, “Yes, it is I. I am here. My love is unchanged, but I am beyond +the reach of love. You will hear my voice, my soul shall enfold you, +and I shall abide here under the brown shroud in the choir from which no +power on earth can tear me. You shall never see me more!” + +“It is she indeed!” the General said to himself, raising his head. He +had leant his face on his hands, unable at first to bear the intolerable +emotion that surged like a whirlpool in his heart, when that well-known +voice vibrated under the arcading, with the sound of the sea for +accompaniment. + +Storm was without, and calm within the sanctuary. Still that rich voice +poured out all its caressing notes; it fell like balm on the lover’s +burning heart; it blossomed upon the air--the air that a man would fain +breathe more deeply to receive the effluence of a soul breathed forth +with love in the words of the prayer. The alcalde coming to join +his guest found him in tears during the elevation, while the nun was +singing, and brought him back to his house. Surprised to find so much +piety in a French military man, the worthy magistrate invited the +confessor of the convent to meet his guest. Never had news given the +General more pleasure; he paid the ecclesiastic a good deal of attention +at supper, and confirmed his Spanish hosts in the high opinion they had +formed of his piety by a not wholly disinterested respect. + +He inquired with gravity how many sisters there were in the convent, and +asked for particulars of its endowment and revenues, as if from +courtesy he wished to hear the good priest discourse on the subject most +interesting to him. He informed himself as to the manner of life led by +the holy women. Were they allowed to go out of the convent, or to see +visitors? + +“Senor,” replied the venerable churchman, “the rule is strict. A woman +cannot enter a monastery of the order of St. Bruno without a special +permission from His Holiness, and the rule here is equally stringent. +No man may enter a convent of Barefoot Carmelites unless he is a priest +specially attached to the services of the house by the Archbishop. None +of the nuns may leave the convent; though the great Saint, St. Theresa, +often left her cell. The Visitor or the Mothers Superior can alone give +permission, subject to an authorization from the Archbishop, for a nun +to see a visitor, and then especially in a case of illness. Now we are +one of the principal houses, and consequently we have a Mother Superior +here. Among other foreign sisters there is one Frenchwoman, Sister +Theresa; she it is who directs the music in the chapel.” + +“Oh!” said the General, with feigned surprise. “She must have rejoiced +over the victory of the House of Bourbon.” + +“I told them the reason of the mass; they are always a little bit +inquisitive.” + +“But Sister Theresa may have interests in France. Perhaps she would like +to send some message or to hear news.” + +“I do not think so. She would have come to ask me.” + +“As a fellow-countryman, I should be quite curious to see her,” said the +General. “If it is possible, if the Lady Superior consents, if----” + +“Even at the grating and in the Reverend Mother’s presence, an interview +would be quite impossible for anybody whatsoever; but, strict as the +Mother is, for a deliverer of our holy religion and the throne of his +Catholic Majesty, the rule might be relaxed for a moment,” said the +confessor, blinking. “I will speak about it.” + +“How old is Sister Theresa?” inquired the lover. He dared not ask any +questions of the priest as to the nun’s beauty. + +“She does not reckon years now,” the good man answered, with a +simplicity that made the General shudder. + +Next day before siesta, the confessor came to inform the French General +that Sister Theresa and the Mother consented to receive him at the +grating in the parlour before vespers. The General spent the siesta in +pacing to and fro along the quay in the noonday heat. Thither the priest +came to find him, and brought him to the convent by way of the gallery +round the cemetery. Fountains, green trees, and rows of arcading +maintained a cool freshness in keeping with the place. + +At the further end of the long gallery the priest led the way into a +large room divided in two by a grating covered with a brown curtain. In +the first, and in some sort of public half of the apartment, where the +confessor left the newcomer, a wooden bench ran round the wall, and two +or three chairs, also of wood, were placed near the grating. The ceiling +consisted of bare unornamented joists and cross-beams of ilex wood. As +the two windows were both on the inner side of the grating, and the dark +surface of the wood was a bad reflector, the light in the place was so +dim that you could scarcely see the great black crucifix, the portrait +of Saint Theresa, and a picture of the Madonna which adorned the grey +parlour walls. Tumultuous as the General’s feelings were, they took +something of the melancholy of the place. He grew calm in that homely +quiet. A sense of something vast as the tomb took possession of him +beneath the chill unceiled roof. Here, as in the grave, was there not +eternal silence, deep peace--the sense of the Infinite? And besides this +there was the quiet and the fixed thought of the cloister--a thought +which you felt like a subtle presence in the air, and in the dim dusk +of the room; an all-pervasive thought nowhere definitely expressed, and +looming the larger in the imagination; for in the cloister the great +saying, “Peace in the Lord,” enters the least religious soul as a living +force. + +The monk’s life is scarcely comprehensible. A man seems confessed a +weakling in a monastery; he was born to act, to live out a life of work; +he is evading a man’s destiny in his cell. But what man’s strength, +blended with pathetic weakness, is implied by a woman’s choice of the +convent life! A man may have any number of motives for burying himself +in a monastery; for him it is the leap over the precipice. A woman +has but one motive--she is a woman still; she betrothes herself to a +Heavenly Bridegroom. Of the monk you may ask, “Why did you not fight +your battle?” But if a woman immures herself in the cloister, is there +not always a sublime battle fought first? + +At length it seemed to the General that that still room, and the lonely +convent in the sea, were full of thoughts of him. Love seldom attains +to solemnity; yet surely a love still faithful in the breast of God was +something solemn, something more than a man had a right to look for +as things are in this nineteenth century? The infinite grandeur of the +situation might well produce an effect upon the General’s mind; he had +precisely enough elevation of soul to forget politics, honours, Spain, +and society in Paris, and to rise to the height of this lofty climax. +And what in truth could be more tragic? How much must pass in the souls +of these two lovers, brought together in a place of strangers, on +a ledge of granite in the sea; yet held apart by an intangible, +unsurmountable barrier! Try to imagine the man saying within himself, +“Shall I triumph over God in her heart?” when a faint rustling sound +made him quiver, and the curtain was drawn aside. + +Between him and the light stood a woman. Her face was hidden by the veil +that drooped from the folds upon her head; she was dressed according +to the rule of the order in a gown of the colour become proverbial. Her +bare feet were hidden; if the General could have seen them, he would +have known how appallingly thin she had grown; and yet in spite of the +thick folds of her coarse gown, a mere covering and no ornament, he +could guess how tears, and prayer, and passion, and loneliness had +wasted the woman before him. + +An ice-cold hand, belonging, no doubt, to the Mother Superior, held back +the curtain. The General gave the enforced witness of their interview a +searching glance, and met the dark, inscrutable gaze of an aged recluse. +The Mother might have been a century old, but the bright, youthful eyes +belied the wrinkles that furrowed her pale face. + +“Mme la Duchesse,” he began, his voice shaken with emotion, “does your +companion understand French?” The veiled figure bowed her head at the +sound of his voice. + +“There is no duchess here,” she replied. “It is Sister Theresa whom you +see before you. She whom you call my companion is my mother in God, my +superior here on earth.” + +The words were so meekly spoken by the voice that sounded in other years +amid harmonious surroundings of refined luxury, the voice of a queen of +fashion in Paris. Such words from the lips that once spoke so lightly +and flippantly struck the General dumb with amazement. + +“The Holy Mother only speaks Latin and Spanish,” she added. + +“I understand neither. Dear Antoinette, make my excuses to her.” + +The light fell full upon the nun’s figure; a thrill of deep emotion +betrayed itself in a faint quiver of her veil as she heard her name +softly spoken by the man who had been so hard in the past. + +“My brother,” she said, drawing her sleeve under her veil, perhaps to +brush tears away, “I am Sister Theresa.” + +Then, turning to the Superior, she spoke in Spanish; the General knew +enough of the language to understand what she said perfectly well; +possibly he could have spoken it had he chosen to do so. + +“Dear Mother, the gentleman presents his respects to you, and begs you +to pardon him if he cannot pay them himself, but he knows neither of the +languages which you speak----” + +The aged nun bent her head slowly, with an expression of angelic +sweetness, enhanced at the same time by the consciousness of her power +and dignity. + +“Do you know this gentleman?” she asked, with a keen glance. + +“Yes, Mother.” + +“Go back to your cell, my daughter!” said the Mother imperiously. + +The General slipped aside behind the curtain lest the dreadful tumult +within him should appear in his face; even in the shadow it seemed to +him that he could still see the Superior’s piercing eyes. He was afraid +of her; she held his little, frail, hardly-won happiness in her hands; +and he, who had never quailed under a triple row of guns, now trembled +before this nun. The Duchess went towards the door, but she turned back. + +“Mother,” she said, with dreadful calmness, “the Frenchman is one of my +brothers.” + +“Then stay, my daughter,” said the Superior, after a pause. + +The piece of admirable Jesuitry told of such love and regret, that a man +less strongly constituted might have broken down under the keen delight +in the midst of a great and, for him, an entirely novel peril. Oh! how +precious words, looks, and gestures became when love must baffle lynx +eyes and tiger’s claws! Sister Theresa came back. + +“You see, my brother, what I have dared to do only to speak to you for +a moment of your salvation and of the prayers that my soul puts up for +your soul daily. I am committing mortal sin. I have told a lie. How many +days of penance must expiate that lie! But I shall endure it for your +sake. My brother, you do not know what happiness it is to love in +heaven; to feel that you can confess love purified by religion, love +transported into the highest heights of all, so that we are permitted +to lose sight of all but the soul. If the doctrine and the spirit of +the Saint to whom we owe this refuge had not raised me above earth’s +anguish, and caught me up and set me, far indeed beneath the Sphere +wherein she dwells, yet truly above this world, I should not have +seen you again. But now I can see you, and hear your voice, and remain +calm----” + +The General broke in, “But, Antoinette, let me see you, you whom I love +passionately, desperately, as you could have wished me to love you.” + +“Do not call me Antoinette, I implore you. Memories of the past hurt me. +You must see no one here but Sister Theresa, a creature who trusts in +the Divine mercy.” She paused for a little, and then added, “You must +control yourself, my brother. Our Mother would separate us without pity +if there is any worldly passion in your face, or if you allow the tears +to fall from your eyes.” + +The General bowed his head to regain self-control; when he looked up +again he saw her face beyond the grating--the thin, white, but still +impassioned face of the nun. All the magic charm of youth that once +bloomed there, all the fair contrast of velvet whiteness and the colour +of the Bengal rose, had given place to a burning glow, as of a porcelain +jar with a faint light shining through it. The wonderful hair in which +she took such pride had been shaven; there was a bandage round her +forehead and about her face. An ascetic life had left dark traces about +the eyes, which still sometimes shot out fevered glances; their ordinary +calm expression was but a veil. In a few words, she was but the ghost of +her former self. + +“Ah! you that have come to be my life, you must come out of this tomb! +You were mine; you had no right to give yourself, even to God. Did you +not promise me to give up all at the least command from me? You may +perhaps think me worthy of that promise now when you hear what I have +done for you. I have sought you all through the world. You have been in +my thoughts at every moment for five years; my life has been given to +you. My friends, very powerful friends, as you know, have helped with +all their might to search every convent in France, Italy, Spain, Sicily, +and America. Love burned more brightly for every vain search. Again and +again I made long journeys with a false hope; I have wasted my life and +the heaviest throbbings of my heart in vain under many a dark convent +wall. I am not speaking of a faithfulness that knows no bounds, for what +is it?--nothing compared with the infinite longings of my love. If your +remorse long ago was sincere, you ought not to hesitate to follow me +today.” + +“You forget that I am not free.” + +“The Duke is dead,” he answered quickly. + +Sister Theresa flushed red. + +“May heaven be open to him!” she cried with a quick rush of feeling. “He +was generous to me.--But I did not mean such ties; it was one of my sins +that I was ready to break them all without scruple--for you.” + +“Are you speaking of your vows?” the General asked, frowning. “I did not +think that anything weighed heavier with your heart than love. But do +not think twice of it, Antoinette; the Holy Father himself shall absolve +you of your oath. I will surely go to Rome, I will entreat all the +powers of earth; if God could come down from heaven, I would----” + +“Do not blaspheme.” + +“So do not fear the anger of God. Ah! I would far rather hear that +you would leave your prison for me; that this very night you would let +yourself down into a boat at the foot of the cliffs. And we would go +away to be happy somewhere at the world’s end, I know not where. And +with me at your side, you should come back to life and health under the +wings of love.” + +“You must not talk like this,” said Sister Theresa; “you do not know +what you are to me now. I love you far better than I ever loved you +before. Every day I pray for you; I see you with other eyes. Armand, if +you but knew the happiness of giving yourself up, without shame, to a +pure friendship which God watches over! You do not know what joy it is +to me to pray for heaven’s blessing on you. I never pray for myself: God +will do with me according to His will; but, at the price of my soul, I +wish I could be sure that you are happy here on earth, and that you +will be happy hereafter throughout all ages. My eternal life is all that +trouble has left me to offer up to you. I am old now with weeping; I am +neither young nor fair; and in any case, you could not respect the +nun who became a wife; no love, not even motherhood, could give me +absolution.... What can you say to outweigh the uncounted thoughts that +have gathered in my heart during the past five years, thoughts that have +changed, and worn, and blighted it? I ought to have given a heart less +sorrowful to God.” + +“What can I say? Dear Antoinette, I will say this, that I love you; that +affection, love, a great love, the joy of living in another heart that +is ours, utterly and wholly ours, is so rare a thing and so hard to +find, that I doubted you, and put you to sharp proof; but now, today, I +love you, Antoinette, with all my soul’s strength.... If you will follow +me into solitude, I will hear no voice but yours, I will see no other +face.” + +“Hush, Armand! You are shortening the little time that we may be +together here on earth.” + +“Antoinette, will you come with me?” + +“I am never away from you. My life is in your heart, not through the +selfish ties of earthly happiness, or vanity, or enjoyment; pale and +withered as I am, I live here for you, in the breast of God. As God is +just, you shall be happy----” + +“Words, words all of it! Pale and withered? How if I want you? How if I +cannot be happy without you? Do you still think of nothing but duty with +your lover before you? Is he never to come first and above all things +else in your heart? In time past you put social success, yourself, +heaven knows what, before him; now it is God, it is the welfare of my +soul! In Sister Theresa I find the Duchess over again, ignorant of +the happiness of love, insensible as ever, beneath the semblance of +sensibility. You do not love me; you have never loved me----” + +“Oh, my brother----!” + +“You do not wish to leave this tomb. You love my soul, do you say? +Very well, through you it will be lost forever. I shall make away with +myself----” + +“Mother!” Sister Theresa called aloud in Spanish, “I have lied to you; +this man is my lover!” + +The curtain fell at once. The General, in his stupor, scarcely heard the +doors within as they clanged. + +“Ah! she loves me still!” he cried, understanding all the sublimity of +that cry of hers. “She loves me still. She must be carried off....” + + + +The General left the island, returned to headquarters, pleaded +ill-health, asked for leave of absence, and forthwith took his departure +for France. + +And now for the incidents which brought the two personages in this Scene +into their present relation to each other. + + + +The thing known in France as the Faubourg Saint-Germain is neither a +Quarter, nor a sect, nor an institution, nor anything else that admits +of a precise definition. There are great houses in the Place Royale, the +Faubourg Saint-Honore, and the Chaussee d’Antin, in any one of which you +may breathe the same atmosphere of Faubourg Saint-Germain. So, to begin +with, the whole Faubourg is not within the Faubourg. There are men and +women born far enough away from its influences who respond to them and +take their place in the circle; and again there are others, born within +its limits, who may yet be driven forth forever. For the last forty +years the manners, and customs, and speech, in a word, the tradition of +the Faubourg Saint-Germain, has been to Paris what the Court used to be +in other times; it is what the Hotel Saint-Paul was to the fourteenth +century; the Louvre to the fifteenth; the Palais, the Hotel Rambouillet, +and the Place Royale to the sixteenth; and lastly, as Versailles was to +the seventeenth and the eighteenth. + +Just as the ordinary workaday Paris will always centre about some point; +so, through all periods of history, the Paris of the nobles and +the upper classes converges towards some particular spot. It is a +periodically recurrent phenomenon which presents ample matter for +reflection to those who are fain to observe or describe the various +social zones; and possibly an enquiry into the causes that bring about +this centralization may do more than merely justify the probability of +this episode; it may be of service to serious interests which some +day will be more deeply rooted in the commonwealth, unless, indeed, +experience is as meaningless for political parties as it is for youth. + +In every age the great nobles, and the rich who always ape the great +nobles, build their houses as far as possible from crowded streets. When +the Duc d’Uzes built his splendid hotel in the Rue Montmartre in +the reign of Louis XIV, and set the fountain at his gates--for which +beneficent action, to say nothing of his other virtues, he was held in +such veneration that the whole quarter turned out in a body to follow +his funeral--when the Duke, I say, chose this site for his house, he +did so because that part of Paris was almost deserted in those days. But +when the fortifications were pulled down, and the market gardens beyond +the line of the boulevards began to fill with houses, then the d’Uzes +family left their fine mansion, and in our time it was occupied by a +banker. Later still, the noblesse began to find themselves out of their +element among shopkeepers, left the Place Royale and the centre of +Paris for good, and crossed the river to breathe freely in the Faubourg +Saint-Germain, where palaces were reared already about the great +hotel built by Louis XIV for the Duc de Maine--the Benjamin among his +legitimated offspring. And indeed, for people accustomed to a stately +life, can there be more unseemly surroundings than the bustle, the mud, +the street cries, the bad smells, and narrow thoroughfares of a populous +quarter? The very habits of life in a mercantile or manufacturing +district are completely at variance with the lives of nobles. The +shopkeeper and artisan are just going to bed when the great world is +thinking of dinner; and the noisy stir of life begins among the former +when the latter have gone to rest. Their day’s calculations never +coincide; the one class represents the expenditure, the other the +receipts. Consequently their manners and customs are diametrically +opposed. + +Nothing contemptuous is intended by this statement. An aristocracy is in +a manner the intellect of the social system, as the middle classes and +the proletariat may be said to be its organizing and working power. It +naturally follows that these forces are differently situated; and of +their antagonism there is bred a seeming antipathy produced by the +performance of different functions, all of them, however, existing for +one common end. + +Such social dissonances are so inevitably the outcome of any charter +of the constitution, that however much a Liberal may be disposed to +complain of them, as of treason against those sublime ideas with which +the ambitious plebeian is apt to cover his designs, he would none the +less think it a preposterous notion that M. le Prince de Montmorency, +for instance, should continue to live in the Rue Saint-Martin at the +corner of the street which bears that nobleman’s name; or that M. le Duc +de Fitz-James, descendant of the royal house of Scotland, should have +his hotel at the angle of the Rue Marie Stuart and the Rue Montorgueil. +_Sint ut sunt, aut non sint_, the grand words of the Jesuit, might be +taken as a motto by the great in all countries. These social differences +are patent in all ages; the fact is always accepted by the people; its +“reasons of state” are self-evident; it is at once cause and effect, a +principle and a law. The common sense of the masses never deserts them +until demagogues stir them up to gain ends of their own; that common +sense is based on the verities of social order; and the social order is +the same everywhere, in Moscow as in London, in Geneva as in Calcutta. +Given a certain number of families of unequal fortune in any given +space, you will see an aristocracy forming under your eyes; there will +be the patricians, the upper classes, and yet other ranks below them. +Equality may be a _right_, but no power on earth can convert it into +_fact_. It would be a good thing for France if this idea could be +popularized. The benefits of political harmony are obvious to the least +intelligent classes. Harmony is, as it were, the poetry of order, and +order is a matter of vital importance to the working population. And +what is order, reduced to its simplest expression, but the agreement +of things among themselves--unity, in short? Architecture, music, and +poetry, everything in France, and in France more than in any other +country, is based upon this principle; it is written upon the very +foundations of her clear accurate language, and a language must always +be the most infallible index of national character. In the same way +you may note that the French popular airs are those most calculated to +strike the imagination, the best-modulated melodies are taken over by +the people; clearness of thought, the intellectual simplicity of an idea +attracts them; they like the incisive sayings that hold the greatest +number of ideas. France is the one country in the world where a little +phrase may bring about a great revolution. Whenever the masses have +risen, it has been to bring men, affairs, and principles into agreement. +No nation has a clearer conception of that idea of unity which should +permeate the life of an aristocracy; possibly no other nation has so +intelligent a comprehension of a political necessity; history will never +find her behind the time. France has been led astray many a time, but +she is deluded, woman-like, by generous ideas, by a glow of enthusiasm +which at first outstrips sober reason. + +So, to begin with, the most striking characteristic of the Faubourg +is the splendour of its great mansions, its great gardens, and a +surrounding quiet in keeping with princely revenues drawn from great +estates. And what is this distance set between a class and a whole +metropolis but visible and outward expression of the widely different +attitude of mind which must inevitably keep them apart? The position of +the head is well defined in every organism. If by any chance a nation +allows its head to fall at its feet, it is pretty sure sooner or later +to discover that this is a suicidal measure; and since nations have no +desire to perish, they set to work at once to grow a new head. If they +lack the strength for this, they perish as Rome perished, and Venice, +and so many other states. + +This distinction between the upper and lower spheres of social activity, +emphasized by differences in their manner of living, necessarily +implies that in the highest aristocracy there is real worth and some +distinguishing merit. In any state, no matter what form of “government” + is affected, so soon as the patrician class fails to maintain that +complete superiority which is the condition of its existence, it ceases +to be a force, and is pulled down at once by the populace. The people +always wish to see money, power, and initiative in their leaders, hands, +hearts, and heads; they must be the spokesmen, they must represent the +intelligence and the glory of the nation. Nations, like women, love +strength in those who rule them; they cannot give love without respect; +they refuse utterly to obey those of whom they do not stand in awe. +An aristocracy fallen into contempt is a _roi faineant_, a husband in +petticoats; first it ceases to be itself, and then it ceases to be. + +And in this way the isolation of the great, the sharply marked +distinction in their manner of life, or in a word, the general custom +of the patrician caste is at once the sign of a real power, and their +destruction so soon as that power is lost. The Faubourg Saint-Germain +failed to recognise the conditions of its being, while it would still +have been easy to perpetuate its existence, and therefore was brought +low for a time. The Faubourg should have looked the facts fairly in the +face, as the English aristocracy did before them; they should have seen +that every institution has its climacteric periods, when words lose +their old meanings, and ideas reappear in a new guise, and the whole +conditions of politics wear a changed aspect, while the underlying +realities undergo no essential alteration. + +These ideas demand further development which form an essential part of +this episode; they are given here both as a succinct statement of the +causes, and an explanation of the things which happen in the course of +the story. + +The stateliness of the castles and palaces where nobles dwell; the +luxury of the details; the constantly maintained sumptuousness of the +furniture; the “atmosphere” in which the fortunate owner of landed +estates (a rich man before he was born) lives and moves easily and +without friction; the habit of mind which never descends to calculate +the petty workaday gains of existence; the leisure; the higher education +attainable at a much earlier age; and lastly, the aristocratic tradition +that makes of him a social force, for which his opponents, by dint +of study and a strong will and tenacity of vocation, are scarcely a +match-all these things should contribute to form a lofty spirit in a +man, possessed of such privileges from his youth up; they should +stamp his character with that high self-respect, of which the least +consequence is a nobleness of heart in harmony with the noble name that +he bears. And in some few families all this is realised. There are +noble characters here and there in the Faubourg, but they are marked +exceptions to a general rule of egoism which has been the ruin of this +world within a world. The privileges above enumerated are the birthright +of the French noblesse, as of every patrician efflorescence ever formed +on the surface of a nation; and will continue to be theirs so long as +their existence is based upon real estate, or money; _domaine-sol_ and +_domaine-argent_ alike, the only solid bases of an organized society; +but such privileges are held upon the understanding that the patricians +must continue to justify their existence. There is a sort of moral +_fief_ held on a tenure of service rendered to the sovereign, and here +in France the people are undoubtedly the sovereigns nowadays. The times +are changed, and so are the weapons. The knight-banneret of old wore +a coat of chain armor and a hauberk; he could handle a lance well and +display his pennon, and no more was required of him; today he is bound +to give proof of his intelligence. A stout heart was enough in the days +of old; in our days he is required to have a capacious brain-pan. Skill +and knowledge and capital--these three points mark out a social triangle +on which the scutcheon of power is blazoned; our modern aristocracy must +take its stand on these. + +A fine theorem is as good as a great name. The Rothschilds, the Fuggers +of the nineteenth century, are princes _de facto_. A great artist is in +reality an oligarch; he represents a whole century, and almost always he +is a law to others. And the art of words, the high pressure machinery +of the writer, the poet’s genius, the merchant’s steady endurance, +the strong will of the statesman who concentrates a thousand dazzling +qualities in himself, the general’s sword--all these victories, in +short, which a single individual will win, that he may tower above the +rest of the world, the patrician class is now bound to win and keep +exclusively. They must head the new forces as they once headed the +material forces; how should they keep the position unless they are +worthy of it? How, unless they are the soul and brain of a nation, +shall they set its hands moving? How lead a people without the power of +command? And what is the marshal’s baton without the innate power of +the captain in the man who wields it? The Faubourg Saint-Germain took to +playing with batons, and fancied that all the power was in its hands. +It inverted the terms of the proposition which called it into existence. +And instead of flinging away the insignia which offended the people, +and quietly grasping the power, it allowed the bourgeoisie to seize the +authority, clung with fatal obstinacy to its shadow, and over and over +again forgot the laws which a minority must observe if it would live. +When an aristocracy is scarce a thousandth part of the body social, it +is bound today, as of old, to multiply its points of action, so as to +counterbalance the weight of the masses in a great crisis. And in our +days those means of action must be living forces, and not historical +memories. + +In France, unluckily, the noblesse were still so puffed up with the +notion of their vanished power, that it was difficult to contend against +a kind of innate presumption in themselves. Perhaps this is a national +defect. The Frenchman is less given than anyone else to undervalue +himself; it comes natural to him to go from his degree to the one above +it; and while it is a rare thing for him to pity the unfortunates +over whose heads he rises, he always groans in spirit to see so many +fortunate people above him. He is very far from heartless, but too +often he prefers to listen to his intellect. The national instinct which +brings the Frenchman to the front, the vanity that wastes his substance, +is as much a dominant passion as thrift in the Dutch. For three +centuries it swayed the noblesse, who, in this respect, were certainly +pre-eminently French. The scion of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, beholding +his material superiority, was fully persuaded of his intellectual +superiority. And everything contributed to confirm him in his belief; +for ever since the Faubourg Saint-Germain existed at all--which is +to say, ever since Versailles ceased to be the royal residence--the +Faubourg, with some few gaps in continuity, was always backed up by the +central power, which in France seldom fails to support that side. Thence +its downfall in 1830. + +At that time the party of the Faubourg Saint-Germain was rather like +an army without a base of operation. It had utterly failed to take +advantage of the peace to plant itself in the heart of the nation. +It sinned for want of learning its lesson, and through an utter +incapability of regarding its interests as a whole. A future certainty +was sacrificed to a doubtful present gain. This blunder in policy may +perhaps be attributed to the following cause. + +The class-isolation so strenuously kept up by the noblesse brought about +fatal results during the last forty years; even caste-patriotism was +extinguished by it, and rivalry fostered among themselves. When the +French noblesse of other times were rich and powerful, the nobles +(_gentilhommes_) could choose their chiefs and obey them in the hour +of danger. As their power diminished, they grew less amenable to +discipline; and as in the last days of the Byzantine Empire, everyone +wished to be emperor. They mistook their uniform weakness for uniform +strength. + +Each family ruined by the Revolution and the abolition of the law of +primogeniture thought only of itself, and not at all of the great family +of the noblesse. It seemed to them that as each individual grew rich, +the party as a whole would gain in strength. And herein lay their +mistake. Money, likewise, is only the outward and visible sign of +power. All these families were made up of persons who preserved a high +tradition of courtesy, of true graciousness of life, of refined speech, +with a family pride, and a squeamish sense of _noblesse oblige_ which +suited well with the kind of life they led; a life wholly filled with +occupations which become contemptible so soon as they cease to be +accessories and take the chief place in existence. There was a certain +intrinsic merit in all these people, but the merit was on the surface, +and none of them were worth their face-value. + +Not a single one among those families had courage to ask itself the +question, “Are we strong enough for the responsibility of power?” They +were cast on the top, like the lawyers of 1830; and instead of taking +the patron’s place, like a great man, the Faubourg Saint-Germain showed +itself greedy as an upstart. The most intelligent nation in the world +perceived clearly that the restored nobles were organizing everything +for their own particular benefit. From that day the noblesse was doomed. +The Faubourg Saint-Germain tried to be an aristocracy when it could +only be an oligarchy--two very different systems, as any man may see +for himself if he gives an intelligent perusal to the list of the +patronymics of the House of Peers. + +The King’s Government certainly meant well; but the maxim that the +people must be made to _will_ everything, even their own welfare, was +pretty constantly forgotten, nor did they bear in mind that La France is +a woman and capricious, and must be happy or chastised at her own good +pleasure. If there had been many dukes like the Duc de Laval, whose +modesty made him worthy of the name he bore, the elder branch would have +been as securely seated on the throne as the House of Hanover at this +day. + +In 1814 the noblesse of France were called upon to assert their +superiority over the most aristocratic bourgeoisie in the most feminine +of all countries, to take the lead in the most highly educated epoch the +world had yet seen. And this was even more notably the case in 1820. The +Faubourg Saint-Germain might very easily have led and amused the middle +classes in days when people’s heads were turned with distinctions, and +art and science were all the rage. But the narrow-minded leaders of +a time of great intellectual progress all of them detested art and +science. They had not even the wit to present religion in attractive +colours, though they needed its support. While Lamartine, Lamennais, +Montalembert, and other writers were putting new life and elevation into +men’s ideas of religion, and gilding it with poetry, these bunglers in +the Government chose to make the harshness of their creed felt all over +the country. Never was nation in a more tractable humour; La France, +like a tired woman, was ready to agree to anything; never was +mismanagement so clumsy; and La France, like a woman, would have +forgiven wrongs more easily than bungling. + +If the noblesse meant to reinstate themselves, the better to found a +strong oligarchy, they should have honestly and diligently searched +their Houses for men of the stamp that Napoleon used; they should +have turned themselves inside out to see if peradventure there was a +Constitutionalist Richelieu lurking in the entrails of the Faubourg; and +if that genius was not forthcoming from among them, they should have set +out to find him, even in the fireless garret where he might happen to +be perishing of cold; they should have assimilated him, as the English +House of Lords continually assimilates aristocrats made by chance; and +finally ordered him to be ruthless, to lop away the old wood, and cut +the tree down to the living shoots. But, in the first place, the great +system of English Toryism was far too large for narrow minds; the +importation required time, and in France a tardy success is no better +than a fiasco. So far, moreover, from adopting a policy of redemption, +and looking for new forces where God puts them, these petty great folk +took a dislike to any capacity that did not issue from their midst; and, +lastly, instead of growing young again, the Faubourg Saint-Germain grew +positively older. + +Etiquette, not an institution of primary necessity, might have been +maintained if it had appeared only on state occasions, but as it was, +there was a daily wrangle over precedence; it ceased to be a matter of +art or court ceremonial, it became a question of power. And if from +the outset the Crown lacked an adviser equal to so great a crisis, the +aristocracy was still more lacking in a sense of its wider interests, an +instinct which might have supplied the deficiency. They stood nice about +M. de Talleyrand’s marriage, when M. de Talleyrand was the one man among +them with the steel-encompassed brains that can forge a new political +system and begin a new career of glory for a nation. The Faubourg +scoffed at a minister if he was not gently born, and produced no one of +gentle birth that was fit to be a minister. There were plenty of nobles +fitted to serve their country by raising the dignity of justices of +the peace, by improving the land, by opening out roads and canals, and +taking an active and leading part as country gentlemen; but these had +sold their estates to gamble on the Stock Exchange. Again the Faubourg +might have absorbed the energetic men among the bourgeoisie, and opened +their ranks to the ambition which was undermining authority; they +preferred instead to fight, and to fight unarmed, for of all that +they once possessed there was nothing left but tradition. For their +misfortune there was just precisely enough of their former wealth left +them as a class to keep up their bitter pride. They were content with +their past. Not one of them seriously thought of bidding the son of the +house take up arms from the pile of weapons which the nineteenth century +flings down in the market-place. Young men, shut out from office, were +dancing at Madame’s balls, while they should have been doing the +work done under the Republic and the Empire by young, conscientious, +harmlessly employed energies. It was their place to carry out at Paris +the programme which their seniors should have been following in the +country. The heads of houses might have won back recognition of their +titles by unremitting attention to local interests, by falling in with +the spirit of the age, by recasting their order to suit the taste of the +times. + +But, pent up together in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where the spirit of +the ancient court and traditions of bygone feuds between the nobles and +the Crown still lingered on, the aristocracy was not whole-hearted in +its allegiance to the Tuileries, and so much the more easily defeated +because it was concentrated in the Chamber of Peers, and badly organized +even there. If the noblesse had woven themselves into a network over +the country, they could have held their own; but cooped up in their +Faubourg, with their backs against the Chateau, or spread at full length +over the Budget, a single blow cut the thread of a fast-expiring life, +and a petty, smug-faced lawyer came forward with the axe. In spite of M. +Royer-Collard’s admirable discourse, the hereditary peerage and law of +entail fell before the lampoons of a man who made it a boast that he had +adroitly argued some few heads out of the executioner’s clutches, and +now forsooth must clumsily proceed to the slaying of old institutions. + +There are examples and lessons for the future in all this. For if there +were not still a future before the French aristocracy, there would be +no need to do more than find a suitable sarcophagus; it were something +pitilessly cruel to burn the dead body of it with fire of Tophet. But +though the surgeon’s scalpel is ruthless, it sometimes gives back life +to a dying man; and the Faubourg Saint-Germain may wax more powerful +under persecution than in its day of triumph, if it but chooses to +organize itself under a leader. + +And now it is easy to give a summary of this semi-political survey. The +wish to re-establish a large fortune was uppermost in everyone’s mind; +a lack of broad views, and a mass of small defects, a real need of +religion as a political factor, combined with a thirst for pleasure +which damaged the cause of religion and necessitated a good deal of +hypocrisy; a certain attitude of protest on the part of loftier and +clearer-sighted men who set their faces against Court jealousies; and +the disaffection of the provincial families, who often came of +purer descent than the nobles of the Court which alienated them from +itself--all these things combined to bring about a most discordant state +of things in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. It was neither compact in its +organisation, nor consequent in its action; neither completely moral, +nor frankly dissolute; it did not corrupt, nor was it corrupted; it +would neither wholly abandon the disputed points which damaged its +cause, nor yet adopt the policy that might have saved it. In short, +however effete individuals might be, the party as a whole was none +the less armed with all the great principles which lie at the roots of +national existence. What was there in the Faubourg that it should perish +in its strength? + +It was very hard to please in the choice of candidates; the Faubourg +had good taste, it was scornfully fastidious, yet there was nothing very +glorious nor chivalrous truly about its fall. + +In the Emigration of 1789 there were some traces of a loftier feeling; +but in the Emigration of 1830 from Paris into the country there was +nothing discernible but self-interest. A few famous men of letters, a +few oratorical triumphs in the Chambers, M. de Talleyrand’s attitude +in the Congress, the taking of Algiers, and not a few names that found +their way from the battlefield into the pages of history--all these +things were so many examples set before the French noblesse to show that +it was still open to them to take their part in the national existence, +and to win recognition of their claims, if, indeed, they could +condescend thus far. In every living organism the work of bringing +the whole into harmony within itself is always going on. If a man is +indolent, the indolence shows itself in everything that he does; and, +in the same manner, the general spirit of a class is pretty plainly +manifested in the face it turns on the world, and the soul informs the +body. + +The women of the Restoration displayed neither the proud disregard +of public opinion shown by the court ladies of olden time in their +wantonness, nor yet the simple grandeur of the tardy virtues by which +they expiated their sins and shed so bright a glory about their names. +There was nothing either very frivolous or very serious about the woman +of the Restoration. She was hypocritical as a rule in her passion, and +compounded, so to speak, with its pleasures. Some few families led +the domestic life of the Duchesse d’Orleans, whose connubial couch was +exhibited so absurdly to visitors at the Palais Royal. Two or three kept +up the traditions of the Regency, filling cleverer women with something +like disgust. The great lady of the new school exercised no influence at +all over the manners of the time; and yet she might have done much. +She might, at worst, have presented as dignified a spectacle as +English-women of the same rank. But she hesitated feebly among old +precedents, became a bigot by force of circumstances, and allowed +nothing of herself to appear, not even her better qualities. + +Not one among the Frenchwomen of that day had the ability to create a +salon whither leaders of fashion might come to take lessons in taste and +elegance. Their voices, which once laid down the law to literature, that +living expression of a time, now counted absolutely for nought. Now +when a literature lacks a general system, it fails to shape a body for +itself, and dies out with its period. + +When in a nation at any time there is a people apart thus constituted, +the historian is pretty certain to find some representative figure, +some central personage who embodies the qualities and the defects of the +whole party to which he belongs; there is Coligny, for instance, among +the Huguenots, the Coadjuteur in the time of the Fronde, the Marechal de +Richelieu under Louis XV, Danton during the Terror. It is in the nature +of things that the man should be identified with the company in which +history finds him. How is it possible to lead a party without conforming +to its ideas? or to shine in any epoch unless a man represents the ideas +of his time? The wise and prudent head of a party is continually obliged +to bow to the prejudices and follies of its rear; and this is the +cause of actions for which he is afterwards criticised by this or that +historian sitting at a safer distance from terrific popular explosions, +coolly judging the passion and ferment without which the great struggles +of the world could not be carried on at all. And if this is true of +the Historical Comedy of the Centuries, it is equally true in a more +restricted sphere in the detached scenes of the national drama known as +the _Manners of the Age_. + + + +At the beginning of that ephemeral life led by the Faubourg +Saint-Germain under the Restoration, to which, if there is any truth in +the above reflections, they failed to give stability, the most perfect +type of the aristocratic caste in its weakness and strength, its +greatness and littleness, might have been found for a brief space in a +young married woman who belonged to it. This was a woman artificially +educated, but in reality ignorant; a woman whose instincts and feelings +were lofty while the thought which should have controlled them was +wanting. She squandered the wealth of her nature in obedience to social +conventions; she was ready to brave society, yet she hesitated till her +scruples degenerated into artifice. With more wilfulness than real force +of character, impressionable rather than enthusiastic, gifted with more +brain than heart; she was supremely a woman, supremely a coquette, +and above all things a Parisienne, loving a brilliant life and gaiety, +reflecting never, or too late; imprudent to the verge of poetry, and +humble in the depths of her heart, in spite of her charming insolence. +Like some straight-growing reed, she made a show of independence; yet, +like the reed, she was ready to bend to a strong hand. She talked much +of religion, and had it not at heart, though she was prepared to find in +it a solution of her life. How explain a creature so complex? Capable +of heroism, yet sinking unconsciously from heroic heights to utter a +spiteful word; young and sweet-natured, not so much old at heart as +aged by the maxims of those about her; versed in a selfish philosophy in +which she was all unpractised, she had all the vices of a courtier, all +the nobleness of developing womanhood. She trusted nothing and no one, +yet there were times when she quitted her sceptical attitude for a +submissive credulity. + +How should any portrait be anything but incomplete of her, in whom the +play of swiftly-changing colour made discord only to produce a poetic +confusion? For in her there shone a divine brightness, a radiance of +youth that blended all her bewildering characteristics in a certain +completeness and unity informed by her charm. Nothing was feigned. The +passion or semi-passion, the ineffectual high aspirations, the actual +pettiness, the coolness of sentiment and warmth of impulse, were all +spontaneous and unaffected, and as much the outcome of her own position +as of the position of the aristocracy to which she belonged. She was +wholly self-contained; she put herself proudly above the world and +beneath the shelter of her name. There was something of the egoism of +Medea in her life, as in the life of the aristocracy that lay a-dying, +and would not so much as raise itself or stretch out a hand to any +political physician; so well aware of its feebleness, or so conscious +that it was already dust, that it refused to touch or be touched. + +The Duchesse de Langeais (for that was her name) had been married for +about four years when the Restoration was finally consummated, which is +to say, in 1816. By that time the revolution of the Hundred Days had let +in the light on the mind of Louis XVIII. In spite of his surroundings, +he comprehended the situation and the age in which he was living; and it +was only later, when this Louis XI, without the axe, lay stricken down +by disease, that those about him got the upper hand. The Duchesse de +Langeais, a Navarreins by birth, came of a ducal house which had made +a point of never marrying below its rank since the reign of Louis XIV. +Every daughter of the house must sooner or later take a _tabouret_ at +Court. So, Antoinette de Navarreins, at the age of eighteen, came out of +the profound solitude in which her girlhood had been spent to marry the +Duc de Langeais’ eldest son. The two families at that time were living +quite out of the world; but after the invasion of France, the return +of the Bourbons seemed to every Royalist mind the only possible way of +putting an end to the miseries of the war. + +The Ducs de Navarreins and de Langeais had been faithful throughout to +the exiled Princes, nobly resisting all the temptations of glory under +the Empire. Under the circumstances they naturally followed out the old +family policy; and Mlle Antoinette, a beautiful and portionless girl, +was married to M. le Marquis de Langeais only a few months before the +death of the Duke his father. + +After the return of the Bourbons, the families resumed their rank, +offices, and dignity at Court; once more they entered public life, from +which hitherto they held aloof, and took their place high on the sunlit +summits of the new political world. In that time of general baseness and +sham political conversions, the public conscience was glad to recognise +the unstained loyalty of the two houses, and a consistency in political +and private life for which all parties involuntarily respected them. +But, unfortunately, as so often happens in a time of transition, the +most disinterested persons, the men whose loftiness of view and wise +principles would have gained the confidence of the French nation and led +them to believe in the generosity of a novel and spirited policy--these +men, to repeat, were taken out of affairs, and public business was +allowed to fall into the hands of others, who found it to their interest +to push principles to their extreme consequences by way of proving their +devotion. + +The families of Langeais and Navarreins remained about the Court, +condemned to perform the duties required by Court ceremonial amid the +reproaches and sneers of the Liberal party. They were accused of gorging +themselves with riches and honours, and all the while their family +estates were no larger than before, and liberal allowances from the +civil list were wholly expended in keeping up the state necessary for +any European government, even if it be a Republic. + +In 1818, M. le Duc de Langeais commanded a division of the army, and the +Duchess held a post about one of the Princesses, in virtue of which she +was free to live in Paris and apart from her husband without scandal. +The Duke, moreover, besides his military duties, had a place at Court, +to which he came during his term of waiting, leaving his major-general +in command. The Duke and Duchess were leading lives entirely apart, the +world none the wiser. Their marriage of convention shared the fate +of nearly all family arrangements of the kind. Two more antipathetic +dispositions could not well have been found; they were brought together; +they jarred upon each other; there was soreness on either side; then +they were divided once for all. Then they went their separate ways, +with a due regard for appearances. The Duc de Langeais, by nature +as methodical as the Chevalier de Folard himself, gave himself up +methodically to his own tastes and amusements, and left his wife at +liberty to do as she pleased so soon as he felt sure of her character. +He recognised in her a spirit pre-eminently proud, a cold heart, a +profound submissiveness to the usages of the world, and a youthful +loyalty. Under the eyes of great relations, with the light of a prudish +and bigoted Court turned full upon the Duchess, his honour was safe. + +So the Duke calmly did as the _grands seigneurs_ of the eighteenth +century did before him, and left a young wife of two-and-twenty to her +own devices. He had deeply offended that wife, and in her nature there +was one appalling characteristic--she would never forgive an offence +when woman’s vanity and self-love, with all that was best in her nature +perhaps, had been slighted, wounded in secret. Insult and injury in the +face of the world a woman loves to forget; there is a way open to her of +showing herself great; she is a woman in her forgiveness; but a secret +offence women never pardon; for secret baseness, as for hidden virtues +and hidden love, they have no kindness. + +This was Mme la Duchesse de Langeais’ real position, unknown to the +world. She herself did not reflect upon it. It was the time of the +rejoicings over the Duc de Berri’s marriage. The Court and the Faubourg +roused itself from its listlessness and reserve. This was the real +beginning of that unheard-of splendour which the Government of the +Restoration carried too far. At that time the Duchess, whether for +reasons of her own, or from vanity, never appeared in public without a +following of women equally distinguished by name and fortune. As queen +of fashion she had her _dames d’atours_, her ladies, who modeled their +manner and their wit on hers. They had been cleverly chosen. None of her +satellites belonged to the inmost Court circle, nor to the highest +level of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; but they had set their minds upon +admission to those inner sanctuaries. Being as yet simple denominations, +they wished to rise to the neighbourhood of the throne, and mingle with +the seraphic powers in the high sphere known as _le petit chateau_. Thus +surrounded, the Duchess’s position was stronger and more commanding and +secure. Her “ladies” defended her character and helped her to play her +detestable part of a woman of fashion. She could laugh at men at her +ease, play with fire, receive the homage on which the feminine nature is +nourished, and remain mistress of herself. + +At Paris, in the highest society of all, a woman is a woman still; she +lives on incense, adulation, and honours. No beauty, however undoubted, +no face, however fair, is anything without admiration. Flattery and +a lover are proofs of power. And what is power without recognition? +Nothing. If the prettiest of women were left alone in a corner of a +drawing-room, she would droop. Put her in the very centre and summit of +social grandeur, she will at once aspire to reign over all hearts--often +because it is out of her power to be the happy queen of one. Dress and +manner and coquetry are all meant to please one of the poorest creatures +extant--the brainless coxcomb, whose handsome face is his sole merit; +it was for such as these that women threw themselves away. The gilded +wooden idols of the Restoration, for they were neither more nor less, +had neither the antecedents of the _petits maitres_ of the time of the +Fronde, nor the rough sterling worth of Napoleon’s heroes, not the wit +and fine manners of their grandsires; but something of all three they +meant to be without any trouble to themselves. Brave they were, like +all young Frenchmen; ability they possessed, no doubt, if they had had +a chance of proving it, but their places were filled up by the old +worn-out men, who kept them in leading strings. It was a day of +small things, a cold prosaic era. Perhaps it takes a long time for a +Restoration to become a Monarchy. + +For the past eighteen months the Duchesse de Langeais had been leading +this empty life, filled with balls and subsequent visits, objectless +triumphs, and the transient loves that spring up and die in an evening’s +space. All eyes were turned on her when she entered a room; she reaped +her harvest of flatteries and some few words of warmer admiration, which +she encouraged by a gesture or a glance, but never suffered to penetrate +deeper than the skin. Her tone and bearing and everything else about her +imposed her will upon others. Her life was a sort of fever of vanity +and perpetual enjoyment, which turned her head. She was daring enough in +conversation; she would listen to anything, corrupting the surface, as +it were, of her heart. Yet when she returned home, she often blushed at +the story that had made her laugh; at the scandalous tale that supplied +the details, on the strength of which she analyzed the love that she had +never known, and marked the subtle distinctions of modern passion, not +with comment on the part of complacent hypocrites. For women know how +to say everything among themselves, and more of them are ruined by each +other than corrupted by men. + +There came a moment when she discerned that not until a woman is loved +will the world fully recognise her beauty and her wit. What does a +husband prove? Simply that a girl or woman was endowed with wealth, or +well brought up; that her mother managed cleverly that in some way she +satisfied a man’s ambitions. A lover constantly bears witness to her +personal perfections. Then followed the discovery still in Mme de +Langeais’ early womanhood, that it was possible to be loved without +committing herself, without permission, without vouchsafing any +satisfaction beyond the most meagre dues. There was more than one demure +feminine hypocrite to instruct her in the art of playing such dangerous +comedies. + +So the Duchess had her court, and the number of her adorers and +courtiers guaranteed her virtue. She was amiable and fascinating; she +flirted till the ball or the evening’s gaiety was at an end. Then the +curtain dropped. She was cold, indifferent, self-contained again till +the next day brought its renewed sensations, superficial as before. Two +or three men were completely deceived, and fell in love in earnest. +She laughed at them, she was utterly insensible. “I am loved!” she told +herself. “He loves me!” The certainty sufficed her. It is enough for the +miser to know that his every whim might be fulfilled if he chose; so it +was with the Duchess, and perhaps she did not even go so far as to form +a wish. + +One evening she chanced to be at the house of an intimate friend Mme la +Vicomtesse de Fontaine, one of the humble rivals who cordially detested +her, and went with her everywhere. In a “friendship” of this sort both +sides are on their guard, and never lay their armor aside; confidences +are ingeniously indiscreet, and not unfrequently treacherous. Mme de +Langeais had distributed her little patronizing, friendly, or freezing +bows, with the air natural to a woman who knows the worth of her smiles, +when her eyes fell upon a total stranger. Something in the man’s large +gravity of aspect startled her, and, with a feeling almost like dread, +she turned to Mme de Maufrigneuse with, “Who is the newcomer, dear?” + +“Someone that you have heard of, no doubt. The Marquis de Montriveau.” + +“Oh! is it he?” + +She took up her eyeglass and submitted him to a very insolent scrutiny, +as if he had been a picture meant to receive glances, not to return +them. + +“Do introduce him; he ought to be interesting.” + +“Nobody more tiresome and dull, dear. But he is the fashion.” + +M. Armand de Montriveau, at that moment all unwittingly the object of +general curiosity, better deserved attention than any of the idols that +Paris needs must set up to worship for a brief space, for the city is +vexed by periodical fits of craving, a passion for _engouement_ and sham +enthusiasm, which must be satisfied. The Marquis was the only son of +General de Montriveau, one of the _ci-devants_ who served the Republic +nobly, and fell by Joubert’s side at Novi. Bonaparte had placed his son +at the school at Chalons, with the orphans of other generals who fell +on the battlefield, leaving their children under the protection of the +Republic. Armand de Montriveau left school with his way to make, entered +the artillery, and had only reached a major’s rank at the time of the +Fontainebleau disaster. In his section of the service the chances of +advancement were not many. There are fewer officers, in the first place, +among the gunners than in any other corps; and in the second place, the +feeling in the artillery was decidedly Liberal, not to say Republican; +and the Emperor, feeling little confidence in a body of highly educated +men who were apt to think for themselves, gave promotion grudgingly in +the service. In the artillery, accordingly, the general rule of the +army did not apply; the commanding officers were not invariably the most +remarkable men in their department, because there was less to be feared +from mediocrities. The artillery was a separate corps in those days, and +only came under Napoleon in action. + +Besides these general causes, other reasons, inherent in Armand de +Montriveau’s character, were sufficient in themselves to account for his +tardy promotion. He was alone in the world. He had been thrown at +the age of twenty into the whirlwind of men directed by Napoleon; his +interests were bounded by himself, any day he might lose his life; it +became a habit of mind with him to live by his own self-respect and +the consciousness that he had done his duty. Like all shy men, he was +habitually silent; but his shyness sprang by no means from timidity; +it was a kind of modesty in him; he found any demonstration of vanity +intolerable. There was no sort of swagger about his fearlessness in +action; nothing escaped his eyes; he could give sensible advice to his +chums with unshaken coolness; he could go under fire, and duck upon +occasion to avoid bullets. He was kindly; but his expression was haughty +and stern, and his face gained him this character. In everything he was +rigorous as arithmetic; he never permitted the slightest deviation from +duty on any plausible pretext, nor blinked the consequences of a fact. +He would lend himself to nothing of which he was ashamed; he never asked +anything for himself; in short, Armand de Montriveau was one of many +great men unknown to fame, and philosophical enough to despise it; +living without attaching themselves to life, because they have not found +their opportunity of developing to the full their power to do and feel. + +People were afraid of Montriveau; they respected him, but he was not +very popular. Men may indeed allow you to rise above them, but to +decline to descend as low as they can do is the one unpardonable sin. +In their feeling towards loftier natures, there is a trace of hate and +fear. Too much honour with them implies censure of themselves, a thing +forgiven neither to the living nor to the dead. + +After the Emperor’s farewells at Fontainebleau, Montriveau, noble though +he was, was put on half-pay. Perhaps the heads of the War Office took +fright at uncompromising uprightness worthy of antiquity, or perhaps it +was known that he felt bound by his oath to the Imperial Eagle. During +the Hundred Days he was made a Colonel of the Guard, and left on the +field of Waterloo. His wounds kept him in Belgium he was not present +at the disbanding of the Army of the Loire, but the King’s government +declined to recognise promotion made during the Hundred Days, and Armand +de Montriveau left France. + +An adventurous spirit, a loftiness of thought hitherto satisfied by +the hazards of war, drove him on an exploring expedition through Upper +Egypt; his sanity or impulse directed his enthusiasm to a project of +great importance, he turned his attention to that unexplored Central +Africa which occupies the learned of today. The scientific expedition +was long and unfortunate. He had made a valuable collection of notes +bearing on various geographical and commercial problems, of which +solutions are still eagerly sought; and succeeded, after surmounting +many obstacles, in reaching the heart of the continent, when he was +betrayed into the hands of a hostile native tribe. Then, stripped of all +that he had, for two years he led a wandering life in the desert, +the slave of savages, threatened with death at every moment, and more +cruelly treated than a dumb animal in the power of pitiless children. +Physical strength, and a mind braced to endurance, enabled him to +survive the horrors of that captivity; but his miraculous escape +well-nigh exhausted his energies. When he reached the French colony at +Senegal, a half-dead fugitive covered with rags, his memories of his +former life were dim and shapeless. The great sacrifices made in his +travels were all forgotten like his studies of African dialects, his +discoveries, and observations. One story will give an idea of all that +he passed through. Once for several days the children of the sheikh of +the tribe amused themselves by putting him up for a mark and flinging +horses’ knuckle-bones at his head. + +Montriveau came back to Paris in 1818 a ruined man. He had no interest, +and wished for none. He would have died twenty times over sooner than +ask a favour of anyone; he would not even press the recognition of his +claims. Adversity and hardship had developed his energy even in trifles, +while the habit of preserving his self-respect before that spiritual +self which we call conscience led him to attach consequence to the most +apparently trivial actions. His merits and adventures became known, +however, through his acquaintances, among the principal men of science +in Paris, and some few well-read military men. The incidents of his +slavery and subsequent escape bore witness to a courage, intelligence, +and coolness which won him celebrity without his knowledge, and that +transient fame of which Paris salons are lavish, though the artist that +fain would keep it must make untold efforts. + +Montriveau’s position suddenly changed towards the end of that year. He +had been a poor man, he was now rich; or, externally at any rate, he had +all the advantages of wealth. The King’s government, trying to attach +capable men to itself and to strengthen the army, made concessions +about that time to Napoleon’s old officers if their known loyalty and +character offered guarantees of fidelity. M. de Montriveau’s name once +more appeared in the army list with the rank of colonel; he received his +arrears of pay and passed into the Guards. All these favours, one +after another, came to seek the Marquis de Montriveau; he had asked +for nothing however small. Friends had taken the steps for him which he +would have refused to take for himself. + +After this, his habits were modified all at once; contrary to his +custom, he went into society. He was well received, everywhere he met +with great deference and respect. He seemed to have found some end +in life; but everything passed within the man, there were no external +signs; in society he was silent and cold, and wore a grave, reserved +face. His social success was great, precisely because he stood out in +such strong contrast to the conventional faces which line the walls +of Paris salons. He was, indeed, something quite new there. Terse +of speech, like a hermit or a savage, his shyness was thought to be +haughtiness, and people were greatly taken with it. He was something +strange and great. Women generally were so much the more smitten +with this original person because he was not to be caught by their +flatteries, however adroit, nor by the wiles with which they circumvent +the strongest men and corrode the steel temper. Their Parisian’s +grimaces were lost upon M. de Montriveau; his nature only responded to +the sonorous vibration of lofty thought and feeling. And he would very +promptly have been dropped but for the romance that hung about his +adventures and his life; but for the men who cried him up behind his +back; but for a woman who looked for a triumph for her vanity, the woman +who was to fill his thoughts. + +For these reasons the Duchesse de Langeais’ curiosity was no less lively +than natural. Chance had so ordered it that her interest in the man +before her had been aroused only the day before, when she heard the +story of one of M. de Montriveau’s adventures, a story calculated to +make the strongest impression upon a woman’s ever-changing fancy. + +During M. de Montriveau’s voyage of discovery to the sources of the +Nile, he had had an argument with one of his guides, surely the most +extraordinary debate in the annals of travel. The district that he +wished to explore could only be reached on foot across a tract of +desert. Only one of his guides knew the way; no traveller had penetrated +before into that part of the country, where the undaunted officer hoped +to find a solution of several scientific problems. In spite of the +representations made to him by the guide and the older men of the place, +he started upon the formidable journey. Summoning up courage, already +highly strung by the prospect of dreadful difficulties, he set out in +the morning. + +The loose sand shifted under his feet at every step; and when, at the +end of a long day’s march, he lay down to sleep on the ground, he had +never been so tired in his life. He knew, however, that he must be up +and on his way before dawn next day, and his guide assured him that they +should reach the end of their journey towards noon. That promise kept +up his courage and gave him new strength. In spite of his sufferings, +he continued his march, with some blasphemings against science; he was +ashamed to complain to his guide, and kept his pain to himself. After +marching for a third of the day, he felt his strength failing, his feet +were bleeding, he asked if they should reach the place soon. “In an +hour’s time,” said the guide. Armand braced himself for another hour’s +march, and they went on. + +The hour slipped by; he could not so much as see against the sky the +palm-trees and crests of hill that should tell of the end of the journey +near at hand; the horizon line of sand was vast as the circle of the +open sea. + +He came to a stand, refused to go farther, and threatened the guide--he +had deceived him, murdered him; tears of rage and weariness flowed over +his fevered cheeks; he was bowed down with fatigue upon fatigue, his +throat seemed to be glued by the desert thirst. The guide meanwhile +stood motionless, listening to these complaints with an ironical +expression, studying the while, with the apparent indifference of an +Oriental, the scarcely perceptible indications in the lie of the sands, +which looked almost black, like burnished gold. + +“I have made a mistake,” he remarked coolly. “I could not make out the +track, it is so long since I came this way; we are surely on it now, but +we must push on for two hours.” + +“The man is right,” thought M. de Montriveau. + +So he went on again, struggling to follow the pitiless native. It seemed +as if he were bound to his guide by some thread like the invisible tie +between the condemned man and the headsman. But the two hours went by, +Montriveau had spent his last drops of energy, and the skyline was a +blank, there were no palm-trees, no hills. He could neither cry out +nor groan, he lay down on the sand to die, but his eyes would have +frightened the boldest; something in his face seemed to say that he +would not die alone. His guide, like a very fiend, gave him back a cool +glance like a man that knows his power, left him to lie there, and kept +at a safe distance out of reach of his desperate victim. At last M. +Montriveau recovered strength enough for a last curse. The guide came +nearer, silenced him with a steady look, and said, “Was it not your own +will to go where I am taking you, in spite of us all? You say that I +have lied to you. If I had not, you would not be even here. Do you want +the truth? Here it is. _We have still another five hours’ march before +us, and we cannot go back_. Sound yourself; if you have not courage +enough, here is my dagger.” + +Startled by this dreadful knowledge of pain and human strength, M. +de Montriveau would not be behind a savage; he drew a fresh stock of +courage from his pride as a European, rose to his feet, and followed +his guide. The five hours were at an end, and still M. de Montriveau +saw nothing, he turned his failing eyes upon his guide; but the Nubian +hoisted him on his shoulders, and showed him a wide pool of water with +greenness all about it, and a noble forest lighted up by the sunset. It +lay only a hundred paces away; a vast ledge of granite hid the glorious +landscape. It seemed to Armand that he had taken a new lease of life. +His guide, that giant in courage and intelligence, finished his work of +devotion by carrying him across the hot, slippery, scarcely discernible +track on the granite. Behind him lay the hell of burning sand, before +him the earthly paradise of the most beautiful oasis in the desert. + +The Duchess, struck from the first by the appearance of this romantic +figure, was even more impressed when she learned that this was that +Marquis de Montriveau of whom she had dreamed during the night. She had +been with him among the hot desert sands, he had been the companion of +her nightmare wanderings; for such a woman was not this a delightful +presage of a new interest in her life? And never was a man’s exterior +a better exponent of his character; never were curious glances so well +justified. The principal characteristic of his great, square-hewn head +was the thick, luxuriant black hair which framed his face, and gave him +a strikingly close resemblance to General Kleber; and the likeness still +held good in the vigorous forehead, in the outlines of his face, the +quiet fearlessness of his eyes, and a kind of fiery vehemence expressed +by strongly marked features. He was short, deep-chested, and muscular +as a lion. There was something of the despot about him, and an +indescribable suggestion of the security of strength in his gait, +bearing, and slightest movements. He seemed to know that his will was +irresistible, perhaps because he wished for nothing unjust. And yet, +like all really strong men, he was mild of speech, simple in his +manners, and kindly natured; although it seemed as if, in the stress of +a great crisis, all these finer qualities must disappear, and the man +would show himself implacable, unshaken in his resolve, terrific in +action. There was a certain drawing in of the inner line of the lips +which, to a close observer, indicated an ironical bent. + +The Duchesse de Langeais, realising that a fleeting glory was to be +won by such a conquest, made up her mind to gain a lover in Armand de +Montriveau during the brief interval before the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse +brought him to be introduced. She would prefer him above the others; she +would attach him to herself, display all her powers of coquetry for him. +It was a fancy, such a merest Duchess’s whim as furnished a Lope or a +Calderon with the plot of the _Dog in the Manger_. She would not suffer +another woman to engross him; but she had not the remotest intention of +being his. + +Nature had given the Duchess every qualification for the part of +coquette, and education had perfected her. Women envied her, and men +fell in love with her, not without reason. Nothing that can inspire +love, justify it, and give it lasting empire was wanting in her. Her +style of beauty, her manner, her voice, her bearing, all combined to +give her that instinctive coquetry which seems to be the consciousness +of power. Her shape was graceful; perhaps there was a trace of +self-consciousness in her changes of movement, the one affectation that +could be laid to her charge; but everything about her was a part of her +personality, from her least little gesture to the peculiar turn of her +phrases, the demure glance of her eyes. Her great lady’s grace, her +most striking characteristic, had not destroyed the very French quick +mobility of her person. There was an extraordinary fascination in her +swift, incessant changes of attitude. She seemed as if she surely would +be a most delicious mistress when her corset and the encumbering costume +of her part were laid aside. All the rapture of love surely was latent +in the freedom of her expressive glances, in her caressing tones, in the +charm of her words. She gave glimpses of the high-born courtesan within +her, vainly protesting against the creeds of the duchess. + +You might sit near her through an evening, she would be gay and +melancholy in turn, and her gaiety, like her sadness, seemed +spontaneous. She could be gracious, disdainful, insolent, or confiding +at will. Her apparent good nature was real; she had no temptation to +descend to malignity. But at each moment her mood changed; she was full +of confidence or craft; her moving tenderness would give place to a +heart-breaking hardness and insensibility. Yet how paint her as she +was, without bringing together all the extremes of feminine nature? In +a word, the Duchess was anything that she wished to be or to seem. +Her face was slightly too long. There was a grace in it, and a certain +thinness and fineness that recalled the portraits of the Middle Ages. +Her skin was white, with a faint rose tint. Everything about her erred, +as it were, by an excess of delicacy. + +M. de Montriveau willingly consented to be introduced to the Duchesse +de Langeais; and she, after the manner of persons whose sensitive taste +leads them to avoid banalities, refrained from overwhelming him with +questions and compliments. She received him with a gracious deference +which could not fail to flatter a man of more than ordinary powers, +for the fact that a man rises above the ordinary level implies that +he possesses something of that tact which makes women quick to read +feeling. If the Duchess showed any curiosity, it was by her glances; +her compliments were conveyed in her manner; there was a winning grace +displayed in her words, a subtle suggestion of a desire to please which +she of all women knew the art of manifesting. Yet her whole conversation +was but, in a manner, the body of the letter; the postscript with the +principal thought in it was still to come. After half an hour spent in +ordinary talk, in which the words gained all their value from her tone +and smiles, M. de Montriveau was about to retire discreetly, when the +Duchess stopped him with an expressive gesture. + +“I do not know, monsieur, whether these few minutes during which I have +had the pleasure of talking to you proved so sufficiently attractive, +that I may venture to ask you to call upon me; I am afraid that it may +be very selfish of me to wish to have you all to myself. If I should +be so fortunate as to find that my house is agreeable to you, you will +always find me at home in the evening until ten o’clock.” + +The invitation was given with such irresistible grace, that M. de +Montriveau could not refuse to accept it. When he fell back again among +the groups of men gathered at a distance from the women, his +friends congratulated him, half laughingly, half in earnest, on the +extraordinary reception vouchsafed him by the Duchesse de Langeais. The +difficult and brilliant conquest had been made beyond a doubt, and the +glory of it was reserved for the Artillery of the Guard. It is easy to +imagine the jests, good and bad, when this topic had once been started; +the world of Paris salons is so eager for amusement, and a joke lasts +for such a short time, that everyone is eager to make the most of it +while it is fresh. + +All unconsciously, the General felt flattered by this nonsense. From his +place where he had taken his stand, his eyes were drawn again and again +to the Duchess by countless wavering reflections. He could not help +admitting to himself that of all the women whose beauty had captivated +his eyes, not one had seemed to be a more exquisite embodiment of faults +and fair qualities blended in a completeness that might realise the +dreams of earliest manhood. Is there a man in any rank of life that has +not felt indefinable rapture in his secret soul over the woman singled +out (if only in his dreams) to be his own; when she, in body, soul, and +social aspects, satisfies his every requirement, a thrice perfect woman? +And if this threefold perfection that flatters his pride is no argument +for loving her, it is beyond cavil one of the great inducements to the +sentiment. Love would soon be convalescent, as the eighteenth century +moralist remarked, were it not for vanity. And it is certainly true +that for everyone, man or woman, there is a wealth of pleasure in +the superiority of the beloved. Is she set so high by birth that a +contemptuous glance can never wound her? is she wealthy enough to +surround herself with state which falls nothing short of royalty, of +kings, of finance during their short reign of splendour? is she so +ready-witted that a keen-edged jest never brings her into confusion? +beautiful enough to rival any woman?--Is it such a small thing to know +that your self-love will never suffer through her? A man makes these +reflections in the twinkling of an eye. And how if, in the future opened +out by early ripened passion, he catches glimpses of the changeful +delight of her charm, the frank innocence of a maiden soul, the perils +of love’s voyage, the thousand folds of the veil of coquetry? Is not +this enough to move the coldest man’s heart? + +This, therefore, was M. de Montriveau’s position with regard to woman; +his past life in some measure explaining the extraordinary fact. He +had been thrown, when little more than a boy, into the hurricane of +Napoleon’s wars; his life had been spent on fields of battle. Of women +he knew just so much as a traveller knows of a country when he travels +across it in haste from one inn to another. The verdict which Voltaire +passed upon his eighty years of life might, perhaps, have been applied +by Montriveau to his own thirty-seven years of existence; had he not +thirty-seven follies with which to reproach himself? At his age he was +as much a novice in love as the lad that has just been furtively reading +_Faublas_. Of women he had nothing to learn; of love he knew nothing; +and thus, desires, quite unknown before, sprang from this virginity of +feeling. + +There are men here and there as much engrossed in the work demanded of +them by poverty or ambition, art or science, as M. de Montriveau by war +and a life of adventure--these know what it is to be in this unusual +position if they very seldom confess to it. Every man in Paris is +supposed to have been in love. No woman in Paris cares to take what +other women have passed over. The dread of being taken for a fool is the +source of the coxcomb’s bragging so common in France; for in France to +have the reputation of a fool is to be a foreigner in one’s own country. +Vehement desire seized on M. de Montriveau, desire that had gathered +strength from the heat of the desert and the first stirrings of a heart +unknown as yet in its suppressed turbulence. + +A strong man, and violent as he was strong, he could keep mastery over +himself; but as he talked of indifferent things, he retired within +himself, and swore to possess this woman, for through that thought lay +the only way to love for him. Desire became a solemn compact made with +himself, an oath after the manner of the Arabs among whom he had lived; +for among them a vow is a kind of contract made with Destiny a man’s +whole future is solemnly pledged to fulfil it, and everything even his +own death, is regarded simply as a means to the one end. + +A younger man would have said to himself, “I should very much like to +have the Duchess for my mistress!” or, “If the Duchesse de Langeais +cared for a man, he would be a very lucky rascal!” But the General said, +“I will have Mme de Langeais for my mistress.” And if a man takes such +an idea into his head when his heart has never been touched before, and +love begins to be a kind of religion with him, he little knows in what a +hell he has set his foot. + +Armand de Montriveau suddenly took flight and went home in the first hot +fever-fit of the first love that he had known. When a man has kept all +his boyish beliefs, illusions, frankness, and impetuosity into middle +age, his first impulse is, as it were, to stretch out a hand to take the +thing that he desires; a little later he realizes that there is a gulf +set between them, and that it is all but impossible to cross it. A sort +of childish impatience seizes him, he wants the thing the more, +and trembles or cries. Wherefore, the next day, after the stormiest +reflections that had yet perturbed his mind, Armand de Montriveau +discovered that he was under the yoke of the senses, and his bondage +made the heavier by his love. + +The woman so cavalierly treated in his thoughts of yesterday had become +a most sacred and dreadful power. She was to be his world, his life, +from this time forth. The greatest joy, the keenest anguish, that he +had yet known grew colorless before the bare recollection of the least +sensation stirred in him by her. The swiftest revolutions in a man’s +outward life only touch his interests, while passion brings a complete +revulsion of feeling. And so in those who live by feeling, rather than +by self-interest, the doers rather than the reasoners, the sanguine +rather than the lymphatic temperaments, love works a complete +revolution. In a flash, with one single reflection, Armand de Montriveau +wiped out his whole past life. + +A score of times he asked himself, like a boy, “Shall I go, or shall I +not?” and then at last he dressed, came to the Hotel de Langeais +towards eight o’clock that evening, and was admitted. He was to see the +woman--ah! not the woman--the idol that he had seen yesterday, among +lights, a fresh innocent girl in gauze and silken lace and veiling. +He burst in upon her to declare his love, as if it were a question of +firing the first shot on a field of battle. + +Poor novice! He found his ethereal sylphide shrouded in a brown cashmere +dressing-gown ingeniously befrilled, lying languidly stretched out upon +a sofa in a dimly lighted boudoir. Mme de Langeais did not so much as +rise, nothing was visible of her but her face, her hair was loose but +confined by a scarf. A hand indicated a seat, a hand that seemed white +as marble to Montriveau by the flickering light of a single candle at +the further side of the room, and a voice as soft as the light said: + +“If it had been anyone else, M. le Marquis, a friend with whom I could +dispense with ceremony, or a mere acquaintance in whom I felt but slight +interest, I should have closed my door. I am exceedingly unwell.” + +“I will go,” Armand said to himself. + +“But I do not know how it is,” she continued (and the simple warrior +attributed the shining of her eyes to fever), “perhaps it was a +presentiment of your kind visit (and no one can be more sensible of the +prompt attention than I), but the vapors have left my head.” + +“Then may I stay?” + +“Oh, I should be very sorry to allow you to go. I told myself this +morning that it was impossible that I should have made the slightest +impression on your mind, and that in all probability you took my request +for one of the commonplaces of which Parisians are lavish on every +occasion. And I forgave your ingratitude in advance. An explorer +from the deserts is not supposed to know how exclusive we are in our +friendships in the Faubourg.” + +The gracious, half-murmured words dropped one by one, as if they had +been weighted with the gladness that apparently brought them to her +lips. The Duchess meant to have the full benefit of her headache, and +her speculation was fully successful. The General, poor man, was really +distressed by the lady’s simulated distress. Like Crillon listening to +the story of the Crucifixion, he was ready to draw his sword against the +vapors. How could a man dare to speak just then to this suffering woman +of the love that she inspired? Armand had already felt that it would be +absurd to fire off a declaration of love point-blank at one so far above +other women. With a single thought came understanding of the delicacies +of feeling, of the soul’s requirements. To love: what was that but to +know how to plead, to beg for alms, to wait? And as for the love that +he felt, must he not prove it? His tongue was mute, it was frozen by the +conventions of the noble Faubourg, the majesty of a sick headache, the +bashfulness of love. But no power on earth could veil his glances; the +heat and the Infinite of the desert blazed in eyes calm as a panther’s, +beneath the lids that fell so seldom. The Duchess enjoyed the steady +gaze that enveloped her in light and warmth. + +“Mme la Duchesse,” he answered, “I am afraid I express my gratitude for +your goodness very badly. At this moment I have but one desire--I wish +it were in my power to cure the pain.” + +“Permit me to throw this off, I feel too warm now,” she said, gracefully +tossing aside a cushion that covered her feet. + +“Madame, in Asia your feet would be worth some ten thousand sequins. + +“A traveler’s compliment!” smiled she. + +It pleased the sprightly lady to involve a rough soldier in a labyrinth +of nonsense, commonplaces, and meaningless talk, in which he manoeuvred, +in military language, as Prince Charles might have done at close +quarters with Napoleon. She took a mischievous amusement in +reconnoitring the extent of his infatuation by the number of foolish +speeches extracted from a novice whom she led step by step into a +hopeless maze, meaning to leave him there in confusion. She began by +laughing at him, but nevertheless it pleased her to make him forget how +time went. + +The length of a first visit is frequently a compliment, but Armand was +innocent of any such intent. The famous explorer spent an hour in chat +on all sorts of subjects, said nothing that he meant to say, and was +feeling that he was only an instrument on whom this woman played, when +she rose, sat upright, drew the scarf from her hair, and wrapped it +about her throat, leant her elbow on the cushions, did him the honour +of a complete cure, and rang for lights. The most graceful movement +succeeded to complete repose. She turned to M. de Montriveau, from whom +she had just extracted a confidence which seemed to interest her deeply, +and said: + +“You wish to make game of me by trying to make me believe that you +have never loved. It is a man’s great pretension with us. And we always +believe it! Out of pure politeness. Do we not know what to expect +from it for ourselves? Where is the man that has found but a single +opportunity of losing his heart? But you love to deceive us, and we +submit to be deceived, poor foolish creatures that we are; for your +hypocrisy is, after all, a homage paid to the superiority of our +sentiments, which are all purity.” + +The last words were spoken with a disdainful pride that made the novice +in love feel like a worthless bale flung into the deep, while the +Duchess was an angel soaring back to her particular heaven. + +“Confound it!” thought Armand de Montriveau, “how am I to tell this wild +thing that I love her?” + +He had told her already a score of times; or rather, the Duchess had +a score of times read his secret in his eyes; and the passion in this +unmistakably great man promised her amusement, and an interest in her +empty life. So she prepared with no little dexterity to raise a certain +number of redoubts for him to carry by storm before he should gain an +entrance into her heart. Montriveau should overleap one difficulty after +another; he should be a plaything for her caprice, just as an insect +teased by children is made to jump from one finger to another, and in +spite of all its pains is kept in the same place by its mischievous +tormentor. And yet it gave the Duchess inexpressible happiness to see +that this strong man had told her the truth. Armand had never loved, as +he had said. He was about to go, in a bad humour with himself, and still +more out of humour with her; but it delighted her to see a sullenness +that she could conjure away with a word, a glance, or a gesture. + +“Will you come tomorrow evening?” she asked. “I am going to a ball, but +I shall stay at home for you until ten o’clock.” + +Montriveau spent most of the next day in smoking an indeterminate +quantity of cigars in his study window, and so got through the hours +till he could dress and go to the Hotel de Langeais. To anyone who had +known the magnificent worth of the man, it would have been grievous to +see him grown so small, so distrustful of himself; the mind that might +have shed light over undiscovered worlds shrunk to the proportions of +a she-coxcomb’s boudoir. Even he himself felt that he had fallen so low +already in his happiness that to save his life he could not have told +his love to one of his closest friends. Is there not always a trace +of shame in the lover’s bashfulness, and perhaps in woman a certain +exultation over diminished masculine stature? Indeed, but for a host of +motives of this kind, how explain why women are nearly always the first +to betray the secret?--a secret of which, perhaps, they soon weary. + +“Mme la Duchesse cannot see visitors, monsieur,” said the man; “she is +dressing, she begs you to wait for her here.” + +Armand walked up and down the drawing-room, studying her taste in the +least details. He admired Mme de Langeais herself in the objects of her +choosing; they revealed her life before he could grasp her personality +and ideas. About an hour later the Duchess came noiselessly out of her +chamber. Montriveau turned, saw her flit like a shadow across the room, +and trembled. She came up to him, not with a bourgeoise’s enquiry, “How +do I look?” She was sure of herself; her steady eyes said plainly, “I am +adorned to please you.” + +No one surely, save the old fairy godmother of some princess in +disguise, could have wound a cloud of gauze about the dainty throat, so +that the dazzling satin skin beneath should gleam through the gleaming +folds. The Duchess was dazzling. The pale blue colour of her gown, +repeated in the flowers in her hair, appeared by the richness of its hue +to lend substance to a fragile form grown too wholly ethereal; for as +she glided towards Armand, the loose ends of her scarf floated about +her, putting that valiant warrior in mind of the bright damosel flies +that hover now over water, now over the flowers with which they seem to +mingle and blend. + +“I have kept you waiting,” she said, with the tone that a woman can +always bring into her voice for the man whom she wishes to please. + +“I would wait patiently through an eternity,” said he, “if I were sure +of finding a divinity so fair; but it is no compliment to speak of your +beauty to you; nothing save worship could touch you. Suffer me only to +kiss your scarf.” + +“Oh, fie!” she said, with a commanding gesture, “I esteem you enough to +give you my hand.” + +She held it out for his kiss. A woman’s hand, still moist from the +scented bath, has a soft freshness, a velvet smoothness that sends a +tingling thrill from the lips to the soul. And if a man is attracted to +a woman, and his senses are as quick to feel pleasure as his heart is +full of love, such a kiss, though chaste in appearance, may conjure up a +terrific storm. + +“Will you always give it me like this?” the General asked humbly when he +had pressed that dangerous hand respectfully to his lips. + +“Yes, but there we must stop,” she said, smiling. She sat down, +and seemed very slow over putting on her gloves, trying to slip the +unstretched kid over all her fingers at once, while she watched M. +de Montriveau; and he was lost in admiration of the Duchess and those +repeated graceful movements of hers. + +“Ah! you were punctual,” she said; “that is right. I like punctuality. +It is the courtesy of kings, His Majesty says; but to my thinking, from +you men it is the most respectful flattery of all. Now, is it not? Just +tell me.” + +Again she gave him a side glance to express her insidious friendship, +for he was dumb with happiness sheer happiness through such nothings +as these! Oh, the Duchess understood _son metier de femme_--the art +and mystery of being a woman--most marvelously well; she knew, to +admiration, how to raise a man in his own esteem as he humbled himself +to her; how to reward every step of the descent to sentimental folly +with hollow flatteries. + +“You will never forget to come at nine o’clock.” + +“No; but are you going to a ball every night?” + +“Do I know?” she answered, with a little childlike shrug of the +shoulders; the gesture was meant to say that she was nothing if not +capricious, and that a lover must take her as she was.--“Besides,” she +added, “what is that to you? You shall be my escort.” + +“That would be difficult tonight,” he objected; “I am not properly +dressed.” + +“It seems to me,” she returned loftily, “that if anyone has a right +to complain of your costume, it is I. Know, therefore, _monsieur le +voyageur_, that if I accept a man’s arm, he is forthwith above the laws +of fashion, nobody would venture to criticise him. You do not know the +world, I see; I like you the better for it.” + +And even as she spoke she swept him into the pettiness of that world by +the attempt to initiate him into the vanities of a woman of fashion. + +“If she chooses to do a foolish thing for me, I should be a simpleton to +prevent her,” said Armand to himself. “She has a liking for me beyond a +doubt; and as for the world, she cannot despise it more than I do. So, +now for the ball if she likes.” + +The Duchess probably thought that if the General came with her and +appeared in a ballroom in boots and a black tie, nobody would hesitate +to believe that he was violently in love with her. And the General was +well pleased that the queen of fashion should think of compromising +herself for him; hope gave him wit. He had gained confidence, he brought +out his thoughts and views; he felt nothing of the restraint that +weighed on his spirits yesterday. His talk was interesting and animated, +and full of those first confidences so sweet to make and to receive. + +Was Mme de Langeais really carried away by his talk, or had she +devised this charming piece of coquetry? At any rate, she looked up +mischievously as the clock struck twelve. + +“Ah! you have made me too late for the ball!” she exclaimed, surprised +and vexed that she had forgotten how time was going. + +The next moment she approved the exchange of pleasures with a smile that +made Armand’s heart give a sudden leap. + +“I certainly promised Mme de Beauseant,” she added. “They are all +expecting me.” + +“Very well--go.” + +“No--go on. I will stay. Your Eastern adventures fascinate me. Tell +me the whole story of your life. I love to share in a brave man’s +hardships, and I feel them all, indeed I do!” + +She was playing with her scarf, twisting it and pulling it to +pieces, with jerky, impatient movements that seemed to tell of inward +dissatisfaction and deep reflection. + +“_We_ are fit for nothing,” she went on. “Ah! we are contemptible, +selfish, frivolous creatures. We can bore ourselves with amusements, +and that is all we can do. Not one of us that understands that she has +a part to play in life. In old days in France, women were beneficent +lights; they lived to comfort those that mourned, to encourage high +virtues, to reward artists and stir new life with noble thoughts. If the +world has grown so petty, ours is the fault. You make me loathe the ball +and this world in which I live. No, I am not giving up much for you.” + +She had plucked her scarf to pieces, as a child plays with a flower, +pulling away all the petals one by one; and now she crushed it into a +ball, and flung it away. She could show her swan’s neck. + +She rang the bell. “I shall not go out tonight,” she told the footman. +Her long, blue eyes turned timidly to Armand; and by the look of +misgiving in them, he knew that he was meant to take the order for a +confession, for a first and great favour. There was a pause, filled with +many thoughts, before she spoke with that tenderness which is often in +women’s voices, and not so often in their hearts. “You have had a hard +life,” she said. + +“No,” returned Armand. “Until today I did not know what happiness was.” + +“Then you know it now?” she asked, looking at him with a demure, keen +glance. + +“What is happiness for me henceforth but this--to see you, to hear +you?... Until now I have only known privation; now I know that I can be +unhappy----” + +“That will do, that will do,” she said. “You must go; it is past +midnight. Let us regard appearances. People must not talk about us. I +do not know quite what I shall say; but the headache is a good-natured +friend, and tells no tales.” + +“Is there to be a ball tomorrow night?” + +“You would grow accustomed to the life, I think. Very well. Yes, we will +go again tomorrow night.” + +There was not a happier man in the world than Armand when he went out +from her. Every evening he came to Mme de Langeais’ at the hour kept for +him by a tacit understanding. + +It would be tedious, and, for the many young men who carry a redundance +of such sweet memories in their hearts, it were superfluous to follow +the story step by step--the progress of a romance growing in those hours +spent together, a romance controlled entirely by a woman’s will. If +sentiment went too fast, she would raise a quarrel over a word, or when +words flagged behind her thoughts, she appealed to the feelings. Perhaps +the only way of following such Penelope’s progress is by marking its +outward and visible signs. + +As, for instance, within a few days of their first meeting, the +assiduous General had won and kept the right to kiss his lady’s +insatiable hands. Wherever Mme de Langeais went, M. de Montriveau +was certain to be seen, till people jokingly called him “Her Grace’s +orderly.” And already he had made enemies; others were jealous, and +envied him his position. Mme de Langeais had attained her end. The +Marquis de Montriveau was among her numerous train of adorers, and a +means of humiliating those who boasted of their progress in her good +graces, for she publicly gave him preference over them all. + +“Decidedly, M. de Montriveau is the man for whom the Duchess shows a +preference,” pronounced Mme de Serizy. + +And who in Paris does not know what it means when a woman “shows a +preference?” All went on therefore according to prescribed rule. The +anecdotes which people were pleased to circulate concerning the General +put that warrior in so formidable a light, that the more adroit quietly +dropped their pretensions to the Duchess, and remained in her train +merely to turn the position to account, and to use her name and +personality to make better terms for themselves with certain stars of +the second magnitude. And those lesser powers were delighted to take a +lover away from Mme de Langeais. The Duchess was keen-sighted enough to +see these desertions and treaties with the enemy; and her pride would +not suffer her to be the dupe of them. As M. de Talleyrand, one of her +great admirers, said, she knew how to take a second edition of revenge, +laying the two-edged blade of a sarcasm between the pairs in these +“morganatic” unions. Her mocking disdain contributed not a little to +increase her reputation as an extremely clever woman and a person to +be feared. Her character for virtue was consolidated while she amused +herself with other people’s secrets, and kept her own to herself. Yet, +after two months of assiduities, she saw with a vague dread in the +depths of her soul that M. de Montriveau understood nothing of the +subtleties of flirtation after the manner of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; +he was taking a Parisienne’s coquetry in earnest. + +“You will not tame _him_, dear Duchess,” the old Vidame de Pamiers had +said. “‘Tis a first cousin to the eagle; he will carry you off to his +eyrie if you do not take care.” + +Then Mme de Langeais felt afraid. The shrewd old noble’s words sounded +like a prophecy. The next day she tried to turn love to hate. She was +harsh, exacting, irritable, unbearable; Montriveau disarmed her with +angelic sweetness. She so little knew the great generosity of a large +nature, that the kindly jests with which her first complaints were met +went to her heart. She sought a quarrel, and found proofs of affection. +She persisted. + +“When a man idolizes you, how can he have vexed you?” asked Armand. + +“You do not vex me,” she answered, suddenly grown gentle and submissive. +“But why do you wish to compromise me? For me you ought to be nothing +but a _friend_. Do you not know it? I wish I could see that you had the +instincts, the delicacy of real friendship, so that I might lose neither +your respect nor the pleasure that your presence gives me.” + +“Nothing but your _friend_!” he cried out. The terrible word sent an +electric shock through his brain. “On the faith of these happy hours +that you grant me, I sleep and wake in your heart. And now today, for no +reason, you are pleased to destroy all the secret hopes by which I live. +You have required promises of such constancy in me, you have said so +much of your horror of women made up of nothing but caprice; and now do +you wish me to understand that, like other women here in Paris, you have +passions, and know nothing of love? If so, why did you ask my life of +me? why did you accept it?” + +“I was wrong, my friend. Oh, it is wrong of a woman to yield to such +intoxication when she must not and cannot make any return.” + +“I understand. You have merely been coquetting with me, and----” + +“Coquetting?” she repeated. “I detest coquetry. A coquette Armand, makes +promises to many, and gives herself to none; and a woman who keeps such +promises is a libertine. This much I believed I had grasped of our code. +But to be melancholy with humorists, gay with the frivolous, and politic +with ambitious souls; to listen to a babbler with every appearance +of admiration, to talk of war with a soldier, wax enthusiastic with +philanthropists over the good of the nation, and to give to each one his +little dole of flattery--it seems to me that this is as much a matter of +necessity as dress, diamonds, and gloves, or flowers in one’s hair. Such +talk is the moral counterpart of the toilette. You take it up and lay it +aside with the plumed head-dress. Do you call this coquetry? Why, I have +never treated you as I treat everyone else. With you, my friend, I am +sincere. Have I not always shared your views, and when you convinced me +after a discussion, was I not always perfectly glad? In short, I love +you, but only as a devout and pure woman may love. I have thought it +over. I am a married woman, Armand. My way of life with M. de Langeais +gives me liberty to bestow my heart; but law and custom leave me no +right to dispose of my person. If a woman loses her honour, she is +an outcast in any rank of life; and I have yet to meet with a single +example of a man that realizes all that our sacrifices demand of him in +such a case. Quite otherwise. Anyone can foresee the rupture between Mme +de Beauseant and M. d’Ajuda (for he is going to marry Mlle de Rochefide, +it seems), that affair made it clear to my mind that these very +sacrifices on the woman’s part are almost always the cause of the man’s +desertion. If you had loved me sincerely, you would have kept away for a +time.--Now, I will lay aside all vanity for you; is not that something? +What will not people say of a woman to whom no man attaches himself? +Oh, she is heartless, brainless, soulless; and what is more, devoid +of charm! Coquettes will not spare me. They will rob me of the very +qualities that mortify them. So long as my reputation is safe, what do I +care if my rivals deny my merits? They certainly will not inherit them. +Come, my friend; give up something for her who sacrifices so much for +you. Do not come quite so often; I shall love you none the less.” + +“Ah!” said Armand, with the profound irony of a wounded heart in his +words and tone. “Love, so the scribblers say, only feeds on illusions. +Nothing could be truer, I see; I am expected to imagine that I am loved. +But, there!--there are some thoughts like wounds, from which there is no +recovery. My belief in you was one of the last left to me, and now I see +that there is nothing left to believe in this earth.” + +She began to smile. + +“Yes,” Montriveau went on in an unsteady voice, “this Catholic faith to +which you wish to convert me is a lie that men make for themselves; hope +is a lie at the expense of the future; pride, a lie between us and our +fellows; and pity, and prudence, and terror are cunning lies. And now +my happiness is to be one more lying delusion; I am expected to delude +myself, to be willing to give gold coin for silver to the end. If you +can so easily dispense with my visits; if you can confess me neither +as your friend nor your lover, you do not care for me! And I, poor fool +that I am, tell myself this, and know it, and love you!” + +“But, dear me, poor Armand, you are flying into a passion!” + +“I flying into a passion?” + +“Yes. You think that the whole question is opened because I ask you to +be careful.” + +In her heart of hearts she was delighted with the anger that leapt out +in her lover’s eyes. Even as she tortured him, she was criticising +him, watching every slightest change that passed over his face. If +the General had been so unluckily inspired as to show himself generous +without discussion (as happens occasionally with some artless souls), +he would have been a banished man forever, accused and convicted of not +knowing how to love. Most women are not displeased to have their code of +right and wrong broken through. Do they not flatter themselves that they +never yield except to force? But Armand was not learned enough in this +kind of lore to see the snare ingeniously spread for him by the Duchess. +So much of the child was there in the strong man in love. + +“If all you want is to preserve appearances,” he began in his +simplicity, “I am willing to----” + +“Simply to preserve appearances!” the lady broke in; “why, what idea can +you have of me? Have I given you the slightest reason to suppose that I +can be yours?” + +“Why, what else are we talking about?” demanded Montriveau. + +“Monsieur, you frighten me!... No, pardon me. Thank you,” she added, +coldly; “thank you, Armand. You have given me timely warning of +imprudence; committed quite unconsciously, believe it, my friend. You +know how to endure, you say. I also know how to endure. We will not +see each other for a time; and then, when both of us have contrived to +recover calmness to some extent, we will think about arrangements for +a happiness sanctioned by the world. I am young, Armand; a man with no +delicacy might tempt a woman of four-and-twenty to do many foolish, wild +things for his sake. But _you_! You will be my friend, promise me that +you will?” + +“The woman of four-and-twenty,” returned he, “knows what she is about.” + +He sat down on the sofa in the boudoir, and leant his head on his hands. + +“Do you love me, madame?” he asked at length, raising his head, and +turning a face full of resolution upon her. “Say it straight out; Yes or +No!” + +His direct question dismayed the Duchess more than a threat of suicide +could have done; indeed, the woman of the nineteenth century is not to +be frightened by that stale stratagem, the sword has ceased to be part +of the masculine costume. But in the effect of eyelids and lashes, in +the contraction of the gaze, in the twitching of the lips, is there not +some influence that communicates the terror which they express with such +vivid magnetic power? + +“Ah, if I were free, if----” + +“Oh! is it only your husband that stands in the way?” the General +exclaimed joyfully, as he strode to and fro in the boudoir. “Dear +Antoinette, I wield a more absolute power than the Autocrat of all the +Russias. I have a compact with Fate; I can advance or retard destiny, +so far as men are concerned, at my fancy, as you alter the hands of a +watch. If you can direct the course of fate in our political machinery, +it simply means (does it not?) that you understand the ins and outs of +it. You shall be free before very long, and then you must remember your +promise.” + +“Armand!” she cried. “What do you mean? Great heavens! Can you imagine +that I am to be the prize of a crime? Do you want to kill me? Why! you +cannot have any religion in you! For my own part, I fear God. M. de +Langeais may have given me reason to hate him, but I wish him no manner +of harm.” + +M. de Montriveau beat a tattoo on the marble chimney-piece, and only +looked composedly at the lady. + +“Dear,” continued she, “respect him. He does not love me, he is not kind +to me, but I have duties to fulfil with regard to him. What would I not +do to avert the calamities with which you threaten him?--Listen,” she +continued after a pause, “I will not say another word about separation; +you shall come here as in the past, and I will still give you my +forehead to kiss. If I refused once or twice, it was pure coquetry, +indeed it was. But let us understand each other,” she added as he came +closer. “You will permit me to add to the number of my satellites; to +receive even more visitors in the morning than heretofore; I mean to be +twice as frivolous; I mean to use you to all appearance very badly; +to feign a rupture; you must come not quite so often, and then, +afterwards----” + +While she spoke, she had allowed him to put an arm about her waist, +Montriveau was holding her tightly to him, and she seemed to feel the +exceeding pleasure that women usually feel in that close contact, an +earnest of the bliss of a closer union. And then, doubtless she meant to +elicit some confidence, for she raised herself on tiptoe, and laid her +forehead against Armand’s burning lips. + +“And then,” Montriveau finished her sentence for her, “you shall not +speak to me of your husband. You ought not to think of him again.” + +Mme de Langeais was silent awhile. + +“At least,” she said, after a significant pause, “at least you will do +all that I wish without grumbling, you will not be naughty; tell me so, +my friend? You wanted to frighten me, did you not? Come, now, confess +it?... You are too good ever to think of crimes. But is it possible that +you can have secrets that I do not know? How can you control Fate?” + +“Now, when you confirm the gift of the heart that you have already given +me, I am far too happy to know exactly how to answer you. I can trust +you, Antoinette; I shall have no suspicion, no unfounded jealousy of +you. But if accident should set you free, we shall be one----” + +“Accident, Armand?” (With that little dainty turn of the head that seems +to say so many things, a gesture that such women as the Duchess can use +on light occasions, as a great singer can act with her voice.) “Pure +accident,” she repeated. “Mind that. If anything should happen to M. de +Langeais by your fault, I should never be yours.” + +And so they parted, mutually content. The Duchess had made a pact +that left her free to prove to the world by words and deeds that M. de +Montriveau was no lover of hers. And as for him, the wily Duchess +vowed to tire him out. He should have nothing of her beyond the little +concessions snatched in the course of contests that she could stop +at her pleasure. She had so pretty an art of revoking the grant +of yesterday, she was so much in earnest in her purpose to remain +technically virtuous, that she felt that there was not the slightest +danger for her in preliminaries fraught with peril for a woman less sure +of her self-command. After all, the Duchess was practically separated +from her husband; a marriage long since annulled was no great sacrifice +to make to her love. + +Montriveau on his side was quite happy to win the vaguest promise, glad +once for all to sweep aside, with all scruples of conjugal fidelity, her +stock of excuses for refusing herself to his love. He had gained ground +a little, and congratulated himself. And so for a time he took unfair +advantage of the rights so hardly won. More a boy than he had ever been +in his life, he gave himself up to all the childishness that makes first +love the flower of life. He was a child again as he poured out all +his soul, all the thwarted forces that passion had given him, upon her +hands, upon the dazzling forehead that looked so pure to his eyes; upon +her fair hair; on the tufted curls where his lips were pressed. And the +Duchess, on whom his love was poured like a flood, was vanquished by +the magnetic influence of her lover’s warmth; she hesitated to begin +the quarrel that must part them forever. She was more a woman than she +thought, this slight creature, in her effort to reconcile the demands +of religion with the ever-new sensations of vanity, the semblance of +pleasure which turns a Parisienne’s head. Every Sunday she went to Mass; +she never missed a service; then, when evening came, she was steeped in +the intoxicating bliss of repressed desire. Armand and Mme de Langeais, +like Hindoo fakirs, found the reward of their continence in the +temptations to which it gave rise. Possibly, the Duchess had ended by +resolving love into fraternal caresses, harmless enough, as it might +have seemed to the rest of the world, while they borrowed extremes +of degradation from the license of her thoughts. How else explain the +incomprehensible mystery of her continual fluctuations? Every morning +she proposed to herself to shut her door on the Marquis de Montriveau; +every evening, at the appointed hour, she fell under the charm of his +presence. There was a languid defence; then she grew less unkind. Her +words were sweet and soothing. They were lovers--lovers only could have +been thus. For him the Duchess would display her most sparkling wit, her +most captivating wiles; and when at last she had wrought upon his senses +and his soul, she might submit herself passively to his fierce caresses, +but she had her _nec plus ultra_ of passion; and when once it was +reached, she grew angry if he lost the mastery of himself and made +as though he would pass beyond. No woman on earth can brave the +consequences of refusal without some motive; nothing is more natural +than to yield to love; wherefore Mme de Langeais promptly raised a +second line of fortification, a stronghold less easy to carry than +the first. She evoked the terrors of religion. Never did Father of +the Church, however eloquent, plead the cause of God better than the +Duchess. Never was the wrath of the Most High better justified than +by her voice. She used no preacher’s commonplaces, no rhetorical +amplifications. No. She had a “pulpit-tremor” of her own. To Armand’s +most passionate entreaty, she replied with a tearful gaze, and a gesture +in which a terrible plenitude of emotion found expression. She stopped +his mouth with an appeal for mercy. She would not hear another word; if +she did, she must succumb; and better death than criminal happiness. + +“Is it nothing to disobey God?” she asked him, recovering a voice grown +faint in the crises of inward struggles, through which the fair +actress appeared to find it hard to preserve her self-control. “I would +sacrifice society, I would give up the whole world for you, gladly; but +it is very selfish of you to ask my whole after-life of me for a moment +of pleasure. Come, now! are you not happy?” she added, holding out her +hand; and certainly in her careless toilette the sight of her afforded +consolations to her lover, who made the most of them. + +Sometimes from policy, to keep her hold on a man whose ardent passion +gave her emotions unknown before, sometimes in weakness, she suffered +him to snatch a swift kiss; and immediately, in feigned terror, she +flushed red and exiled Armand from the sofa so soon as the sofa became +dangerous ground. + +“Your joys are sins for me to expiate, Armand; they are paid for by +penitence and remorse,” she cried. + +And Montriveau, now at two chairs’ distance from that aristocratic +petticoat, betook himself to blasphemy and railed against Providence. +The Duchess grew angry at such times. + +“My friend,” she said drily, “I do not understand why you decline to +believe in God, for it is impossible to believe in man. Hush, do not +talk like that. You have too great a nature to take up their Liberal +nonsense with its pretension to abolish God.” + +Theological and political disputes acted like a cold douche on +Montriveau; he calmed down; he could not return to love when the Duchess +stirred up his wrath by suddenly setting him down a thousand miles away +from the boudoir, discussing theories of absolute monarchy, which she +defended to admiration. Few women venture to be democrats; the attitude +of democratic champion is scarcely compatible with tyrannous feminine +sway. But often, on the other hand, the General shook out his mane, +dropped politics with a leonine growling and lashing of the flanks, and +sprang upon his prey; he was no longer capable of carrying a heart and +brain at such variance for very far; he came back, terrible with love, +to his mistress. And she, if she felt the prick of fancy stimulated to +a dangerous point, knew that it was time to leave her boudoir; she came +out of the atmosphere surcharged with desires that she drew in with +her breath, sat down to the piano, and sang the most exquisite songs +of modern music, and so baffled the physical attraction which at times +showed her no mercy, though she was strong enough to fight it down. + +At such times she was something sublime in Armand’s eyes; she was not +acting, she was genuine; the unhappy lover was convinced that she loved +him. Her egoistic resistance deluded him into a belief that she was a +pure and sainted woman; he resigned himself; he talked of Platonic love, +did this artillery officer! + +When Mme de Langeais had played with religion sufficiently to suit her +own purposes, she played with it again for Armand’s benefit. She wanted +to bring him back to a Christian frame of mind; she brought out her +edition of _Le Genie du Christianisme_, adapted for the use of military +men. Montriveau chafed; his yoke was heavy. Oh! at that, possessed by +the spirit of contradiction, she dinned religion into his ears, to see +whether God might not rid her of this suitor, for the man’s persistence +was beginning to frighten her. And in any case she was glad to prolong +any quarrel, if it bade fair to keep the dispute on moral grounds for +an indefinite period; the material struggle which followed it was more +dangerous. + +But if the time of her opposition on the ground of the marriage law +might be said to be the _epoque civile_ of this sentimental warfare, the +ensuing phase which might be taken to constitute the _epoque religieuse_ +had also its crisis and consequent decline of severity. + +Armand happening to come in very early one evening, found M. l’Abbe +Gondrand, the Duchess’s spiritual director, established in an armchair +by the fireside, looking as a spiritual director might be expected to +look while digesting his dinner and the charming sins of his penitent. +In the ecclesiastic’s bearing there was a stateliness befitting a +dignitary of the Church; and the episcopal violet hue already appeared +in his dress. At sight of his fresh, well-preserved complexion, smooth +forehead, and ascetic’s mouth, Montriveau’s countenance grew uncommonly +dark; he said not a word under the malicious scrutiny of the other’s +gaze, and greeted neither the lady nor the priest. The lover apart, +Montriveau was not wanting in tact; so a few glances exchanged with the +bishop-designate told him that here was the real forger of the Duchess’s +armory of scruples. + +That an ambitious abbe should control the happiness of a man of +Montriveau’s temper, and by underhand ways! The thought burst in a +furious tide over his face, clenched his fists, and set him chafing and +pacing to and fro; but when he came back to his place intending to make +a scene, a single look from the Duchess was enough. He was quiet. + +Any other woman would have been put out by her lover’s gloomy silence; +it was quite otherwise with Mme de Langeais. She continued her +conversation with M. de Gondrand on the necessity of re-establishing the +Church in its ancient splendour. And she talked brilliantly. + +The Church, she maintained, ought to be a temporal as well as a +spiritual power, stating her case better than the Abbe had done, and +regretting that the Chamber of Peers, unlike the English House of Lords, +had no bench of bishops. Nevertheless, the Abbe rose, yielded his place +to the General, and took his leave, knowing that in Lent he could play a +return game. As for the Duchess, Montriveau’s behaviour had excited +her curiosity to such a pitch that she scarcely rose to return her +director’s low bow. + +“What is the matter with you, my friend?” + +“Why, I cannot stomach that Abbe of yours.” + +“Why did you not take a book?” she asked, careless whether the Abbe, +then closing the door, heard her or no. + +The General paused, for the gesture which accompanied the Duchess’s +speech further increased the exceeding insolence of her words. + +“My dear Antoinette, thank you for giving love precedence of the Church; +but, for pity’s sake, allow me to ask one question.” + +“Oh! you are questioning me! I am quite willing. You are my friend, are +you not? I certainly can open the bottom of my heart to you; you will +see only one image there.” + +“Do you talk about our love to that man?” + +“He is my confessor.” + +“Does he know that I love you?” + +“M. de Montriveau, you cannot claim, I think, to penetrate the secrets +of the confessional?” + +“Does that man know all about our quarrels and my love for you?” + +“That man, monsieur; say God!” + +“God again! _I_ ought to be alone in your heart. But leave God alone +where He is, for the love of God and me. Madame, you _shall not_ go to +confession again, or----” + +“Or?” she repeated sweetly. + +“Or I will never come back here.” + +“Then go, Armand. Good-bye, good-bye forever.” + +She rose and went to her boudoir without so much as a glance at Armand, +as he stood with his hand on the back of a chair. How long he stood +there motionless he himself never knew. The soul within has the +mysterious power of expanding as of contracting space. + +He opened the door of the boudoir. It was dark within. A faint voice was +raised to say sharply: + +“I did not ring. What made you come in without orders? Go away, +Suzette.” + +“Then you are ill,” exclaimed Montriveau. + +“Stand up, monsieur, and go out of the room for a minute at any rate,” + she said, ringing the bell. + +“Mme la Duchesse rang for lights?” said the footman, coming in with the +candles. When the lovers were alone together, Mme de Langeais still lay +on her couch; she was just as silent and motionless as if Montriveau had +not been there. + +“Dear, I was wrong,” he began, a note of pain and a sublime kindness in +his voice. “Indeed, I would not have you without religion----” + +“It is fortunate that you can recognise the necessity of a conscience,” + she said in a hard voice, without looking at him. “I thank you in God’s +name.” + +The General was broken down by her harshness; this woman seemed as +if she could be at will a sister or a stranger to him. He made one +despairing stride towards the door. He would leave her forever without +another word. He was wretched; and the Duchess was laughing within +herself over mental anguish far more cruel than the old judicial +torture. But as for going away, it was not in his power to do it. In any +sort of crisis, a woman is, as it were, bursting with a certain quantity +of things to say; so long as she has not delivered herself of them, +she experiences the sensation which we are apt to feel at the sight of +something incomplete. Mme de Langeais had not said all that was in her +mind. She took up her parable and said: + +“We have not the same convictions, General, I am pained to think. It +would be dreadful if a woman could not believe in a religion which +permits us to love beyond the grave. I set Christian sentiments aside; +you cannot understand them. Let me simply speak to you of expediency. +Would you forbid a woman at court the table of the Lord when it is +customary to take the sacrament at Easter? People must certainly do +something for their party. The Liberals, whatever they may wish to do, +will never destroy the religious instinct. Religion will always be +a political necessity. Would you undertake to govern a nation of +logic-choppers? Napoleon was afraid to try; he persecuted ideologists. +If you want to keep people from reasoning, you must give them something +to feel. So let us accept the Roman Catholic Church with all its +consequences. And if we would have France go to mass, ought we not to +begin by going ourselves? Religion, you see, Armand, is a bond uniting +all the conservative principles which enable the rich to live in +tranquillity. Religion and the rights of property are intimately +connected. It is certainly a finer thing to lead a nation by ideas of +morality than by fear of the scaffold, as in the time of the Terror--the +one method by which your odious Revolution could enforce obedience. +The priest and the king--that means you, and me, and the Princess +my neighbour; and, in a word, the interests of all honest people +personified. There, my friend, just be so good as to belong to your +party, you that might be its Scylla if you had the slightest ambition +that way. I know nothing about politics myself; I argue from my own +feelings; but still I know enough to guess that society would +be overturned if people were always calling its foundations in +question----” + +“If that is how your Court and your Government think, I am sorry for +you,” broke in Montriveau. “The Restoration, madam, ought to say, like +Catherine de Medici, when she heard that the battle of Dreux was lost, +‘Very well; now we will go to the meeting-house.’ Now 1815 was your +battle of Dreux. Like the royal power of those days, you won in +fact, while you lost in right. Political Protestantism has gained an +ascendancy over people’s minds. If you have no mind to issue your Edict +of Nantes; or if, when it is issued, you publish a Revocation; if you +should one day be accused and convicted of repudiating the Charter, +which is simply a pledge given to maintain the interests established +under the Republic, then the Revolution will rise again, terrible in her +strength, and strike but a single blow. It will not be the Revolution +that will go into exile; she is the very soil of France. Men die, but +people’s interests do not die. ... Eh, great Heavens! what are France +and the crown and rightful sovereigns, and the whole world besides, to +us? Idle words compared with my happiness. Let them reign or be hurled +from the throne, little do I care. Where am I now?” + +“In the Duchesse de Langeais’ boudoir, my friend.” + +“No, no. No more of the Duchess, no more of Langeais; I am with my dear +Antoinette.” + +“Will you do me the pleasure to stay where you are,” she said, laughing +and pushing him back, gently however. + +“So you have never loved me,” he retorted, and anger flashed in +lightning from his eyes. + +“No, dear”; but the “No” was equivalent to “Yes.” + +“I am a great ass,” he said, kissing her hands. The terrible queen was a +woman once more.--“Antoinette,” he went on, laying his head on her feet, +“you are too chastely tender to speak of our happiness to anyone in this +world.” + +“Oh!” she cried, rising to her feet with a swift, graceful spring, +“you are a great simpleton.” And without another word she fled into the +drawing-room. + +“What is it now?” wondered the General, little knowing that the touch of +his burning forehead had sent a swift electric thrill through her from +foot to head. + +In hot wrath he followed her to the drawing-room, only to hear divinely +sweet chords. The Duchess was at the piano. If the man of science or the +poet can at once enjoy and comprehend, bringing his intelligence to bear +upon his enjoyment without loss of delight, he is conscious that the +alphabet and phraseology of music are but cunning instruments for +the composer, like the wood and copper wire under the hands of the +executant. For the poet and the man of science there is a music existing +apart, underlying the double expression of this language of the spirit +and senses. _Andiamo mio ben_ can draw tears of joy or pitying laughter +at the will of the singer; and not unfrequently one here and there in +the world, some girl unable to live and bear the heavy burden of an +unguessed pain, some man whose soul vibrates with the throb of passion, +may take up a musical theme, and lo! heaven is opened for them, or they +find a language for themselves in some sublime melody, some song lost to +the world. + +The General was listening now to such a song; a mysterious music unknown +to all other ears, as the solitary plaint of some mateless bird dying +alone in a virgin forest. + +“Great Heavens! what are you playing there?” he asked in an unsteady +voice. + +“The prelude of a ballad, called, I believe, _Fleuve du Tage_.” + +“I did not know that there was such music in a piano,” he returned. + +“Ah!” she said, and for the first time she looked at him as a woman +looks at the man she loves, “nor do you know, my friend, that I love +you, and that you cause me horrible suffering; and that I feel that I +must utter my cry of pain without putting it too plainly into words. If +I did not, I should yield----But you see nothing.” + +“And you will not make me happy!” + +“Armand, I should die of sorrow the next day.” + +The General turned abruptly from her and went. But out in the street he +brushed away the tears that he would not let fall. + +The religious phase lasted for three months. At the end of that time the +Duchess grew weary of vain repetitions; the Deity, bound hand and foot, +was delivered up to her lover. Possibly she may have feared that by +sheer dint of talking of eternity she might perpetuate his love in this +world and the next. For her own sake, it must be believed that no man +had touched her heart, or her conduct would be inexcusable. She was +young; the time when men and women feel that they cannot afford to lose +time or to quibble over their joys was still far off. She, no doubt, was +on the verge not of first love, but of her first experience of the bliss +of love. And from inexperience, for want of the painful lessons which +would have taught her to value the treasure poured out at her feet, she +was playing with it. Knowing nothing of the glory and rapture of the +light, she was fain to stay in the shadow. + +Armand was just beginning to understand this strange situation; he put +his hope in the first word spoken by nature. Every evening, as he came +away from Mme de Langeais’, he told himself that no woman would accept +the tenderest, most delicate proofs of a man’s love during seven months, +nor yield passively to the slighter demands of passion, only to cheat +love at the last. He was waiting patiently for the sun to gain power, +not doubting but that he should receive the earliest fruits. The married +woman’s hesitations and the religious scruples he could quite well +understand. He even rejoiced over those battles. He mistook the +Duchess’s heartless coquetry for modesty; and he would not have had her +otherwise. So he had loved to see her devising obstacles; was he not +gradually triumphing over them? Did not every victory won swell the +meagre sum of lovers’ intimacies long denied, and at last conceded with +every sign of love? Still, he had had such leisure to taste the full +sweetness of every small successive conquest on which a lover feeds +his love, that these had come to be matters of use and wont. So far as +obstacles went, there were none now save his own awe of her; nothing +else left between him and his desire save the whims of her who allowed +him to call her Antoinette. So he made up his mind to demand more, to +demand all. Embarrassed like a young lover who cannot dare to believe +that his idol can stoop so low, he hesitated for a long time. He passed +through the experience of terrible reactions within himself. A set +purpose was annihilated by a word, and definite resolves died within him +on the threshold. He despised himself for his weakness, and still his +desire remained unuttered. Nevertheless, one evening, after sitting +in gloomy melancholy, he brought out a fierce demand for his illegally +legitimate rights. The Duchess had not to wait for her bond-slave’s +request to guess his desire. When was a man’s desire a secret? And have +not women an intuitive knowledge of the meaning of certain changes of +countenance? + +“What! you wish to be my friend no longer?” she broke in at the first +words, and a divine red surging like new blood under the transparent +skin, lent brightness to her eyes. “As a reward for my generosity, you +would dishonor me? Just reflect a little. I myself have thought much +over this; and I think always for us _both_. There is such a thing as +a woman’s loyalty, and we can no more fail in it than you can fail in +honour. _I_ cannot blind myself. If I am yours, how, in any sense, can +I be M. de Langeais’ wife? Can you require the sacrifice of my position, +my rank, my whole life in return for a doubtful love that could not wait +patiently for seven months? What! already you would rob me of my right +to dispose of myself? No, no; you must not talk like this again. No, not +another word. I will not, I cannot listen to you.” + +Mme de Langeais raised both hands to her head to push back the tufted +curls from her hot forehead; she seemed very much excited. + +“You come to a weak woman with your purpose definitely planned out. You +say--‘For a certain length of time she will talk to me of her husband, +then of God, and then of the inevitable consequences. But I will use +and abuse the ascendancy I shall gain over her; I will make myself +indispensable; all the bonds of habit, all the misconstructions of +outsiders, will make for me; and at length, when our _liaison_ is taken +for granted by all the world, I shall be this woman’s master.’--Now, be +frank; these are your thoughts! Oh! you calculate, and you say that you +love. Shame on you! You are enamoured? Ah! that I well believe! You +wish to possess me, to have me for your mistress, that is all! Very well +then, No! The _Duchesse de Langeais_ will not descend so far. Simple +_bourgeoises_ may be the victims of your treachery--I, never! Nothing +gives me assurance of your love. You speak of my beauty; I may lose +every trace of it in six months, like the dear Princess, my neighbour. +You are captivated by my wit, my grace. Great Heavens! you would soon +grow used to them and to the pleasures of possession. Have not the +little concessions that I was weak enough to make come to be a matter of +course in the last few months? Some day, when ruin comes, you will give +me no reason for the change in you beyond a curt, ‘I have ceased to +care for you.’--Then, rank and fortune and honour and all that was the +Duchesse de Langeais will be swallowed up in one disappointed hope. +I shall have children to bear witness to my shame, and----” With an +involuntary gesture she interrupted herself, and continued: “But I am +too good-natured to explain all this to you when you know it better than +I. Come! let us stay as we are. I am only too fortunate in that I can +still break these bonds which you think so strong. Is there anything so +very heroic in coming to the Hotel de Langeais to spend an evening +with a woman whose prattle amuses you?--a woman whom you take for a +plaything? Why, half a dozen young coxcombs come here just as regularly +every afternoon between three and five. They, too, are very generous, I +am to suppose? I make fun of them; they stand my petulance and insolence +pretty quietly, and make me laugh; but as for you, I give all the +treasures of my soul to you, and you wish to ruin me, you try my +patience in endless ways. Hush, that will do, that will do,” she +continued, seeing that he was about to speak, “you have no heart, +no soul, no delicacy. I know what you want to tell me. Very well, +then--yes. I would rather you should take me for a cold, insensible +woman, with no devotion in her composition, no heart even, than be +taken by everybody else for a vulgar person, and be condemned to your +so-called pleasures, of which you would most certainly tire, and to +everlasting punishment for it afterwards. Your selfish love is not worth +so many sacrifices....” + +The words give but a very inadequate idea of the discourse which the +Duchess trilled out with the quick volubility of a bird-organ. Nor, +truly, was there anything to prevent her from talking on for some time +to come, for poor Armand’s only reply to the torrent of flute notes was +a silence filled with cruelly painful thoughts. He was just beginning to +see that this woman was playing with him; he divined instinctively +that a devoted love, a responsive love, does not reason and count +the consequences in this way. Then, as he heard her reproach him with +detestable motives, he felt something like shame as he remembered that +unconsciously he had made those very calculations. With angelic honesty +of purpose, he looked within, and self-examination found nothing but +selfishness in all his thoughts and motives, in the answers which he +framed and could not utter. He was self-convicted. In his despair +he longed to fling himself from the window. The egoism of it was +intolerable. + +What indeed can a man say when a woman will not believe in love?--Let me +prove how much I love you.--The _I_ is always there. + +The heroes of the boudoir, in such circumstances, can follow the example +of the primitive logician who preceded the Pyrrhonists and denied +movement. Montriveau was not equal to this feat. With all his audacity, +he lacked this precise kind which never deserts an adept in the formulas +of feminine algebra. If so many women, and even the best of women, fall +a prey to a kind of expert to whom the vulgar give a grosser name, it is +perhaps because the said experts are great _provers_, and love, in spite +of its delicious poetry of sentiment, requires a little more geometry +than people are wont to think. + +Now the Duchess and Montriveau were alike in this--they were both +equally unversed in love lore. The lady’s knowledge of theory was but +scanty; in practice she knew nothing whatever; she felt nothing, and +reflected over everything. Montriveau had had but little experience, was +absolutely ignorant of theory, and felt too much to reflect at all. Both +therefore were enduring the consequences of the singular situation. +At that supreme moment the myriad thoughts in his mind might have +been reduced to the formula--“Submit to be mine----” words which seem +horribly selfish to a woman for whom they awaken no memories, recall no +ideas. Something nevertheless he must say. And what was more, though her +barbed shafts had set his blood tingling, though the short phrases that +she discharged at him one by one were very keen and sharp and cold, he +must control himself lest he should lose all by an outbreak of anger. + +“Mme la Duchesse, I am in despair that God should have invented no way +for a woman to confirm the gift of her heart save by adding the gift of +her person. The high value which you yourself put upon the gift teaches +me that I cannot attach less importance to it. If you have given me +your inmost self and your whole heart, as you tell me, what can the rest +matter? And besides, if my happiness means so painful a sacrifice, let +us say no more about it. But you must pardon a man of spirit if he feels +humiliated at being taken for a spaniel.” + +The tone in which the last remark was uttered might perhaps have +frightened another woman; but when the wearer of a petticoat has allowed +herself to be addressed as a Divinity, and thereby set herself above all +other mortals, no power on earth can be so haughty. + +“M. le Marquis, I am in despair that God should not have invented +some nobler way for a man to confirm the gift of his heart than by the +manifestation of prodigiously vulgar desires. We become bond-slaves +when we give ourselves body and soul, but a man is bound to nothing by +accepting the gift. Who will assure me that love will last? The very +love that I might show for you at every moment, the better to keep your +love, might serve you as a reason for deserting me. I have no wish to be +a second edition of Mme de Beauseant. Who can ever know what it is that +keeps you beside us? Our persistent coldness of heart is the cause of +an unfailing passion in some of you; other men ask for an untiring +devotion, to be idolized at every moment; some for gentleness, others +for tyranny. No woman in this world as yet has really read the riddle of +man’s heart.” + +There was a pause. When she spoke again it was in a different tone. + +“After all, my friend, you cannot prevent a woman from trembling at the +question, ‘Will this love last always?’ Hard though my words may be, +the dread of losing you puts them into my mouth. Oh, me! it is not I +who speaks, dear, it is reason; and how should anyone so mad as I be +reasonable? In truth, I am nothing of the sort.” + +The poignant irony of her answer had changed before the end into the +most musical accents in which a woman could find utterance for ingenuous +love. To listen to her words was to pass in a moment from martyrdom to +heaven. Montriveau grew pale; and for the first time in his life, he +fell on his knees before a woman. He kissed the Duchess’s skirt hem, her +knees, her feet; but for the credit of the Faubourg Saint-Germain it is +necessary to respect the mysteries of its boudoirs, where many are fain +to take the utmost that Love can give without giving proof of love in +return. + +The Duchess thought herself generous when she suffered herself to be +adored. But Montriveau was in a wild frenzy of joy over her complete +surrender of the position. + +“Dear Antoinette,” he cried. “Yes, you are right; I will not have you +doubt any longer. I too am trembling at this moment--lest the angel of +my life should leave me; I wish I could invent some tie that might bind +us to each other irrevocably.” + +“Ah!” she said, under her breath, “so I was right, you see.” + +“Let me say all that I have to say; I will scatter all your fears with +a word. Listen! if I deserted you, I should deserve to die a thousand +deaths. Be wholly mine, and I will give you the right to kill me if I +am false. I myself will write a letter explaining certain reasons for +taking my own life; I will make my final arrangements, in short. You +shall have the letter in your keeping; in the eye of the law it will be +a sufficient explanation of my death. You can avenge yourself, and fear +nothing from God or men.” + +“What good would the letter be to me? What would life be if I had lost +your love? If I wished to kill you, should I not be ready to follow? No; +thank you for the thought, but I do not want the letter. Should I not +begin to dread that you were faithful to me through fear? And if a man +knows that he must risk his life for a stolen pleasure, might it not +seem more tempting? Armand, the thing I ask of you is the one hard thing +to do.” + +“Then what is it that you wish?” + +“Your obedience and my liberty.” + +“Ah, God!” cried he, “I am a child.” + +“A wayward, much spoilt child,” she said, stroking the thick hair, +for his head still lay on her knee. “Ah! and loved far more than he +believes, and yet he is very disobedient. Why not stay as we are? Why +not sacrifice to me the desires that hurt me? Why not take what I can +give, when it is all that I can honestly grant? Are you not happy?” + +“Oh yes, I am happy when I have not a doubt left. Antoinette, doubt in +love is a kind of death, is it not?” + +In a moment he showed himself as he was, as all men are under the +influence of that hot fever; he grew eloquent, insinuating. And the +Duchess tasted the pleasures which she reconciled with her conscience +by some private, Jesuitical ukase of her own; Armand’s love gave her a +thrill of cerebral excitement which custom made as necessary to her as +society, or the Opera. To feel that she was adored by this man, who rose +above other men, whose character frightened her; to treat him like a +child; to play with him as Poppaea played with Nero--many women, like +the wives of King Henry VIII, have paid for such a perilous delight with +all the blood in their veins. Grim presentiment! Even as she surrendered +the delicate, pale, gold curls to his touch, and felt the close pressure +of his hand, the little hand of a man whose greatness she could not +mistake; even as she herself played with his dark, thick locks, in that +boudoir where she reigned a queen, the Duchess would say to herself: + +“This man is capable of killing me if he once finds out that I am +playing with him.” + +Armand de Montriveau stayed with her till two o’clock in the morning. +From that moment this woman, whom he loved, was neither a duchess nor a +Navarreins; Antoinette, in her disguises, had gone so far as to appear +to be a woman. On that most blissful evening, the sweetest prelude ever +played by a Parisienne to what the world calls “a slip”; in spite of all +her affectations of a coyness which she did not feel, the General saw +all maidenly beauty in her. He had some excuse for believing that so +many storms of caprice had been but clouds covering a heavenly soul; +that these must be lifted one by one like the veils that hid her divine +loveliness. The Duchess became, for him, the most simple and girlish +mistress; she was the one woman in the world for him; and he went away +quite happy in that at last he had brought her to give him such pledges +of love, that it seemed to him impossible but that he should be but her +husband henceforth in secret, her choice sanctioned by Heaven. + +Armand went slowly home, turning this thought in his mind with the +impartiality of a man who is conscious of all the responsibilities that +love lays on him while he tastes the sweetness of its joys. He went +along the Quais to see the widest possible space of sky; his heart had +grown in him; he would fain have had the bounds of the firmament and of +earth enlarged. It seemed to him that his lungs drew an ampler breath. +In the course of his self-examination, as he walked, he vowed to love +this woman so devoutly, that every day of her life she should find +absolution for her sins against society in unfailing happiness. Sweet +stirrings of life when life is at the full! The man that is strong +enough to steep his soul in the colour of one emotion, feels infinite +joy as glimpses open out for him of an ardent lifetime that knows no +diminution of passion to the end; even so it is permitted to certain +mystics, in ecstasy, to behold the Light of God. Love would be naught +without the belief that it would last forever; love grows great +through constancy. It was thus that, wholly absorbed by his happiness, +Montriveau understood passion. + +“We belong to each other forever!” + +The thought was like a talisman fulfilling the wishes of his life. He +did not ask whether the Duchess might not change, whether her love might +not last. No, for he had faith. Without that virtue there is no future +for Christianity, and perhaps it is even more necessary to society. +A conception of life as feeling occurred to him for the first time; +hitherto he had lived by action, the most strenuous exertion of human +energies, the physical devotion, as it may be called, of the soldier. + +Next day M. de Montriveau went early in the direction of the Faubourg +Saint-Germain. He had made an appointment at a house not far from the +Hotel de Langeais; and the business over, he went thither as if to his +own home. The General’s companion chanced to be a man for whom he felt +a kind of repulsion whenever he met him in other houses. This was the +Marquis de Ronquerolles, whose reputation had grown so great in Paris +boudoirs. He was witty, clever, and what was more--courageous; he set +the fashion to all the young men in Paris. As a man of gallantry, his +success and experience were equally matters of envy; and neither fortune +nor birth was wanting in his case, qualifications which add such lustre +in Paris to a reputation as a leader of fashion. + +“Where are you going?” asked M. de Ronquerolles. + +“To Mme de Langeais’.” + +“Ah, true. I forgot that you had allowed her to lime(sp) you. You are +wasting your affections on her when they might be much better employed +elsewhere. I could have told you of half a score of women in the +financial world, any one of them a thousand times better worth your +while than that titled courtesan, who does with her brains what less +artificial women do with----” + +“What is this, my dear fellow?” Armand broke in. “The Duchess is an +angel of innocence.” + +Ronquerolles began to laugh. + +“Things being thus, dear boy,” said he, “it is my duty to enlighten you. +Just a word; there is no harm in it between ourselves. Has the Duchess +surrendered? If so, I have nothing more to say. Come, give me your +confidence. There is no occasion to waste your time in grafting +your great nature on that unthankful stock, when all your hopes and +cultivation will come to nothing.” + +Armand ingenuously made a kind of general report of his position, +enumerating with much minuteness the slender rights so hardly won. +Ronquerolles burst into a peal of laughter so heartless, that it would +have cost any other man his life. But from their manner of speaking and +looking at each other during that colloquy beneath the wall, in a corner +almost as remote from intrusion as the desert itself, it was easy to +imagine the friendship between the two men knew no bounds, and that no +power on earth could estrange them. + +“My dear Armand, why did you not tell me that the Duchess was a puzzle +to you? I would have given you a little advice which might have brought +your flirtation properly through. You must know, to begin with, that the +women of our Faubourg, like any other women, love to steep themselves in +love; but they have a mind to possess and not to be possessed. They have +made a sort of compromise with human nature. The code of their parish +gives them a pretty wide latitude short of the last transgression. The +sweets enjoyed by this fair Duchess of yours are so many venial sins +to be washed away in the waters of penitence. But if you had the +impertinence to ask in earnest for the moral sin to which naturally +you are sure to attach the highest importance, you would see the deep +disdain with which the door of the boudoir and the house would be +incontinently shut upon you. The tender Antoinette would dismiss +everything from her memory; you would be less than a cipher for her. +She would wipe away your kisses, my dear friend, as indifferently as she +would perform her ablutions. She would sponge love from her cheeks as +she washes off rouge. We know women of that sort--the thorough-bred +Parisienne. Have you ever noticed a grisette tripping along the street? +Her face is as good as a picture. A pretty cap, fresh cheeks, trim hair, +a guileful smile, and the rest of her almost neglected. Is not this true +to the life? Well, that is the Parisienne. She knows that her face is +all that will be seen, so she devotes all her care, finery, and vanity +to her head. The Duchess is the same; the head is everything with her. +She can only feel through her intellect, her heart lies in her brain, +she is a sort of intellectual epicure, she has a head-voice. We call +that kind of poor creature a Lais of the intellect. You have been taken +in like a boy. If you doubt it, you can have proof of it tonight, this +morning, this instant. Go up to her, try the demand as an experiment, +insist peremptorily if it is refused. You might set about it like the +late Marechal de Richelieu, and get nothing for your pains.” + +Armand was dumb with amazement. + +“Has your desire reached the point of infatuation?” + +“I want her at any cost!” Montriveau cried out despairingly. + +“Very well. Now, look here. Be as inexorable as she is herself. Try to +humiliate her, to sting her vanity. Do _not_ try to move her heart, +nor her soul, but the woman’s nerves and temperament, for she is both +nervous and lymphatic. If you can once awaken desire in her, you are +safe. But you must drop these romantic boyish notions of yours. If when +once you have her in your eagle’s talons you yield a point or draw back, +if you so much as stir an eyelid, if she thinks that she can regain her +ascendancy over you, she will slip out of your clutches like a fish, and +you will never catch her again. Be as inflexible as law. Show no more +charity than the headsman. Hit hard, and then hit again. Strike and keep +on striking as if you were giving her the knout. Duchesses are made of +hard stuff, my dear Armand; there is a sort of feminine nature that is +only softened by repeated blows; and as suffering develops a heart in +women of that sort, so it is a work of charity not to spare the rod. +Do you persevere. Ah! when pain has thoroughly relaxed those nerves and +softened the fibres that you take to be so pliant and yielding; when +a shriveled heart has learned to expand and contract and to beat under +this discipline; when the brain has capitulated--then, perhaps, passion +may enter among the steel springs of this machinery that turns out tears +and affectations and languors and melting phrases; then you shall see a +most magnificent conflagration (always supposing that the chimney takes +fire). The steel feminine system will glow red-hot like iron in the +forge; that kind of heat lasts longer than any other, and the glow of it +may possibly turn to love. + +“Still,” he continued, “I have my doubts. And, after all, is it worth +while to take so much trouble with the Duchess? Between ourselves a man +of my stamp ought first to take her in hand and break her in; I would +make a charming woman of her; she is a thoroughbred; whereas, you two +left to yourselves will never get beyond the A B C. But you are in love +with her, and just now you might not perhaps share my views on this +subject----. A pleasant time to you, my children,” added Ronquerolles, +after a pause. Then with a laugh: “I have decided myself for facile +beauties; they are tender, at any rate, the natural woman appears in +their love without any of your social seasonings. A woman that haggles +over herself, my poor boy, and only means to inspire love! Well, have +her like an extra horse--for show. The match between the sofa and +confessional, black and white, queen and knight, conscientious scruples +and pleasure, is an uncommonly amusing game of chess. And if a man knows +the game, let him be never so little of a rake, he wins in three moves. +Now, if I undertook a woman of that sort, I should start with the +deliberate purpose of----” His voice sank to a whisper over the last +words in Armand’s ear, and he went before there was time to reply. + +As for Montriveau, he sprang at a bound across the courtyard of the +Hotel de Langeais, went unannounced up the stairs straight to the +Duchess’s bedroom. + +“This is an unheard-of thing,” she said, hastily wrapping her +dressing-gown about her. “Armand! this is abominable of you! Come, leave +the room, I beg. Just go out of the room, and go at once. Wait for me in +the drawing-room.--Come now!” + +“Dear angel, has a plighted lover no privilege whatsoever?” + +“But, monsieur, it is in the worst possible taste of a plighted lover or +a wedded husband to break in like this upon his wife.” + +He came up to the Duchess, took her in his arms, and held her tightly to +him. + +“Forgive, dear Antoinette; but a host of horrid doubts are fermenting in +my heart.” + +“_Doubts_? Fie!--Oh, fie on you!” + +“Doubts all but justified. If you loved me, would you make this quarrel? +Would you not be glad to see me? Would you not have felt a something +stir in your heart? For I, that am not a woman, feel a thrill in my +inmost self at the mere sound of your voice. Often in a ballroom a +longing has come upon me to spring to your side and put my arms about +your neck.” + +“Oh! if you have doubts of me so long as I am not ready to spring to +your arms before all the world, I shall be doubted all my life long, I +suppose. Why, Othello was a mere child compared with you!” + +“Ah!” he cried despairingly, “you have no love for me----” + +“Admit, at any rate, that at this moment you are not lovable.” + +“Then I have still to find favour in your sight?” + +“Oh, I should think so. Come,” added she, “with a little imperious air, +go out of the room, leave me. I am not like you; I wish always to find +favour in your eyes.” + +Never woman better understood the art of putting charm into insolence, +and does not the charm double the effect? is it not enough to infuriate +the coolest of men? There was a sort of untrammeled freedom about Mme +de Langeais; a something in her eyes, her voice, her attitude, which is +never seen in a woman who loves when she stands face to face with him at +the mere sight of whom her heart must needs begin to beat. The Marquis +de Ronquerolles’ counsels had cured Armand of sheepishness; and further, +there came to his aid that rapid power of intuition which passion will +develop at moments in the least wise among mortals, while a great man +at such a time possesses it to the full. He guessed the terrible truth +revealed by the Duchess’s nonchalance, and his heart swelled with the +storm like a lake rising in flood. + +“If you told me the truth yesterday, be mine, dear Antoinette,” he +cried; “you shall----” + +“In the first place,” said she composedly, thrusting him back as he +came nearer--“in the first place, you are not to compromise me. My woman +might overhear you. Respect me, I beg of you. Your familiarity is all +very well in my boudoir in an evening; here it is quite different. +Besides, what may your ‘you shall’ mean? ‘You shall.’ No one as yet +has ever used that word to me. It is quite ridiculous, it seems to me, +absolutely ridiculous. + +“Will you surrender nothing to me on this point?” + +“Oh! do you call a woman’s right to dispose of herself a ‘point?’ A +capital point indeed; you will permit me to be entirely my own mistress +on that ‘point.’” + +“And how if, believing in your promises to me, I should absolutely +require it?” + +“Oh! then you would prove that I made the greatest possible mistake when +I made you a promise of any kind; and I should beg you to leave me in +peace.” + +The General’s face grew white; he was about to spring to her side, when +Mme de Langeais rang the bell, the maid appeared, and, smiling with a +mocking grace, the Duchess added, “Be so good as to return when I am +visible.” + +Then Montriveau felt the hardness of a woman as cold and keen as a steel +blade; she was crushing in her scorn. In one moment she had snapped +the bonds which held firm only for her lover. She had read Armand’s +intention in his face, and held that the moment had come for teaching +the Imperial soldier his lesson. He was to be made to feel that though +duchesses may lend themselves to love, they do not give themselves, and +that the conquest of one of them would prove a harder matter than the +conquest of Europe. + +“Madame,” returned Armand, “I have not time to wait. I am a spoilt +child, as you told me yourself. When I seriously resolve to have that of +which we have been speaking, I shall have it.” + +“You will have it?” queried she, and there was a trace of surprise in +her loftiness. + +“I shall have it.” + +“Oh! you would do me a great pleasure by ‘resolving’ to have it. For +curiosity’s sake, I should be delighted to know how you would set about +it----” + +“I am delighted to put a new interest into your life,” interrupted +Montriveau, breaking into a laugh which dismayed the Duchess. “Will you +permit me to take you to the ball tonight?” + +“A thousand thanks. M. de Marsay has been beforehand with you. I gave +him my promise.” + +Montriveau bowed gravely and went. + +“So Ronquerolles was right,” thought he, “and now for a game of chess.” + +Thenceforward he hid his agitation by complete composure. No man is +strong enough to bear such sudden alternations from the height of +happiness to the depths of wretchedness. So he had caught a glimpse of +happy life the better to feel the emptiness of his previous existence? +There was a terrible storm within him; but he had learned to endure, +and bore the shock of tumultuous thoughts as a granite cliff stands out +against the surge of an angry sea. + +“I could say nothing. When I am with her my wits desert me. She does not +know how vile and contemptible she is. Nobody has ventured to bring her +face to face with herself. She has played with many a man, no doubt; I +will avenge them all.” + +For the first time, it may be, in a man’s heart, revenge and love were +blended so equally that Montriveau himself could not know whether love +or revenge would carry all before it. That very evening he went to the +ball at which he was sure of seeing the Duchesse de Langeais, and almost +despaired of reaching her heart. He inclined to think that there was +something diabolical about this woman, who was gracious to him and +radiant with charming smiles; probably because she had no wish to +allow the world to think that she had compromised herself with M. de +Montriveau. Coolness on both sides is a sign of love; but so long as +the Duchess was the same as ever, while the Marquis looked sullen and +morose, was it not plain that she had conceded nothing? Onlookers know +the rejected lover by various signs and tokens; they never mistake the +genuine symptoms for a coolness such as some women command their adorers +to feign, in the hope of concealing their love. Everyone laughed at +Montriveau; and he, having omitted to consult his cornac, was abstracted +and ill at ease. M. de Ronquerolles would very likely have bidden him +compromise the Duchess by responding to her show of friendliness by +passionate demonstrations; but as it was, Armand de Montriveau came away +from the ball, loathing human nature, and even then scarcely ready to +believe in such complete depravity. + +“If there is no executioner for such crimes,” he said, as he looked up +at the lighted windows of the ballroom where the most enchanting women +in Paris were dancing, laughing, and chatting, “I will take you by the +nape of the neck, Mme la Duchesse, and make you feel something that +bites more deeply than the knife in the Place de la Greve. Steel against +steel; we shall see which heart will leave the deeper mark.” + +For a week or so Mme de Langeais hoped to see the Marquis de Montriveau +again; but he contented himself with sending his card every morning to +the Hotel de Langeais. The Duchess could not help shuddering each time +that the card was brought in, and a dim foreboding crossed her mind, but +the thought was vague as a presentiment of disaster. When her eyes fell +on the name, it seemed to her that she felt the touch of the implacable +man’s strong hand in her hair; sometimes the words seemed like a +prognostication of a vengeance which her lively intellect invented in +the most shocking forms. She had studied him too well not to dread him. +Would he murder her, she wondered? Would that bull-necked man dash out +her vitals by flinging her over his head? Would he trample her body +under his feet? When, where, and how would he get her into his power? +Would he make her suffer very much, and what kind of pain would he +inflict? She repented of her conduct. There were hours when, if he had +come, she would have gone to his arms in complete self-surrender. + +Every night before she slept she saw Montriveau’s face; every night it +wore a different aspect. Sometimes she saw his bitter smile, sometimes +the Jovelike knitting of the brows; or his leonine look, or some +disdainful movement of the shoulders made him terrible for her. Next day +the card seemed stained with blood. The name of Montriveau stirred her +now as the presence of the fiery, stubborn, exacting lover had never +done. Her apprehensions gathered strength in the silence. She was +forced, without aid from without, to face the thought of a hideous duel +of which she could not speak. Her proud hard nature was more responsive +to thrills of hate than it had ever been to the caresses of love. Ah! if +the General could but have seen her, as she sat with her forehead +drawn into folds between her brows; immersed in bitter thoughts in that +boudoir where he had enjoyed such happy moments, he might perhaps +have conceived high hopes. Of all human passions, is not pride alone +incapable of engendering anything base? Mme de Langeais kept her +thoughts to herself, but is it not permissible to suppose that M. de +Montriveau was no longer indifferent to her? And has not a man gained +ground immensely when a woman thinks about him? He is bound to make +progress with her either one way or the other afterwards. + +Put any feminine creature under the feet of a furious horse or other +fearsome beast; she will certainly drop on her knees and look for death; +but if the brute shows a milder mood and does not utterly slay her, +she will love the horse, lion, bull, or what not, and will speak of him +quite at her ease. The Duchess felt that she was under the lion’s paws; +she quaked, but she did not hate him. + +The man and woman thus singularly placed with regard to each other met +three times in society during the course of that week. Each time, +in reply to coquettish questioning glances, the Duchess received a +respectful bow, and smiles tinged with such savage irony, that all her +apprehensions over the card in the morning were revived at night. +Our lives are simply such as our feelings shape them for us; and the +feelings of these two had hollowed out a great gulf between them. + +The Comtesse de Serizy, the Marquis de Ronquerolles’ sister, gave a +great ball at the beginning of the following week, and Mme de Langeais +was sure to go to it. Armand was the first person whom the Duchess saw +when she came into the room, and this time Armand was looking out for +her, or so she thought at least. The two exchanged a look, and suddenly +the woman felt a cold perspiration break from every pore. She had +thought all along that Montriveau was capable of taking reprisals in +some unheard-of way proportioned to their condition, and now the revenge +had been discovered, it was ready, heated, and boiling. Lightnings +flashed from the foiled lover’s eyes, his face was radiant with exultant +vengeance. And the Duchess? Her eyes were haggard in spite of her +resolution to be cool and insolent. She went to take her place beside +the Comtesse de Serizy, who could not help exclaiming, “Dear Antoinette! +what is the matter with you? You are enough to frighten one.” + +“I shall be all right after a quadrille,” she answered, giving a hand to +a young man who came up at that moment. + +Mme de Langeais waltzed that evening with a sort of excitement and +transport which redoubled Montriveau’s lowering looks. He stood in front +of the line of spectators, who were amusing themselves by looking on. +Every time that _she_ came past him, his eyes darted down upon her +eddying face; he might have been a tiger with the prey in his grasp. The +waltz came to an end, Mme de Langeais went back to her place beside the +Countess, and Montriveau never took his eyes off her, talking all the +while with a stranger. + +“One of the things that struck me most on the journey,” he was saying +(and the Duchess listened with all her ears), “was the remark which the +man makes at Westminster when you are shown the axe with which a man in +a mask cut off Charles the First’s head, so they tell you. The King made +it first of all to some inquisitive person, and they repeat it still in +memory of him.” + +“What does the man say?” asked Mme de Serizy. + +“‘Do not touch the axe!’” replied Montriveau, and there was menace in +the sound of his voice. + +“Really, my Lord Marquis,” said Mme de Langeais, “you tell this old +story that everybody knows if they have been to London, and look at my +neck in such a melodramatic way that you seem to me to have an axe in +your hand.” + +The Duchess was in a cold sweat, but nevertheless she laughed as she +spoke the last words. + +“But circumstances give the story a quite new application,” returned he. + +“How so; pray tell me, for pity’s sake?” + +“In this way, madame--you have touched the axe,” said Montriveau, +lowering his voice. + +“What an enchanting prophecy!” returned she, smiling with assumed grace. +“And when is my head to fall?” + +“I have no wish to see that pretty head of yours cut off. I only fear +some great misfortune for you. If your head were clipped close, would +you feel no regrets for the dainty golden hair that you turn to such +good account?” + +“There are those for whom a woman would love to make such a sacrifice; +even if, as often happens, it is for the sake of a man who cannot make +allowances for an outbreak of temper.” + +“Quite so. Well, and if some wag were to spoil your beauty on a sudden +by some chemical process, and you, who are but eighteen for us, were to +be a hundred years old?” + +“Why, the smallpox is our Battle of Waterloo, monsieur,” she +interrupted. “After it is over we find out those who love us sincerely.” + +“Would you not regret the lovely face that?” + +“Oh! indeed I should, but less for my own sake than for the sake of +someone else whose delight it might have been. And, after all, if I were +loved, always loved, and truly loved, what would my beauty matter to +me?--What do you say, Clara?” + +“It is a dangerous speculation,” replied Mme de Serizy. + +“Is it permissible to ask His Majesty the King of Sorcerers when I made +the mistake of touching the axe, since I have not been to London as +yet?----” + +“_Not so_,” he answered in English, with a burst of ironical laughter. + +“And when will the punishment begin?” + +At this Montriveau coolly took out his watch, and ascertained the hour +with a truly appalling air of conviction. + +“A dreadful misfortune will befall you before this day is out.” + +“I am not a child to be easily frightened, or rather, I am a child +ignorant of danger,” said the Duchess. “I shall dance now without fear +on the edge of the precipice.” + +“I am delighted to know that you have so much strength of character,” he +answered, as he watched her go to take her place in a square dance. + +But the Duchess, in spite of her apparent contempt for Armand’s dark +prophecies, was really frightened. Her late lover’s presence weighed +upon her morally and physically with a sense of oppression that scarcely +ceased when he left the ballroom. And yet when she had drawn freer +breath, and enjoyed the relief for a moment, she found herself +regretting the sensation of dread, so greedy of extreme sensations is +the feminine nature. The regret was not love, but it was certainly akin +to other feelings which prepare the way for love. And then--as if the +impression which Montriveau had made upon her were suddenly revived--she +recollected his air of conviction as he took out his watch, and in a +sudden spasm of dread she went out. + +By this time it was about midnight. One of her servants, waiting with +her pelisse, went down to order her carriage. On her way home she fell +naturally enough to musing over M. de Montriveau’s prediction. Arrived +in her own courtyard, as she supposed, she entered a vestibule almost +like that of her own hotel, and suddenly saw that the staircase was +different. She was in a strange house. Turning to call her servants, she +was attacked by several men, who rapidly flung a handkerchief over her +mouth, bound her hand and foot, and carried her off. She shrieked aloud. + +“Madame, our orders are to kill you if you scream,” a voice said in her +ear. + +So great was the Duchess’s terror, that she could never recollect how +nor by whom she was transported. When she came to herself, she was lying +on a couch in a bachelor’s lodging, her hands and feet tied with silken +cords. In spite of herself, she shrieked aloud as she looked round and +met Armand de Montriveau’s eyes. He was sitting in his dressing-gown, +quietly smoking a cigar in his armchair. + +“Do not cry out, Mme la Duchesse,” he said, coolly taking the cigar out +of his mouth; “I have a headache. Besides, I will untie you. But listen +attentively to what I have the honour to say to you.” + +Very carefully he untied the knots that bound her feet. + +“What would be the use of calling out? Nobody can hear your cries. +You are too well bred to make any unnecessary fuss. If you do not stay +quietly, if you insist upon a struggle with me, I shall tie your +hands and feet again. All things considered, I think that you have +self-respect enough to stay on this sofa as if you were lying on your +own at home; cold as ever, if you will. You have made me shed many tears +on this couch, tears that I hid from all other eyes.” + +While Montriveau was speaking, the Duchess glanced about her; it was +a woman’s glance, a stolen look that saw all things and seemed to see +nothing. She was much pleased with the room. It was rather like a +monk’s cell. The man’s character and thoughts seemed to pervade it. No +decoration of any kind broke the grey painted surface of the walls. +A green carpet covered the floor. A black sofa, a table littered with +papers, two big easy-chairs, a chest of drawers with an alarum clock by +way of ornament, a very low bedstead with a coverlet flung over it--a +red cloth with a black key border--all these things made part of a +whole that told of a life reduced to its simplest terms. A triple +candle-sconce of Egyptian design on the chimney-piece recalled the +vast spaces of the desert and Montriveau’s long wanderings; a huge +sphinx-claw stood out beneath the folds of stuff at the bed-foot; +and just beyond, a green curtain with a black and scarlet border was +suspended by large rings from a spear handle above a door near one +corner of the room. The other door by which the band had entered was +likewise curtained, but the drapery hung from an ordinary curtain-rod. +As the Duchess finally noted that the pattern was the same on both, she +saw that the door at the bed-foot stood open; gleams of ruddy light +from the room beyond flickered below the fringed border. Naturally, the +ominous light roused her curiosity; she fancied she could distinguish +strange shapes in the shadows; but as it did not occur to her at the +time that danger could come from that quarter, she tried to gratify a +more ardent curiosity. + +“Monsieur, if it is not indiscreet, may I ask what you mean to do with +me?” The insolence and irony of the tone stung through the words. The +Duchess quite believed that she read extravagant love in Montriveau’s +speech. He had carried her off; was not that in itself an acknowledgment +of her power? + +“Nothing whatever, madame,” he returned, gracefully puffing the last +whiff of cigar smoke. “You will remain here for a short time. First +of all, I should like to explain to you what you are, and what I am. I +cannot put my thoughts into words whilst you are twisting on the sofa +in your boudoir; and besides, in your own house you take offence at the +slightest hint, you ring the bell, make an outcry, and turn your lover +out at the door as if he were the basest of wretches. Here my mind is +unfettered. Here nobody can turn me out. Here you shall be my victim for +a few seconds, and you are going to be so exceedingly kind as to listen +to me. You need fear nothing. I did not carry you off to insult you, nor +yet to take by force what you refused to grant of your own will to my +unworthiness. I could not stoop so low. You possibly think of outrage; +for myself, I have no such thoughts.” + +He flung his cigar coolly into the fire. + +“The smoke is unpleasant to you, no doubt, madame?” he said, and rising +at once, he took a chafing-dish from the hearth, burnt perfumes, and +purified the air. The Duchess’s astonishment was only equaled by her +humiliation. She was in this man’s power; and he would not abuse his +power. The eyes in which love had once blazed like flame were now quiet +and steady as stars. She trembled. Her dread of Armand was increased by +a nightmare sensation of restlessness and utter inability to move; she +felt as if she were turned to stone. She lay passive in the grip of +fear. She thought she saw the light behind the curtains grow to a blaze, +as if blown up by a pair of bellows; in another moment the gleams of +flame grew brighter, and she fancied that three masked figures suddenly +flashed out; but the terrible vision disappeared so swiftly that she +took it for an optical delusion. + +“Madame,” Armand continued with cold contempt, “one minute, just one +minute is enough for me, and you shall feel it afterwards at every +moment throughout your lifetime, the one eternity over which I have +power. I am not God. Listen carefully to me,” he continued, pausing to +add solemnity to his words. “Love will always come at your call. You +have boundless power over men: but remember that once you called love, +and love came to you; love as pure and true-hearted as may be on earth, +and as reverent as it was passionate; fond as a devoted woman’s, as a +mother’s love; a love so great indeed, that it was past the bounds of +reason. You played with it, and you committed a crime. Every woman has a +right to refuse herself to love which she feels she cannot share; and +if a man loves and cannot win love in return, he is not to be pitied, +he has no right to complain. But with a semblance of love to attract +an unfortunate creature cut off from all affection; to teach him to +understand happiness to the full, only to snatch it from him; to rob him +of his future of felicity; to slay his happiness not merely today, +but as long as his life lasts, by poisoning every hour of it and every +thought--this I call a fearful crime!” + +“Monsieur----” + +“I cannot allow you to answer me yet. So listen to me still. In any case +I have rights over you; but I only choose to exercise one--the right of +the judge over the criminal, so that I may arouse your conscience. If +you had no conscience left, I should not reproach you at all; but you +are so young! You must feel some life still in your heart; or so I like +to believe. While I think of you as depraved enough to do a wrong which +the law does not punish, I do not think you so degraded that you cannot +comprehend the full meaning of my words. I resume.” + +As he spoke the Duchess heard the smothered sound of a pair of bellows. +Those mysterious figures which she had just seen were blowing up the +fire, no doubt; the glow shone through the curtain. But Montriveau’s +lurid face was turned upon her; she could not choose but wait with a +fast-beating heart and eyes fixed in a stare. However curious she felt, +the heat in Armand’s words interested her even more than the crackling +of the mysterious flames. + +“Madame,” he went on after a pause, “if some poor wretch commits a +murder in Paris, it is the executioner’s duty, you know, to lay hands on +him and stretch him on the plank, where murderers pay for their crimes +with their heads. Then the newspapers inform everyone, rich and poor, so +that the former are assured that they may sleep in peace, and the latter +are warned that they must be on the watch if they would live. Well, you +that are religious, and even a little of a bigot, may have masses said +for such a man’s soul. You both belong to the same family, but yours is +the elder branch; and the elder branch may occupy high places in peace +and live happily and without cares. Want or anger may drive your brother +the convict to take a man’s life; you have taken more, you have taken +the joy out of a man’s life, you have killed all that was best in his +life--his dearest beliefs. The murderer simply lay in wait for his +victim, and killed him reluctantly, and in fear of the scaffold; but +_you_ ...! You heaped up every sin that weakness can commit against +strength that suspected no evil; you tamed a passive victim, the better +to gnaw his heart out; you lured him with caresses; you left nothing +undone that could set him dreaming, imagining, longing for the bliss of +love. You asked innumerable sacrifices of him, only to refuse to make +any in return. He should see the light indeed before you put out his +eyes! It is wonderful how you found the heart to do it! Such villainies +demand a display of resource quite above the comprehension of those +bourgeoises whom you laugh at and despise. They can give and forgive; +they know how to love and suffer. The grandeur of their devotion dwarfs +us. Rising higher in the social scale, one finds just as much mud as at +the lower end; but with this difference, at the upper end it is hard and +gilded over. + +“Yes, to find baseness in perfection, you must look for a noble bringing +up, a great name, a fair woman, a duchess. You cannot fall lower than +the lowest unless you are set high above the rest of the world.--I +express my thoughts badly; the wounds you dealt me are too painful as +yet, but do not think that I complain. My words are not the expression +of any hope for myself; there is no trace of bitterness in them. Know +this, madame, for a certainty--I forgive you. My forgiveness is so +complete that you need not feel in the least sorry that you came hither +to find it against your will.... But you might take advantage of other +hearts as child-like as my own, and it is my duty to spare them anguish. +So you have inspired the thought of justice. Expiate your sin here +on earth; God may perhaps forgive you; I wish that He may, but He is +inexorable, and will strike.” + +The broken-spirited, broken-hearted woman looked up, her eyes filled +with tears. + +“Why do you cry? Be true to your nature. You could look on indifferently +at the torture of a heart as you broke it. That will do, madame, do not +cry. I cannot bear it any longer. Other men will tell you that you have +given them life; as for myself, I tell you, with rapture, that you have +given me blank extinction. Perhaps you guess that I am not my own, that +I am bound to live for my friends, that from this time forth I must +endure the cold chill of death, as well as the burden of life? Is it +possible that there can be so much kindness in you? Are you like the +desert tigress that licks the wounds she has inflicted?” + +The Duchess burst out sobbing. + +“Pray spare your tears, madame. If I believed in them at all, it would +merely set me on my guard. Is this another of your artifices? or is it +not? You have used so many with me; how can one think that there is any +truth in you? Nothing that you do or say has any power now to move me. +That is all I have to say.” + +Mme de Langeais rose to her feet, with a great dignity and humility in +her bearing. + +“You are right to treat me very hardly,” she said, holding out a hand to +the man who did not take it; “you have not spoken hardly enough; and I +deserve this punishment.” + +“_I_ punish you, madame! A man must love still, to punish, must he not? +From me you must expect no feeling, nothing resembling it. If I chose, I +might be accuser and judge in my cause, and pronounce and carry out the +sentence. But I am about to fulfil a duty, not a desire of vengeance of +any kind. The cruelest revenge of all, I think, is scorn of revenge when +it is in our power to take it. Perhaps I shall be the minister of your +pleasures; who knows? Perhaps from this time forth, as you gracefully +wear the tokens of disgrace by which society marks out the criminal, you +may perforce learn something of the convict’s sense of honour. And then, +you will love!” + +The Duchess sat listening; her meekness was unfeigned; it was no +coquettish device. When she spoke at last, it was after a silence. + +“Armand,” she began, “it seems to me that when I resisted love, I was +obeying all the instincts of woman’s modesty; I should not have looked +for such reproaches from _you_. I was weak; you have turned all my +weaknesses against me, and made so many crimes of them. How could you +fail to understand that the curiosity of love might have carried me +further than I ought to go; and that next morning I might be angry +with myself, and wretched because I had gone too far? Alas! I sinned in +ignorance. I was as sincere in my wrongdoing, I swear to you, as in +my remorse. There was far more love for you in my severity than in my +concessions. And besides, of what do you complain? I gave you my heart; +that was not enough; you demanded, brutally, that I should give my +person----” + +“Brutally?” repeated Montriveau. But to himself he said, “If I once +allow her to dispute over words, I am lost.” + +“Yes. You came to me as if I were one of those women. You showed none +of the respect, none of the attentions of love. Had I not reason to +reflect? Very well, I reflected. The unseemliness of your conduct is not +inexcusable; love lay at the source of it; let me think so, and +justify you to myself.--Well, Armand, this evening, even while you were +prophesying evil, I felt convinced that there was happiness in store for +us both. Yes, I put my faith in the noble, proud nature so often tested +and proved.” She bent lower. “And I was yours wholly,” she murmured in +his ear. “I felt a longing that I cannot express to give happiness to a +man so violently tried by adversity. If I must have a master, my master +should be a great man. As I felt conscious of my height, the less I +cared to descend. I felt I could trust you, I saw a whole lifetime of +love, while you were pointing to death.... Strength and kindness always +go together. My friend, you are so strong, you will not be unkind to +a helpless woman who loves you. If I was wrong, is there no way of +obtaining forgiveness? No way of making reparation? Repentance is the +charm of love; I should like to be very charming for you. How could I, +alone among women, fail to know a woman’s doubts and fears, the timidity +that it is so natural to feel when you bind yourself for life, and +know how easily a man snaps such ties? The bourgeoises, with whom you +compared me just now, give themselves, but they struggle first. Very +well--I struggled; but here I am!--Ah! God, he does not hear me!” she +broke off, and wringing her hands, she cried out “But I love you! I am +yours!” and fell at Armand’s feet. + +“Yours! yours! my one and only master!” + +Armand tried to raise her. + +“Madame, it is too late! Antoinette cannot save the Duchesse de +Langeais. I cannot believe in either. Today you may give yourself; +tomorrow, you may refuse. No power in earth or heaven can insure me the +sweet constancy of love. All love’s pledges lay in the past; and now +nothing of that past exists.” + +The light behind the curtain blazed up so brightly, that the Duchess +could not help turning her head; this time she distinctly saw the three +masked figures. + +“Armand,” she said, “I would not wish to think ill of you. Why are those +men there? What are you going to do to me?” + +“Those men will be as silent as I myself with regard to the thing which +is about to be done. Think of them simply as my hands and my heart. One +of them is a surgeon----” + +“A surgeon! Armand, my friend, of all things, suspense is the hardest +to bear. Just speak; tell me if you wish for my life; I will give it to +you, you shall not take it----” + +“Then you did not understand me? Did I not speak just now of justice? +To put an end to your misapprehensions,” continued he, taking up a small +steel object from the table, “I will now explain what I have decided +with regard to you.” + +He held out a Lorraine cross, fastened to the tip of a steel rod. + +“Two of my friends at this very moment are heating another cross, made +on this pattern, red-hot. We are going to stamp it upon your forehead, +here between the eyes, so that there will be no possibility of hiding +the mark with diamonds, and so avoiding people’s questions. In short, +you shall bear on your forehead the brand of infamy which your brothers +the convicts wear on their shoulders. The pain is a mere trifle, but I +feared a nervous crisis of some kind, of resistance----” + +“Resistance?” she cried, clapping her hands for joy. “Oh no, no! I would +have the whole world here to see. Ah, my Armand, brand her quickly, +this creature of yours; brand her with your mark as a poor little trifle +belonging to you. You asked for pledges of my love; here they are all in +one. Ah! for me there is nothing but mercy and forgiveness and eternal +happiness in this revenge of yours. When you have marked this woman with +your mark, when you set your crimson brand on her, your slave in soul, +you can never afterwards abandon her, you will be mine for evermore? +When you cut me off from my kind, you make yourself responsible for my +happiness, or you prove yourself base; and I know that you are noble and +great! Why, when a woman loves, the brand of love is burnt into her +soul by her own will.--Come in, gentlemen! come in and brand her, +this Duchesse de Langeais. She is M. de Montriveau’s forever! Ah! come +quickly, all of you, my forehead burns hotter than your fire!” + +Armand turned his head sharply away lest he should see the Duchess +kneeling, quivering with the throbbings of her heart. He said some word, +and his three friends vanished. + +The women of Paris salons know how one mirror reflects another. The +Duchess, with every motive for reading the depths of Armand’s heart, was +all eyes; and Armand, all unsuspicious of the mirror, brushed away two +tears as they fell. Her whole future lay in those two tears. When he +turned round again to help her to rise, she was standing before him, +sure of love. Her pulses must have throbbed fast when he spoke with the +firmness she had known so well how to use of old while she played with +him. + +“I spare you, madame. All that has taken place shall be as if it had +never been, you may believe me. But now, let us bid each other goodbye. +I like to think that you were sincere in your coquetries on your sofa, +sincere again in this outpouring of your heart. Good-bye. I feel that +there is no faith in you left in me. You would torment me again; you +would always be the Duchess, and----But there, good-bye, we shall never +understand each other. + +“Now, what do you wish?” he continued, taking the tone of a master of +the ceremonies--“to return home, or to go back to Mme de Serizy’s +ball? I have done all in my power to prevent any scandal. Neither your +servants nor anyone else can possibly know what has passed between us +in the last quarter of an hour. Your servants have no idea that you have +left the ballroom; your carriage never left Mme de Serizy’s courtyard; +your brougham may likewise be found in the court of your own hotel. +Where do you wish to be?” + +“What do you counsel, Armand?” + +“There is no Armand now, Mme la Duchesse. We are strangers to each +other.” + +“Then take me to the ball,” she said, still curious to put Armand’s +power to the test. “Thrust a soul that suffered in the world, and must +always suffer there, if there is no happiness for her now, down into +hell again. And yet, oh my friend, I love you as your bourgeoises love; +I love you so that I could come to you and fling my arms about your neck +before all the world if you asked it off me. The hateful world has not +corrupted me. I am young at least, and I have grown younger still. I am +a child, yes, your child, your new creature. Ah! do not drive me forth +out of my Eden!” + +Armand shook his head. + +“Ah! let me take something with me, if I go, some little thing to wear +tonight on my heart,” she said, taking possession of Armand’s glove, +which she twisted into her handkerchief. + +“No, I am _not_ like all those depraved women. You do not know the +world, and so you cannot know my worth. You shall know it now! There are +women who sell themselves for money; there are others to be gained by +gifts, it is a vile world! Oh, I wish I were a simple bourgeoise, a +working girl, if you would rather have a woman beneath you than a woman +whose devotion is accompanied by high rank, as men count it. Oh, my +Armand, there are noble, high, and chaste and pure natures among us; +and then they are lovely indeed. I would have all nobleness that I might +offer it all up to you. Misfortune willed that I should be a duchess; +I would I were a royal princess, that my offering might be complete. I +would be a grisette for you, and a queen for everyone besides.” + +He listened, damping his cigars with his lips. + +“You will let me know when you wish to go,” he said. + +“But I should like to stay----” + +“That is another matter!” + +“Stay, that was badly rolled,” she cried, seizing on a cigar and +devouring all that Armand’s lips had touched. + +“Do you smoke?” + +“Oh, what would I not do to please you?” + +“Very well. Go, madame.” + +“I will obey you,” she answered, with tears in her eyes. + +“You must be blindfolded; you must not see a glimpse of the way.” + +“I am ready, Armand,” she said, bandaging her eyes. + +“Can you see?” + +“No.” + +Noiselessly he knelt before her. + +“Ah! I can hear you!” she cried, with a little fond gesture, thinking +that the pretence of harshness was over. + +He made as if he would kiss her lips; she held up her face. + +“You can see, madame.” + +“I am just a little bit curious.” + +“So you always deceive me?” + +“Ah! take off this handkerchief, sir,” she cried out, with the passion +of a great generosity repelled with scorn, “lead me; I will not open my +eyes.” + +Armand felt sure of her after that cry. He led the way; the Duchess +nobly true to her word, was blind. But while Montriveau held her hand +as a father might, and led her up and down flights of stairs, he was +studying the throbbing pulses of this woman’s heart so suddenly invaded +by Love. Mme de Langeais, rejoicing in this power of speech, was glad to +let him know all; but he was inflexible; his hand was passive in reply +to the questionings of her hand. + +At length, after some journey made together, Armand bade her go forward; +the opening was doubtless narrow, for as she went she felt that his hand +protected her dress. His care touched her; it was a revelation surely +that there was a little love still left; yet it was in some sort a +farewell, for Montriveau left her without a word. The air was warm; the +Duchess, feeling the heat, opened her eyes, and found herself standing +by the fire in the Comtesse de Serizy’s boudoir. + +She was alone. Her first thought was for her disordered toilette; in a +moment she had adjusted her dress and restored her picturesque coiffure. + +“Well, dear Antoinette, we have been looking for you everywhere.” It was +the Comtesse de Serizy who spoke as she opened the door. + +“I came here to breathe,” said the Duchess; “it is unbearably hot in the +rooms.” + +“People thought that you had gone; but my brother Ronquerolles told me +that your servants were waiting for you.” + +“I am tired out, dear, let me stay and rest here for a minute,” and the +Duchess sat down on the sofa. + +“Why, what is the matter with you? You are shaking from head to foot!” + +The Marquis de Ronquerolles came in. + +“Mme la Duchesse, I was afraid that something might have happened. I +have just come across your coachman, the man is as tipsy as all the +Swiss in Switzerland.” + +The Duchess made no answer; she was looking round the room, at the +chimney-piece and the tall mirrors, seeking the trace of an opening. +Then with an extraordinary sensation she recollected that she was again +in the midst of the gaiety of the ballroom after that terrific scene +which had changed the whole course of her life. She began to shiver +violently. + +“M. de Montriveau’s prophecy has shaken my nerves,” she said. “It was +a joke, but still I will see whether his axe from London will haunt me +even in my sleep. So good-bye, dear.--Good-bye, M. le Marquis.” + +As she went through the rooms she was beset with inquiries and regrets. +Her world seemed to have dwindled now that she, its queen, had fallen so +low, was so diminished. And what, moreover, were these men compared with +him whom she loved with all her heart; with the man grown great by all +that she had lost in stature? The giant had regained the height that he +had lost for a while, and she exaggerated it perhaps beyond measure. She +looked, in spite of herself, at the servant who had attended her to the +ball. He was fast asleep. + +“Have you been here all the time?” she asked. + +“Yes, madame.” + +As she took her seat in her carriage she saw, in fact, that her coachman +was drunk--so drunk, that at any other time she would have been afraid; +but after a great crisis in life, fear loses its appetite for common +food. She reached home, at any rate, without accident; but even there +she felt a change in herself, a new feeling that she could not shake +off. For her, there was now but one man in the world; which is to say +that henceforth she cared to shine for his sake alone. + +While the physiologist can define love promptly by following out natural +laws, the moralist finds a far more perplexing problem before him if +he attempts to consider love in all its developments due to social +conditions. Still, in spite of the heresies of the endless sects that +divide the church of Love, there is one broad and trenchant line of +difference in doctrine, a line that all the discussion in the world can +never deflect. A rigid application of this line explains the nature +of the crisis through which the Duchess, like most women, was to pass. +Passion she knew, but she did not love as yet. + +Love and passion are two different conditions which poets and men of the +world, philosophers and fools, alike continually confound. Love implies +a give and take, a certainty of bliss that nothing can change; it +means so close a clinging of the heart, and an exchange of happiness so +constant, that there is no room left for jealousy. Then possession is a +means and not an end; unfaithfulness may give pain, but the bond is not +less close; the soul is neither more nor less ardent or troubled, but +happy at every moment; in short, the divine breath of desire spreading +from end to end of the immensity of Time steeps it all for us in the +selfsame hue; life takes the tint of the unclouded heaven. But Passion +is the foreshadowing of Love, and of that Infinite to which all +suffering souls aspire. Passion is a hope that may be cheated. Passion +means both suffering and transition. Passion dies out when hope is +dead. Men and women may pass through this experience many times without +dishonor, for it is so natural to spring towards happiness; but there is +only one love in a lifetime. All discussions of sentiment ever +conducted on paper or by word of mouth may therefore be resumed by +two questions--“Is it passion? Is it love?” So, since love comes into +existence only through the intimate experience of the bliss which gives +it lasting life, the Duchess was beneath the yoke of passion as yet; and +as she knew the fierce tumult, the unconscious calculations, the fevered +cravings, and all that is meant by that word _passion_--she suffered. +Through all the trouble of her soul there rose eddying gusts of tempest, +raised by vanity or self-love, or pride or a high spirit; for all these +forms of egoism make common cause together. + +She had said to this man, “I love you; I am yours!” Was it possible that +the Duchesse de Langeais should have uttered those words--in vain? She +must either be loved now or play her part of queen no longer. And then +she felt the loneliness of the luxurious couch where pleasure had never +yet set his glowing feet; and over and over again, while she tossed and +writhed there, she said, “I want to be loved.” + +But the belief that she still had in herself gave her hope of success. +The Duchess might be piqued, the vain Parisienne might be humiliated; +but the woman saw glimpses of wedded happiness, and imagination, +avenging the time lost for nature, took a delight in kindling the +inextinguishable fire in her veins. She all but attained to the +sensations of love; for amid her poignant doubt whether she was loved in +return, she felt glad at heart to say to herself, “I love him!” As for +her scruples, religion, and the world she could trample them under foot! +Montriveau was her religion now. She spent the next day in a state +of moral torpor, troubled by a physical unrest, which no words could +express. She wrote letters and tore them all up, and invented a thousand +impossible fancies. + +When M. de Montriveau’s usual hour arrived, she tried to think that he +would come, and enjoyed the feeling of expectation. Her whole life was +concentrated in the single sense of hearing. Sometimes she shut her +eyes, straining her ears to listen through space, wishing that she +could annihilate everything that lay between her and her lover, and so +establish that perfect silence which sounds may traverse from afar. In +her tense self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful +to her; she stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of +midnight sounded from the drawing-room. + +“Ah, God!” she cried, “to see him here would be happiness. And yet, it +is not so very long since he came here, brought by desire, and the tones +of his voice filled this boudoir. And now there is nothing.” + +She remembered the times that she had played the coquette with him, and +how that her coquetry had cost her her lover, and the despairing tears +flowed for long. + +Her woman came at length with, “Mme la Duchesse does not know, perhaps, +that it is two o’clock in the morning; I thought that madame was not +feeling well.” + +“Yes, I am going to bed,” said the Duchess, drying her eyes. “But +remember, Suzanne, never to come in again without orders; I tell you +this for the last time.” + +For a week, Mme de Langeais went to every house where there was a hope +of meeting M. de Montriveau. Contrary to her usual habits, she came +early and went late; gave up dancing, and went to the card-tables. Her +experiments were fruitless. She did not succeed in getting a glimpse of +Armand. She did not dare to utter his name now. One evening, however, in +a fit of despair, she spoke to Mme de Serizy, and asked as carelessly as +she could, “You must have quarreled with M. de Montriveau? He is not to +be seen at your house now.” + +The Countess laughed. “So he does not come here either?” she returned. +“He is not to be seen anywhere, for that matter. He is interested in +some woman, no doubt.” + +“I used to think that the Marquis de Ronquerolles was one of his +friends----” the Duchess began sweetly. + +“I have never heard my brother say that he was acquainted with him.” + +Mme de Langeais did not reply. Mme de Serizy concluded from the +Duchess’s silence that she might apply the scourge with impunity to a +discreet friendship which she had seen, with bitterness of soul, for a +long time past. + +“So you miss that melancholy personage, do you? I have heard most +extraordinary things of him. Wound his feelings, he never comes back, +he forgives nothing; and, if you love him, he keeps you in chains. To +everything that I said of him, one of those that praise him sky-high +would always answer, ‘He knows how to love!’ People are always telling +me that Montriveau would give up all for his friend; that his is a great +nature. Pooh! society does not want such tremendous natures. Men of that +stamp are all very well at home; let them stay there and leave us to our +pleasant littlenesses. What do you say, Antoinette?” + +Woman of the world though she was, the Duchess seemed agitated, yet she +replied in a natural voice that deceived her fair friend: + +“I am sorry to miss him. I took a great interest in him, and promised +to myself to be his sincere friend. I like great natures, dear friend, +ridiculous though you may think it. To give oneself to a fool is a clear +confession, is it not, that one is governed wholly by one’s senses?” + +Mme de Serizy’s “preferences” had always been for commonplace men; her +lover at the moment, the Marquis d’Aiglemont, was a fine, tall man. + +After this, the Countess soon took her departure, you may be sure Mme +de Langeais saw hope in Armand’s withdrawal from the world; she wrote to +him at once; it was a humble, gentle letter, surely it would bring him +if he loved her still. She sent her footman with it next day. On the +servant’s return, she asked whether he had given the letter to M. de +Montriveau himself, and could not restrain the movement of joy at the +affirmative answer. Armand was in Paris! He stayed alone in his house; +he did not go out into society! So she was loved! All day long she +waited for an answer that never came. Again and again, when impatience +grew unbearable, Antoinette found reasons for his delay. Armand felt +embarrassed; the reply would come by post; but night came, and she could +not deceive herself any longer. It was a dreadful day, a day of pain +grown sweet, of intolerable heart-throbs, a day when the heart squanders +the very forces of life in riot. + +Next day she sent for an answer. + +“M. le Marquis sent word that he would call on Mme la Duchesse,” + reported Julien. + +She fled lest her happiness should be seen in her face, and flung +herself on her couch to devour her first sensations. + +“He is coming!” + +The thought rent her soul. And, in truth, woe unto those for whom +suspense is not the most horrible time of tempest, while it increases +and multiplies the sweetest joys; for they have nothing in them of +that flame which quickens the images of things, giving to them a second +existence, so that we cling as closely to the pure essence as to its +outward and visible manifestation. What is suspense in love but a +constant drawing upon an unfailing hope?--a submission to the terrible +scourging of passion, while passion is yet happy, and the disenchantment +of reality has not set in. The constant putting forth of strength and +longing, called suspense, is surely, to the human soul, as fragrance +to the flower that breathes it forth. We soon leave the brilliant, +unsatisfying colours of tulips and coreopsis, but we turn again and +again to drink in the sweetness of orange-blossoms or volkameria-flowers +compared separately, each in its own land, to a betrothed bride, full of +love, made fair by the past and future. + +The Duchess learned the joys of this new life of hers through the +rapture with which she received the scourgings of love. As this change +wrought in her, she saw other destinies before her, and a better +meaning in the things of life. As she hurried to her dressing-room, she +understood what studied adornment and the most minute attention to +her toilet mean when these are undertaken for love’s sake and not for +vanity. Even now this making ready helped her to bear the long time of +waiting. A relapse of intense agitation set in when she was dressed; she +passed through nervous paroxysms brought on by the dreadful power which +sets the whole mind in ferment. Perhaps that power is only a disease, +though the pain of it is sweet. The Duchess was dressed and waiting +at two o clock in the afternoon. At half-past eleven that night M. +de Montriveau had not arrived. To try to give an idea of the anguish +endured by a woman who might be said to be the spoilt child of +civilization, would be to attempt to say how many imaginings the heart +can condense into one thought. As well endeavour to measure the forces +expended by the soul in a sigh whenever the bell rang; to estimate the +drain of life when a carriage rolled past without stopping, and left her +prostrate. + +“Can he be playing with me?” she said, as the clocks struck midnight. + +She grew white; her teeth chattered; she struck her hands together and +leapt up and crossed the boudoir, recollecting as she did so how often +he had come thither without a summons. But she resigned herself. Had she +not seen him grow pale, and start up under the stinging barbs of irony? +Then Mme de Langeais felt the horror of the woman’s appointed lot; a +man’s is the active part, a woman must wait passively when she loves. If +a woman goes beyond her beloved, she makes a mistake which few men can +forgive; almost every man would feel that a woman lowers herself by this +piece of angelic flattery. But Armand’s was a great nature; he surely +must be one of the very few who can repay such exceeding love by love +that lasts forever. + +“Well, I will make the advance,” she told herself, as she tossed on her +bed and found no sleep there; “I will go to him. I will not weary myself +with holding out a hand to him, but I will hold it out. A man of a +thousand will see a promise of love and constancy in every step that a +woman takes towards him. Yes, the angels must come down from heaven to +reach men; and I wish to be an angel for him.” + +Next day she wrote. It was a billet of the kind in which the intellects +of the ten thousand Sevignes that Paris now can number particularly +excel. And yet only a Duchesse de Langeais, brought up by Mme la +Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, could have written that delicious note; no +other woman could complain without lowering herself; could spread wings +in such a flight without draggling her pinions in humiliation; rise +gracefully in revolt; scold without giving offence; and pardon without +compromising her personal dignity. + +Julien went with the note. Julien, like his kind, was the victim of +love’s marches and countermarches. + +“What did M. de Montriveau reply?” she asked, as indifferently as she +could, when the man came back to report himself. + +“M. le Marquis requested me to tell Mme la Duchesse that it was all +right.” + +Oh the dreadful reaction of the soul upon herself! To have her heart +stretched on the rack before curious witnesses; yet not to utter a +sound, to be forced to keep silence! One of the countless miseries of +the rich! + +More than three weeks went by. Mme de Langeais wrote again and again, +and no answer came from Montriveau. At last she gave out that she was +ill, to gain a dispensation from attendance on the Princess and from +social duties. She was only at home to her father the Duc de Navarreins, +her aunt the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, the old Vidame de Pamiers +(her maternal great-uncle), and to her husband’s uncle, the Duc de +Grandlieu. These persons found no difficulty in believing that the +Duchess was ill, seeing that she grew thinner and paler and more +dejected every day. The vague ardour of love, the smart of wounded +pride, the continual prick of the only scorn that could touch her, +the yearnings towards joys that she craved with a vain continual +longing--all these things told upon her, mind and body; all the forces +of her nature were stimulated to no purpose. She was paying the arrears +of her life of make-believe. + +She went out at last to a review. M. de Montriveau was to be there. For +the Duchess, on the balcony of the Tuileries with the Royal Family, +it was one of those festival days that are long remembered. She looked +supremely beautiful in her languor; she was greeted with admiration in +all eyes. It was Montriveau’s presence that made her so fair. + +Once or twice they exchanged glances. The General came almost to her +feet in all the glory of that soldier’s uniform, which produces an +effect upon the feminine imagination to which the most prudish will +confess. When a woman is very much in love, and has not seen her lover +for two months, such a swift moment must be something like the phase of +a dream when the eyes embrace a world that stretches away forever. +Only women or young men can imagine the dull, frenzied hunger in the +Duchess’s eyes. As for older men, if during the paroxysms of early +passion in youth they had experience of such phenomena of nervous power; +at a later day it is so completely forgotten that they deny the very +existence of the luxuriant ecstasy--the only name that can be given to +these wonderful intuitions. Religious ecstasy is the aberration of a +soul that has shaken off its bonds of flesh; whereas in amorous ecstasy +all the forces of soul and body are embraced and blended in one. If +a woman falls a victim to the tyrannous frenzy before which Mme de +Langeais was forced to bend, she will take one decisive resolution +after another so swiftly that it is impossible to give account of them. +Thought after thought rises and flits across her brain, as clouds are +whirled by the wind across the grey veil of mist that shuts out the sun. +Thenceforth the facts reveal all. And the facts are these. + +The day after the review, Mme de Langeais sent her carriage and liveried +servants to wait at the Marquis de Montriveau’s door from eight o’clock +in the morning till three in the afternoon. Armand lived in the Rue de +Tournon, a few steps away from the Chamber of Peers, and that very +day the House was sitting; but long before the peers returned to their +palaces, several people had recognised the Duchess’s carriage and +liveries. The first of these was the Baron de Maulincour. That young +officer had met with disdain from Mme de Langeais and a better reception +from Mme de Serizy; he betook himself at once therefore to his mistress, +and under seal of secrecy told her of this strange freak. + +In a moment the news was spread with telegraphic speed through all the +coteries in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; it reached the Tuileries and the +Elysee-Bourbon; it was the sensation of the day, the matter of all the +talk from noon till night. Almost everywhere the women denied the facts, +but in such a manner that the report was confirmed; the men one and +all believed it, and manifested a most indulgent interest in Mme de +Langeais. Some among them threw the blame on Armand. + +“That savage of a Montriveau is a man of bronze,” said they; “he +insisted on making this scandal, no doubt.” + +“Very well, then,” others replied, “Mme de Langeais has been guilty of +a most generous piece of imprudence. To renounce the world and rank, and +fortune, and consideration for her lover’s sake, and that in the face +of all Paris, is as fine a _coup d’etat_ for a woman as that barber’s +knife-thrust, which so affected Canning in a court of assize. Not one +of the women who blame the Duchess would make a declaration worthy of +ancient times. It is heroic of Mme de Langeais to proclaim herself so +frankly. Now there is nothing left to her but to love Montriveau. There +must be something great about a woman if she says, ‘I will have but one +passion.’” + +“But what is to become of society, monsieur, if you honour vice in this +way without respect for virtue?” asked the Comtesse de Granville, the +attorney-general’s wife. + +While the Chateau, the Faubourg, and the Chaussee d’Antin were +discussing the shipwreck of aristocratic virtue; while excited young men +rushed about on horseback to make sure that the carriage was standing in +the Rue de Tournon, and the Duchess in consequence was beyond a doubt in +M. de Montriveau’s rooms, Mme de Langeais, with heavy throbbing pulses, +was lying hidden away in her boudoir. And Armand?--he had been out all +night, and at that moment was walking with M. de Marsay in the Gardens +of the Tuileries. The elder members, of Mme de Langeais’ family were +engaged in calling upon one another, arranging to read her a homily +and to hold a consultation as to the best way of putting a stop to the +scandal. + +At three o’clock, therefore, M. le Duc de Navarreins, the Vidame de +Pamiers, the old Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, and the Duc de Grandlieu +were assembled in Mme la Duchesse de Langeais’ drawing-room. To them, as +to all curious inquirers, the servants said that their mistress was not +at home; the Duchess had made no exceptions to her orders. But these +four personages shone conspicuous in that lofty sphere, of which the +revolutions and hereditary pretensions are solemnly recorded year by +year in the _Almanach de Gotha_, wherefore without some slight sketch of +each of them this picture of society were incomplete. + +The Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, in the feminine world, was a most +poetic wreck of the reign of Louis Quinze. In her beautiful prime, so it +was said, she had done her part to win for that monarch his appellation +of _le Bien-aime_. Of her past charms of feature, little remained save +a remarkably prominent slender nose, curved like a Turkish scimitar, now +the principal ornament of a countenance that put you in mind of an old +white glove. Add a few powdered curls, high-heeled pantoufles, a cap +with upstanding loops of lace, black mittens, and a decided taste for +_ombre_. But to do full justice to the lady, it must be said that she +appeared in low-necked gowns of an evening (so high an opinion of her +ruins had she), wore long gloves, and raddled her cheeks with Martin’s +classic rouge. An appalling amiability in her wrinkles, a prodigious +brightness in the old lady’s eyes, a profound dignity in her whole +person, together with the triple barbed wit of her tongue, and an +infallible memory in her head, made of her a real power in the land. The +whole Cabinet des Chartes was entered in duplicate on the parchment +of her brain. She knew all the genealogies of every noble house in +Europe--princes, dukes, and counts--and could put her hand on the last +descendants of Charlemagne in the direct line. No usurpation of title +could escape the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry. + +Young men who wished to stand well at Court, ambitious men, and young +married women paid her assiduous homage. Her salon set the tone of the +Faubourg Saint-Germain. The words of this Talleyrand in petticoats +were taken as final decrees. People came to consult her on questions of +etiquette or usages, or to take lessons in good taste. And, in truth, +no other old woman could put back her snuff-box in her pocket as the +Princess could; while there was a precision and a grace about the +movements of her skirts, when she sat down or crossed her feet, which +drove the finest ladies of the young generation to despair. Her voice +had remained in her head during one-third of her lifetime; but she could +not prevent a descent into the membranes of the nose, which lent to it a +peculiar expressiveness. She still retained a hundred and fifty thousand +livres of her great fortune, for Napoleon had generously returned her +woods to her; so that personally and in the matter of possessions she +was a woman of no little consequence. + +This curious antique, seated in a low chair by the fireside, was +chatting with the Vidame de Pamiers, a contemporary ruin. The Vidame was +a big, tall, and spare man, a seigneur of the old school, and had been +a Commander of the Order of Malta. His neck had always been so tightly +compressed by a strangulation stock, that his cheeks pouched over it a +little, and he held his head high; to many people this would have given +an air of self-sufficiency, but in the Vidame it was justified by a +Voltairean wit. His wide prominent eyes seemed to see everything, and as +a matter of fact there was not much that they had not seen. Altogether, +his person was a perfect model of aristocratic outline, slim and +slender, supple and agreeable. He seemed as if he could be pliant or +rigid at will, and twist and bend, or rear his head like a snake. + +The Duc de Navarreins was pacing up and down the room with the Duc de +Grandlieu. Both were men of fifty-six or thereabouts, and still hale; +both were short, corpulent, flourishing, somewhat florid-complexioned +men with jaded eyes, and lower lips that had begun to hang already. But +for an exquisite refinement of accent, an urbane courtesy, and an ease +of manner that could change in a moment to insolence, a superficial +observer might have taken them for a couple of bankers. Any such mistake +would have been impossible, however, if the listener could have heard +them converse, and seen them on their guard with men whom they feared, +vapid and commonplace with their equals, slippery with the inferiors +whom courtiers and statesmen know how to tame by a tactful word, or to +humiliate with an unexpected phrase. + +Such were the representatives of the great noblesse that determined to +perish rather than submit to any change. It was a noblesse that deserved +praise and blame in equal measure; a noblesse that will never be judged +impartially until some poet shall arise to tell how joyfully the nobles +obeyed the King though their heads fell under a Richelieu’s axe, and how +deeply they scorned the guillotine of ‘89 as a foul revenge. + +Another noticeable trait in all the four was a thin voice that agreed +peculiarly well with their ideas and bearing. Among themselves, at any +rate, they were on terms of perfect equality. None of them betrayed +any sign of annoyance over the Duchess’s escapade, but all of them had +learned at Court to hide their feelings. + +And here, lest critics should condemn the puerility of the opening of +the forthcoming scene, it is perhaps as well to remind the reader that +Locke, once happening to be in the company of several great lords, +renowned no less for their wit than for their breeding and political +consistency, wickedly amused himself by taking down their conversation +by some shorthand process of his own; and afterwards, when he read +it over to them to see what they could make of it, they all burst out +laughing. And, in truth, the tinsel jargon which circulates among the +upper ranks in every country yields mighty little gold to the crucible +when washed in the ashes of literature or philosophy. In every rank of +society (some few Parisian salons excepted) the curious observer finds +folly a constant quantity beneath a more or less transparent varnish. +Conversation with any substance in it is a rare exception, and +boeotianism is current coin in every zone. In the higher regions they +must perforce talk more, but to make up for it they think the less. +Thinking is a tiring exercise, and the rich like their lives to flow by +easily and without effort. It is by comparing the fundamental matter of +jests, as you rise in the social scale from the street-boy to the peer +of France, that the observer arrives at a true comprehension of M. de +Talleyrand’s maxim, “The manner is everything”; an elegant rendering of +the legal axiom, “The form is of more consequence than the matter.” In +the eyes of the poet the advantage rests with the lower classes, for +they seldom fail to give a certain character of rude poetry to their +thoughts. Perhaps also this same observation may explain the sterility +of the salons, their emptiness, their shallowness, and the repugnance +felt by men of ability for bartering their ideas for such pitiful small +change. + +The Duke suddenly stopped as if some bright idea occurred to him, and +remarked to his neighbour: + +“So you have sold Tornthon?” + +“No, he is ill. I am very much afraid I shall lose him, and I should be +uncommonly sorry. He is a very good hunter. Do you know how the Duchesse +de Marigny is?” + +“No. I did not go this morning. I was just going out to call when +you came in to speak about Antoinette. But yesterday she was very ill +indeed; they had given her up, she took the sacrament.” + +“Her death will make a change in your cousin’s position.” + +“Not at all. She gave away her property in her lifetime, only keeping +an annuity. She made over the Guebriant estate to her niece, Mme de +Soulanges, subject to a yearly charge.” + +“It will be a great loss for society. She was a kind woman. Her family +will miss her; her experience and advice carried weight. Her son Marigny +is an amiable man; he has a sharp wit, he can talk. He is pleasant, very +pleasant. Pleasant? oh, that no one can deny, but--ill regulated to +the last degree. Well, and yet it is an extraordinary thing, he is +very acute. He was dining at the club the other day with that moneyed +Chaussee-d’Antin set. Your uncle (he always goes there for his game +of cards) found him there to his astonishment, and asked if he was a +member. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘I don’t go into society now; I am living among +the bankers.’--You know why?” added the Marquis, with a meaning smile. + +“No,” said the Duke. + +“He is smitten with that little Mme Keller, Gondreville’s daughter; she +is only lately married, and has a great vogue, they say, in that set.” + +“Well, Antoinette does not find time heavy on her hands, it seems,” + remarked the Vidame. + +“My affection for that little woman has driven me to find a singular +pastime,” replied the Princess, as she returned her snuff-box to her +pocket. + +“Dear aunt, I am extremely vexed,” said the Duke, stopping short in his +walk. “Nobody but one of Bonaparte’s men could ask such an indecorous +thing of a woman of fashion. Between ourselves, Antoinette might have +made a better choice.” + +“The Montriveaus are a very old family and very well connected, my +dear,” replied the Princess; “they are related to all the noblest houses +of Burgundy. If the Dulmen branch of the Arschoot Rivaudoults should +come to an end in Galicia, the Montriveaus would succeed to the Arschoot +title and estates. They inherit through their great-grandfather. + +“Are you sure?” + +“I know it better than this Montriveau’s father did. I told him about +it, I used to see a good deal of him; and, Chevalier of several orders +though he was, he only laughed; he was an encyclopaedist. But his +brother turned the relationship to good account during the emigration. +I have heard it said that his northern kinsfolk were most kind in every +way----” + +“Yes, to be sure. The Comte de Montriveau died at St. Petersburg,” + said the Vidame. “I met him there. He was a big man with an incredible +passion for oysters.” + +“However many did he eat?” asked the Duc de Grandlieu. + +“Ten dozen every day.” + +“And did they not disagree with him?” + +“Not the least bit in the world.” + +“Why, that is extraordinary! Had he neither the stone nor gout, nor any +other complaint, in consequence?” + +“No; his health was perfectly good, and he died through an accident.” + +“By accident! Nature prompted him to eat oysters, so probably he +required them; for up to a certain point our predominant tastes are +conditions of our existence.” + +“I am of your opinion,” said the Princess, with a smile. + +“Madame, you always put a malicious construction on things,” returned +the Marquis. + +“I only want you to understand that these remarks might leave a wrong +impression on a young woman’s mind,” said she, and interrupted herself +to exclaim, “But this niece, this niece of mine!” + +“Dear aunt, I still refuse to believe that she can have gone to M. de +Montriveau,” said the Duc de Navarreins. + +“Bah!” returned the Princess. + +“What do you think, Vidame?” asked the Marquis. + +“If the Duchess were an artless simpleton, I should think that----” + +“But when a woman is in love she becomes an artless simpleton,” retorted +the Princess. “Really, my poor Vidame, you must be getting older.” + +“After all, what is to be done?” asked the Duke. + +“If my dear niece is wise,” said the Princess, “she will go to Court +this evening--fortunately, today is Monday, and reception day--and you +must see that we all rally round her and give the lie to this absurd +rumour. There are hundreds of ways of explaining things; and if the +Marquis de Montriveau is a gentleman, he will come to our assistance. We +will bring these children to listen to reason----” + +“But, dear aunt, it is not easy to tell M. de Montriveau the truth to +his face. He is one of Bonaparte’s pupils, and he has a position. Why, +he is one of the great men of the day; he is high up in the Guards, and +very useful there. He has not a spark of ambition. He is just the man to +say, ‘Here is my commission, leave me in peace,’ if the King should say +a word that he did not like.” + +“Then, pray, what are his opinions?” + +“Very unsound.” + +“Really,” sighed the Princess, “the King is, as he always has been, a +Jacobin under the Lilies of France.” + +“Oh! not quite so bad,” said the Vidame. + +“Yes; I have known him for a long while. The man that pointed out the +Court to his wife on the occasion of her first state dinner in public +with, ‘These are our people,’ could only be a black-hearted scoundrel. +I can see Monsieur exactly the same as ever in the King. The bad brother +who voted so wrongly in his department of the Constituent Assembly was +sure to compound with the Liberals and allow them to argue and talk. +This philosophical cant will be just as dangerous now for the younger +brother as it used to be for the elder; this fat man with the little +mind is amusing himself by creating difficulties, and how his successor +is to get out of them I do not know; he holds his younger brother in +abhorrence; he would be glad to think as he lay dying, ‘He will not +reign very long----’” + +“Aunt, he is the King, and I have the honour to be in his service----” + +“But does your post take away your right of free speech, my dear? You +come of quite as good a house as the Bourbons. If the Guises had shown a +little more resolution, His Majesty would be a nobody at this day. It is +time I went out of this world, the noblesse is dead. Yes, it is all +over with you, my children,” she continued, looking as she spoke at the +Vidame. “What has my niece done that the whole town should be talking +about her? She is in the wrong; I disapprove of her conduct, a useless +scandal is a blunder; that is why I still have my doubts about this want +of regard for appearances; I brought her up, and I know that----” + +Just at that moment the Duchess came out of her boudoir. She had +recognised her aunt’s voice and heard the name of Montriveau. She +was still in her loose morning-gown; and even as she came in, M. +de Grandlieu, looking carelessly out of the window, saw his niece’s +carriage driving back along the street. The Duke took his daughter’s +face in both hands and kissed her on the forehead. + +“So, dear girl,” he said, “you do not know what is going on?” + +“Has anything extraordinary happened, father dear?” + +“Why, all Paris believes that you are with M. de Montriveau.” + +“My dear Antoinette, you were at home all the time, were you not?” + said the Princess, holding out a hand, which the Duchess kissed with +affectionate respect. + +“Yes, dear mother; I was at home all the time. And,” she added, as she +turned to greet the Vidame and the Marquis, “I wished that all Paris +should think that I was with M. de Montriveau.” + +The Duke flung up his hands, struck them together in despair, and folded +his arms. + +“Then, cannot you see what will come of this mad freak?” he asked at +last. + +But the aged Princess had suddenly risen, and stood looking steadily +at the Duchess, the younger woman flushed, and her eyes fell. Mme de +Chauvry gently drew her closer, and said, “My little angel, let me kiss +you!” + +She kissed her niece very affectionately on the forehead, and continued +smiling, while she held her hand in a tight clasp. + +“We are not under the Valois now, dear child. You have compromised your +husband and your position. Still, we will arrange to make everything +right.” + +“But, dear aunt, I do not wish to make it right at all. It is my wish +that all Paris should say that I was with M. de Montriveau this morning. +If you destroy that belief, however ill grounded it may be, you will do +me a singular disservice.” + +“Do you really wish to ruin yourself, child, and to grieve your family?” + +“My family, father, unintentionally condemned me to irreparable +misfortune when they sacrificed me to family considerations. You may, +perhaps, blame me for seeking alleviations, but you will certainly feel +for me.” + +“After all the endless pains you take to settle your daughters +suitably!” muttered M. de Navarreins, addressing the Vidame. + +The Princess shook a stray grain of snuff from her skirts. “My dear +little girl,” she said, “be happy, if you can. We are not talking of +troubling your felicity, but of reconciling it with social usages. We +all of us here assembled know that marriage is a defective institution +tempered by love. But when you take a lover, is there any need to make +your bed in the Place du Carrousel? See now, just be a bit reasonable, +and hear what we have to say.” + +“I am listening.” + +“Mme la Duchesse,” began the Duc de Grandlieu, “if it were any part of +an uncle’s duty to look after his nieces, he ought to have a position; +society would owe him honours and rewards and a salary, exactly as if +he were in the King’s service. So I am not here to talk about my nephew, +but of your own interests. Let us look ahead a little. If you persist in +making a scandal--I have seen the animal before, and I own that I have +no great liking for him--Langeais is stingy enough, and he does not care +a rap for anyone but himself; he will have a separation; he will stick +to your money, and leave you poor, and consequently you will be a +nobody. The income of a hundred thousand livres that you have just +inherited from your maternal great-aunt will go to pay for his +mistresses’ amusements. You will be bound and gagged by the law; +you will have to say _Amen_ to all these arrangements. Suppose M. de +Montriveau leaves you----dear me! do not let us put ourselves in a +passion, my dear niece; a man does not leave a woman while she is young +and pretty; still, we have seen so many pretty women left disconsolate, +even among princesses, that you will permit the supposition, an all but +impossible supposition I quite wish to believe.----Well, suppose that +he goes, what will become of you without a husband? Keep well with your +husband as you take care of your beauty; for beauty, after all, is a +woman’s parachute, and a husband also stands between you and worse. I +am supposing that you are happy and loved to the end, and I am leaving +unpleasant or unfortunate events altogether out of the reckoning. This +being so, fortunately or unfortunately, you may have children. What are +they to be? Montriveaus? Very well; they certainly will not succeed to +their father’s whole fortune. You will want to give them all that you +have; he will wish to do the same. Nothing more natural, dear me! +And you will find the law against you. How many times have we +seen heirs-at-law bringing a law-suit to recover the property from +illegitimate children? Every court of law rings with such actions all +over the world. You will create a _fidei commissum_ perhaps; and if the +trustee betrays your confidence, your children have no remedy against +him; and they are ruined. So choose carefully. You see the perplexities +of the position. In every possible way your children will be sacrificed +of necessity to the fancies of your heart; they will have no recognised +status. While they are little they will be charming; but, Lord! some day +they will reproach you for thinking of no one but your two selves. We +old gentlemen know all about it. Little boys grow up into men, and men +are ungrateful beings. When I was in Germany, did I not hear young de +Horn say, after supper, ‘If my mother had been an honest woman, I should +be prince-regnant!’ _If_?’ We have spent our lives in hearing plebeians +say _if_. _If_ brought about the Revolution. When a man cannot lay the +blame on his father or mother, he holds God responsible for his hard +lot. In short, dear child, we are here to open your eyes. I will say all +I have to say in a few words, on which you had better meditate: A woman +ought never to put her husband in the right.” + +“Uncle, so long as I cared for nobody, I could calculate; I looked at +interests then, as you do; now, I can only feel.” + +“But, my dear little girl,” remonstrated the Vidame, “life is simply a +complication of interests and feelings; to be happy, more particularly +in your position, one must try to reconcile one’s feelings with +one’s interests. A grisette may love according to her fancy, that is +intelligible enough, but you have a pretty fortune, a family, a name and +a place at Court, and you ought not to fling them out of the window. +And what have we been asking you to do to keep them all?--To manoeuvre +carefully instead of falling foul of social conventions. Lord! I shall +very soon be eighty years old, and I cannot recollect, under any regime, +a love worth the price that you are willing to pay for the love of this +lucky young man.” + +The Duchess silenced the Vidame with a look; if Montriveau could have +seen that glance, he would have forgiven all. + +“It would be very effective on the stage,” remarked the Duc de +Grandlieu, “but it all amounts to nothing when your jointure and +position and independence is concerned. You are not grateful, my dear +niece. You will not find many families where the relatives have courage +enough to teach the wisdom gained by experience, and to make rash young +heads listen to reason. Renounce your salvation in two minutes, if it +pleases you to damn yourself; well and good; but reflect well beforehand +when it comes to renouncing your income. I know of no confessor who +remits the pains of poverty. I have a right, I think, to speak in this +way to you; for if you are ruined, I am the one person who can offer you +a refuge. I am almost an uncle to Langeais, and I alone have a right to +put him in the wrong.” + +The Duc de Navarreins roused himself from painful reflections. + +“Since you speak of feeling, my child,” he said, “let me remind you that +a woman who bears your name ought to be moved by sentiments which do +not touch ordinary people. Can you wish to give an advantage to the +Liberals, to those Jesuits of Robespierre’s that are doing all they +can to vilify the noblesse? Some things a Navarreins cannot do +without failing in duty to his house. You would not be alone in your +dishonor----” + +“Come, come!” said the Princess. “Dishonor? Do not make such a fuss +about the journey of an empty carriage, children, and leave me alone +with Antoinette. All three of you come and dine with me. I will +undertake to arrange matters suitably. You men understand nothing; +you are beginning to talk sourly already, and I have no wish to see a +quarrel between you and my dear child. Do me the pleasure to go.” + +The three gentlemen probably guessed the Princess’s intentions; they +took their leave. M. de Navarreins kissed his daughter on the forehead +with, “Come, be good, dear child. It is not too late yet if you choose.” + +“Couldn’t we find some good fellow in the family to pick a quarrel with +this Montriveau?” said the Vidame, as they went downstairs. + +When the two women were alone, the Princess beckoned her niece to a +little low chair by her side. + +“My pearl,” said she, “in this world below, I know nothing worse +calumniated than God and the eighteenth century; for as I look back over +my own young days, I do not recollect that a single duchess trampled the +proprieties underfoot as you have just done. Novelists and scribblers +brought the reign of Louis XV into disrepute. Do not believe them. The +du Barry, my dear, was quite as good as the Widow Scarron, and the more +agreeable woman of the two. In my time a woman could keep her dignity +among her gallantries. Indiscretion was the ruin of us, and the +beginning of all the mischief. The philosophists--the nobodies whom we +admitted into our salons--had no more gratitude or sense of decency than +to make an inventory of our hearts, to traduce us one and all, and to +rail against the age by way of a return for our kindness. The people are +not in a position to judge of anything whatsoever; they looked at the +facts, not at the form. But the men and women of those times, my heart, +were quite as remarkable as at any other period of the Monarchy. Not one +of your Werthers, none of your notabilities, as they are called, never +a one of your men in yellow kid gloves and trousers that disguise the +poverty of their legs, would cross Europe in the dress of a travelling +hawker to brave the daggers of a Duke of Modena, and to shut himself up +in the dressing-room of the Regent’s daughter at the risk of his life. +Not one of your little consumptive patients with their tortoiseshell +eyeglasses would hide himself in a closet for six weeks, like Lauzun, +to keep up his mistress’s courage while she was lying in of her child. +There was more passion in M. de Jaucourt’s little finger than in +your whole race of higglers that leave a woman to better themselves +elsewhere! Just tell me where to find the page that would be cut in +pieces and buried under the floorboards for one kiss on the Konigsmark’s +gloved finger! + +“Really, it would seem today that the roles are exchanged, and women +are expected to show their devotion for men. These modern gentlemen are +worth less, and think more of themselves. Believe me, my dear, all these +adventures that have been made public, and now are turned against our +good Louis XV, were kept quite secret at first. If it had not been for +a pack of poetasters, scribblers, and moralists, who hung about our +waiting-women, and took down their slanders, our epoch would have +appeared in literature as a well-conducted age. I am justifying the +century and not its fringe. Perhaps a hundred women of quality were +lost; but for every one, the rogues set down ten, like the gazettes +after a battle when they count up the losses of the beaten side. And in +any case I do not know that the Revolution and the Empire can reproach +us; they were coarse, dull, licentious times. Faugh! it is revolting. +Those are the brothels of French history. + +“This preamble, my dear child,” she continued after a pause, “brings +me to the thing that I have to say. If you care for Montriveau, you are +quite at liberty to love him at your ease, and as much as you can. I +know by experience that, unless you are locked up (but locking people +up is out of fashion now), you will do as you please; I should have done +the same at your age. Only, sweetheart, I should not have given up my +right to be the mother of future Ducs de Langeais. So mind appearances. +The Vidame is right. No man is worth a single one of the sacrifices +which we are foolish enough to make for their love. Put yourself in +such a position that you may still be M. de Langeais’ wife, in case you +should have the misfortune to repent. When you are an old woman, you +will be very glad to hear mass said at Court, and not in some provincial +convent. Therein lies the whole question. A single imprudence means an +allowance and a wandering life; it means that you are at the mercy of +your lover; it means that you must put up with insolence from women +that are not so honest, precisely because they have been very vulgarly +sharp-witted. It would be a hundred times better to go to Montriveau’s +at night in a cab, and disguised, instead of sending your carriage in +broad daylight. You are a little fool, my dear child! Your carriage +flattered his vanity; your person would have ensnared his heart. All +this that I have said is just and true; but, for my own part, I do not +blame you. You are two centuries behind the times with your false ideas +of greatness. There, leave us to arrange your affairs, and say that +Montriveau made your servants drunk to gratify his vanity and to +compromise you----” + +The Duchess rose to her feet with a spring. “In Heaven’s name, aunt, do +not slander him!” + +The old Princess’s eyes flashed. + +“Dear child,” she said, “I should have liked to spare such of your +illusions as were not fatal. But there must be an end of all illusions +now. You would soften me if I were not so old. Come, now, do not vex +him, or us, or anyone else. I will undertake to satisfy everybody; but +promise me not to permit yourself a single step henceforth until you +have consulted me. Tell me all, and perhaps I may bring it all right +again.” + +“Aunt, I promise----” + +“To tell me everything?” + +“Yes, everything. Everything that can be told.” + +“But, my sweetheart, it is precisely what cannot be told that I want +to know. Let us understand each other thoroughly. Come, let me put my +withered old lips on your beautiful forehead. No; let me do as I wish. I +forbid you to kiss my bones. Old people have a courtesy of their own.... +There, take me down to my carriage,” she added, when she had kissed her +niece. + +“Then may I go to him in disguise, dear aunt?” + +“Why--yes. The story can always be denied,” said the old Princess. + +This was the one idea which the Duchess had clearly grasped in the +sermon. When Mme de Chauvry was seated in the corner of her carriage, +Mme de Langeais bade her a graceful adieu and went up to her room. She +was quite happy again. + +“My person would have snared his heart; my aunt is right; a man cannot +surely refuse a pretty woman when she understands how to offer herself.” + +That evening, at the Elysee-Bourbon, the Duc de Navarreins, M. de +Pamiers, M. de Marsay, M. de Grandlieu, and the Duc de Maufrigneuse +triumphantly refuted the scandals that were circulating with regard to +the Duchesse de Langeais. So many officers and other persons had seen +Montriveau walking in the Tuileries that morning, that the silly story +was set down to chance, which takes all that is offered. And so, +in spite of the fact that the Duchess’s carriage had waited before +Montriveau’s door, her character became as clear and as spotless as +Membrino’s sword after Sancho had polished it up. + +But, at two o’clock, M. de Ronquerolles passed Montriveau in a deserted +alley, and said with a smile, “She is coming on, is your Duchess. Go on, +keep it up!” he added, and gave a significant cut of the riding whip to +his mare, who sped off like a bullet down the avenue. + +Two days after the fruitless scandal, Mme de Langeais wrote to M. de +Montriveau. That letter, like the preceding ones, remained unanswered. +This time she took her own measures, and bribed M. de Montriveau’s man, +Auguste. And so at eight o’clock that evening she was introduced into +Armand’s apartment. It was not the room in which that secret scene had +passed; it was entirely different. The Duchess was told that the General +would not be at home that night. Had he two houses? The man would give +no answer. Mme de Langeais had bought the key of the room, but not the +man’s whole loyalty. + +When she was left alone she saw her fourteen letters lying on an +old-fashioned stand, all of them uncreased and unopened. He had not +read them. She sank into an easy-chair, and for a while she lost +consciousness. When she came to herself, Auguste was holding vinegar for +her to inhale. + +“A carriage; quick!” she ordered. + +The carriage came. She hastened downstairs with convulsive speed, and +left orders that no one was to be admitted. For twenty-four hours she +lay in bed, and would have no one near her but her woman, who brought +her a cup of orange-flower water from time to time. Suzette heard +her mistress moan once or twice, and caught a glimpse of tears in the +brilliant eyes, now circled with dark shadows. + +The next day, amid despairing tears, Mme de Langeais took her +resolution. Her man of business came for an interview, and no doubt +received instructions of some kind. Afterwards she sent for the +Vidame de Pamiers; and while she waited, she wrote a letter to M. +de Montriveau. The Vidame punctually came towards two o’clock that +afternoon, to find his young cousin looking white and worn, but +resigned; never had her divine loveliness been more poetic than now in +the languor of her agony. + +“You owe this assignation to your eighty-four years, dear cousin,” she +said. “Ah! do not smile, I beg of you, when an unhappy woman has reached +the lowest depths of wretchedness. You are a gentleman, and after the +adventures of your youth you must feel some indulgence for women.” + +“None whatever,” said he. + +“Indeed!” + +“Everything is in their favour.” + +“Ah! Well, you are one of the inner family circle; possibly you will be +the last relative, the last friend whose hand I shall press, so I can +ask your good offices. Will you, dear Vidame, do me a service which I +could not ask of my own father, nor of my uncle Grandlieu, nor of any +woman? You cannot fail to understand. I beg of you to do my bidding, and +then to forget what you have done, whatever may come of it. It is this: +Will you take this letter and go to M. de Montriveau? will you see him +yourself, give it into his hands, and ask him, as you men can ask things +between yourselves--for you have a code of honour between man and man +which you do not use with us, and a different way of regarding things +between yourselves--ask him if he will read this letter? Not in +your presence. Certain feelings men hide from each other. I give you +authority to say, if you think it necessary to bring him, that it is a +question of life or death for me. If he deigns----” + +“_Deigns_!” repeated the Vidame. + +“If he deigns to read it,” the Duchess continued with dignity, “say one +thing more. You will go to see him about five o’clock, for I know that +he will dine at home today at that time. Very good. By way of answer he +must come to see me. If, three hours afterwards, by eight o’clock, he +does not leave his house, all will be over. The Duchesse de Langeais +will have vanished from the world. I shall not be dead, dear friend, no, +but no human power will ever find me again on this earth. Come and dine +with me; I shall at least have one friend with me in the last agony. +Yes, dear cousin, tonight will decide my fate; and whatever happens to +me, I pass through an ordeal by fire. There! not a word. I will hear +nothing of the nature of comment or advice----Let us chat and laugh +together,” she added, holding out a hand, which he kissed. “We will be +like two grey-headed philosophers who have learned how to enjoy life to +the last moment. I will look my best; I will be very enchanting for +you. You perhaps will be the last man to set eyes on the Duchesse de +Langeais.” + +The Vicomte bowed, took the letter, and went without a word. At five +o’clock he returned. His cousin had studied to please him, and she +looked lovely indeed. The room was gay with flowers as if for a +festivity; the dinner was exquisite. For the grey-headed Vidame the +Duchess displayed all the brilliancy of her wit; she was more charming +than she had ever been before. At first the Vidame tried to look on +all these preparations as a young woman’s jest; but now and again the +attempted illusion faded, the spell of his fair cousin’s charm was +broken. He detected a shudder caused by some kind of sudden dread, and +once she seemed to listen during a pause. + +“What is the matter?” he asked. + +“Hush!” she said. + +At seven o’clock the Duchess left him for a few minutes. When she came +back again she was dressed as her maid might have dressed for a journey. +She asked her guest to be her escort, took his arm, sprang into a +hackney coach, and by a quarter to eight they stood outside M. de +Montriveau’s door. + +Armand meantime had been reading the following letter:-- + + +“MY FRIEND,--I went to your rooms for a few minutes without your +knowledge; I found my letters there, and took them away. This cannot +be indifference, Armand, between us; and hatred would show itself quite +differently. If you love me, make an end of this cruel play, or you will +kill me, and afterwards, learning how much you were loved, you might be +in despair. If I have not rightly understood you, if you have no feeling +towards me but aversion, which implies both contempt and disgust, then +I give up all hope. A man never recovers from those feelings. You will +have no regrets. Dreadful though that thought may be, it will comfort me +in my long sorrow. Regrets? Oh, my Armand, may I never know of them; if +I thought that I had caused you a single regret----But, no, I will not +tell you what desolation I should feel. I should be living still, and I +could not be your wife; it would be too late! + +“Now that I have given myself wholly to you in thought, to whom else +should I give myself?--to God. The eyes that you loved for a little +while shall never look on another man’s face; and may the glory of God +blind them to all besides. I shall never hear human voices more since I +heard yours--so gentle at the first, so terrible yesterday; for it seems +to me that I am still only on the morrow of your vengeance. And now +may the will of God consume me. Between His wrath and yours, my friend, +there will be nothing left for me but a little space for tears and +prayers. + +“Perhaps you wonder why I write to you? Ah! do not think ill of me if I +keep a gleam of hope, and give one last sigh to happy life before I take +leave of it forever. I am in a hideous position. I feel all the inward +serenity that comes when a great resolution has been taken, even while I +hear the last growlings of the storm. When you went out on that terrible +adventure which so drew me to you, Armand, you went from the desert to +the oasis with a good guide to show you the way. Well, I am going out of +the oasis into the desert, and you are a pitiless guide to me. And yet +you only, my friend, can understand how melancholy it is to look back +for the last time on happiness--to you, and you only, I can make moan +without a blush. If you grant my entreaty, I shall be happy; if you are +inexorable, I shall expiate the wrong that I have done. After all, it is +natural, is it not, that a woman should wish to live, invested with all +noble feelings, in her friend’s memory? Oh! my one and only love, let +her to whom you gave life go down into the tomb in the belief that she +is great in your eyes. Your harshness led me to reflect; and now that I +love you so, it seems to me that I am less guilty than you think. Listen +to my justification, I owe it to you; and you that are all the world to +me, owe me at least a moment’s justice. + +“I have learned by my own anguish all that I made you suffer by my +coquetry; but in those days I was utterly ignorant of love. _You_ know +what the torture is, and you mete it out to me! During those first eight +months that you gave me you never roused any feeling of love in me. Do +you ask why this was so, my friend? I can no more explain it than I can +tell you why I love you now. Oh! certainly it flattered my vanity that I +should be the subject of your passionate talk, and receive those burning +glances of yours; but you left me cold. No, I was not a woman; I had +no conception of womanly devotion and happiness. Who was to blame? You +would have despised me, would you not, if I had given myself without +the impulse of passion? Perhaps it is the highest height to which we +can rise--to give all and receive no joy; perhaps there is no merit in +yielding oneself to bliss that is foreseen and ardently desired. Alas, +my friend, I can say this now; these thoughts came to me when I played +with you; and you seemed to me so great even then that I would not have +you owe the gift to pity----What is this that I have written? + +“I have taken back all my letters; I am flinging them one by one on the +fire; they are burning. You will never know what they confessed--all the +love and the passion and the madness---- + +“I will say no more, Armand; I will stop. I will not say another word of +my feelings. If my prayers have not echoed from my soul through yours, +I also, woman that I am, decline to owe your love to your pity. It is my +wish to be loved, because you cannot choose but love me, or else to +be left without mercy. If you refuse to read this letter, it shall be +burnt. If, after you have read it, you do not come to me within three +hours, to be henceforth forever my husband, the one man in the world for +me; then I shall never blush to know that this letter is in your hands, +the pride of my despair will protect my memory from all insult, and my +end shall be worthy of my love. When you see me no more on earth, albeit +I shall still be alive, you yourself will not think without a shudder +of the woman who, in three hours’ time, will live only to overwhelm +you with her tenderness; a woman consumed by a hopeless love, and +faithful--not to memories of past joys--but to a love that was slighted. + +“The Duchesse de la Valliere wept for lost happiness and vanished power; +but the Duchesse de Langeais will be happy that she may weep and be a +power for you still. Yes, you will regret me. I see clearly that I was +not of this world, and I thank you for making it clear to me. + +“Farewell; you will never touch _my_ axe. Yours was the executioner’s +axe, mine is God’s; yours kills, mine saves. Your love was but mortal, +it could not endure disdain or ridicule; mine can endure all things +without growing weaker, it will last eternally. Ah! I feel a sombre joy +in crushing you that believe yourself so great; in humbling you with the +calm, indulgent smile of one of the least among the angels that lie at +the feet of God, for to them is given the right and the power to protect +and watch over men in His name. You have but felt fleeting desires, +while the poor nun will shed the light of her ceaseless and ardent +prayer about you, she will shelter you all your life long beneath the +wings of a love that has nothing of earth in it. + +“I have a presentiment of your answer; our trysting place shall be--in +heaven. Strength and weakness can both enter there, dear Armand; the +strong and the weak are bound to suffer. This thought soothes the +anguish of my final ordeal. So calm am I that I should fear that I had +ceased to love you if I were not about to leave the world for your sake. + + “ANTOINETTE.” + + +“Dear Vidame,” said the Duchess as they reached Montriveau’s house, “do +me the kindness to ask at the door whether he is at home.” The Vidame, +obedient after the manner of the eighteenth century to a woman’s wish, +got out, and came back to bring his cousin an affirmative answer that +sent a shudder through her. She grasped his hand tightly in hers, +suffered him to kiss her on either cheek, and begged him to go at once. +He must not watch her movements nor try to protect her. “But the people +passing in the street,” he objected. + +“No one can fail in respect to me,” she said. It was the last word +spoken by the Duchess and the woman of fashion. + +The Vidame went. Mme de Langeais wrapped herself about in her cloak, +and stood on the doorstep until the clocks struck eight. The last stroke +died away. The unhappy woman waited ten, fifteen minutes; to the last +she tried to see a fresh humiliation in the delay, then her faith ebbed. +She turned to leave the fatal threshold. + +“Oh, God!” the cry broke from her in spite of herself; it was the first +word spoken by the Carmelite. + + + +Montriveau and some of his friends were talking together. He tried to +hasten them to a conclusion, but his clock was slow, and by the time he +started out for the Hotel de Langeais the Duchess was hurrying on foot +through the streets of Paris, goaded by the dull rage in her heart. She +reached the Boulevard d’Enfer, and looked out for the last time through +falling tears on the noisy, smoky city that lay below in a red mist, +lighted up by its own lamps. Then she hailed a cab, and drove away, +never to return. When the Marquis de Montriveau reached the Hotel de +Langeais, and found no trace of his mistress, he thought that he had +been duped. He hurried away at once to the Vidame, and found that worthy +gentleman in the act of slipping on his flowered dressing-gown, thinking +the while of his fair cousin’s happiness. + +Montriveau gave him one of the terrific glances that produced the effect +of an electric shock on men and women alike. + +“Is it possible that you have lent yourself to some cruel hoax, +monsieur?” Montriveau exclaimed. “I have just come from Mme de Langeais’ +house; the servants say that she is out.” + +“Then a great misfortune has happened, no doubt,” returned the Vidame, +“and through your fault. I left the Duchess at your door----” + +“When?” + +“At a quarter to eight.” + +“Good evening,” returned Montriveau, and he hurried home to ask the +porter whether he had seen a lady standing on the doorstep that evening. + +“Yes, my Lord Marquis, a handsome woman, who seemed very much put out. +She was crying like a Magdalen, but she never made a sound, and stood +as upright as a post. Then at last she went, and my wife and I that were +watching her while she could not see us, heard her say, ‘Oh, God!’ so +that it went to our hearts, asking your pardon, to hear her say it.” + +Montriveau, in spite of all his firmness, turned pale at those few +words. He wrote a few lines to Ronquerolles, sent off the message at +once, and went up to his rooms. Ronquerolles came just about midnight. + +Armand gave him the Duchess’s letter to read. + +“Well?” asked Ronquerolles. + +“She was here at my door at eight o’clock; at a quarter-past eight she +had gone. I have lost her, and I love her. Oh! if my life were my own, I +could blow my brains out.” + +“Pooh, pooh! Keep cool,” said Ronquerolles. “Duchesses do not fly off +like wagtails. She cannot travel faster than three leagues an hour, and +tomorrow we will ride six.--Confound it! Mme de Langeais is no ordinary +woman,” he continued. “Tomorrow we will all of us mount and ride. +The police will put us on her track during the day. She must have a +carriage; angels of that sort have no wings. We shall find her whether +she is on the road or hidden in Paris. There is the semaphore. We can +stop her. You shall be happy. But, my dear fellow, you have made a +blunder, of which men of your energy are very often guilty. They judge +others by themselves, and do not know the point when human nature gives +way if you strain the cords too tightly. Why did you not say a word +to me sooner? I would have told you to be punctual. Good-bye till +tomorrow,” he added, as Montriveau said nothing. “Sleep if you can,” he +added, with a grasp of the hand. + +But the greatest resources which society has ever placed at the disposal +of statesmen, kings, ministers, bankers, or any human power, in fact, +were all exhausted in vain. Neither Montriveau nor his friends could +find any trace of the Duchess. It was clear that she had entered a +convent. Montriveau determined to search, or to institute a search, for +her through every convent in the world. He must have her, even at the +cost of all the lives in a town. And in justice to this extraordinary +man, it must be said that his frenzied passion awoke to the same +ardour daily and lasted through five years. Only in 1829 did the Duc de +Navarreins hear by chance that his daughter had travelled to Spain as +Lady Julia Hopwood’s maid, that she had left her service at Cadiz, and +that Lady Julia never discovered that Mlle Caroline was the illustrious +duchess whose sudden disappearance filled the minds of the highest +society of Paris. + + + +The feelings of the two lovers when they met again on either side of the +grating in the Carmelite convent should now be comprehended to the full, +and the violence of the passion awakened in either soul will doubtless +explain the catastrophe of the story. + +In 1823 the Duc de Langeais was dead, and his wife was free. Antoinette +de Navarreins was living, consumed by love, on a ledge of rock in +the Mediterranean; but it was in the Pope’s power to dissolve Sister +Theresa’s vows. The happiness bought by so much love might yet bloom +for the two lovers. These thoughts sent Montriveau flying from Cadiz to +Marseilles, and from Marseilles to Paris. + +A few months after his return to France, a merchant brig, fitted out and +munitioned for active service, set sail from the port of Marseilles for +Spain. The vessel had been chartered by several distinguished men, most +of them Frenchmen, who, smitten with a romantic passion for the East, +wished to make a journey to those lands. Montriveau’s familiar knowledge +of Eastern customs made him an invaluable travelling companion, and at +the entreaty of the rest he had joined the expedition; the Minister +of War appointed him lieutenant-general, and put him on the Artillery +Commission to facilitate his departure. + +Twenty-fours hours later the brig lay to off the north-west shore of an +island within sight of the Spanish coast. She had been specially chosen +for her shallow keel and light mastage, so that she might lie at anchor +in safety half a league away from the reefs that secure the island from +approach in this direction. If fishing vessels or the people on the +island caught sight of the brig, they were scarcely likely to feel +suspicious of her at once; and besides, it was easy to give a reason for +her presence without delay. Montriveau hoisted the flag of the United +States before they came in sight of the island, and the crew of the +vessel were all American sailors, who spoke nothing but English. One +of M. de Montriveau’s companions took the men ashore in the ship’s +longboat, and made them so drunk at an inn in the little town that +they could not talk. Then he gave out that the brig was manned by +treasure-seekers, a gang of men whose hobby was well known in the United +States; indeed, some Spanish writer had written a history of them. The +presence of the brig among the reefs was now sufficiently explained. +The owners of the vessel, according to the self-styled boatswain’s mate, +were looking for the wreck of a galleon which foundered thereabouts in +1778 with a cargo of treasure from Mexico. The people at the inn and the +authorities asked no more questions. + +Armand, and the devoted friends who were helping him in his difficult +enterprise, were all from the first of the opinion that there was no +hope of rescuing or carrying off Sister Theresa by force or stratagem +from the side of the little town. Wherefore these bold spirits, with one +accord, determined to take the bull by the horns. They would make a way +to the convent at the most seemingly inaccessible point; like General +Lamarque, at the storming of Capri, they would conquer Nature. The cliff +at the end of the island, a sheer block of granite, afforded even less +hold than the rock of Capri. So it seemed at least to Montriveau, who +had taken part in that incredible exploit, while the nuns in his eyes +were much more redoubtable than Sir Hudson Lowe. To raise a hubbub over +carrying off the Duchess would cover them with confusion. They might as +well set siege to the town and convent, like pirates, and leave not a +single soul to tell of their victory. So for them their expedition wore +but two aspects. There should be a conflagration and a feat of arms +that should dismay all Europe, while the motives of the crime remained +unknown; or, on the other hand, a mysterious, aerial descent which +should persuade the nuns that the Devil himself had paid them a visit. +They had decided upon the latter course in the secret council held +before they left Paris, and subsequently everything had been done to +insure the success of an expedition which promised some real excitement +to jaded spirits weary of Paris and its pleasures. + +An extremely light pirogue, made at Marseilles on a Malayan model, +enabled them to cross the reef, until the rocks rose from out of the +water. Then two cables of iron wire were fastened several feet apart +between one rock and another. These wire ropes slanted upwards and +downwards in opposite directions, so that baskets of iron wire could +travel to and fro along them; and in this manner the rocks were covered +with a system of baskets and wire-cables, not unlike the filaments +which a certain species of spider weaves about a tree. The Chinese, an +essentially imitative people, were the first to take a lesson from the +work of instinct. Fragile as these bridges were, they were always ready +for use; high waves and the caprices of the sea could not throw them +out of working order; the ropes hung just sufficiently slack, so as to +present to the breakers that particular curve discovered by Cachin, the +immortal creator of the harbour at Cherbourg. Against this cunningly +devised line the angry surge is powerless; the law of that curve was +a secret wrested from Nature by that faculty of observation in which +nearly all human genius consists. + +M. de Montriveau’s companions were alone on board the vessel, and out of +sight of every human eye. No one from the deck of a passing vessel could +have discovered either the brig hidden among the reefs, or the men at +work among the rocks; they lay below the ordinary range of the most +powerful telescope. Eleven days were spent in preparation, before the +Thirteen, with all their infernal power, could reach the foot of the +cliffs. The body of the rock rose up straight from the sea to a height +of thirty fathoms. Any attempt to climb the sheer wall of granite seemed +impossible; a mouse might as well try to creep up the slippery sides of +a plain china vase. Still there was a cleft, a straight line of fissure +so fortunately placed that large blocks of wood could be wedged firmly +into it at a distance of about a foot apart. Into these blocks the +daring workers drove iron cramps, specially made for the purpose, with +a broad iron bracket at the outer end, through which a hole had been +drilled. Each bracket carried a light deal board which corresponded with +a notch made in a pole that reached to the top of the cliffs, and was +firmly planted in the beach at their feet. With ingenuity worthy of +these men who found nothing impossible, one of their number, a skilled +mathematician, had calculated the angle from which the steps must start; +so that from the middle they rose gradually, like the sticks of a fan, +to the top of the cliff, and descended in the same fashion to its +base. That miraculously light, yet perfectly firm, staircase cost them +twenty-two days of toil. A little tinder and the surf of the sea would +destroy all trace of it forever in a single night. A betrayal of the +secret was impossible; and all search for the violators of the convent +was doomed to failure. + +At the top of the rock there was a platform with sheer precipice on all +sides. The Thirteen, reconnoitring the ground with their glasses from +the masthead, made certain that though the ascent was steep and rough, +there would be no difficulty in gaining the convent garden, where the +trees were thick enough for a hiding-place. After such great efforts +they would not risk the success of their enterprise, and were compelled +to wait till the moon passed out of her last quarter. + +For two nights Montriveau, wrapped in his cloak, lay out on the rock +platform. The singing at vespers and matins filled him with unutterable +joy. He stood under the wall to hear the music of the organ, listening +intently for one voice among the rest. But in spite of the silence, the +confused effect of music was all that reached his ears. In those sweet +harmonies defects of execution are lost; the pure spirit of art comes +into direct communication with the spirit of the hearer, making +no demand on the attention, no strain on the power of listening. +Intolerable memories awoke. All the love within him seemed to break into +blossom again at the breath of that music; he tried to find auguries of +happiness in the air. During the last night he sat with his eyes fixed +upon an ungrated window, for bars were not needed on the side of the +precipice. A light shone there all through the hours; and that instinct +of the heart, which is sometimes true, and as often false, cried within +him, “She is there!” + +“She is certainly there! Tomorrow she will be mine,” he said to himself, +and joy blended with the slow tinkling of a bell that began to ring. + +Strange unaccountable workings of the heart! The nun, wasted by yearning +love, worn out with tears and fasting, prayer and vigils; the woman of +nine-and-twenty, who had passed through heavy trials, was loved more +passionately than the lighthearted girl, the woman of four-and-twenty, +the sylphide, had ever been. But is there not, for men of vigorous +character, something attractive in the sublime expression engraven on +women’s faces by the impetuous stirrings of thought and misfortunes of +no ignoble kind? Is there not a beauty of suffering which is the most +interesting of all beauty to those men who feel that within them there +is an inexhaustible wealth of tenderness and consoling pity for a +creature so gracious in weakness, so strong with love? It is the +ordinary nature that is attracted by young, smooth, pink-and-white +beauty, or, in one word, by prettiness. In some faces love awakens +amid the wrinkles carved by sorrow and the ruin made by melancholy; +Montriveau could not but feel drawn to these. For cannot a lover, +with the voice of a great longing, call forth a wholly new creature? a +creature athrob with the life but just begun breaks forth for him alone, +from the outward form that is fair for him, and faded for all the world +besides. Does he not love two women?--One of them, as others see her, +is pale and wan and sad; but the other, the unseen love that his heart +knows, is an angel who understands life through feeling, and is adorned +in all her glory only for love’s high festivals. + +The General left his post before sunrise, but not before he had heard +voices singing together, sweet voices full of tenderness sounding +faintly from the cell. When he came down to the foot of the cliffs where +his friends were waiting, he told them that never in his life had +he felt such enthralling bliss, and in the few words there was that +unmistakable thrill of repressed strong feeling, that magnificent +utterance which all men respect. + + + +That night eleven of his devoted comrades made the ascent in the +darkness. Each man carried a poniard, a provision of chocolate, and +a set of house-breaking tools. They climbed the outer walls with +scaling-ladders, and crossed the cemetery of the convent. Montriveau +recognised the long, vaulted gallery through which he went to the +parlour, and remembered the windows of the room. His plans were made and +adopted in a moment. They would effect an entrance through one of the +windows in the Carmelite’s half of the parlour, find their way along +the corridors, ascertain whether the sister’s names were written on the +doors, find Sister Theresa’s cell, surprise her as she slept, and carry +her off, bound and gagged. The programme presented no difficulties to +men who combined boldness and a convict’s dexterity with the knowledge +peculiar to men of the world, especially as they would not scruple to +give a stab to ensure silence. + +In two hours the bars were sawn through. Three men stood on guard +outside, and two inside the parlour. The rest, barefooted, took up their +posts along the corridor. Young Henri de Marsay, the most dexterous +man among them, disguised by way of precaution in a Carmelite’s robe, +exactly like the costume of the convent, led the way, and Montriveau +came immediately behind him. The clock struck three just as the two men +reached the dormitory cells. They soon saw the position. Everything was +perfectly quiet. With the help of a dark lantern they read the names +luckily written on every door, together with the picture of a saint or +saints and the mystical words which every nun takes as a kind of +motto for the beginning of her new life and the revelation of her +last thought. Montriveau reached Sister Theresa’s door and read the +inscription, _Sub invocatione sanctae matris Theresae_, and her motto, +_Adoremus in aeternum_. Suddenly his companion laid a hand on his +shoulder. A bright light was streaming through the chinks of the door. +M. de Ronquerolles came up at that moment. + +“All the nuns are in the church,” he said; “they are beginning the +Office for the Dead.” + +“I will stay here,” said Montriveau. “Go back into the parlour, and shut +the door at the end of the passage.” + +He threw open the door and rushed in, preceded by his disguised +companion, who let down the veil over his face. + +There before them lay the dead Duchess; her plank bed had been laid on +the floor of the outer room of her cell, between two lighted candles. +Neither Montriveau nor de Marsay spoke a word or uttered a cry; but they +looked into each other’s faces. The General’s dumb gesture tried to say, +“Let us carry her away!” + +“Quickly” shouted Ronquerolles, “the procession of nuns is leaving the +church. You will be caught!” + +With magical swiftness of movement, prompted by an intense desire, the +dead woman was carried into the convent parlour, passed through the +window, and lowered from the walls before the Abbess, followed by the +nuns, returned to take up Sister Theresa’s body. The sister left in +charge had imprudently left her post; there were secrets that she longed +to know; and so busy was she ransacking the inner room, that she heard +nothing, and was horrified when she came back to find that the body was +gone. Before the women, in their blank amazement, could think of making +a search, the Duchess had been lowered by a cord to the foot of the +crags, and Montriveau’s companions had destroyed all traces of their +work. By nine o’clock that morning there was not a sign to show that +either staircase or wire-cables had ever existed, and Sister Theresa’s +body had been taken on board. The brig came into the port to ship her +crew, and sailed that day. + +Montriveau, down in the cabin, was left alone with Antoinette +de Navarreins. For some hours it seemed as if her dead face was +transfigured for him by that unearthly beauty which the calm of death +gives to the body before it perishes. + +“Look here,” said Ronquerolles when Montriveau reappeared on deck, +“_that_ was a woman once, now it is nothing. Let us tie a cannon ball +to both feet and throw the body overboard; and if ever you think of her +again, think of her as of some book that you read as a boy.” + +“Yes,” assented Montriveau, “it is nothing now but a dream.” + +“That is sensible of you. Now, after this, have passions; but as for +love, a man ought to know how to place it wisely; it is only a woman’s +last love that can satisfy a man’s first love.” + + + + +ADDENDUM + +Note: The Duchesse de Langeais is the second part of a trilogy. Part one +is entitled Ferragus and part three is The Girl with the Golden Eyes. In +other addendum references all three stories are usually combined under +the title The Thirteen. + + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Blamont-Chauvry, Princesse de + Madame Firmiani + The Lily of the Valley + + Grandlieu, Duc Ferdinand de + The Gondreville Mystery + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Modeste Mignon + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + + Granville, Comtesse Angelique de + A Second Home + A Daughter of Eve + + Keller, Madame Francois + Domestic Peace + The Member for Arcis + + Langeais, Duc de + An Episode under the Terror + + Langeais, Duchesse Antoinette de + Father Goriot + Ferragus + + Marsay, Henri de + Ferragus + The Girl with the Golden Eyes + The Unconscious Humorists + Another Study of Woman + The Lily of the Valley + Father Goriot + Jealousies of a Country Town + Ursule Mirouet + A Marriage Settlement + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Letters of Two Brides + The Ball at Sceaux + Modeste Mignon + The Secrets of a Princess + The Gondreville Mystery + A Daughter of Eve + + Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de + Father Goriot + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Another Study of Woman + Pierrette + The Member for Arcis + + Navarreins, Duc de + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Colonel Chabert + The Muse of the Department + Jealousies of a Country Town + The Peasantry + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + The Country Parson + The Magic Skin + The Gondreville Mystery + The Secrets of a Princess + Cousin Betty + + Pamiers, Vidame de + Ferragus + Jealousies of a Country Town + + Ronquerolles, Marquis de + The Imaginary Mistress + The Peasantry + Ursule Mirouet + A Woman of Thirty + Another Study of Woman + Ferragus + The Girl with the Golden Eyes + The Member for Arcis + + Serizy, Comtesse de + A Start in Life + Ferragus + Ursule Mirouet + A Woman of Thirty + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Another Study of Woman + The Imaginary Mistress + + Soulanges, Comtesse Hortense de + Domestic Peace + The Peasantry + + Talleyrand-Perigord, Charles-Maurice de + The Chouans + The Gondreville Mystery + Letters of Two Brides + Gaudissart II + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Duchesse de Langeais, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS *** + +***** This file should be named 469-0.txt or 469-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/469/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Duchesse de Langeais + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Ellen Marriage + +Release Date: February 20, 2010 [EBook #469] +Last Updated: November 22, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE DUCHESSE OF LANGEAIS + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Honore De Balzac + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h3> + Translated by Ellen Marriage + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="mynote"> + <p> + Preparer’s Note: + </p> + <p> + The Duchesse of Langeais is the second part of a trilogy. Part one is + entitled Ferragus and part three is The Girl with the Golden Eyes. The + three stories are frequently combined under the title The Thirteen. + </p> + <br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + To Franz Liszt + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE DUCHESSE OF LANGEAIS </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0002"> ADDENDUM </a> + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE DUCHESSE OF LANGEAIS + </h2> + <p> + In a Spanish city on an island in the Mediterranean, there stands a + convent of the Order of Barefoot Carmelites, where the rule instituted by + St. Theresa is still preserved with all the first rigor of the reformation + brought about by that illustrious woman. Extraordinary as this may seem, + it is none the less true. Almost every religious house in the Peninsula, + or in Europe for that matter, was either destroyed or disorganized by the + outbreak of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars; but as this + island was protected through those times by the English fleet, its wealthy + convent and peaceable inhabitants were secure from the general trouble and + spoliation. The storms of many kinds which shook the first fifteen years + of the nineteenth century spent their force before they reached those + cliffs at so short a distance from the coast of Andalusia. + </p> + <p> + If the rumour of the Emperor’s name so much as reached the shore of the + island, it is doubtful whether the holy women kneeling in the cloisters + grasped the reality of his dream-like progress of glory, or the majesty + that blazed in flame across kingdom after kingdom during his meteor life. + </p> + <p> + In the minds of the Roman Catholic world, the convent stood out + pre-eminent for a stern discipline which nothing had changed; the purity + of its rule had attracted unhappy women from the furthest parts of Europe, + women deprived of all human ties, sighing after the long suicide + accomplished in the breast of God. No convent, indeed, was so well fitted + for that complete detachment of the soul from all earthly things, which is + demanded by the religious life, albeit on the continent of Europe there + are many convents magnificently adapted to the purpose of their existence. + Buried away in the loneliest valleys, hanging in mid-air on the steepest + mountainsides, set down on the brink of precipices, in every place man has + sought for the poetry of the Infinite, the solemn awe of Silence; in every + place man has striven to draw closer to God, seeking Him on mountain + peaks, in the depths below the crags, at the cliff’s edge; and everywhere + man has found God. But nowhere, save on this half-European, half-African + ledge of rock could you find so many different harmonies, combining so to + raise the soul, that the sharpest pain comes to be like other memories; + the strongest impressions are dulled, till the sorrows of life are laid to + rest in the depths. + </p> + <p> + The convent stands on the highest point of the crags at the uttermost end + of the island. On the side towards the sea the rock was once rent sheer + away in some globe-cataclysm; it rises up a straight wall from the base + where the waves gnaw at the stone below high-water mark. Any assault is + made impossible by the dangerous reefs that stretch far out to sea, with + the sparkling waves of the Mediterranean playing over them. So, only from + the sea can you discern the square mass of the convent built conformably + to the minute rules laid down as to the shape, height, doors, and windows + of monastic buildings. From the side of the town, the church completely + hides the solid structure of the cloisters and their roofs, covered with + broad slabs of stone impervious to sun or storm or gales of wind. + </p> + <p> + The church itself, built by the munificence of a Spanish family, is the + crowning edifice of the town. Its fine, bold front gives an imposing and + picturesque look to the little city in the sea. The sight of such a city, + with its close-huddled roofs, arranged for the most part amphitheatre-wise + above a picturesque harbour, and crowned by a glorious cathedral front + with triple-arched Gothic doorways, belfry towers, and filigree spires, is + a spectacle surely in every way the sublimest on earth. Religion towering + above daily life, to put men continually in mind of the End and the way, + is in truth a thoroughly Spanish conception. But now surround this picture + by the Mediterranean, and a burning sky, imagine a few palms here and + there, a few stunted evergreen trees mingling their waving leaves with the + motionless flowers and foliage of carved stone; look out over the reef + with its white fringes of foam in contrast to the sapphire sea; and then + turn to the city, with its galleries and terraces whither the townsfolk + come to take the air among their flowers of an evening, above the houses + and the tops of the trees in their little gardens; add a few sails down in + the harbour; and lastly, in the stillness of falling night, listen to the + organ music, the chanting of the services, the wonderful sound of bells + pealing out over the open sea. There is sound and silence everywhere; + oftener still there is silence over all. + </p> + <p> + The church is divided within into a sombre mysterious nave and narrow + aisles. For some reason, probably because the winds are so high, the + architect was unable to build the flying buttresses and intervening + chapels which adorn almost all cathedrals, nor are there openings of any + kind in the walls which support the weight of the roof. Outside there is + simply the heavy wall structure, a solid mass of grey stone further + strengthened by huge piers placed at intervals. Inside, the nave and its + little side galleries are lighted entirely by the great stained-glass + rose-window suspended by a miracle of art above the centre doorway; for + upon that side the exposure permits of the display of lacework in stone + and of other beauties peculiar to the style improperly called Gothic. + </p> + <p> + The larger part of the nave and aisles was left for the townsfolk, who + came and went and heard mass there. The choir was shut off from the rest + of the church by a grating and thick folds of brown curtain, left slightly + apart in the middle in such a way that nothing of the choir could be seen + from the church except the high altar and the officiating priest. The + grating itself was divided up by the pillars which supported the organ + loft; and this part of the structure, with its carved wooden columns, + completed the line of the arcading in the gallery carried by the shafts in + the nave. If any inquisitive person, therefore, had been bold enough to + climb upon the narrow balustrade in the gallery to look down into the + choir, he could have seen nothing but the tall eight-sided windows of + stained glass beyond the high altar. + </p> + <p> + At the time of the French expedition into Spain to establish Ferdinand VII + once more on the throne, a French general came to the island after the + taking of Cadiz, ostensibly to require the recognition of the King’s + Government, really to see the convent and to find some means of entering + it. The undertaking was certainly a delicate one; but a man of passionate + temper, whose life had been, as it were, but one series of poems in + action, a man who all his life long had lived romances instead of writing + them, a man pre-eminently a Doer, was sure to be tempted by a deed which + seemed to be impossible. + </p> + <p> + To open the doors of a convent of nuns by lawful means! The metropolitan + or the Pope would scarcely have permitted it! And as for force or + stratagem—might not any indiscretion cost him his position, his + whole career as a soldier, and the end in view to boot? The Duc + d’Angouleme was still in Spain; and of all the crimes which a man in + favour with the Commander-in-Chief might commit, this one alone was + certain to find him inexorable. The General had asked for the mission to + gratify private motives of curiosity, though never was curiosity more + hopeless. This final attempt was a matter of conscience. The Carmelite + convent on the island was the only nunnery in Spain which had baffled his + search. + </p> + <p> + As he crossed from the mainland, scarcely an hour’s distance, he felt a + presentiment that his hopes were to be fulfilled; and afterwards, when as + yet he had seen nothing of the convent but its walls, and of the nuns not + so much as their robes; while he had merely heard the chanting of the + service, there were dim auguries under the walls and in the sound of the + voices to justify his frail hope. And, indeed, however faint those so + unaccountable presentiments might be, never was human passion more + vehemently excited than the General’s curiosity at that moment. There are + no small events for the heart; the heart exaggerates everything; the heart + weighs the fall of a fourteen-year-old Empire and the dropping of a + woman’s glove in the same scales, and the glove is nearly always the + heavier of the two. So here are the facts in all their prosaic simplicity. + The facts first, the emotions will follow. + </p> + <p> + An hour after the General landed on the island, the royal authority was + re-established there. Some few Constitutional Spaniards who had found + their way thither after the fall of Cadiz were allowed to charter a vessel + and sail for London. So there was neither resistance nor reaction. But the + change of government could not be effected in the little town without a + mass, at which the two divisions under the General’s command were obliged + to be present. Now, it was upon this mass that the General had built his + hopes of gaining some information as to the sisters in the convent; he was + quite unaware how absolutely the Carmelites were cut off from the world; + but he knew that there might be among them one whom he held dearer than + life, dearer than honour. + </p> + <p> + His hopes were cruelly dashed at once. Mass, it is true, was celebrated in + state. In honour of such a solemnity, the curtains which always hid the + choir were drawn back to display its riches, its valuable paintings and + shrines so bright with gems that they eclipsed the glories of the ex-votos + of gold and silver hung up by sailors of the port on the columns in the + nave. But all the nuns had taken refuge in the organ-loft. And yet, in + spite of this first check, during this very mass of thanksgiving, the most + intimately thrilling drama that ever set a man’s heart beating opened out + widely before him. + </p> + <p> + The sister who played the organ aroused such intense enthusiasm, that not + a single man regretted that he had come to the service. Even the men in + the ranks were delighted, and the officers were in ecstasy. As for the + General, he was seemingly calm and indifferent. The sensations stirred in + him as the sister played one piece after another belong to the small + number of things which it is not lawful to utter; words are powerless to + express them; like death, God, eternity, they can only be realised through + their one point of contact with humanity. Strangely enough, the organ + music seemed to belong to the school of Rossini, the musician who brings + most human passion into his art. + </p> + <p> + Some day his works, by their number and extent, will receive the reverence + due to the Homer of music. From among all the scores that we owe to his + great genius, the nun seemed to have chosen <i>Moses in Egypt</i> for + special study, doubtless because the spirit of sacred music finds therein + its supreme expression. Perhaps the soul of the great musician, so + gloriously known to Europe, and the soul of this unknown executant had met + in the intuitive apprehension of the same poetry. So at least thought two + dilettanti officers who must have missed the Theatre Favart in Spain. + </p> + <p> + At last in the <i>Te Deum</i> no one could fail to discern a French soul + in the sudden change that came over the music. Joy for the victory of the + Most Christian King evidently stirred this nun’s heart to the depths. She + was a Frenchwoman beyond mistake. Soon the love of country shone out, + breaking forth like shafts of light from the fugue, as the sister + introduced variations with all a Parisienne’s fastidious taste, and + blended vague suggestions of our grandest national airs with her music. A + Spaniard’s fingers would not have brought this warmth into a graceful + tribute paid to the victorious arms of France. The musician’s nationality + was revealed. + </p> + <p> + “We find France everywhere, it seems,” said one of the men. + </p> + <p> + The General had left the church during the <i>Te Deum</i>; he could not + listen any longer. The nun’s music had been a revelation of a woman loved + to frenzy; a woman so carefully hidden from the world’s eyes, so deeply + buried in the bosom of the Church, that hitherto the most ingenious and + persistent efforts made by men who brought great influence and unusual + powers to bear upon the search had failed to find her. The suspicion + aroused in the General’s heart became all but a certainty with the vague + reminiscence of a sad, delicious melody, the air of <i>Fleuve du Tage</i>. + The woman he loved had played the prelude to the ballad in a boudoir in + Paris, how often! and now this nun had chosen the song to express an + exile’s longing, amid the joy of those that triumphed. Terrible sensation! + To hope for the resurrection of a lost love, to find her only to know that + she was lost, to catch a mysterious glimpse of her after five years—five + years, in which the pent-up passion, chafing in an empty life, had grown + the mightier for every fruitless effort to satisfy it! + </p> + <p> + Who has not known, at least once in his life, what it is to lose some + precious thing; and after hunting through his papers, ransacking his + memory, and turning his house upside down; after one or two days spent in + vain search, and hope, and despair; after a prodigious expenditure of the + liveliest irritation of soul, who has not known the ineffable pleasure of + finding that all-important nothing which had come to be a king of + monomania? Very good. Now, spread that fury of search over five years; put + a woman, put a heart, put love in the place of the trifle; transpose the + monomania into the key of high passion; and, furthermore, let the seeker + be a man of ardent temper, with a lion’s heart and a leonine head and + mane, a man to inspire awe and fear in those who come in contact with him—realise + this, and you may, perhaps, understand why the General walked abruptly out + of the church when the first notes of a ballad, which he used to hear with + a rapture of delight in a gilt-paneled boudoir, began to vibrate along the + aisles of the church in the sea. + </p> + <p> + The General walked away down the steep street which led to the port, and + only stopped when he could not hear the deep notes of the organ. Unable to + think of anything but the love which broke out in volcanic eruption, + filling his heart with fire, he only knew that the <i>Te Deum</i> was over + when the Spanish congregation came pouring out of the church. Feeling that + his behaviour and attitude might seem ridiculous, he went back to head the + procession, telling the alcalde and the governor that, feeling suddenly + faint, he had gone out into the air. Casting about for a plea for + prolonging his stay, it at once occurred to him to make the most of this + excuse, framed on the spur of the moment. He declined, on a plea of + increasing indisposition, to preside at the banquet given by the town to + the French officers, betook himself to his bed, and sent a message to the + Major-General, to the effect that temporary illness obliged him to leave + the Colonel in command of the troops for the time being. This commonplace + but very plausible stratagem relieved him of all responsibility for the + time necessary to carry out his plans. The General, nothing if not + “catholic and monarchical,” took occasion to inform himself of the hours + of the services, and manifested the greatest zeal for the performance of + his religious duties, piety which caused no remark in Spain. + </p> + <p> + The very next day, while the division was marching out of the town, the + General went to the convent to be present at vespers. He found an empty + church. The townsfolk, devout though they were, had all gone down to the + quay to watch the embarkation of the troops. He felt glad to be the only + man there. He tramped noisily up the nave, clanking his spurs till the + vaulted roof rang with the sound; he coughed, he talked aloud to himself + to let the nuns know, and more particularly to let the organist know that + if the troops were gone, one Frenchman was left behind. Was this singular + warning heard and understood? He thought so. It seemed to him that in the + <i>Magnificat</i> the organ made response which was borne to him on the + vibrating air. The nun’s spirit found wings in music and fled towards him, + throbbing with the rhythmical pulse of the sounds. Then, in all its might, + the music burst forth and filled the church with warmth. The Song of Joy + set apart in the sublime liturgy of Latin Christianity to express the + exaltation of the soul in the presence of the glory of the ever-living + God, became the utterance of a heart almost terrified by its gladness in + the presence of the glory of a mortal love; a love that yet lived, a love + that had risen to trouble her even beyond the grave in which the nun is + laid, that she may rise again as the bride of Christ. + </p> + <p> + The organ is in truth the grandest, the most daring, the most magnificent + of all instruments invented by human genius. It is a whole orchestra in + itself. It can express anything in response to a skilled touch. Surely it + is in some sort a pedestal on which the soul poises for a flight forth + into space, essaying on her course to draw picture after picture in an + endless series, to paint human life, to cross the Infinite that separates + heaven from earth? And the longer a dreamer listens to those giant + harmonies, the better he realizes that nothing save this hundred-voiced + choir on earth can fill all the space between kneeling men, and a God + hidden by the blinding light of the Sanctuary. The music is the one + interpreter strong enough to bear up the prayers of humanity to heaven, + prayer in its omnipotent moods, prayer tinged by the melancholy of many + different natures, coloured by meditative ecstasy, upspringing with the + impulse of repentance—blended with the myriad fancies of every + creed. Yes. In those long vaulted aisles the melodies inspired by the + sense of things divine are blended with a grandeur unknown before, are + decked with new glory and might. Out of the dim daylight, and the deep + silence broken by the chanting of the choir in response to the thunder of + the organ, a veil is woven for God, and the brightness of His attributes + shines through it. + </p> + <p> + And this wealth of holy things seemed to be flung down like a grain of + incense upon the fragile altar raised to Love beneath the eternal throne + of a jealous and avenging God. Indeed, in the joy of the nun there was + little of that awe and gravity which should harmonize with the solemnities + of the <i>Magnificat</i>. She had enriched the music with graceful + variations, earthly gladness throbbing through the rhythm of each. In such + brilliant quivering notes some great singer might strive to find a voice + for her love, her melodies fluttered as a bird flutters about her mate. + There were moments when she seemed to leap back into the past, to dally + there now with laughter, now with tears. Her changing moods, as it were, + ran riot. She was like a woman excited and happy over her lover’s return. + </p> + <p> + But at length, after the swaying fugues of delirium, after the marvellous + rendering of a vision of the past, a revulsion swept over the soul that + thus found utterance for itself. With a swift transition from the major to + the minor, the organist told her hearer of her present lot. She gave the + story of long melancholy broodings, of the slow course of her moral + malady. How day by day she deadened the senses, how every night cut off + one more thought, how her heart was slowly reduced to ashes. The sadness + deepened shade after shade through languid modulations, and in a little + while the echoes were pouring out a torrent of grief. Then on a sudden, + high notes rang out like the voices of angels singing together, as if to + tell the lost but not forgotten lover that their spirits now could only + meet in heaven. Pathetic hope! Then followed the <i>Amen</i>. No more joy, + no more tears in the air, no sadness, no regrets. The <i>Amen</i> was the + return to God. The final chord was deep, solemn, even terrible; for the + last rumblings of the bass sent a shiver through the audience that raised + the hair on their heads; the nun shook out her veiling of crepe, and + seemed to sink again into the grave from which she had risen for a moment. + Slowly the reverberations died away; it seemed as if the church, but now + so full of light, had returned to thick darkness. + </p> + <p> + The General had been caught up and borne swiftly away by this + strong-winged spirit; he had followed the course of its flight from + beginning to end. He understood to the fullest extent the imagery of that + burning symphony; for him the chords reached deep and far. For him, as for + the sister, the poem meant future, present, and past. Is not music, and + even opera music, a sort of text, which a susceptible or poetic temper, or + a sore and stricken heart, may expand as memories shall determine? If a + musician must needs have the heart of a poet, must not the listener too be + in a manner a poet and a lover to hear all that lies in great music? + Religion, love, and music—what are they but a threefold expression + of the same fact, of that craving for expansion which stirs in every noble + soul. And these three forms of poetry ascend to God, in whom all passion + on earth finds its end. Wherefore the holy human trinity finds a place + amid the infinite glories of God; of God, whom we always represent + surrounded with the fires of love and seistrons of gold—music and + light and harmony. Is not He the Cause and the End of all our strivings? + </p> + <p> + The French General guessed rightly that here in the desert, on this bare + rock in the sea, the nun had seized upon music as an outpouring of the + passion that still consumed her. Was this her manner of offering up her + love as a sacrifice to God? Or was it Love exultant in triumph over God? + The questions were hard to answer. But one thing at least the General + could not mistake—in this heart, dead to the world, the fire of + passion burned as fiercely as in his own. + </p> + <p> + Vespers over, he went back to the alcalde with whom he was staying. In the + all-absorbing joy which comes in such full measure when a satisfaction + sought long and painfully is attained at last, he could see nothing beyond + this—he was still loved! In her heart love had grown in loneliness, + even as his love had grown stronger as he surmounted one barrier after + another which this woman had set between them! The glow of soul came to + its natural end. There followed a longing to see her again, to contend + with God for her, to snatch her away—a rash scheme, which appealed + to a daring nature. He went to bed, when the meal was over, to avoid + questions; to be alone and think at his ease; and he lay absorbed by deep + thought till day broke. + </p> + <p> + He rose only to go to mass. He went to the church and knelt close to the + screen, with his forehead touching the curtain; he would have torn a hole + in it if he had been alone, but his host had come with him out of + politeness, and the least imprudence might compromise the whole future of + his love, and ruin the new hopes. + </p> + <p> + The organ sounded, but it was another player, and not the nun of the last + two days whose hands touched the keys. It was all colorless and cold for + the General. Was the woman he loved prostrated by emotion which well-nigh + overcame a strong man’s heart? Had she so fully realised and shared an + unchanged, longed-for love, that now she lay dying on her bed in her cell? + While innumerable thoughts of this kind perplexed his mind, the voice of + the woman he worshipped rang out close beside him; he knew its clear + resonant soprano. It was her voice, with that faint tremor in it which + gave it all the charm that shyness and diffidence gives to a young girl; + her voice, distinct from the mass of singing as a <i>prima donna’s</i> in + the chorus of a finale. It was like a golden or silver thread in dark + frieze. + </p> + <p> + It was she! There could be no mistake. Parisienne now as ever, she had not + laid coquetry aside when she threw off worldly adornments for the veil and + the Carmelite’s coarse serge. She who had affirmed her love last evening + in the praise sent up to God, seemed now to say to her lover, “Yes, it is + I. I am here. My love is unchanged, but I am beyond the reach of love. You + will hear my voice, my soul shall enfold you, and I shall abide here under + the brown shroud in the choir from which no power on earth can tear me. + You shall never see me more!” + </p> + <p> + “It is she indeed!” the General said to himself, raising his head. He had + leant his face on his hands, unable at first to bear the intolerable + emotion that surged like a whirlpool in his heart, when that well-known + voice vibrated under the arcading, with the sound of the sea for + accompaniment. + </p> + <p> + Storm was without, and calm within the sanctuary. Still that rich voice + poured out all its caressing notes; it fell like balm on the lover’s + burning heart; it blossomed upon the air—the air that a man would + fain breathe more deeply to receive the effluence of a soul breathed forth + with love in the words of the prayer. The alcalde coming to join his guest + found him in tears during the elevation, while the nun was singing, and + brought him back to his house. Surprised to find so much piety in a French + military man, the worthy magistrate invited the confessor of the convent + to meet his guest. Never had news given the General more pleasure; he paid + the ecclesiastic a good deal of attention at supper, and confirmed his + Spanish hosts in the high opinion they had formed of his piety by a not + wholly disinterested respect. + </p> + <p> + He inquired with gravity how many sisters there were in the convent, and + asked for particulars of its endowment and revenues, as if from courtesy + he wished to hear the good priest discourse on the subject most + interesting to him. He informed himself as to the manner of life led by + the holy women. Were they allowed to go out of the convent, or to see + visitors? + </p> + <p> + “Senor,” replied the venerable churchman, “the rule is strict. A woman + cannot enter a monastery of the order of St. Bruno without a special + permission from His Holiness, and the rule here is equally stringent. No + man may enter a convent of Barefoot Carmelites unless he is a priest + specially attached to the services of the house by the Archbishop. None of + the nuns may leave the convent; though the great Saint, St. Theresa, often + left her cell. The Visitor or the Mothers Superior can alone give + permission, subject to an authorization from the Archbishop, for a nun to + see a visitor, and then especially in a case of illness. Now we are one of + the principal houses, and consequently we have a Mother Superior here. + Among other foreign sisters there is one Frenchwoman, Sister Theresa; she + it is who directs the music in the chapel.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said the General, with feigned surprise. “She must have rejoiced + over the victory of the House of Bourbon.” + </p> + <p> + “I told them the reason of the mass; they are always a little bit + inquisitive.” + </p> + <p> + “But Sister Theresa may have interests in France. Perhaps she would like + to send some message or to hear news.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not think so. She would have come to ask me.” + </p> + <p> + “As a fellow-countryman, I should be quite curious to see her,” said the + General. “If it is possible, if the Lady Superior consents, if——” + </p> + <p> + “Even at the grating and in the Reverend Mother’s presence, an interview + would be quite impossible for anybody whatsoever; but, strict as the + Mother is, for a deliverer of our holy religion and the throne of his + Catholic Majesty, the rule might be relaxed for a moment,” said the + confessor, blinking. “I will speak about it.” + </p> + <p> + “How old is Sister Theresa?” inquired the lover. He dared not ask any + questions of the priest as to the nun’s beauty. + </p> + <p> + “She does not reckon years now,” the good man answered, with a simplicity + that made the General shudder. + </p> + <p> + Next day before siesta, the confessor came to inform the French General + that Sister Theresa and the Mother consented to receive him at the grating + in the parlour before vespers. The General spent the siesta in pacing to + and fro along the quay in the noonday heat. Thither the priest came to + find him, and brought him to the convent by way of the gallery round the + cemetery. Fountains, green trees, and rows of arcading maintained a cool + freshness in keeping with the place. + </p> + <p> + At the further end of the long gallery the priest led the way into a large + room divided in two by a grating covered with a brown curtain. In the + first, and in some sort of public half of the apartment, where the + confessor left the newcomer, a wooden bench ran round the wall, and two or + three chairs, also of wood, were placed near the grating. The ceiling + consisted of bare unornamented joists and cross-beams of ilex wood. As the + two windows were both on the inner side of the grating, and the dark + surface of the wood was a bad reflector, the light in the place was so dim + that you could scarcely see the great black crucifix, the portrait of + Saint Theresa, and a picture of the Madonna which adorned the grey parlour + walls. Tumultuous as the General’s feelings were, they took something of + the melancholy of the place. He grew calm in that homely quiet. A sense of + something vast as the tomb took possession of him beneath the chill + unceiled roof. Here, as in the grave, was there not eternal silence, deep + peace—the sense of the Infinite? And besides this there was the + quiet and the fixed thought of the cloister—a thought which you felt + like a subtle presence in the air, and in the dim dusk of the room; an + all-pervasive thought nowhere definitely expressed, and looming the larger + in the imagination; for in the cloister the great saying, “Peace in the + Lord,” enters the least religious soul as a living force. + </p> + <p> + The monk’s life is scarcely comprehensible. A man seems confessed a + weakling in a monastery; he was born to act, to live out a life of work; + he is evading a man’s destiny in his cell. But what man’s strength, + blended with pathetic weakness, is implied by a woman’s choice of the + convent life! A man may have any number of motives for burying himself in + a monastery; for him it is the leap over the precipice. A woman has but + one motive—she is a woman still; she betrothes herself to a Heavenly + Bridegroom. Of the monk you may ask, “Why did you not fight your battle?” + But if a woman immures herself in the cloister, is there not always a + sublime battle fought first? + </p> + <p> + At length it seemed to the General that that still room, and the lonely + convent in the sea, were full of thoughts of him. Love seldom attains to + solemnity; yet surely a love still faithful in the breast of God was + something solemn, something more than a man had a right to look for as + things are in this nineteenth century? The infinite grandeur of the + situation might well produce an effect upon the General’s mind; he had + precisely enough elevation of soul to forget politics, honours, Spain, and + society in Paris, and to rise to the height of this lofty climax. And what + in truth could be more tragic? How much must pass in the souls of these + two lovers, brought together in a place of strangers, on a ledge of + granite in the sea; yet held apart by an intangible, unsurmountable + barrier! Try to imagine the man saying within himself, “Shall I triumph + over God in her heart?” when a faint rustling sound made him quiver, and + the curtain was drawn aside. + </p> + <p> + Between him and the light stood a woman. Her face was hidden by the veil + that drooped from the folds upon her head; she was dressed according to + the rule of the order in a gown of the colour become proverbial. Her bare + feet were hidden; if the General could have seen them, he would have known + how appallingly thin she had grown; and yet in spite of the thick folds of + her coarse gown, a mere covering and no ornament, he could guess how + tears, and prayer, and passion, and loneliness had wasted the woman before + him. + </p> + <p> + An ice-cold hand, belonging, no doubt, to the Mother Superior, held back + the curtain. The General gave the enforced witness of their interview a + searching glance, and met the dark, inscrutable gaze of an aged recluse. + The Mother might have been a century old, but the bright, youthful eyes + belied the wrinkles that furrowed her pale face. + </p> + <p> + “Mme la Duchesse,” he began, his voice shaken with emotion, “does your + companion understand French?” The veiled figure bowed her head at the + sound of his voice. + </p> + <p> + “There is no duchess here,” she replied. “It is Sister Theresa whom you + see before you. She whom you call my companion is my mother in God, my + superior here on earth.” + </p> + <p> + The words were so meekly spoken by the voice that sounded in other years + amid harmonious surroundings of refined luxury, the voice of a queen of + fashion in Paris. Such words from the lips that once spoke so lightly and + flippantly struck the General dumb with amazement. + </p> + <p> + “The Holy Mother only speaks Latin and Spanish,” she added. + </p> + <p> + “I understand neither. Dear Antoinette, make my excuses to her.” + </p> + <p> + The light fell full upon the nun’s figure; a thrill of deep emotion + betrayed itself in a faint quiver of her veil as she heard her name softly + spoken by the man who had been so hard in the past. + </p> + <p> + “My brother,” she said, drawing her sleeve under her veil, perhaps to + brush tears away, “I am Sister Theresa.” + </p> + <p> + Then, turning to the Superior, she spoke in Spanish; the General knew + enough of the language to understand what she said perfectly well; + possibly he could have spoken it had he chosen to do so. + </p> + <p> + “Dear Mother, the gentleman presents his respects to you, and begs you to + pardon him if he cannot pay them himself, but he knows neither of the + languages which you speak——” + </p> + <p> + The aged nun bent her head slowly, with an expression of angelic + sweetness, enhanced at the same time by the consciousness of her power and + dignity. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know this gentleman?” she asked, with a keen glance. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Mother.” + </p> + <p> + “Go back to your cell, my daughter!” said the Mother imperiously. + </p> + <p> + The General slipped aside behind the curtain lest the dreadful tumult + within him should appear in his face; even in the shadow it seemed to him + that he could still see the Superior’s piercing eyes. He was afraid of + her; she held his little, frail, hardly-won happiness in her hands; and + he, who had never quailed under a triple row of guns, now trembled before + this nun. The Duchess went towards the door, but she turned back. + </p> + <p> + “Mother,” she said, with dreadful calmness, “the Frenchman is one of my + brothers.” + </p> + <p> + “Then stay, my daughter,” said the Superior, after a pause. + </p> + <p> + The piece of admirable Jesuitry told of such love and regret, that a man + less strongly constituted might have broken down under the keen delight in + the midst of a great and, for him, an entirely novel peril. Oh! how + precious words, looks, and gestures became when love must baffle lynx eyes + and tiger’s claws! Sister Theresa came back. + </p> + <p> + “You see, my brother, what I have dared to do only to speak to you for a + moment of your salvation and of the prayers that my soul puts up for your + soul daily. I am committing mortal sin. I have told a lie. How many days + of penance must expiate that lie! But I shall endure it for your sake. My + brother, you do not know what happiness it is to love in heaven; to feel + that you can confess love purified by religion, love transported into the + highest heights of all, so that we are permitted to lose sight of all but + the soul. If the doctrine and the spirit of the Saint to whom we owe this + refuge had not raised me above earth’s anguish, and caught me up and set + me, far indeed beneath the Sphere wherein she dwells, yet truly above this + world, I should not have seen you again. But now I can see you, and hear + your voice, and remain calm——” + </p> + <p> + The General broke in, “But, Antoinette, let me see you, you whom I love + passionately, desperately, as you could have wished me to love you.” + </p> + <p> + “Do not call me Antoinette, I implore you. Memories of the past hurt me. + You must see no one here but Sister Theresa, a creature who trusts in the + Divine mercy.” She paused for a little, and then added, “You must control + yourself, my brother. Our Mother would separate us without pity if there + is any worldly passion in your face, or if you allow the tears to fall + from your eyes.” + </p> + <p> + The General bowed his head to regain self-control; when he looked up again + he saw her face beyond the grating—the thin, white, but still + impassioned face of the nun. All the magic charm of youth that once + bloomed there, all the fair contrast of velvet whiteness and the colour of + the Bengal rose, had given place to a burning glow, as of a porcelain jar + with a faint light shining through it. The wonderful hair in which she + took such pride had been shaven; there was a bandage round her forehead + and about her face. An ascetic life had left dark traces about the eyes, + which still sometimes shot out fevered glances; their ordinary calm + expression was but a veil. In a few words, she was but the ghost of her + former self. + </p> + <p> + “Ah! you that have come to be my life, you must come out of this tomb! You + were mine; you had no right to give yourself, even to God. Did you not + promise me to give up all at the least command from me? You may perhaps + think me worthy of that promise now when you hear what I have done for + you. I have sought you all through the world. You have been in my thoughts + at every moment for five years; my life has been given to you. My friends, + very powerful friends, as you know, have helped with all their might to + search every convent in France, Italy, Spain, Sicily, and America. Love + burned more brightly for every vain search. Again and again I made long + journeys with a false hope; I have wasted my life and the heaviest + throbbings of my heart in vain under many a dark convent wall. I am not + speaking of a faithfulness that knows no bounds, for what is it?—nothing + compared with the infinite longings of my love. If your remorse long ago + was sincere, you ought not to hesitate to follow me today.” + </p> + <p> + “You forget that I am not free.” + </p> + <p> + “The Duke is dead,” he answered quickly. + </p> + <p> + Sister Theresa flushed red. + </p> + <p> + “May heaven be open to him!” she cried with a quick rush of feeling. “He + was generous to me.—But I did not mean such ties; it was one of my + sins that I was ready to break them all without scruple—for you.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you speaking of your vows?” the General asked, frowning. “I did not + think that anything weighed heavier with your heart than love. But do not + think twice of it, Antoinette; the Holy Father himself shall absolve you + of your oath. I will surely go to Rome, I will entreat all the powers of + earth; if God could come down from heaven, I would——” + </p> + <p> + “Do not blaspheme.” + </p> + <p> + “So do not fear the anger of God. Ah! I would far rather hear that you + would leave your prison for me; that this very night you would let + yourself down into a boat at the foot of the cliffs. And we would go away + to be happy somewhere at the world’s end, I know not where. And with me at + your side, you should come back to life and health under the wings of + love.” + </p> + <p> + “You must not talk like this,” said Sister Theresa; “you do not know what + you are to me now. I love you far better than I ever loved you before. + Every day I pray for you; I see you with other eyes. Armand, if you but + knew the happiness of giving yourself up, without shame, to a pure + friendship which God watches over! You do not know what joy it is to me to + pray for heaven’s blessing on you. I never pray for myself: God will do + with me according to His will; but, at the price of my soul, I wish I + could be sure that you are happy here on earth, and that you will be happy + hereafter throughout all ages. My eternal life is all that trouble has + left me to offer up to you. I am old now with weeping; I am neither young + nor fair; and in any case, you could not respect the nun who became a + wife; no love, not even motherhood, could give me absolution.... What can + you say to outweigh the uncounted thoughts that have gathered in my heart + during the past five years, thoughts that have changed, and worn, and + blighted it? I ought to have given a heart less sorrowful to God.” + </p> + <p> + “What can I say? Dear Antoinette, I will say this, that I love you; that + affection, love, a great love, the joy of living in another heart that is + ours, utterly and wholly ours, is so rare a thing and so hard to find, + that I doubted you, and put you to sharp proof; but now, today, I love + you, Antoinette, with all my soul’s strength.... If you will follow me + into solitude, I will hear no voice but yours, I will see no other face.” + </p> + <p> + “Hush, Armand! You are shortening the little time that we may be together + here on earth.” + </p> + <p> + “Antoinette, will you come with me?” + </p> + <p> + “I am never away from you. My life is in your heart, not through the + selfish ties of earthly happiness, or vanity, or enjoyment; pale and + withered as I am, I live here for you, in the breast of God. As God is + just, you shall be happy——” + </p> + <p> + “Words, words all of it! Pale and withered? How if I want you? How if I + cannot be happy without you? Do you still think of nothing but duty with + your lover before you? Is he never to come first and above all things else + in your heart? In time past you put social success, yourself, heaven knows + what, before him; now it is God, it is the welfare of my soul! In Sister + Theresa I find the Duchess over again, ignorant of the happiness of love, + insensible as ever, beneath the semblance of sensibility. You do not love + me; you have never loved me——” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my brother——!” + </p> + <p> + “You do not wish to leave this tomb. You love my soul, do you say? Very + well, through you it will be lost forever. I shall make away with myself——” + </p> + <p> + “Mother!” Sister Theresa called aloud in Spanish, “I have lied to you; + this man is my lover!” + </p> + <p> + The curtain fell at once. The General, in his stupor, scarcely heard the + doors within as they clanged. + </p> + <p> + “Ah! she loves me still!” he cried, understanding all the sublimity of + that cry of hers. “She loves me still. She must be carried off....” + </p> + <p> + The General left the island, returned to headquarters, pleaded ill-health, + asked for leave of absence, and forthwith took his departure for France. + </p> + <p> + And now for the incidents which brought the two personages in this Scene + into their present relation to each other. + </p> + <p> + The thing known in France as the Faubourg Saint-Germain is neither a + Quarter, nor a sect, nor an institution, nor anything else that admits of + a precise definition. There are great houses in the Place Royale, the + Faubourg Saint-Honore, and the Chaussee d’Antin, in any one of which you + may breathe the same atmosphere of Faubourg Saint-Germain. So, to begin + with, the whole Faubourg is not within the Faubourg. There are men and + women born far enough away from its influences who respond to them and + take their place in the circle; and again there are others, born within + its limits, who may yet be driven forth forever. For the last forty years + the manners, and customs, and speech, in a word, the tradition of the + Faubourg Saint-Germain, has been to Paris what the Court used to be in + other times; it is what the Hotel Saint-Paul was to the fourteenth + century; the Louvre to the fifteenth; the Palais, the Hotel Rambouillet, + and the Place Royale to the sixteenth; and lastly, as Versailles was to + the seventeenth and the eighteenth. + </p> + <p> + Just as the ordinary workaday Paris will always centre about some point; + so, through all periods of history, the Paris of the nobles and the upper + classes converges towards some particular spot. It is a periodically + recurrent phenomenon which presents ample matter for reflection to those + who are fain to observe or describe the various social zones; and possibly + an enquiry into the causes that bring about this centralization may do + more than merely justify the probability of this episode; it may be of + service to serious interests which some day will be more deeply rooted in + the commonwealth, unless, indeed, experience is as meaningless for + political parties as it is for youth. + </p> + <p> + In every age the great nobles, and the rich who always ape the great + nobles, build their houses as far as possible from crowded streets. When + the Duc d’Uzes built his splendid hotel in the Rue Montmartre in the reign + of Louis XIV, and set the fountain at his gates—for which beneficent + action, to say nothing of his other virtues, he was held in such + veneration that the whole quarter turned out in a body to follow his + funeral—when the Duke, I say, chose this site for his house, he did + so because that part of Paris was almost deserted in those days. But when + the fortifications were pulled down, and the market gardens beyond the + line of the boulevards began to fill with houses, then the d’Uzes family + left their fine mansion, and in our time it was occupied by a banker. + Later still, the noblesse began to find themselves out of their element + among shopkeepers, left the Place Royale and the centre of Paris for good, + and crossed the river to breathe freely in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, + where palaces were reared already about the great hotel built by Louis XIV + for the Duc de Maine—the Benjamin among his legitimated offspring. + And indeed, for people accustomed to a stately life, can there be more + unseemly surroundings than the bustle, the mud, the street cries, the bad + smells, and narrow thoroughfares of a populous quarter? The very habits of + life in a mercantile or manufacturing district are completely at variance + with the lives of nobles. The shopkeeper and artisan are just going to bed + when the great world is thinking of dinner; and the noisy stir of life + begins among the former when the latter have gone to rest. Their day’s + calculations never coincide; the one class represents the expenditure, the + other the receipts. Consequently their manners and customs are + diametrically opposed. + </p> + <p> + Nothing contemptuous is intended by this statement. An aristocracy is in a + manner the intellect of the social system, as the middle classes and the + proletariat may be said to be its organizing and working power. It + naturally follows that these forces are differently situated; and of their + antagonism there is bred a seeming antipathy produced by the performance + of different functions, all of them, however, existing for one common end. + </p> + <p> + Such social dissonances are so inevitably the outcome of any charter of + the constitution, that however much a Liberal may be disposed to complain + of them, as of treason against those sublime ideas with which the + ambitious plebeian is apt to cover his designs, he would none the less + think it a preposterous notion that M. le Prince de Montmorency, for + instance, should continue to live in the Rue Saint-Martin at the corner of + the street which bears that nobleman’s name; or that M. le Duc de + Fitz-James, descendant of the royal house of Scotland, should have his + hotel at the angle of the Rue Marie Stuart and the Rue Montorgueil. <i>Sint + ut sunt, aut non sint</i>, the grand words of the Jesuit, might be taken + as a motto by the great in all countries. These social differences are + patent in all ages; the fact is always accepted by the people; its + “reasons of state” are self-evident; it is at once cause and effect, a + principle and a law. The common sense of the masses never deserts them + until demagogues stir them up to gain ends of their own; that common sense + is based on the verities of social order; and the social order is the same + everywhere, in Moscow as in London, in Geneva as in Calcutta. Given a + certain number of families of unequal fortune in any given space, you will + see an aristocracy forming under your eyes; there will be the patricians, + the upper classes, and yet other ranks below them. Equality may be a <i>right</i>, + but no power on earth can convert it into <i>fact</i>. It would be a good + thing for France if this idea could be popularized. The benefits of + political harmony are obvious to the least intelligent classes. Harmony + is, as it were, the poetry of order, and order is a matter of vital + importance to the working population. And what is order, reduced to its + simplest expression, but the agreement of things among themselves—unity, + in short? Architecture, music, and poetry, everything in France, and in + France more than in any other country, is based upon this principle; it is + written upon the very foundations of her clear accurate language, and a + language must always be the most infallible index of national character. + In the same way you may note that the French popular airs are those most + calculated to strike the imagination, the best-modulated melodies are + taken over by the people; clearness of thought, the intellectual + simplicity of an idea attracts them; they like the incisive sayings that + hold the greatest number of ideas. France is the one country in the world + where a little phrase may bring about a great revolution. Whenever the + masses have risen, it has been to bring men, affairs, and principles into + agreement. No nation has a clearer conception of that idea of unity which + should permeate the life of an aristocracy; possibly no other nation has + so intelligent a comprehension of a political necessity; history will + never find her behind the time. France has been led astray many a time, + but she is deluded, woman-like, by generous ideas, by a glow of enthusiasm + which at first outstrips sober reason. + </p> + <p> + So, to begin with, the most striking characteristic of the Faubourg is the + splendour of its great mansions, its great gardens, and a surrounding + quiet in keeping with princely revenues drawn from great estates. And what + is this distance set between a class and a whole metropolis but visible + and outward expression of the widely different attitude of mind which must + inevitably keep them apart? The position of the head is well defined in + every organism. If by any chance a nation allows its head to fall at its + feet, it is pretty sure sooner or later to discover that this is a + suicidal measure; and since nations have no desire to perish, they set to + work at once to grow a new head. If they lack the strength for this, they + perish as Rome perished, and Venice, and so many other states. + </p> + <p> + This distinction between the upper and lower spheres of social activity, + emphasized by differences in their manner of living, necessarily implies + that in the highest aristocracy there is real worth and some + distinguishing merit. In any state, no matter what form of “government” is + affected, so soon as the patrician class fails to maintain that complete + superiority which is the condition of its existence, it ceases to be a + force, and is pulled down at once by the populace. The people always wish + to see money, power, and initiative in their leaders, hands, hearts, and + heads; they must be the spokesmen, they must represent the intelligence + and the glory of the nation. Nations, like women, love strength in those + who rule them; they cannot give love without respect; they refuse utterly + to obey those of whom they do not stand in awe. An aristocracy fallen into + contempt is a <i>roi faineant</i>, a husband in petticoats; first it + ceases to be itself, and then it ceases to be. + </p> + <p> + And in this way the isolation of the great, the sharply marked distinction + in their manner of life, or in a word, the general custom of the patrician + caste is at once the sign of a real power, and their destruction so soon + as that power is lost. The Faubourg Saint-Germain failed to recognise the + conditions of its being, while it would still have been easy to perpetuate + its existence, and therefore was brought low for a time. The Faubourg + should have looked the facts fairly in the face, as the English + aristocracy did before them; they should have seen that every institution + has its climacteric periods, when words lose their old meanings, and ideas + reappear in a new guise, and the whole conditions of politics wear a + changed aspect, while the underlying realities undergo no essential + alteration. + </p> + <p> + These ideas demand further development which form an essential part of + this episode; they are given here both as a succinct statement of the + causes, and an explanation of the things which happen in the course of the + story. + </p> + <p> + The stateliness of the castles and palaces where nobles dwell; the luxury + of the details; the constantly maintained sumptuousness of the furniture; + the “atmosphere” in which the fortunate owner of landed estates (a rich + man before he was born) lives and moves easily and without friction; the + habit of mind which never descends to calculate the petty workaday gains + of existence; the leisure; the higher education attainable at a much + earlier age; and lastly, the aristocratic tradition that makes of him a + social force, for which his opponents, by dint of study and a strong will + and tenacity of vocation, are scarcely a match-all these things should + contribute to form a lofty spirit in a man, possessed of such privileges + from his youth up; they should stamp his character with that high + self-respect, of which the least consequence is a nobleness of heart in + harmony with the noble name that he bears. And in some few families all + this is realised. There are noble characters here and there in the + Faubourg, but they are marked exceptions to a general rule of egoism which + has been the ruin of this world within a world. The privileges above + enumerated are the birthright of the French noblesse, as of every + patrician efflorescence ever formed on the surface of a nation; and will + continue to be theirs so long as their existence is based upon real + estate, or money; <i>domaine-sol</i> and <i>domaine-argent</i> alike, the + only solid bases of an organized society; but such privileges are held + upon the understanding that the patricians must continue to justify their + existence. There is a sort of moral <i>fief</i> held on a tenure of + service rendered to the sovereign, and here in France the people are + undoubtedly the sovereigns nowadays. The times are changed, and so are the + weapons. The knight-banneret of old wore a coat of chain armor and a + hauberk; he could handle a lance well and display his pennon, and no more + was required of him; today he is bound to give proof of his intelligence. + A stout heart was enough in the days of old; in our days he is required to + have a capacious brain-pan. Skill and knowledge and capital—these + three points mark out a social triangle on which the scutcheon of power is + blazoned; our modern aristocracy must take its stand on these. + </p> + <p> + A fine theorem is as good as a great name. The Rothschilds, the Fuggers of + the nineteenth century, are princes <i>de facto</i>. A great artist is in + reality an oligarch; he represents a whole century, and almost always he + is a law to others. And the art of words, the high pressure machinery of + the writer, the poet’s genius, the merchant’s steady endurance, the strong + will of the statesman who concentrates a thousand dazzling qualities in + himself, the general’s sword—all these victories, in short, which a + single individual will win, that he may tower above the rest of the world, + the patrician class is now bound to win and keep exclusively. They must + head the new forces as they once headed the material forces; how should + they keep the position unless they are worthy of it? How, unless they are + the soul and brain of a nation, shall they set its hands moving? How lead + a people without the power of command? And what is the marshal’s baton + without the innate power of the captain in the man who wields it? The + Faubourg Saint-Germain took to playing with batons, and fancied that all + the power was in its hands. It inverted the terms of the proposition which + called it into existence. And instead of flinging away the insignia which + offended the people, and quietly grasping the power, it allowed the + bourgeoisie to seize the authority, clung with fatal obstinacy to its + shadow, and over and over again forgot the laws which a minority must + observe if it would live. When an aristocracy is scarce a thousandth part + of the body social, it is bound today, as of old, to multiply its points + of action, so as to counterbalance the weight of the masses in a great + crisis. And in our days those means of action must be living forces, and + not historical memories. + </p> + <p> + In France, unluckily, the noblesse were still so puffed up with the notion + of their vanished power, that it was difficult to contend against a kind + of innate presumption in themselves. Perhaps this is a national defect. + The Frenchman is less given than anyone else to undervalue himself; it + comes natural to him to go from his degree to the one above it; and while + it is a rare thing for him to pity the unfortunates over whose heads he + rises, he always groans in spirit to see so many fortunate people above + him. He is very far from heartless, but too often he prefers to listen to + his intellect. The national instinct which brings the Frenchman to the + front, the vanity that wastes his substance, is as much a dominant passion + as thrift in the Dutch. For three centuries it swayed the noblesse, who, + in this respect, were certainly pre-eminently French. The scion of the + Faubourg Saint-Germain, beholding his material superiority, was fully + persuaded of his intellectual superiority. And everything contributed to + confirm him in his belief; for ever since the Faubourg Saint-Germain + existed at all—which is to say, ever since Versailles ceased to be + the royal residence—the Faubourg, with some few gaps in continuity, + was always backed up by the central power, which in France seldom fails to + support that side. Thence its downfall in 1830. + </p> + <p> + At that time the party of the Faubourg Saint-Germain was rather like an + army without a base of operation. It had utterly failed to take advantage + of the peace to plant itself in the heart of the nation. It sinned for + want of learning its lesson, and through an utter incapability of + regarding its interests as a whole. A future certainty was sacrificed to a + doubtful present gain. This blunder in policy may perhaps be attributed to + the following cause. + </p> + <p> + The class-isolation so strenuously kept up by the noblesse brought about + fatal results during the last forty years; even caste-patriotism was + extinguished by it, and rivalry fostered among themselves. When the French + noblesse of other times were rich and powerful, the nobles (<i>gentilhommes</i>) + could choose their chiefs and obey them in the hour of danger. As their + power diminished, they grew less amenable to discipline; and as in the + last days of the Byzantine Empire, everyone wished to be emperor. They + mistook their uniform weakness for uniform strength. + </p> + <p> + Each family ruined by the Revolution and the abolition of the law of + primogeniture thought only of itself, and not at all of the great family + of the noblesse. It seemed to them that as each individual grew rich, the + party as a whole would gain in strength. And herein lay their mistake. + Money, likewise, is only the outward and visible sign of power. All these + families were made up of persons who preserved a high tradition of + courtesy, of true graciousness of life, of refined speech, with a family + pride, and a squeamish sense of <i>noblesse oblige</i> which suited well + with the kind of life they led; a life wholly filled with occupations + which become contemptible so soon as they cease to be accessories and take + the chief place in existence. There was a certain intrinsic merit in all + these people, but the merit was on the surface, and none of them were + worth their face-value. + </p> + <p> + Not a single one among those families had courage to ask itself the + question, “Are we strong enough for the responsibility of power?” They + were cast on the top, like the lawyers of 1830; and instead of taking the + patron’s place, like a great man, the Faubourg Saint-Germain showed itself + greedy as an upstart. The most intelligent nation in the world perceived + clearly that the restored nobles were organizing everything for their own + particular benefit. From that day the noblesse was doomed. The Faubourg + Saint-Germain tried to be an aristocracy when it could only be an + oligarchy—two very different systems, as any man may see for himself + if he gives an intelligent perusal to the list of the patronymics of the + House of Peers. + </p> + <p> + The King’s Government certainly meant well; but the maxim that the people + must be made to <i>will</i> everything, even their own welfare, was pretty + constantly forgotten, nor did they bear in mind that La France is a woman + and capricious, and must be happy or chastised at her own good pleasure. + If there had been many dukes like the Duc de Laval, whose modesty made him + worthy of the name he bore, the elder branch would have been as securely + seated on the throne as the House of Hanover at this day. + </p> + <p> + In 1814 the noblesse of France were called upon to assert their + superiority over the most aristocratic bourgeoisie in the most feminine of + all countries, to take the lead in the most highly educated epoch the + world had yet seen. And this was even more notably the case in 1820. The + Faubourg Saint-Germain might very easily have led and amused the middle + classes in days when people’s heads were turned with distinctions, and art + and science were all the rage. But the narrow-minded leaders of a time of + great intellectual progress all of them detested art and science. They had + not even the wit to present religion in attractive colours, though they + needed its support. While Lamartine, Lamennais, Montalembert, and other + writers were putting new life and elevation into men’s ideas of religion, + and gilding it with poetry, these bunglers in the Government chose to make + the harshness of their creed felt all over the country. Never was nation + in a more tractable humour; La France, like a tired woman, was ready to + agree to anything; never was mismanagement so clumsy; and La France, like + a woman, would have forgiven wrongs more easily than bungling. + </p> + <p> + If the noblesse meant to reinstate themselves, the better to found a + strong oligarchy, they should have honestly and diligently searched their + Houses for men of the stamp that Napoleon used; they should have turned + themselves inside out to see if peradventure there was a Constitutionalist + Richelieu lurking in the entrails of the Faubourg; and if that genius was + not forthcoming from among them, they should have set out to find him, + even in the fireless garret where he might happen to be perishing of cold; + they should have assimilated him, as the English House of Lords + continually assimilates aristocrats made by chance; and finally ordered + him to be ruthless, to lop away the old wood, and cut the tree down to the + living shoots. But, in the first place, the great system of English + Toryism was far too large for narrow minds; the importation required time, + and in France a tardy success is no better than a fiasco. So far, + moreover, from adopting a policy of redemption, and looking for new forces + where God puts them, these petty great folk took a dislike to any capacity + that did not issue from their midst; and, lastly, instead of growing young + again, the Faubourg Saint-Germain grew positively older. + </p> + <p> + Etiquette, not an institution of primary necessity, might have been + maintained if it had appeared only on state occasions, but as it was, + there was a daily wrangle over precedence; it ceased to be a matter of art + or court ceremonial, it became a question of power. And if from the outset + the Crown lacked an adviser equal to so great a crisis, the aristocracy + was still more lacking in a sense of its wider interests, an instinct + which might have supplied the deficiency. They stood nice about M. de + Talleyrand’s marriage, when M. de Talleyrand was the one man among them + with the steel-encompassed brains that can forge a new political system + and begin a new career of glory for a nation. The Faubourg scoffed at a + minister if he was not gently born, and produced no one of gentle birth + that was fit to be a minister. There were plenty of nobles fitted to serve + their country by raising the dignity of justices of the peace, by + improving the land, by opening out roads and canals, and taking an active + and leading part as country gentlemen; but these had sold their estates to + gamble on the Stock Exchange. Again the Faubourg might have absorbed the + energetic men among the bourgeoisie, and opened their ranks to the + ambition which was undermining authority; they preferred instead to fight, + and to fight unarmed, for of all that they once possessed there was + nothing left but tradition. For their misfortune there was just precisely + enough of their former wealth left them as a class to keep up their bitter + pride. They were content with their past. Not one of them seriously + thought of bidding the son of the house take up arms from the pile of + weapons which the nineteenth century flings down in the market-place. + Young men, shut out from office, were dancing at Madame’s balls, while + they should have been doing the work done under the Republic and the + Empire by young, conscientious, harmlessly employed energies. It was their + place to carry out at Paris the programme which their seniors should have + been following in the country. The heads of houses might have won back + recognition of their titles by unremitting attention to local interests, + by falling in with the spirit of the age, by recasting their order to suit + the taste of the times. + </p> + <p> + But, pent up together in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where the spirit of + the ancient court and traditions of bygone feuds between the nobles and + the Crown still lingered on, the aristocracy was not whole-hearted in its + allegiance to the Tuileries, and so much the more easily defeated because + it was concentrated in the Chamber of Peers, and badly organized even + there. If the noblesse had woven themselves into a network over the + country, they could have held their own; but cooped up in their Faubourg, + with their backs against the Chateau, or spread at full length over the + Budget, a single blow cut the thread of a fast-expiring life, and a petty, + smug-faced lawyer came forward with the axe. In spite of M. + Royer-Collard’s admirable discourse, the hereditary peerage and law of + entail fell before the lampoons of a man who made it a boast that he had + adroitly argued some few heads out of the executioner’s clutches, and now + forsooth must clumsily proceed to the slaying of old institutions. + </p> + <p> + There are examples and lessons for the future in all this. For if there + were not still a future before the French aristocracy, there would be no + need to do more than find a suitable sarcophagus; it were something + pitilessly cruel to burn the dead body of it with fire of Tophet. But + though the surgeon’s scalpel is ruthless, it sometimes gives back life to + a dying man; and the Faubourg Saint-Germain may wax more powerful under + persecution than in its day of triumph, if it but chooses to organize + itself under a leader. + </p> + <p> + And now it is easy to give a summary of this semi-political survey. The + wish to re-establish a large fortune was uppermost in everyone’s mind; a + lack of broad views, and a mass of small defects, a real need of religion + as a political factor, combined with a thirst for pleasure which damaged + the cause of religion and necessitated a good deal of hypocrisy; a certain + attitude of protest on the part of loftier and clearer-sighted men who set + their faces against Court jealousies; and the disaffection of the + provincial families, who often came of purer descent than the nobles of + the Court which alienated them from itself—all these things combined + to bring about a most discordant state of things in the Faubourg + Saint-Germain. It was neither compact in its organisation, nor consequent + in its action; neither completely moral, nor frankly dissolute; it did not + corrupt, nor was it corrupted; it would neither wholly abandon the + disputed points which damaged its cause, nor yet adopt the policy that + might have saved it. In short, however effete individuals might be, the + party as a whole was none the less armed with all the great principles + which lie at the roots of national existence. What was there in the + Faubourg that it should perish in its strength? + </p> + <p> + It was very hard to please in the choice of candidates; the Faubourg had + good taste, it was scornfully fastidious, yet there was nothing very + glorious nor chivalrous truly about its fall. + </p> + <p> + In the Emigration of 1789 there were some traces of a loftier feeling; but + in the Emigration of 1830 from Paris into the country there was nothing + discernible but self-interest. A few famous men of letters, a few + oratorical triumphs in the Chambers, M. de Talleyrand’s attitude in the + Congress, the taking of Algiers, and not a few names that found their way + from the battlefield into the pages of history—all these things were + so many examples set before the French noblesse to show that it was still + open to them to take their part in the national existence, and to win + recognition of their claims, if, indeed, they could condescend thus far. + In every living organism the work of bringing the whole into harmony + within itself is always going on. If a man is indolent, the indolence + shows itself in everything that he does; and, in the same manner, the + general spirit of a class is pretty plainly manifested in the face it + turns on the world, and the soul informs the body. + </p> + <p> + The women of the Restoration displayed neither the proud disregard of + public opinion shown by the court ladies of olden time in their + wantonness, nor yet the simple grandeur of the tardy virtues by which they + expiated their sins and shed so bright a glory about their names. There + was nothing either very frivolous or very serious about the woman of the + Restoration. She was hypocritical as a rule in her passion, and + compounded, so to speak, with its pleasures. Some few families led the + domestic life of the Duchesse d’Orleans, whose connubial couch was + exhibited so absurdly to visitors at the Palais Royal. Two or three kept + up the traditions of the Regency, filling cleverer women with something + like disgust. The great lady of the new school exercised no influence at + all over the manners of the time; and yet she might have done much. She + might, at worst, have presented as dignified a spectacle as English-women + of the same rank. But she hesitated feebly among old precedents, became a + bigot by force of circumstances, and allowed nothing of herself to appear, + not even her better qualities. + </p> + <p> + Not one among the Frenchwomen of that day had the ability to create a + salon whither leaders of fashion might come to take lessons in taste and + elegance. Their voices, which once laid down the law to literature, that + living expression of a time, now counted absolutely for nought. Now when a + literature lacks a general system, it fails to shape a body for itself, + and dies out with its period. + </p> + <p> + When in a nation at any time there is a people apart thus constituted, the + historian is pretty certain to find some representative figure, some + central personage who embodies the qualities and the defects of the whole + party to which he belongs; there is Coligny, for instance, among the + Huguenots, the Coadjuteur in the time of the Fronde, the Marechal de + Richelieu under Louis XV, Danton during the Terror. It is in the nature of + things that the man should be identified with the company in which history + finds him. How is it possible to lead a party without conforming to its + ideas? or to shine in any epoch unless a man represents the ideas of his + time? The wise and prudent head of a party is continually obliged to bow + to the prejudices and follies of its rear; and this is the cause of + actions for which he is afterwards criticised by this or that historian + sitting at a safer distance from terrific popular explosions, coolly + judging the passion and ferment without which the great struggles of the + world could not be carried on at all. And if this is true of the + Historical Comedy of the Centuries, it is equally true in a more + restricted sphere in the detached scenes of the national drama known as + the <i>Manners of the Age</i>. + </p> + <p> + At the beginning of that ephemeral life led by the Faubourg Saint-Germain + under the Restoration, to which, if there is any truth in the above + reflections, they failed to give stability, the most perfect type of the + aristocratic caste in its weakness and strength, its greatness and + littleness, might have been found for a brief space in a young married + woman who belonged to it. This was a woman artificially educated, but in + reality ignorant; a woman whose instincts and feelings were lofty while + the thought which should have controlled them was wanting. She squandered + the wealth of her nature in obedience to social conventions; she was ready + to brave society, yet she hesitated till her scruples degenerated into + artifice. With more wilfulness than real force of character, + impressionable rather than enthusiastic, gifted with more brain than + heart; she was supremely a woman, supremely a coquette, and above all + things a Parisienne, loving a brilliant life and gaiety, reflecting never, + or too late; imprudent to the verge of poetry, and humble in the depths of + her heart, in spite of her charming insolence. Like some straight-growing + reed, she made a show of independence; yet, like the reed, she was ready + to bend to a strong hand. She talked much of religion, and had it not at + heart, though she was prepared to find in it a solution of her life. How + explain a creature so complex? Capable of heroism, yet sinking + unconsciously from heroic heights to utter a spiteful word; young and + sweet-natured, not so much old at heart as aged by the maxims of those + about her; versed in a selfish philosophy in which she was all + unpractised, she had all the vices of a courtier, all the nobleness of + developing womanhood. She trusted nothing and no one, yet there were times + when she quitted her sceptical attitude for a submissive credulity. + </p> + <p> + How should any portrait be anything but incomplete of her, in whom the + play of swiftly-changing colour made discord only to produce a poetic + confusion? For in her there shone a divine brightness, a radiance of youth + that blended all her bewildering characteristics in a certain completeness + and unity informed by her charm. Nothing was feigned. The passion or + semi-passion, the ineffectual high aspirations, the actual pettiness, the + coolness of sentiment and warmth of impulse, were all spontaneous and + unaffected, and as much the outcome of her own position as of the position + of the aristocracy to which she belonged. She was wholly self-contained; + she put herself proudly above the world and beneath the shelter of her + name. There was something of the egoism of Medea in her life, as in the + life of the aristocracy that lay a-dying, and would not so much as raise + itself or stretch out a hand to any political physician; so well aware of + its feebleness, or so conscious that it was already dust, that it refused + to touch or be touched. + </p> + <p> + The Duchesse de Langeais (for that was her name) had been married for + about four years when the Restoration was finally consummated, which is to + say, in 1816. By that time the revolution of the Hundred Days had let in + the light on the mind of Louis XVIII. In spite of his surroundings, he + comprehended the situation and the age in which he was living; and it was + only later, when this Louis XI, without the axe, lay stricken down by + disease, that those about him got the upper hand. The Duchesse de + Langeais, a Navarreins by birth, came of a ducal house which had made a + point of never marrying below its rank since the reign of Louis XIV. Every + daughter of the house must sooner or later take a <i>tabouret</i> at + Court. So, Antoinette de Navarreins, at the age of eighteen, came out of + the profound solitude in which her girlhood had been spent to marry the + Duc de Langeais’ eldest son. The two families at that time were living + quite out of the world; but after the invasion of France, the return of + the Bourbons seemed to every Royalist mind the only possible way of + putting an end to the miseries of the war. + </p> + <p> + The Ducs de Navarreins and de Langeais had been faithful throughout to the + exiled Princes, nobly resisting all the temptations of glory under the + Empire. Under the circumstances they naturally followed out the old family + policy; and Mlle Antoinette, a beautiful and portionless girl, was married + to M. le Marquis de Langeais only a few months before the death of the + Duke his father. + </p> + <p> + After the return of the Bourbons, the families resumed their rank, + offices, and dignity at Court; once more they entered public life, from + which hitherto they held aloof, and took their place high on the sunlit + summits of the new political world. In that time of general baseness and + sham political conversions, the public conscience was glad to recognise + the unstained loyalty of the two houses, and a consistency in political + and private life for which all parties involuntarily respected them. But, + unfortunately, as so often happens in a time of transition, the most + disinterested persons, the men whose loftiness of view and wise principles + would have gained the confidence of the French nation and led them to + believe in the generosity of a novel and spirited policy—these men, + to repeat, were taken out of affairs, and public business was allowed to + fall into the hands of others, who found it to their interest to push + principles to their extreme consequences by way of proving their devotion. + </p> + <p> + The families of Langeais and Navarreins remained about the Court, + condemned to perform the duties required by Court ceremonial amid the + reproaches and sneers of the Liberal party. They were accused of gorging + themselves with riches and honours, and all the while their family estates + were no larger than before, and liberal allowances from the civil list + were wholly expended in keeping up the state necessary for any European + government, even if it be a Republic. + </p> + <p> + In 1818, M. le Duc de Langeais commanded a division of the army, and the + Duchess held a post about one of the Princesses, in virtue of which she + was free to live in Paris and apart from her husband without scandal. The + Duke, moreover, besides his military duties, had a place at Court, to + which he came during his term of waiting, leaving his major-general in + command. The Duke and Duchess were leading lives entirely apart, the world + none the wiser. Their marriage of convention shared the fate of nearly all + family arrangements of the kind. Two more antipathetic dispositions could + not well have been found; they were brought together; they jarred upon + each other; there was soreness on either side; then they were divided once + for all. Then they went their separate ways, with a due regard for + appearances. The Duc de Langeais, by nature as methodical as the Chevalier + de Folard himself, gave himself up methodically to his own tastes and + amusements, and left his wife at liberty to do as she pleased so soon as + he felt sure of her character. He recognised in her a spirit pre-eminently + proud, a cold heart, a profound submissiveness to the usages of the world, + and a youthful loyalty. Under the eyes of great relations, with the light + of a prudish and bigoted Court turned full upon the Duchess, his honour + was safe. + </p> + <p> + So the Duke calmly did as the <i>grands seigneurs</i> of the eighteenth + century did before him, and left a young wife of two-and-twenty to her own + devices. He had deeply offended that wife, and in her nature there was one + appalling characteristic—she would never forgive an offence when + woman’s vanity and self-love, with all that was best in her nature + perhaps, had been slighted, wounded in secret. Insult and injury in the + face of the world a woman loves to forget; there is a way open to her of + showing herself great; she is a woman in her forgiveness; but a secret + offence women never pardon; for secret baseness, as for hidden virtues and + hidden love, they have no kindness. + </p> + <p> + This was Mme la Duchesse de Langeais’ real position, unknown to the world. + She herself did not reflect upon it. It was the time of the rejoicings + over the Duc de Berri’s marriage. The Court and the Faubourg roused itself + from its listlessness and reserve. This was the real beginning of that + unheard-of splendour which the Government of the Restoration carried too + far. At that time the Duchess, whether for reasons of her own, or from + vanity, never appeared in public without a following of women equally + distinguished by name and fortune. As queen of fashion she had her <i>dames + d’atours</i>, her ladies, who modeled their manner and their wit on hers. + They had been cleverly chosen. None of her satellites belonged to the + inmost Court circle, nor to the highest level of the Faubourg + Saint-Germain; but they had set their minds upon admission to those inner + sanctuaries. Being as yet simple denominations, they wished to rise to the + neighbourhood of the throne, and mingle with the seraphic powers in the + high sphere known as <i>le petit chateau</i>. Thus surrounded, the + Duchess’s position was stronger and more commanding and secure. Her + “ladies” defended her character and helped her to play her detestable part + of a woman of fashion. She could laugh at men at her ease, play with fire, + receive the homage on which the feminine nature is nourished, and remain + mistress of herself. + </p> + <p> + At Paris, in the highest society of all, a woman is a woman still; she + lives on incense, adulation, and honours. No beauty, however undoubted, no + face, however fair, is anything without admiration. Flattery and a lover + are proofs of power. And what is power without recognition? Nothing. If + the prettiest of women were left alone in a corner of a drawing-room, she + would droop. Put her in the very centre and summit of social grandeur, she + will at once aspire to reign over all hearts—often because it is out + of her power to be the happy queen of one. Dress and manner and coquetry + are all meant to please one of the poorest creatures extant—the + brainless coxcomb, whose handsome face is his sole merit; it was for such + as these that women threw themselves away. The gilded wooden idols of the + Restoration, for they were neither more nor less, had neither the + antecedents of the <i>petits maitres</i> of the time of the Fronde, nor + the rough sterling worth of Napoleon’s heroes, not the wit and fine + manners of their grandsires; but something of all three they meant to be + without any trouble to themselves. Brave they were, like all young + Frenchmen; ability they possessed, no doubt, if they had had a chance of + proving it, but their places were filled up by the old worn-out men, who + kept them in leading strings. It was a day of small things, a cold prosaic + era. Perhaps it takes a long time for a Restoration to become a Monarchy. + </p> + <p> + For the past eighteen months the Duchesse de Langeais had been leading + this empty life, filled with balls and subsequent visits, objectless + triumphs, and the transient loves that spring up and die in an evening’s + space. All eyes were turned on her when she entered a room; she reaped her + harvest of flatteries and some few words of warmer admiration, which she + encouraged by a gesture or a glance, but never suffered to penetrate + deeper than the skin. Her tone and bearing and everything else about her + imposed her will upon others. Her life was a sort of fever of vanity and + perpetual enjoyment, which turned her head. She was daring enough in + conversation; she would listen to anything, corrupting the surface, as it + were, of her heart. Yet when she returned home, she often blushed at the + story that had made her laugh; at the scandalous tale that supplied the + details, on the strength of which she analyzed the love that she had never + known, and marked the subtle distinctions of modern passion, not with + comment on the part of complacent hypocrites. For women know how to say + everything among themselves, and more of them are ruined by each other + than corrupted by men. + </p> + <p> + There came a moment when she discerned that not until a woman is loved + will the world fully recognise her beauty and her wit. What does a husband + prove? Simply that a girl or woman was endowed with wealth, or well + brought up; that her mother managed cleverly that in some way she + satisfied a man’s ambitions. A lover constantly bears witness to her + personal perfections. Then followed the discovery still in Mme de + Langeais’ early womanhood, that it was possible to be loved without + committing herself, without permission, without vouchsafing any + satisfaction beyond the most meagre dues. There was more than one demure + feminine hypocrite to instruct her in the art of playing such dangerous + comedies. + </p> + <p> + So the Duchess had her court, and the number of her adorers and courtiers + guaranteed her virtue. She was amiable and fascinating; she flirted till + the ball or the evening’s gaiety was at an end. Then the curtain dropped. + She was cold, indifferent, self-contained again till the next day brought + its renewed sensations, superficial as before. Two or three men were + completely deceived, and fell in love in earnest. She laughed at them, she + was utterly insensible. “I am loved!” she told herself. “He loves me!” The + certainty sufficed her. It is enough for the miser to know that his every + whim might be fulfilled if he chose; so it was with the Duchess, and + perhaps she did not even go so far as to form a wish. + </p> + <p> + One evening she chanced to be at the house of an intimate friend Mme la + Vicomtesse de Fontaine, one of the humble rivals who cordially detested + her, and went with her everywhere. In a “friendship” of this sort both + sides are on their guard, and never lay their armor aside; confidences are + ingeniously indiscreet, and not unfrequently treacherous. Mme de Langeais + had distributed her little patronizing, friendly, or freezing bows, with + the air natural to a woman who knows the worth of her smiles, when her + eyes fell upon a total stranger. Something in the man’s large gravity of + aspect startled her, and, with a feeling almost like dread, she turned to + Mme de Maufrigneuse with, “Who is the newcomer, dear?” + </p> + <p> + “Someone that you have heard of, no doubt. The Marquis de Montriveau.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! is it he?” + </p> + <p> + She took up her eyeglass and submitted him to a very insolent scrutiny, as + if he had been a picture meant to receive glances, not to return them. + </p> + <p> + “Do introduce him; he ought to be interesting.” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody more tiresome and dull, dear. But he is the fashion.” + </p> + <p> + M. Armand de Montriveau, at that moment all unwittingly the object of + general curiosity, better deserved attention than any of the idols that + Paris needs must set up to worship for a brief space, for the city is + vexed by periodical fits of craving, a passion for <i>engouement</i> and + sham enthusiasm, which must be satisfied. The Marquis was the only son of + General de Montriveau, one of the <i>ci-devants</i> who served the + Republic nobly, and fell by Joubert’s side at Novi. Bonaparte had placed + his son at the school at Chalons, with the orphans of other generals who + fell on the battlefield, leaving their children under the protection of + the Republic. Armand de Montriveau left school with his way to make, + entered the artillery, and had only reached a major’s rank at the time of + the Fontainebleau disaster. In his section of the service the chances of + advancement were not many. There are fewer officers, in the first place, + among the gunners than in any other corps; and in the second place, the + feeling in the artillery was decidedly Liberal, not to say Republican; and + the Emperor, feeling little confidence in a body of highly educated men + who were apt to think for themselves, gave promotion grudgingly in the + service. In the artillery, accordingly, the general rule of the army did + not apply; the commanding officers were not invariably the most remarkable + men in their department, because there was less to be feared from + mediocrities. The artillery was a separate corps in those days, and only + came under Napoleon in action. + </p> + <p> + Besides these general causes, other reasons, inherent in Armand de + Montriveau’s character, were sufficient in themselves to account for his + tardy promotion. He was alone in the world. He had been thrown at the age + of twenty into the whirlwind of men directed by Napoleon; his interests + were bounded by himself, any day he might lose his life; it became a habit + of mind with him to live by his own self-respect and the consciousness + that he had done his duty. Like all shy men, he was habitually silent; but + his shyness sprang by no means from timidity; it was a kind of modesty in + him; he found any demonstration of vanity intolerable. There was no sort + of swagger about his fearlessness in action; nothing escaped his eyes; he + could give sensible advice to his chums with unshaken coolness; he could + go under fire, and duck upon occasion to avoid bullets. He was kindly; but + his expression was haughty and stern, and his face gained him this + character. In everything he was rigorous as arithmetic; he never permitted + the slightest deviation from duty on any plausible pretext, nor blinked + the consequences of a fact. He would lend himself to nothing of which he + was ashamed; he never asked anything for himself; in short, Armand de + Montriveau was one of many great men unknown to fame, and philosophical + enough to despise it; living without attaching themselves to life, because + they have not found their opportunity of developing to the full their + power to do and feel. + </p> + <p> + People were afraid of Montriveau; they respected him, but he was not very + popular. Men may indeed allow you to rise above them, but to decline to + descend as low as they can do is the one unpardonable sin. In their + feeling towards loftier natures, there is a trace of hate and fear. Too + much honour with them implies censure of themselves, a thing forgiven + neither to the living nor to the dead. + </p> + <p> + After the Emperor’s farewells at Fontainebleau, Montriveau, noble though + he was, was put on half-pay. Perhaps the heads of the War Office took + fright at uncompromising uprightness worthy of antiquity, or perhaps it + was known that he felt bound by his oath to the Imperial Eagle. During the + Hundred Days he was made a Colonel of the Guard, and left on the field of + Waterloo. His wounds kept him in Belgium he was not present at the + disbanding of the Army of the Loire, but the King’s government declined to + recognise promotion made during the Hundred Days, and Armand de Montriveau + left France. + </p> + <p> + An adventurous spirit, a loftiness of thought hitherto satisfied by the + hazards of war, drove him on an exploring expedition through Upper Egypt; + his sanity or impulse directed his enthusiasm to a project of great + importance, he turned his attention to that unexplored Central Africa + which occupies the learned of today. The scientific expedition was long + and unfortunate. He had made a valuable collection of notes bearing on + various geographical and commercial problems, of which solutions are still + eagerly sought; and succeeded, after surmounting many obstacles, in + reaching the heart of the continent, when he was betrayed into the hands + of a hostile native tribe. Then, stripped of all that he had, for two + years he led a wandering life in the desert, the slave of savages, + threatened with death at every moment, and more cruelly treated than a + dumb animal in the power of pitiless children. Physical strength, and a + mind braced to endurance, enabled him to survive the horrors of that + captivity; but his miraculous escape well-nigh exhausted his energies. + When he reached the French colony at Senegal, a half-dead fugitive covered + with rags, his memories of his former life were dim and shapeless. The + great sacrifices made in his travels were all forgotten like his studies + of African dialects, his discoveries, and observations. One story will + give an idea of all that he passed through. Once for several days the + children of the sheikh of the tribe amused themselves by putting him up + for a mark and flinging horses’ knuckle-bones at his head. + </p> + <p> + Montriveau came back to Paris in 1818 a ruined man. He had no interest, + and wished for none. He would have died twenty times over sooner than ask + a favour of anyone; he would not even press the recognition of his claims. + Adversity and hardship had developed his energy even in trifles, while the + habit of preserving his self-respect before that spiritual self which we + call conscience led him to attach consequence to the most apparently + trivial actions. His merits and adventures became known, however, through + his acquaintances, among the principal men of science in Paris, and some + few well-read military men. The incidents of his slavery and subsequent + escape bore witness to a courage, intelligence, and coolness which won him + celebrity without his knowledge, and that transient fame of which Paris + salons are lavish, though the artist that fain would keep it must make + untold efforts. + </p> + <p> + Montriveau’s position suddenly changed towards the end of that year. He + had been a poor man, he was now rich; or, externally at any rate, he had + all the advantages of wealth. The King’s government, trying to attach + capable men to itself and to strengthen the army, made concessions about + that time to Napoleon’s old officers if their known loyalty and character + offered guarantees of fidelity. M. de Montriveau’s name once more appeared + in the army list with the rank of colonel; he received his arrears of pay + and passed into the Guards. All these favours, one after another, came to + seek the Marquis de Montriveau; he had asked for nothing however small. + Friends had taken the steps for him which he would have refused to take + for himself. + </p> + <p> + After this, his habits were modified all at once; contrary to his custom, + he went into society. He was well received, everywhere he met with great + deference and respect. He seemed to have found some end in life; but + everything passed within the man, there were no external signs; in society + he was silent and cold, and wore a grave, reserved face. His social + success was great, precisely because he stood out in such strong contrast + to the conventional faces which line the walls of Paris salons. He was, + indeed, something quite new there. Terse of speech, like a hermit or a + savage, his shyness was thought to be haughtiness, and people were greatly + taken with it. He was something strange and great. Women generally were so + much the more smitten with this original person because he was not to be + caught by their flatteries, however adroit, nor by the wiles with which + they circumvent the strongest men and corrode the steel temper. Their + Parisian’s grimaces were lost upon M. de Montriveau; his nature only + responded to the sonorous vibration of lofty thought and feeling. And he + would very promptly have been dropped but for the romance that hung about + his adventures and his life; but for the men who cried him up behind his + back; but for a woman who looked for a triumph for her vanity, the woman + who was to fill his thoughts. + </p> + <p> + For these reasons the Duchesse de Langeais’ curiosity was no less lively + than natural. Chance had so ordered it that her interest in the man before + her had been aroused only the day before, when she heard the story of one + of M. de Montriveau’s adventures, a story calculated to make the strongest + impression upon a woman’s ever-changing fancy. + </p> + <p> + During M. de Montriveau’s voyage of discovery to the sources of the Nile, + he had had an argument with one of his guides, surely the most + extraordinary debate in the annals of travel. The district that he wished + to explore could only be reached on foot across a tract of desert. Only + one of his guides knew the way; no traveller had penetrated before into + that part of the country, where the undaunted officer hoped to find a + solution of several scientific problems. In spite of the representations + made to him by the guide and the older men of the place, he started upon + the formidable journey. Summoning up courage, already highly strung by the + prospect of dreadful difficulties, he set out in the morning. + </p> + <p> + The loose sand shifted under his feet at every step; and when, at the end + of a long day’s march, he lay down to sleep on the ground, he had never + been so tired in his life. He knew, however, that he must be up and on his + way before dawn next day, and his guide assured him that they should reach + the end of their journey towards noon. That promise kept up his courage + and gave him new strength. In spite of his sufferings, he continued his + march, with some blasphemings against science; he was ashamed to complain + to his guide, and kept his pain to himself. After marching for a third of + the day, he felt his strength failing, his feet were bleeding, he asked if + they should reach the place soon. “In an hour’s time,” said the guide. + Armand braced himself for another hour’s march, and they went on. + </p> + <p> + The hour slipped by; he could not so much as see against the sky the + palm-trees and crests of hill that should tell of the end of the journey + near at hand; the horizon line of sand was vast as the circle of the open + sea. + </p> + <p> + He came to a stand, refused to go farther, and threatened the guide—he + had deceived him, murdered him; tears of rage and weariness flowed over + his fevered cheeks; he was bowed down with fatigue upon fatigue, his + throat seemed to be glued by the desert thirst. The guide meanwhile stood + motionless, listening to these complaints with an ironical expression, + studying the while, with the apparent indifference of an Oriental, the + scarcely perceptible indications in the lie of the sands, which looked + almost black, like burnished gold. + </p> + <p> + “I have made a mistake,” he remarked coolly. “I could not make out the + track, it is so long since I came this way; we are surely on it now, but + we must push on for two hours.” + </p> + <p> + “The man is right,” thought M. de Montriveau. + </p> + <p> + So he went on again, struggling to follow the pitiless native. It seemed + as if he were bound to his guide by some thread like the invisible tie + between the condemned man and the headsman. But the two hours went by, + Montriveau had spent his last drops of energy, and the skyline was a + blank, there were no palm-trees, no hills. He could neither cry out nor + groan, he lay down on the sand to die, but his eyes would have frightened + the boldest; something in his face seemed to say that he would not die + alone. His guide, like a very fiend, gave him back a cool glance like a + man that knows his power, left him to lie there, and kept at a safe + distance out of reach of his desperate victim. At last M. Montriveau + recovered strength enough for a last curse. The guide came nearer, + silenced him with a steady look, and said, “Was it not your own will to go + where I am taking you, in spite of us all? You say that I have lied to + you. If I had not, you would not be even here. Do you want the truth? Here + it is. <i>We have still another five hours’ march before us, and we cannot + go back</i>. Sound yourself; if you have not courage enough, here is my + dagger.” + </p> + <p> + Startled by this dreadful knowledge of pain and human strength, M. de + Montriveau would not be behind a savage; he drew a fresh stock of courage + from his pride as a European, rose to his feet, and followed his guide. + The five hours were at an end, and still M. de Montriveau saw nothing, he + turned his failing eyes upon his guide; but the Nubian hoisted him on his + shoulders, and showed him a wide pool of water with greenness all about + it, and a noble forest lighted up by the sunset. It lay only a hundred + paces away; a vast ledge of granite hid the glorious landscape. It seemed + to Armand that he had taken a new lease of life. His guide, that giant in + courage and intelligence, finished his work of devotion by carrying him + across the hot, slippery, scarcely discernible track on the granite. + Behind him lay the hell of burning sand, before him the earthly paradise + of the most beautiful oasis in the desert. + </p> + <p> + The Duchess, struck from the first by the appearance of this romantic + figure, was even more impressed when she learned that this was that + Marquis de Montriveau of whom she had dreamed during the night. She had + been with him among the hot desert sands, he had been the companion of her + nightmare wanderings; for such a woman was not this a delightful presage + of a new interest in her life? And never was a man’s exterior a better + exponent of his character; never were curious glances so well justified. + The principal characteristic of his great, square-hewn head was the thick, + luxuriant black hair which framed his face, and gave him a strikingly + close resemblance to General Kleber; and the likeness still held good in + the vigorous forehead, in the outlines of his face, the quiet fearlessness + of his eyes, and a kind of fiery vehemence expressed by strongly marked + features. He was short, deep-chested, and muscular as a lion. There was + something of the despot about him, and an indescribable suggestion of the + security of strength in his gait, bearing, and slightest movements. He + seemed to know that his will was irresistible, perhaps because he wished + for nothing unjust. And yet, like all really strong men, he was mild of + speech, simple in his manners, and kindly natured; although it seemed as + if, in the stress of a great crisis, all these finer qualities must + disappear, and the man would show himself implacable, unshaken in his + resolve, terrific in action. There was a certain drawing in of the inner + line of the lips which, to a close observer, indicated an ironical bent. + </p> + <p> + The Duchesse de Langeais, realising that a fleeting glory was to be won by + such a conquest, made up her mind to gain a lover in Armand de Montriveau + during the brief interval before the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse brought him + to be introduced. She would prefer him above the others; she would attach + him to herself, display all her powers of coquetry for him. It was a + fancy, such a merest Duchess’s whim as furnished a Lope or a Calderon with + the plot of the <i>Dog in the Manger</i>. She would not suffer another + woman to engross him; but she had not the remotest intention of being his. + </p> + <p> + Nature had given the Duchess every qualification for the part of coquette, + and education had perfected her. Women envied her, and men fell in love + with her, not without reason. Nothing that can inspire love, justify it, + and give it lasting empire was wanting in her. Her style of beauty, her + manner, her voice, her bearing, all combined to give her that instinctive + coquetry which seems to be the consciousness of power. Her shape was + graceful; perhaps there was a trace of self-consciousness in her changes + of movement, the one affectation that could be laid to her charge; but + everything about her was a part of her personality, from her least little + gesture to the peculiar turn of her phrases, the demure glance of her + eyes. Her great lady’s grace, her most striking characteristic, had not + destroyed the very French quick mobility of her person. There was an + extraordinary fascination in her swift, incessant changes of attitude. She + seemed as if she surely would be a most delicious mistress when her corset + and the encumbering costume of her part were laid aside. All the rapture + of love surely was latent in the freedom of her expressive glances, in her + caressing tones, in the charm of her words. She gave glimpses of the + high-born courtesan within her, vainly protesting against the creeds of + the duchess. + </p> + <p> + You might sit near her through an evening, she would be gay and melancholy + in turn, and her gaiety, like her sadness, seemed spontaneous. She could + be gracious, disdainful, insolent, or confiding at will. Her apparent good + nature was real; she had no temptation to descend to malignity. But at + each moment her mood changed; she was full of confidence or craft; her + moving tenderness would give place to a heart-breaking hardness and + insensibility. Yet how paint her as she was, without bringing together all + the extremes of feminine nature? In a word, the Duchess was anything that + she wished to be or to seem. Her face was slightly too long. There was a + grace in it, and a certain thinness and fineness that recalled the + portraits of the Middle Ages. Her skin was white, with a faint rose tint. + Everything about her erred, as it were, by an excess of delicacy. + </p> + <p> + M. de Montriveau willingly consented to be introduced to the Duchesse de + Langeais; and she, after the manner of persons whose sensitive taste leads + them to avoid banalities, refrained from overwhelming him with questions + and compliments. She received him with a gracious deference which could + not fail to flatter a man of more than ordinary powers, for the fact that + a man rises above the ordinary level implies that he possesses something + of that tact which makes women quick to read feeling. If the Duchess + showed any curiosity, it was by her glances; her compliments were conveyed + in her manner; there was a winning grace displayed in her words, a subtle + suggestion of a desire to please which she of all women knew the art of + manifesting. Yet her whole conversation was but, in a manner, the body of + the letter; the postscript with the principal thought in it was still to + come. After half an hour spent in ordinary talk, in which the words gained + all their value from her tone and smiles, M. de Montriveau was about to + retire discreetly, when the Duchess stopped him with an expressive + gesture. + </p> + <p> + “I do not know, monsieur, whether these few minutes during which I have + had the pleasure of talking to you proved so sufficiently attractive, that + I may venture to ask you to call upon me; I am afraid that it may be very + selfish of me to wish to have you all to myself. If I should be so + fortunate as to find that my house is agreeable to you, you will always + find me at home in the evening until ten o’clock.” + </p> + <p> + The invitation was given with such irresistible grace, that M. de + Montriveau could not refuse to accept it. When he fell back again among + the groups of men gathered at a distance from the women, his friends + congratulated him, half laughingly, half in earnest, on the extraordinary + reception vouchsafed him by the Duchesse de Langeais. The difficult and + brilliant conquest had been made beyond a doubt, and the glory of it was + reserved for the Artillery of the Guard. It is easy to imagine the jests, + good and bad, when this topic had once been started; the world of Paris + salons is so eager for amusement, and a joke lasts for such a short time, + that everyone is eager to make the most of it while it is fresh. + </p> + <p> + All unconsciously, the General felt flattered by this nonsense. From his + place where he had taken his stand, his eyes were drawn again and again to + the Duchess by countless wavering reflections. He could not help admitting + to himself that of all the women whose beauty had captivated his eyes, not + one had seemed to be a more exquisite embodiment of faults and fair + qualities blended in a completeness that might realise the dreams of + earliest manhood. Is there a man in any rank of life that has not felt + indefinable rapture in his secret soul over the woman singled out (if only + in his dreams) to be his own; when she, in body, soul, and social aspects, + satisfies his every requirement, a thrice perfect woman? And if this + threefold perfection that flatters his pride is no argument for loving + her, it is beyond cavil one of the great inducements to the sentiment. + Love would soon be convalescent, as the eighteenth century moralist + remarked, were it not for vanity. And it is certainly true that for + everyone, man or woman, there is a wealth of pleasure in the superiority + of the beloved. Is she set so high by birth that a contemptuous glance can + never wound her? is she wealthy enough to surround herself with state + which falls nothing short of royalty, of kings, of finance during their + short reign of splendour? is she so ready-witted that a keen-edged jest + never brings her into confusion? beautiful enough to rival any woman?—Is + it such a small thing to know that your self-love will never suffer + through her? A man makes these reflections in the twinkling of an eye. And + how if, in the future opened out by early ripened passion, he catches + glimpses of the changeful delight of her charm, the frank innocence of a + maiden soul, the perils of love’s voyage, the thousand folds of the veil + of coquetry? Is not this enough to move the coldest man’s heart? + </p> + <p> + This, therefore, was M. de Montriveau’s position with regard to woman; his + past life in some measure explaining the extraordinary fact. He had been + thrown, when little more than a boy, into the hurricane of Napoleon’s + wars; his life had been spent on fields of battle. Of women he knew just + so much as a traveller knows of a country when he travels across it in + haste from one inn to another. The verdict which Voltaire passed upon his + eighty years of life might, perhaps, have been applied by Montriveau to + his own thirty-seven years of existence; had he not thirty-seven follies + with which to reproach himself? At his age he was as much a novice in love + as the lad that has just been furtively reading <i>Faublas</i>. Of women + he had nothing to learn; of love he knew nothing; and thus, desires, quite + unknown before, sprang from this virginity of feeling. + </p> + <p> + There are men here and there as much engrossed in the work demanded of + them by poverty or ambition, art or science, as M. de Montriveau by war + and a life of adventure—these know what it is to be in this unusual + position if they very seldom confess to it. Every man in Paris is supposed + to have been in love. No woman in Paris cares to take what other women + have passed over. The dread of being taken for a fool is the source of the + coxcomb’s bragging so common in France; for in France to have the + reputation of a fool is to be a foreigner in one’s own country. Vehement + desire seized on M. de Montriveau, desire that had gathered strength from + the heat of the desert and the first stirrings of a heart unknown as yet + in its suppressed turbulence. + </p> + <p> + A strong man, and violent as he was strong, he could keep mastery over + himself; but as he talked of indifferent things, he retired within + himself, and swore to possess this woman, for through that thought lay the + only way to love for him. Desire became a solemn compact made with + himself, an oath after the manner of the Arabs among whom he had lived; + for among them a vow is a kind of contract made with Destiny a man’s whole + future is solemnly pledged to fulfil it, and everything even his own + death, is regarded simply as a means to the one end. + </p> + <p> + A younger man would have said to himself, “I should very much like to have + the Duchess for my mistress!” or, “If the Duchesse de Langeais cared for a + man, he would be a very lucky rascal!” But the General said, “I will have + Mme de Langeais for my mistress.” And if a man takes such an idea into his + head when his heart has never been touched before, and love begins to be a + kind of religion with him, he little knows in what a hell he has set his + foot. + </p> + <p> + Armand de Montriveau suddenly took flight and went home in the first hot + fever-fit of the first love that he had known. When a man has kept all his + boyish beliefs, illusions, frankness, and impetuosity into middle age, his + first impulse is, as it were, to stretch out a hand to take the thing that + he desires; a little later he realizes that there is a gulf set between + them, and that it is all but impossible to cross it. A sort of childish + impatience seizes him, he wants the thing the more, and trembles or cries. + Wherefore, the next day, after the stormiest reflections that had yet + perturbed his mind, Armand de Montriveau discovered that he was under the + yoke of the senses, and his bondage made the heavier by his love. + </p> + <p> + The woman so cavalierly treated in his thoughts of yesterday had become a + most sacred and dreadful power. She was to be his world, his life, from + this time forth. The greatest joy, the keenest anguish, that he had yet + known grew colorless before the bare recollection of the least sensation + stirred in him by her. The swiftest revolutions in a man’s outward life + only touch his interests, while passion brings a complete revulsion of + feeling. And so in those who live by feeling, rather than by + self-interest, the doers rather than the reasoners, the sanguine rather + than the lymphatic temperaments, love works a complete revolution. In a + flash, with one single reflection, Armand de Montriveau wiped out his + whole past life. + </p> + <p> + A score of times he asked himself, like a boy, “Shall I go, or shall I + not?” and then at last he dressed, came to the Hotel de Langeais towards + eight o’clock that evening, and was admitted. He was to see the woman—ah! + not the woman—the idol that he had seen yesterday, among lights, a + fresh innocent girl in gauze and silken lace and veiling. He burst in upon + her to declare his love, as if it were a question of firing the first shot + on a field of battle. + </p> + <p> + Poor novice! He found his ethereal sylphide shrouded in a brown cashmere + dressing-gown ingeniously befrilled, lying languidly stretched out upon a + sofa in a dimly lighted boudoir. Mme de Langeais did not so much as rise, + nothing was visible of her but her face, her hair was loose but confined + by a scarf. A hand indicated a seat, a hand that seemed white as marble to + Montriveau by the flickering light of a single candle at the further side + of the room, and a voice as soft as the light said: + </p> + <p> + “If it had been anyone else, M. le Marquis, a friend with whom I could + dispense with ceremony, or a mere acquaintance in whom I felt but slight + interest, I should have closed my door. I am exceedingly unwell.” + </p> + <p> + “I will go,” Armand said to himself. + </p> + <p> + “But I do not know how it is,” she continued (and the simple warrior + attributed the shining of her eyes to fever), “perhaps it was a + presentiment of your kind visit (and no one can be more sensible of the + prompt attention than I), but the vapors have left my head.” + </p> + <p> + “Then may I stay?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I should be very sorry to allow you to go. I told myself this morning + that it was impossible that I should have made the slightest impression on + your mind, and that in all probability you took my request for one of the + commonplaces of which Parisians are lavish on every occasion. And I + forgave your ingratitude in advance. An explorer from the deserts is not + supposed to know how exclusive we are in our friendships in the Faubourg.” + </p> + <p> + The gracious, half-murmured words dropped one by one, as if they had been + weighted with the gladness that apparently brought them to her lips. The + Duchess meant to have the full benefit of her headache, and her + speculation was fully successful. The General, poor man, was really + distressed by the lady’s simulated distress. Like Crillon listening to the + story of the Crucifixion, he was ready to draw his sword against the + vapors. How could a man dare to speak just then to this suffering woman of + the love that she inspired? Armand had already felt that it would be + absurd to fire off a declaration of love point-blank at one so far above + other women. With a single thought came understanding of the delicacies of + feeling, of the soul’s requirements. To love: what was that but to know + how to plead, to beg for alms, to wait? And as for the love that he felt, + must he not prove it? His tongue was mute, it was frozen by the + conventions of the noble Faubourg, the majesty of a sick headache, the + bashfulness of love. But no power on earth could veil his glances; the + heat and the Infinite of the desert blazed in eyes calm as a panther’s, + beneath the lids that fell so seldom. The Duchess enjoyed the steady gaze + that enveloped her in light and warmth. + </p> + <p> + “Mme la Duchesse,” he answered, “I am afraid I express my gratitude for + your goodness very badly. At this moment I have but one desire—I + wish it were in my power to cure the pain.” + </p> + <p> + “Permit me to throw this off, I feel too warm now,” she said, gracefully + tossing aside a cushion that covered her feet. + </p> + <p> + “Madame, in Asia your feet would be worth some ten thousand sequins. + </p> + <p> + “A traveler’s compliment!” smiled she. + </p> + <p> + It pleased the sprightly lady to involve a rough soldier in a labyrinth of + nonsense, commonplaces, and meaningless talk, in which he manoeuvred, in + military language, as Prince Charles might have done at close quarters + with Napoleon. She took a mischievous amusement in reconnoitring the + extent of his infatuation by the number of foolish speeches extracted from + a novice whom she led step by step into a hopeless maze, meaning to leave + him there in confusion. She began by laughing at him, but nevertheless it + pleased her to make him forget how time went. + </p> + <p> + The length of a first visit is frequently a compliment, but Armand was + innocent of any such intent. The famous explorer spent an hour in chat on + all sorts of subjects, said nothing that he meant to say, and was feeling + that he was only an instrument on whom this woman played, when she rose, + sat upright, drew the scarf from her hair, and wrapped it about her + throat, leant her elbow on the cushions, did him the honour of a complete + cure, and rang for lights. The most graceful movement succeeded to + complete repose. She turned to M. de Montriveau, from whom she had just + extracted a confidence which seemed to interest her deeply, and said: + </p> + <p> + “You wish to make game of me by trying to make me believe that you have + never loved. It is a man’s great pretension with us. And we always believe + it! Out of pure politeness. Do we not know what to expect from it for + ourselves? Where is the man that has found but a single opportunity of + losing his heart? But you love to deceive us, and we submit to be + deceived, poor foolish creatures that we are; for your hypocrisy is, after + all, a homage paid to the superiority of our sentiments, which are all + purity.” + </p> + <p> + The last words were spoken with a disdainful pride that made the novice in + love feel like a worthless bale flung into the deep, while the Duchess was + an angel soaring back to her particular heaven. + </p> + <p> + “Confound it!” thought Armand de Montriveau, “how am I to tell this wild + thing that I love her?” + </p> + <p> + He had told her already a score of times; or rather, the Duchess had a + score of times read his secret in his eyes; and the passion in this + unmistakably great man promised her amusement, and an interest in her + empty life. So she prepared with no little dexterity to raise a certain + number of redoubts for him to carry by storm before he should gain an + entrance into her heart. Montriveau should overleap one difficulty after + another; he should be a plaything for her caprice, just as an insect + teased by children is made to jump from one finger to another, and in + spite of all its pains is kept in the same place by its mischievous + tormentor. And yet it gave the Duchess inexpressible happiness to see that + this strong man had told her the truth. Armand had never loved, as he had + said. He was about to go, in a bad humour with himself, and still more out + of humour with her; but it delighted her to see a sullenness that she + could conjure away with a word, a glance, or a gesture. + </p> + <p> + “Will you come tomorrow evening?” she asked. “I am going to a ball, but I + shall stay at home for you until ten o’clock.” + </p> + <p> + Montriveau spent most of the next day in smoking an indeterminate quantity + of cigars in his study window, and so got through the hours till he could + dress and go to the Hotel de Langeais. To anyone who had known the + magnificent worth of the man, it would have been grievous to see him grown + so small, so distrustful of himself; the mind that might have shed light + over undiscovered worlds shrunk to the proportions of a she-coxcomb’s + boudoir. Even he himself felt that he had fallen so low already in his + happiness that to save his life he could not have told his love to one of + his closest friends. Is there not always a trace of shame in the lover’s + bashfulness, and perhaps in woman a certain exultation over diminished + masculine stature? Indeed, but for a host of motives of this kind, how + explain why women are nearly always the first to betray the secret?—a + secret of which, perhaps, they soon weary. + </p> + <p> + “Mme la Duchesse cannot see visitors, monsieur,” said the man; “she is + dressing, she begs you to wait for her here.” + </p> + <p> + Armand walked up and down the drawing-room, studying her taste in the + least details. He admired Mme de Langeais herself in the objects of her + choosing; they revealed her life before he could grasp her personality and + ideas. About an hour later the Duchess came noiselessly out of her + chamber. Montriveau turned, saw her flit like a shadow across the room, + and trembled. She came up to him, not with a bourgeoise’s enquiry, “How do + I look?” She was sure of herself; her steady eyes said plainly, “I am + adorned to please you.” + </p> + <p> + No one surely, save the old fairy godmother of some princess in disguise, + could have wound a cloud of gauze about the dainty throat, so that the + dazzling satin skin beneath should gleam through the gleaming folds. The + Duchess was dazzling. The pale blue colour of her gown, repeated in the + flowers in her hair, appeared by the richness of its hue to lend substance + to a fragile form grown too wholly ethereal; for as she glided towards + Armand, the loose ends of her scarf floated about her, putting that + valiant warrior in mind of the bright damosel flies that hover now over + water, now over the flowers with which they seem to mingle and blend. + </p> + <p> + “I have kept you waiting,” she said, with the tone that a woman can always + bring into her voice for the man whom she wishes to please. + </p> + <p> + “I would wait patiently through an eternity,” said he, “if I were sure of + finding a divinity so fair; but it is no compliment to speak of your + beauty to you; nothing save worship could touch you. Suffer me only to + kiss your scarf.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, fie!” she said, with a commanding gesture, “I esteem you enough to + give you my hand.” + </p> + <p> + She held it out for his kiss. A woman’s hand, still moist from the scented + bath, has a soft freshness, a velvet smoothness that sends a tingling + thrill from the lips to the soul. And if a man is attracted to a woman, + and his senses are as quick to feel pleasure as his heart is full of love, + such a kiss, though chaste in appearance, may conjure up a terrific storm. + </p> + <p> + “Will you always give it me like this?” the General asked humbly when he + had pressed that dangerous hand respectfully to his lips. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but there we must stop,” she said, smiling. She sat down, and seemed + very slow over putting on her gloves, trying to slip the unstretched kid + over all her fingers at once, while she watched M. de Montriveau; and he + was lost in admiration of the Duchess and those repeated graceful + movements of hers. + </p> + <p> + “Ah! you were punctual,” she said; “that is right. I like punctuality. It + is the courtesy of kings, His Majesty says; but to my thinking, from you + men it is the most respectful flattery of all. Now, is it not? Just tell + me.” + </p> + <p> + Again she gave him a side glance to express her insidious friendship, for + he was dumb with happiness sheer happiness through such nothings as these! + Oh, the Duchess understood <i>son metier de femme</i>—the art and + mystery of being a woman—most marvelously well; she knew, to + admiration, how to raise a man in his own esteem as he humbled himself to + her; how to reward every step of the descent to sentimental folly with + hollow flatteries. + </p> + <p> + “You will never forget to come at nine o’clock.” + </p> + <p> + “No; but are you going to a ball every night?” + </p> + <p> + “Do I know?” she answered, with a little childlike shrug of the shoulders; + the gesture was meant to say that she was nothing if not capricious, and + that a lover must take her as she was.—“Besides,” she added, “what + is that to you? You shall be my escort.” + </p> + <p> + “That would be difficult tonight,” he objected; “I am not properly + dressed.” + </p> + <p> + “It seems to me,” she returned loftily, “that if anyone has a right to + complain of your costume, it is I. Know, therefore, <i>monsieur le + voyageur</i>, that if I accept a man’s arm, he is forthwith above the laws + of fashion, nobody would venture to criticise him. You do not know the + world, I see; I like you the better for it.” + </p> + <p> + And even as she spoke she swept him into the pettiness of that world by + the attempt to initiate him into the vanities of a woman of fashion. + </p> + <p> + “If she chooses to do a foolish thing for me, I should be a simpleton to + prevent her,” said Armand to himself. “She has a liking for me beyond a + doubt; and as for the world, she cannot despise it more than I do. So, now + for the ball if she likes.” + </p> + <p> + The Duchess probably thought that if the General came with her and + appeared in a ballroom in boots and a black tie, nobody would hesitate to + believe that he was violently in love with her. And the General was well + pleased that the queen of fashion should think of compromising herself for + him; hope gave him wit. He had gained confidence, he brought out his + thoughts and views; he felt nothing of the restraint that weighed on his + spirits yesterday. His talk was interesting and animated, and full of + those first confidences so sweet to make and to receive. + </p> + <p> + Was Mme de Langeais really carried away by his talk, or had she devised + this charming piece of coquetry? At any rate, she looked up mischievously + as the clock struck twelve. + </p> + <p> + “Ah! you have made me too late for the ball!” she exclaimed, surprised and + vexed that she had forgotten how time was going. + </p> + <p> + The next moment she approved the exchange of pleasures with a smile that + made Armand’s heart give a sudden leap. + </p> + <p> + “I certainly promised Mme de Beauseant,” she added. “They are all + expecting me.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well—go.” + </p> + <p> + “No—go on. I will stay. Your Eastern adventures fascinate me. Tell + me the whole story of your life. I love to share in a brave man’s + hardships, and I feel them all, indeed I do!” + </p> + <p> + She was playing with her scarf, twisting it and pulling it to pieces, with + jerky, impatient movements that seemed to tell of inward dissatisfaction + and deep reflection. + </p> + <p> + “<i>We</i> are fit for nothing,” she went on. “Ah! we are contemptible, + selfish, frivolous creatures. We can bore ourselves with amusements, and + that is all we can do. Not one of us that understands that she has a part + to play in life. In old days in France, women were beneficent lights; they + lived to comfort those that mourned, to encourage high virtues, to reward + artists and stir new life with noble thoughts. If the world has grown so + petty, ours is the fault. You make me loathe the ball and this world in + which I live. No, I am not giving up much for you.” + </p> + <p> + She had plucked her scarf to pieces, as a child plays with a flower, + pulling away all the petals one by one; and now she crushed it into a + ball, and flung it away. She could show her swan’s neck. + </p> + <p> + She rang the bell. “I shall not go out tonight,” she told the footman. Her + long, blue eyes turned timidly to Armand; and by the look of misgiving in + them, he knew that he was meant to take the order for a confession, for a + first and great favour. There was a pause, filled with many thoughts, + before she spoke with that tenderness which is often in women’s voices, + and not so often in their hearts. “You have had a hard life,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “No,” returned Armand. “Until today I did not know what happiness was.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you know it now?” she asked, looking at him with a demure, keen + glance. + </p> + <p> + “What is happiness for me henceforth but this—to see you, to hear + you?... Until now I have only known privation; now I know that I can be + unhappy——” + </p> + <p> + “That will do, that will do,” she said. “You must go; it is past midnight. + Let us regard appearances. People must not talk about us. I do not know + quite what I shall say; but the headache is a good-natured friend, and + tells no tales.” + </p> + <p> + “Is there to be a ball tomorrow night?” + </p> + <p> + “You would grow accustomed to the life, I think. Very well. Yes, we will + go again tomorrow night.” + </p> + <p> + There was not a happier man in the world than Armand when he went out from + her. Every evening he came to Mme de Langeais’ at the hour kept for him by + a tacit understanding. + </p> + <p> + It would be tedious, and, for the many young men who carry a redundance of + such sweet memories in their hearts, it were superfluous to follow the + story step by step—the progress of a romance growing in those hours + spent together, a romance controlled entirely by a woman’s will. If + sentiment went too fast, she would raise a quarrel over a word, or when + words flagged behind her thoughts, she appealed to the feelings. Perhaps + the only way of following such Penelope’s progress is by marking its + outward and visible signs. + </p> + <p> + As, for instance, within a few days of their first meeting, the assiduous + General had won and kept the right to kiss his lady’s insatiable hands. + Wherever Mme de Langeais went, M. de Montriveau was certain to be seen, + till people jokingly called him “Her Grace’s orderly.” And already he had + made enemies; others were jealous, and envied him his position. Mme de + Langeais had attained her end. The Marquis de Montriveau was among her + numerous train of adorers, and a means of humiliating those who boasted of + their progress in her good graces, for she publicly gave him preference + over them all. + </p> + <p> + “Decidedly, M. de Montriveau is the man for whom the Duchess shows a + preference,” pronounced Mme de Serizy. + </p> + <p> + And who in Paris does not know what it means when a woman “shows a + preference?” All went on therefore according to prescribed rule. The + anecdotes which people were pleased to circulate concerning the General + put that warrior in so formidable a light, that the more adroit quietly + dropped their pretensions to the Duchess, and remained in her train merely + to turn the position to account, and to use her name and personality to + make better terms for themselves with certain stars of the second + magnitude. And those lesser powers were delighted to take a lover away + from Mme de Langeais. The Duchess was keen-sighted enough to see these + desertions and treaties with the enemy; and her pride would not suffer her + to be the dupe of them. As M. de Talleyrand, one of her great admirers, + said, she knew how to take a second edition of revenge, laying the + two-edged blade of a sarcasm between the pairs in these “morganatic” + unions. Her mocking disdain contributed not a little to increase her + reputation as an extremely clever woman and a person to be feared. Her + character for virtue was consolidated while she amused herself with other + people’s secrets, and kept her own to herself. Yet, after two months of + assiduities, she saw with a vague dread in the depths of her soul that M. + de Montriveau understood nothing of the subtleties of flirtation after the + manner of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; he was taking a Parisienne’s + coquetry in earnest. + </p> + <p> + “You will not tame <i>him</i>, dear Duchess,” the old Vidame de Pamiers + had said. “‘Tis a first cousin to the eagle; he will carry you off to his + eyrie if you do not take care.” + </p> + <p> + Then Mme de Langeais felt afraid. The shrewd old noble’s words sounded + like a prophecy. The next day she tried to turn love to hate. She was + harsh, exacting, irritable, unbearable; Montriveau disarmed her with + angelic sweetness. She so little knew the great generosity of a large + nature, that the kindly jests with which her first complaints were met + went to her heart. She sought a quarrel, and found proofs of affection. + She persisted. + </p> + <p> + “When a man idolizes you, how can he have vexed you?” asked Armand. + </p> + <p> + “You do not vex me,” she answered, suddenly grown gentle and submissive. + “But why do you wish to compromise me? For me you ought to be nothing but + a <i>friend</i>. Do you not know it? I wish I could see that you had the + instincts, the delicacy of real friendship, so that I might lose neither + your respect nor the pleasure that your presence gives me.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing but your <i>friend</i>!” he cried out. The terrible word sent an + electric shock through his brain. “On the faith of these happy hours that + you grant me, I sleep and wake in your heart. And now today, for no + reason, you are pleased to destroy all the secret hopes by which I live. + You have required promises of such constancy in me, you have said so much + of your horror of women made up of nothing but caprice; and now do you + wish me to understand that, like other women here in Paris, you have + passions, and know nothing of love? If so, why did you ask my life of me? + why did you accept it?” + </p> + <p> + “I was wrong, my friend. Oh, it is wrong of a woman to yield to such + intoxication when she must not and cannot make any return.” + </p> + <p> + “I understand. You have merely been coquetting with me, and——” + </p> + <p> + “Coquetting?” she repeated. “I detest coquetry. A coquette Armand, makes + promises to many, and gives herself to none; and a woman who keeps such + promises is a libertine. This much I believed I had grasped of our code. + But to be melancholy with humorists, gay with the frivolous, and politic + with ambitious souls; to listen to a babbler with every appearance of + admiration, to talk of war with a soldier, wax enthusiastic with + philanthropists over the good of the nation, and to give to each one his + little dole of flattery—it seems to me that this is as much a matter + of necessity as dress, diamonds, and gloves, or flowers in one’s hair. + Such talk is the moral counterpart of the toilette. You take it up and lay + it aside with the plumed head-dress. Do you call this coquetry? Why, I + have never treated you as I treat everyone else. With you, my friend, I am + sincere. Have I not always shared your views, and when you convinced me + after a discussion, was I not always perfectly glad? In short, I love you, + but only as a devout and pure woman may love. I have thought it over. I am + a married woman, Armand. My way of life with M. de Langeais gives me + liberty to bestow my heart; but law and custom leave me no right to + dispose of my person. If a woman loses her honour, she is an outcast in + any rank of life; and I have yet to meet with a single example of a man + that realizes all that our sacrifices demand of him in such a case. Quite + otherwise. Anyone can foresee the rupture between Mme de Beauseant and M. + d’Ajuda (for he is going to marry Mlle de Rochefide, it seems), that + affair made it clear to my mind that these very sacrifices on the woman’s + part are almost always the cause of the man’s desertion. If you had loved + me sincerely, you would have kept away for a time.—Now, I will lay + aside all vanity for you; is not that something? What will not people say + of a woman to whom no man attaches himself? Oh, she is heartless, + brainless, soulless; and what is more, devoid of charm! Coquettes will not + spare me. They will rob me of the very qualities that mortify them. So + long as my reputation is safe, what do I care if my rivals deny my merits? + They certainly will not inherit them. Come, my friend; give up something + for her who sacrifices so much for you. Do not come quite so often; I + shall love you none the less.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” said Armand, with the profound irony of a wounded heart in his words + and tone. “Love, so the scribblers say, only feeds on illusions. Nothing + could be truer, I see; I am expected to imagine that I am loved. But, + there!—there are some thoughts like wounds, from which there is no + recovery. My belief in you was one of the last left to me, and now I see + that there is nothing left to believe in this earth.” + </p> + <p> + She began to smile. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Montriveau went on in an unsteady voice, “this Catholic faith to + which you wish to convert me is a lie that men make for themselves; hope + is a lie at the expense of the future; pride, a lie between us and our + fellows; and pity, and prudence, and terror are cunning lies. And now my + happiness is to be one more lying delusion; I am expected to delude + myself, to be willing to give gold coin for silver to the end. If you can + so easily dispense with my visits; if you can confess me neither as your + friend nor your lover, you do not care for me! And I, poor fool that I am, + tell myself this, and know it, and love you!” + </p> + <p> + “But, dear me, poor Armand, you are flying into a passion!” + </p> + <p> + “I flying into a passion?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. You think that the whole question is opened because I ask you to be + careful.” + </p> + <p> + In her heart of hearts she was delighted with the anger that leapt out in + her lover’s eyes. Even as she tortured him, she was criticising him, + watching every slightest change that passed over his face. If the General + had been so unluckily inspired as to show himself generous without + discussion (as happens occasionally with some artless souls), he would + have been a banished man forever, accused and convicted of not knowing how + to love. Most women are not displeased to have their code of right and + wrong broken through. Do they not flatter themselves that they never yield + except to force? But Armand was not learned enough in this kind of lore to + see the snare ingeniously spread for him by the Duchess. So much of the + child was there in the strong man in love. + </p> + <p> + “If all you want is to preserve appearances,” he began in his simplicity, + “I am willing to——” + </p> + <p> + “Simply to preserve appearances!” the lady broke in; “why, what idea can + you have of me? Have I given you the slightest reason to suppose that I + can be yours?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, what else are we talking about?” demanded Montriveau. + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur, you frighten me!... No, pardon me. Thank you,” she added, + coldly; “thank you, Armand. You have given me timely warning of + imprudence; committed quite unconsciously, believe it, my friend. You know + how to endure, you say. I also know how to endure. We will not see each + other for a time; and then, when both of us have contrived to recover + calmness to some extent, we will think about arrangements for a happiness + sanctioned by the world. I am young, Armand; a man with no delicacy might + tempt a woman of four-and-twenty to do many foolish, wild things for his + sake. But <i>you</i>! You will be my friend, promise me that you will?” + </p> + <p> + “The woman of four-and-twenty,” returned he, “knows what she is about.” + </p> + <p> + He sat down on the sofa in the boudoir, and leant his head on his hands. + </p> + <p> + “Do you love me, madame?” he asked at length, raising his head, and + turning a face full of resolution upon her. “Say it straight out; Yes or + No!” + </p> + <p> + His direct question dismayed the Duchess more than a threat of suicide + could have done; indeed, the woman of the nineteenth century is not to be + frightened by that stale stratagem, the sword has ceased to be part of the + masculine costume. But in the effect of eyelids and lashes, in the + contraction of the gaze, in the twitching of the lips, is there not some + influence that communicates the terror which they express with such vivid + magnetic power? + </p> + <p> + “Ah, if I were free, if——” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! is it only your husband that stands in the way?” the General + exclaimed joyfully, as he strode to and fro in the boudoir. “Dear + Antoinette, I wield a more absolute power than the Autocrat of all the + Russias. I have a compact with Fate; I can advance or retard destiny, so + far as men are concerned, at my fancy, as you alter the hands of a watch. + If you can direct the course of fate in our political machinery, it simply + means (does it not?) that you understand the ins and outs of it. You shall + be free before very long, and then you must remember your promise.” + </p> + <p> + “Armand!” she cried. “What do you mean? Great heavens! Can you imagine + that I am to be the prize of a crime? Do you want to kill me? Why! you + cannot have any religion in you! For my own part, I fear God. M. de + Langeais may have given me reason to hate him, but I wish him no manner of + harm.” + </p> + <p> + M. de Montriveau beat a tattoo on the marble chimney-piece, and only + looked composedly at the lady. + </p> + <p> + “Dear,” continued she, “respect him. He does not love me, he is not kind + to me, but I have duties to fulfil with regard to him. What would I not do + to avert the calamities with which you threaten him?—Listen,” she + continued after a pause, “I will not say another word about separation; + you shall come here as in the past, and I will still give you my forehead + to kiss. If I refused once or twice, it was pure coquetry, indeed it was. + But let us understand each other,” she added as he came closer. “You will + permit me to add to the number of my satellites; to receive even more + visitors in the morning than heretofore; I mean to be twice as frivolous; + I mean to use you to all appearance very badly; to feign a rupture; you + must come not quite so often, and then, afterwards——” + </p> + <p> + While she spoke, she had allowed him to put an arm about her waist, + Montriveau was holding her tightly to him, and she seemed to feel the + exceeding pleasure that women usually feel in that close contact, an + earnest of the bliss of a closer union. And then, doubtless she meant to + elicit some confidence, for she raised herself on tiptoe, and laid her + forehead against Armand’s burning lips. + </p> + <p> + “And then,” Montriveau finished her sentence for her, “you shall not speak + to me of your husband. You ought not to think of him again.” + </p> + <p> + Mme de Langeais was silent awhile. + </p> + <p> + “At least,” she said, after a significant pause, “at least you will do all + that I wish without grumbling, you will not be naughty; tell me so, my + friend? You wanted to frighten me, did you not? Come, now, confess it?... + You are too good ever to think of crimes. But is it possible that you can + have secrets that I do not know? How can you control Fate?” + </p> + <p> + “Now, when you confirm the gift of the heart that you have already given + me, I am far too happy to know exactly how to answer you. I can trust you, + Antoinette; I shall have no suspicion, no unfounded jealousy of you. But + if accident should set you free, we shall be one——” + </p> + <p> + “Accident, Armand?” (With that little dainty turn of the head that seems + to say so many things, a gesture that such women as the Duchess can use on + light occasions, as a great singer can act with her voice.) “Pure + accident,” she repeated. “Mind that. If anything should happen to M. de + Langeais by your fault, I should never be yours.” + </p> + <p> + And so they parted, mutually content. The Duchess had made a pact that + left her free to prove to the world by words and deeds that M. de + Montriveau was no lover of hers. And as for him, the wily Duchess vowed to + tire him out. He should have nothing of her beyond the little concessions + snatched in the course of contests that she could stop at her pleasure. + She had so pretty an art of revoking the grant of yesterday, she was so + much in earnest in her purpose to remain technically virtuous, that she + felt that there was not the slightest danger for her in preliminaries + fraught with peril for a woman less sure of her self-command. After all, + the Duchess was practically separated from her husband; a marriage long + since annulled was no great sacrifice to make to her love. + </p> + <p> + Montriveau on his side was quite happy to win the vaguest promise, glad + once for all to sweep aside, with all scruples of conjugal fidelity, her + stock of excuses for refusing herself to his love. He had gained ground a + little, and congratulated himself. And so for a time he took unfair + advantage of the rights so hardly won. More a boy than he had ever been in + his life, he gave himself up to all the childishness that makes first love + the flower of life. He was a child again as he poured out all his soul, + all the thwarted forces that passion had given him, upon her hands, upon + the dazzling forehead that looked so pure to his eyes; upon her fair hair; + on the tufted curls where his lips were pressed. And the Duchess, on whom + his love was poured like a flood, was vanquished by the magnetic influence + of her lover’s warmth; she hesitated to begin the quarrel that must part + them forever. She was more a woman than she thought, this slight creature, + in her effort to reconcile the demands of religion with the ever-new + sensations of vanity, the semblance of pleasure which turns a Parisienne’s + head. Every Sunday she went to Mass; she never missed a service; then, + when evening came, she was steeped in the intoxicating bliss of repressed + desire. Armand and Mme de Langeais, like Hindoo fakirs, found the reward + of their continence in the temptations to which it gave rise. Possibly, + the Duchess had ended by resolving love into fraternal caresses, harmless + enough, as it might have seemed to the rest of the world, while they + borrowed extremes of degradation from the license of her thoughts. How + else explain the incomprehensible mystery of her continual fluctuations? + Every morning she proposed to herself to shut her door on the Marquis de + Montriveau; every evening, at the appointed hour, she fell under the charm + of his presence. There was a languid defence; then she grew less unkind. + Her words were sweet and soothing. They were lovers—lovers only + could have been thus. For him the Duchess would display her most sparkling + wit, her most captivating wiles; and when at last she had wrought upon his + senses and his soul, she might submit herself passively to his fierce + caresses, but she had her <i>nec plus ultra</i> of passion; and when once + it was reached, she grew angry if he lost the mastery of himself and made + as though he would pass beyond. No woman on earth can brave the + consequences of refusal without some motive; nothing is more natural than + to yield to love; wherefore Mme de Langeais promptly raised a second line + of fortification, a stronghold less easy to carry than the first. She + evoked the terrors of religion. Never did Father of the Church, however + eloquent, plead the cause of God better than the Duchess. Never was the + wrath of the Most High better justified than by her voice. She used no + preacher’s commonplaces, no rhetorical amplifications. No. She had a + “pulpit-tremor” of her own. To Armand’s most passionate entreaty, she + replied with a tearful gaze, and a gesture in which a terrible plenitude + of emotion found expression. She stopped his mouth with an appeal for + mercy. She would not hear another word; if she did, she must succumb; and + better death than criminal happiness. + </p> + <p> + “Is it nothing to disobey God?” she asked him, recovering a voice grown + faint in the crises of inward struggles, through which the fair actress + appeared to find it hard to preserve her self-control. “I would sacrifice + society, I would give up the whole world for you, gladly; but it is very + selfish of you to ask my whole after-life of me for a moment of pleasure. + Come, now! are you not happy?” she added, holding out her hand; and + certainly in her careless toilette the sight of her afforded consolations + to her lover, who made the most of them. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes from policy, to keep her hold on a man whose ardent passion gave + her emotions unknown before, sometimes in weakness, she suffered him to + snatch a swift kiss; and immediately, in feigned terror, she flushed red + and exiled Armand from the sofa so soon as the sofa became dangerous + ground. + </p> + <p> + “Your joys are sins for me to expiate, Armand; they are paid for by + penitence and remorse,” she cried. + </p> + <p> + And Montriveau, now at two chairs’ distance from that aristocratic + petticoat, betook himself to blasphemy and railed against Providence. The + Duchess grew angry at such times. + </p> + <p> + “My friend,” she said drily, “I do not understand why you decline to + believe in God, for it is impossible to believe in man. Hush, do not talk + like that. You have too great a nature to take up their Liberal nonsense + with its pretension to abolish God.” + </p> + <p> + Theological and political disputes acted like a cold douche on Montriveau; + he calmed down; he could not return to love when the Duchess stirred up + his wrath by suddenly setting him down a thousand miles away from the + boudoir, discussing theories of absolute monarchy, which she defended to + admiration. Few women venture to be democrats; the attitude of democratic + champion is scarcely compatible with tyrannous feminine sway. But often, + on the other hand, the General shook out his mane, dropped politics with a + leonine growling and lashing of the flanks, and sprang upon his prey; he + was no longer capable of carrying a heart and brain at such variance for + very far; he came back, terrible with love, to his mistress. And she, if + she felt the prick of fancy stimulated to a dangerous point, knew that it + was time to leave her boudoir; she came out of the atmosphere surcharged + with desires that she drew in with her breath, sat down to the piano, and + sang the most exquisite songs of modern music, and so baffled the physical + attraction which at times showed her no mercy, though she was strong + enough to fight it down. + </p> + <p> + At such times she was something sublime in Armand’s eyes; she was not + acting, she was genuine; the unhappy lover was convinced that she loved + him. Her egoistic resistance deluded him into a belief that she was a pure + and sainted woman; he resigned himself; he talked of Platonic love, did + this artillery officer! + </p> + <p> + When Mme de Langeais had played with religion sufficiently to suit her own + purposes, she played with it again for Armand’s benefit. She wanted to + bring him back to a Christian frame of mind; she brought out her edition + of <i>Le Genie du Christianisme</i>, adapted for the use of military men. + Montriveau chafed; his yoke was heavy. Oh! at that, possessed by the + spirit of contradiction, she dinned religion into his ears, to see whether + God might not rid her of this suitor, for the man’s persistence was + beginning to frighten her. And in any case she was glad to prolong any + quarrel, if it bade fair to keep the dispute on moral grounds for an + indefinite period; the material struggle which followed it was more + dangerous. + </p> + <p> + But if the time of her opposition on the ground of the marriage law might + be said to be the <i>epoque civile</i> of this sentimental warfare, the + ensuing phase which might be taken to constitute the <i>epoque religieuse</i> + had also its crisis and consequent decline of severity. + </p> + <p> + Armand happening to come in very early one evening, found M. l’Abbe + Gondrand, the Duchess’s spiritual director, established in an armchair by + the fireside, looking as a spiritual director might be expected to look + while digesting his dinner and the charming sins of his penitent. In the + ecclesiastic’s bearing there was a stateliness befitting a dignitary of + the Church; and the episcopal violet hue already appeared in his dress. At + sight of his fresh, well-preserved complexion, smooth forehead, and + ascetic’s mouth, Montriveau’s countenance grew uncommonly dark; he said + not a word under the malicious scrutiny of the other’s gaze, and greeted + neither the lady nor the priest. The lover apart, Montriveau was not + wanting in tact; so a few glances exchanged with the bishop-designate told + him that here was the real forger of the Duchess’s armory of scruples. + </p> + <p> + That an ambitious abbe should control the happiness of a man of + Montriveau’s temper, and by underhand ways! The thought burst in a furious + tide over his face, clenched his fists, and set him chafing and pacing to + and fro; but when he came back to his place intending to make a scene, a + single look from the Duchess was enough. He was quiet. + </p> + <p> + Any other woman would have been put out by her lover’s gloomy silence; it + was quite otherwise with Mme de Langeais. She continued her conversation + with M. de Gondrand on the necessity of re-establishing the Church in its + ancient splendour. And she talked brilliantly. + </p> + <p> + The Church, she maintained, ought to be a temporal as well as a spiritual + power, stating her case better than the Abbe had done, and regretting that + the Chamber of Peers, unlike the English House of Lords, had no bench of + bishops. Nevertheless, the Abbe rose, yielded his place to the General, + and took his leave, knowing that in Lent he could play a return game. As + for the Duchess, Montriveau’s behaviour had excited her curiosity to such + a pitch that she scarcely rose to return her director’s low bow. + </p> + <p> + “What is the matter with you, my friend?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, I cannot stomach that Abbe of yours.” + </p> + <p> + “Why did you not take a book?” she asked, careless whether the Abbe, then + closing the door, heard her or no. + </p> + <p> + The General paused, for the gesture which accompanied the Duchess’s speech + further increased the exceeding insolence of her words. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Antoinette, thank you for giving love precedence of the Church; + but, for pity’s sake, allow me to ask one question.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! you are questioning me! I am quite willing. You are my friend, are + you not? I certainly can open the bottom of my heart to you; you will see + only one image there.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you talk about our love to that man?” + </p> + <p> + “He is my confessor.” + </p> + <p> + “Does he know that I love you?” + </p> + <p> + “M. de Montriveau, you cannot claim, I think, to penetrate the secrets of + the confessional?” + </p> + <p> + “Does that man know all about our quarrels and my love for you?” + </p> + <p> + “That man, monsieur; say God!” + </p> + <p> + “God again! <i>I</i> ought to be alone in your heart. But leave God alone + where He is, for the love of God and me. Madame, you <i>shall not</i> go + to confession again, or——” + </p> + <p> + “Or?” she repeated sweetly. + </p> + <p> + “Or I will never come back here.” + </p> + <p> + “Then go, Armand. Good-bye, good-bye forever.” + </p> + <p> + She rose and went to her boudoir without so much as a glance at Armand, as + he stood with his hand on the back of a chair. How long he stood there + motionless he himself never knew. The soul within has the mysterious power + of expanding as of contracting space. + </p> + <p> + He opened the door of the boudoir. It was dark within. A faint voice was + raised to say sharply: + </p> + <p> + “I did not ring. What made you come in without orders? Go away, Suzette.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you are ill,” exclaimed Montriveau. + </p> + <p> + “Stand up, monsieur, and go out of the room for a minute at any rate,” she + said, ringing the bell. + </p> + <p> + “Mme la Duchesse rang for lights?” said the footman, coming in with the + candles. When the lovers were alone together, Mme de Langeais still lay on + her couch; she was just as silent and motionless as if Montriveau had not + been there. + </p> + <p> + “Dear, I was wrong,” he began, a note of pain and a sublime kindness in + his voice. “Indeed, I would not have you without religion——” + </p> + <p> + “It is fortunate that you can recognise the necessity of a conscience,” + she said in a hard voice, without looking at him. “I thank you in God’s + name.” + </p> + <p> + The General was broken down by her harshness; this woman seemed as if she + could be at will a sister or a stranger to him. He made one despairing + stride towards the door. He would leave her forever without another word. + He was wretched; and the Duchess was laughing within herself over mental + anguish far more cruel than the old judicial torture. But as for going + away, it was not in his power to do it. In any sort of crisis, a woman is, + as it were, bursting with a certain quantity of things to say; so long as + she has not delivered herself of them, she experiences the sensation which + we are apt to feel at the sight of something incomplete. Mme de Langeais + had not said all that was in her mind. She took up her parable and said: + </p> + <p> + “We have not the same convictions, General, I am pained to think. It would + be dreadful if a woman could not believe in a religion which permits us to + love beyond the grave. I set Christian sentiments aside; you cannot + understand them. Let me simply speak to you of expediency. Would you + forbid a woman at court the table of the Lord when it is customary to take + the sacrament at Easter? People must certainly do something for their + party. The Liberals, whatever they may wish to do, will never destroy the + religious instinct. Religion will always be a political necessity. Would + you undertake to govern a nation of logic-choppers? Napoleon was afraid to + try; he persecuted ideologists. If you want to keep people from reasoning, + you must give them something to feel. So let us accept the Roman Catholic + Church with all its consequences. And if we would have France go to mass, + ought we not to begin by going ourselves? Religion, you see, Armand, is a + bond uniting all the conservative principles which enable the rich to live + in tranquillity. Religion and the rights of property are intimately + connected. It is certainly a finer thing to lead a nation by ideas of + morality than by fear of the scaffold, as in the time of the Terror—the + one method by which your odious Revolution could enforce obedience. The + priest and the king—that means you, and me, and the Princess my + neighbour; and, in a word, the interests of all honest people personified. + There, my friend, just be so good as to belong to your party, you that + might be its Scylla if you had the slightest ambition that way. I know + nothing about politics myself; I argue from my own feelings; but still I + know enough to guess that society would be overturned if people were + always calling its foundations in question——” + </p> + <p> + “If that is how your Court and your Government think, I am sorry for you,” + broke in Montriveau. “The Restoration, madam, ought to say, like Catherine + de Medici, when she heard that the battle of Dreux was lost, ‘Very well; + now we will go to the meeting-house.’ Now 1815 was your battle of Dreux. + Like the royal power of those days, you won in fact, while you lost in + right. Political Protestantism has gained an ascendancy over people’s + minds. If you have no mind to issue your Edict of Nantes; or if, when it + is issued, you publish a Revocation; if you should one day be accused and + convicted of repudiating the Charter, which is simply a pledge given to + maintain the interests established under the Republic, then the Revolution + will rise again, terrible in her strength, and strike but a single blow. + It will not be the Revolution that will go into exile; she is the very + soil of France. Men die, but people’s interests do not die. ... Eh, great + Heavens! what are France and the crown and rightful sovereigns, and the + whole world besides, to us? Idle words compared with my happiness. Let + them reign or be hurled from the throne, little do I care. Where am I + now?” + </p> + <p> + “In the Duchesse de Langeais’ boudoir, my friend.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no. No more of the Duchess, no more of Langeais; I am with my dear + Antoinette.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you do me the pleasure to stay where you are,” she said, laughing + and pushing him back, gently however. + </p> + <p> + “So you have never loved me,” he retorted, and anger flashed in lightning + from his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “No, dear”; but the “No” was equivalent to “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “I am a great ass,” he said, kissing her hands. The terrible queen was a + woman once more.—“Antoinette,” he went on, laying his head on her + feet, “you are too chastely tender to speak of our happiness to anyone in + this world.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she cried, rising to her feet with a swift, graceful spring, “you + are a great simpleton.” And without another word she fled into the + drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + “What is it now?” wondered the General, little knowing that the touch of + his burning forehead had sent a swift electric thrill through her from + foot to head. + </p> + <p> + In hot wrath he followed her to the drawing-room, only to hear divinely + sweet chords. The Duchess was at the piano. If the man of science or the + poet can at once enjoy and comprehend, bringing his intelligence to bear + upon his enjoyment without loss of delight, he is conscious that the + alphabet and phraseology of music are but cunning instruments for the + composer, like the wood and copper wire under the hands of the executant. + For the poet and the man of science there is a music existing apart, + underlying the double expression of this language of the spirit and + senses. <i>Andiamo mio ben</i> can draw tears of joy or pitying laughter + at the will of the singer; and not unfrequently one here and there in the + world, some girl unable to live and bear the heavy burden of an unguessed + pain, some man whose soul vibrates with the throb of passion, may take up + a musical theme, and lo! heaven is opened for them, or they find a + language for themselves in some sublime melody, some song lost to the + world. + </p> + <p> + The General was listening now to such a song; a mysterious music unknown + to all other ears, as the solitary plaint of some mateless bird dying + alone in a virgin forest. + </p> + <p> + “Great Heavens! what are you playing there?” he asked in an unsteady + voice. + </p> + <p> + “The prelude of a ballad, called, I believe, <i>Fleuve du Tage</i>.” + </p> + <p> + “I did not know that there was such music in a piano,” he returned. + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” she said, and for the first time she looked at him as a woman looks + at the man she loves, “nor do you know, my friend, that I love you, and + that you cause me horrible suffering; and that I feel that I must utter my + cry of pain without putting it too plainly into words. If I did not, I + should yield——But you see nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “And you will not make me happy!” + </p> + <p> + “Armand, I should die of sorrow the next day.” + </p> + <p> + The General turned abruptly from her and went. But out in the street he + brushed away the tears that he would not let fall. + </p> + <p> + The religious phase lasted for three months. At the end of that time the + Duchess grew weary of vain repetitions; the Deity, bound hand and foot, + was delivered up to her lover. Possibly she may have feared that by sheer + dint of talking of eternity she might perpetuate his love in this world + and the next. For her own sake, it must be believed that no man had + touched her heart, or her conduct would be inexcusable. She was young; the + time when men and women feel that they cannot afford to lose time or to + quibble over their joys was still far off. She, no doubt, was on the verge + not of first love, but of her first experience of the bliss of love. And + from inexperience, for want of the painful lessons which would have taught + her to value the treasure poured out at her feet, she was playing with it. + Knowing nothing of the glory and rapture of the light, she was fain to + stay in the shadow. + </p> + <p> + Armand was just beginning to understand this strange situation; he put his + hope in the first word spoken by nature. Every evening, as he came away + from Mme de Langeais’, he told himself that no woman would accept the + tenderest, most delicate proofs of a man’s love during seven months, nor + yield passively to the slighter demands of passion, only to cheat love at + the last. He was waiting patiently for the sun to gain power, not doubting + but that he should receive the earliest fruits. The married woman’s + hesitations and the religious scruples he could quite well understand. He + even rejoiced over those battles. He mistook the Duchess’s heartless + coquetry for modesty; and he would not have had her otherwise. So he had + loved to see her devising obstacles; was he not gradually triumphing over + them? Did not every victory won swell the meagre sum of lovers’ intimacies + long denied, and at last conceded with every sign of love? Still, he had + had such leisure to taste the full sweetness of every small successive + conquest on which a lover feeds his love, that these had come to be + matters of use and wont. So far as obstacles went, there were none now + save his own awe of her; nothing else left between him and his desire save + the whims of her who allowed him to call her Antoinette. So he made up his + mind to demand more, to demand all. Embarrassed like a young lover who + cannot dare to believe that his idol can stoop so low, he hesitated for a + long time. He passed through the experience of terrible reactions within + himself. A set purpose was annihilated by a word, and definite resolves + died within him on the threshold. He despised himself for his weakness, + and still his desire remained unuttered. Nevertheless, one evening, after + sitting in gloomy melancholy, he brought out a fierce demand for his + illegally legitimate rights. The Duchess had not to wait for her + bond-slave’s request to guess his desire. When was a man’s desire a + secret? And have not women an intuitive knowledge of the meaning of + certain changes of countenance? + </p> + <p> + “What! you wish to be my friend no longer?” she broke in at the first + words, and a divine red surging like new blood under the transparent skin, + lent brightness to her eyes. “As a reward for my generosity, you would + dishonor me? Just reflect a little. I myself have thought much over this; + and I think always for us <i>both</i>. There is such a thing as a woman’s + loyalty, and we can no more fail in it than you can fail in honour. <i>I</i> + cannot blind myself. If I am yours, how, in any sense, can I be M. de + Langeais’ wife? Can you require the sacrifice of my position, my rank, my + whole life in return for a doubtful love that could not wait patiently for + seven months? What! already you would rob me of my right to dispose of + myself? No, no; you must not talk like this again. No, not another word. I + will not, I cannot listen to you.” + </p> + <p> + Mme de Langeais raised both hands to her head to push back the tufted + curls from her hot forehead; she seemed very much excited. + </p> + <p> + “You come to a weak woman with your purpose definitely planned out. You + say—‘For a certain length of time she will talk to me of her + husband, then of God, and then of the inevitable consequences. But I will + use and abuse the ascendancy I shall gain over her; I will make myself + indispensable; all the bonds of habit, all the misconstructions of + outsiders, will make for me; and at length, when our <i>liaison</i> is + taken for granted by all the world, I shall be this woman’s master.’—Now, + be frank; these are your thoughts! Oh! you calculate, and you say that you + love. Shame on you! You are enamoured? Ah! that I well believe! You wish + to possess me, to have me for your mistress, that is all! Very well then, + No! The <i>Duchesse de Langeais</i> will not descend so far. Simple <i>bourgeoises</i> + may be the victims of your treachery—I, never! Nothing gives me + assurance of your love. You speak of my beauty; I may lose every trace of + it in six months, like the dear Princess, my neighbour. You are captivated + by my wit, my grace. Great Heavens! you would soon grow used to them and + to the pleasures of possession. Have not the little concessions that I was + weak enough to make come to be a matter of course in the last few months? + Some day, when ruin comes, you will give me no reason for the change in + you beyond a curt, ‘I have ceased to care for you.’—Then, rank and + fortune and honour and all that was the Duchesse de Langeais will be + swallowed up in one disappointed hope. I shall have children to bear + witness to my shame, and——” With an involuntary gesture she + interrupted herself, and continued: “But I am too good-natured to explain + all this to you when you know it better than I. Come! let us stay as we + are. I am only too fortunate in that I can still break these bonds which + you think so strong. Is there anything so very heroic in coming to the + Hotel de Langeais to spend an evening with a woman whose prattle amuses + you?—a woman whom you take for a plaything? Why, half a dozen young + coxcombs come here just as regularly every afternoon between three and + five. They, too, are very generous, I am to suppose? I make fun of them; + they stand my petulance and insolence pretty quietly, and make me laugh; + but as for you, I give all the treasures of my soul to you, and you wish + to ruin me, you try my patience in endless ways. Hush, that will do, that + will do,” she continued, seeing that he was about to speak, “you have no + heart, no soul, no delicacy. I know what you want to tell me. Very well, + then—yes. I would rather you should take me for a cold, insensible + woman, with no devotion in her composition, no heart even, than be taken + by everybody else for a vulgar person, and be condemned to your so-called + pleasures, of which you would most certainly tire, and to everlasting + punishment for it afterwards. Your selfish love is not worth so many + sacrifices....” + </p> + <p> + The words give but a very inadequate idea of the discourse which the + Duchess trilled out with the quick volubility of a bird-organ. Nor, truly, + was there anything to prevent her from talking on for some time to come, + for poor Armand’s only reply to the torrent of flute notes was a silence + filled with cruelly painful thoughts. He was just beginning to see that + this woman was playing with him; he divined instinctively that a devoted + love, a responsive love, does not reason and count the consequences in + this way. Then, as he heard her reproach him with detestable motives, he + felt something like shame as he remembered that unconsciously he had made + those very calculations. With angelic honesty of purpose, he looked + within, and self-examination found nothing but selfishness in all his + thoughts and motives, in the answers which he framed and could not utter. + He was self-convicted. In his despair he longed to fling himself from the + window. The egoism of it was intolerable. + </p> + <p> + What indeed can a man say when a woman will not believe in love?—Let + me prove how much I love you.—The <i>I</i> is always there. + </p> + <p> + The heroes of the boudoir, in such circumstances, can follow the example + of the primitive logician who preceded the Pyrrhonists and denied + movement. Montriveau was not equal to this feat. With all his audacity, he + lacked this precise kind which never deserts an adept in the formulas of + feminine algebra. If so many women, and even the best of women, fall a + prey to a kind of expert to whom the vulgar give a grosser name, it is + perhaps because the said experts are great <i>provers</i>, and love, in + spite of its delicious poetry of sentiment, requires a little more + geometry than people are wont to think. + </p> + <p> + Now the Duchess and Montriveau were alike in this—they were both + equally unversed in love lore. The lady’s knowledge of theory was but + scanty; in practice she knew nothing whatever; she felt nothing, and + reflected over everything. Montriveau had had but little experience, was + absolutely ignorant of theory, and felt too much to reflect at all. Both + therefore were enduring the consequences of the singular situation. At + that supreme moment the myriad thoughts in his mind might have been + reduced to the formula—“Submit to be mine——” words which + seem horribly selfish to a woman for whom they awaken no memories, recall + no ideas. Something nevertheless he must say. And what was more, though + her barbed shafts had set his blood tingling, though the short phrases + that she discharged at him one by one were very keen and sharp and cold, + he must control himself lest he should lose all by an outbreak of anger. + </p> + <p> + “Mme la Duchesse, I am in despair that God should have invented no way for + a woman to confirm the gift of her heart save by adding the gift of her + person. The high value which you yourself put upon the gift teaches me + that I cannot attach less importance to it. If you have given me your + inmost self and your whole heart, as you tell me, what can the rest + matter? And besides, if my happiness means so painful a sacrifice, let us + say no more about it. But you must pardon a man of spirit if he feels + humiliated at being taken for a spaniel.” + </p> + <p> + The tone in which the last remark was uttered might perhaps have + frightened another woman; but when the wearer of a petticoat has allowed + herself to be addressed as a Divinity, and thereby set herself above all + other mortals, no power on earth can be so haughty. + </p> + <p> + “M. le Marquis, I am in despair that God should not have invented some + nobler way for a man to confirm the gift of his heart than by the + manifestation of prodigiously vulgar desires. We become bond-slaves when + we give ourselves body and soul, but a man is bound to nothing by + accepting the gift. Who will assure me that love will last? The very love + that I might show for you at every moment, the better to keep your love, + might serve you as a reason for deserting me. I have no wish to be a + second edition of Mme de Beauseant. Who can ever know what it is that + keeps you beside us? Our persistent coldness of heart is the cause of an + unfailing passion in some of you; other men ask for an untiring devotion, + to be idolized at every moment; some for gentleness, others for tyranny. + No woman in this world as yet has really read the riddle of man’s heart.” + </p> + <p> + There was a pause. When she spoke again it was in a different tone. + </p> + <p> + “After all, my friend, you cannot prevent a woman from trembling at the + question, ‘Will this love last always?’ Hard though my words may be, the + dread of losing you puts them into my mouth. Oh, me! it is not I who + speaks, dear, it is reason; and how should anyone so mad as I be + reasonable? In truth, I am nothing of the sort.” + </p> + <p> + The poignant irony of her answer had changed before the end into the most + musical accents in which a woman could find utterance for ingenuous love. + To listen to her words was to pass in a moment from martyrdom to heaven. + Montriveau grew pale; and for the first time in his life, he fell on his + knees before a woman. He kissed the Duchess’s skirt hem, her knees, her + feet; but for the credit of the Faubourg Saint-Germain it is necessary to + respect the mysteries of its boudoirs, where many are fain to take the + utmost that Love can give without giving proof of love in return. + </p> + <p> + The Duchess thought herself generous when she suffered herself to be + adored. But Montriveau was in a wild frenzy of joy over her complete + surrender of the position. + </p> + <p> + “Dear Antoinette,” he cried. “Yes, you are right; I will not have you + doubt any longer. I too am trembling at this moment—lest the angel + of my life should leave me; I wish I could invent some tie that might bind + us to each other irrevocably.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” she said, under her breath, “so I was right, you see.” + </p> + <p> + “Let me say all that I have to say; I will scatter all your fears with a + word. Listen! if I deserted you, I should deserve to die a thousand + deaths. Be wholly mine, and I will give you the right to kill me if I am + false. I myself will write a letter explaining certain reasons for taking + my own life; I will make my final arrangements, in short. You shall have + the letter in your keeping; in the eye of the law it will be a sufficient + explanation of my death. You can avenge yourself, and fear nothing from + God or men.” + </p> + <p> + “What good would the letter be to me? What would life be if I had lost + your love? If I wished to kill you, should I not be ready to follow? No; + thank you for the thought, but I do not want the letter. Should I not + begin to dread that you were faithful to me through fear? And if a man + knows that he must risk his life for a stolen pleasure, might it not seem + more tempting? Armand, the thing I ask of you is the one hard thing to + do.” + </p> + <p> + “Then what is it that you wish?” + </p> + <p> + “Your obedience and my liberty.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, God!” cried he, “I am a child.” + </p> + <p> + “A wayward, much spoilt child,” she said, stroking the thick hair, for his + head still lay on her knee. “Ah! and loved far more than he believes, and + yet he is very disobedient. Why not stay as we are? Why not sacrifice to + me the desires that hurt me? Why not take what I can give, when it is all + that I can honestly grant? Are you not happy?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, I am happy when I have not a doubt left. Antoinette, doubt in + love is a kind of death, is it not?” + </p> + <p> + In a moment he showed himself as he was, as all men are under the + influence of that hot fever; he grew eloquent, insinuating. And the + Duchess tasted the pleasures which she reconciled with her conscience by + some private, Jesuitical ukase of her own; Armand’s love gave her a thrill + of cerebral excitement which custom made as necessary to her as society, + or the Opera. To feel that she was adored by this man, who rose above + other men, whose character frightened her; to treat him like a child; to + play with him as Poppaea played with Nero—many women, like the wives + of King Henry VIII, have paid for such a perilous delight with all the + blood in their veins. Grim presentiment! Even as she surrendered the + delicate, pale, gold curls to his touch, and felt the close pressure of + his hand, the little hand of a man whose greatness she could not mistake; + even as she herself played with his dark, thick locks, in that boudoir + where she reigned a queen, the Duchess would say to herself: + </p> + <p> + “This man is capable of killing me if he once finds out that I am playing + with him.” + </p> + <p> + Armand de Montriveau stayed with her till two o’clock in the morning. From + that moment this woman, whom he loved, was neither a duchess nor a + Navarreins; Antoinette, in her disguises, had gone so far as to appear to + be a woman. On that most blissful evening, the sweetest prelude ever + played by a Parisienne to what the world calls “a slip”; in spite of all + her affectations of a coyness which she did not feel, the General saw all + maidenly beauty in her. He had some excuse for believing that so many + storms of caprice had been but clouds covering a heavenly soul; that these + must be lifted one by one like the veils that hid her divine loveliness. + The Duchess became, for him, the most simple and girlish mistress; she was + the one woman in the world for him; and he went away quite happy in that + at last he had brought her to give him such pledges of love, that it + seemed to him impossible but that he should be but her husband henceforth + in secret, her choice sanctioned by Heaven. + </p> + <p> + Armand went slowly home, turning this thought in his mind with the + impartiality of a man who is conscious of all the responsibilities that + love lays on him while he tastes the sweetness of its joys. He went along + the Quais to see the widest possible space of sky; his heart had grown in + him; he would fain have had the bounds of the firmament and of earth + enlarged. It seemed to him that his lungs drew an ampler breath. In the + course of his self-examination, as he walked, he vowed to love this woman + so devoutly, that every day of her life she should find absolution for her + sins against society in unfailing happiness. Sweet stirrings of life when + life is at the full! The man that is strong enough to steep his soul in + the colour of one emotion, feels infinite joy as glimpses open out for him + of an ardent lifetime that knows no diminution of passion to the end; even + so it is permitted to certain mystics, in ecstasy, to behold the Light of + God. Love would be naught without the belief that it would last forever; + love grows great through constancy. It was thus that, wholly absorbed by + his happiness, Montriveau understood passion. + </p> + <p> + “We belong to each other forever!” + </p> + <p> + The thought was like a talisman fulfilling the wishes of his life. He did + not ask whether the Duchess might not change, whether her love might not + last. No, for he had faith. Without that virtue there is no future for + Christianity, and perhaps it is even more necessary to society. A + conception of life as feeling occurred to him for the first time; hitherto + he had lived by action, the most strenuous exertion of human energies, the + physical devotion, as it may be called, of the soldier. + </p> + <p> + Next day M. de Montriveau went early in the direction of the Faubourg + Saint-Germain. He had made an appointment at a house not far from the + Hotel de Langeais; and the business over, he went thither as if to his own + home. The General’s companion chanced to be a man for whom he felt a kind + of repulsion whenever he met him in other houses. This was the Marquis de + Ronquerolles, whose reputation had grown so great in Paris boudoirs. He + was witty, clever, and what was more—courageous; he set the fashion + to all the young men in Paris. As a man of gallantry, his success and + experience were equally matters of envy; and neither fortune nor birth was + wanting in his case, qualifications which add such lustre in Paris to a + reputation as a leader of fashion. + </p> + <p> + “Where are you going?” asked M. de Ronquerolles. + </p> + <p> + “To Mme de Langeais’.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, true. I forgot that you had allowed her to lime(sp) you. You are + wasting your affections on her when they might be much better employed + elsewhere. I could have told you of half a score of women in the financial + world, any one of them a thousand times better worth your while than that + titled courtesan, who does with her brains what less artificial women do + with——” + </p> + <p> + “What is this, my dear fellow?” Armand broke in. “The Duchess is an angel + of innocence.” + </p> + <p> + Ronquerolles began to laugh. + </p> + <p> + “Things being thus, dear boy,” said he, “it is my duty to enlighten you. + Just a word; there is no harm in it between ourselves. Has the Duchess + surrendered? If so, I have nothing more to say. Come, give me your + confidence. There is no occasion to waste your time in grafting your great + nature on that unthankful stock, when all your hopes and cultivation will + come to nothing.” + </p> + <p> + Armand ingenuously made a kind of general report of his position, + enumerating with much minuteness the slender rights so hardly won. + Ronquerolles burst into a peal of laughter so heartless, that it would + have cost any other man his life. But from their manner of speaking and + looking at each other during that colloquy beneath the wall, in a corner + almost as remote from intrusion as the desert itself, it was easy to + imagine the friendship between the two men knew no bounds, and that no + power on earth could estrange them. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Armand, why did you not tell me that the Duchess was a puzzle to + you? I would have given you a little advice which might have brought your + flirtation properly through. You must know, to begin with, that the women + of our Faubourg, like any other women, love to steep themselves in love; + but they have a mind to possess and not to be possessed. They have made a + sort of compromise with human nature. The code of their parish gives them + a pretty wide latitude short of the last transgression. The sweets enjoyed + by this fair Duchess of yours are so many venial sins to be washed away in + the waters of penitence. But if you had the impertinence to ask in earnest + for the moral sin to which naturally you are sure to attach the highest + importance, you would see the deep disdain with which the door of the + boudoir and the house would be incontinently shut upon you. The tender + Antoinette would dismiss everything from her memory; you would be less + than a cipher for her. She would wipe away your kisses, my dear friend, as + indifferently as she would perform her ablutions. She would sponge love + from her cheeks as she washes off rouge. We know women of that sort—the + thorough-bred Parisienne. Have you ever noticed a grisette tripping along + the street? Her face is as good as a picture. A pretty cap, fresh cheeks, + trim hair, a guileful smile, and the rest of her almost neglected. Is not + this true to the life? Well, that is the Parisienne. She knows that her + face is all that will be seen, so she devotes all her care, finery, and + vanity to her head. The Duchess is the same; the head is everything with + her. She can only feel through her intellect, her heart lies in her brain, + she is a sort of intellectual epicure, she has a head-voice. We call that + kind of poor creature a Lais of the intellect. You have been taken in like + a boy. If you doubt it, you can have proof of it tonight, this morning, + this instant. Go up to her, try the demand as an experiment, insist + peremptorily if it is refused. You might set about it like the late + Marechal de Richelieu, and get nothing for your pains.” + </p> + <p> + Armand was dumb with amazement. + </p> + <p> + “Has your desire reached the point of infatuation?” + </p> + <p> + “I want her at any cost!” Montriveau cried out despairingly. + </p> + <p> + “Very well. Now, look here. Be as inexorable as she is herself. Try to + humiliate her, to sting her vanity. Do <i>not</i> try to move her heart, + nor her soul, but the woman’s nerves and temperament, for she is both + nervous and lymphatic. If you can once awaken desire in her, you are safe. + But you must drop these romantic boyish notions of yours. If when once you + have her in your eagle’s talons you yield a point or draw back, if you so + much as stir an eyelid, if she thinks that she can regain her ascendancy + over you, she will slip out of your clutches like a fish, and you will + never catch her again. Be as inflexible as law. Show no more charity than + the headsman. Hit hard, and then hit again. Strike and keep on striking as + if you were giving her the knout. Duchesses are made of hard stuff, my + dear Armand; there is a sort of feminine nature that is only softened by + repeated blows; and as suffering develops a heart in women of that sort, + so it is a work of charity not to spare the rod. Do you persevere. Ah! + when pain has thoroughly relaxed those nerves and softened the fibres that + you take to be so pliant and yielding; when a shriveled heart has learned + to expand and contract and to beat under this discipline; when the brain + has capitulated—then, perhaps, passion may enter among the steel + springs of this machinery that turns out tears and affectations and + languors and melting phrases; then you shall see a most magnificent + conflagration (always supposing that the chimney takes fire). The steel + feminine system will glow red-hot like iron in the forge; that kind of + heat lasts longer than any other, and the glow of it may possibly turn to + love. + </p> + <p> + “Still,” he continued, “I have my doubts. And, after all, is it worth + while to take so much trouble with the Duchess? Between ourselves a man of + my stamp ought first to take her in hand and break her in; I would make a + charming woman of her; she is a thoroughbred; whereas, you two left to + yourselves will never get beyond the A B C. But you are in love with her, + and just now you might not perhaps share my views on this subject——. + A pleasant time to you, my children,” added Ronquerolles, after a pause. + Then with a laugh: “I have decided myself for facile beauties; they are + tender, at any rate, the natural woman appears in their love without any + of your social seasonings. A woman that haggles over herself, my poor boy, + and only means to inspire love! Well, have her like an extra horse—for + show. The match between the sofa and confessional, black and white, queen + and knight, conscientious scruples and pleasure, is an uncommonly amusing + game of chess. And if a man knows the game, let him be never so little of + a rake, he wins in three moves. Now, if I undertook a woman of that sort, + I should start with the deliberate purpose of——” His voice + sank to a whisper over the last words in Armand’s ear, and he went before + there was time to reply. + </p> + <p> + As for Montriveau, he sprang at a bound across the courtyard of the Hotel + de Langeais, went unannounced up the stairs straight to the Duchess’s + bedroom. + </p> + <p> + “This is an unheard-of thing,” she said, hastily wrapping her + dressing-gown about her. “Armand! this is abominable of you! Come, leave + the room, I beg. Just go out of the room, and go at once. Wait for me in + the drawing-room.—Come now!” + </p> + <p> + “Dear angel, has a plighted lover no privilege whatsoever?” + </p> + <p> + “But, monsieur, it is in the worst possible taste of a plighted lover or a + wedded husband to break in like this upon his wife.” + </p> + <p> + He came up to the Duchess, took her in his arms, and held her tightly to + him. + </p> + <p> + “Forgive, dear Antoinette; but a host of horrid doubts are fermenting in + my heart.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Doubts</i>? Fie!—Oh, fie on you!” + </p> + <p> + “Doubts all but justified. If you loved me, would you make this quarrel? + Would you not be glad to see me? Would you not have felt a something stir + in your heart? For I, that am not a woman, feel a thrill in my inmost self + at the mere sound of your voice. Often in a ballroom a longing has come + upon me to spring to your side and put my arms about your neck.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! if you have doubts of me so long as I am not ready to spring to your + arms before all the world, I shall be doubted all my life long, I suppose. + Why, Othello was a mere child compared with you!” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” he cried despairingly, “you have no love for me——” + </p> + <p> + “Admit, at any rate, that at this moment you are not lovable.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I have still to find favour in your sight?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I should think so. Come,” added she, “with a little imperious air, go + out of the room, leave me. I am not like you; I wish always to find favour + in your eyes.” + </p> + <p> + Never woman better understood the art of putting charm into insolence, and + does not the charm double the effect? is it not enough to infuriate the + coolest of men? There was a sort of untrammeled freedom about Mme de + Langeais; a something in her eyes, her voice, her attitude, which is never + seen in a woman who loves when she stands face to face with him at the + mere sight of whom her heart must needs begin to beat. The Marquis de + Ronquerolles’ counsels had cured Armand of sheepishness; and further, + there came to his aid that rapid power of intuition which passion will + develop at moments in the least wise among mortals, while a great man at + such a time possesses it to the full. He guessed the terrible truth + revealed by the Duchess’s nonchalance, and his heart swelled with the + storm like a lake rising in flood. + </p> + <p> + “If you told me the truth yesterday, be mine, dear Antoinette,” he cried; + “you shall——” + </p> + <p> + “In the first place,” said she composedly, thrusting him back as he came + nearer—“in the first place, you are not to compromise me. My woman + might overhear you. Respect me, I beg of you. Your familiarity is all very + well in my boudoir in an evening; here it is quite different. Besides, + what may your ‘you shall’ mean? ‘You shall.’ No one as yet has ever used + that word to me. It is quite ridiculous, it seems to me, absolutely + ridiculous. + </p> + <p> + “Will you surrender nothing to me on this point?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! do you call a woman’s right to dispose of herself a ‘point?’ A + capital point indeed; you will permit me to be entirely my own mistress on + that ‘point.’” + </p> + <p> + “And how if, believing in your promises to me, I should absolutely require + it?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! then you would prove that I made the greatest possible mistake when I + made you a promise of any kind; and I should beg you to leave me in + peace.” + </p> + <p> + The General’s face grew white; he was about to spring to her side, when + Mme de Langeais rang the bell, the maid appeared, and, smiling with a + mocking grace, the Duchess added, “Be so good as to return when I am + visible.” + </p> + <p> + Then Montriveau felt the hardness of a woman as cold and keen as a steel + blade; she was crushing in her scorn. In one moment she had snapped the + bonds which held firm only for her lover. She had read Armand’s intention + in his face, and held that the moment had come for teaching the Imperial + soldier his lesson. He was to be made to feel that though duchesses may + lend themselves to love, they do not give themselves, and that the + conquest of one of them would prove a harder matter than the conquest of + Europe. + </p> + <p> + “Madame,” returned Armand, “I have not time to wait. I am a spoilt child, + as you told me yourself. When I seriously resolve to have that of which we + have been speaking, I shall have it.” + </p> + <p> + “You will have it?” queried she, and there was a trace of surprise in her + loftiness. + </p> + <p> + “I shall have it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! you would do me a great pleasure by ‘resolving’ to have it. For + curiosity’s sake, I should be delighted to know how you would set about it——” + </p> + <p> + “I am delighted to put a new interest into your life,” interrupted + Montriveau, breaking into a laugh which dismayed the Duchess. “Will you + permit me to take you to the ball tonight?” + </p> + <p> + “A thousand thanks. M. de Marsay has been beforehand with you. I gave him + my promise.” + </p> + <p> + Montriveau bowed gravely and went. + </p> + <p> + “So Ronquerolles was right,” thought he, “and now for a game of chess.” + </p> + <p> + Thenceforward he hid his agitation by complete composure. No man is strong + enough to bear such sudden alternations from the height of happiness to + the depths of wretchedness. So he had caught a glimpse of happy life the + better to feel the emptiness of his previous existence? There was a + terrible storm within him; but he had learned to endure, and bore the + shock of tumultuous thoughts as a granite cliff stands out against the + surge of an angry sea. + </p> + <p> + “I could say nothing. When I am with her my wits desert me. She does not + know how vile and contemptible she is. Nobody has ventured to bring her + face to face with herself. She has played with many a man, no doubt; I + will avenge them all.” + </p> + <p> + For the first time, it may be, in a man’s heart, revenge and love were + blended so equally that Montriveau himself could not know whether love or + revenge would carry all before it. That very evening he went to the ball + at which he was sure of seeing the Duchesse de Langeais, and almost + despaired of reaching her heart. He inclined to think that there was + something diabolical about this woman, who was gracious to him and radiant + with charming smiles; probably because she had no wish to allow the world + to think that she had compromised herself with M. de Montriveau. Coolness + on both sides is a sign of love; but so long as the Duchess was the same + as ever, while the Marquis looked sullen and morose, was it not plain that + she had conceded nothing? Onlookers know the rejected lover by various + signs and tokens; they never mistake the genuine symptoms for a coolness + such as some women command their adorers to feign, in the hope of + concealing their love. Everyone laughed at Montriveau; and he, having + omitted to consult his cornac, was abstracted and ill at ease. M. de + Ronquerolles would very likely have bidden him compromise the Duchess by + responding to her show of friendliness by passionate demonstrations; but + as it was, Armand de Montriveau came away from the ball, loathing human + nature, and even then scarcely ready to believe in such complete + depravity. + </p> + <p> + “If there is no executioner for such crimes,” he said, as he looked up at + the lighted windows of the ballroom where the most enchanting women in + Paris were dancing, laughing, and chatting, “I will take you by the nape + of the neck, Mme la Duchesse, and make you feel something that bites more + deeply than the knife in the Place de la Greve. Steel against steel; we + shall see which heart will leave the deeper mark.” + </p> + <p> + For a week or so Mme de Langeais hoped to see the Marquis de Montriveau + again; but he contented himself with sending his card every morning to the + Hotel de Langeais. The Duchess could not help shuddering each time that + the card was brought in, and a dim foreboding crossed her mind, but the + thought was vague as a presentiment of disaster. When her eyes fell on the + name, it seemed to her that she felt the touch of the implacable man’s + strong hand in her hair; sometimes the words seemed like a prognostication + of a vengeance which her lively intellect invented in the most shocking + forms. She had studied him too well not to dread him. Would he murder her, + she wondered? Would that bull-necked man dash out her vitals by flinging + her over his head? Would he trample her body under his feet? When, where, + and how would he get her into his power? Would he make her suffer very + much, and what kind of pain would he inflict? She repented of her conduct. + There were hours when, if he had come, she would have gone to his arms in + complete self-surrender. + </p> + <p> + Every night before she slept she saw Montriveau’s face; every night it + wore a different aspect. Sometimes she saw his bitter smile, sometimes the + Jovelike knitting of the brows; or his leonine look, or some disdainful + movement of the shoulders made him terrible for her. Next day the card + seemed stained with blood. The name of Montriveau stirred her now as the + presence of the fiery, stubborn, exacting lover had never done. Her + apprehensions gathered strength in the silence. She was forced, without + aid from without, to face the thought of a hideous duel of which she could + not speak. Her proud hard nature was more responsive to thrills of hate + than it had ever been to the caresses of love. Ah! if the General could + but have seen her, as she sat with her forehead drawn into folds between + her brows; immersed in bitter thoughts in that boudoir where he had + enjoyed such happy moments, he might perhaps have conceived high hopes. Of + all human passions, is not pride alone incapable of engendering anything + base? Mme de Langeais kept her thoughts to herself, but is it not + permissible to suppose that M. de Montriveau was no longer indifferent to + her? And has not a man gained ground immensely when a woman thinks about + him? He is bound to make progress with her either one way or the other + afterwards. + </p> + <p> + Put any feminine creature under the feet of a furious horse or other + fearsome beast; she will certainly drop on her knees and look for death; + but if the brute shows a milder mood and does not utterly slay her, she + will love the horse, lion, bull, or what not, and will speak of him quite + at her ease. The Duchess felt that she was under the lion’s paws; she + quaked, but she did not hate him. + </p> + <p> + The man and woman thus singularly placed with regard to each other met + three times in society during the course of that week. Each time, in reply + to coquettish questioning glances, the Duchess received a respectful bow, + and smiles tinged with such savage irony, that all her apprehensions over + the card in the morning were revived at night. Our lives are simply such + as our feelings shape them for us; and the feelings of these two had + hollowed out a great gulf between them. + </p> + <p> + The Comtesse de Serizy, the Marquis de Ronquerolles’ sister, gave a great + ball at the beginning of the following week, and Mme de Langeais was sure + to go to it. Armand was the first person whom the Duchess saw when she + came into the room, and this time Armand was looking out for her, or so + she thought at least. The two exchanged a look, and suddenly the woman + felt a cold perspiration break from every pore. She had thought all along + that Montriveau was capable of taking reprisals in some unheard-of way + proportioned to their condition, and now the revenge had been discovered, + it was ready, heated, and boiling. Lightnings flashed from the foiled + lover’s eyes, his face was radiant with exultant vengeance. And the + Duchess? Her eyes were haggard in spite of her resolution to be cool and + insolent. She went to take her place beside the Comtesse de Serizy, who + could not help exclaiming, “Dear Antoinette! what is the matter with you? + You are enough to frighten one.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall be all right after a quadrille,” she answered, giving a hand to a + young man who came up at that moment. + </p> + <p> + Mme de Langeais waltzed that evening with a sort of excitement and + transport which redoubled Montriveau’s lowering looks. He stood in front + of the line of spectators, who were amusing themselves by looking on. + Every time that <i>she</i> came past him, his eyes darted down upon her + eddying face; he might have been a tiger with the prey in his grasp. The + waltz came to an end, Mme de Langeais went back to her place beside the + Countess, and Montriveau never took his eyes off her, talking all the + while with a stranger. + </p> + <p> + “One of the things that struck me most on the journey,” he was saying (and + the Duchess listened with all her ears), “was the remark which the man + makes at Westminster when you are shown the axe with which a man in a mask + cut off Charles the First’s head, so they tell you. The King made it first + of all to some inquisitive person, and they repeat it still in memory of + him.” + </p> + <p> + “What does the man say?” asked Mme de Serizy. + </p> + <p> + “‘Do not touch the axe!’” replied Montriveau, and there was menace in the + sound of his voice. + </p> + <p> + “Really, my Lord Marquis,” said Mme de Langeais, “you tell this old story + that everybody knows if they have been to London, and look at my neck in + such a melodramatic way that you seem to me to have an axe in your hand.” + </p> + <p> + The Duchess was in a cold sweat, but nevertheless she laughed as she spoke + the last words. + </p> + <p> + “But circumstances give the story a quite new application,” returned he. + </p> + <p> + “How so; pray tell me, for pity’s sake?” + </p> + <p> + “In this way, madame—you have touched the axe,” said Montriveau, + lowering his voice. + </p> + <p> + “What an enchanting prophecy!” returned she, smiling with assumed grace. + “And when is my head to fall?” + </p> + <p> + “I have no wish to see that pretty head of yours cut off. I only fear some + great misfortune for you. If your head were clipped close, would you feel + no regrets for the dainty golden hair that you turn to such good account?” + </p> + <p> + “There are those for whom a woman would love to make such a sacrifice; + even if, as often happens, it is for the sake of a man who cannot make + allowances for an outbreak of temper.” + </p> + <p> + “Quite so. Well, and if some wag were to spoil your beauty on a sudden by + some chemical process, and you, who are but eighteen for us, were to be a + hundred years old?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, the smallpox is our Battle of Waterloo, monsieur,” she interrupted. + “After it is over we find out those who love us sincerely.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you not regret the lovely face that?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! indeed I should, but less for my own sake than for the sake of + someone else whose delight it might have been. And, after all, if I were + loved, always loved, and truly loved, what would my beauty matter to me?—What + do you say, Clara?” + </p> + <p> + “It is a dangerous speculation,” replied Mme de Serizy. + </p> + <p> + “Is it permissible to ask His Majesty the King of Sorcerers when I made + the mistake of touching the axe, since I have not been to London as yet?——” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Not so</i>,” he answered in English, with a burst of ironical + laughter. + </p> + <p> + “And when will the punishment begin?” + </p> + <p> + At this Montriveau coolly took out his watch, and ascertained the hour + with a truly appalling air of conviction. + </p> + <p> + “A dreadful misfortune will befall you before this day is out.” + </p> + <p> + “I am not a child to be easily frightened, or rather, I am a child + ignorant of danger,” said the Duchess. “I shall dance now without fear on + the edge of the precipice.” + </p> + <p> + “I am delighted to know that you have so much strength of character,” he + answered, as he watched her go to take her place in a square dance. + </p> + <p> + But the Duchess, in spite of her apparent contempt for Armand’s dark + prophecies, was really frightened. Her late lover’s presence weighed upon + her morally and physically with a sense of oppression that scarcely ceased + when he left the ballroom. And yet when she had drawn freer breath, and + enjoyed the relief for a moment, she found herself regretting the + sensation of dread, so greedy of extreme sensations is the feminine + nature. The regret was not love, but it was certainly akin to other + feelings which prepare the way for love. And then—as if the + impression which Montriveau had made upon her were suddenly revived—she + recollected his air of conviction as he took out his watch, and in a + sudden spasm of dread she went out. + </p> + <p> + By this time it was about midnight. One of her servants, waiting with her + pelisse, went down to order her carriage. On her way home she fell + naturally enough to musing over M. de Montriveau’s prediction. Arrived in + her own courtyard, as she supposed, she entered a vestibule almost like + that of her own hotel, and suddenly saw that the staircase was different. + She was in a strange house. Turning to call her servants, she was attacked + by several men, who rapidly flung a handkerchief over her mouth, bound her + hand and foot, and carried her off. She shrieked aloud. + </p> + <p> + “Madame, our orders are to kill you if you scream,” a voice said in her + ear. + </p> + <p> + So great was the Duchess’s terror, that she could never recollect how nor + by whom she was transported. When she came to herself, she was lying on a + couch in a bachelor’s lodging, her hands and feet tied with silken cords. + In spite of herself, she shrieked aloud as she looked round and met Armand + de Montriveau’s eyes. He was sitting in his dressing-gown, quietly smoking + a cigar in his armchair. + </p> + <p> + “Do not cry out, Mme la Duchesse,” he said, coolly taking the cigar out of + his mouth; “I have a headache. Besides, I will untie you. But listen + attentively to what I have the honour to say to you.” + </p> + <p> + Very carefully he untied the knots that bound her feet. + </p> + <p> + “What would be the use of calling out? Nobody can hear your cries. You are + too well bred to make any unnecessary fuss. If you do not stay quietly, if + you insist upon a struggle with me, I shall tie your hands and feet again. + All things considered, I think that you have self-respect enough to stay + on this sofa as if you were lying on your own at home; cold as ever, if + you will. You have made me shed many tears on this couch, tears that I hid + from all other eyes.” + </p> + <p> + While Montriveau was speaking, the Duchess glanced about her; it was a + woman’s glance, a stolen look that saw all things and seemed to see + nothing. She was much pleased with the room. It was rather like a monk’s + cell. The man’s character and thoughts seemed to pervade it. No decoration + of any kind broke the grey painted surface of the walls. A green carpet + covered the floor. A black sofa, a table littered with papers, two big + easy-chairs, a chest of drawers with an alarum clock by way of ornament, a + very low bedstead with a coverlet flung over it—a red cloth with a + black key border—all these things made part of a whole that told of + a life reduced to its simplest terms. A triple candle-sconce of Egyptian + design on the chimney-piece recalled the vast spaces of the desert and + Montriveau’s long wanderings; a huge sphinx-claw stood out beneath the + folds of stuff at the bed-foot; and just beyond, a green curtain with a + black and scarlet border was suspended by large rings from a spear handle + above a door near one corner of the room. The other door by which the band + had entered was likewise curtained, but the drapery hung from an ordinary + curtain-rod. As the Duchess finally noted that the pattern was the same on + both, she saw that the door at the bed-foot stood open; gleams of ruddy + light from the room beyond flickered below the fringed border. Naturally, + the ominous light roused her curiosity; she fancied she could distinguish + strange shapes in the shadows; but as it did not occur to her at the time + that danger could come from that quarter, she tried to gratify a more + ardent curiosity. + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur, if it is not indiscreet, may I ask what you mean to do with + me?” The insolence and irony of the tone stung through the words. The + Duchess quite believed that she read extravagant love in Montriveau’s + speech. He had carried her off; was not that in itself an acknowledgment + of her power? + </p> + <p> + “Nothing whatever, madame,” he returned, gracefully puffing the last whiff + of cigar smoke. “You will remain here for a short time. First of all, I + should like to explain to you what you are, and what I am. I cannot put my + thoughts into words whilst you are twisting on the sofa in your boudoir; + and besides, in your own house you take offence at the slightest hint, you + ring the bell, make an outcry, and turn your lover out at the door as if + he were the basest of wretches. Here my mind is unfettered. Here nobody + can turn me out. Here you shall be my victim for a few seconds, and you + are going to be so exceedingly kind as to listen to me. You need fear + nothing. I did not carry you off to insult you, nor yet to take by force + what you refused to grant of your own will to my unworthiness. I could not + stoop so low. You possibly think of outrage; for myself, I have no such + thoughts.” + </p> + <p> + He flung his cigar coolly into the fire. + </p> + <p> + “The smoke is unpleasant to you, no doubt, madame?” he said, and rising at + once, he took a chafing-dish from the hearth, burnt perfumes, and purified + the air. The Duchess’s astonishment was only equaled by her humiliation. + She was in this man’s power; and he would not abuse his power. The eyes in + which love had once blazed like flame were now quiet and steady as stars. + She trembled. Her dread of Armand was increased by a nightmare sensation + of restlessness and utter inability to move; she felt as if she were + turned to stone. She lay passive in the grip of fear. She thought she saw + the light behind the curtains grow to a blaze, as if blown up by a pair of + bellows; in another moment the gleams of flame grew brighter, and she + fancied that three masked figures suddenly flashed out; but the terrible + vision disappeared so swiftly that she took it for an optical delusion. + </p> + <p> + “Madame,” Armand continued with cold contempt, “one minute, just one + minute is enough for me, and you shall feel it afterwards at every moment + throughout your lifetime, the one eternity over which I have power. I am + not God. Listen carefully to me,” he continued, pausing to add solemnity + to his words. “Love will always come at your call. You have boundless + power over men: but remember that once you called love, and love came to + you; love as pure and true-hearted as may be on earth, and as reverent as + it was passionate; fond as a devoted woman’s, as a mother’s love; a love + so great indeed, that it was past the bounds of reason. You played with + it, and you committed a crime. Every woman has a right to refuse herself + to love which she feels she cannot share; and if a man loves and cannot + win love in return, he is not to be pitied, he has no right to complain. + But with a semblance of love to attract an unfortunate creature cut off + from all affection; to teach him to understand happiness to the full, only + to snatch it from him; to rob him of his future of felicity; to slay his + happiness not merely today, but as long as his life lasts, by poisoning + every hour of it and every thought—this I call a fearful crime!” + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur——” + </p> + <p> + “I cannot allow you to answer me yet. So listen to me still. In any case I + have rights over you; but I only choose to exercise one—the right of + the judge over the criminal, so that I may arouse your conscience. If you + had no conscience left, I should not reproach you at all; but you are so + young! You must feel some life still in your heart; or so I like to + believe. While I think of you as depraved enough to do a wrong which the + law does not punish, I do not think you so degraded that you cannot + comprehend the full meaning of my words. I resume.” + </p> + <p> + As he spoke the Duchess heard the smothered sound of a pair of bellows. + Those mysterious figures which she had just seen were blowing up the fire, + no doubt; the glow shone through the curtain. But Montriveau’s lurid face + was turned upon her; she could not choose but wait with a fast-beating + heart and eyes fixed in a stare. However curious she felt, the heat in + Armand’s words interested her even more than the crackling of the + mysterious flames. + </p> + <p> + “Madame,” he went on after a pause, “if some poor wretch commits a murder + in Paris, it is the executioner’s duty, you know, to lay hands on him and + stretch him on the plank, where murderers pay for their crimes with their + heads. Then the newspapers inform everyone, rich and poor, so that the + former are assured that they may sleep in peace, and the latter are warned + that they must be on the watch if they would live. Well, you that are + religious, and even a little of a bigot, may have masses said for such a + man’s soul. You both belong to the same family, but yours is the elder + branch; and the elder branch may occupy high places in peace and live + happily and without cares. Want or anger may drive your brother the + convict to take a man’s life; you have taken more, you have taken the joy + out of a man’s life, you have killed all that was best in his life—his + dearest beliefs. The murderer simply lay in wait for his victim, and + killed him reluctantly, and in fear of the scaffold; but <i>you</i> ...! + You heaped up every sin that weakness can commit against strength that + suspected no evil; you tamed a passive victim, the better to gnaw his + heart out; you lured him with caresses; you left nothing undone that could + set him dreaming, imagining, longing for the bliss of love. You asked + innumerable sacrifices of him, only to refuse to make any in return. He + should see the light indeed before you put out his eyes! It is wonderful + how you found the heart to do it! Such villainies demand a display of + resource quite above the comprehension of those bourgeoises whom you laugh + at and despise. They can give and forgive; they know how to love and + suffer. The grandeur of their devotion dwarfs us. Rising higher in the + social scale, one finds just as much mud as at the lower end; but with + this difference, at the upper end it is hard and gilded over. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, to find baseness in perfection, you must look for a noble bringing + up, a great name, a fair woman, a duchess. You cannot fall lower than the + lowest unless you are set high above the rest of the world.—I + express my thoughts badly; the wounds you dealt me are too painful as yet, + but do not think that I complain. My words are not the expression of any + hope for myself; there is no trace of bitterness in them. Know this, + madame, for a certainty—I forgive you. My forgiveness is so complete + that you need not feel in the least sorry that you came hither to find it + against your will.... But you might take advantage of other hearts as + child-like as my own, and it is my duty to spare them anguish. So you have + inspired the thought of justice. Expiate your sin here on earth; God may + perhaps forgive you; I wish that He may, but He is inexorable, and will + strike.” + </p> + <p> + The broken-spirited, broken-hearted woman looked up, her eyes filled with + tears. + </p> + <p> + “Why do you cry? Be true to your nature. You could look on indifferently + at the torture of a heart as you broke it. That will do, madame, do not + cry. I cannot bear it any longer. Other men will tell you that you have + given them life; as for myself, I tell you, with rapture, that you have + given me blank extinction. Perhaps you guess that I am not my own, that I + am bound to live for my friends, that from this time forth I must endure + the cold chill of death, as well as the burden of life? Is it possible + that there can be so much kindness in you? Are you like the desert tigress + that licks the wounds she has inflicted?” + </p> + <p> + The Duchess burst out sobbing. + </p> + <p> + “Pray spare your tears, madame. If I believed in them at all, it would + merely set me on my guard. Is this another of your artifices? or is it + not? You have used so many with me; how can one think that there is any + truth in you? Nothing that you do or say has any power now to move me. + That is all I have to say.” + </p> + <p> + Mme de Langeais rose to her feet, with a great dignity and humility in her + bearing. + </p> + <p> + “You are right to treat me very hardly,” she said, holding out a hand to + the man who did not take it; “you have not spoken hardly enough; and I + deserve this punishment.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> punish you, madame! A man must love still, to punish, must he + not? From me you must expect no feeling, nothing resembling it. If I + chose, I might be accuser and judge in my cause, and pronounce and carry + out the sentence. But I am about to fulfil a duty, not a desire of + vengeance of any kind. The cruelest revenge of all, I think, is scorn of + revenge when it is in our power to take it. Perhaps I shall be the + minister of your pleasures; who knows? Perhaps from this time forth, as + you gracefully wear the tokens of disgrace by which society marks out the + criminal, you may perforce learn something of the convict’s sense of + honour. And then, you will love!” + </p> + <p> + The Duchess sat listening; her meekness was unfeigned; it was no + coquettish device. When she spoke at last, it was after a silence. + </p> + <p> + “Armand,” she began, “it seems to me that when I resisted love, I was + obeying all the instincts of woman’s modesty; I should not have looked for + such reproaches from <i>you</i>. I was weak; you have turned all my + weaknesses against me, and made so many crimes of them. How could you fail + to understand that the curiosity of love might have carried me further + than I ought to go; and that next morning I might be angry with myself, + and wretched because I had gone too far? Alas! I sinned in ignorance. I + was as sincere in my wrongdoing, I swear to you, as in my remorse. There + was far more love for you in my severity than in my concessions. And + besides, of what do you complain? I gave you my heart; that was not + enough; you demanded, brutally, that I should give my person——” + </p> + <p> + “Brutally?” repeated Montriveau. But to himself he said, “If I once allow + her to dispute over words, I am lost.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. You came to me as if I were one of those women. You showed none of + the respect, none of the attentions of love. Had I not reason to reflect? + Very well, I reflected. The unseemliness of your conduct is not + inexcusable; love lay at the source of it; let me think so, and justify + you to myself.—Well, Armand, this evening, even while you were + prophesying evil, I felt convinced that there was happiness in store for + us both. Yes, I put my faith in the noble, proud nature so often tested + and proved.” She bent lower. “And I was yours wholly,” she murmured in his + ear. “I felt a longing that I cannot express to give happiness to a man so + violently tried by adversity. If I must have a master, my master should be + a great man. As I felt conscious of my height, the less I cared to + descend. I felt I could trust you, I saw a whole lifetime of love, while + you were pointing to death.... Strength and kindness always go together. + My friend, you are so strong, you will not be unkind to a helpless woman + who loves you. If I was wrong, is there no way of obtaining forgiveness? + No way of making reparation? Repentance is the charm of love; I should + like to be very charming for you. How could I, alone among women, fail to + know a woman’s doubts and fears, the timidity that it is so natural to + feel when you bind yourself for life, and know how easily a man snaps such + ties? The bourgeoises, with whom you compared me just now, give + themselves, but they struggle first. Very well—I struggled; but here + I am!—Ah! God, he does not hear me!” she broke off, and wringing her + hands, she cried out “But I love you! I am yours!” and fell at Armand’s + feet. + </p> + <p> + “Yours! yours! my one and only master!” + </p> + <p> + Armand tried to raise her. + </p> + <p> + “Madame, it is too late! Antoinette cannot save the Duchesse de Langeais. + I cannot believe in either. Today you may give yourself; tomorrow, you may + refuse. No power in earth or heaven can insure me the sweet constancy of + love. All love’s pledges lay in the past; and now nothing of that past + exists.” + </p> + <p> + The light behind the curtain blazed up so brightly, that the Duchess could + not help turning her head; this time she distinctly saw the three masked + figures. + </p> + <p> + “Armand,” she said, “I would not wish to think ill of you. Why are those + men there? What are you going to do to me?” + </p> + <p> + “Those men will be as silent as I myself with regard to the thing which is + about to be done. Think of them simply as my hands and my heart. One of + them is a surgeon——” + </p> + <p> + “A surgeon! Armand, my friend, of all things, suspense is the hardest to + bear. Just speak; tell me if you wish for my life; I will give it to you, + you shall not take it——” + </p> + <p> + “Then you did not understand me? Did I not speak just now of justice? To + put an end to your misapprehensions,” continued he, taking up a small + steel object from the table, “I will now explain what I have decided with + regard to you.” + </p> + <p> + He held out a Lorraine cross, fastened to the tip of a steel rod. + </p> + <p> + “Two of my friends at this very moment are heating another cross, made on + this pattern, red-hot. We are going to stamp it upon your forehead, here + between the eyes, so that there will be no possibility of hiding the mark + with diamonds, and so avoiding people’s questions. In short, you shall + bear on your forehead the brand of infamy which your brothers the convicts + wear on their shoulders. The pain is a mere trifle, but I feared a nervous + crisis of some kind, of resistance——” + </p> + <p> + “Resistance?” she cried, clapping her hands for joy. “Oh no, no! I would + have the whole world here to see. Ah, my Armand, brand her quickly, this + creature of yours; brand her with your mark as a poor little trifle + belonging to you. You asked for pledges of my love; here they are all in + one. Ah! for me there is nothing but mercy and forgiveness and eternal + happiness in this revenge of yours. When you have marked this woman with + your mark, when you set your crimson brand on her, your slave in soul, you + can never afterwards abandon her, you will be mine for evermore? When you + cut me off from my kind, you make yourself responsible for my happiness, + or you prove yourself base; and I know that you are noble and great! Why, + when a woman loves, the brand of love is burnt into her soul by her own + will.—Come in, gentlemen! come in and brand her, this Duchesse de + Langeais. She is M. de Montriveau’s forever! Ah! come quickly, all of you, + my forehead burns hotter than your fire!” + </p> + <p> + Armand turned his head sharply away lest he should see the Duchess + kneeling, quivering with the throbbings of her heart. He said some word, + and his three friends vanished. + </p> + <p> + The women of Paris salons know how one mirror reflects another. The + Duchess, with every motive for reading the depths of Armand’s heart, was + all eyes; and Armand, all unsuspicious of the mirror, brushed away two + tears as they fell. Her whole future lay in those two tears. When he + turned round again to help her to rise, she was standing before him, sure + of love. Her pulses must have throbbed fast when he spoke with the + firmness she had known so well how to use of old while she played with + him. + </p> + <p> + “I spare you, madame. All that has taken place shall be as if it had never + been, you may believe me. But now, let us bid each other goodbye. I like + to think that you were sincere in your coquetries on your sofa, sincere + again in this outpouring of your heart. Good-bye. I feel that there is no + faith in you left in me. You would torment me again; you would always be + the Duchess, and——But there, good-bye, we shall never + understand each other. + </p> + <p> + “Now, what do you wish?” he continued, taking the tone of a master of the + ceremonies—“to return home, or to go back to Mme de Serizy’s ball? I + have done all in my power to prevent any scandal. Neither your servants + nor anyone else can possibly know what has passed between us in the last + quarter of an hour. Your servants have no idea that you have left the + ballroom; your carriage never left Mme de Serizy’s courtyard; your + brougham may likewise be found in the court of your own hotel. Where do + you wish to be?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you counsel, Armand?” + </p> + <p> + “There is no Armand now, Mme la Duchesse. We are strangers to each other.” + </p> + <p> + “Then take me to the ball,” she said, still curious to put Armand’s power + to the test. “Thrust a soul that suffered in the world, and must always + suffer there, if there is no happiness for her now, down into hell again. + And yet, oh my friend, I love you as your bourgeoises love; I love you so + that I could come to you and fling my arms about your neck before all the + world if you asked it off me. The hateful world has not corrupted me. I am + young at least, and I have grown younger still. I am a child, yes, your + child, your new creature. Ah! do not drive me forth out of my Eden!” + </p> + <p> + Armand shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “Ah! let me take something with me, if I go, some little thing to wear + tonight on my heart,” she said, taking possession of Armand’s glove, which + she twisted into her handkerchief. + </p> + <p> + “No, I am <i>not</i> like all those depraved women. You do not know the + world, and so you cannot know my worth. You shall know it now! There are + women who sell themselves for money; there are others to be gained by + gifts, it is a vile world! Oh, I wish I were a simple bourgeoise, a + working girl, if you would rather have a woman beneath you than a woman + whose devotion is accompanied by high rank, as men count it. Oh, my + Armand, there are noble, high, and chaste and pure natures among us; and + then they are lovely indeed. I would have all nobleness that I might offer + it all up to you. Misfortune willed that I should be a duchess; I would I + were a royal princess, that my offering might be complete. I would be a + grisette for you, and a queen for everyone besides.” + </p> + <p> + He listened, damping his cigars with his lips. + </p> + <p> + “You will let me know when you wish to go,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “But I should like to stay——” + </p> + <p> + “That is another matter!” + </p> + <p> + “Stay, that was badly rolled,” she cried, seizing on a cigar and devouring + all that Armand’s lips had touched. + </p> + <p> + “Do you smoke?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, what would I not do to please you?” + </p> + <p> + “Very well. Go, madame.” + </p> + <p> + “I will obey you,” she answered, with tears in her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “You must be blindfolded; you must not see a glimpse of the way.” + </p> + <p> + “I am ready, Armand,” she said, bandaging her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Can you see?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + Noiselessly he knelt before her. + </p> + <p> + “Ah! I can hear you!” she cried, with a little fond gesture, thinking that + the pretence of harshness was over. + </p> + <p> + He made as if he would kiss her lips; she held up her face. + </p> + <p> + “You can see, madame.” + </p> + <p> + “I am just a little bit curious.” + </p> + <p> + “So you always deceive me?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! take off this handkerchief, sir,” she cried out, with the passion of + a great generosity repelled with scorn, “lead me; I will not open my + eyes.” + </p> + <p> + Armand felt sure of her after that cry. He led the way; the Duchess nobly + true to her word, was blind. But while Montriveau held her hand as a + father might, and led her up and down flights of stairs, he was studying + the throbbing pulses of this woman’s heart so suddenly invaded by Love. + Mme de Langeais, rejoicing in this power of speech, was glad to let him + know all; but he was inflexible; his hand was passive in reply to the + questionings of her hand. + </p> + <p> + At length, after some journey made together, Armand bade her go forward; + the opening was doubtless narrow, for as she went she felt that his hand + protected her dress. His care touched her; it was a revelation surely that + there was a little love still left; yet it was in some sort a farewell, + for Montriveau left her without a word. The air was warm; the Duchess, + feeling the heat, opened her eyes, and found herself standing by the fire + in the Comtesse de Serizy’s boudoir. + </p> + <p> + She was alone. Her first thought was for her disordered toilette; in a + moment she had adjusted her dress and restored her picturesque coiffure. + </p> + <p> + “Well, dear Antoinette, we have been looking for you everywhere.” It was + the Comtesse de Serizy who spoke as she opened the door. + </p> + <p> + “I came here to breathe,” said the Duchess; “it is unbearably hot in the + rooms.” + </p> + <p> + “People thought that you had gone; but my brother Ronquerolles told me + that your servants were waiting for you.” + </p> + <p> + “I am tired out, dear, let me stay and rest here for a minute,” and the + Duchess sat down on the sofa. + </p> + <p> + “Why, what is the matter with you? You are shaking from head to foot!” + </p> + <p> + The Marquis de Ronquerolles came in. + </p> + <p> + “Mme la Duchesse, I was afraid that something might have happened. I have + just come across your coachman, the man is as tipsy as all the Swiss in + Switzerland.” + </p> + <p> + The Duchess made no answer; she was looking round the room, at the + chimney-piece and the tall mirrors, seeking the trace of an opening. Then + with an extraordinary sensation she recollected that she was again in the + midst of the gaiety of the ballroom after that terrific scene which had + changed the whole course of her life. She began to shiver violently. + </p> + <p> + “M. de Montriveau’s prophecy has shaken my nerves,” she said. “It was a + joke, but still I will see whether his axe from London will haunt me even + in my sleep. So good-bye, dear.—Good-bye, M. le Marquis.” + </p> + <p> + As she went through the rooms she was beset with inquiries and regrets. + Her world seemed to have dwindled now that she, its queen, had fallen so + low, was so diminished. And what, moreover, were these men compared with + him whom she loved with all her heart; with the man grown great by all + that she had lost in stature? The giant had regained the height that he + had lost for a while, and she exaggerated it perhaps beyond measure. She + looked, in spite of herself, at the servant who had attended her to the + ball. He was fast asleep. + </p> + <p> + “Have you been here all the time?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, madame.” + </p> + <p> + As she took her seat in her carriage she saw, in fact, that her coachman + was drunk—so drunk, that at any other time she would have been + afraid; but after a great crisis in life, fear loses its appetite for + common food. She reached home, at any rate, without accident; but even + there she felt a change in herself, a new feeling that she could not shake + off. For her, there was now but one man in the world; which is to say that + henceforth she cared to shine for his sake alone. + </p> + <p> + While the physiologist can define love promptly by following out natural + laws, the moralist finds a far more perplexing problem before him if he + attempts to consider love in all its developments due to social + conditions. Still, in spite of the heresies of the endless sects that + divide the church of Love, there is one broad and trenchant line of + difference in doctrine, a line that all the discussion in the world can + never deflect. A rigid application of this line explains the nature of the + crisis through which the Duchess, like most women, was to pass. Passion + she knew, but she did not love as yet. + </p> + <p> + Love and passion are two different conditions which poets and men of the + world, philosophers and fools, alike continually confound. Love implies a + give and take, a certainty of bliss that nothing can change; it means so + close a clinging of the heart, and an exchange of happiness so constant, + that there is no room left for jealousy. Then possession is a means and + not an end; unfaithfulness may give pain, but the bond is not less close; + the soul is neither more nor less ardent or troubled, but happy at every + moment; in short, the divine breath of desire spreading from end to end of + the immensity of Time steeps it all for us in the selfsame hue; life takes + the tint of the unclouded heaven. But Passion is the foreshadowing of + Love, and of that Infinite to which all suffering souls aspire. Passion is + a hope that may be cheated. Passion means both suffering and transition. + Passion dies out when hope is dead. Men and women may pass through this + experience many times without dishonor, for it is so natural to spring + towards happiness; but there is only one love in a lifetime. All + discussions of sentiment ever conducted on paper or by word of mouth may + therefore be resumed by two questions—“Is it passion? Is it love?” + So, since love comes into existence only through the intimate experience + of the bliss which gives it lasting life, the Duchess was beneath the yoke + of passion as yet; and as she knew the fierce tumult, the unconscious + calculations, the fevered cravings, and all that is meant by that word <i>passion</i>—she + suffered. Through all the trouble of her soul there rose eddying gusts of + tempest, raised by vanity or self-love, or pride or a high spirit; for all + these forms of egoism make common cause together. + </p> + <p> + She had said to this man, “I love you; I am yours!” Was it possible that + the Duchesse de Langeais should have uttered those words—in vain? + She must either be loved now or play her part of queen no longer. And then + she felt the loneliness of the luxurious couch where pleasure had never + yet set his glowing feet; and over and over again, while she tossed and + writhed there, she said, “I want to be loved.” + </p> + <p> + But the belief that she still had in herself gave her hope of success. The + Duchess might be piqued, the vain Parisienne might be humiliated; but the + woman saw glimpses of wedded happiness, and imagination, avenging the time + lost for nature, took a delight in kindling the inextinguishable fire in + her veins. She all but attained to the sensations of love; for amid her + poignant doubt whether she was loved in return, she felt glad at heart to + say to herself, “I love him!” As for her scruples, religion, and the world + she could trample them under foot! Montriveau was her religion now. She + spent the next day in a state of moral torpor, troubled by a physical + unrest, which no words could express. She wrote letters and tore them all + up, and invented a thousand impossible fancies. + </p> + <p> + When M. de Montriveau’s usual hour arrived, she tried to think that he + would come, and enjoyed the feeling of expectation. Her whole life was + concentrated in the single sense of hearing. Sometimes she shut her eyes, + straining her ears to listen through space, wishing that she could + annihilate everything that lay between her and her lover, and so establish + that perfect silence which sounds may traverse from afar. In her tense + self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful to her; she + stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of midnight sounded + from the drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, God!” she cried, “to see him here would be happiness. And yet, it is + not so very long since he came here, brought by desire, and the tones of + his voice filled this boudoir. And now there is nothing.” + </p> + <p> + She remembered the times that she had played the coquette with him, and + how that her coquetry had cost her her lover, and the despairing tears + flowed for long. + </p> + <p> + Her woman came at length with, “Mme la Duchesse does not know, perhaps, + that it is two o’clock in the morning; I thought that madame was not + feeling well.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I am going to bed,” said the Duchess, drying her eyes. “But + remember, Suzanne, never to come in again without orders; I tell you this + for the last time.” + </p> + <p> + For a week, Mme de Langeais went to every house where there was a hope of + meeting M. de Montriveau. Contrary to her usual habits, she came early and + went late; gave up dancing, and went to the card-tables. Her experiments + were fruitless. She did not succeed in getting a glimpse of Armand. She + did not dare to utter his name now. One evening, however, in a fit of + despair, she spoke to Mme de Serizy, and asked as carelessly as she could, + “You must have quarreled with M. de Montriveau? He is not to be seen at + your house now.” + </p> + <p> + The Countess laughed. “So he does not come here either?” she returned. “He + is not to be seen anywhere, for that matter. He is interested in some + woman, no doubt.” + </p> + <p> + “I used to think that the Marquis de Ronquerolles was one of his friends——” + the Duchess began sweetly. + </p> + <p> + “I have never heard my brother say that he was acquainted with him.” + </p> + <p> + Mme de Langeais did not reply. Mme de Serizy concluded from the Duchess’s + silence that she might apply the scourge with impunity to a discreet + friendship which she had seen, with bitterness of soul, for a long time + past. + </p> + <p> + “So you miss that melancholy personage, do you? I have heard most + extraordinary things of him. Wound his feelings, he never comes back, he + forgives nothing; and, if you love him, he keeps you in chains. To + everything that I said of him, one of those that praise him sky-high would + always answer, ‘He knows how to love!’ People are always telling me that + Montriveau would give up all for his friend; that his is a great nature. + Pooh! society does not want such tremendous natures. Men of that stamp are + all very well at home; let them stay there and leave us to our pleasant + littlenesses. What do you say, Antoinette?” + </p> + <p> + Woman of the world though she was, the Duchess seemed agitated, yet she + replied in a natural voice that deceived her fair friend: + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry to miss him. I took a great interest in him, and promised to + myself to be his sincere friend. I like great natures, dear friend, + ridiculous though you may think it. To give oneself to a fool is a clear + confession, is it not, that one is governed wholly by one’s senses?” + </p> + <p> + Mme de Serizy’s “preferences” had always been for commonplace men; her + lover at the moment, the Marquis d’Aiglemont, was a fine, tall man. + </p> + <p> + After this, the Countess soon took her departure, you may be sure Mme de + Langeais saw hope in Armand’s withdrawal from the world; she wrote to him + at once; it was a humble, gentle letter, surely it would bring him if he + loved her still. She sent her footman with it next day. On the servant’s + return, she asked whether he had given the letter to M. de Montriveau + himself, and could not restrain the movement of joy at the affirmative + answer. Armand was in Paris! He stayed alone in his house; he did not go + out into society! So she was loved! All day long she waited for an answer + that never came. Again and again, when impatience grew unbearable, + Antoinette found reasons for his delay. Armand felt embarrassed; the reply + would come by post; but night came, and she could not deceive herself any + longer. It was a dreadful day, a day of pain grown sweet, of intolerable + heart-throbs, a day when the heart squanders the very forces of life in + riot. + </p> + <p> + Next day she sent for an answer. + </p> + <p> + “M. le Marquis sent word that he would call on Mme la Duchesse,” reported + Julien. + </p> + <p> + She fled lest her happiness should be seen in her face, and flung herself + on her couch to devour her first sensations. + </p> + <p> + “He is coming!” + </p> + <p> + The thought rent her soul. And, in truth, woe unto those for whom suspense + is not the most horrible time of tempest, while it increases and + multiplies the sweetest joys; for they have nothing in them of that flame + which quickens the images of things, giving to them a second existence, so + that we cling as closely to the pure essence as to its outward and visible + manifestation. What is suspense in love but a constant drawing upon an + unfailing hope?—a submission to the terrible scourging of passion, + while passion is yet happy, and the disenchantment of reality has not set + in. The constant putting forth of strength and longing, called suspense, + is surely, to the human soul, as fragrance to the flower that breathes it + forth. We soon leave the brilliant, unsatisfying colours of tulips and + coreopsis, but we turn again and again to drink in the sweetness of + orange-blossoms or volkameria-flowers compared separately, each in its own + land, to a betrothed bride, full of love, made fair by the past and + future. + </p> + <p> + The Duchess learned the joys of this new life of hers through the rapture + with which she received the scourgings of love. As this change wrought in + her, she saw other destinies before her, and a better meaning in the + things of life. As she hurried to her dressing-room, she understood what + studied adornment and the most minute attention to her toilet mean when + these are undertaken for love’s sake and not for vanity. Even now this + making ready helped her to bear the long time of waiting. A relapse of + intense agitation set in when she was dressed; she passed through nervous + paroxysms brought on by the dreadful power which sets the whole mind in + ferment. Perhaps that power is only a disease, though the pain of it is + sweet. The Duchess was dressed and waiting at two o clock in the + afternoon. At half-past eleven that night M. de Montriveau had not + arrived. To try to give an idea of the anguish endured by a woman who + might be said to be the spoilt child of civilization, would be to attempt + to say how many imaginings the heart can condense into one thought. As + well endeavour to measure the forces expended by the soul in a sigh + whenever the bell rang; to estimate the drain of life when a carriage + rolled past without stopping, and left her prostrate. + </p> + <p> + “Can he be playing with me?” she said, as the clocks struck midnight. + </p> + <p> + She grew white; her teeth chattered; she struck her hands together and + leapt up and crossed the boudoir, recollecting as she did so how often he + had come thither without a summons. But she resigned herself. Had she not + seen him grow pale, and start up under the stinging barbs of irony? Then + Mme de Langeais felt the horror of the woman’s appointed lot; a man’s is + the active part, a woman must wait passively when she loves. If a woman + goes beyond her beloved, she makes a mistake which few men can forgive; + almost every man would feel that a woman lowers herself by this piece of + angelic flattery. But Armand’s was a great nature; he surely must be one + of the very few who can repay such exceeding love by love that lasts + forever. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I will make the advance,” she told herself, as she tossed on her + bed and found no sleep there; “I will go to him. I will not weary myself + with holding out a hand to him, but I will hold it out. A man of a + thousand will see a promise of love and constancy in every step that a + woman takes towards him. Yes, the angels must come down from heaven to + reach men; and I wish to be an angel for him.” + </p> + <p> + Next day she wrote. It was a billet of the kind in which the intellects of + the ten thousand Sevignes that Paris now can number particularly excel. + And yet only a Duchesse de Langeais, brought up by Mme la Princesse de + Blamont-Chauvry, could have written that delicious note; no other woman + could complain without lowering herself; could spread wings in such a + flight without draggling her pinions in humiliation; rise gracefully in + revolt; scold without giving offence; and pardon without compromising her + personal dignity. + </p> + <p> + Julien went with the note. Julien, like his kind, was the victim of love’s + marches and countermarches. + </p> + <p> + “What did M. de Montriveau reply?” she asked, as indifferently as she + could, when the man came back to report himself. + </p> + <p> + “M. le Marquis requested me to tell Mme la Duchesse that it was all + right.” + </p> + <p> + Oh the dreadful reaction of the soul upon herself! To have her heart + stretched on the rack before curious witnesses; yet not to utter a sound, + to be forced to keep silence! One of the countless miseries of the rich! + </p> + <p> + More than three weeks went by. Mme de Langeais wrote again and again, and + no answer came from Montriveau. At last she gave out that she was ill, to + gain a dispensation from attendance on the Princess and from social + duties. She was only at home to her father the Duc de Navarreins, her aunt + the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, the old Vidame de Pamiers (her maternal + great-uncle), and to her husband’s uncle, the Duc de Grandlieu. These + persons found no difficulty in believing that the Duchess was ill, seeing + that she grew thinner and paler and more dejected every day. The vague + ardour of love, the smart of wounded pride, the continual prick of the + only scorn that could touch her, the yearnings towards joys that she + craved with a vain continual longing—all these things told upon her, + mind and body; all the forces of her nature were stimulated to no purpose. + She was paying the arrears of her life of make-believe. + </p> + <p> + She went out at last to a review. M. de Montriveau was to be there. For + the Duchess, on the balcony of the Tuileries with the Royal Family, it was + one of those festival days that are long remembered. She looked supremely + beautiful in her languor; she was greeted with admiration in all eyes. It + was Montriveau’s presence that made her so fair. + </p> + <p> + Once or twice they exchanged glances. The General came almost to her feet + in all the glory of that soldier’s uniform, which produces an effect upon + the feminine imagination to which the most prudish will confess. When a + woman is very much in love, and has not seen her lover for two months, + such a swift moment must be something like the phase of a dream when the + eyes embrace a world that stretches away forever. Only women or young men + can imagine the dull, frenzied hunger in the Duchess’s eyes. As for older + men, if during the paroxysms of early passion in youth they had experience + of such phenomena of nervous power; at a later day it is so completely + forgotten that they deny the very existence of the luxuriant ecstasy—the + only name that can be given to these wonderful intuitions. Religious + ecstasy is the aberration of a soul that has shaken off its bonds of + flesh; whereas in amorous ecstasy all the forces of soul and body are + embraced and blended in one. If a woman falls a victim to the tyrannous + frenzy before which Mme de Langeais was forced to bend, she will take one + decisive resolution after another so swiftly that it is impossible to give + account of them. Thought after thought rises and flits across her brain, + as clouds are whirled by the wind across the grey veil of mist that shuts + out the sun. Thenceforth the facts reveal all. And the facts are these. + </p> + <p> + The day after the review, Mme de Langeais sent her carriage and liveried + servants to wait at the Marquis de Montriveau’s door from eight o’clock in + the morning till three in the afternoon. Armand lived in the Rue de + Tournon, a few steps away from the Chamber of Peers, and that very day the + House was sitting; but long before the peers returned to their palaces, + several people had recognised the Duchess’s carriage and liveries. The + first of these was the Baron de Maulincour. That young officer had met + with disdain from Mme de Langeais and a better reception from Mme de + Serizy; he betook himself at once therefore to his mistress, and under + seal of secrecy told her of this strange freak. + </p> + <p> + In a moment the news was spread with telegraphic speed through all the + coteries in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; it reached the Tuileries and the + Elysee-Bourbon; it was the sensation of the day, the matter of all the + talk from noon till night. Almost everywhere the women denied the facts, + but in such a manner that the report was confirmed; the men one and all + believed it, and manifested a most indulgent interest in Mme de Langeais. + Some among them threw the blame on Armand. + </p> + <p> + “That savage of a Montriveau is a man of bronze,” said they; “he insisted + on making this scandal, no doubt.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well, then,” others replied, “Mme de Langeais has been guilty of a + most generous piece of imprudence. To renounce the world and rank, and + fortune, and consideration for her lover’s sake, and that in the face of + all Paris, is as fine a <i>coup d’etat</i> for a woman as that barber’s + knife-thrust, which so affected Canning in a court of assize. Not one of + the women who blame the Duchess would make a declaration worthy of ancient + times. It is heroic of Mme de Langeais to proclaim herself so frankly. Now + there is nothing left to her but to love Montriveau. There must be + something great about a woman if she says, ‘I will have but one passion.’” + </p> + <p> + “But what is to become of society, monsieur, if you honour vice in this + way without respect for virtue?” asked the Comtesse de Granville, the + attorney-general’s wife. + </p> + <p> + While the Chateau, the Faubourg, and the Chaussee d’Antin were discussing + the shipwreck of aristocratic virtue; while excited young men rushed about + on horseback to make sure that the carriage was standing in the Rue de + Tournon, and the Duchess in consequence was beyond a doubt in M. de + Montriveau’s rooms, Mme de Langeais, with heavy throbbing pulses, was + lying hidden away in her boudoir. And Armand?—he had been out all + night, and at that moment was walking with M. de Marsay in the Gardens of + the Tuileries. The elder members, of Mme de Langeais’ family were engaged + in calling upon one another, arranging to read her a homily and to hold a + consultation as to the best way of putting a stop to the scandal. + </p> + <p> + At three o’clock, therefore, M. le Duc de Navarreins, the Vidame de + Pamiers, the old Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, and the Duc de Grandlieu + were assembled in Mme la Duchesse de Langeais’ drawing-room. To them, as + to all curious inquirers, the servants said that their mistress was not at + home; the Duchess had made no exceptions to her orders. But these four + personages shone conspicuous in that lofty sphere, of which the + revolutions and hereditary pretensions are solemnly recorded year by year + in the <i>Almanach de Gotha</i>, wherefore without some slight sketch of + each of them this picture of society were incomplete. + </p> + <p> + The Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, in the feminine world, was a most poetic + wreck of the reign of Louis Quinze. In her beautiful prime, so it was + said, she had done her part to win for that monarch his appellation of <i>le + Bien-aime</i>. Of her past charms of feature, little remained save a + remarkably prominent slender nose, curved like a Turkish scimitar, now the + principal ornament of a countenance that put you in mind of an old white + glove. Add a few powdered curls, high-heeled pantoufles, a cap with + upstanding loops of lace, black mittens, and a decided taste for <i>ombre</i>. + But to do full justice to the lady, it must be said that she appeared in + low-necked gowns of an evening (so high an opinion of her ruins had she), + wore long gloves, and raddled her cheeks with Martin’s classic rouge. An + appalling amiability in her wrinkles, a prodigious brightness in the old + lady’s eyes, a profound dignity in her whole person, together with the + triple barbed wit of her tongue, and an infallible memory in her head, + made of her a real power in the land. The whole Cabinet des Chartes was + entered in duplicate on the parchment of her brain. She knew all the + genealogies of every noble house in Europe—princes, dukes, and + counts—and could put her hand on the last descendants of Charlemagne + in the direct line. No usurpation of title could escape the Princesse de + Blamont-Chauvry. + </p> + <p> + Young men who wished to stand well at Court, ambitious men, and young + married women paid her assiduous homage. Her salon set the tone of the + Faubourg Saint-Germain. The words of this Talleyrand in petticoats were + taken as final decrees. People came to consult her on questions of + etiquette or usages, or to take lessons in good taste. And, in truth, no + other old woman could put back her snuff-box in her pocket as the Princess + could; while there was a precision and a grace about the movements of her + skirts, when she sat down or crossed her feet, which drove the finest + ladies of the young generation to despair. Her voice had remained in her + head during one-third of her lifetime; but she could not prevent a descent + into the membranes of the nose, which lent to it a peculiar + expressiveness. She still retained a hundred and fifty thousand livres of + her great fortune, for Napoleon had generously returned her woods to her; + so that personally and in the matter of possessions she was a woman of no + little consequence. + </p> + <p> + This curious antique, seated in a low chair by the fireside, was chatting + with the Vidame de Pamiers, a contemporary ruin. The Vidame was a big, + tall, and spare man, a seigneur of the old school, and had been a + Commander of the Order of Malta. His neck had always been so tightly + compressed by a strangulation stock, that his cheeks pouched over it a + little, and he held his head high; to many people this would have given an + air of self-sufficiency, but in the Vidame it was justified by a + Voltairean wit. His wide prominent eyes seemed to see everything, and as a + matter of fact there was not much that they had not seen. Altogether, his + person was a perfect model of aristocratic outline, slim and slender, + supple and agreeable. He seemed as if he could be pliant or rigid at will, + and twist and bend, or rear his head like a snake. + </p> + <p> + The Duc de Navarreins was pacing up and down the room with the Duc de + Grandlieu. Both were men of fifty-six or thereabouts, and still hale; both + were short, corpulent, flourishing, somewhat florid-complexioned men with + jaded eyes, and lower lips that had begun to hang already. But for an + exquisite refinement of accent, an urbane courtesy, and an ease of manner + that could change in a moment to insolence, a superficial observer might + have taken them for a couple of bankers. Any such mistake would have been + impossible, however, if the listener could have heard them converse, and + seen them on their guard with men whom they feared, vapid and commonplace + with their equals, slippery with the inferiors whom courtiers and + statesmen know how to tame by a tactful word, or to humiliate with an + unexpected phrase. + </p> + <p> + Such were the representatives of the great noblesse that determined to + perish rather than submit to any change. It was a noblesse that deserved + praise and blame in equal measure; a noblesse that will never be judged + impartially until some poet shall arise to tell how joyfully the nobles + obeyed the King though their heads fell under a Richelieu’s axe, and how + deeply they scorned the guillotine of ‘89 as a foul revenge. + </p> + <p> + Another noticeable trait in all the four was a thin voice that agreed + peculiarly well with their ideas and bearing. Among themselves, at any + rate, they were on terms of perfect equality. None of them betrayed any + sign of annoyance over the Duchess’s escapade, but all of them had learned + at Court to hide their feelings. + </p> + <p> + And here, lest critics should condemn the puerility of the opening of the + forthcoming scene, it is perhaps as well to remind the reader that Locke, + once happening to be in the company of several great lords, renowned no + less for their wit than for their breeding and political consistency, + wickedly amused himself by taking down their conversation by some + shorthand process of his own; and afterwards, when he read it over to them + to see what they could make of it, they all burst out laughing. And, in + truth, the tinsel jargon which circulates among the upper ranks in every + country yields mighty little gold to the crucible when washed in the ashes + of literature or philosophy. In every rank of society (some few Parisian + salons excepted) the curious observer finds folly a constant quantity + beneath a more or less transparent varnish. Conversation with any + substance in it is a rare exception, and boeotianism is current coin in + every zone. In the higher regions they must perforce talk more, but to + make up for it they think the less. Thinking is a tiring exercise, and the + rich like their lives to flow by easily and without effort. It is by + comparing the fundamental matter of jests, as you rise in the social scale + from the street-boy to the peer of France, that the observer arrives at a + true comprehension of M. de Talleyrand’s maxim, “The manner is + everything”; an elegant rendering of the legal axiom, “The form is of more + consequence than the matter.” In the eyes of the poet the advantage rests + with the lower classes, for they seldom fail to give a certain character + of rude poetry to their thoughts. Perhaps also this same observation may + explain the sterility of the salons, their emptiness, their shallowness, + and the repugnance felt by men of ability for bartering their ideas for + such pitiful small change. + </p> + <p> + The Duke suddenly stopped as if some bright idea occurred to him, and + remarked to his neighbour: + </p> + <p> + “So you have sold Tornthon?” + </p> + <p> + “No, he is ill. I am very much afraid I shall lose him, and I should be + uncommonly sorry. He is a very good hunter. Do you know how the Duchesse + de Marigny is?” + </p> + <p> + “No. I did not go this morning. I was just going out to call when you came + in to speak about Antoinette. But yesterday she was very ill indeed; they + had given her up, she took the sacrament.” + </p> + <p> + “Her death will make a change in your cousin’s position.” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all. She gave away her property in her lifetime, only keeping an + annuity. She made over the Guebriant estate to her niece, Mme de + Soulanges, subject to a yearly charge.” + </p> + <p> + “It will be a great loss for society. She was a kind woman. Her family + will miss her; her experience and advice carried weight. Her son Marigny + is an amiable man; he has a sharp wit, he can talk. He is pleasant, very + pleasant. Pleasant? oh, that no one can deny, but—ill regulated to + the last degree. Well, and yet it is an extraordinary thing, he is very + acute. He was dining at the club the other day with that moneyed + Chaussee-d’Antin set. Your uncle (he always goes there for his game of + cards) found him there to his astonishment, and asked if he was a member. + ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘I don’t go into society now; I am living among the + bankers.’—You know why?” added the Marquis, with a meaning smile. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said the Duke. + </p> + <p> + “He is smitten with that little Mme Keller, Gondreville’s daughter; she is + only lately married, and has a great vogue, they say, in that set.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, Antoinette does not find time heavy on her hands, it seems,” + remarked the Vidame. + </p> + <p> + “My affection for that little woman has driven me to find a singular + pastime,” replied the Princess, as she returned her snuff-box to her + pocket. + </p> + <p> + “Dear aunt, I am extremely vexed,” said the Duke, stopping short in his + walk. “Nobody but one of Bonaparte’s men could ask such an indecorous + thing of a woman of fashion. Between ourselves, Antoinette might have made + a better choice.” + </p> + <p> + “The Montriveaus are a very old family and very well connected, my dear,” + replied the Princess; “they are related to all the noblest houses of + Burgundy. If the Dulmen branch of the Arschoot Rivaudoults should come to + an end in Galicia, the Montriveaus would succeed to the Arschoot title and + estates. They inherit through their great-grandfather. + </p> + <p> + “Are you sure?” + </p> + <p> + “I know it better than this Montriveau’s father did. I told him about it, + I used to see a good deal of him; and, Chevalier of several orders though + he was, he only laughed; he was an encyclopaedist. But his brother turned + the relationship to good account during the emigration. I have heard it + said that his northern kinsfolk were most kind in every way——” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, to be sure. The Comte de Montriveau died at St. Petersburg,” said + the Vidame. “I met him there. He was a big man with an incredible passion + for oysters.” + </p> + <p> + “However many did he eat?” asked the Duc de Grandlieu. + </p> + <p> + “Ten dozen every day.” + </p> + <p> + “And did they not disagree with him?” + </p> + <p> + “Not the least bit in the world.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, that is extraordinary! Had he neither the stone nor gout, nor any + other complaint, in consequence?” + </p> + <p> + “No; his health was perfectly good, and he died through an accident.” + </p> + <p> + “By accident! Nature prompted him to eat oysters, so probably he required + them; for up to a certain point our predominant tastes are conditions of + our existence.” + </p> + <p> + “I am of your opinion,” said the Princess, with a smile. + </p> + <p> + “Madame, you always put a malicious construction on things,” returned the + Marquis. + </p> + <p> + “I only want you to understand that these remarks might leave a wrong + impression on a young woman’s mind,” said she, and interrupted herself to + exclaim, “But this niece, this niece of mine!” + </p> + <p> + “Dear aunt, I still refuse to believe that she can have gone to M. de + Montriveau,” said the Duc de Navarreins. + </p> + <p> + “Bah!” returned the Princess. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think, Vidame?” asked the Marquis. + </p> + <p> + “If the Duchess were an artless simpleton, I should think that——” + </p> + <p> + “But when a woman is in love she becomes an artless simpleton,” retorted + the Princess. “Really, my poor Vidame, you must be getting older.” + </p> + <p> + “After all, what is to be done?” asked the Duke. + </p> + <p> + “If my dear niece is wise,” said the Princess, “she will go to Court this + evening—fortunately, today is Monday, and reception day—and + you must see that we all rally round her and give the lie to this absurd + rumour. There are hundreds of ways of explaining things; and if the + Marquis de Montriveau is a gentleman, he will come to our assistance. We + will bring these children to listen to reason——” + </p> + <p> + “But, dear aunt, it is not easy to tell M. de Montriveau the truth to his + face. He is one of Bonaparte’s pupils, and he has a position. Why, he is + one of the great men of the day; he is high up in the Guards, and very + useful there. He has not a spark of ambition. He is just the man to say, + ‘Here is my commission, leave me in peace,’ if the King should say a word + that he did not like.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, pray, what are his opinions?” + </p> + <p> + “Very unsound.” + </p> + <p> + “Really,” sighed the Princess, “the King is, as he always has been, a + Jacobin under the Lilies of France.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! not quite so bad,” said the Vidame. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; I have known him for a long while. The man that pointed out the + Court to his wife on the occasion of her first state dinner in public + with, ‘These are our people,’ could only be a black-hearted scoundrel. I + can see Monsieur exactly the same as ever in the King. The bad brother who + voted so wrongly in his department of the Constituent Assembly was sure to + compound with the Liberals and allow them to argue and talk. This + philosophical cant will be just as dangerous now for the younger brother + as it used to be for the elder; this fat man with the little mind is + amusing himself by creating difficulties, and how his successor is to get + out of them I do not know; he holds his younger brother in abhorrence; he + would be glad to think as he lay dying, ‘He will not reign very long——‘” + </p> + <p> + “Aunt, he is the King, and I have the honour to be in his service——” + </p> + <p> + “But does your post take away your right of free speech, my dear? You come + of quite as good a house as the Bourbons. If the Guises had shown a little + more resolution, His Majesty would be a nobody at this day. It is time I + went out of this world, the noblesse is dead. Yes, it is all over with + you, my children,” she continued, looking as she spoke at the Vidame. + “What has my niece done that the whole town should be talking about her? + She is in the wrong; I disapprove of her conduct, a useless scandal is a + blunder; that is why I still have my doubts about this want of regard for + appearances; I brought her up, and I know that——” + </p> + <p> + Just at that moment the Duchess came out of her boudoir. She had + recognised her aunt’s voice and heard the name of Montriveau. She was + still in her loose morning-gown; and even as she came in, M. de Grandlieu, + looking carelessly out of the window, saw his niece’s carriage driving + back along the street. The Duke took his daughter’s face in both hands and + kissed her on the forehead. + </p> + <p> + “So, dear girl,” he said, “you do not know what is going on?” + </p> + <p> + “Has anything extraordinary happened, father dear?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, all Paris believes that you are with M. de Montriveau.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Antoinette, you were at home all the time, were you not?” said + the Princess, holding out a hand, which the Duchess kissed with + affectionate respect. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, dear mother; I was at home all the time. And,” she added, as she + turned to greet the Vidame and the Marquis, “I wished that all Paris + should think that I was with M. de Montriveau.” + </p> + <p> + The Duke flung up his hands, struck them together in despair, and folded + his arms. + </p> + <p> + “Then, cannot you see what will come of this mad freak?” he asked at last. + </p> + <p> + But the aged Princess had suddenly risen, and stood looking steadily at + the Duchess, the younger woman flushed, and her eyes fell. Mme de Chauvry + gently drew her closer, and said, “My little angel, let me kiss you!” + </p> + <p> + She kissed her niece very affectionately on the forehead, and continued + smiling, while she held her hand in a tight clasp. + </p> + <p> + “We are not under the Valois now, dear child. You have compromised your + husband and your position. Still, we will arrange to make everything + right.” + </p> + <p> + “But, dear aunt, I do not wish to make it right at all. It is my wish that + all Paris should say that I was with M. de Montriveau this morning. If you + destroy that belief, however ill grounded it may be, you will do me a + singular disservice.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you really wish to ruin yourself, child, and to grieve your family?” + </p> + <p> + “My family, father, unintentionally condemned me to irreparable misfortune + when they sacrificed me to family considerations. You may, perhaps, blame + me for seeking alleviations, but you will certainly feel for me.” + </p> + <p> + “After all the endless pains you take to settle your daughters suitably!” + muttered M. de Navarreins, addressing the Vidame. + </p> + <p> + The Princess shook a stray grain of snuff from her skirts. “My dear little + girl,” she said, “be happy, if you can. We are not talking of troubling + your felicity, but of reconciling it with social usages. We all of us here + assembled know that marriage is a defective institution tempered by love. + But when you take a lover, is there any need to make your bed in the Place + du Carrousel? See now, just be a bit reasonable, and hear what we have to + say.” + </p> + <p> + “I am listening.” + </p> + <p> + “Mme la Duchesse,” began the Duc de Grandlieu, “if it were any part of an + uncle’s duty to look after his nieces, he ought to have a position; + society would owe him honours and rewards and a salary, exactly as if he + were in the King’s service. So I am not here to talk about my nephew, but + of your own interests. Let us look ahead a little. If you persist in + making a scandal—I have seen the animal before, and I own that I + have no great liking for him—Langeais is stingy enough, and he does + not care a rap for anyone but himself; he will have a separation; he will + stick to your money, and leave you poor, and consequently you will be a + nobody. The income of a hundred thousand livres that you have just + inherited from your maternal great-aunt will go to pay for his mistresses’ + amusements. You will be bound and gagged by the law; you will have to say + <i>Amen</i> to all these arrangements. Suppose M. de Montriveau leaves you——dear + me! do not let us put ourselves in a passion, my dear niece; a man does + not leave a woman while she is young and pretty; still, we have seen so + many pretty women left disconsolate, even among princesses, that you will + permit the supposition, an all but impossible supposition I quite wish to + believe.——Well, suppose that he goes, what will become of you + without a husband? Keep well with your husband as you take care of your + beauty; for beauty, after all, is a woman’s parachute, and a husband also + stands between you and worse. I am supposing that you are happy and loved + to the end, and I am leaving unpleasant or unfortunate events altogether + out of the reckoning. This being so, fortunately or unfortunately, you may + have children. What are they to be? Montriveaus? Very well; they certainly + will not succeed to their father’s whole fortune. You will want to give + them all that you have; he will wish to do the same. Nothing more natural, + dear me! And you will find the law against you. How many times have we + seen heirs-at-law bringing a law-suit to recover the property from + illegitimate children? Every court of law rings with such actions all over + the world. You will create a <i>fidei commissum</i> perhaps; and if the + trustee betrays your confidence, your children have no remedy against him; + and they are ruined. So choose carefully. You see the perplexities of the + position. In every possible way your children will be sacrificed of + necessity to the fancies of your heart; they will have no recognised + status. While they are little they will be charming; but, Lord! some day + they will reproach you for thinking of no one but your two selves. We old + gentlemen know all about it. Little boys grow up into men, and men are + ungrateful beings. When I was in Germany, did I not hear young de Horn + say, after supper, ‘If my mother had been an honest woman, I should be + prince-regnant!’ <i>If</i>?’ We have spent our lives in hearing plebeians + say <i>if</i>. <i>If</i> brought about the Revolution. When a man cannot + lay the blame on his father or mother, he holds God responsible for his + hard lot. In short, dear child, we are here to open your eyes. I will say + all I have to say in a few words, on which you had better meditate: A + woman ought never to put her husband in the right.” + </p> + <p> + “Uncle, so long as I cared for nobody, I could calculate; I looked at + interests then, as you do; now, I can only feel.” + </p> + <p> + “But, my dear little girl,” remonstrated the Vidame, “life is simply a + complication of interests and feelings; to be happy, more particularly in + your position, one must try to reconcile one’s feelings with one’s + interests. A grisette may love according to her fancy, that is + intelligible enough, but you have a pretty fortune, a family, a name and a + place at Court, and you ought not to fling them out of the window. And + what have we been asking you to do to keep them all?—To manoeuvre + carefully instead of falling foul of social conventions. Lord! I shall + very soon be eighty years old, and I cannot recollect, under any regime, a + love worth the price that you are willing to pay for the love of this + lucky young man.” + </p> + <p> + The Duchess silenced the Vidame with a look; if Montriveau could have seen + that glance, he would have forgiven all. + </p> + <p> + “It would be very effective on the stage,” remarked the Duc de Grandlieu, + “but it all amounts to nothing when your jointure and position and + independence is concerned. You are not grateful, my dear niece. You will + not find many families where the relatives have courage enough to teach + the wisdom gained by experience, and to make rash young heads listen to + reason. Renounce your salvation in two minutes, if it pleases you to damn + yourself; well and good; but reflect well beforehand when it comes to + renouncing your income. I know of no confessor who remits the pains of + poverty. I have a right, I think, to speak in this way to you; for if you + are ruined, I am the one person who can offer you a refuge. I am almost an + uncle to Langeais, and I alone have a right to put him in the wrong.” + </p> + <p> + The Duc de Navarreins roused himself from painful reflections. + </p> + <p> + “Since you speak of feeling, my child,” he said, “let me remind you that a + woman who bears your name ought to be moved by sentiments which do not + touch ordinary people. Can you wish to give an advantage to the Liberals, + to those Jesuits of Robespierre’s that are doing all they can to vilify + the noblesse? Some things a Navarreins cannot do without failing in duty + to his house. You would not be alone in your dishonor——” + </p> + <p> + “Come, come!” said the Princess. “Dishonor? Do not make such a fuss about + the journey of an empty carriage, children, and leave me alone with + Antoinette. All three of you come and dine with me. I will undertake to + arrange matters suitably. You men understand nothing; you are beginning to + talk sourly already, and I have no wish to see a quarrel between you and + my dear child. Do me the pleasure to go.” + </p> + <p> + The three gentlemen probably guessed the Princess’s intentions; they took + their leave. M. de Navarreins kissed his daughter on the forehead with, + “Come, be good, dear child. It is not too late yet if you choose.” + </p> + <p> + “Couldn’t we find some good fellow in the family to pick a quarrel with + this Montriveau?” said the Vidame, as they went downstairs. + </p> + <p> + When the two women were alone, the Princess beckoned her niece to a little + low chair by her side. + </p> + <p> + “My pearl,” said she, “in this world below, I know nothing worse + calumniated than God and the eighteenth century; for as I look back over + my own young days, I do not recollect that a single duchess trampled the + proprieties underfoot as you have just done. Novelists and scribblers + brought the reign of Louis XV into disrepute. Do not believe them. The du + Barry, my dear, was quite as good as the Widow Scarron, and the more + agreeable woman of the two. In my time a woman could keep her dignity + among her gallantries. Indiscretion was the ruin of us, and the beginning + of all the mischief. The philosophists—the nobodies whom we admitted + into our salons—had no more gratitude or sense of decency than to + make an inventory of our hearts, to traduce us one and all, and to rail + against the age by way of a return for our kindness. The people are not in + a position to judge of anything whatsoever; they looked at the facts, not + at the form. But the men and women of those times, my heart, were quite as + remarkable as at any other period of the Monarchy. Not one of your + Werthers, none of your notabilities, as they are called, never a one of + your men in yellow kid gloves and trousers that disguise the poverty of + their legs, would cross Europe in the dress of a travelling hawker to + brave the daggers of a Duke of Modena, and to shut himself up in the + dressing-room of the Regent’s daughter at the risk of his life. Not one of + your little consumptive patients with their tortoiseshell eyeglasses would + hide himself in a closet for six weeks, like Lauzun, to keep up his + mistress’s courage while she was lying in of her child. There was more + passion in M. de Jaucourt’s little finger than in your whole race of + higglers that leave a woman to better themselves elsewhere! Just tell me + where to find the page that would be cut in pieces and buried under the + floorboards for one kiss on the Konigsmark’s gloved finger! + </p> + <p> + “Really, it would seem today that the roles are exchanged, and women are + expected to show their devotion for men. These modern gentlemen are worth + less, and think more of themselves. Believe me, my dear, all these + adventures that have been made public, and now are turned against our good + Louis XV, were kept quite secret at first. If it had not been for a pack + of poetasters, scribblers, and moralists, who hung about our + waiting-women, and took down their slanders, our epoch would have appeared + in literature as a well-conducted age. I am justifying the century and not + its fringe. Perhaps a hundred women of quality were lost; but for every + one, the rogues set down ten, like the gazettes after a battle when they + count up the losses of the beaten side. And in any case I do not know that + the Revolution and the Empire can reproach us; they were coarse, dull, + licentious times. Faugh! it is revolting. Those are the brothels of French + history. + </p> + <p> + “This preamble, my dear child,” she continued after a pause, “brings me to + the thing that I have to say. If you care for Montriveau, you are quite at + liberty to love him at your ease, and as much as you can. I know by + experience that, unless you are locked up (but locking people up is out of + fashion now), you will do as you please; I should have done the same at + your age. Only, sweetheart, I should not have given up my right to be the + mother of future Ducs de Langeais. So mind appearances. The Vidame is + right. No man is worth a single one of the sacrifices which we are foolish + enough to make for their love. Put yourself in such a position that you + may still be M. de Langeais’ wife, in case you should have the misfortune + to repent. When you are an old woman, you will be very glad to hear mass + said at Court, and not in some provincial convent. Therein lies the whole + question. A single imprudence means an allowance and a wandering life; it + means that you are at the mercy of your lover; it means that you must put + up with insolence from women that are not so honest, precisely because + they have been very vulgarly sharp-witted. It would be a hundred times + better to go to Montriveau’s at night in a cab, and disguised, instead of + sending your carriage in broad daylight. You are a little fool, my dear + child! Your carriage flattered his vanity; your person would have ensnared + his heart. All this that I have said is just and true; but, for my own + part, I do not blame you. You are two centuries behind the times with your + false ideas of greatness. There, leave us to arrange your affairs, and say + that Montriveau made your servants drunk to gratify his vanity and to + compromise you——” + </p> + <p> + The Duchess rose to her feet with a spring. “In Heaven’s name, aunt, do + not slander him!” + </p> + <p> + The old Princess’s eyes flashed. + </p> + <p> + “Dear child,” she said, “I should have liked to spare such of your + illusions as were not fatal. But there must be an end of all illusions + now. You would soften me if I were not so old. Come, now, do not vex him, + or us, or anyone else. I will undertake to satisfy everybody; but promise + me not to permit yourself a single step henceforth until you have + consulted me. Tell me all, and perhaps I may bring it all right again.” + </p> + <p> + “Aunt, I promise——” + </p> + <p> + “To tell me everything?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, everything. Everything that can be told.” + </p> + <p> + “But, my sweetheart, it is precisely what cannot be told that I want to + know. Let us understand each other thoroughly. Come, let me put my + withered old lips on your beautiful forehead. No; let me do as I wish. I + forbid you to kiss my bones. Old people have a courtesy of their own.... + There, take me down to my carriage,” she added, when she had kissed her + niece. + </p> + <p> + “Then may I go to him in disguise, dear aunt?” + </p> + <p> + “Why—yes. The story can always be denied,” said the old Princess. + </p> + <p> + This was the one idea which the Duchess had clearly grasped in the sermon. + When Mme de Chauvry was seated in the corner of her carriage, Mme de + Langeais bade her a graceful adieu and went up to her room. She was quite + happy again. + </p> + <p> + “My person would have snared his heart; my aunt is right; a man cannot + surely refuse a pretty woman when she understands how to offer herself.” + </p> + <p> + That evening, at the Elysee-Bourbon, the Duc de Navarreins, M. de Pamiers, + M. de Marsay, M. de Grandlieu, and the Duc de Maufrigneuse triumphantly + refuted the scandals that were circulating with regard to the Duchesse de + Langeais. So many officers and other persons had seen Montriveau walking + in the Tuileries that morning, that the silly story was set down to + chance, which takes all that is offered. And so, in spite of the fact that + the Duchess’s carriage had waited before Montriveau’s door, her character + became as clear and as spotless as Membrino’s sword after Sancho had + polished it up. + </p> + <p> + But, at two o’clock, M. de Ronquerolles passed Montriveau in a deserted + alley, and said with a smile, “She is coming on, is your Duchess. Go on, + keep it up!” he added, and gave a significant cut of the riding whip to + his mare, who sped off like a bullet down the avenue. + </p> + <p> + Two days after the fruitless scandal, Mme de Langeais wrote to M. de + Montriveau. That letter, like the preceding ones, remained unanswered. + This time she took her own measures, and bribed M. de Montriveau’s man, + Auguste. And so at eight o’clock that evening she was introduced into + Armand’s apartment. It was not the room in which that secret scene had + passed; it was entirely different. The Duchess was told that the General + would not be at home that night. Had he two houses? The man would give no + answer. Mme de Langeais had bought the key of the room, but not the man’s + whole loyalty. + </p> + <p> + When she was left alone she saw her fourteen letters lying on an + old-fashioned stand, all of them uncreased and unopened. He had not read + them. She sank into an easy-chair, and for a while she lost consciousness. + When she came to herself, Auguste was holding vinegar for her to inhale. + </p> + <p> + “A carriage; quick!” she ordered. + </p> + <p> + The carriage came. She hastened downstairs with convulsive speed, and left + orders that no one was to be admitted. For twenty-four hours she lay in + bed, and would have no one near her but her woman, who brought her a cup + of orange-flower water from time to time. Suzette heard her mistress moan + once or twice, and caught a glimpse of tears in the brilliant eyes, now + circled with dark shadows. + </p> + <p> + The next day, amid despairing tears, Mme de Langeais took her resolution. + Her man of business came for an interview, and no doubt received + instructions of some kind. Afterwards she sent for the Vidame de Pamiers; + and while she waited, she wrote a letter to M. de Montriveau. The Vidame + punctually came towards two o’clock that afternoon, to find his young + cousin looking white and worn, but resigned; never had her divine + loveliness been more poetic than now in the languor of her agony. + </p> + <p> + “You owe this assignation to your eighty-four years, dear cousin,” she + said. “Ah! do not smile, I beg of you, when an unhappy woman has reached + the lowest depths of wretchedness. You are a gentleman, and after the + adventures of your youth you must feel some indulgence for women.” + </p> + <p> + “None whatever,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed!” + </p> + <p> + “Everything is in their favour.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! Well, you are one of the inner family circle; possibly you will be + the last relative, the last friend whose hand I shall press, so I can ask + your good offices. Will you, dear Vidame, do me a service which I could + not ask of my own father, nor of my uncle Grandlieu, nor of any woman? You + cannot fail to understand. I beg of you to do my bidding, and then to + forget what you have done, whatever may come of it. It is this: Will you + take this letter and go to M. de Montriveau? will you see him yourself, + give it into his hands, and ask him, as you men can ask things between + yourselves—for you have a code of honour between man and man which + you do not use with us, and a different way of regarding things between + yourselves—ask him if he will read this letter? Not in your + presence. Certain feelings men hide from each other. I give you authority + to say, if you think it necessary to bring him, that it is a question of + life or death for me. If he deigns——” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Deigns</i>!” repeated the Vidame. + </p> + <p> + “If he deigns to read it,” the Duchess continued with dignity, “say one + thing more. You will go to see him about five o’clock, for I know that he + will dine at home today at that time. Very good. By way of answer he must + come to see me. If, three hours afterwards, by eight o’clock, he does not + leave his house, all will be over. The Duchesse de Langeais will have + vanished from the world. I shall not be dead, dear friend, no, but no + human power will ever find me again on this earth. Come and dine with me; + I shall at least have one friend with me in the last agony. Yes, dear + cousin, tonight will decide my fate; and whatever happens to me, I pass + through an ordeal by fire. There! not a word. I will hear nothing of the + nature of comment or advice——Let us chat and laugh together,” + she added, holding out a hand, which he kissed. “We will be like two + grey-headed philosophers who have learned how to enjoy life to the last + moment. I will look my best; I will be very enchanting for you. You + perhaps will be the last man to set eyes on the Duchesse de Langeais.” + </p> + <p> + The Vicomte bowed, took the letter, and went without a word. At five + o’clock he returned. His cousin had studied to please him, and she looked + lovely indeed. The room was gay with flowers as if for a festivity; the + dinner was exquisite. For the grey-headed Vidame the Duchess displayed all + the brilliancy of her wit; she was more charming than she had ever been + before. At first the Vidame tried to look on all these preparations as a + young woman’s jest; but now and again the attempted illusion faded, the + spell of his fair cousin’s charm was broken. He detected a shudder caused + by some kind of sudden dread, and once she seemed to listen during a + pause. + </p> + <p> + “What is the matter?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Hush!” she said. + </p> + <p> + At seven o’clock the Duchess left him for a few minutes. When she came + back again she was dressed as her maid might have dressed for a journey. + She asked her guest to be her escort, took his arm, sprang into a hackney + coach, and by a quarter to eight they stood outside M. de Montriveau’s + door. + </p> + <p> + Armand meantime had been reading the following letter:— + </p> + <p> + “MY FRIEND,—I went to your rooms for a few minutes without your + knowledge; I found my letters there, and took them away. This cannot be + indifference, Armand, between us; and hatred would show itself quite + differently. If you love me, make an end of this cruel play, or you will + kill me, and afterwards, learning how much you were loved, you might be in + despair. If I have not rightly understood you, if you have no feeling + towards me but aversion, which implies both contempt and disgust, then I + give up all hope. A man never recovers from those feelings. You will have + no regrets. Dreadful though that thought may be, it will comfort me in my + long sorrow. Regrets? Oh, my Armand, may I never know of them; if I + thought that I had caused you a single regret——But, no, I will + not tell you what desolation I should feel. I should be living still, and + I could not be your wife; it would be too late! + </p> + <p> + “Now that I have given myself wholly to you in thought, to whom else + should I give myself?—to God. The eyes that you loved for a little + while shall never look on another man’s face; and may the glory of God + blind them to all besides. I shall never hear human voices more since I + heard yours—so gentle at the first, so terrible yesterday; for it + seems to me that I am still only on the morrow of your vengeance. And now + may the will of God consume me. Between His wrath and yours, my friend, + there will be nothing left for me but a little space for tears and + prayers. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you wonder why I write to you? Ah! do not think ill of me if I + keep a gleam of hope, and give one last sigh to happy life before I take + leave of it forever. I am in a hideous position. I feel all the inward + serenity that comes when a great resolution has been taken, even while I + hear the last growlings of the storm. When you went out on that terrible + adventure which so drew me to you, Armand, you went from the desert to the + oasis with a good guide to show you the way. Well, I am going out of the + oasis into the desert, and you are a pitiless guide to me. And yet you + only, my friend, can understand how melancholy it is to look back for the + last time on happiness—to you, and you only, I can make moan without + a blush. If you grant my entreaty, I shall be happy; if you are + inexorable, I shall expiate the wrong that I have done. After all, it is + natural, is it not, that a woman should wish to live, invested with all + noble feelings, in her friend’s memory? Oh! my one and only love, let her + to whom you gave life go down into the tomb in the belief that she is + great in your eyes. Your harshness led me to reflect; and now that I love + you so, it seems to me that I am less guilty than you think. Listen to my + justification, I owe it to you; and you that are all the world to me, owe + me at least a moment’s justice. + </p> + <p> + “I have learned by my own anguish all that I made you suffer by my + coquetry; but in those days I was utterly ignorant of love. <i>You</i> + know what the torture is, and you mete it out to me! During those first + eight months that you gave me you never roused any feeling of love in me. + Do you ask why this was so, my friend? I can no more explain it than I can + tell you why I love you now. Oh! certainly it flattered my vanity that I + should be the subject of your passionate talk, and receive those burning + glances of yours; but you left me cold. No, I was not a woman; I had no + conception of womanly devotion and happiness. Who was to blame? You would + have despised me, would you not, if I had given myself without the impulse + of passion? Perhaps it is the highest height to which we can rise—to + give all and receive no joy; perhaps there is no merit in yielding oneself + to bliss that is foreseen and ardently desired. Alas, my friend, I can say + this now; these thoughts came to me when I played with you; and you seemed + to me so great even then that I would not have you owe the gift to pity——What + is this that I have written? + </p> + <p> + “I have taken back all my letters; I am flinging them one by one on the + fire; they are burning. You will never know what they confessed—all + the love and the passion and the madness—— + </p> + <p> + “I will say no more, Armand; I will stop. I will not say another word of + my feelings. If my prayers have not echoed from my soul through yours, I + also, woman that I am, decline to owe your love to your pity. It is my + wish to be loved, because you cannot choose but love me, or else to be + left without mercy. If you refuse to read this letter, it shall be burnt. + If, after you have read it, you do not come to me within three hours, to + be henceforth forever my husband, the one man in the world for me; then I + shall never blush to know that this letter is in your hands, the pride of + my despair will protect my memory from all insult, and my end shall be + worthy of my love. When you see me no more on earth, albeit I shall still + be alive, you yourself will not think without a shudder of the woman who, + in three hours’ time, will live only to overwhelm you with her tenderness; + a woman consumed by a hopeless love, and faithful—not to memories of + past joys—but to a love that was slighted. + </p> + <p> + “The Duchesse de la Valliere wept for lost happiness and vanished power; + but the Duchesse de Langeais will be happy that she may weep and be a + power for you still. Yes, you will regret me. I see clearly that I was not + of this world, and I thank you for making it clear to me. + </p> + <p> + “Farewell; you will never touch <i>my</i> axe. Yours was the executioner’s + axe, mine is God’s; yours kills, mine saves. Your love was but mortal, it + could not endure disdain or ridicule; mine can endure all things without + growing weaker, it will last eternally. Ah! I feel a sombre joy in + crushing you that believe yourself so great; in humbling you with the + calm, indulgent smile of one of the least among the angels that lie at the + feet of God, for to them is given the right and the power to protect and + watch over men in His name. You have but felt fleeting desires, while the + poor nun will shed the light of her ceaseless and ardent prayer about you, + she will shelter you all your life long beneath the wings of a love that + has nothing of earth in it. + </p> + <p> + “I have a presentiment of your answer; our trysting place shall be—in + heaven. Strength and weakness can both enter there, dear Armand; the + strong and the weak are bound to suffer. This thought soothes the anguish + of my final ordeal. So calm am I that I should fear that I had ceased to + love you if I were not about to leave the world for your sake. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “ANTOINETTE.” + </pre> + <p> + “Dear Vidame,” said the Duchess as they reached Montriveau’s house, “do me + the kindness to ask at the door whether he is at home.” The Vidame, + obedient after the manner of the eighteenth century to a woman’s wish, got + out, and came back to bring his cousin an affirmative answer that sent a + shudder through her. She grasped his hand tightly in hers, suffered him to + kiss her on either cheek, and begged him to go at once. He must not watch + her movements nor try to protect her. “But the people passing in the + street,” he objected. + </p> + <p> + “No one can fail in respect to me,” she said. It was the last word spoken + by the Duchess and the woman of fashion. + </p> + <p> + The Vidame went. Mme de Langeais wrapped herself about in her cloak, and + stood on the doorstep until the clocks struck eight. The last stroke died + away. The unhappy woman waited ten, fifteen minutes; to the last she tried + to see a fresh humiliation in the delay, then her faith ebbed. She turned + to leave the fatal threshold. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, God!” the cry broke from her in spite of herself; it was the first + word spoken by the Carmelite. + </p> + <p> + Montriveau and some of his friends were talking together. He tried to + hasten them to a conclusion, but his clock was slow, and by the time he + started out for the Hotel de Langeais the Duchess was hurrying on foot + through the streets of Paris, goaded by the dull rage in her heart. She + reached the Boulevard d’Enfer, and looked out for the last time through + falling tears on the noisy, smoky city that lay below in a red mist, + lighted up by its own lamps. Then she hailed a cab, and drove away, never + to return. When the Marquis de Montriveau reached the Hotel de Langeais, + and found no trace of his mistress, he thought that he had been duped. He + hurried away at once to the Vidame, and found that worthy gentleman in the + act of slipping on his flowered dressing-gown, thinking the while of his + fair cousin’s happiness. + </p> + <p> + Montriveau gave him one of the terrific glances that produced the effect + of an electric shock on men and women alike. + </p> + <p> + “Is it possible that you have lent yourself to some cruel hoax, monsieur?” + Montriveau exclaimed. “I have just come from Mme de Langeais’ house; the + servants say that she is out.” + </p> + <p> + “Then a great misfortune has happened, no doubt,” returned the Vidame, + “and through your fault. I left the Duchess at your door——” + </p> + <p> + “When?” + </p> + <p> + “At a quarter to eight.” + </p> + <p> + “Good evening,” returned Montriveau, and he hurried home to ask the porter + whether he had seen a lady standing on the doorstep that evening. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, my Lord Marquis, a handsome woman, who seemed very much put out. She + was crying like a Magdalen, but she never made a sound, and stood as + upright as a post. Then at last she went, and my wife and I that were + watching her while she could not see us, heard her say, ‘Oh, God!’ so that + it went to our hearts, asking your pardon, to hear her say it.” + </p> + <p> + Montriveau, in spite of all his firmness, turned pale at those few words. + He wrote a few lines to Ronquerolles, sent off the message at once, and + went up to his rooms. Ronquerolles came just about midnight. + </p> + <p> + Armand gave him the Duchess’s letter to read. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” asked Ronquerolles. + </p> + <p> + “She was here at my door at eight o’clock; at a quarter-past eight she had + gone. I have lost her, and I love her. Oh! if my life were my own, I could + blow my brains out.” + </p> + <p> + “Pooh, pooh! Keep cool,” said Ronquerolles. “Duchesses do not fly off like + wagtails. She cannot travel faster than three leagues an hour, and + tomorrow we will ride six.—Confound it! Mme de Langeais is no + ordinary woman,” he continued. “Tomorrow we will all of us mount and ride. + The police will put us on her track during the day. She must have a + carriage; angels of that sort have no wings. We shall find her whether she + is on the road or hidden in Paris. There is the semaphore. We can stop + her. You shall be happy. But, my dear fellow, you have made a blunder, of + which men of your energy are very often guilty. They judge others by + themselves, and do not know the point when human nature gives way if you + strain the cords too tightly. Why did you not say a word to me sooner? I + would have told you to be punctual. Good-bye till tomorrow,” he added, as + Montriveau said nothing. “Sleep if you can,” he added, with a grasp of the + hand. + </p> + <p> + But the greatest resources which society has ever placed at the disposal + of statesmen, kings, ministers, bankers, or any human power, in fact, were + all exhausted in vain. Neither Montriveau nor his friends could find any + trace of the Duchess. It was clear that she had entered a convent. + Montriveau determined to search, or to institute a search, for her through + every convent in the world. He must have her, even at the cost of all the + lives in a town. And in justice to this extraordinary man, it must be said + that his frenzied passion awoke to the same ardour daily and lasted + through five years. Only in 1829 did the Duc de Navarreins hear by chance + that his daughter had travelled to Spain as Lady Julia Hopwood’s maid, + that she had left her service at Cadiz, and that Lady Julia never + discovered that Mlle Caroline was the illustrious duchess whose sudden + disappearance filled the minds of the highest society of Paris. + </p> + <p> + The feelings of the two lovers when they met again on either side of the + grating in the Carmelite convent should now be comprehended to the full, + and the violence of the passion awakened in either soul will doubtless + explain the catastrophe of the story. + </p> + <p> + In 1823 the Duc de Langeais was dead, and his wife was free. Antoinette de + Navarreins was living, consumed by love, on a ledge of rock in the + Mediterranean; but it was in the Pope’s power to dissolve Sister Theresa’s + vows. The happiness bought by so much love might yet bloom for the two + lovers. These thoughts sent Montriveau flying from Cadiz to Marseilles, + and from Marseilles to Paris. + </p> + <p> + A few months after his return to France, a merchant brig, fitted out and + munitioned for active service, set sail from the port of Marseilles for + Spain. The vessel had been chartered by several distinguished men, most of + them Frenchmen, who, smitten with a romantic passion for the East, wished + to make a journey to those lands. Montriveau’s familiar knowledge of + Eastern customs made him an invaluable travelling companion, and at the + entreaty of the rest he had joined the expedition; the Minister of War + appointed him lieutenant-general, and put him on the Artillery Commission + to facilitate his departure. + </p> + <p> + Twenty-fours hours later the brig lay to off the north-west shore of an + island within sight of the Spanish coast. She had been specially chosen + for her shallow keel and light mastage, so that she might lie at anchor in + safety half a league away from the reefs that secure the island from + approach in this direction. If fishing vessels or the people on the island + caught sight of the brig, they were scarcely likely to feel suspicious of + her at once; and besides, it was easy to give a reason for her presence + without delay. Montriveau hoisted the flag of the United States before + they came in sight of the island, and the crew of the vessel were all + American sailors, who spoke nothing but English. One of M. de Montriveau’s + companions took the men ashore in the ship’s longboat, and made them so + drunk at an inn in the little town that they could not talk. Then he gave + out that the brig was manned by treasure-seekers, a gang of men whose + hobby was well known in the United States; indeed, some Spanish writer had + written a history of them. The presence of the brig among the reefs was + now sufficiently explained. The owners of the vessel, according to the + self-styled boatswain’s mate, were looking for the wreck of a galleon + which foundered thereabouts in 1778 with a cargo of treasure from Mexico. + The people at the inn and the authorities asked no more questions. + </p> + <p> + Armand, and the devoted friends who were helping him in his difficult + enterprise, were all from the first of the opinion that there was no hope + of rescuing or carrying off Sister Theresa by force or stratagem from the + side of the little town. Wherefore these bold spirits, with one accord, + determined to take the bull by the horns. They would make a way to the + convent at the most seemingly inaccessible point; like General Lamarque, + at the storming of Capri, they would conquer Nature. The cliff at the end + of the island, a sheer block of granite, afforded even less hold than the + rock of Capri. So it seemed at least to Montriveau, who had taken part in + that incredible exploit, while the nuns in his eyes were much more + redoubtable than Sir Hudson Lowe. To raise a hubbub over carrying off the + Duchess would cover them with confusion. They might as well set siege to + the town and convent, like pirates, and leave not a single soul to tell of + their victory. So for them their expedition wore but two aspects. There + should be a conflagration and a feat of arms that should dismay all + Europe, while the motives of the crime remained unknown; or, on the other + hand, a mysterious, aerial descent which should persuade the nuns that the + Devil himself had paid them a visit. They had decided upon the latter + course in the secret council held before they left Paris, and subsequently + everything had been done to insure the success of an expedition which + promised some real excitement to jaded spirits weary of Paris and its + pleasures. + </p> + <p> + An extremely light pirogue, made at Marseilles on a Malayan model, enabled + them to cross the reef, until the rocks rose from out of the water. Then + two cables of iron wire were fastened several feet apart between one rock + and another. These wire ropes slanted upwards and downwards in opposite + directions, so that baskets of iron wire could travel to and fro along + them; and in this manner the rocks were covered with a system of baskets + and wire-cables, not unlike the filaments which a certain species of + spider weaves about a tree. The Chinese, an essentially imitative people, + were the first to take a lesson from the work of instinct. Fragile as + these bridges were, they were always ready for use; high waves and the + caprices of the sea could not throw them out of working order; the ropes + hung just sufficiently slack, so as to present to the breakers that + particular curve discovered by Cachin, the immortal creator of the harbour + at Cherbourg. Against this cunningly devised line the angry surge is + powerless; the law of that curve was a secret wrested from Nature by that + faculty of observation in which nearly all human genius consists. + </p> + <p> + M. de Montriveau’s companions were alone on board the vessel, and out of + sight of every human eye. No one from the deck of a passing vessel could + have discovered either the brig hidden among the reefs, or the men at work + among the rocks; they lay below the ordinary range of the most powerful + telescope. Eleven days were spent in preparation, before the Thirteen, + with all their infernal power, could reach the foot of the cliffs. The + body of the rock rose up straight from the sea to a height of thirty + fathoms. Any attempt to climb the sheer wall of granite seemed impossible; + a mouse might as well try to creep up the slippery sides of a plain china + vase. Still there was a cleft, a straight line of fissure so fortunately + placed that large blocks of wood could be wedged firmly into it at a + distance of about a foot apart. Into these blocks the daring workers drove + iron cramps, specially made for the purpose, with a broad iron bracket at + the outer end, through which a hole had been drilled. Each bracket carried + a light deal board which corresponded with a notch made in a pole that + reached to the top of the cliffs, and was firmly planted in the beach at + their feet. With ingenuity worthy of these men who found nothing + impossible, one of their number, a skilled mathematician, had calculated + the angle from which the steps must start; so that from the middle they + rose gradually, like the sticks of a fan, to the top of the cliff, and + descended in the same fashion to its base. That miraculously light, yet + perfectly firm, staircase cost them twenty-two days of toil. A little + tinder and the surf of the sea would destroy all trace of it forever in a + single night. A betrayal of the secret was impossible; and all search for + the violators of the convent was doomed to failure. + </p> + <p> + At the top of the rock there was a platform with sheer precipice on all + sides. The Thirteen, reconnoitring the ground with their glasses from the + masthead, made certain that though the ascent was steep and rough, there + would be no difficulty in gaining the convent garden, where the trees were + thick enough for a hiding-place. After such great efforts they would not + risk the success of their enterprise, and were compelled to wait till the + moon passed out of her last quarter. + </p> + <p> + For two nights Montriveau, wrapped in his cloak, lay out on the rock + platform. The singing at vespers and matins filled him with unutterable + joy. He stood under the wall to hear the music of the organ, listening + intently for one voice among the rest. But in spite of the silence, the + confused effect of music was all that reached his ears. In those sweet + harmonies defects of execution are lost; the pure spirit of art comes into + direct communication with the spirit of the hearer, making no demand on + the attention, no strain on the power of listening. Intolerable memories + awoke. All the love within him seemed to break into blossom again at the + breath of that music; he tried to find auguries of happiness in the air. + During the last night he sat with his eyes fixed upon an ungrated window, + for bars were not needed on the side of the precipice. A light shone there + all through the hours; and that instinct of the heart, which is sometimes + true, and as often false, cried within him, “She is there!” + </p> + <p> + “She is certainly there! Tomorrow she will be mine,” he said to himself, + and joy blended with the slow tinkling of a bell that began to ring. + </p> + <p> + Strange unaccountable workings of the heart! The nun, wasted by yearning + love, worn out with tears and fasting, prayer and vigils; the woman of + nine-and-twenty, who had passed through heavy trials, was loved more + passionately than the lighthearted girl, the woman of four-and-twenty, the + sylphide, had ever been. But is there not, for men of vigorous character, + something attractive in the sublime expression engraven on women’s faces + by the impetuous stirrings of thought and misfortunes of no ignoble kind? + Is there not a beauty of suffering which is the most interesting of all + beauty to those men who feel that within them there is an inexhaustible + wealth of tenderness and consoling pity for a creature so gracious in + weakness, so strong with love? It is the ordinary nature that is attracted + by young, smooth, pink-and-white beauty, or, in one word, by prettiness. + In some faces love awakens amid the wrinkles carved by sorrow and the ruin + made by melancholy; Montriveau could not but feel drawn to these. For + cannot a lover, with the voice of a great longing, call forth a wholly new + creature? a creature athrob with the life but just begun breaks forth for + him alone, from the outward form that is fair for him, and faded for all + the world besides. Does he not love two women?—One of them, as + others see her, is pale and wan and sad; but the other, the unseen love + that his heart knows, is an angel who understands life through feeling, + and is adorned in all her glory only for love’s high festivals. + </p> + <p> + The General left his post before sunrise, but not before he had heard + voices singing together, sweet voices full of tenderness sounding faintly + from the cell. When he came down to the foot of the cliffs where his + friends were waiting, he told them that never in his life had he felt such + enthralling bliss, and in the few words there was that unmistakable thrill + of repressed strong feeling, that magnificent utterance which all men + respect. + </p> + <p> + That night eleven of his devoted comrades made the ascent in the darkness. + Each man carried a poniard, a provision of chocolate, and a set of + house-breaking tools. They climbed the outer walls with scaling-ladders, + and crossed the cemetery of the convent. Montriveau recognised the long, + vaulted gallery through which he went to the parlour, and remembered the + windows of the room. His plans were made and adopted in a moment. They + would effect an entrance through one of the windows in the Carmelite’s + half of the parlour, find their way along the corridors, ascertain whether + the sister’s names were written on the doors, find Sister Theresa’s cell, + surprise her as she slept, and carry her off, bound and gagged. The + programme presented no difficulties to men who combined boldness and a + convict’s dexterity with the knowledge peculiar to men of the world, + especially as they would not scruple to give a stab to ensure silence. + </p> + <p> + In two hours the bars were sawn through. Three men stood on guard outside, + and two inside the parlour. The rest, barefooted, took up their posts + along the corridor. Young Henri de Marsay, the most dexterous man among + them, disguised by way of precaution in a Carmelite’s robe, exactly like + the costume of the convent, led the way, and Montriveau came immediately + behind him. The clock struck three just as the two men reached the + dormitory cells. They soon saw the position. Everything was perfectly + quiet. With the help of a dark lantern they read the names luckily written + on every door, together with the picture of a saint or saints and the + mystical words which every nun takes as a kind of motto for the beginning + of her new life and the revelation of her last thought. Montriveau reached + Sister Theresa’s door and read the inscription, <i>Sub invocatione sanctae + matris Theresae</i>, and her motto, <i>Adoremus in aeternum</i>. Suddenly + his companion laid a hand on his shoulder. A bright light was streaming + through the chinks of the door. M. de Ronquerolles came up at that moment. + </p> + <p> + “All the nuns are in the church,” he said; “they are beginning the Office + for the Dead.” + </p> + <p> + “I will stay here,” said Montriveau. “Go back into the parlour, and shut + the door at the end of the passage.” + </p> + <p> + He threw open the door and rushed in, preceded by his disguised companion, + who let down the veil over his face. + </p> + <p> + There before them lay the dead Duchess; her plank bed had been laid on the + floor of the outer room of her cell, between two lighted candles. Neither + Montriveau nor de Marsay spoke a word or uttered a cry; but they looked + into each other’s faces. The General’s dumb gesture tried to say, “Let us + carry her away!” + </p> + <p> + “Quickly” shouted Ronquerolles, “the procession of nuns is leaving the + church. You will be caught!” + </p> + <p> + With magical swiftness of movement, prompted by an intense desire, the + dead woman was carried into the convent parlour, passed through the + window, and lowered from the walls before the Abbess, followed by the + nuns, returned to take up Sister Theresa’s body. The sister left in charge + had imprudently left her post; there were secrets that she longed to know; + and so busy was she ransacking the inner room, that she heard nothing, and + was horrified when she came back to find that the body was gone. Before + the women, in their blank amazement, could think of making a search, the + Duchess had been lowered by a cord to the foot of the crags, and + Montriveau’s companions had destroyed all traces of their work. By nine + o’clock that morning there was not a sign to show that either staircase or + wire-cables had ever existed, and Sister Theresa’s body had been taken on + board. The brig came into the port to ship her crew, and sailed that day. + </p> + <p> + Montriveau, down in the cabin, was left alone with Antoinette de + Navarreins. For some hours it seemed as if her dead face was transfigured + for him by that unearthly beauty which the calm of death gives to the body + before it perishes. + </p> + <p> + “Look here,” said Ronquerolles when Montriveau reappeared on deck, “<i>that</i> + was a woman once, now it is nothing. Let us tie a cannon ball to both feet + and throw the body overboard; and if ever you think of her again, think of + her as of some book that you read as a boy.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” assented Montriveau, “it is nothing now but a dream.” + </p> + <p> + “That is sensible of you. Now, after this, have passions; but as for love, + a man ought to know how to place it wisely; it is only a woman’s last love + that can satisfy a man’s first love.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ADDENDUM + </h2> + <p> + Note: The Duchesse de Langeais is the second part of a trilogy. Part one + is entitled Ferragus and part three is The Girl with the Golden Eyes. In + other addendum references all three stories are usually combined under the + title The Thirteen. + </p> + <p> + The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Blamont-Chauvry, Princesse de + Madame Firmiani + The Lily of the Valley + + Grandlieu, Duc Ferdinand de + The Gondreville Mystery + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Modeste Mignon + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + + Granville, Comtesse Angelique de + A Second Home + A Daughter of Eve + + Keller, Madame Francois + Domestic Peace + The Member for Arcis + + Langeais, Duc de + An Episode under the Terror + + Langeais, Duchesse Antoinette de + Father Goriot + Ferragus + + Marsay, Henri de + Ferragus + The Girl with the Golden Eyes + The Unconscious Humorists + Another Study of Woman + The Lily of the Valley + Father Goriot + Jealousies of a Country Town + Ursule Mirouet + A Marriage Settlement + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Letters of Two Brides + The Ball at Sceaux + Modeste Mignon + The Secrets of a Princess + The Gondreville Mystery + A Daughter of Eve + + Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de + Father Goriot + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Another Study of Woman + Pierrette + The Member for Arcis + + Navarreins, Duc de + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Colonel Chabert + The Muse of the Department + Jealousies of a Country Town + The Peasantry + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + The Country Parson + The Magic Skin + The Gondreville Mystery + The Secrets of a Princess + Cousin Betty + + Pamiers, Vidame de + Ferragus + Jealousies of a Country Town + + Ronquerolles, Marquis de + The Imaginary Mistress + The Peasantry + Ursule Mirouet + A Woman of Thirty + Another Study of Woman + Ferragus + The Girl with the Golden Eyes + The Member for Arcis + + Serizy, Comtesse de + A Start in Life + Ferragus + Ursule Mirouet + A Woman of Thirty + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Another Study of Woman + The Imaginary Mistress + + Soulanges, Comtesse Hortense de + Domestic Peace + The Peasantry + + Talleyrand-Perigord, Charles-Maurice de + The Chouans + The Gondreville Mystery + Letters of Two Brides + Gaudissart II +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Duchesse de Langeais, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS *** + +***** This file should be named 469-h.htm or 469-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/469/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Duchesse de Langeais + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Ellen Marriage + +Release Date: March, 1996 [Etext #469] +Posting Date: February 20, 2010 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + + + + + +THE DUCHESSE OF LANGEAIS + + +By Honore De Balzac + + +Translated by Ellen Marriage + + + +Preparer's Note: + + The Duchesse of Langeais is the second part of a trilogy. Part + one is entitled Ferragus and part three is The Girl with the + Golden Eyes. The three stories are frequently combined under the + title The Thirteen. + + + To Franz Liszt + + + + + +THE DUCHESSE OF LANGEAIS + +In a Spanish city on an island in the Mediterranean, there stands a +convent of the Order of Barefoot Carmelites, where the rule instituted +by St. Theresa is still preserved with all the first rigor of the +reformation brought about by that illustrious woman. Extraordinary as +this may seem, it is none the less true. Almost every religious house +in the Peninsula, or in Europe for that matter, was either destroyed or +disorganized by the outbreak of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic +wars; but as this island was protected through those times by the +English fleet, its wealthy convent and peaceable inhabitants were secure +from the general trouble and spoliation. The storms of many kinds which +shook the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century spent their +force before they reached those cliffs at so short a distance from the +coast of Andalusia. + +If the rumour of the Emperor's name so much as reached the shore of the +island, it is doubtful whether the holy women kneeling in the cloisters +grasped the reality of his dream-like progress of glory, or the majesty +that blazed in flame across kingdom after kingdom during his meteor +life. + +In the minds of the Roman Catholic world, the convent stood out +pre-eminent for a stern discipline which nothing had changed; the purity +of its rule had attracted unhappy women from the furthest parts of +Europe, women deprived of all human ties, sighing after the long suicide +accomplished in the breast of God. No convent, indeed, was so well +fitted for that complete detachment of the soul from all earthly things, +which is demanded by the religious life, albeit on the continent of +Europe there are many convents magnificently adapted to the purpose +of their existence. Buried away in the loneliest valleys, hanging +in mid-air on the steepest mountainsides, set down on the brink +of precipices, in every place man has sought for the poetry of the +Infinite, the solemn awe of Silence; in every place man has striven to +draw closer to God, seeking Him on mountain peaks, in the depths below +the crags, at the cliff's edge; and everywhere man has found God. But +nowhere, save on this half-European, half-African ledge of rock could +you find so many different harmonies, combining so to raise the soul, +that the sharpest pain comes to be like other memories; the strongest +impressions are dulled, till the sorrows of life are laid to rest in the +depths. + +The convent stands on the highest point of the crags at the uttermost +end of the island. On the side towards the sea the rock was once rent +sheer away in some globe-cataclysm; it rises up a straight wall from +the base where the waves gnaw at the stone below high-water mark. Any +assault is made impossible by the dangerous reefs that stretch far out +to sea, with the sparkling waves of the Mediterranean playing over them. +So, only from the sea can you discern the square mass of the convent +built conformably to the minute rules laid down as to the shape, height, +doors, and windows of monastic buildings. From the side of the town, the +church completely hides the solid structure of the cloisters and their +roofs, covered with broad slabs of stone impervious to sun or storm or +gales of wind. + +The church itself, built by the munificence of a Spanish family, is the +crowning edifice of the town. Its fine, bold front gives an imposing +and picturesque look to the little city in the sea. The sight of such +a city, with its close-huddled roofs, arranged for the most part +amphitheatre-wise above a picturesque harbour, and crowned by a glorious +cathedral front with triple-arched Gothic doorways, belfry towers, and +filigree spires, is a spectacle surely in every way the sublimest on +earth. Religion towering above daily life, to put men continually +in mind of the End and the way, is in truth a thoroughly Spanish +conception. But now surround this picture by the Mediterranean, and a +burning sky, imagine a few palms here and there, a few stunted evergreen +trees mingling their waving leaves with the motionless flowers and +foliage of carved stone; look out over the reef with its white fringes +of foam in contrast to the sapphire sea; and then turn to the city, with +its galleries and terraces whither the townsfolk come to take the air +among their flowers of an evening, above the houses and the tops of the +trees in their little gardens; add a few sails down in the harbour; and +lastly, in the stillness of falling night, listen to the organ music, +the chanting of the services, the wonderful sound of bells pealing out +over the open sea. There is sound and silence everywhere; oftener still +there is silence over all. + +The church is divided within into a sombre mysterious nave and narrow +aisles. For some reason, probably because the winds are so high, the +architect was unable to build the flying buttresses and intervening +chapels which adorn almost all cathedrals, nor are there openings of any +kind in the walls which support the weight of the roof. Outside there +is simply the heavy wall structure, a solid mass of grey stone further +strengthened by huge piers placed at intervals. Inside, the nave and its +little side galleries are lighted entirely by the great stained-glass +rose-window suspended by a miracle of art above the centre doorway; for +upon that side the exposure permits of the display of lacework in stone +and of other beauties peculiar to the style improperly called Gothic. + +The larger part of the nave and aisles was left for the townsfolk, who +came and went and heard mass there. The choir was shut off from the +rest of the church by a grating and thick folds of brown curtain, left +slightly apart in the middle in such a way that nothing of the choir +could be seen from the church except the high altar and the officiating +priest. The grating itself was divided up by the pillars which supported +the organ loft; and this part of the structure, with its carved wooden +columns, completed the line of the arcading in the gallery carried by +the shafts in the nave. If any inquisitive person, therefore, had been +bold enough to climb upon the narrow balustrade in the gallery to look +down into the choir, he could have seen nothing but the tall eight-sided +windows of stained glass beyond the high altar. + +At the time of the French expedition into Spain to establish Ferdinand +VII once more on the throne, a French general came to the island after +the taking of Cadiz, ostensibly to require the recognition of the King's +Government, really to see the convent and to find some means of +entering it. The undertaking was certainly a delicate one; but a man of +passionate temper, whose life had been, as it were, but one series of +poems in action, a man who all his life long had lived romances instead +of writing them, a man pre-eminently a Doer, was sure to be tempted by a +deed which seemed to be impossible. + +To open the doors of a convent of nuns by lawful means! The metropolitan +or the Pope would scarcely have permitted it! And as for force or +stratagem--might not any indiscretion cost him his position, his whole +career as a soldier, and the end in view to boot? The Duc d'Angouleme +was still in Spain; and of all the crimes which a man in favour with the +Commander-in-Chief might commit, this one alone was certain to find him +inexorable. The General had asked for the mission to gratify private +motives of curiosity, though never was curiosity more hopeless. This +final attempt was a matter of conscience. The Carmelite convent on the +island was the only nunnery in Spain which had baffled his search. + +As he crossed from the mainland, scarcely an hour's distance, he felt a +presentiment that his hopes were to be fulfilled; and afterwards, when +as yet he had seen nothing of the convent but its walls, and of the nuns +not so much as their robes; while he had merely heard the chanting of +the service, there were dim auguries under the walls and in the sound of +the voices to justify his frail hope. And, indeed, however faint those +so unaccountable presentiments might be, never was human passion more +vehemently excited than the General's curiosity at that moment. There +are no small events for the heart; the heart exaggerates everything; the +heart weighs the fall of a fourteen-year-old Empire and the dropping of +a woman's glove in the same scales, and the glove is nearly always +the heavier of the two. So here are the facts in all their prosaic +simplicity. The facts first, the emotions will follow. + +An hour after the General landed on the island, the royal authority was +re-established there. Some few Constitutional Spaniards who had found +their way thither after the fall of Cadiz were allowed to charter +a vessel and sail for London. So there was neither resistance nor +reaction. But the change of government could not be effected in the +little town without a mass, at which the two divisions under the +General's command were obliged to be present. Now, it was upon this mass +that the General had built his hopes of gaining some information as +to the sisters in the convent; he was quite unaware how absolutely the +Carmelites were cut off from the world; but he knew that there might be +among them one whom he held dearer than life, dearer than honour. + +His hopes were cruelly dashed at once. Mass, it is true, was celebrated +in state. In honour of such a solemnity, the curtains which always hid +the choir were drawn back to display its riches, its valuable paintings +and shrines so bright with gems that they eclipsed the glories of +the ex-votos of gold and silver hung up by sailors of the port on +the columns in the nave. But all the nuns had taken refuge in the +organ-loft. And yet, in spite of this first check, during this very mass +of thanksgiving, the most intimately thrilling drama that ever set a +man's heart beating opened out widely before him. + +The sister who played the organ aroused such intense enthusiasm, that +not a single man regretted that he had come to the service. Even the men +in the ranks were delighted, and the officers were in ecstasy. As for +the General, he was seemingly calm and indifferent. The sensations +stirred in him as the sister played one piece after another belong to +the small number of things which it is not lawful to utter; words are +powerless to express them; like death, God, eternity, they can only be +realised through their one point of contact with humanity. Strangely +enough, the organ music seemed to belong to the school of Rossini, the +musician who brings most human passion into his art. + +Some day his works, by their number and extent, will receive the +reverence due to the Homer of music. From among all the scores that we +owe to his great genius, the nun seemed to have chosen _Moses in Egypt_ +for special study, doubtless because the spirit of sacred music finds +therein its supreme expression. Perhaps the soul of the great musician, +so gloriously known to Europe, and the soul of this unknown executant +had met in the intuitive apprehension of the same poetry. So at least +thought two dilettanti officers who must have missed the Theatre Favart +in Spain. + +At last in the _Te Deum_ no one could fail to discern a French soul in +the sudden change that came over the music. Joy for the victory of the +Most Christian King evidently stirred this nun's heart to the depths. +She was a Frenchwoman beyond mistake. Soon the love of country shone +out, breaking forth like shafts of light from the fugue, as the sister +introduced variations with all a Parisienne's fastidious taste, and +blended vague suggestions of our grandest national airs with her music. +A Spaniard's fingers would not have brought this warmth into a +graceful tribute paid to the victorious arms of France. The musician's +nationality was revealed. + +"We find France everywhere, it seems," said one of the men. + +The General had left the church during the _Te Deum_; he could not +listen any longer. The nun's music had been a revelation of a woman +loved to frenzy; a woman so carefully hidden from the world's eyes, +so deeply buried in the bosom of the Church, that hitherto the most +ingenious and persistent efforts made by men who brought great influence +and unusual powers to bear upon the search had failed to find her. The +suspicion aroused in the General's heart became all but a certainty with +the vague reminiscence of a sad, delicious melody, the air of _Fleuve +du Tage_. The woman he loved had played the prelude to the ballad in +a boudoir in Paris, how often! and now this nun had chosen the song +to express an exile's longing, amid the joy of those that triumphed. +Terrible sensation! To hope for the resurrection of a lost love, to find +her only to know that she was lost, to catch a mysterious glimpse of her +after five years--five years, in which the pent-up passion, chafing +in an empty life, had grown the mightier for every fruitless effort to +satisfy it! + +Who has not known, at least once in his life, what it is to lose some +precious thing; and after hunting through his papers, ransacking his +memory, and turning his house upside down; after one or two days spent +in vain search, and hope, and despair; after a prodigious expenditure +of the liveliest irritation of soul, who has not known the ineffable +pleasure of finding that all-important nothing which had come to be a +king of monomania? Very good. Now, spread that fury of search over five +years; put a woman, put a heart, put love in the place of the trifle; +transpose the monomania into the key of high passion; and, furthermore, +let the seeker be a man of ardent temper, with a lion's heart and a +leonine head and mane, a man to inspire awe and fear in those who come +in contact with him--realise this, and you may, perhaps, understand why +the General walked abruptly out of the church when the first notes of +a ballad, which he used to hear with a rapture of delight in a +gilt-paneled boudoir, began to vibrate along the aisles of the church in +the sea. + +The General walked away down the steep street which led to the port, and +only stopped when he could not hear the deep notes of the organ. Unable +to think of anything but the love which broke out in volcanic eruption, +filling his heart with fire, he only knew that the _Te Deum_ was over +when the Spanish congregation came pouring out of the church. Feeling +that his behaviour and attitude might seem ridiculous, he went back to +head the procession, telling the alcalde and the governor that, feeling +suddenly faint, he had gone out into the air. Casting about for a plea +for prolonging his stay, it at once occurred to him to make the most of +this excuse, framed on the spur of the moment. He declined, on a plea of +increasing indisposition, to preside at the banquet given by the town +to the French officers, betook himself to his bed, and sent a message to +the Major-General, to the effect that temporary illness obliged him +to leave the Colonel in command of the troops for the time being. +This commonplace but very plausible stratagem relieved him of all +responsibility for the time necessary to carry out his plans. The +General, nothing if not "catholic and monarchical," took occasion to +inform himself of the hours of the services, and manifested the greatest +zeal for the performance of his religious duties, piety which caused no +remark in Spain. + +The very next day, while the division was marching out of the town, the +General went to the convent to be present at vespers. He found an empty +church. The townsfolk, devout though they were, had all gone down to the +quay to watch the embarkation of the troops. He felt glad to be the only +man there. He tramped noisily up the nave, clanking his spurs till the +vaulted roof rang with the sound; he coughed, he talked aloud to himself +to let the nuns know, and more particularly to let the organist know +that if the troops were gone, one Frenchman was left behind. Was this +singular warning heard and understood? He thought so. It seemed to him +that in the _Magnificat_ the organ made response which was borne to him +on the vibrating air. The nun's spirit found wings in music and fled +towards him, throbbing with the rhythmical pulse of the sounds. Then, in +all its might, the music burst forth and filled the church with warmth. +The Song of Joy set apart in the sublime liturgy of Latin Christianity +to express the exaltation of the soul in the presence of the glory of +the ever-living God, became the utterance of a heart almost terrified by +its gladness in the presence of the glory of a mortal love; a love that +yet lived, a love that had risen to trouble her even beyond the grave in +which the nun is laid, that she may rise again as the bride of Christ. + +The organ is in truth the grandest, the most daring, the most +magnificent of all instruments invented by human genius. It is a whole +orchestra in itself. It can express anything in response to a skilled +touch. Surely it is in some sort a pedestal on which the soul poises for +a flight forth into space, essaying on her course to draw picture after +picture in an endless series, to paint human life, to cross the Infinite +that separates heaven from earth? And the longer a dreamer listens to +those giant harmonies, the better he realizes that nothing save this +hundred-voiced choir on earth can fill all the space between kneeling +men, and a God hidden by the blinding light of the Sanctuary. The music +is the one interpreter strong enough to bear up the prayers of humanity +to heaven, prayer in its omnipotent moods, prayer tinged by the +melancholy of many different natures, coloured by meditative ecstasy, +upspringing with the impulse of repentance--blended with the myriad +fancies of every creed. Yes. In those long vaulted aisles the melodies +inspired by the sense of things divine are blended with a grandeur +unknown before, are decked with new glory and might. Out of the dim +daylight, and the deep silence broken by the chanting of the choir in +response to the thunder of the organ, a veil is woven for God, and the +brightness of His attributes shines through it. + +And this wealth of holy things seemed to be flung down like a grain of +incense upon the fragile altar raised to Love beneath the eternal throne +of a jealous and avenging God. Indeed, in the joy of the nun there +was little of that awe and gravity which should harmonize with the +solemnities of the _Magnificat_. She had enriched the music with +graceful variations, earthly gladness throbbing through the rhythm of +each. In such brilliant quivering notes some great singer might strive +to find a voice for her love, her melodies fluttered as a bird flutters +about her mate. There were moments when she seemed to leap back into +the past, to dally there now with laughter, now with tears. Her changing +moods, as it were, ran riot. She was like a woman excited and happy over +her lover's return. + +But at length, after the swaying fugues of delirium, after the +marvellous rendering of a vision of the past, a revulsion swept over the +soul that thus found utterance for itself. With a swift transition from +the major to the minor, the organist told her hearer of her present lot. +She gave the story of long melancholy broodings, of the slow course +of her moral malady. How day by day she deadened the senses, how every +night cut off one more thought, how her heart was slowly reduced +to ashes. The sadness deepened shade after shade through languid +modulations, and in a little while the echoes were pouring out a torrent +of grief. Then on a sudden, high notes rang out like the voices of +angels singing together, as if to tell the lost but not forgotten lover +that their spirits now could only meet in heaven. Pathetic hope! Then +followed the _Amen_. No more joy, no more tears in the air, no sadness, +no regrets. The _Amen_ was the return to God. The final chord was deep, +solemn, even terrible; for the last rumblings of the bass sent a shiver +through the audience that raised the hair on their heads; the nun shook +out her veiling of crepe, and seemed to sink again into the grave from +which she had risen for a moment. Slowly the reverberations died away; +it seemed as if the church, but now so full of light, had returned to +thick darkness. + +The General had been caught up and borne swiftly away by this +strong-winged spirit; he had followed the course of its flight from +beginning to end. He understood to the fullest extent the imagery of +that burning symphony; for him the chords reached deep and far. For +him, as for the sister, the poem meant future, present, and past. Is +not music, and even opera music, a sort of text, which a susceptible +or poetic temper, or a sore and stricken heart, may expand as memories +shall determine? If a musician must needs have the heart of a poet, must +not the listener too be in a manner a poet and a lover to hear all that +lies in great music? Religion, love, and music--what are they but a +threefold expression of the same fact, of that craving for expansion +which stirs in every noble soul. And these three forms of poetry ascend +to God, in whom all passion on earth finds its end. Wherefore the holy +human trinity finds a place amid the infinite glories of God; of God, +whom we always represent surrounded with the fires of love and seistrons +of gold--music and light and harmony. Is not He the Cause and the End of +all our strivings? + +The French General guessed rightly that here in the desert, on this bare +rock in the sea, the nun had seized upon music as an outpouring of the +passion that still consumed her. Was this her manner of offering up her +love as a sacrifice to God? Or was it Love exultant in triumph over God? +The questions were hard to answer. But one thing at least the General +could not mistake--in this heart, dead to the world, the fire of passion +burned as fiercely as in his own. + +Vespers over, he went back to the alcalde with whom he was staying. +In the all-absorbing joy which comes in such full measure when a +satisfaction sought long and painfully is attained at last, he could see +nothing beyond this--he was still loved! In her heart love had grown +in loneliness, even as his love had grown stronger as he surmounted one +barrier after another which this woman had set between them! The glow of +soul came to its natural end. There followed a longing to see her again, +to contend with God for her, to snatch her away--a rash scheme, which +appealed to a daring nature. He went to bed, when the meal was over, to +avoid questions; to be alone and think at his ease; and he lay absorbed +by deep thought till day broke. + +He rose only to go to mass. He went to the church and knelt close to +the screen, with his forehead touching the curtain; he would have torn +a hole in it if he had been alone, but his host had come with him out of +politeness, and the least imprudence might compromise the whole future +of his love, and ruin the new hopes. + +The organ sounded, but it was another player, and not the nun of the +last two days whose hands touched the keys. It was all colorless and +cold for the General. Was the woman he loved prostrated by emotion which +well-nigh overcame a strong man's heart? Had she so fully realised and +shared an unchanged, longed-for love, that now she lay dying on her bed +in her cell? While innumerable thoughts of this kind perplexed his mind, +the voice of the woman he worshipped rang out close beside him; he knew +its clear resonant soprano. It was her voice, with that faint tremor in +it which gave it all the charm that shyness and diffidence gives to a +young girl; her voice, distinct from the mass of singing as a _prima +donna's_ in the chorus of a finale. It was like a golden or silver +thread in dark frieze. + +It was she! There could be no mistake. Parisienne now as ever, she had +not laid coquetry aside when she threw off worldly adornments for the +veil and the Carmelite's coarse serge. She who had affirmed her love +last evening in the praise sent up to God, seemed now to say to her +lover, "Yes, it is I. I am here. My love is unchanged, but I am beyond +the reach of love. You will hear my voice, my soul shall enfold you, +and I shall abide here under the brown shroud in the choir from which no +power on earth can tear me. You shall never see me more!" + +"It is she indeed!" the General said to himself, raising his head. He +had leant his face on his hands, unable at first to bear the intolerable +emotion that surged like a whirlpool in his heart, when that well-known +voice vibrated under the arcading, with the sound of the sea for +accompaniment. + +Storm was without, and calm within the sanctuary. Still that rich voice +poured out all its caressing notes; it fell like balm on the lover's +burning heart; it blossomed upon the air--the air that a man would fain +breathe more deeply to receive the effluence of a soul breathed forth +with love in the words of the prayer. The alcalde coming to join +his guest found him in tears during the elevation, while the nun was +singing, and brought him back to his house. Surprised to find so much +piety in a French military man, the worthy magistrate invited the +confessor of the convent to meet his guest. Never had news given the +General more pleasure; he paid the ecclesiastic a good deal of attention +at supper, and confirmed his Spanish hosts in the high opinion they had +formed of his piety by a not wholly disinterested respect. + +He inquired with gravity how many sisters there were in the convent, and +asked for particulars of its endowment and revenues, as if from +courtesy he wished to hear the good priest discourse on the subject most +interesting to him. He informed himself as to the manner of life led by +the holy women. Were they allowed to go out of the convent, or to see +visitors? + +"Senor," replied the venerable churchman, "the rule is strict. A woman +cannot enter a monastery of the order of St. Bruno without a special +permission from His Holiness, and the rule here is equally stringent. +No man may enter a convent of Barefoot Carmelites unless he is a priest +specially attached to the services of the house by the Archbishop. None +of the nuns may leave the convent; though the great Saint, St. Theresa, +often left her cell. The Visitor or the Mothers Superior can alone give +permission, subject to an authorization from the Archbishop, for a nun +to see a visitor, and then especially in a case of illness. Now we are +one of the principal houses, and consequently we have a Mother Superior +here. Among other foreign sisters there is one Frenchwoman, Sister +Theresa; she it is who directs the music in the chapel." + +"Oh!" said the General, with feigned surprise. "She must have rejoiced +over the victory of the House of Bourbon." + +"I told them the reason of the mass; they are always a little bit +inquisitive." + +"But Sister Theresa may have interests in France. Perhaps she would like +to send some message or to hear news." + +"I do not think so. She would have come to ask me." + +"As a fellow-countryman, I should be quite curious to see her," said the +General. "If it is possible, if the Lady Superior consents, if----" + +"Even at the grating and in the Reverend Mother's presence, an interview +would be quite impossible for anybody whatsoever; but, strict as the +Mother is, for a deliverer of our holy religion and the throne of his +Catholic Majesty, the rule might be relaxed for a moment," said the +confessor, blinking. "I will speak about it." + +"How old is Sister Theresa?" inquired the lover. He dared not ask any +questions of the priest as to the nun's beauty. + +"She does not reckon years now," the good man answered, with a +simplicity that made the General shudder. + +Next day before siesta, the confessor came to inform the French General +that Sister Theresa and the Mother consented to receive him at the +grating in the parlour before vespers. The General spent the siesta in +pacing to and fro along the quay in the noonday heat. Thither the priest +came to find him, and brought him to the convent by way of the gallery +round the cemetery. Fountains, green trees, and rows of arcading +maintained a cool freshness in keeping with the place. + +At the further end of the long gallery the priest led the way into a +large room divided in two by a grating covered with a brown curtain. In +the first, and in some sort of public half of the apartment, where the +confessor left the newcomer, a wooden bench ran round the wall, and two +or three chairs, also of wood, were placed near the grating. The ceiling +consisted of bare unornamented joists and cross-beams of ilex wood. As +the two windows were both on the inner side of the grating, and the dark +surface of the wood was a bad reflector, the light in the place was so +dim that you could scarcely see the great black crucifix, the portrait +of Saint Theresa, and a picture of the Madonna which adorned the grey +parlour walls. Tumultuous as the General's feelings were, they took +something of the melancholy of the place. He grew calm in that homely +quiet. A sense of something vast as the tomb took possession of him +beneath the chill unceiled roof. Here, as in the grave, was there not +eternal silence, deep peace--the sense of the Infinite? And besides this +there was the quiet and the fixed thought of the cloister--a thought +which you felt like a subtle presence in the air, and in the dim dusk +of the room; an all-pervasive thought nowhere definitely expressed, and +looming the larger in the imagination; for in the cloister the great +saying, "Peace in the Lord," enters the least religious soul as a living +force. + +The monk's life is scarcely comprehensible. A man seems confessed a +weakling in a monastery; he was born to act, to live out a life of work; +he is evading a man's destiny in his cell. But what man's strength, +blended with pathetic weakness, is implied by a woman's choice of the +convent life! A man may have any number of motives for burying himself +in a monastery; for him it is the leap over the precipice. A woman +has but one motive--she is a woman still; she betrothes herself to a +Heavenly Bridegroom. Of the monk you may ask, "Why did you not fight +your battle?" But if a woman immures herself in the cloister, is there +not always a sublime battle fought first? + +At length it seemed to the General that that still room, and the lonely +convent in the sea, were full of thoughts of him. Love seldom attains +to solemnity; yet surely a love still faithful in the breast of God was +something solemn, something more than a man had a right to look for +as things are in this nineteenth century? The infinite grandeur of the +situation might well produce an effect upon the General's mind; he had +precisely enough elevation of soul to forget politics, honours, Spain, +and society in Paris, and to rise to the height of this lofty climax. +And what in truth could be more tragic? How much must pass in the souls +of these two lovers, brought together in a place of strangers, on +a ledge of granite in the sea; yet held apart by an intangible, +unsurmountable barrier! Try to imagine the man saying within himself, +"Shall I triumph over God in her heart?" when a faint rustling sound +made him quiver, and the curtain was drawn aside. + +Between him and the light stood a woman. Her face was hidden by the veil +that drooped from the folds upon her head; she was dressed according +to the rule of the order in a gown of the colour become proverbial. Her +bare feet were hidden; if the General could have seen them, he would +have known how appallingly thin she had grown; and yet in spite of the +thick folds of her coarse gown, a mere covering and no ornament, he +could guess how tears, and prayer, and passion, and loneliness had +wasted the woman before him. + +An ice-cold hand, belonging, no doubt, to the Mother Superior, held back +the curtain. The General gave the enforced witness of their interview a +searching glance, and met the dark, inscrutable gaze of an aged recluse. +The Mother might have been a century old, but the bright, youthful eyes +belied the wrinkles that furrowed her pale face. + +"Mme la Duchesse," he began, his voice shaken with emotion, "does your +companion understand French?" The veiled figure bowed her head at the +sound of his voice. + +"There is no duchess here," she replied. "It is Sister Theresa whom you +see before you. She whom you call my companion is my mother in God, my +superior here on earth." + +The words were so meekly spoken by the voice that sounded in other years +amid harmonious surroundings of refined luxury, the voice of a queen of +fashion in Paris. Such words from the lips that once spoke so lightly +and flippantly struck the General dumb with amazement. + +"The Holy Mother only speaks Latin and Spanish," she added. + +"I understand neither. Dear Antoinette, make my excuses to her." + +The light fell full upon the nun's figure; a thrill of deep emotion +betrayed itself in a faint quiver of her veil as she heard her name +softly spoken by the man who had been so hard in the past. + +"My brother," she said, drawing her sleeve under her veil, perhaps to +brush tears away, "I am Sister Theresa." + +Then, turning to the Superior, she spoke in Spanish; the General knew +enough of the language to understand what she said perfectly well; +possibly he could have spoken it had he chosen to do so. + +"Dear Mother, the gentleman presents his respects to you, and begs you +to pardon him if he cannot pay them himself, but he knows neither of the +languages which you speak----" + +The aged nun bent her head slowly, with an expression of angelic +sweetness, enhanced at the same time by the consciousness of her power +and dignity. + +"Do you know this gentleman?" she asked, with a keen glance. + +"Yes, Mother." + +"Go back to your cell, my daughter!" said the Mother imperiously. + +The General slipped aside behind the curtain lest the dreadful tumult +within him should appear in his face; even in the shadow it seemed to +him that he could still see the Superior's piercing eyes. He was afraid +of her; she held his little, frail, hardly-won happiness in her hands; +and he, who had never quailed under a triple row of guns, now trembled +before this nun. The Duchess went towards the door, but she turned back. + +"Mother," she said, with dreadful calmness, "the Frenchman is one of my +brothers." + +"Then stay, my daughter," said the Superior, after a pause. + +The piece of admirable Jesuitry told of such love and regret, that a man +less strongly constituted might have broken down under the keen delight +in the midst of a great and, for him, an entirely novel peril. Oh! how +precious words, looks, and gestures became when love must baffle lynx +eyes and tiger's claws! Sister Theresa came back. + +"You see, my brother, what I have dared to do only to speak to you for +a moment of your salvation and of the prayers that my soul puts up for +your soul daily. I am committing mortal sin. I have told a lie. How many +days of penance must expiate that lie! But I shall endure it for your +sake. My brother, you do not know what happiness it is to love in +heaven; to feel that you can confess love purified by religion, love +transported into the highest heights of all, so that we are permitted +to lose sight of all but the soul. If the doctrine and the spirit of +the Saint to whom we owe this refuge had not raised me above earth's +anguish, and caught me up and set me, far indeed beneath the Sphere +wherein she dwells, yet truly above this world, I should not have +seen you again. But now I can see you, and hear your voice, and remain +calm----" + +The General broke in, "But, Antoinette, let me see you, you whom I love +passionately, desperately, as you could have wished me to love you." + +"Do not call me Antoinette, I implore you. Memories of the past hurt me. +You must see no one here but Sister Theresa, a creature who trusts in +the Divine mercy." She paused for a little, and then added, "You must +control yourself, my brother. Our Mother would separate us without pity +if there is any worldly passion in your face, or if you allow the tears +to fall from your eyes." + +The General bowed his head to regain self-control; when he looked up +again he saw her face beyond the grating--the thin, white, but still +impassioned face of the nun. All the magic charm of youth that once +bloomed there, all the fair contrast of velvet whiteness and the colour +of the Bengal rose, had given place to a burning glow, as of a porcelain +jar with a faint light shining through it. The wonderful hair in which +she took such pride had been shaven; there was a bandage round her +forehead and about her face. An ascetic life had left dark traces about +the eyes, which still sometimes shot out fevered glances; their ordinary +calm expression was but a veil. In a few words, she was but the ghost of +her former self. + +"Ah! you that have come to be my life, you must come out of this tomb! +You were mine; you had no right to give yourself, even to God. Did you +not promise me to give up all at the least command from me? You may +perhaps think me worthy of that promise now when you hear what I have +done for you. I have sought you all through the world. You have been in +my thoughts at every moment for five years; my life has been given to +you. My friends, very powerful friends, as you know, have helped with +all their might to search every convent in France, Italy, Spain, Sicily, +and America. Love burned more brightly for every vain search. Again and +again I made long journeys with a false hope; I have wasted my life and +the heaviest throbbings of my heart in vain under many a dark convent +wall. I am not speaking of a faithfulness that knows no bounds, for what +is it?--nothing compared with the infinite longings of my love. If your +remorse long ago was sincere, you ought not to hesitate to follow me +today." + +"You forget that I am not free." + +"The Duke is dead," he answered quickly. + +Sister Theresa flushed red. + +"May heaven be open to him!" she cried with a quick rush of feeling. "He +was generous to me.--But I did not mean such ties; it was one of my sins +that I was ready to break them all without scruple--for you." + +"Are you speaking of your vows?" the General asked, frowning. "I did not +think that anything weighed heavier with your heart than love. But do +not think twice of it, Antoinette; the Holy Father himself shall absolve +you of your oath. I will surely go to Rome, I will entreat all the +powers of earth; if God could come down from heaven, I would----" + +"Do not blaspheme." + +"So do not fear the anger of God. Ah! I would far rather hear that +you would leave your prison for me; that this very night you would let +yourself down into a boat at the foot of the cliffs. And we would go +away to be happy somewhere at the world's end, I know not where. And +with me at your side, you should come back to life and health under the +wings of love." + +"You must not talk like this," said Sister Theresa; "you do not know +what you are to me now. I love you far better than I ever loved you +before. Every day I pray for you; I see you with other eyes. Armand, if +you but knew the happiness of giving yourself up, without shame, to a +pure friendship which God watches over! You do not know what joy it is +to me to pray for heaven's blessing on you. I never pray for myself: God +will do with me according to His will; but, at the price of my soul, I +wish I could be sure that you are happy here on earth, and that you +will be happy hereafter throughout all ages. My eternal life is all that +trouble has left me to offer up to you. I am old now with weeping; I am +neither young nor fair; and in any case, you could not respect the +nun who became a wife; no love, not even motherhood, could give me +absolution.... What can you say to outweigh the uncounted thoughts that +have gathered in my heart during the past five years, thoughts that have +changed, and worn, and blighted it? I ought to have given a heart less +sorrowful to God." + +"What can I say? Dear Antoinette, I will say this, that I love you; that +affection, love, a great love, the joy of living in another heart that +is ours, utterly and wholly ours, is so rare a thing and so hard to +find, that I doubted you, and put you to sharp proof; but now, today, I +love you, Antoinette, with all my soul's strength.... If you will follow +me into solitude, I will hear no voice but yours, I will see no other +face." + +"Hush, Armand! You are shortening the little time that we may be +together here on earth." + +"Antoinette, will you come with me?" + +"I am never away from you. My life is in your heart, not through the +selfish ties of earthly happiness, or vanity, or enjoyment; pale and +withered as I am, I live here for you, in the breast of God. As God is +just, you shall be happy----" + +"Words, words all of it! Pale and withered? How if I want you? How if I +cannot be happy without you? Do you still think of nothing but duty with +your lover before you? Is he never to come first and above all things +else in your heart? In time past you put social success, yourself, +heaven knows what, before him; now it is God, it is the welfare of my +soul! In Sister Theresa I find the Duchess over again, ignorant of +the happiness of love, insensible as ever, beneath the semblance of +sensibility. You do not love me; you have never loved me----" + +"Oh, my brother----!" + +"You do not wish to leave this tomb. You love my soul, do you say? +Very well, through you it will be lost forever. I shall make away with +myself----" + +"Mother!" Sister Theresa called aloud in Spanish, "I have lied to you; +this man is my lover!" + +The curtain fell at once. The General, in his stupor, scarcely heard the +doors within as they clanged. + +"Ah! she loves me still!" he cried, understanding all the sublimity of +that cry of hers. "She loves me still. She must be carried off...." + + + +The General left the island, returned to headquarters, pleaded +ill-health, asked for leave of absence, and forthwith took his departure +for France. + +And now for the incidents which brought the two personages in this Scene +into their present relation to each other. + + + +The thing known in France as the Faubourg Saint-Germain is neither a +Quarter, nor a sect, nor an institution, nor anything else that admits +of a precise definition. There are great houses in the Place Royale, the +Faubourg Saint-Honore, and the Chaussee d'Antin, in any one of which you +may breathe the same atmosphere of Faubourg Saint-Germain. So, to begin +with, the whole Faubourg is not within the Faubourg. There are men and +women born far enough away from its influences who respond to them and +take their place in the circle; and again there are others, born within +its limits, who may yet be driven forth forever. For the last forty +years the manners, and customs, and speech, in a word, the tradition of +the Faubourg Saint-Germain, has been to Paris what the Court used to be +in other times; it is what the Hotel Saint-Paul was to the fourteenth +century; the Louvre to the fifteenth; the Palais, the Hotel Rambouillet, +and the Place Royale to the sixteenth; and lastly, as Versailles was to +the seventeenth and the eighteenth. + +Just as the ordinary workaday Paris will always centre about some point; +so, through all periods of history, the Paris of the nobles and +the upper classes converges towards some particular spot. It is a +periodically recurrent phenomenon which presents ample matter for +reflection to those who are fain to observe or describe the various +social zones; and possibly an enquiry into the causes that bring about +this centralization may do more than merely justify the probability of +this episode; it may be of service to serious interests which some +day will be more deeply rooted in the commonwealth, unless, indeed, +experience is as meaningless for political parties as it is for youth. + +In every age the great nobles, and the rich who always ape the great +nobles, build their houses as far as possible from crowded streets. When +the Duc d'Uzes built his splendid hotel in the Rue Montmartre in +the reign of Louis XIV, and set the fountain at his gates--for which +beneficent action, to say nothing of his other virtues, he was held in +such veneration that the whole quarter turned out in a body to follow +his funeral--when the Duke, I say, chose this site for his house, he +did so because that part of Paris was almost deserted in those days. But +when the fortifications were pulled down, and the market gardens beyond +the line of the boulevards began to fill with houses, then the d'Uzes +family left their fine mansion, and in our time it was occupied by a +banker. Later still, the noblesse began to find themselves out of their +element among shopkeepers, left the Place Royale and the centre of +Paris for good, and crossed the river to breathe freely in the Faubourg +Saint-Germain, where palaces were reared already about the great +hotel built by Louis XIV for the Duc de Maine--the Benjamin among his +legitimated offspring. And indeed, for people accustomed to a stately +life, can there be more unseemly surroundings than the bustle, the mud, +the street cries, the bad smells, and narrow thoroughfares of a populous +quarter? The very habits of life in a mercantile or manufacturing +district are completely at variance with the lives of nobles. The +shopkeeper and artisan are just going to bed when the great world is +thinking of dinner; and the noisy stir of life begins among the former +when the latter have gone to rest. Their day's calculations never +coincide; the one class represents the expenditure, the other the +receipts. Consequently their manners and customs are diametrically +opposed. + +Nothing contemptuous is intended by this statement. An aristocracy is in +a manner the intellect of the social system, as the middle classes and +the proletariat may be said to be its organizing and working power. It +naturally follows that these forces are differently situated; and of +their antagonism there is bred a seeming antipathy produced by the +performance of different functions, all of them, however, existing for +one common end. + +Such social dissonances are so inevitably the outcome of any charter +of the constitution, that however much a Liberal may be disposed to +complain of them, as of treason against those sublime ideas with which +the ambitious plebeian is apt to cover his designs, he would none the +less think it a preposterous notion that M. le Prince de Montmorency, +for instance, should continue to live in the Rue Saint-Martin at the +corner of the street which bears that nobleman's name; or that M. le Duc +de Fitz-James, descendant of the royal house of Scotland, should have +his hotel at the angle of the Rue Marie Stuart and the Rue Montorgueil. +_Sint ut sunt, aut non sint_, the grand words of the Jesuit, might be +taken as a motto by the great in all countries. These social differences +are patent in all ages; the fact is always accepted by the people; its +"reasons of state" are self-evident; it is at once cause and effect, a +principle and a law. The common sense of the masses never deserts them +until demagogues stir them up to gain ends of their own; that common +sense is based on the verities of social order; and the social order is +the same everywhere, in Moscow as in London, in Geneva as in Calcutta. +Given a certain number of families of unequal fortune in any given +space, you will see an aristocracy forming under your eyes; there will +be the patricians, the upper classes, and yet other ranks below them. +Equality may be a _right_, but no power on earth can convert it into +_fact_. It would be a good thing for France if this idea could be +popularized. The benefits of political harmony are obvious to the least +intelligent classes. Harmony is, as it were, the poetry of order, and +order is a matter of vital importance to the working population. And +what is order, reduced to its simplest expression, but the agreement +of things among themselves--unity, in short? Architecture, music, and +poetry, everything in France, and in France more than in any other +country, is based upon this principle; it is written upon the very +foundations of her clear accurate language, and a language must always +be the most infallible index of national character. In the same way +you may note that the French popular airs are those most calculated to +strike the imagination, the best-modulated melodies are taken over by +the people; clearness of thought, the intellectual simplicity of an idea +attracts them; they like the incisive sayings that hold the greatest +number of ideas. France is the one country in the world where a little +phrase may bring about a great revolution. Whenever the masses have +risen, it has been to bring men, affairs, and principles into agreement. +No nation has a clearer conception of that idea of unity which should +permeate the life of an aristocracy; possibly no other nation has so +intelligent a comprehension of a political necessity; history will never +find her behind the time. France has been led astray many a time, but +she is deluded, woman-like, by generous ideas, by a glow of enthusiasm +which at first outstrips sober reason. + +So, to begin with, the most striking characteristic of the Faubourg +is the splendour of its great mansions, its great gardens, and a +surrounding quiet in keeping with princely revenues drawn from great +estates. And what is this distance set between a class and a whole +metropolis but visible and outward expression of the widely different +attitude of mind which must inevitably keep them apart? The position of +the head is well defined in every organism. If by any chance a nation +allows its head to fall at its feet, it is pretty sure sooner or later +to discover that this is a suicidal measure; and since nations have no +desire to perish, they set to work at once to grow a new head. If they +lack the strength for this, they perish as Rome perished, and Venice, +and so many other states. + +This distinction between the upper and lower spheres of social activity, +emphasized by differences in their manner of living, necessarily +implies that in the highest aristocracy there is real worth and some +distinguishing merit. In any state, no matter what form of "government" +is affected, so soon as the patrician class fails to maintain that +complete superiority which is the condition of its existence, it ceases +to be a force, and is pulled down at once by the populace. The people +always wish to see money, power, and initiative in their leaders, hands, +hearts, and heads; they must be the spokesmen, they must represent the +intelligence and the glory of the nation. Nations, like women, love +strength in those who rule them; they cannot give love without respect; +they refuse utterly to obey those of whom they do not stand in awe. +An aristocracy fallen into contempt is a _roi faineant_, a husband in +petticoats; first it ceases to be itself, and then it ceases to be. + +And in this way the isolation of the great, the sharply marked +distinction in their manner of life, or in a word, the general custom +of the patrician caste is at once the sign of a real power, and their +destruction so soon as that power is lost. The Faubourg Saint-Germain +failed to recognise the conditions of its being, while it would still +have been easy to perpetuate its existence, and therefore was brought +low for a time. The Faubourg should have looked the facts fairly in the +face, as the English aristocracy did before them; they should have seen +that every institution has its climacteric periods, when words lose +their old meanings, and ideas reappear in a new guise, and the whole +conditions of politics wear a changed aspect, while the underlying +realities undergo no essential alteration. + +These ideas demand further development which form an essential part of +this episode; they are given here both as a succinct statement of the +causes, and an explanation of the things which happen in the course of +the story. + +The stateliness of the castles and palaces where nobles dwell; the +luxury of the details; the constantly maintained sumptuousness of the +furniture; the "atmosphere" in which the fortunate owner of landed +estates (a rich man before he was born) lives and moves easily and +without friction; the habit of mind which never descends to calculate +the petty workaday gains of existence; the leisure; the higher education +attainable at a much earlier age; and lastly, the aristocratic tradition +that makes of him a social force, for which his opponents, by dint +of study and a strong will and tenacity of vocation, are scarcely a +match-all these things should contribute to form a lofty spirit in a +man, possessed of such privileges from his youth up; they should +stamp his character with that high self-respect, of which the least +consequence is a nobleness of heart in harmony with the noble name that +he bears. And in some few families all this is realised. There are +noble characters here and there in the Faubourg, but they are marked +exceptions to a general rule of egoism which has been the ruin of this +world within a world. The privileges above enumerated are the birthright +of the French noblesse, as of every patrician efflorescence ever formed +on the surface of a nation; and will continue to be theirs so long as +their existence is based upon real estate, or money; _domaine-sol_ and +_domaine-argent_ alike, the only solid bases of an organized society; +but such privileges are held upon the understanding that the patricians +must continue to justify their existence. There is a sort of moral +_fief_ held on a tenure of service rendered to the sovereign, and here +in France the people are undoubtedly the sovereigns nowadays. The times +are changed, and so are the weapons. The knight-banneret of old wore +a coat of chain armor and a hauberk; he could handle a lance well and +display his pennon, and no more was required of him; today he is bound +to give proof of his intelligence. A stout heart was enough in the days +of old; in our days he is required to have a capacious brain-pan. Skill +and knowledge and capital--these three points mark out a social triangle +on which the scutcheon of power is blazoned; our modern aristocracy must +take its stand on these. + +A fine theorem is as good as a great name. The Rothschilds, the Fuggers +of the nineteenth century, are princes _de facto_. A great artist is in +reality an oligarch; he represents a whole century, and almost always he +is a law to others. And the art of words, the high pressure machinery +of the writer, the poet's genius, the merchant's steady endurance, +the strong will of the statesman who concentrates a thousand dazzling +qualities in himself, the general's sword--all these victories, in +short, which a single individual will win, that he may tower above the +rest of the world, the patrician class is now bound to win and keep +exclusively. They must head the new forces as they once headed the +material forces; how should they keep the position unless they are +worthy of it? How, unless they are the soul and brain of a nation, +shall they set its hands moving? How lead a people without the power of +command? And what is the marshal's baton without the innate power of +the captain in the man who wields it? The Faubourg Saint-Germain took to +playing with batons, and fancied that all the power was in its hands. +It inverted the terms of the proposition which called it into existence. +And instead of flinging away the insignia which offended the people, +and quietly grasping the power, it allowed the bourgeoisie to seize the +authority, clung with fatal obstinacy to its shadow, and over and over +again forgot the laws which a minority must observe if it would live. +When an aristocracy is scarce a thousandth part of the body social, it +is bound today, as of old, to multiply its points of action, so as to +counterbalance the weight of the masses in a great crisis. And in our +days those means of action must be living forces, and not historical +memories. + +In France, unluckily, the noblesse were still so puffed up with the +notion of their vanished power, that it was difficult to contend against +a kind of innate presumption in themselves. Perhaps this is a national +defect. The Frenchman is less given than anyone else to undervalue +himself; it comes natural to him to go from his degree to the one above +it; and while it is a rare thing for him to pity the unfortunates +over whose heads he rises, he always groans in spirit to see so many +fortunate people above him. He is very far from heartless, but too +often he prefers to listen to his intellect. The national instinct which +brings the Frenchman to the front, the vanity that wastes his substance, +is as much a dominant passion as thrift in the Dutch. For three +centuries it swayed the noblesse, who, in this respect, were certainly +pre-eminently French. The scion of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, beholding +his material superiority, was fully persuaded of his intellectual +superiority. And everything contributed to confirm him in his belief; +for ever since the Faubourg Saint-Germain existed at all--which is +to say, ever since Versailles ceased to be the royal residence--the +Faubourg, with some few gaps in continuity, was always backed up by the +central power, which in France seldom fails to support that side. Thence +its downfall in 1830. + +At that time the party of the Faubourg Saint-Germain was rather like +an army without a base of operation. It had utterly failed to take +advantage of the peace to plant itself in the heart of the nation. +It sinned for want of learning its lesson, and through an utter +incapability of regarding its interests as a whole. A future certainty +was sacrificed to a doubtful present gain. This blunder in policy may +perhaps be attributed to the following cause. + +The class-isolation so strenuously kept up by the noblesse brought about +fatal results during the last forty years; even caste-patriotism was +extinguished by it, and rivalry fostered among themselves. When the +French noblesse of other times were rich and powerful, the nobles +(_gentilhommes_) could choose their chiefs and obey them in the hour +of danger. As their power diminished, they grew less amenable to +discipline; and as in the last days of the Byzantine Empire, everyone +wished to be emperor. They mistook their uniform weakness for uniform +strength. + +Each family ruined by the Revolution and the abolition of the law of +primogeniture thought only of itself, and not at all of the great family +of the noblesse. It seemed to them that as each individual grew rich, +the party as a whole would gain in strength. And herein lay their +mistake. Money, likewise, is only the outward and visible sign of +power. All these families were made up of persons who preserved a high +tradition of courtesy, of true graciousness of life, of refined speech, +with a family pride, and a squeamish sense of _noblesse oblige_ which +suited well with the kind of life they led; a life wholly filled with +occupations which become contemptible so soon as they cease to be +accessories and take the chief place in existence. There was a certain +intrinsic merit in all these people, but the merit was on the surface, +and none of them were worth their face-value. + +Not a single one among those families had courage to ask itself the +question, "Are we strong enough for the responsibility of power?" They +were cast on the top, like the lawyers of 1830; and instead of taking +the patron's place, like a great man, the Faubourg Saint-Germain showed +itself greedy as an upstart. The most intelligent nation in the world +perceived clearly that the restored nobles were organizing everything +for their own particular benefit. From that day the noblesse was doomed. +The Faubourg Saint-Germain tried to be an aristocracy when it could +only be an oligarchy--two very different systems, as any man may see +for himself if he gives an intelligent perusal to the list of the +patronymics of the House of Peers. + +The King's Government certainly meant well; but the maxim that the +people must be made to _will_ everything, even their own welfare, was +pretty constantly forgotten, nor did they bear in mind that La France is +a woman and capricious, and must be happy or chastised at her own good +pleasure. If there had been many dukes like the Duc de Laval, whose +modesty made him worthy of the name he bore, the elder branch would have +been as securely seated on the throne as the House of Hanover at this +day. + +In 1814 the noblesse of France were called upon to assert their +superiority over the most aristocratic bourgeoisie in the most feminine +of all countries, to take the lead in the most highly educated epoch the +world had yet seen. And this was even more notably the case in 1820. The +Faubourg Saint-Germain might very easily have led and amused the middle +classes in days when people's heads were turned with distinctions, and +art and science were all the rage. But the narrow-minded leaders of +a time of great intellectual progress all of them detested art and +science. They had not even the wit to present religion in attractive +colours, though they needed its support. While Lamartine, Lamennais, +Montalembert, and other writers were putting new life and elevation into +men's ideas of religion, and gilding it with poetry, these bunglers in +the Government chose to make the harshness of their creed felt all over +the country. Never was nation in a more tractable humour; La France, +like a tired woman, was ready to agree to anything; never was +mismanagement so clumsy; and La France, like a woman, would have +forgiven wrongs more easily than bungling. + +If the noblesse meant to reinstate themselves, the better to found a +strong oligarchy, they should have honestly and diligently searched +their Houses for men of the stamp that Napoleon used; they should +have turned themselves inside out to see if peradventure there was a +Constitutionalist Richelieu lurking in the entrails of the Faubourg; and +if that genius was not forthcoming from among them, they should have set +out to find him, even in the fireless garret where he might happen to +be perishing of cold; they should have assimilated him, as the English +House of Lords continually assimilates aristocrats made by chance; and +finally ordered him to be ruthless, to lop away the old wood, and cut +the tree down to the living shoots. But, in the first place, the great +system of English Toryism was far too large for narrow minds; the +importation required time, and in France a tardy success is no better +than a fiasco. So far, moreover, from adopting a policy of redemption, +and looking for new forces where God puts them, these petty great folk +took a dislike to any capacity that did not issue from their midst; and, +lastly, instead of growing young again, the Faubourg Saint-Germain grew +positively older. + +Etiquette, not an institution of primary necessity, might have been +maintained if it had appeared only on state occasions, but as it was, +there was a daily wrangle over precedence; it ceased to be a matter of +art or court ceremonial, it became a question of power. And if from +the outset the Crown lacked an adviser equal to so great a crisis, the +aristocracy was still more lacking in a sense of its wider interests, an +instinct which might have supplied the deficiency. They stood nice about +M. de Talleyrand's marriage, when M. de Talleyrand was the one man among +them with the steel-encompassed brains that can forge a new political +system and begin a new career of glory for a nation. The Faubourg +scoffed at a minister if he was not gently born, and produced no one of +gentle birth that was fit to be a minister. There were plenty of nobles +fitted to serve their country by raising the dignity of justices of +the peace, by improving the land, by opening out roads and canals, and +taking an active and leading part as country gentlemen; but these had +sold their estates to gamble on the Stock Exchange. Again the Faubourg +might have absorbed the energetic men among the bourgeoisie, and opened +their ranks to the ambition which was undermining authority; they +preferred instead to fight, and to fight unarmed, for of all that +they once possessed there was nothing left but tradition. For their +misfortune there was just precisely enough of their former wealth left +them as a class to keep up their bitter pride. They were content with +their past. Not one of them seriously thought of bidding the son of the +house take up arms from the pile of weapons which the nineteenth century +flings down in the market-place. Young men, shut out from office, were +dancing at Madame's balls, while they should have been doing the +work done under the Republic and the Empire by young, conscientious, +harmlessly employed energies. It was their place to carry out at Paris +the programme which their seniors should have been following in the +country. The heads of houses might have won back recognition of their +titles by unremitting attention to local interests, by falling in with +the spirit of the age, by recasting their order to suit the taste of the +times. + +But, pent up together in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where the spirit of +the ancient court and traditions of bygone feuds between the nobles and +the Crown still lingered on, the aristocracy was not whole-hearted in +its allegiance to the Tuileries, and so much the more easily defeated +because it was concentrated in the Chamber of Peers, and badly organized +even there. If the noblesse had woven themselves into a network over +the country, they could have held their own; but cooped up in their +Faubourg, with their backs against the Chateau, or spread at full length +over the Budget, a single blow cut the thread of a fast-expiring life, +and a petty, smug-faced lawyer came forward with the axe. In spite of M. +Royer-Collard's admirable discourse, the hereditary peerage and law of +entail fell before the lampoons of a man who made it a boast that he had +adroitly argued some few heads out of the executioner's clutches, and +now forsooth must clumsily proceed to the slaying of old institutions. + +There are examples and lessons for the future in all this. For if there +were not still a future before the French aristocracy, there would be +no need to do more than find a suitable sarcophagus; it were something +pitilessly cruel to burn the dead body of it with fire of Tophet. But +though the surgeon's scalpel is ruthless, it sometimes gives back life +to a dying man; and the Faubourg Saint-Germain may wax more powerful +under persecution than in its day of triumph, if it but chooses to +organize itself under a leader. + +And now it is easy to give a summary of this semi-political survey. The +wish to re-establish a large fortune was uppermost in everyone's mind; +a lack of broad views, and a mass of small defects, a real need of +religion as a political factor, combined with a thirst for pleasure +which damaged the cause of religion and necessitated a good deal of +hypocrisy; a certain attitude of protest on the part of loftier and +clearer-sighted men who set their faces against Court jealousies; and +the disaffection of the provincial families, who often came of +purer descent than the nobles of the Court which alienated them from +itself--all these things combined to bring about a most discordant state +of things in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. It was neither compact in its +organisation, nor consequent in its action; neither completely moral, +nor frankly dissolute; it did not corrupt, nor was it corrupted; it +would neither wholly abandon the disputed points which damaged its +cause, nor yet adopt the policy that might have saved it. In short, +however effete individuals might be, the party as a whole was none +the less armed with all the great principles which lie at the roots of +national existence. What was there in the Faubourg that it should perish +in its strength? + +It was very hard to please in the choice of candidates; the Faubourg +had good taste, it was scornfully fastidious, yet there was nothing very +glorious nor chivalrous truly about its fall. + +In the Emigration of 1789 there were some traces of a loftier feeling; +but in the Emigration of 1830 from Paris into the country there was +nothing discernible but self-interest. A few famous men of letters, a +few oratorical triumphs in the Chambers, M. de Talleyrand's attitude +in the Congress, the taking of Algiers, and not a few names that found +their way from the battlefield into the pages of history--all these +things were so many examples set before the French noblesse to show that +it was still open to them to take their part in the national existence, +and to win recognition of their claims, if, indeed, they could +condescend thus far. In every living organism the work of bringing +the whole into harmony within itself is always going on. If a man is +indolent, the indolence shows itself in everything that he does; and, +in the same manner, the general spirit of a class is pretty plainly +manifested in the face it turns on the world, and the soul informs the +body. + +The women of the Restoration displayed neither the proud disregard +of public opinion shown by the court ladies of olden time in their +wantonness, nor yet the simple grandeur of the tardy virtues by which +they expiated their sins and shed so bright a glory about their names. +There was nothing either very frivolous or very serious about the woman +of the Restoration. She was hypocritical as a rule in her passion, and +compounded, so to speak, with its pleasures. Some few families led +the domestic life of the Duchesse d'Orleans, whose connubial couch was +exhibited so absurdly to visitors at the Palais Royal. Two or three kept +up the traditions of the Regency, filling cleverer women with something +like disgust. The great lady of the new school exercised no influence at +all over the manners of the time; and yet she might have done much. +She might, at worst, have presented as dignified a spectacle as +English-women of the same rank. But she hesitated feebly among old +precedents, became a bigot by force of circumstances, and allowed +nothing of herself to appear, not even her better qualities. + +Not one among the Frenchwomen of that day had the ability to create a +salon whither leaders of fashion might come to take lessons in taste and +elegance. Their voices, which once laid down the law to literature, that +living expression of a time, now counted absolutely for nought. Now +when a literature lacks a general system, it fails to shape a body for +itself, and dies out with its period. + +When in a nation at any time there is a people apart thus constituted, +the historian is pretty certain to find some representative figure, +some central personage who embodies the qualities and the defects of the +whole party to which he belongs; there is Coligny, for instance, among +the Huguenots, the Coadjuteur in the time of the Fronde, the Marechal de +Richelieu under Louis XV, Danton during the Terror. It is in the nature +of things that the man should be identified with the company in which +history finds him. How is it possible to lead a party without conforming +to its ideas? or to shine in any epoch unless a man represents the ideas +of his time? The wise and prudent head of a party is continually obliged +to bow to the prejudices and follies of its rear; and this is the +cause of actions for which he is afterwards criticised by this or that +historian sitting at a safer distance from terrific popular explosions, +coolly judging the passion and ferment without which the great struggles +of the world could not be carried on at all. And if this is true of +the Historical Comedy of the Centuries, it is equally true in a more +restricted sphere in the detached scenes of the national drama known as +the _Manners of the Age_. + + + +At the beginning of that ephemeral life led by the Faubourg +Saint-Germain under the Restoration, to which, if there is any truth in +the above reflections, they failed to give stability, the most perfect +type of the aristocratic caste in its weakness and strength, its +greatness and littleness, might have been found for a brief space in a +young married woman who belonged to it. This was a woman artificially +educated, but in reality ignorant; a woman whose instincts and feelings +were lofty while the thought which should have controlled them was +wanting. She squandered the wealth of her nature in obedience to social +conventions; she was ready to brave society, yet she hesitated till her +scruples degenerated into artifice. With more wilfulness than real force +of character, impressionable rather than enthusiastic, gifted with more +brain than heart; she was supremely a woman, supremely a coquette, +and above all things a Parisienne, loving a brilliant life and gaiety, +reflecting never, or too late; imprudent to the verge of poetry, and +humble in the depths of her heart, in spite of her charming insolence. +Like some straight-growing reed, she made a show of independence; yet, +like the reed, she was ready to bend to a strong hand. She talked much +of religion, and had it not at heart, though she was prepared to find in +it a solution of her life. How explain a creature so complex? Capable +of heroism, yet sinking unconsciously from heroic heights to utter a +spiteful word; young and sweet-natured, not so much old at heart as +aged by the maxims of those about her; versed in a selfish philosophy in +which she was all unpractised, she had all the vices of a courtier, all +the nobleness of developing womanhood. She trusted nothing and no one, +yet there were times when she quitted her sceptical attitude for a +submissive credulity. + +How should any portrait be anything but incomplete of her, in whom the +play of swiftly-changing colour made discord only to produce a poetic +confusion? For in her there shone a divine brightness, a radiance of +youth that blended all her bewildering characteristics in a certain +completeness and unity informed by her charm. Nothing was feigned. The +passion or semi-passion, the ineffectual high aspirations, the actual +pettiness, the coolness of sentiment and warmth of impulse, were all +spontaneous and unaffected, and as much the outcome of her own position +as of the position of the aristocracy to which she belonged. She was +wholly self-contained; she put herself proudly above the world and +beneath the shelter of her name. There was something of the egoism of +Medea in her life, as in the life of the aristocracy that lay a-dying, +and would not so much as raise itself or stretch out a hand to any +political physician; so well aware of its feebleness, or so conscious +that it was already dust, that it refused to touch or be touched. + +The Duchesse de Langeais (for that was her name) had been married for +about four years when the Restoration was finally consummated, which is +to say, in 1816. By that time the revolution of the Hundred Days had let +in the light on the mind of Louis XVIII. In spite of his surroundings, +he comprehended the situation and the age in which he was living; and it +was only later, when this Louis XI, without the axe, lay stricken down +by disease, that those about him got the upper hand. The Duchesse de +Langeais, a Navarreins by birth, came of a ducal house which had made +a point of never marrying below its rank since the reign of Louis XIV. +Every daughter of the house must sooner or later take a _tabouret_ at +Court. So, Antoinette de Navarreins, at the age of eighteen, came out of +the profound solitude in which her girlhood had been spent to marry the +Duc de Langeais' eldest son. The two families at that time were living +quite out of the world; but after the invasion of France, the return +of the Bourbons seemed to every Royalist mind the only possible way of +putting an end to the miseries of the war. + +The Ducs de Navarreins and de Langeais had been faithful throughout to +the exiled Princes, nobly resisting all the temptations of glory under +the Empire. Under the circumstances they naturally followed out the old +family policy; and Mlle Antoinette, a beautiful and portionless girl, +was married to M. le Marquis de Langeais only a few months before the +death of the Duke his father. + +After the return of the Bourbons, the families resumed their rank, +offices, and dignity at Court; once more they entered public life, from +which hitherto they held aloof, and took their place high on the sunlit +summits of the new political world. In that time of general baseness and +sham political conversions, the public conscience was glad to recognise +the unstained loyalty of the two houses, and a consistency in political +and private life for which all parties involuntarily respected them. +But, unfortunately, as so often happens in a time of transition, the +most disinterested persons, the men whose loftiness of view and wise +principles would have gained the confidence of the French nation and led +them to believe in the generosity of a novel and spirited policy--these +men, to repeat, were taken out of affairs, and public business was +allowed to fall into the hands of others, who found it to their interest +to push principles to their extreme consequences by way of proving their +devotion. + +The families of Langeais and Navarreins remained about the Court, +condemned to perform the duties required by Court ceremonial amid the +reproaches and sneers of the Liberal party. They were accused of gorging +themselves with riches and honours, and all the while their family +estates were no larger than before, and liberal allowances from the +civil list were wholly expended in keeping up the state necessary for +any European government, even if it be a Republic. + +In 1818, M. le Duc de Langeais commanded a division of the army, and the +Duchess held a post about one of the Princesses, in virtue of which she +was free to live in Paris and apart from her husband without scandal. +The Duke, moreover, besides his military duties, had a place at Court, +to which he came during his term of waiting, leaving his major-general +in command. The Duke and Duchess were leading lives entirely apart, the +world none the wiser. Their marriage of convention shared the fate +of nearly all family arrangements of the kind. Two more antipathetic +dispositions could not well have been found; they were brought together; +they jarred upon each other; there was soreness on either side; then +they were divided once for all. Then they went their separate ways, +with a due regard for appearances. The Duc de Langeais, by nature +as methodical as the Chevalier de Folard himself, gave himself up +methodically to his own tastes and amusements, and left his wife at +liberty to do as she pleased so soon as he felt sure of her character. +He recognised in her a spirit pre-eminently proud, a cold heart, a +profound submissiveness to the usages of the world, and a youthful +loyalty. Under the eyes of great relations, with the light of a prudish +and bigoted Court turned full upon the Duchess, his honour was safe. + +So the Duke calmly did as the _grands seigneurs_ of the eighteenth +century did before him, and left a young wife of two-and-twenty to her +own devices. He had deeply offended that wife, and in her nature there +was one appalling characteristic--she would never forgive an offence +when woman's vanity and self-love, with all that was best in her nature +perhaps, had been slighted, wounded in secret. Insult and injury in the +face of the world a woman loves to forget; there is a way open to her of +showing herself great; she is a woman in her forgiveness; but a secret +offence women never pardon; for secret baseness, as for hidden virtues +and hidden love, they have no kindness. + +This was Mme la Duchesse de Langeais' real position, unknown to the +world. She herself did not reflect upon it. It was the time of the +rejoicings over the Duc de Berri's marriage. The Court and the Faubourg +roused itself from its listlessness and reserve. This was the real +beginning of that unheard-of splendour which the Government of the +Restoration carried too far. At that time the Duchess, whether for +reasons of her own, or from vanity, never appeared in public without a +following of women equally distinguished by name and fortune. As queen +of fashion she had her _dames d'atours_, her ladies, who modeled their +manner and their wit on hers. They had been cleverly chosen. None of her +satellites belonged to the inmost Court circle, nor to the highest +level of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; but they had set their minds upon +admission to those inner sanctuaries. Being as yet simple denominations, +they wished to rise to the neighbourhood of the throne, and mingle with +the seraphic powers in the high sphere known as _le petit chateau_. Thus +surrounded, the Duchess's position was stronger and more commanding and +secure. Her "ladies" defended her character and helped her to play her +detestable part of a woman of fashion. She could laugh at men at her +ease, play with fire, receive the homage on which the feminine nature is +nourished, and remain mistress of herself. + +At Paris, in the highest society of all, a woman is a woman still; she +lives on incense, adulation, and honours. No beauty, however undoubted, +no face, however fair, is anything without admiration. Flattery and +a lover are proofs of power. And what is power without recognition? +Nothing. If the prettiest of women were left alone in a corner of a +drawing-room, she would droop. Put her in the very centre and summit of +social grandeur, she will at once aspire to reign over all hearts--often +because it is out of her power to be the happy queen of one. Dress and +manner and coquetry are all meant to please one of the poorest creatures +extant--the brainless coxcomb, whose handsome face is his sole merit; +it was for such as these that women threw themselves away. The gilded +wooden idols of the Restoration, for they were neither more nor less, +had neither the antecedents of the _petits maitres_ of the time of the +Fronde, nor the rough sterling worth of Napoleon's heroes, not the wit +and fine manners of their grandsires; but something of all three they +meant to be without any trouble to themselves. Brave they were, like +all young Frenchmen; ability they possessed, no doubt, if they had had +a chance of proving it, but their places were filled up by the old +worn-out men, who kept them in leading strings. It was a day of +small things, a cold prosaic era. Perhaps it takes a long time for a +Restoration to become a Monarchy. + +For the past eighteen months the Duchesse de Langeais had been leading +this empty life, filled with balls and subsequent visits, objectless +triumphs, and the transient loves that spring up and die in an evening's +space. All eyes were turned on her when she entered a room; she reaped +her harvest of flatteries and some few words of warmer admiration, which +she encouraged by a gesture or a glance, but never suffered to penetrate +deeper than the skin. Her tone and bearing and everything else about her +imposed her will upon others. Her life was a sort of fever of vanity +and perpetual enjoyment, which turned her head. She was daring enough in +conversation; she would listen to anything, corrupting the surface, as +it were, of her heart. Yet when she returned home, she often blushed at +the story that had made her laugh; at the scandalous tale that supplied +the details, on the strength of which she analyzed the love that she had +never known, and marked the subtle distinctions of modern passion, not +with comment on the part of complacent hypocrites. For women know how +to say everything among themselves, and more of them are ruined by each +other than corrupted by men. + +There came a moment when she discerned that not until a woman is loved +will the world fully recognise her beauty and her wit. What does a +husband prove? Simply that a girl or woman was endowed with wealth, or +well brought up; that her mother managed cleverly that in some way she +satisfied a man's ambitions. A lover constantly bears witness to her +personal perfections. Then followed the discovery still in Mme de +Langeais' early womanhood, that it was possible to be loved without +committing herself, without permission, without vouchsafing any +satisfaction beyond the most meagre dues. There was more than one demure +feminine hypocrite to instruct her in the art of playing such dangerous +comedies. + +So the Duchess had her court, and the number of her adorers and +courtiers guaranteed her virtue. She was amiable and fascinating; she +flirted till the ball or the evening's gaiety was at an end. Then the +curtain dropped. She was cold, indifferent, self-contained again till +the next day brought its renewed sensations, superficial as before. Two +or three men were completely deceived, and fell in love in earnest. +She laughed at them, she was utterly insensible. "I am loved!" she told +herself. "He loves me!" The certainty sufficed her. It is enough for the +miser to know that his every whim might be fulfilled if he chose; so it +was with the Duchess, and perhaps she did not even go so far as to form +a wish. + +One evening she chanced to be at the house of an intimate friend Mme la +Vicomtesse de Fontaine, one of the humble rivals who cordially detested +her, and went with her everywhere. In a "friendship" of this sort both +sides are on their guard, and never lay their armor aside; confidences +are ingeniously indiscreet, and not unfrequently treacherous. Mme de +Langeais had distributed her little patronizing, friendly, or freezing +bows, with the air natural to a woman who knows the worth of her smiles, +when her eyes fell upon a total stranger. Something in the man's large +gravity of aspect startled her, and, with a feeling almost like dread, +she turned to Mme de Maufrigneuse with, "Who is the newcomer, dear?" + +"Someone that you have heard of, no doubt. The Marquis de Montriveau." + +"Oh! is it he?" + +She took up her eyeglass and submitted him to a very insolent scrutiny, +as if he had been a picture meant to receive glances, not to return +them. + +"Do introduce him; he ought to be interesting." + +"Nobody more tiresome and dull, dear. But he is the fashion." + +M. Armand de Montriveau, at that moment all unwittingly the object of +general curiosity, better deserved attention than any of the idols that +Paris needs must set up to worship for a brief space, for the city is +vexed by periodical fits of craving, a passion for _engouement_ and sham +enthusiasm, which must be satisfied. The Marquis was the only son of +General de Montriveau, one of the _ci-devants_ who served the Republic +nobly, and fell by Joubert's side at Novi. Bonaparte had placed his son +at the school at Chalons, with the orphans of other generals who fell +on the battlefield, leaving their children under the protection of the +Republic. Armand de Montriveau left school with his way to make, entered +the artillery, and had only reached a major's rank at the time of the +Fontainebleau disaster. In his section of the service the chances of +advancement were not many. There are fewer officers, in the first place, +among the gunners than in any other corps; and in the second place, the +feeling in the artillery was decidedly Liberal, not to say Republican; +and the Emperor, feeling little confidence in a body of highly educated +men who were apt to think for themselves, gave promotion grudgingly in +the service. In the artillery, accordingly, the general rule of the +army did not apply; the commanding officers were not invariably the most +remarkable men in their department, because there was less to be feared +from mediocrities. The artillery was a separate corps in those days, and +only came under Napoleon in action. + +Besides these general causes, other reasons, inherent in Armand de +Montriveau's character, were sufficient in themselves to account for his +tardy promotion. He was alone in the world. He had been thrown at +the age of twenty into the whirlwind of men directed by Napoleon; his +interests were bounded by himself, any day he might lose his life; it +became a habit of mind with him to live by his own self-respect and +the consciousness that he had done his duty. Like all shy men, he was +habitually silent; but his shyness sprang by no means from timidity; +it was a kind of modesty in him; he found any demonstration of vanity +intolerable. There was no sort of swagger about his fearlessness in +action; nothing escaped his eyes; he could give sensible advice to his +chums with unshaken coolness; he could go under fire, and duck upon +occasion to avoid bullets. He was kindly; but his expression was haughty +and stern, and his face gained him this character. In everything he was +rigorous as arithmetic; he never permitted the slightest deviation from +duty on any plausible pretext, nor blinked the consequences of a fact. +He would lend himself to nothing of which he was ashamed; he never asked +anything for himself; in short, Armand de Montriveau was one of many +great men unknown to fame, and philosophical enough to despise it; +living without attaching themselves to life, because they have not found +their opportunity of developing to the full their power to do and feel. + +People were afraid of Montriveau; they respected him, but he was not +very popular. Men may indeed allow you to rise above them, but to +decline to descend as low as they can do is the one unpardonable sin. +In their feeling towards loftier natures, there is a trace of hate and +fear. Too much honour with them implies censure of themselves, a thing +forgiven neither to the living nor to the dead. + +After the Emperor's farewells at Fontainebleau, Montriveau, noble though +he was, was put on half-pay. Perhaps the heads of the War Office took +fright at uncompromising uprightness worthy of antiquity, or perhaps it +was known that he felt bound by his oath to the Imperial Eagle. During +the Hundred Days he was made a Colonel of the Guard, and left on the +field of Waterloo. His wounds kept him in Belgium he was not present +at the disbanding of the Army of the Loire, but the King's government +declined to recognise promotion made during the Hundred Days, and Armand +de Montriveau left France. + +An adventurous spirit, a loftiness of thought hitherto satisfied by +the hazards of war, drove him on an exploring expedition through Upper +Egypt; his sanity or impulse directed his enthusiasm to a project of +great importance, he turned his attention to that unexplored Central +Africa which occupies the learned of today. The scientific expedition +was long and unfortunate. He had made a valuable collection of notes +bearing on various geographical and commercial problems, of which +solutions are still eagerly sought; and succeeded, after surmounting +many obstacles, in reaching the heart of the continent, when he was +betrayed into the hands of a hostile native tribe. Then, stripped of all +that he had, for two years he led a wandering life in the desert, +the slave of savages, threatened with death at every moment, and more +cruelly treated than a dumb animal in the power of pitiless children. +Physical strength, and a mind braced to endurance, enabled him to +survive the horrors of that captivity; but his miraculous escape +well-nigh exhausted his energies. When he reached the French colony at +Senegal, a half-dead fugitive covered with rags, his memories of his +former life were dim and shapeless. The great sacrifices made in his +travels were all forgotten like his studies of African dialects, his +discoveries, and observations. One story will give an idea of all that +he passed through. Once for several days the children of the sheikh of +the tribe amused themselves by putting him up for a mark and flinging +horses' knuckle-bones at his head. + +Montriveau came back to Paris in 1818 a ruined man. He had no interest, +and wished for none. He would have died twenty times over sooner than +ask a favour of anyone; he would not even press the recognition of his +claims. Adversity and hardship had developed his energy even in trifles, +while the habit of preserving his self-respect before that spiritual +self which we call conscience led him to attach consequence to the most +apparently trivial actions. His merits and adventures became known, +however, through his acquaintances, among the principal men of science +in Paris, and some few well-read military men. The incidents of his +slavery and subsequent escape bore witness to a courage, intelligence, +and coolness which won him celebrity without his knowledge, and that +transient fame of which Paris salons are lavish, though the artist that +fain would keep it must make untold efforts. + +Montriveau's position suddenly changed towards the end of that year. He +had been a poor man, he was now rich; or, externally at any rate, he had +all the advantages of wealth. The King's government, trying to attach +capable men to itself and to strengthen the army, made concessions +about that time to Napoleon's old officers if their known loyalty and +character offered guarantees of fidelity. M. de Montriveau's name once +more appeared in the army list with the rank of colonel; he received his +arrears of pay and passed into the Guards. All these favours, one +after another, came to seek the Marquis de Montriveau; he had asked +for nothing however small. Friends had taken the steps for him which he +would have refused to take for himself. + +After this, his habits were modified all at once; contrary to his +custom, he went into society. He was well received, everywhere he met +with great deference and respect. He seemed to have found some end +in life; but everything passed within the man, there were no external +signs; in society he was silent and cold, and wore a grave, reserved +face. His social success was great, precisely because he stood out in +such strong contrast to the conventional faces which line the walls +of Paris salons. He was, indeed, something quite new there. Terse +of speech, like a hermit or a savage, his shyness was thought to be +haughtiness, and people were greatly taken with it. He was something +strange and great. Women generally were so much the more smitten +with this original person because he was not to be caught by their +flatteries, however adroit, nor by the wiles with which they circumvent +the strongest men and corrode the steel temper. Their Parisian's +grimaces were lost upon M. de Montriveau; his nature only responded to +the sonorous vibration of lofty thought and feeling. And he would very +promptly have been dropped but for the romance that hung about his +adventures and his life; but for the men who cried him up behind his +back; but for a woman who looked for a triumph for her vanity, the woman +who was to fill his thoughts. + +For these reasons the Duchesse de Langeais' curiosity was no less lively +than natural. Chance had so ordered it that her interest in the man +before her had been aroused only the day before, when she heard the +story of one of M. de Montriveau's adventures, a story calculated to +make the strongest impression upon a woman's ever-changing fancy. + +During M. de Montriveau's voyage of discovery to the sources of the +Nile, he had had an argument with one of his guides, surely the most +extraordinary debate in the annals of travel. The district that he +wished to explore could only be reached on foot across a tract of +desert. Only one of his guides knew the way; no traveller had penetrated +before into that part of the country, where the undaunted officer hoped +to find a solution of several scientific problems. In spite of the +representations made to him by the guide and the older men of the place, +he started upon the formidable journey. Summoning up courage, already +highly strung by the prospect of dreadful difficulties, he set out in +the morning. + +The loose sand shifted under his feet at every step; and when, at the +end of a long day's march, he lay down to sleep on the ground, he had +never been so tired in his life. He knew, however, that he must be up +and on his way before dawn next day, and his guide assured him that they +should reach the end of their journey towards noon. That promise kept +up his courage and gave him new strength. In spite of his sufferings, +he continued his march, with some blasphemings against science; he was +ashamed to complain to his guide, and kept his pain to himself. After +marching for a third of the day, he felt his strength failing, his feet +were bleeding, he asked if they should reach the place soon. "In an +hour's time," said the guide. Armand braced himself for another hour's +march, and they went on. + +The hour slipped by; he could not so much as see against the sky the +palm-trees and crests of hill that should tell of the end of the journey +near at hand; the horizon line of sand was vast as the circle of the +open sea. + +He came to a stand, refused to go farther, and threatened the guide--he +had deceived him, murdered him; tears of rage and weariness flowed over +his fevered cheeks; he was bowed down with fatigue upon fatigue, his +throat seemed to be glued by the desert thirst. The guide meanwhile +stood motionless, listening to these complaints with an ironical +expression, studying the while, with the apparent indifference of an +Oriental, the scarcely perceptible indications in the lie of the sands, +which looked almost black, like burnished gold. + +"I have made a mistake," he remarked coolly. "I could not make out the +track, it is so long since I came this way; we are surely on it now, but +we must push on for two hours." + +"The man is right," thought M. de Montriveau. + +So he went on again, struggling to follow the pitiless native. It seemed +as if he were bound to his guide by some thread like the invisible tie +between the condemned man and the headsman. But the two hours went by, +Montriveau had spent his last drops of energy, and the skyline was a +blank, there were no palm-trees, no hills. He could neither cry out +nor groan, he lay down on the sand to die, but his eyes would have +frightened the boldest; something in his face seemed to say that he +would not die alone. His guide, like a very fiend, gave him back a cool +glance like a man that knows his power, left him to lie there, and kept +at a safe distance out of reach of his desperate victim. At last M. +Montriveau recovered strength enough for a last curse. The guide came +nearer, silenced him with a steady look, and said, "Was it not your own +will to go where I am taking you, in spite of us all? You say that I +have lied to you. If I had not, you would not be even here. Do you want +the truth? Here it is. _We have still another five hours' march before +us, and we cannot go back_. Sound yourself; if you have not courage +enough, here is my dagger." + +Startled by this dreadful knowledge of pain and human strength, M. +de Montriveau would not be behind a savage; he drew a fresh stock of +courage from his pride as a European, rose to his feet, and followed +his guide. The five hours were at an end, and still M. de Montriveau +saw nothing, he turned his failing eyes upon his guide; but the Nubian +hoisted him on his shoulders, and showed him a wide pool of water with +greenness all about it, and a noble forest lighted up by the sunset. It +lay only a hundred paces away; a vast ledge of granite hid the glorious +landscape. It seemed to Armand that he had taken a new lease of life. +His guide, that giant in courage and intelligence, finished his work of +devotion by carrying him across the hot, slippery, scarcely discernible +track on the granite. Behind him lay the hell of burning sand, before +him the earthly paradise of the most beautiful oasis in the desert. + +The Duchess, struck from the first by the appearance of this romantic +figure, was even more impressed when she learned that this was that +Marquis de Montriveau of whom she had dreamed during the night. She had +been with him among the hot desert sands, he had been the companion of +her nightmare wanderings; for such a woman was not this a delightful +presage of a new interest in her life? And never was a man's exterior +a better exponent of his character; never were curious glances so well +justified. The principal characteristic of his great, square-hewn head +was the thick, luxuriant black hair which framed his face, and gave him +a strikingly close resemblance to General Kleber; and the likeness still +held good in the vigorous forehead, in the outlines of his face, the +quiet fearlessness of his eyes, and a kind of fiery vehemence expressed +by strongly marked features. He was short, deep-chested, and muscular +as a lion. There was something of the despot about him, and an +indescribable suggestion of the security of strength in his gait, +bearing, and slightest movements. He seemed to know that his will was +irresistible, perhaps because he wished for nothing unjust. And yet, +like all really strong men, he was mild of speech, simple in his +manners, and kindly natured; although it seemed as if, in the stress of +a great crisis, all these finer qualities must disappear, and the man +would show himself implacable, unshaken in his resolve, terrific in +action. There was a certain drawing in of the inner line of the lips +which, to a close observer, indicated an ironical bent. + +The Duchesse de Langeais, realising that a fleeting glory was to be +won by such a conquest, made up her mind to gain a lover in Armand de +Montriveau during the brief interval before the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse +brought him to be introduced. She would prefer him above the others; she +would attach him to herself, display all her powers of coquetry for him. +It was a fancy, such a merest Duchess's whim as furnished a Lope or a +Calderon with the plot of the _Dog in the Manger_. She would not suffer +another woman to engross him; but she had not the remotest intention of +being his. + +Nature had given the Duchess every qualification for the part of +coquette, and education had perfected her. Women envied her, and men +fell in love with her, not without reason. Nothing that can inspire +love, justify it, and give it lasting empire was wanting in her. Her +style of beauty, her manner, her voice, her bearing, all combined to +give her that instinctive coquetry which seems to be the consciousness +of power. Her shape was graceful; perhaps there was a trace of +self-consciousness in her changes of movement, the one affectation that +could be laid to her charge; but everything about her was a part of her +personality, from her least little gesture to the peculiar turn of her +phrases, the demure glance of her eyes. Her great lady's grace, her +most striking characteristic, had not destroyed the very French quick +mobility of her person. There was an extraordinary fascination in her +swift, incessant changes of attitude. She seemed as if she surely would +be a most delicious mistress when her corset and the encumbering costume +of her part were laid aside. All the rapture of love surely was latent +in the freedom of her expressive glances, in her caressing tones, in the +charm of her words. She gave glimpses of the high-born courtesan within +her, vainly protesting against the creeds of the duchess. + +You might sit near her through an evening, she would be gay and +melancholy in turn, and her gaiety, like her sadness, seemed +spontaneous. She could be gracious, disdainful, insolent, or confiding +at will. Her apparent good nature was real; she had no temptation to +descend to malignity. But at each moment her mood changed; she was full +of confidence or craft; her moving tenderness would give place to a +heart-breaking hardness and insensibility. Yet how paint her as she +was, without bringing together all the extremes of feminine nature? In +a word, the Duchess was anything that she wished to be or to seem. +Her face was slightly too long. There was a grace in it, and a certain +thinness and fineness that recalled the portraits of the Middle Ages. +Her skin was white, with a faint rose tint. Everything about her erred, +as it were, by an excess of delicacy. + +M. de Montriveau willingly consented to be introduced to the Duchesse +de Langeais; and she, after the manner of persons whose sensitive taste +leads them to avoid banalities, refrained from overwhelming him with +questions and compliments. She received him with a gracious deference +which could not fail to flatter a man of more than ordinary powers, +for the fact that a man rises above the ordinary level implies that +he possesses something of that tact which makes women quick to read +feeling. If the Duchess showed any curiosity, it was by her glances; +her compliments were conveyed in her manner; there was a winning grace +displayed in her words, a subtle suggestion of a desire to please which +she of all women knew the art of manifesting. Yet her whole conversation +was but, in a manner, the body of the letter; the postscript with the +principal thought in it was still to come. After half an hour spent in +ordinary talk, in which the words gained all their value from her tone +and smiles, M. de Montriveau was about to retire discreetly, when the +Duchess stopped him with an expressive gesture. + +"I do not know, monsieur, whether these few minutes during which I have +had the pleasure of talking to you proved so sufficiently attractive, +that I may venture to ask you to call upon me; I am afraid that it may +be very selfish of me to wish to have you all to myself. If I should +be so fortunate as to find that my house is agreeable to you, you will +always find me at home in the evening until ten o'clock." + +The invitation was given with such irresistible grace, that M. de +Montriveau could not refuse to accept it. When he fell back again among +the groups of men gathered at a distance from the women, his +friends congratulated him, half laughingly, half in earnest, on the +extraordinary reception vouchsafed him by the Duchesse de Langeais. The +difficult and brilliant conquest had been made beyond a doubt, and the +glory of it was reserved for the Artillery of the Guard. It is easy to +imagine the jests, good and bad, when this topic had once been started; +the world of Paris salons is so eager for amusement, and a joke lasts +for such a short time, that everyone is eager to make the most of it +while it is fresh. + +All unconsciously, the General felt flattered by this nonsense. From his +place where he had taken his stand, his eyes were drawn again and again +to the Duchess by countless wavering reflections. He could not help +admitting to himself that of all the women whose beauty had captivated +his eyes, not one had seemed to be a more exquisite embodiment of faults +and fair qualities blended in a completeness that might realise the +dreams of earliest manhood. Is there a man in any rank of life that has +not felt indefinable rapture in his secret soul over the woman singled +out (if only in his dreams) to be his own; when she, in body, soul, and +social aspects, satisfies his every requirement, a thrice perfect woman? +And if this threefold perfection that flatters his pride is no argument +for loving her, it is beyond cavil one of the great inducements to the +sentiment. Love would soon be convalescent, as the eighteenth century +moralist remarked, were it not for vanity. And it is certainly true +that for everyone, man or woman, there is a wealth of pleasure in +the superiority of the beloved. Is she set so high by birth that a +contemptuous glance can never wound her? is she wealthy enough to +surround herself with state which falls nothing short of royalty, of +kings, of finance during their short reign of splendour? is she so +ready-witted that a keen-edged jest never brings her into confusion? +beautiful enough to rival any woman?--Is it such a small thing to know +that your self-love will never suffer through her? A man makes these +reflections in the twinkling of an eye. And how if, in the future opened +out by early ripened passion, he catches glimpses of the changeful +delight of her charm, the frank innocence of a maiden soul, the perils +of love's voyage, the thousand folds of the veil of coquetry? Is not +this enough to move the coldest man's heart? + +This, therefore, was M. de Montriveau's position with regard to woman; +his past life in some measure explaining the extraordinary fact. He +had been thrown, when little more than a boy, into the hurricane of +Napoleon's wars; his life had been spent on fields of battle. Of women +he knew just so much as a traveller knows of a country when he travels +across it in haste from one inn to another. The verdict which Voltaire +passed upon his eighty years of life might, perhaps, have been applied +by Montriveau to his own thirty-seven years of existence; had he not +thirty-seven follies with which to reproach himself? At his age he was +as much a novice in love as the lad that has just been furtively reading +_Faublas_. Of women he had nothing to learn; of love he knew nothing; +and thus, desires, quite unknown before, sprang from this virginity of +feeling. + +There are men here and there as much engrossed in the work demanded of +them by poverty or ambition, art or science, as M. de Montriveau by war +and a life of adventure--these know what it is to be in this unusual +position if they very seldom confess to it. Every man in Paris is +supposed to have been in love. No woman in Paris cares to take what +other women have passed over. The dread of being taken for a fool is the +source of the coxcomb's bragging so common in France; for in France to +have the reputation of a fool is to be a foreigner in one's own country. +Vehement desire seized on M. de Montriveau, desire that had gathered +strength from the heat of the desert and the first stirrings of a heart +unknown as yet in its suppressed turbulence. + +A strong man, and violent as he was strong, he could keep mastery over +himself; but as he talked of indifferent things, he retired within +himself, and swore to possess this woman, for through that thought lay +the only way to love for him. Desire became a solemn compact made with +himself, an oath after the manner of the Arabs among whom he had lived; +for among them a vow is a kind of contract made with Destiny a man's +whole future is solemnly pledged to fulfil it, and everything even his +own death, is regarded simply as a means to the one end. + +A younger man would have said to himself, "I should very much like to +have the Duchess for my mistress!" or, "If the Duchesse de Langeais +cared for a man, he would be a very lucky rascal!" But the General said, +"I will have Mme de Langeais for my mistress." And if a man takes such +an idea into his head when his heart has never been touched before, and +love begins to be a kind of religion with him, he little knows in what a +hell he has set his foot. + +Armand de Montriveau suddenly took flight and went home in the first hot +fever-fit of the first love that he had known. When a man has kept all +his boyish beliefs, illusions, frankness, and impetuosity into middle +age, his first impulse is, as it were, to stretch out a hand to take the +thing that he desires; a little later he realizes that there is a gulf +set between them, and that it is all but impossible to cross it. A sort +of childish impatience seizes him, he wants the thing the more, +and trembles or cries. Wherefore, the next day, after the stormiest +reflections that had yet perturbed his mind, Armand de Montriveau +discovered that he was under the yoke of the senses, and his bondage +made the heavier by his love. + +The woman so cavalierly treated in his thoughts of yesterday had become +a most sacred and dreadful power. She was to be his world, his life, +from this time forth. The greatest joy, the keenest anguish, that he +had yet known grew colorless before the bare recollection of the least +sensation stirred in him by her. The swiftest revolutions in a man's +outward life only touch his interests, while passion brings a complete +revulsion of feeling. And so in those who live by feeling, rather than +by self-interest, the doers rather than the reasoners, the sanguine +rather than the lymphatic temperaments, love works a complete +revolution. In a flash, with one single reflection, Armand de Montriveau +wiped out his whole past life. + +A score of times he asked himself, like a boy, "Shall I go, or shall I +not?" and then at last he dressed, came to the Hotel de Langeais +towards eight o'clock that evening, and was admitted. He was to see the +woman--ah! not the woman--the idol that he had seen yesterday, among +lights, a fresh innocent girl in gauze and silken lace and veiling. +He burst in upon her to declare his love, as if it were a question of +firing the first shot on a field of battle. + +Poor novice! He found his ethereal sylphide shrouded in a brown cashmere +dressing-gown ingeniously befrilled, lying languidly stretched out upon +a sofa in a dimly lighted boudoir. Mme de Langeais did not so much as +rise, nothing was visible of her but her face, her hair was loose but +confined by a scarf. A hand indicated a seat, a hand that seemed white +as marble to Montriveau by the flickering light of a single candle at +the further side of the room, and a voice as soft as the light said: + +"If it had been anyone else, M. le Marquis, a friend with whom I could +dispense with ceremony, or a mere acquaintance in whom I felt but slight +interest, I should have closed my door. I am exceedingly unwell." + +"I will go," Armand said to himself. + +"But I do not know how it is," she continued (and the simple warrior +attributed the shining of her eyes to fever), "perhaps it was a +presentiment of your kind visit (and no one can be more sensible of the +prompt attention than I), but the vapors have left my head." + +"Then may I stay?" + +"Oh, I should be very sorry to allow you to go. I told myself this +morning that it was impossible that I should have made the slightest +impression on your mind, and that in all probability you took my request +for one of the commonplaces of which Parisians are lavish on every +occasion. And I forgave your ingratitude in advance. An explorer +from the deserts is not supposed to know how exclusive we are in our +friendships in the Faubourg." + +The gracious, half-murmured words dropped one by one, as if they had +been weighted with the gladness that apparently brought them to her +lips. The Duchess meant to have the full benefit of her headache, and +her speculation was fully successful. The General, poor man, was really +distressed by the lady's simulated distress. Like Crillon listening to +the story of the Crucifixion, he was ready to draw his sword against the +vapors. How could a man dare to speak just then to this suffering woman +of the love that she inspired? Armand had already felt that it would be +absurd to fire off a declaration of love point-blank at one so far above +other women. With a single thought came understanding of the delicacies +of feeling, of the soul's requirements. To love: what was that but to +know how to plead, to beg for alms, to wait? And as for the love that +he felt, must he not prove it? His tongue was mute, it was frozen by the +conventions of the noble Faubourg, the majesty of a sick headache, the +bashfulness of love. But no power on earth could veil his glances; the +heat and the Infinite of the desert blazed in eyes calm as a panther's, +beneath the lids that fell so seldom. The Duchess enjoyed the steady +gaze that enveloped her in light and warmth. + +"Mme la Duchesse," he answered, "I am afraid I express my gratitude for +your goodness very badly. At this moment I have but one desire--I wish +it were in my power to cure the pain." + +"Permit me to throw this off, I feel too warm now," she said, gracefully +tossing aside a cushion that covered her feet. + +"Madame, in Asia your feet would be worth some ten thousand sequins. + +"A traveler's compliment!" smiled she. + +It pleased the sprightly lady to involve a rough soldier in a labyrinth +of nonsense, commonplaces, and meaningless talk, in which he manoeuvred, +in military language, as Prince Charles might have done at close +quarters with Napoleon. She took a mischievous amusement in +reconnoitring the extent of his infatuation by the number of foolish +speeches extracted from a novice whom she led step by step into a +hopeless maze, meaning to leave him there in confusion. She began by +laughing at him, but nevertheless it pleased her to make him forget how +time went. + +The length of a first visit is frequently a compliment, but Armand was +innocent of any such intent. The famous explorer spent an hour in chat +on all sorts of subjects, said nothing that he meant to say, and was +feeling that he was only an instrument on whom this woman played, when +she rose, sat upright, drew the scarf from her hair, and wrapped it +about her throat, leant her elbow on the cushions, did him the honour +of a complete cure, and rang for lights. The most graceful movement +succeeded to complete repose. She turned to M. de Montriveau, from whom +she had just extracted a confidence which seemed to interest her deeply, +and said: + +"You wish to make game of me by trying to make me believe that you +have never loved. It is a man's great pretension with us. And we always +believe it! Out of pure politeness. Do we not know what to expect +from it for ourselves? Where is the man that has found but a single +opportunity of losing his heart? But you love to deceive us, and we +submit to be deceived, poor foolish creatures that we are; for your +hypocrisy is, after all, a homage paid to the superiority of our +sentiments, which are all purity." + +The last words were spoken with a disdainful pride that made the novice +in love feel like a worthless bale flung into the deep, while the +Duchess was an angel soaring back to her particular heaven. + +"Confound it!" thought Armand de Montriveau, "how am I to tell this wild +thing that I love her?" + +He had told her already a score of times; or rather, the Duchess had +a score of times read his secret in his eyes; and the passion in this +unmistakably great man promised her amusement, and an interest in her +empty life. So she prepared with no little dexterity to raise a certain +number of redoubts for him to carry by storm before he should gain an +entrance into her heart. Montriveau should overleap one difficulty after +another; he should be a plaything for her caprice, just as an insect +teased by children is made to jump from one finger to another, and in +spite of all its pains is kept in the same place by its mischievous +tormentor. And yet it gave the Duchess inexpressible happiness to see +that this strong man had told her the truth. Armand had never loved, as +he had said. He was about to go, in a bad humour with himself, and still +more out of humour with her; but it delighted her to see a sullenness +that she could conjure away with a word, a glance, or a gesture. + +"Will you come tomorrow evening?" she asked. "I am going to a ball, but +I shall stay at home for you until ten o'clock." + +Montriveau spent most of the next day in smoking an indeterminate +quantity of cigars in his study window, and so got through the hours +till he could dress and go to the Hotel de Langeais. To anyone who had +known the magnificent worth of the man, it would have been grievous to +see him grown so small, so distrustful of himself; the mind that might +have shed light over undiscovered worlds shrunk to the proportions of +a she-coxcomb's boudoir. Even he himself felt that he had fallen so low +already in his happiness that to save his life he could not have told +his love to one of his closest friends. Is there not always a trace +of shame in the lover's bashfulness, and perhaps in woman a certain +exultation over diminished masculine stature? Indeed, but for a host of +motives of this kind, how explain why women are nearly always the first +to betray the secret?--a secret of which, perhaps, they soon weary. + +"Mme la Duchesse cannot see visitors, monsieur," said the man; "she is +dressing, she begs you to wait for her here." + +Armand walked up and down the drawing-room, studying her taste in the +least details. He admired Mme de Langeais herself in the objects of her +choosing; they revealed her life before he could grasp her personality +and ideas. About an hour later the Duchess came noiselessly out of her +chamber. Montriveau turned, saw her flit like a shadow across the room, +and trembled. She came up to him, not with a bourgeoise's enquiry, "How +do I look?" She was sure of herself; her steady eyes said plainly, "I am +adorned to please you." + +No one surely, save the old fairy godmother of some princess in +disguise, could have wound a cloud of gauze about the dainty throat, so +that the dazzling satin skin beneath should gleam through the gleaming +folds. The Duchess was dazzling. The pale blue colour of her gown, +repeated in the flowers in her hair, appeared by the richness of its hue +to lend substance to a fragile form grown too wholly ethereal; for as +she glided towards Armand, the loose ends of her scarf floated about +her, putting that valiant warrior in mind of the bright damosel flies +that hover now over water, now over the flowers with which they seem to +mingle and blend. + +"I have kept you waiting," she said, with the tone that a woman can +always bring into her voice for the man whom she wishes to please. + +"I would wait patiently through an eternity," said he, "if I were sure +of finding a divinity so fair; but it is no compliment to speak of your +beauty to you; nothing save worship could touch you. Suffer me only to +kiss your scarf." + +"Oh, fie!" she said, with a commanding gesture, "I esteem you enough to +give you my hand." + +She held it out for his kiss. A woman's hand, still moist from the +scented bath, has a soft freshness, a velvet smoothness that sends a +tingling thrill from the lips to the soul. And if a man is attracted to +a woman, and his senses are as quick to feel pleasure as his heart is +full of love, such a kiss, though chaste in appearance, may conjure up a +terrific storm. + +"Will you always give it me like this?" the General asked humbly when he +had pressed that dangerous hand respectfully to his lips. + +"Yes, but there we must stop," she said, smiling. She sat down, +and seemed very slow over putting on her gloves, trying to slip the +unstretched kid over all her fingers at once, while she watched M. +de Montriveau; and he was lost in admiration of the Duchess and those +repeated graceful movements of hers. + +"Ah! you were punctual," she said; "that is right. I like punctuality. +It is the courtesy of kings, His Majesty says; but to my thinking, from +you men it is the most respectful flattery of all. Now, is it not? Just +tell me." + +Again she gave him a side glance to express her insidious friendship, +for he was dumb with happiness sheer happiness through such nothings +as these! Oh, the Duchess understood _son metier de femme_--the art +and mystery of being a woman--most marvelously well; she knew, to +admiration, how to raise a man in his own esteem as he humbled himself +to her; how to reward every step of the descent to sentimental folly +with hollow flatteries. + +"You will never forget to come at nine o'clock." + +"No; but are you going to a ball every night?" + +"Do I know?" she answered, with a little childlike shrug of the +shoulders; the gesture was meant to say that she was nothing if not +capricious, and that a lover must take her as she was.--"Besides," she +added, "what is that to you? You shall be my escort." + +"That would be difficult tonight," he objected; "I am not properly +dressed." + +"It seems to me," she returned loftily, "that if anyone has a right +to complain of your costume, it is I. Know, therefore, _monsieur le +voyageur_, that if I accept a man's arm, he is forthwith above the laws +of fashion, nobody would venture to criticise him. You do not know the +world, I see; I like you the better for it." + +And even as she spoke she swept him into the pettiness of that world by +the attempt to initiate him into the vanities of a woman of fashion. + +"If she chooses to do a foolish thing for me, I should be a simpleton to +prevent her," said Armand to himself. "She has a liking for me beyond a +doubt; and as for the world, she cannot despise it more than I do. So, +now for the ball if she likes." + +The Duchess probably thought that if the General came with her and +appeared in a ballroom in boots and a black tie, nobody would hesitate +to believe that he was violently in love with her. And the General was +well pleased that the queen of fashion should think of compromising +herself for him; hope gave him wit. He had gained confidence, he brought +out his thoughts and views; he felt nothing of the restraint that +weighed on his spirits yesterday. His talk was interesting and animated, +and full of those first confidences so sweet to make and to receive. + +Was Mme de Langeais really carried away by his talk, or had she +devised this charming piece of coquetry? At any rate, she looked up +mischievously as the clock struck twelve. + +"Ah! you have made me too late for the ball!" she exclaimed, surprised +and vexed that she had forgotten how time was going. + +The next moment she approved the exchange of pleasures with a smile that +made Armand's heart give a sudden leap. + +"I certainly promised Mme de Beauseant," she added. "They are all +expecting me." + +"Very well--go." + +"No--go on. I will stay. Your Eastern adventures fascinate me. Tell +me the whole story of your life. I love to share in a brave man's +hardships, and I feel them all, indeed I do!" + +She was playing with her scarf, twisting it and pulling it to +pieces, with jerky, impatient movements that seemed to tell of inward +dissatisfaction and deep reflection. + +"_We_ are fit for nothing," she went on. "Ah! we are contemptible, +selfish, frivolous creatures. We can bore ourselves with amusements, +and that is all we can do. Not one of us that understands that she has +a part to play in life. In old days in France, women were beneficent +lights; they lived to comfort those that mourned, to encourage high +virtues, to reward artists and stir new life with noble thoughts. If the +world has grown so petty, ours is the fault. You make me loathe the ball +and this world in which I live. No, I am not giving up much for you." + +She had plucked her scarf to pieces, as a child plays with a flower, +pulling away all the petals one by one; and now she crushed it into a +ball, and flung it away. She could show her swan's neck. + +She rang the bell. "I shall not go out tonight," she told the footman. +Her long, blue eyes turned timidly to Armand; and by the look of +misgiving in them, he knew that he was meant to take the order for a +confession, for a first and great favour. There was a pause, filled with +many thoughts, before she spoke with that tenderness which is often in +women's voices, and not so often in their hearts. "You have had a hard +life," she said. + +"No," returned Armand. "Until today I did not know what happiness was." + +"Then you know it now?" she asked, looking at him with a demure, keen +glance. + +"What is happiness for me henceforth but this--to see you, to hear +you?... Until now I have only known privation; now I know that I can be +unhappy----" + +"That will do, that will do," she said. "You must go; it is past +midnight. Let us regard appearances. People must not talk about us. I +do not know quite what I shall say; but the headache is a good-natured +friend, and tells no tales." + +"Is there to be a ball tomorrow night?" + +"You would grow accustomed to the life, I think. Very well. Yes, we will +go again tomorrow night." + +There was not a happier man in the world than Armand when he went out +from her. Every evening he came to Mme de Langeais' at the hour kept for +him by a tacit understanding. + +It would be tedious, and, for the many young men who carry a redundance +of such sweet memories in their hearts, it were superfluous to follow +the story step by step--the progress of a romance growing in those hours +spent together, a romance controlled entirely by a woman's will. If +sentiment went too fast, she would raise a quarrel over a word, or when +words flagged behind her thoughts, she appealed to the feelings. Perhaps +the only way of following such Penelope's progress is by marking its +outward and visible signs. + +As, for instance, within a few days of their first meeting, the +assiduous General had won and kept the right to kiss his lady's +insatiable hands. Wherever Mme de Langeais went, M. de Montriveau +was certain to be seen, till people jokingly called him "Her Grace's +orderly." And already he had made enemies; others were jealous, and +envied him his position. Mme de Langeais had attained her end. The +Marquis de Montriveau was among her numerous train of adorers, and a +means of humiliating those who boasted of their progress in her good +graces, for she publicly gave him preference over them all. + +"Decidedly, M. de Montriveau is the man for whom the Duchess shows a +preference," pronounced Mme de Serizy. + +And who in Paris does not know what it means when a woman "shows a +preference?" All went on therefore according to prescribed rule. The +anecdotes which people were pleased to circulate concerning the General +put that warrior in so formidable a light, that the more adroit quietly +dropped their pretensions to the Duchess, and remained in her train +merely to turn the position to account, and to use her name and +personality to make better terms for themselves with certain stars of +the second magnitude. And those lesser powers were delighted to take a +lover away from Mme de Langeais. The Duchess was keen-sighted enough to +see these desertions and treaties with the enemy; and her pride would +not suffer her to be the dupe of them. As M. de Talleyrand, one of her +great admirers, said, she knew how to take a second edition of revenge, +laying the two-edged blade of a sarcasm between the pairs in these +"morganatic" unions. Her mocking disdain contributed not a little to +increase her reputation as an extremely clever woman and a person to +be feared. Her character for virtue was consolidated while she amused +herself with other people's secrets, and kept her own to herself. Yet, +after two months of assiduities, she saw with a vague dread in the +depths of her soul that M. de Montriveau understood nothing of the +subtleties of flirtation after the manner of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; +he was taking a Parisienne's coquetry in earnest. + +"You will not tame _him_, dear Duchess," the old Vidame de Pamiers had +said. "'Tis a first cousin to the eagle; he will carry you off to his +eyrie if you do not take care." + +Then Mme de Langeais felt afraid. The shrewd old noble's words sounded +like a prophecy. The next day she tried to turn love to hate. She was +harsh, exacting, irritable, unbearable; Montriveau disarmed her with +angelic sweetness. She so little knew the great generosity of a large +nature, that the kindly jests with which her first complaints were met +went to her heart. She sought a quarrel, and found proofs of affection. +She persisted. + +"When a man idolizes you, how can he have vexed you?" asked Armand. + +"You do not vex me," she answered, suddenly grown gentle and submissive. +"But why do you wish to compromise me? For me you ought to be nothing +but a _friend_. Do you not know it? I wish I could see that you had the +instincts, the delicacy of real friendship, so that I might lose neither +your respect nor the pleasure that your presence gives me." + +"Nothing but your _friend_!" he cried out. The terrible word sent an +electric shock through his brain. "On the faith of these happy hours +that you grant me, I sleep and wake in your heart. And now today, for no +reason, you are pleased to destroy all the secret hopes by which I live. +You have required promises of such constancy in me, you have said so +much of your horror of women made up of nothing but caprice; and now do +you wish me to understand that, like other women here in Paris, you have +passions, and know nothing of love? If so, why did you ask my life of +me? why did you accept it?" + +"I was wrong, my friend. Oh, it is wrong of a woman to yield to such +intoxication when she must not and cannot make any return." + +"I understand. You have merely been coquetting with me, and----" + +"Coquetting?" she repeated. "I detest coquetry. A coquette Armand, makes +promises to many, and gives herself to none; and a woman who keeps such +promises is a libertine. This much I believed I had grasped of our code. +But to be melancholy with humorists, gay with the frivolous, and politic +with ambitious souls; to listen to a babbler with every appearance +of admiration, to talk of war with a soldier, wax enthusiastic with +philanthropists over the good of the nation, and to give to each one his +little dole of flattery--it seems to me that this is as much a matter of +necessity as dress, diamonds, and gloves, or flowers in one's hair. Such +talk is the moral counterpart of the toilette. You take it up and lay it +aside with the plumed head-dress. Do you call this coquetry? Why, I have +never treated you as I treat everyone else. With you, my friend, I am +sincere. Have I not always shared your views, and when you convinced me +after a discussion, was I not always perfectly glad? In short, I love +you, but only as a devout and pure woman may love. I have thought it +over. I am a married woman, Armand. My way of life with M. de Langeais +gives me liberty to bestow my heart; but law and custom leave me no +right to dispose of my person. If a woman loses her honour, she is +an outcast in any rank of life; and I have yet to meet with a single +example of a man that realizes all that our sacrifices demand of him in +such a case. Quite otherwise. Anyone can foresee the rupture between Mme +de Beauseant and M. d'Ajuda (for he is going to marry Mlle de Rochefide, +it seems), that affair made it clear to my mind that these very +sacrifices on the woman's part are almost always the cause of the man's +desertion. If you had loved me sincerely, you would have kept away for a +time.--Now, I will lay aside all vanity for you; is not that something? +What will not people say of a woman to whom no man attaches himself? +Oh, she is heartless, brainless, soulless; and what is more, devoid +of charm! Coquettes will not spare me. They will rob me of the very +qualities that mortify them. So long as my reputation is safe, what do I +care if my rivals deny my merits? They certainly will not inherit them. +Come, my friend; give up something for her who sacrifices so much for +you. Do not come quite so often; I shall love you none the less." + +"Ah!" said Armand, with the profound irony of a wounded heart in his +words and tone. "Love, so the scribblers say, only feeds on illusions. +Nothing could be truer, I see; I am expected to imagine that I am loved. +But, there!--there are some thoughts like wounds, from which there is no +recovery. My belief in you was one of the last left to me, and now I see +that there is nothing left to believe in this earth." + +She began to smile. + +"Yes," Montriveau went on in an unsteady voice, "this Catholic faith to +which you wish to convert me is a lie that men make for themselves; hope +is a lie at the expense of the future; pride, a lie between us and our +fellows; and pity, and prudence, and terror are cunning lies. And now +my happiness is to be one more lying delusion; I am expected to delude +myself, to be willing to give gold coin for silver to the end. If you +can so easily dispense with my visits; if you can confess me neither +as your friend nor your lover, you do not care for me! And I, poor fool +that I am, tell myself this, and know it, and love you!" + +"But, dear me, poor Armand, you are flying into a passion!" + +"I flying into a passion?" + +"Yes. You think that the whole question is opened because I ask you to +be careful." + +In her heart of hearts she was delighted with the anger that leapt out +in her lover's eyes. Even as she tortured him, she was criticising +him, watching every slightest change that passed over his face. If +the General had been so unluckily inspired as to show himself generous +without discussion (as happens occasionally with some artless souls), +he would have been a banished man forever, accused and convicted of not +knowing how to love. Most women are not displeased to have their code of +right and wrong broken through. Do they not flatter themselves that they +never yield except to force? But Armand was not learned enough in this +kind of lore to see the snare ingeniously spread for him by the Duchess. +So much of the child was there in the strong man in love. + +"If all you want is to preserve appearances," he began in his +simplicity, "I am willing to----" + +"Simply to preserve appearances!" the lady broke in; "why, what idea can +you have of me? Have I given you the slightest reason to suppose that I +can be yours?" + +"Why, what else are we talking about?" demanded Montriveau. + +"Monsieur, you frighten me!... No, pardon me. Thank you," she added, +coldly; "thank you, Armand. You have given me timely warning of +imprudence; committed quite unconsciously, believe it, my friend. You +know how to endure, you say. I also know how to endure. We will not +see each other for a time; and then, when both of us have contrived to +recover calmness to some extent, we will think about arrangements for +a happiness sanctioned by the world. I am young, Armand; a man with no +delicacy might tempt a woman of four-and-twenty to do many foolish, wild +things for his sake. But _you_! You will be my friend, promise me that +you will?" + +"The woman of four-and-twenty," returned he, "knows what she is about." + +He sat down on the sofa in the boudoir, and leant his head on his hands. + +"Do you love me, madame?" he asked at length, raising his head, and +turning a face full of resolution upon her. "Say it straight out; Yes or +No!" + +His direct question dismayed the Duchess more than a threat of suicide +could have done; indeed, the woman of the nineteenth century is not to +be frightened by that stale stratagem, the sword has ceased to be part +of the masculine costume. But in the effect of eyelids and lashes, in +the contraction of the gaze, in the twitching of the lips, is there not +some influence that communicates the terror which they express with such +vivid magnetic power? + +"Ah, if I were free, if----" + +"Oh! is it only your husband that stands in the way?" the General +exclaimed joyfully, as he strode to and fro in the boudoir. "Dear +Antoinette, I wield a more absolute power than the Autocrat of all the +Russias. I have a compact with Fate; I can advance or retard destiny, +so far as men are concerned, at my fancy, as you alter the hands of a +watch. If you can direct the course of fate in our political machinery, +it simply means (does it not?) that you understand the ins and outs of +it. You shall be free before very long, and then you must remember your +promise." + +"Armand!" she cried. "What do you mean? Great heavens! Can you imagine +that I am to be the prize of a crime? Do you want to kill me? Why! you +cannot have any religion in you! For my own part, I fear God. M. de +Langeais may have given me reason to hate him, but I wish him no manner +of harm." + +M. de Montriveau beat a tattoo on the marble chimney-piece, and only +looked composedly at the lady. + +"Dear," continued she, "respect him. He does not love me, he is not kind +to me, but I have duties to fulfil with regard to him. What would I not +do to avert the calamities with which you threaten him?--Listen," she +continued after a pause, "I will not say another word about separation; +you shall come here as in the past, and I will still give you my +forehead to kiss. If I refused once or twice, it was pure coquetry, +indeed it was. But let us understand each other," she added as he came +closer. "You will permit me to add to the number of my satellites; to +receive even more visitors in the morning than heretofore; I mean to be +twice as frivolous; I mean to use you to all appearance very badly; +to feign a rupture; you must come not quite so often, and then, +afterwards----" + +While she spoke, she had allowed him to put an arm about her waist, +Montriveau was holding her tightly to him, and she seemed to feel the +exceeding pleasure that women usually feel in that close contact, an +earnest of the bliss of a closer union. And then, doubtless she meant to +elicit some confidence, for she raised herself on tiptoe, and laid her +forehead against Armand's burning lips. + +"And then," Montriveau finished her sentence for her, "you shall not +speak to me of your husband. You ought not to think of him again." + +Mme de Langeais was silent awhile. + +"At least," she said, after a significant pause, "at least you will do +all that I wish without grumbling, you will not be naughty; tell me so, +my friend? You wanted to frighten me, did you not? Come, now, confess +it?... You are too good ever to think of crimes. But is it possible that +you can have secrets that I do not know? How can you control Fate?" + +"Now, when you confirm the gift of the heart that you have already given +me, I am far too happy to know exactly how to answer you. I can trust +you, Antoinette; I shall have no suspicion, no unfounded jealousy of +you. But if accident should set you free, we shall be one----" + +"Accident, Armand?" (With that little dainty turn of the head that seems +to say so many things, a gesture that such women as the Duchess can use +on light occasions, as a great singer can act with her voice.) "Pure +accident," she repeated. "Mind that. If anything should happen to M. de +Langeais by your fault, I should never be yours." + +And so they parted, mutually content. The Duchess had made a pact +that left her free to prove to the world by words and deeds that M. de +Montriveau was no lover of hers. And as for him, the wily Duchess +vowed to tire him out. He should have nothing of her beyond the little +concessions snatched in the course of contests that she could stop +at her pleasure. She had so pretty an art of revoking the grant +of yesterday, she was so much in earnest in her purpose to remain +technically virtuous, that she felt that there was not the slightest +danger for her in preliminaries fraught with peril for a woman less sure +of her self-command. After all, the Duchess was practically separated +from her husband; a marriage long since annulled was no great sacrifice +to make to her love. + +Montriveau on his side was quite happy to win the vaguest promise, glad +once for all to sweep aside, with all scruples of conjugal fidelity, her +stock of excuses for refusing herself to his love. He had gained ground +a little, and congratulated himself. And so for a time he took unfair +advantage of the rights so hardly won. More a boy than he had ever been +in his life, he gave himself up to all the childishness that makes first +love the flower of life. He was a child again as he poured out all +his soul, all the thwarted forces that passion had given him, upon her +hands, upon the dazzling forehead that looked so pure to his eyes; upon +her fair hair; on the tufted curls where his lips were pressed. And the +Duchess, on whom his love was poured like a flood, was vanquished by +the magnetic influence of her lover's warmth; she hesitated to begin +the quarrel that must part them forever. She was more a woman than she +thought, this slight creature, in her effort to reconcile the demands +of religion with the ever-new sensations of vanity, the semblance of +pleasure which turns a Parisienne's head. Every Sunday she went to Mass; +she never missed a service; then, when evening came, she was steeped in +the intoxicating bliss of repressed desire. Armand and Mme de Langeais, +like Hindoo fakirs, found the reward of their continence in the +temptations to which it gave rise. Possibly, the Duchess had ended by +resolving love into fraternal caresses, harmless enough, as it might +have seemed to the rest of the world, while they borrowed extremes +of degradation from the license of her thoughts. How else explain the +incomprehensible mystery of her continual fluctuations? Every morning +she proposed to herself to shut her door on the Marquis de Montriveau; +every evening, at the appointed hour, she fell under the charm of his +presence. There was a languid defence; then she grew less unkind. Her +words were sweet and soothing. They were lovers--lovers only could have +been thus. For him the Duchess would display her most sparkling wit, her +most captivating wiles; and when at last she had wrought upon his senses +and his soul, she might submit herself passively to his fierce caresses, +but she had her _nec plus ultra_ of passion; and when once it was +reached, she grew angry if he lost the mastery of himself and made +as though he would pass beyond. No woman on earth can brave the +consequences of refusal without some motive; nothing is more natural +than to yield to love; wherefore Mme de Langeais promptly raised a +second line of fortification, a stronghold less easy to carry than +the first. She evoked the terrors of religion. Never did Father of +the Church, however eloquent, plead the cause of God better than the +Duchess. Never was the wrath of the Most High better justified than +by her voice. She used no preacher's commonplaces, no rhetorical +amplifications. No. She had a "pulpit-tremor" of her own. To Armand's +most passionate entreaty, she replied with a tearful gaze, and a gesture +in which a terrible plenitude of emotion found expression. She stopped +his mouth with an appeal for mercy. She would not hear another word; if +she did, she must succumb; and better death than criminal happiness. + +"Is it nothing to disobey God?" she asked him, recovering a voice grown +faint in the crises of inward struggles, through which the fair +actress appeared to find it hard to preserve her self-control. "I would +sacrifice society, I would give up the whole world for you, gladly; but +it is very selfish of you to ask my whole after-life of me for a moment +of pleasure. Come, now! are you not happy?" she added, holding out her +hand; and certainly in her careless toilette the sight of her afforded +consolations to her lover, who made the most of them. + +Sometimes from policy, to keep her hold on a man whose ardent passion +gave her emotions unknown before, sometimes in weakness, she suffered +him to snatch a swift kiss; and immediately, in feigned terror, she +flushed red and exiled Armand from the sofa so soon as the sofa became +dangerous ground. + +"Your joys are sins for me to expiate, Armand; they are paid for by +penitence and remorse," she cried. + +And Montriveau, now at two chairs' distance from that aristocratic +petticoat, betook himself to blasphemy and railed against Providence. +The Duchess grew angry at such times. + +"My friend," she said drily, "I do not understand why you decline to +believe in God, for it is impossible to believe in man. Hush, do not +talk like that. You have too great a nature to take up their Liberal +nonsense with its pretension to abolish God." + +Theological and political disputes acted like a cold douche on +Montriveau; he calmed down; he could not return to love when the Duchess +stirred up his wrath by suddenly setting him down a thousand miles away +from the boudoir, discussing theories of absolute monarchy, which she +defended to admiration. Few women venture to be democrats; the attitude +of democratic champion is scarcely compatible with tyrannous feminine +sway. But often, on the other hand, the General shook out his mane, +dropped politics with a leonine growling and lashing of the flanks, and +sprang upon his prey; he was no longer capable of carrying a heart and +brain at such variance for very far; he came back, terrible with love, +to his mistress. And she, if she felt the prick of fancy stimulated to +a dangerous point, knew that it was time to leave her boudoir; she came +out of the atmosphere surcharged with desires that she drew in with +her breath, sat down to the piano, and sang the most exquisite songs +of modern music, and so baffled the physical attraction which at times +showed her no mercy, though she was strong enough to fight it down. + +At such times she was something sublime in Armand's eyes; she was not +acting, she was genuine; the unhappy lover was convinced that she loved +him. Her egoistic resistance deluded him into a belief that she was a +pure and sainted woman; he resigned himself; he talked of Platonic love, +did this artillery officer! + +When Mme de Langeais had played with religion sufficiently to suit her +own purposes, she played with it again for Armand's benefit. She wanted +to bring him back to a Christian frame of mind; she brought out her +edition of _Le Genie du Christianisme_, adapted for the use of military +men. Montriveau chafed; his yoke was heavy. Oh! at that, possessed by +the spirit of contradiction, she dinned religion into his ears, to see +whether God might not rid her of this suitor, for the man's persistence +was beginning to frighten her. And in any case she was glad to prolong +any quarrel, if it bade fair to keep the dispute on moral grounds for +an indefinite period; the material struggle which followed it was more +dangerous. + +But if the time of her opposition on the ground of the marriage law +might be said to be the _epoque civile_ of this sentimental warfare, the +ensuing phase which might be taken to constitute the _epoque religieuse_ +had also its crisis and consequent decline of severity. + +Armand happening to come in very early one evening, found M. l'Abbe +Gondrand, the Duchess's spiritual director, established in an armchair +by the fireside, looking as a spiritual director might be expected to +look while digesting his dinner and the charming sins of his penitent. +In the ecclesiastic's bearing there was a stateliness befitting a +dignitary of the Church; and the episcopal violet hue already appeared +in his dress. At sight of his fresh, well-preserved complexion, smooth +forehead, and ascetic's mouth, Montriveau's countenance grew uncommonly +dark; he said not a word under the malicious scrutiny of the other's +gaze, and greeted neither the lady nor the priest. The lover apart, +Montriveau was not wanting in tact; so a few glances exchanged with the +bishop-designate told him that here was the real forger of the Duchess's +armory of scruples. + +That an ambitious abbe should control the happiness of a man of +Montriveau's temper, and by underhand ways! The thought burst in a +furious tide over his face, clenched his fists, and set him chafing and +pacing to and fro; but when he came back to his place intending to make +a scene, a single look from the Duchess was enough. He was quiet. + +Any other woman would have been put out by her lover's gloomy silence; +it was quite otherwise with Mme de Langeais. She continued her +conversation with M. de Gondrand on the necessity of re-establishing the +Church in its ancient splendour. And she talked brilliantly. + +The Church, she maintained, ought to be a temporal as well as a +spiritual power, stating her case better than the Abbe had done, and +regretting that the Chamber of Peers, unlike the English House of Lords, +had no bench of bishops. Nevertheless, the Abbe rose, yielded his place +to the General, and took his leave, knowing that in Lent he could play a +return game. As for the Duchess, Montriveau's behaviour had excited +her curiosity to such a pitch that she scarcely rose to return her +director's low bow. + +"What is the matter with you, my friend?" + +"Why, I cannot stomach that Abbe of yours." + +"Why did you not take a book?" she asked, careless whether the Abbe, +then closing the door, heard her or no. + +The General paused, for the gesture which accompanied the Duchess's +speech further increased the exceeding insolence of her words. + +"My dear Antoinette, thank you for giving love precedence of the Church; +but, for pity's sake, allow me to ask one question." + +"Oh! you are questioning me! I am quite willing. You are my friend, are +you not? I certainly can open the bottom of my heart to you; you will +see only one image there." + +"Do you talk about our love to that man?" + +"He is my confessor." + +"Does he know that I love you?" + +"M. de Montriveau, you cannot claim, I think, to penetrate the secrets +of the confessional?" + +"Does that man know all about our quarrels and my love for you?" + +"That man, monsieur; say God!" + +"God again! _I_ ought to be alone in your heart. But leave God alone +where He is, for the love of God and me. Madame, you _shall not_ go to +confession again, or----" + +"Or?" she repeated sweetly. + +"Or I will never come back here." + +"Then go, Armand. Good-bye, good-bye forever." + +She rose and went to her boudoir without so much as a glance at Armand, +as he stood with his hand on the back of a chair. How long he stood +there motionless he himself never knew. The soul within has the +mysterious power of expanding as of contracting space. + +He opened the door of the boudoir. It was dark within. A faint voice was +raised to say sharply: + +"I did not ring. What made you come in without orders? Go away, +Suzette." + +"Then you are ill," exclaimed Montriveau. + +"Stand up, monsieur, and go out of the room for a minute at any rate," +she said, ringing the bell. + +"Mme la Duchesse rang for lights?" said the footman, coming in with the +candles. When the lovers were alone together, Mme de Langeais still lay +on her couch; she was just as silent and motionless as if Montriveau had +not been there. + +"Dear, I was wrong," he began, a note of pain and a sublime kindness in +his voice. "Indeed, I would not have you without religion----" + +"It is fortunate that you can recognise the necessity of a conscience," +she said in a hard voice, without looking at him. "I thank you in God's +name." + +The General was broken down by her harshness; this woman seemed as +if she could be at will a sister or a stranger to him. He made one +despairing stride towards the door. He would leave her forever without +another word. He was wretched; and the Duchess was laughing within +herself over mental anguish far more cruel than the old judicial +torture. But as for going away, it was not in his power to do it. In any +sort of crisis, a woman is, as it were, bursting with a certain quantity +of things to say; so long as she has not delivered herself of them, +she experiences the sensation which we are apt to feel at the sight of +something incomplete. Mme de Langeais had not said all that was in her +mind. She took up her parable and said: + +"We have not the same convictions, General, I am pained to think. It +would be dreadful if a woman could not believe in a religion which +permits us to love beyond the grave. I set Christian sentiments aside; +you cannot understand them. Let me simply speak to you of expediency. +Would you forbid a woman at court the table of the Lord when it is +customary to take the sacrament at Easter? People must certainly do +something for their party. The Liberals, whatever they may wish to do, +will never destroy the religious instinct. Religion will always be +a political necessity. Would you undertake to govern a nation of +logic-choppers? Napoleon was afraid to try; he persecuted ideologists. +If you want to keep people from reasoning, you must give them something +to feel. So let us accept the Roman Catholic Church with all its +consequences. And if we would have France go to mass, ought we not to +begin by going ourselves? Religion, you see, Armand, is a bond uniting +all the conservative principles which enable the rich to live in +tranquillity. Religion and the rights of property are intimately +connected. It is certainly a finer thing to lead a nation by ideas of +morality than by fear of the scaffold, as in the time of the Terror--the +one method by which your odious Revolution could enforce obedience. +The priest and the king--that means you, and me, and the Princess +my neighbour; and, in a word, the interests of all honest people +personified. There, my friend, just be so good as to belong to your +party, you that might be its Scylla if you had the slightest ambition +that way. I know nothing about politics myself; I argue from my own +feelings; but still I know enough to guess that society would +be overturned if people were always calling its foundations in +question----" + +"If that is how your Court and your Government think, I am sorry for +you," broke in Montriveau. "The Restoration, madam, ought to say, like +Catherine de Medici, when she heard that the battle of Dreux was lost, +'Very well; now we will go to the meeting-house.' Now 1815 was your +battle of Dreux. Like the royal power of those days, you won in +fact, while you lost in right. Political Protestantism has gained an +ascendancy over people's minds. If you have no mind to issue your Edict +of Nantes; or if, when it is issued, you publish a Revocation; if you +should one day be accused and convicted of repudiating the Charter, +which is simply a pledge given to maintain the interests established +under the Republic, then the Revolution will rise again, terrible in her +strength, and strike but a single blow. It will not be the Revolution +that will go into exile; she is the very soil of France. Men die, but +people's interests do not die. ... Eh, great Heavens! what are France +and the crown and rightful sovereigns, and the whole world besides, to +us? Idle words compared with my happiness. Let them reign or be hurled +from the throne, little do I care. Where am I now?" + +"In the Duchesse de Langeais' boudoir, my friend." + +"No, no. No more of the Duchess, no more of Langeais; I am with my dear +Antoinette." + +"Will you do me the pleasure to stay where you are," she said, laughing +and pushing him back, gently however. + +"So you have never loved me," he retorted, and anger flashed in +lightning from his eyes. + +"No, dear"; but the "No" was equivalent to "Yes." + +"I am a great ass," he said, kissing her hands. The terrible queen was a +woman once more.--"Antoinette," he went on, laying his head on her feet, +"you are too chastely tender to speak of our happiness to anyone in this +world." + +"Oh!" she cried, rising to her feet with a swift, graceful spring, +"you are a great simpleton." And without another word she fled into the +drawing-room. + +"What is it now?" wondered the General, little knowing that the touch of +his burning forehead had sent a swift electric thrill through her from +foot to head. + +In hot wrath he followed her to the drawing-room, only to hear divinely +sweet chords. The Duchess was at the piano. If the man of science or the +poet can at once enjoy and comprehend, bringing his intelligence to bear +upon his enjoyment without loss of delight, he is conscious that the +alphabet and phraseology of music are but cunning instruments for +the composer, like the wood and copper wire under the hands of the +executant. For the poet and the man of science there is a music existing +apart, underlying the double expression of this language of the spirit +and senses. _Andiamo mio ben_ can draw tears of joy or pitying laughter +at the will of the singer; and not unfrequently one here and there in +the world, some girl unable to live and bear the heavy burden of an +unguessed pain, some man whose soul vibrates with the throb of passion, +may take up a musical theme, and lo! heaven is opened for them, or they +find a language for themselves in some sublime melody, some song lost to +the world. + +The General was listening now to such a song; a mysterious music unknown +to all other ears, as the solitary plaint of some mateless bird dying +alone in a virgin forest. + +"Great Heavens! what are you playing there?" he asked in an unsteady +voice. + +"The prelude of a ballad, called, I believe, _Fleuve du Tage_." + +"I did not know that there was such music in a piano," he returned. + +"Ah!" she said, and for the first time she looked at him as a woman +looks at the man she loves, "nor do you know, my friend, that I love +you, and that you cause me horrible suffering; and that I feel that I +must utter my cry of pain without putting it too plainly into words. If +I did not, I should yield----But you see nothing." + +"And you will not make me happy!" + +"Armand, I should die of sorrow the next day." + +The General turned abruptly from her and went. But out in the street he +brushed away the tears that he would not let fall. + +The religious phase lasted for three months. At the end of that time the +Duchess grew weary of vain repetitions; the Deity, bound hand and foot, +was delivered up to her lover. Possibly she may have feared that by +sheer dint of talking of eternity she might perpetuate his love in this +world and the next. For her own sake, it must be believed that no man +had touched her heart, or her conduct would be inexcusable. She was +young; the time when men and women feel that they cannot afford to lose +time or to quibble over their joys was still far off. She, no doubt, was +on the verge not of first love, but of her first experience of the bliss +of love. And from inexperience, for want of the painful lessons which +would have taught her to value the treasure poured out at her feet, she +was playing with it. Knowing nothing of the glory and rapture of the +light, she was fain to stay in the shadow. + +Armand was just beginning to understand this strange situation; he put +his hope in the first word spoken by nature. Every evening, as he came +away from Mme de Langeais', he told himself that no woman would accept +the tenderest, most delicate proofs of a man's love during seven months, +nor yield passively to the slighter demands of passion, only to cheat +love at the last. He was waiting patiently for the sun to gain power, +not doubting but that he should receive the earliest fruits. The married +woman's hesitations and the religious scruples he could quite well +understand. He even rejoiced over those battles. He mistook the +Duchess's heartless coquetry for modesty; and he would not have had her +otherwise. So he had loved to see her devising obstacles; was he not +gradually triumphing over them? Did not every victory won swell the +meagre sum of lovers' intimacies long denied, and at last conceded with +every sign of love? Still, he had had such leisure to taste the full +sweetness of every small successive conquest on which a lover feeds +his love, that these had come to be matters of use and wont. So far as +obstacles went, there were none now save his own awe of her; nothing +else left between him and his desire save the whims of her who allowed +him to call her Antoinette. So he made up his mind to demand more, to +demand all. Embarrassed like a young lover who cannot dare to believe +that his idol can stoop so low, he hesitated for a long time. He passed +through the experience of terrible reactions within himself. A set +purpose was annihilated by a word, and definite resolves died within him +on the threshold. He despised himself for his weakness, and still his +desire remained unuttered. Nevertheless, one evening, after sitting +in gloomy melancholy, he brought out a fierce demand for his illegally +legitimate rights. The Duchess had not to wait for her bond-slave's +request to guess his desire. When was a man's desire a secret? And have +not women an intuitive knowledge of the meaning of certain changes of +countenance? + +"What! you wish to be my friend no longer?" she broke in at the first +words, and a divine red surging like new blood under the transparent +skin, lent brightness to her eyes. "As a reward for my generosity, you +would dishonor me? Just reflect a little. I myself have thought much +over this; and I think always for us _both_. There is such a thing as +a woman's loyalty, and we can no more fail in it than you can fail in +honour. _I_ cannot blind myself. If I am yours, how, in any sense, can +I be M. de Langeais' wife? Can you require the sacrifice of my position, +my rank, my whole life in return for a doubtful love that could not wait +patiently for seven months? What! already you would rob me of my right +to dispose of myself? No, no; you must not talk like this again. No, not +another word. I will not, I cannot listen to you." + +Mme de Langeais raised both hands to her head to push back the tufted +curls from her hot forehead; she seemed very much excited. + +"You come to a weak woman with your purpose definitely planned out. You +say--'For a certain length of time she will talk to me of her husband, +then of God, and then of the inevitable consequences. But I will use +and abuse the ascendancy I shall gain over her; I will make myself +indispensable; all the bonds of habit, all the misconstructions of +outsiders, will make for me; and at length, when our _liaison_ is taken +for granted by all the world, I shall be this woman's master.'--Now, be +frank; these are your thoughts! Oh! you calculate, and you say that you +love. Shame on you! You are enamoured? Ah! that I well believe! You +wish to possess me, to have me for your mistress, that is all! Very well +then, No! The _Duchesse de Langeais_ will not descend so far. Simple +_bourgeoises_ may be the victims of your treachery--I, never! Nothing +gives me assurance of your love. You speak of my beauty; I may lose +every trace of it in six months, like the dear Princess, my neighbour. +You are captivated by my wit, my grace. Great Heavens! you would soon +grow used to them and to the pleasures of possession. Have not the +little concessions that I was weak enough to make come to be a matter of +course in the last few months? Some day, when ruin comes, you will give +me no reason for the change in you beyond a curt, 'I have ceased to +care for you.'--Then, rank and fortune and honour and all that was the +Duchesse de Langeais will be swallowed up in one disappointed hope. +I shall have children to bear witness to my shame, and----" With an +involuntary gesture she interrupted herself, and continued: "But I am +too good-natured to explain all this to you when you know it better than +I. Come! let us stay as we are. I am only too fortunate in that I can +still break these bonds which you think so strong. Is there anything so +very heroic in coming to the Hotel de Langeais to spend an evening +with a woman whose prattle amuses you?--a woman whom you take for a +plaything? Why, half a dozen young coxcombs come here just as regularly +every afternoon between three and five. They, too, are very generous, I +am to suppose? I make fun of them; they stand my petulance and insolence +pretty quietly, and make me laugh; but as for you, I give all the +treasures of my soul to you, and you wish to ruin me, you try my +patience in endless ways. Hush, that will do, that will do," she +continued, seeing that he was about to speak, "you have no heart, +no soul, no delicacy. I know what you want to tell me. Very well, +then--yes. I would rather you should take me for a cold, insensible +woman, with no devotion in her composition, no heart even, than be +taken by everybody else for a vulgar person, and be condemned to your +so-called pleasures, of which you would most certainly tire, and to +everlasting punishment for it afterwards. Your selfish love is not worth +so many sacrifices...." + +The words give but a very inadequate idea of the discourse which the +Duchess trilled out with the quick volubility of a bird-organ. Nor, +truly, was there anything to prevent her from talking on for some time +to come, for poor Armand's only reply to the torrent of flute notes was +a silence filled with cruelly painful thoughts. He was just beginning to +see that this woman was playing with him; he divined instinctively +that a devoted love, a responsive love, does not reason and count +the consequences in this way. Then, as he heard her reproach him with +detestable motives, he felt something like shame as he remembered that +unconsciously he had made those very calculations. With angelic honesty +of purpose, he looked within, and self-examination found nothing but +selfishness in all his thoughts and motives, in the answers which he +framed and could not utter. He was self-convicted. In his despair +he longed to fling himself from the window. The egoism of it was +intolerable. + +What indeed can a man say when a woman will not believe in love?--Let me +prove how much I love you.--The _I_ is always there. + +The heroes of the boudoir, in such circumstances, can follow the example +of the primitive logician who preceded the Pyrrhonists and denied +movement. Montriveau was not equal to this feat. With all his audacity, +he lacked this precise kind which never deserts an adept in the formulas +of feminine algebra. If so many women, and even the best of women, fall +a prey to a kind of expert to whom the vulgar give a grosser name, it is +perhaps because the said experts are great _provers_, and love, in spite +of its delicious poetry of sentiment, requires a little more geometry +than people are wont to think. + +Now the Duchess and Montriveau were alike in this--they were both +equally unversed in love lore. The lady's knowledge of theory was but +scanty; in practice she knew nothing whatever; she felt nothing, and +reflected over everything. Montriveau had had but little experience, was +absolutely ignorant of theory, and felt too much to reflect at all. Both +therefore were enduring the consequences of the singular situation. +At that supreme moment the myriad thoughts in his mind might have +been reduced to the formula--"Submit to be mine----" words which seem +horribly selfish to a woman for whom they awaken no memories, recall no +ideas. Something nevertheless he must say. And what was more, though her +barbed shafts had set his blood tingling, though the short phrases that +she discharged at him one by one were very keen and sharp and cold, he +must control himself lest he should lose all by an outbreak of anger. + +"Mme la Duchesse, I am in despair that God should have invented no way +for a woman to confirm the gift of her heart save by adding the gift of +her person. The high value which you yourself put upon the gift teaches +me that I cannot attach less importance to it. If you have given me +your inmost self and your whole heart, as you tell me, what can the rest +matter? And besides, if my happiness means so painful a sacrifice, let +us say no more about it. But you must pardon a man of spirit if he feels +humiliated at being taken for a spaniel." + +The tone in which the last remark was uttered might perhaps have +frightened another woman; but when the wearer of a petticoat has allowed +herself to be addressed as a Divinity, and thereby set herself above all +other mortals, no power on earth can be so haughty. + +"M. le Marquis, I am in despair that God should not have invented +some nobler way for a man to confirm the gift of his heart than by the +manifestation of prodigiously vulgar desires. We become bond-slaves +when we give ourselves body and soul, but a man is bound to nothing by +accepting the gift. Who will assure me that love will last? The very +love that I might show for you at every moment, the better to keep your +love, might serve you as a reason for deserting me. I have no wish to be +a second edition of Mme de Beauseant. Who can ever know what it is that +keeps you beside us? Our persistent coldness of heart is the cause of +an unfailing passion in some of you; other men ask for an untiring +devotion, to be idolized at every moment; some for gentleness, others +for tyranny. No woman in this world as yet has really read the riddle of +man's heart." + +There was a pause. When she spoke again it was in a different tone. + +"After all, my friend, you cannot prevent a woman from trembling at the +question, 'Will this love last always?' Hard though my words may be, +the dread of losing you puts them into my mouth. Oh, me! it is not I +who speaks, dear, it is reason; and how should anyone so mad as I be +reasonable? In truth, I am nothing of the sort." + +The poignant irony of her answer had changed before the end into the +most musical accents in which a woman could find utterance for ingenuous +love. To listen to her words was to pass in a moment from martyrdom to +heaven. Montriveau grew pale; and for the first time in his life, he +fell on his knees before a woman. He kissed the Duchess's skirt hem, her +knees, her feet; but for the credit of the Faubourg Saint-Germain it is +necessary to respect the mysteries of its boudoirs, where many are fain +to take the utmost that Love can give without giving proof of love in +return. + +The Duchess thought herself generous when she suffered herself to be +adored. But Montriveau was in a wild frenzy of joy over her complete +surrender of the position. + +"Dear Antoinette," he cried. "Yes, you are right; I will not have you +doubt any longer. I too am trembling at this moment--lest the angel of +my life should leave me; I wish I could invent some tie that might bind +us to each other irrevocably." + +"Ah!" she said, under her breath, "so I was right, you see." + +"Let me say all that I have to say; I will scatter all your fears with +a word. Listen! if I deserted you, I should deserve to die a thousand +deaths. Be wholly mine, and I will give you the right to kill me if I +am false. I myself will write a letter explaining certain reasons for +taking my own life; I will make my final arrangements, in short. You +shall have the letter in your keeping; in the eye of the law it will be +a sufficient explanation of my death. You can avenge yourself, and fear +nothing from God or men." + +"What good would the letter be to me? What would life be if I had lost +your love? If I wished to kill you, should I not be ready to follow? No; +thank you for the thought, but I do not want the letter. Should I not +begin to dread that you were faithful to me through fear? And if a man +knows that he must risk his life for a stolen pleasure, might it not +seem more tempting? Armand, the thing I ask of you is the one hard thing +to do." + +"Then what is it that you wish?" + +"Your obedience and my liberty." + +"Ah, God!" cried he, "I am a child." + +"A wayward, much spoilt child," she said, stroking the thick hair, +for his head still lay on her knee. "Ah! and loved far more than he +believes, and yet he is very disobedient. Why not stay as we are? Why +not sacrifice to me the desires that hurt me? Why not take what I can +give, when it is all that I can honestly grant? Are you not happy?" + +"Oh yes, I am happy when I have not a doubt left. Antoinette, doubt in +love is a kind of death, is it not?" + +In a moment he showed himself as he was, as all men are under the +influence of that hot fever; he grew eloquent, insinuating. And the +Duchess tasted the pleasures which she reconciled with her conscience +by some private, Jesuitical ukase of her own; Armand's love gave her a +thrill of cerebral excitement which custom made as necessary to her as +society, or the Opera. To feel that she was adored by this man, who rose +above other men, whose character frightened her; to treat him like a +child; to play with him as Poppaea played with Nero--many women, like +the wives of King Henry VIII, have paid for such a perilous delight with +all the blood in their veins. Grim presentiment! Even as she surrendered +the delicate, pale, gold curls to his touch, and felt the close pressure +of his hand, the little hand of a man whose greatness she could not +mistake; even as she herself played with his dark, thick locks, in that +boudoir where she reigned a queen, the Duchess would say to herself: + +"This man is capable of killing me if he once finds out that I am +playing with him." + +Armand de Montriveau stayed with her till two o'clock in the morning. +From that moment this woman, whom he loved, was neither a duchess nor a +Navarreins; Antoinette, in her disguises, had gone so far as to appear +to be a woman. On that most blissful evening, the sweetest prelude ever +played by a Parisienne to what the world calls "a slip"; in spite of all +her affectations of a coyness which she did not feel, the General saw +all maidenly beauty in her. He had some excuse for believing that so +many storms of caprice had been but clouds covering a heavenly soul; +that these must be lifted one by one like the veils that hid her divine +loveliness. The Duchess became, for him, the most simple and girlish +mistress; she was the one woman in the world for him; and he went away +quite happy in that at last he had brought her to give him such pledges +of love, that it seemed to him impossible but that he should be but her +husband henceforth in secret, her choice sanctioned by Heaven. + +Armand went slowly home, turning this thought in his mind with the +impartiality of a man who is conscious of all the responsibilities that +love lays on him while he tastes the sweetness of its joys. He went +along the Quais to see the widest possible space of sky; his heart had +grown in him; he would fain have had the bounds of the firmament and of +earth enlarged. It seemed to him that his lungs drew an ampler breath. +In the course of his self-examination, as he walked, he vowed to love +this woman so devoutly, that every day of her life she should find +absolution for her sins against society in unfailing happiness. Sweet +stirrings of life when life is at the full! The man that is strong +enough to steep his soul in the colour of one emotion, feels infinite +joy as glimpses open out for him of an ardent lifetime that knows no +diminution of passion to the end; even so it is permitted to certain +mystics, in ecstasy, to behold the Light of God. Love would be naught +without the belief that it would last forever; love grows great +through constancy. It was thus that, wholly absorbed by his happiness, +Montriveau understood passion. + +"We belong to each other forever!" + +The thought was like a talisman fulfilling the wishes of his life. He +did not ask whether the Duchess might not change, whether her love might +not last. No, for he had faith. Without that virtue there is no future +for Christianity, and perhaps it is even more necessary to society. +A conception of life as feeling occurred to him for the first time; +hitherto he had lived by action, the most strenuous exertion of human +energies, the physical devotion, as it may be called, of the soldier. + +Next day M. de Montriveau went early in the direction of the Faubourg +Saint-Germain. He had made an appointment at a house not far from the +Hotel de Langeais; and the business over, he went thither as if to his +own home. The General's companion chanced to be a man for whom he felt +a kind of repulsion whenever he met him in other houses. This was the +Marquis de Ronquerolles, whose reputation had grown so great in Paris +boudoirs. He was witty, clever, and what was more--courageous; he set +the fashion to all the young men in Paris. As a man of gallantry, his +success and experience were equally matters of envy; and neither fortune +nor birth was wanting in his case, qualifications which add such lustre +in Paris to a reputation as a leader of fashion. + +"Where are you going?" asked M. de Ronquerolles. + +"To Mme de Langeais'." + +"Ah, true. I forgot that you had allowed her to lime(sp) you. You are +wasting your affections on her when they might be much better employed +elsewhere. I could have told you of half a score of women in the +financial world, any one of them a thousand times better worth your +while than that titled courtesan, who does with her brains what less +artificial women do with----" + +"What is this, my dear fellow?" Armand broke in. "The Duchess is an +angel of innocence." + +Ronquerolles began to laugh. + +"Things being thus, dear boy," said he, "it is my duty to enlighten you. +Just a word; there is no harm in it between ourselves. Has the Duchess +surrendered? If so, I have nothing more to say. Come, give me your +confidence. There is no occasion to waste your time in grafting +your great nature on that unthankful stock, when all your hopes and +cultivation will come to nothing." + +Armand ingenuously made a kind of general report of his position, +enumerating with much minuteness the slender rights so hardly won. +Ronquerolles burst into a peal of laughter so heartless, that it would +have cost any other man his life. But from their manner of speaking and +looking at each other during that colloquy beneath the wall, in a corner +almost as remote from intrusion as the desert itself, it was easy to +imagine the friendship between the two men knew no bounds, and that no +power on earth could estrange them. + +"My dear Armand, why did you not tell me that the Duchess was a puzzle +to you? I would have given you a little advice which might have brought +your flirtation properly through. You must know, to begin with, that the +women of our Faubourg, like any other women, love to steep themselves in +love; but they have a mind to possess and not to be possessed. They have +made a sort of compromise with human nature. The code of their parish +gives them a pretty wide latitude short of the last transgression. The +sweets enjoyed by this fair Duchess of yours are so many venial sins +to be washed away in the waters of penitence. But if you had the +impertinence to ask in earnest for the moral sin to which naturally +you are sure to attach the highest importance, you would see the deep +disdain with which the door of the boudoir and the house would be +incontinently shut upon you. The tender Antoinette would dismiss +everything from her memory; you would be less than a cipher for her. +She would wipe away your kisses, my dear friend, as indifferently as she +would perform her ablutions. She would sponge love from her cheeks as +she washes off rouge. We know women of that sort--the thorough-bred +Parisienne. Have you ever noticed a grisette tripping along the street? +Her face is as good as a picture. A pretty cap, fresh cheeks, trim hair, +a guileful smile, and the rest of her almost neglected. Is not this true +to the life? Well, that is the Parisienne. She knows that her face is +all that will be seen, so she devotes all her care, finery, and vanity +to her head. The Duchess is the same; the head is everything with her. +She can only feel through her intellect, her heart lies in her brain, +she is a sort of intellectual epicure, she has a head-voice. We call +that kind of poor creature a Lais of the intellect. You have been taken +in like a boy. If you doubt it, you can have proof of it tonight, this +morning, this instant. Go up to her, try the demand as an experiment, +insist peremptorily if it is refused. You might set about it like the +late Marechal de Richelieu, and get nothing for your pains." + +Armand was dumb with amazement. + +"Has your desire reached the point of infatuation?" + +"I want her at any cost!" Montriveau cried out despairingly. + +"Very well. Now, look here. Be as inexorable as she is herself. Try to +humiliate her, to sting her vanity. Do _not_ try to move her heart, +nor her soul, but the woman's nerves and temperament, for she is both +nervous and lymphatic. If you can once awaken desire in her, you are +safe. But you must drop these romantic boyish notions of yours. If when +once you have her in your eagle's talons you yield a point or draw back, +if you so much as stir an eyelid, if she thinks that she can regain her +ascendancy over you, she will slip out of your clutches like a fish, and +you will never catch her again. Be as inflexible as law. Show no more +charity than the headsman. Hit hard, and then hit again. Strike and keep +on striking as if you were giving her the knout. Duchesses are made of +hard stuff, my dear Armand; there is a sort of feminine nature that is +only softened by repeated blows; and as suffering develops a heart in +women of that sort, so it is a work of charity not to spare the rod. +Do you persevere. Ah! when pain has thoroughly relaxed those nerves and +softened the fibres that you take to be so pliant and yielding; when +a shriveled heart has learned to expand and contract and to beat under +this discipline; when the brain has capitulated--then, perhaps, passion +may enter among the steel springs of this machinery that turns out tears +and affectations and languors and melting phrases; then you shall see a +most magnificent conflagration (always supposing that the chimney takes +fire). The steel feminine system will glow red-hot like iron in the +forge; that kind of heat lasts longer than any other, and the glow of it +may possibly turn to love. + +"Still," he continued, "I have my doubts. And, after all, is it worth +while to take so much trouble with the Duchess? Between ourselves a man +of my stamp ought first to take her in hand and break her in; I would +make a charming woman of her; she is a thoroughbred; whereas, you two +left to yourselves will never get beyond the A B C. But you are in love +with her, and just now you might not perhaps share my views on this +subject----. A pleasant time to you, my children," added Ronquerolles, +after a pause. Then with a laugh: "I have decided myself for facile +beauties; they are tender, at any rate, the natural woman appears in +their love without any of your social seasonings. A woman that haggles +over herself, my poor boy, and only means to inspire love! Well, have +her like an extra horse--for show. The match between the sofa and +confessional, black and white, queen and knight, conscientious scruples +and pleasure, is an uncommonly amusing game of chess. And if a man knows +the game, let him be never so little of a rake, he wins in three moves. +Now, if I undertook a woman of that sort, I should start with the +deliberate purpose of----" His voice sank to a whisper over the last +words in Armand's ear, and he went before there was time to reply. + +As for Montriveau, he sprang at a bound across the courtyard of the +Hotel de Langeais, went unannounced up the stairs straight to the +Duchess's bedroom. + +"This is an unheard-of thing," she said, hastily wrapping her +dressing-gown about her. "Armand! this is abominable of you! Come, leave +the room, I beg. Just go out of the room, and go at once. Wait for me in +the drawing-room.--Come now!" + +"Dear angel, has a plighted lover no privilege whatsoever?" + +"But, monsieur, it is in the worst possible taste of a plighted lover or +a wedded husband to break in like this upon his wife." + +He came up to the Duchess, took her in his arms, and held her tightly to +him. + +"Forgive, dear Antoinette; but a host of horrid doubts are fermenting in +my heart." + +"_Doubts_? Fie!--Oh, fie on you!" + +"Doubts all but justified. If you loved me, would you make this quarrel? +Would you not be glad to see me? Would you not have felt a something +stir in your heart? For I, that am not a woman, feel a thrill in my +inmost self at the mere sound of your voice. Often in a ballroom a +longing has come upon me to spring to your side and put my arms about +your neck." + +"Oh! if you have doubts of me so long as I am not ready to spring to +your arms before all the world, I shall be doubted all my life long, I +suppose. Why, Othello was a mere child compared with you!" + +"Ah!" he cried despairingly, "you have no love for me----" + +"Admit, at any rate, that at this moment you are not lovable." + +"Then I have still to find favour in your sight?" + +"Oh, I should think so. Come," added she, "with a little imperious air, +go out of the room, leave me. I am not like you; I wish always to find +favour in your eyes." + +Never woman better understood the art of putting charm into insolence, +and does not the charm double the effect? is it not enough to infuriate +the coolest of men? There was a sort of untrammeled freedom about Mme +de Langeais; a something in her eyes, her voice, her attitude, which is +never seen in a woman who loves when she stands face to face with him at +the mere sight of whom her heart must needs begin to beat. The Marquis +de Ronquerolles' counsels had cured Armand of sheepishness; and further, +there came to his aid that rapid power of intuition which passion will +develop at moments in the least wise among mortals, while a great man +at such a time possesses it to the full. He guessed the terrible truth +revealed by the Duchess's nonchalance, and his heart swelled with the +storm like a lake rising in flood. + +"If you told me the truth yesterday, be mine, dear Antoinette," he +cried; "you shall----" + +"In the first place," said she composedly, thrusting him back as he +came nearer--"in the first place, you are not to compromise me. My woman +might overhear you. Respect me, I beg of you. Your familiarity is all +very well in my boudoir in an evening; here it is quite different. +Besides, what may your 'you shall' mean? 'You shall.' No one as yet +has ever used that word to me. It is quite ridiculous, it seems to me, +absolutely ridiculous. + +"Will you surrender nothing to me on this point?" + +"Oh! do you call a woman's right to dispose of herself a 'point?' A +capital point indeed; you will permit me to be entirely my own mistress +on that 'point.'" + +"And how if, believing in your promises to me, I should absolutely +require it?" + +"Oh! then you would prove that I made the greatest possible mistake when +I made you a promise of any kind; and I should beg you to leave me in +peace." + +The General's face grew white; he was about to spring to her side, when +Mme de Langeais rang the bell, the maid appeared, and, smiling with a +mocking grace, the Duchess added, "Be so good as to return when I am +visible." + +Then Montriveau felt the hardness of a woman as cold and keen as a steel +blade; she was crushing in her scorn. In one moment she had snapped +the bonds which held firm only for her lover. She had read Armand's +intention in his face, and held that the moment had come for teaching +the Imperial soldier his lesson. He was to be made to feel that though +duchesses may lend themselves to love, they do not give themselves, and +that the conquest of one of them would prove a harder matter than the +conquest of Europe. + +"Madame," returned Armand, "I have not time to wait. I am a spoilt +child, as you told me yourself. When I seriously resolve to have that of +which we have been speaking, I shall have it." + +"You will have it?" queried she, and there was a trace of surprise in +her loftiness. + +"I shall have it." + +"Oh! you would do me a great pleasure by 'resolving' to have it. For +curiosity's sake, I should be delighted to know how you would set about +it----" + +"I am delighted to put a new interest into your life," interrupted +Montriveau, breaking into a laugh which dismayed the Duchess. "Will you +permit me to take you to the ball tonight?" + +"A thousand thanks. M. de Marsay has been beforehand with you. I gave +him my promise." + +Montriveau bowed gravely and went. + +"So Ronquerolles was right," thought he, "and now for a game of chess." + +Thenceforward he hid his agitation by complete composure. No man is +strong enough to bear such sudden alternations from the height of +happiness to the depths of wretchedness. So he had caught a glimpse of +happy life the better to feel the emptiness of his previous existence? +There was a terrible storm within him; but he had learned to endure, +and bore the shock of tumultuous thoughts as a granite cliff stands out +against the surge of an angry sea. + +"I could say nothing. When I am with her my wits desert me. She does not +know how vile and contemptible she is. Nobody has ventured to bring her +face to face with herself. She has played with many a man, no doubt; I +will avenge them all." + +For the first time, it may be, in a man's heart, revenge and love were +blended so equally that Montriveau himself could not know whether love +or revenge would carry all before it. That very evening he went to the +ball at which he was sure of seeing the Duchesse de Langeais, and almost +despaired of reaching her heart. He inclined to think that there was +something diabolical about this woman, who was gracious to him and +radiant with charming smiles; probably because she had no wish to +allow the world to think that she had compromised herself with M. de +Montriveau. Coolness on both sides is a sign of love; but so long as +the Duchess was the same as ever, while the Marquis looked sullen and +morose, was it not plain that she had conceded nothing? Onlookers know +the rejected lover by various signs and tokens; they never mistake the +genuine symptoms for a coolness such as some women command their adorers +to feign, in the hope of concealing their love. Everyone laughed at +Montriveau; and he, having omitted to consult his cornac, was abstracted +and ill at ease. M. de Ronquerolles would very likely have bidden him +compromise the Duchess by responding to her show of friendliness by +passionate demonstrations; but as it was, Armand de Montriveau came away +from the ball, loathing human nature, and even then scarcely ready to +believe in such complete depravity. + +"If there is no executioner for such crimes," he said, as he looked up +at the lighted windows of the ballroom where the most enchanting women +in Paris were dancing, laughing, and chatting, "I will take you by the +nape of the neck, Mme la Duchesse, and make you feel something that +bites more deeply than the knife in the Place de la Greve. Steel against +steel; we shall see which heart will leave the deeper mark." + +For a week or so Mme de Langeais hoped to see the Marquis de Montriveau +again; but he contented himself with sending his card every morning to +the Hotel de Langeais. The Duchess could not help shuddering each time +that the card was brought in, and a dim foreboding crossed her mind, but +the thought was vague as a presentiment of disaster. When her eyes fell +on the name, it seemed to her that she felt the touch of the implacable +man's strong hand in her hair; sometimes the words seemed like a +prognostication of a vengeance which her lively intellect invented in +the most shocking forms. She had studied him too well not to dread him. +Would he murder her, she wondered? Would that bull-necked man dash out +her vitals by flinging her over his head? Would he trample her body +under his feet? When, where, and how would he get her into his power? +Would he make her suffer very much, and what kind of pain would he +inflict? She repented of her conduct. There were hours when, if he had +come, she would have gone to his arms in complete self-surrender. + +Every night before she slept she saw Montriveau's face; every night it +wore a different aspect. Sometimes she saw his bitter smile, sometimes +the Jovelike knitting of the brows; or his leonine look, or some +disdainful movement of the shoulders made him terrible for her. Next day +the card seemed stained with blood. The name of Montriveau stirred her +now as the presence of the fiery, stubborn, exacting lover had never +done. Her apprehensions gathered strength in the silence. She was +forced, without aid from without, to face the thought of a hideous duel +of which she could not speak. Her proud hard nature was more responsive +to thrills of hate than it had ever been to the caresses of love. Ah! if +the General could but have seen her, as she sat with her forehead +drawn into folds between her brows; immersed in bitter thoughts in that +boudoir where he had enjoyed such happy moments, he might perhaps +have conceived high hopes. Of all human passions, is not pride alone +incapable of engendering anything base? Mme de Langeais kept her +thoughts to herself, but is it not permissible to suppose that M. de +Montriveau was no longer indifferent to her? And has not a man gained +ground immensely when a woman thinks about him? He is bound to make +progress with her either one way or the other afterwards. + +Put any feminine creature under the feet of a furious horse or other +fearsome beast; she will certainly drop on her knees and look for death; +but if the brute shows a milder mood and does not utterly slay her, +she will love the horse, lion, bull, or what not, and will speak of him +quite at her ease. The Duchess felt that she was under the lion's paws; +she quaked, but she did not hate him. + +The man and woman thus singularly placed with regard to each other met +three times in society during the course of that week. Each time, +in reply to coquettish questioning glances, the Duchess received a +respectful bow, and smiles tinged with such savage irony, that all her +apprehensions over the card in the morning were revived at night. +Our lives are simply such as our feelings shape them for us; and the +feelings of these two had hollowed out a great gulf between them. + +The Comtesse de Serizy, the Marquis de Ronquerolles' sister, gave a +great ball at the beginning of the following week, and Mme de Langeais +was sure to go to it. Armand was the first person whom the Duchess saw +when she came into the room, and this time Armand was looking out for +her, or so she thought at least. The two exchanged a look, and suddenly +the woman felt a cold perspiration break from every pore. She had +thought all along that Montriveau was capable of taking reprisals in +some unheard-of way proportioned to their condition, and now the revenge +had been discovered, it was ready, heated, and boiling. Lightnings +flashed from the foiled lover's eyes, his face was radiant with exultant +vengeance. And the Duchess? Her eyes were haggard in spite of her +resolution to be cool and insolent. She went to take her place beside +the Comtesse de Serizy, who could not help exclaiming, "Dear Antoinette! +what is the matter with you? You are enough to frighten one." + +"I shall be all right after a quadrille," she answered, giving a hand to +a young man who came up at that moment. + +Mme de Langeais waltzed that evening with a sort of excitement and +transport which redoubled Montriveau's lowering looks. He stood in front +of the line of spectators, who were amusing themselves by looking on. +Every time that _she_ came past him, his eyes darted down upon her +eddying face; he might have been a tiger with the prey in his grasp. The +waltz came to an end, Mme de Langeais went back to her place beside the +Countess, and Montriveau never took his eyes off her, talking all the +while with a stranger. + +"One of the things that struck me most on the journey," he was saying +(and the Duchess listened with all her ears), "was the remark which the +man makes at Westminster when you are shown the axe with which a man in +a mask cut off Charles the First's head, so they tell you. The King made +it first of all to some inquisitive person, and they repeat it still in +memory of him." + +"What does the man say?" asked Mme de Serizy. + +"'Do not touch the axe!'" replied Montriveau, and there was menace in +the sound of his voice. + +"Really, my Lord Marquis," said Mme de Langeais, "you tell this old +story that everybody knows if they have been to London, and look at my +neck in such a melodramatic way that you seem to me to have an axe in +your hand." + +The Duchess was in a cold sweat, but nevertheless she laughed as she +spoke the last words. + +"But circumstances give the story a quite new application," returned he. + +"How so; pray tell me, for pity's sake?" + +"In this way, madame--you have touched the axe," said Montriveau, +lowering his voice. + +"What an enchanting prophecy!" returned she, smiling with assumed grace. +"And when is my head to fall?" + +"I have no wish to see that pretty head of yours cut off. I only fear +some great misfortune for you. If your head were clipped close, would +you feel no regrets for the dainty golden hair that you turn to such +good account?" + +"There are those for whom a woman would love to make such a sacrifice; +even if, as often happens, it is for the sake of a man who cannot make +allowances for an outbreak of temper." + +"Quite so. Well, and if some wag were to spoil your beauty on a sudden +by some chemical process, and you, who are but eighteen for us, were to +be a hundred years old?" + +"Why, the smallpox is our Battle of Waterloo, monsieur," she +interrupted. "After it is over we find out those who love us sincerely." + +"Would you not regret the lovely face that?" + +"Oh! indeed I should, but less for my own sake than for the sake of +someone else whose delight it might have been. And, after all, if I were +loved, always loved, and truly loved, what would my beauty matter to +me?--What do you say, Clara?" + +"It is a dangerous speculation," replied Mme de Serizy. + +"Is it permissible to ask His Majesty the King of Sorcerers when I made +the mistake of touching the axe, since I have not been to London as +yet?----" + +"_Not so_," he answered in English, with a burst of ironical laughter. + +"And when will the punishment begin?" + +At this Montriveau coolly took out his watch, and ascertained the hour +with a truly appalling air of conviction. + +"A dreadful misfortune will befall you before this day is out." + +"I am not a child to be easily frightened, or rather, I am a child +ignorant of danger," said the Duchess. "I shall dance now without fear +on the edge of the precipice." + +"I am delighted to know that you have so much strength of character," he +answered, as he watched her go to take her place in a square dance. + +But the Duchess, in spite of her apparent contempt for Armand's dark +prophecies, was really frightened. Her late lover's presence weighed +upon her morally and physically with a sense of oppression that scarcely +ceased when he left the ballroom. And yet when she had drawn freer +breath, and enjoyed the relief for a moment, she found herself +regretting the sensation of dread, so greedy of extreme sensations is +the feminine nature. The regret was not love, but it was certainly akin +to other feelings which prepare the way for love. And then--as if the +impression which Montriveau had made upon her were suddenly revived--she +recollected his air of conviction as he took out his watch, and in a +sudden spasm of dread she went out. + +By this time it was about midnight. One of her servants, waiting with +her pelisse, went down to order her carriage. On her way home she fell +naturally enough to musing over M. de Montriveau's prediction. Arrived +in her own courtyard, as she supposed, she entered a vestibule almost +like that of her own hotel, and suddenly saw that the staircase was +different. She was in a strange house. Turning to call her servants, she +was attacked by several men, who rapidly flung a handkerchief over her +mouth, bound her hand and foot, and carried her off. She shrieked aloud. + +"Madame, our orders are to kill you if you scream," a voice said in her +ear. + +So great was the Duchess's terror, that she could never recollect how +nor by whom she was transported. When she came to herself, she was lying +on a couch in a bachelor's lodging, her hands and feet tied with silken +cords. In spite of herself, she shrieked aloud as she looked round and +met Armand de Montriveau's eyes. He was sitting in his dressing-gown, +quietly smoking a cigar in his armchair. + +"Do not cry out, Mme la Duchesse," he said, coolly taking the cigar out +of his mouth; "I have a headache. Besides, I will untie you. But listen +attentively to what I have the honour to say to you." + +Very carefully he untied the knots that bound her feet. + +"What would be the use of calling out? Nobody can hear your cries. +You are too well bred to make any unnecessary fuss. If you do not stay +quietly, if you insist upon a struggle with me, I shall tie your +hands and feet again. All things considered, I think that you have +self-respect enough to stay on this sofa as if you were lying on your +own at home; cold as ever, if you will. You have made me shed many tears +on this couch, tears that I hid from all other eyes." + +While Montriveau was speaking, the Duchess glanced about her; it was +a woman's glance, a stolen look that saw all things and seemed to see +nothing. She was much pleased with the room. It was rather like a +monk's cell. The man's character and thoughts seemed to pervade it. No +decoration of any kind broke the grey painted surface of the walls. +A green carpet covered the floor. A black sofa, a table littered with +papers, two big easy-chairs, a chest of drawers with an alarum clock by +way of ornament, a very low bedstead with a coverlet flung over it--a +red cloth with a black key border--all these things made part of a +whole that told of a life reduced to its simplest terms. A triple +candle-sconce of Egyptian design on the chimney-piece recalled the +vast spaces of the desert and Montriveau's long wanderings; a huge +sphinx-claw stood out beneath the folds of stuff at the bed-foot; +and just beyond, a green curtain with a black and scarlet border was +suspended by large rings from a spear handle above a door near one +corner of the room. The other door by which the band had entered was +likewise curtained, but the drapery hung from an ordinary curtain-rod. +As the Duchess finally noted that the pattern was the same on both, she +saw that the door at the bed-foot stood open; gleams of ruddy light +from the room beyond flickered below the fringed border. Naturally, the +ominous light roused her curiosity; she fancied she could distinguish +strange shapes in the shadows; but as it did not occur to her at the +time that danger could come from that quarter, she tried to gratify a +more ardent curiosity. + +"Monsieur, if it is not indiscreet, may I ask what you mean to do with +me?" The insolence and irony of the tone stung through the words. The +Duchess quite believed that she read extravagant love in Montriveau's +speech. He had carried her off; was not that in itself an acknowledgment +of her power? + +"Nothing whatever, madame," he returned, gracefully puffing the last +whiff of cigar smoke. "You will remain here for a short time. First +of all, I should like to explain to you what you are, and what I am. I +cannot put my thoughts into words whilst you are twisting on the sofa +in your boudoir; and besides, in your own house you take offence at the +slightest hint, you ring the bell, make an outcry, and turn your lover +out at the door as if he were the basest of wretches. Here my mind is +unfettered. Here nobody can turn me out. Here you shall be my victim for +a few seconds, and you are going to be so exceedingly kind as to listen +to me. You need fear nothing. I did not carry you off to insult you, nor +yet to take by force what you refused to grant of your own will to my +unworthiness. I could not stoop so low. You possibly think of outrage; +for myself, I have no such thoughts." + +He flung his cigar coolly into the fire. + +"The smoke is unpleasant to you, no doubt, madame?" he said, and rising +at once, he took a chafing-dish from the hearth, burnt perfumes, and +purified the air. The Duchess's astonishment was only equaled by her +humiliation. She was in this man's power; and he would not abuse his +power. The eyes in which love had once blazed like flame were now quiet +and steady as stars. She trembled. Her dread of Armand was increased by +a nightmare sensation of restlessness and utter inability to move; she +felt as if she were turned to stone. She lay passive in the grip of +fear. She thought she saw the light behind the curtains grow to a blaze, +as if blown up by a pair of bellows; in another moment the gleams of +flame grew brighter, and she fancied that three masked figures suddenly +flashed out; but the terrible vision disappeared so swiftly that she +took it for an optical delusion. + +"Madame," Armand continued with cold contempt, "one minute, just one +minute is enough for me, and you shall feel it afterwards at every +moment throughout your lifetime, the one eternity over which I have +power. I am not God. Listen carefully to me," he continued, pausing to +add solemnity to his words. "Love will always come at your call. You +have boundless power over men: but remember that once you called love, +and love came to you; love as pure and true-hearted as may be on earth, +and as reverent as it was passionate; fond as a devoted woman's, as a +mother's love; a love so great indeed, that it was past the bounds of +reason. You played with it, and you committed a crime. Every woman has a +right to refuse herself to love which she feels she cannot share; and +if a man loves and cannot win love in return, he is not to be pitied, +he has no right to complain. But with a semblance of love to attract +an unfortunate creature cut off from all affection; to teach him to +understand happiness to the full, only to snatch it from him; to rob him +of his future of felicity; to slay his happiness not merely today, +but as long as his life lasts, by poisoning every hour of it and every +thought--this I call a fearful crime!" + +"Monsieur----" + +"I cannot allow you to answer me yet. So listen to me still. In any case +I have rights over you; but I only choose to exercise one--the right of +the judge over the criminal, so that I may arouse your conscience. If +you had no conscience left, I should not reproach you at all; but you +are so young! You must feel some life still in your heart; or so I like +to believe. While I think of you as depraved enough to do a wrong which +the law does not punish, I do not think you so degraded that you cannot +comprehend the full meaning of my words. I resume." + +As he spoke the Duchess heard the smothered sound of a pair of bellows. +Those mysterious figures which she had just seen were blowing up the +fire, no doubt; the glow shone through the curtain. But Montriveau's +lurid face was turned upon her; she could not choose but wait with a +fast-beating heart and eyes fixed in a stare. However curious she felt, +the heat in Armand's words interested her even more than the crackling +of the mysterious flames. + +"Madame," he went on after a pause, "if some poor wretch commits a +murder in Paris, it is the executioner's duty, you know, to lay hands on +him and stretch him on the plank, where murderers pay for their crimes +with their heads. Then the newspapers inform everyone, rich and poor, so +that the former are assured that they may sleep in peace, and the latter +are warned that they must be on the watch if they would live. Well, you +that are religious, and even a little of a bigot, may have masses said +for such a man's soul. You both belong to the same family, but yours is +the elder branch; and the elder branch may occupy high places in peace +and live happily and without cares. Want or anger may drive your brother +the convict to take a man's life; you have taken more, you have taken +the joy out of a man's life, you have killed all that was best in his +life--his dearest beliefs. The murderer simply lay in wait for his +victim, and killed him reluctantly, and in fear of the scaffold; but +_you_ ...! You heaped up every sin that weakness can commit against +strength that suspected no evil; you tamed a passive victim, the better +to gnaw his heart out; you lured him with caresses; you left nothing +undone that could set him dreaming, imagining, longing for the bliss of +love. You asked innumerable sacrifices of him, only to refuse to make +any in return. He should see the light indeed before you put out his +eyes! It is wonderful how you found the heart to do it! Such villainies +demand a display of resource quite above the comprehension of those +bourgeoises whom you laugh at and despise. They can give and forgive; +they know how to love and suffer. The grandeur of their devotion dwarfs +us. Rising higher in the social scale, one finds just as much mud as at +the lower end; but with this difference, at the upper end it is hard and +gilded over. + +"Yes, to find baseness in perfection, you must look for a noble bringing +up, a great name, a fair woman, a duchess. You cannot fall lower than +the lowest unless you are set high above the rest of the world.--I +express my thoughts badly; the wounds you dealt me are too painful as +yet, but do not think that I complain. My words are not the expression +of any hope for myself; there is no trace of bitterness in them. Know +this, madame, for a certainty--I forgive you. My forgiveness is so +complete that you need not feel in the least sorry that you came hither +to find it against your will.... But you might take advantage of other +hearts as child-like as my own, and it is my duty to spare them anguish. +So you have inspired the thought of justice. Expiate your sin here +on earth; God may perhaps forgive you; I wish that He may, but He is +inexorable, and will strike." + +The broken-spirited, broken-hearted woman looked up, her eyes filled +with tears. + +"Why do you cry? Be true to your nature. You could look on indifferently +at the torture of a heart as you broke it. That will do, madame, do not +cry. I cannot bear it any longer. Other men will tell you that you have +given them life; as for myself, I tell you, with rapture, that you have +given me blank extinction. Perhaps you guess that I am not my own, that +I am bound to live for my friends, that from this time forth I must +endure the cold chill of death, as well as the burden of life? Is it +possible that there can be so much kindness in you? Are you like the +desert tigress that licks the wounds she has inflicted?" + +The Duchess burst out sobbing. + +"Pray spare your tears, madame. If I believed in them at all, it would +merely set me on my guard. Is this another of your artifices? or is it +not? You have used so many with me; how can one think that there is any +truth in you? Nothing that you do or say has any power now to move me. +That is all I have to say." + +Mme de Langeais rose to her feet, with a great dignity and humility in +her bearing. + +"You are right to treat me very hardly," she said, holding out a hand to +the man who did not take it; "you have not spoken hardly enough; and I +deserve this punishment." + +"_I_ punish you, madame! A man must love still, to punish, must he not? +From me you must expect no feeling, nothing resembling it. If I chose, I +might be accuser and judge in my cause, and pronounce and carry out the +sentence. But I am about to fulfil a duty, not a desire of vengeance of +any kind. The cruelest revenge of all, I think, is scorn of revenge when +it is in our power to take it. Perhaps I shall be the minister of your +pleasures; who knows? Perhaps from this time forth, as you gracefully +wear the tokens of disgrace by which society marks out the criminal, you +may perforce learn something of the convict's sense of honour. And then, +you will love!" + +The Duchess sat listening; her meekness was unfeigned; it was no +coquettish device. When she spoke at last, it was after a silence. + +"Armand," she began, "it seems to me that when I resisted love, I was +obeying all the instincts of woman's modesty; I should not have looked +for such reproaches from _you_. I was weak; you have turned all my +weaknesses against me, and made so many crimes of them. How could you +fail to understand that the curiosity of love might have carried me +further than I ought to go; and that next morning I might be angry +with myself, and wretched because I had gone too far? Alas! I sinned in +ignorance. I was as sincere in my wrongdoing, I swear to you, as in +my remorse. There was far more love for you in my severity than in my +concessions. And besides, of what do you complain? I gave you my heart; +that was not enough; you demanded, brutally, that I should give my +person----" + +"Brutally?" repeated Montriveau. But to himself he said, "If I once +allow her to dispute over words, I am lost." + +"Yes. You came to me as if I were one of those women. You showed none +of the respect, none of the attentions of love. Had I not reason to +reflect? Very well, I reflected. The unseemliness of your conduct is not +inexcusable; love lay at the source of it; let me think so, and +justify you to myself.--Well, Armand, this evening, even while you were +prophesying evil, I felt convinced that there was happiness in store for +us both. Yes, I put my faith in the noble, proud nature so often tested +and proved." She bent lower. "And I was yours wholly," she murmured in +his ear. "I felt a longing that I cannot express to give happiness to a +man so violently tried by adversity. If I must have a master, my master +should be a great man. As I felt conscious of my height, the less I +cared to descend. I felt I could trust you, I saw a whole lifetime of +love, while you were pointing to death.... Strength and kindness always +go together. My friend, you are so strong, you will not be unkind to +a helpless woman who loves you. If I was wrong, is there no way of +obtaining forgiveness? No way of making reparation? Repentance is the +charm of love; I should like to be very charming for you. How could I, +alone among women, fail to know a woman's doubts and fears, the timidity +that it is so natural to feel when you bind yourself for life, and +know how easily a man snaps such ties? The bourgeoises, with whom you +compared me just now, give themselves, but they struggle first. Very +well--I struggled; but here I am!--Ah! God, he does not hear me!" she +broke off, and wringing her hands, she cried out "But I love you! I am +yours!" and fell at Armand's feet. + +"Yours! yours! my one and only master!" + +Armand tried to raise her. + +"Madame, it is too late! Antoinette cannot save the Duchesse de +Langeais. I cannot believe in either. Today you may give yourself; +tomorrow, you may refuse. No power in earth or heaven can insure me the +sweet constancy of love. All love's pledges lay in the past; and now +nothing of that past exists." + +The light behind the curtain blazed up so brightly, that the Duchess +could not help turning her head; this time she distinctly saw the three +masked figures. + +"Armand," she said, "I would not wish to think ill of you. Why are those +men there? What are you going to do to me?" + +"Those men will be as silent as I myself with regard to the thing which +is about to be done. Think of them simply as my hands and my heart. One +of them is a surgeon----" + +"A surgeon! Armand, my friend, of all things, suspense is the hardest +to bear. Just speak; tell me if you wish for my life; I will give it to +you, you shall not take it----" + +"Then you did not understand me? Did I not speak just now of justice? +To put an end to your misapprehensions," continued he, taking up a small +steel object from the table, "I will now explain what I have decided +with regard to you." + +He held out a Lorraine cross, fastened to the tip of a steel rod. + +"Two of my friends at this very moment are heating another cross, made +on this pattern, red-hot. We are going to stamp it upon your forehead, +here between the eyes, so that there will be no possibility of hiding +the mark with diamonds, and so avoiding people's questions. In short, +you shall bear on your forehead the brand of infamy which your brothers +the convicts wear on their shoulders. The pain is a mere trifle, but I +feared a nervous crisis of some kind, of resistance----" + +"Resistance?" she cried, clapping her hands for joy. "Oh no, no! I would +have the whole world here to see. Ah, my Armand, brand her quickly, +this creature of yours; brand her with your mark as a poor little trifle +belonging to you. You asked for pledges of my love; here they are all in +one. Ah! for me there is nothing but mercy and forgiveness and eternal +happiness in this revenge of yours. When you have marked this woman with +your mark, when you set your crimson brand on her, your slave in soul, +you can never afterwards abandon her, you will be mine for evermore? +When you cut me off from my kind, you make yourself responsible for my +happiness, or you prove yourself base; and I know that you are noble and +great! Why, when a woman loves, the brand of love is burnt into her +soul by her own will.--Come in, gentlemen! come in and brand her, +this Duchesse de Langeais. She is M. de Montriveau's forever! Ah! come +quickly, all of you, my forehead burns hotter than your fire!" + +Armand turned his head sharply away lest he should see the Duchess +kneeling, quivering with the throbbings of her heart. He said some word, +and his three friends vanished. + +The women of Paris salons know how one mirror reflects another. The +Duchess, with every motive for reading the depths of Armand's heart, was +all eyes; and Armand, all unsuspicious of the mirror, brushed away two +tears as they fell. Her whole future lay in those two tears. When he +turned round again to help her to rise, she was standing before him, +sure of love. Her pulses must have throbbed fast when he spoke with the +firmness she had known so well how to use of old while she played with +him. + +"I spare you, madame. All that has taken place shall be as if it had +never been, you may believe me. But now, let us bid each other goodbye. +I like to think that you were sincere in your coquetries on your sofa, +sincere again in this outpouring of your heart. Good-bye. I feel that +there is no faith in you left in me. You would torment me again; you +would always be the Duchess, and----But there, good-bye, we shall never +understand each other. + +"Now, what do you wish?" he continued, taking the tone of a master of +the ceremonies--"to return home, or to go back to Mme de Serizy's +ball? I have done all in my power to prevent any scandal. Neither your +servants nor anyone else can possibly know what has passed between us +in the last quarter of an hour. Your servants have no idea that you have +left the ballroom; your carriage never left Mme de Serizy's courtyard; +your brougham may likewise be found in the court of your own hotel. +Where do you wish to be?" + +"What do you counsel, Armand?" + +"There is no Armand now, Mme la Duchesse. We are strangers to each +other." + +"Then take me to the ball," she said, still curious to put Armand's +power to the test. "Thrust a soul that suffered in the world, and must +always suffer there, if there is no happiness for her now, down into +hell again. And yet, oh my friend, I love you as your bourgeoises love; +I love you so that I could come to you and fling my arms about your neck +before all the world if you asked it off me. The hateful world has not +corrupted me. I am young at least, and I have grown younger still. I am +a child, yes, your child, your new creature. Ah! do not drive me forth +out of my Eden!" + +Armand shook his head. + +"Ah! let me take something with me, if I go, some little thing to wear +tonight on my heart," she said, taking possession of Armand's glove, +which she twisted into her handkerchief. + +"No, I am _not_ like all those depraved women. You do not know the +world, and so you cannot know my worth. You shall know it now! There are +women who sell themselves for money; there are others to be gained by +gifts, it is a vile world! Oh, I wish I were a simple bourgeoise, a +working girl, if you would rather have a woman beneath you than a woman +whose devotion is accompanied by high rank, as men count it. Oh, my +Armand, there are noble, high, and chaste and pure natures among us; +and then they are lovely indeed. I would have all nobleness that I might +offer it all up to you. Misfortune willed that I should be a duchess; +I would I were a royal princess, that my offering might be complete. I +would be a grisette for you, and a queen for everyone besides." + +He listened, damping his cigars with his lips. + +"You will let me know when you wish to go," he said. + +"But I should like to stay----" + +"That is another matter!" + +"Stay, that was badly rolled," she cried, seizing on a cigar and +devouring all that Armand's lips had touched. + +"Do you smoke?" + +"Oh, what would I not do to please you?" + +"Very well. Go, madame." + +"I will obey you," she answered, with tears in her eyes. + +"You must be blindfolded; you must not see a glimpse of the way." + +"I am ready, Armand," she said, bandaging her eyes. + +"Can you see?" + +"No." + +Noiselessly he knelt before her. + +"Ah! I can hear you!" she cried, with a little fond gesture, thinking +that the pretence of harshness was over. + +He made as if he would kiss her lips; she held up her face. + +"You can see, madame." + +"I am just a little bit curious." + +"So you always deceive me?" + +"Ah! take off this handkerchief, sir," she cried out, with the passion +of a great generosity repelled with scorn, "lead me; I will not open my +eyes." + +Armand felt sure of her after that cry. He led the way; the Duchess +nobly true to her word, was blind. But while Montriveau held her hand +as a father might, and led her up and down flights of stairs, he was +studying the throbbing pulses of this woman's heart so suddenly invaded +by Love. Mme de Langeais, rejoicing in this power of speech, was glad to +let him know all; but he was inflexible; his hand was passive in reply +to the questionings of her hand. + +At length, after some journey made together, Armand bade her go forward; +the opening was doubtless narrow, for as she went she felt that his hand +protected her dress. His care touched her; it was a revelation surely +that there was a little love still left; yet it was in some sort a +farewell, for Montriveau left her without a word. The air was warm; the +Duchess, feeling the heat, opened her eyes, and found herself standing +by the fire in the Comtesse de Serizy's boudoir. + +She was alone. Her first thought was for her disordered toilette; in a +moment she had adjusted her dress and restored her picturesque coiffure. + +"Well, dear Antoinette, we have been looking for you everywhere." It was +the Comtesse de Serizy who spoke as she opened the door. + +"I came here to breathe," said the Duchess; "it is unbearably hot in the +rooms." + +"People thought that you had gone; but my brother Ronquerolles told me +that your servants were waiting for you." + +"I am tired out, dear, let me stay and rest here for a minute," and the +Duchess sat down on the sofa. + +"Why, what is the matter with you? You are shaking from head to foot!" + +The Marquis de Ronquerolles came in. + +"Mme la Duchesse, I was afraid that something might have happened. I +have just come across your coachman, the man is as tipsy as all the +Swiss in Switzerland." + +The Duchess made no answer; she was looking round the room, at the +chimney-piece and the tall mirrors, seeking the trace of an opening. +Then with an extraordinary sensation she recollected that she was again +in the midst of the gaiety of the ballroom after that terrific scene +which had changed the whole course of her life. She began to shiver +violently. + +"M. de Montriveau's prophecy has shaken my nerves," she said. "It was +a joke, but still I will see whether his axe from London will haunt me +even in my sleep. So good-bye, dear.--Good-bye, M. le Marquis." + +As she went through the rooms she was beset with inquiries and regrets. +Her world seemed to have dwindled now that she, its queen, had fallen so +low, was so diminished. And what, moreover, were these men compared with +him whom she loved with all her heart; with the man grown great by all +that she had lost in stature? The giant had regained the height that he +had lost for a while, and she exaggerated it perhaps beyond measure. She +looked, in spite of herself, at the servant who had attended her to the +ball. He was fast asleep. + +"Have you been here all the time?" she asked. + +"Yes, madame." + +As she took her seat in her carriage she saw, in fact, that her coachman +was drunk--so drunk, that at any other time she would have been afraid; +but after a great crisis in life, fear loses its appetite for common +food. She reached home, at any rate, without accident; but even there +she felt a change in herself, a new feeling that she could not shake +off. For her, there was now but one man in the world; which is to say +that henceforth she cared to shine for his sake alone. + +While the physiologist can define love promptly by following out natural +laws, the moralist finds a far more perplexing problem before him if +he attempts to consider love in all its developments due to social +conditions. Still, in spite of the heresies of the endless sects that +divide the church of Love, there is one broad and trenchant line of +difference in doctrine, a line that all the discussion in the world can +never deflect. A rigid application of this line explains the nature +of the crisis through which the Duchess, like most women, was to pass. +Passion she knew, but she did not love as yet. + +Love and passion are two different conditions which poets and men of the +world, philosophers and fools, alike continually confound. Love implies +a give and take, a certainty of bliss that nothing can change; it +means so close a clinging of the heart, and an exchange of happiness so +constant, that there is no room left for jealousy. Then possession is a +means and not an end; unfaithfulness may give pain, but the bond is not +less close; the soul is neither more nor less ardent or troubled, but +happy at every moment; in short, the divine breath of desire spreading +from end to end of the immensity of Time steeps it all for us in the +selfsame hue; life takes the tint of the unclouded heaven. But Passion +is the foreshadowing of Love, and of that Infinite to which all +suffering souls aspire. Passion is a hope that may be cheated. Passion +means both suffering and transition. Passion dies out when hope is +dead. Men and women may pass through this experience many times without +dishonor, for it is so natural to spring towards happiness; but there is +only one love in a lifetime. All discussions of sentiment ever +conducted on paper or by word of mouth may therefore be resumed by +two questions--"Is it passion? Is it love?" So, since love comes into +existence only through the intimate experience of the bliss which gives +it lasting life, the Duchess was beneath the yoke of passion as yet; and +as she knew the fierce tumult, the unconscious calculations, the fevered +cravings, and all that is meant by that word _passion_--she suffered. +Through all the trouble of her soul there rose eddying gusts of tempest, +raised by vanity or self-love, or pride or a high spirit; for all these +forms of egoism make common cause together. + +She had said to this man, "I love you; I am yours!" Was it possible that +the Duchesse de Langeais should have uttered those words--in vain? She +must either be loved now or play her part of queen no longer. And then +she felt the loneliness of the luxurious couch where pleasure had never +yet set his glowing feet; and over and over again, while she tossed and +writhed there, she said, "I want to be loved." + +But the belief that she still had in herself gave her hope of success. +The Duchess might be piqued, the vain Parisienne might be humiliated; +but the woman saw glimpses of wedded happiness, and imagination, +avenging the time lost for nature, took a delight in kindling the +inextinguishable fire in her veins. She all but attained to the +sensations of love; for amid her poignant doubt whether she was loved in +return, she felt glad at heart to say to herself, "I love him!" As for +her scruples, religion, and the world she could trample them under foot! +Montriveau was her religion now. She spent the next day in a state +of moral torpor, troubled by a physical unrest, which no words could +express. She wrote letters and tore them all up, and invented a thousand +impossible fancies. + +When M. de Montriveau's usual hour arrived, she tried to think that he +would come, and enjoyed the feeling of expectation. Her whole life was +concentrated in the single sense of hearing. Sometimes she shut her +eyes, straining her ears to listen through space, wishing that she +could annihilate everything that lay between her and her lover, and so +establish that perfect silence which sounds may traverse from afar. In +her tense self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful +to her; she stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of +midnight sounded from the drawing-room. + +"Ah, God!" she cried, "to see him here would be happiness. And yet, it +is not so very long since he came here, brought by desire, and the tones +of his voice filled this boudoir. And now there is nothing." + +She remembered the times that she had played the coquette with him, and +how that her coquetry had cost her her lover, and the despairing tears +flowed for long. + +Her woman came at length with, "Mme la Duchesse does not know, perhaps, +that it is two o'clock in the morning; I thought that madame was not +feeling well." + +"Yes, I am going to bed," said the Duchess, drying her eyes. "But +remember, Suzanne, never to come in again without orders; I tell you +this for the last time." + +For a week, Mme de Langeais went to every house where there was a hope +of meeting M. de Montriveau. Contrary to her usual habits, she came +early and went late; gave up dancing, and went to the card-tables. Her +experiments were fruitless. She did not succeed in getting a glimpse of +Armand. She did not dare to utter his name now. One evening, however, in +a fit of despair, she spoke to Mme de Serizy, and asked as carelessly as +she could, "You must have quarreled with M. de Montriveau? He is not to +be seen at your house now." + +The Countess laughed. "So he does not come here either?" she returned. +"He is not to be seen anywhere, for that matter. He is interested in +some woman, no doubt." + +"I used to think that the Marquis de Ronquerolles was one of his +friends----" the Duchess began sweetly. + +"I have never heard my brother say that he was acquainted with him." + +Mme de Langeais did not reply. Mme de Serizy concluded from the +Duchess's silence that she might apply the scourge with impunity to a +discreet friendship which she had seen, with bitterness of soul, for a +long time past. + +"So you miss that melancholy personage, do you? I have heard most +extraordinary things of him. Wound his feelings, he never comes back, +he forgives nothing; and, if you love him, he keeps you in chains. To +everything that I said of him, one of those that praise him sky-high +would always answer, 'He knows how to love!' People are always telling +me that Montriveau would give up all for his friend; that his is a great +nature. Pooh! society does not want such tremendous natures. Men of that +stamp are all very well at home; let them stay there and leave us to our +pleasant littlenesses. What do you say, Antoinette?" + +Woman of the world though she was, the Duchess seemed agitated, yet she +replied in a natural voice that deceived her fair friend: + +"I am sorry to miss him. I took a great interest in him, and promised +to myself to be his sincere friend. I like great natures, dear friend, +ridiculous though you may think it. To give oneself to a fool is a clear +confession, is it not, that one is governed wholly by one's senses?" + +Mme de Serizy's "preferences" had always been for commonplace men; her +lover at the moment, the Marquis d'Aiglemont, was a fine, tall man. + +After this, the Countess soon took her departure, you may be sure Mme +de Langeais saw hope in Armand's withdrawal from the world; she wrote to +him at once; it was a humble, gentle letter, surely it would bring him +if he loved her still. She sent her footman with it next day. On the +servant's return, she asked whether he had given the letter to M. de +Montriveau himself, and could not restrain the movement of joy at the +affirmative answer. Armand was in Paris! He stayed alone in his house; +he did not go out into society! So she was loved! All day long she +waited for an answer that never came. Again and again, when impatience +grew unbearable, Antoinette found reasons for his delay. Armand felt +embarrassed; the reply would come by post; but night came, and she could +not deceive herself any longer. It was a dreadful day, a day of pain +grown sweet, of intolerable heart-throbs, a day when the heart squanders +the very forces of life in riot. + +Next day she sent for an answer. + +"M. le Marquis sent word that he would call on Mme la Duchesse," +reported Julien. + +She fled lest her happiness should be seen in her face, and flung +herself on her couch to devour her first sensations. + +"He is coming!" + +The thought rent her soul. And, in truth, woe unto those for whom +suspense is not the most horrible time of tempest, while it increases +and multiplies the sweetest joys; for they have nothing in them of +that flame which quickens the images of things, giving to them a second +existence, so that we cling as closely to the pure essence as to its +outward and visible manifestation. What is suspense in love but a +constant drawing upon an unfailing hope?--a submission to the terrible +scourging of passion, while passion is yet happy, and the disenchantment +of reality has not set in. The constant putting forth of strength and +longing, called suspense, is surely, to the human soul, as fragrance +to the flower that breathes it forth. We soon leave the brilliant, +unsatisfying colours of tulips and coreopsis, but we turn again and +again to drink in the sweetness of orange-blossoms or volkameria-flowers +compared separately, each in its own land, to a betrothed bride, full of +love, made fair by the past and future. + +The Duchess learned the joys of this new life of hers through the +rapture with which she received the scourgings of love. As this change +wrought in her, she saw other destinies before her, and a better +meaning in the things of life. As she hurried to her dressing-room, she +understood what studied adornment and the most minute attention to +her toilet mean when these are undertaken for love's sake and not for +vanity. Even now this making ready helped her to bear the long time of +waiting. A relapse of intense agitation set in when she was dressed; she +passed through nervous paroxysms brought on by the dreadful power which +sets the whole mind in ferment. Perhaps that power is only a disease, +though the pain of it is sweet. The Duchess was dressed and waiting +at two o clock in the afternoon. At half-past eleven that night M. +de Montriveau had not arrived. To try to give an idea of the anguish +endured by a woman who might be said to be the spoilt child of +civilization, would be to attempt to say how many imaginings the heart +can condense into one thought. As well endeavour to measure the forces +expended by the soul in a sigh whenever the bell rang; to estimate the +drain of life when a carriage rolled past without stopping, and left her +prostrate. + +"Can he be playing with me?" she said, as the clocks struck midnight. + +She grew white; her teeth chattered; she struck her hands together and +leapt up and crossed the boudoir, recollecting as she did so how often +he had come thither without a summons. But she resigned herself. Had she +not seen him grow pale, and start up under the stinging barbs of irony? +Then Mme de Langeais felt the horror of the woman's appointed lot; a +man's is the active part, a woman must wait passively when she loves. If +a woman goes beyond her beloved, she makes a mistake which few men can +forgive; almost every man would feel that a woman lowers herself by this +piece of angelic flattery. But Armand's was a great nature; he surely +must be one of the very few who can repay such exceeding love by love +that lasts forever. + +"Well, I will make the advance," she told herself, as she tossed on her +bed and found no sleep there; "I will go to him. I will not weary myself +with holding out a hand to him, but I will hold it out. A man of a +thousand will see a promise of love and constancy in every step that a +woman takes towards him. Yes, the angels must come down from heaven to +reach men; and I wish to be an angel for him." + +Next day she wrote. It was a billet of the kind in which the intellects +of the ten thousand Sevignes that Paris now can number particularly +excel. And yet only a Duchesse de Langeais, brought up by Mme la +Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, could have written that delicious note; no +other woman could complain without lowering herself; could spread wings +in such a flight without draggling her pinions in humiliation; rise +gracefully in revolt; scold without giving offence; and pardon without +compromising her personal dignity. + +Julien went with the note. Julien, like his kind, was the victim of +love's marches and countermarches. + +"What did M. de Montriveau reply?" she asked, as indifferently as she +could, when the man came back to report himself. + +"M. le Marquis requested me to tell Mme la Duchesse that it was all +right." + +Oh the dreadful reaction of the soul upon herself! To have her heart +stretched on the rack before curious witnesses; yet not to utter a +sound, to be forced to keep silence! One of the countless miseries of +the rich! + +More than three weeks went by. Mme de Langeais wrote again and again, +and no answer came from Montriveau. At last she gave out that she was +ill, to gain a dispensation from attendance on the Princess and from +social duties. She was only at home to her father the Duc de Navarreins, +her aunt the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, the old Vidame de Pamiers +(her maternal great-uncle), and to her husband's uncle, the Duc de +Grandlieu. These persons found no difficulty in believing that the +Duchess was ill, seeing that she grew thinner and paler and more +dejected every day. The vague ardour of love, the smart of wounded +pride, the continual prick of the only scorn that could touch her, +the yearnings towards joys that she craved with a vain continual +longing--all these things told upon her, mind and body; all the forces +of her nature were stimulated to no purpose. She was paying the arrears +of her life of make-believe. + +She went out at last to a review. M. de Montriveau was to be there. For +the Duchess, on the balcony of the Tuileries with the Royal Family, +it was one of those festival days that are long remembered. She looked +supremely beautiful in her languor; she was greeted with admiration in +all eyes. It was Montriveau's presence that made her so fair. + +Once or twice they exchanged glances. The General came almost to her +feet in all the glory of that soldier's uniform, which produces an +effect upon the feminine imagination to which the most prudish will +confess. When a woman is very much in love, and has not seen her lover +for two months, such a swift moment must be something like the phase of +a dream when the eyes embrace a world that stretches away forever. +Only women or young men can imagine the dull, frenzied hunger in the +Duchess's eyes. As for older men, if during the paroxysms of early +passion in youth they had experience of such phenomena of nervous power; +at a later day it is so completely forgotten that they deny the very +existence of the luxuriant ecstasy--the only name that can be given to +these wonderful intuitions. Religious ecstasy is the aberration of a +soul that has shaken off its bonds of flesh; whereas in amorous ecstasy +all the forces of soul and body are embraced and blended in one. If +a woman falls a victim to the tyrannous frenzy before which Mme de +Langeais was forced to bend, she will take one decisive resolution +after another so swiftly that it is impossible to give account of them. +Thought after thought rises and flits across her brain, as clouds are +whirled by the wind across the grey veil of mist that shuts out the sun. +Thenceforth the facts reveal all. And the facts are these. + +The day after the review, Mme de Langeais sent her carriage and liveried +servants to wait at the Marquis de Montriveau's door from eight o'clock +in the morning till three in the afternoon. Armand lived in the Rue de +Tournon, a few steps away from the Chamber of Peers, and that very +day the House was sitting; but long before the peers returned to their +palaces, several people had recognised the Duchess's carriage and +liveries. The first of these was the Baron de Maulincour. That young +officer had met with disdain from Mme de Langeais and a better reception +from Mme de Serizy; he betook himself at once therefore to his mistress, +and under seal of secrecy told her of this strange freak. + +In a moment the news was spread with telegraphic speed through all the +coteries in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; it reached the Tuileries and the +Elysee-Bourbon; it was the sensation of the day, the matter of all the +talk from noon till night. Almost everywhere the women denied the facts, +but in such a manner that the report was confirmed; the men one and +all believed it, and manifested a most indulgent interest in Mme de +Langeais. Some among them threw the blame on Armand. + +"That savage of a Montriveau is a man of bronze," said they; "he +insisted on making this scandal, no doubt." + +"Very well, then," others replied, "Mme de Langeais has been guilty of +a most generous piece of imprudence. To renounce the world and rank, and +fortune, and consideration for her lover's sake, and that in the face +of all Paris, is as fine a _coup d'etat_ for a woman as that barber's +knife-thrust, which so affected Canning in a court of assize. Not one +of the women who blame the Duchess would make a declaration worthy of +ancient times. It is heroic of Mme de Langeais to proclaim herself so +frankly. Now there is nothing left to her but to love Montriveau. There +must be something great about a woman if she says, 'I will have but one +passion.'" + +"But what is to become of society, monsieur, if you honour vice in this +way without respect for virtue?" asked the Comtesse de Granville, the +attorney-general's wife. + +While the Chateau, the Faubourg, and the Chaussee d'Antin were +discussing the shipwreck of aristocratic virtue; while excited young men +rushed about on horseback to make sure that the carriage was standing in +the Rue de Tournon, and the Duchess in consequence was beyond a doubt in +M. de Montriveau's rooms, Mme de Langeais, with heavy throbbing pulses, +was lying hidden away in her boudoir. And Armand?--he had been out all +night, and at that moment was walking with M. de Marsay in the Gardens +of the Tuileries. The elder members, of Mme de Langeais' family were +engaged in calling upon one another, arranging to read her a homily +and to hold a consultation as to the best way of putting a stop to the +scandal. + +At three o'clock, therefore, M. le Duc de Navarreins, the Vidame de +Pamiers, the old Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, and the Duc de Grandlieu +were assembled in Mme la Duchesse de Langeais' drawing-room. To them, as +to all curious inquirers, the servants said that their mistress was not +at home; the Duchess had made no exceptions to her orders. But these +four personages shone conspicuous in that lofty sphere, of which the +revolutions and hereditary pretensions are solemnly recorded year by +year in the _Almanach de Gotha_, wherefore without some slight sketch of +each of them this picture of society were incomplete. + +The Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, in the feminine world, was a most +poetic wreck of the reign of Louis Quinze. In her beautiful prime, so it +was said, she had done her part to win for that monarch his appellation +of _le Bien-aime_. Of her past charms of feature, little remained save +a remarkably prominent slender nose, curved like a Turkish scimitar, now +the principal ornament of a countenance that put you in mind of an old +white glove. Add a few powdered curls, high-heeled pantoufles, a cap +with upstanding loops of lace, black mittens, and a decided taste for +_ombre_. But to do full justice to the lady, it must be said that she +appeared in low-necked gowns of an evening (so high an opinion of her +ruins had she), wore long gloves, and raddled her cheeks with Martin's +classic rouge. An appalling amiability in her wrinkles, a prodigious +brightness in the old lady's eyes, a profound dignity in her whole +person, together with the triple barbed wit of her tongue, and an +infallible memory in her head, made of her a real power in the land. The +whole Cabinet des Chartes was entered in duplicate on the parchment +of her brain. She knew all the genealogies of every noble house in +Europe--princes, dukes, and counts--and could put her hand on the last +descendants of Charlemagne in the direct line. No usurpation of title +could escape the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry. + +Young men who wished to stand well at Court, ambitious men, and young +married women paid her assiduous homage. Her salon set the tone of the +Faubourg Saint-Germain. The words of this Talleyrand in petticoats +were taken as final decrees. People came to consult her on questions of +etiquette or usages, or to take lessons in good taste. And, in truth, +no other old woman could put back her snuff-box in her pocket as the +Princess could; while there was a precision and a grace about the +movements of her skirts, when she sat down or crossed her feet, which +drove the finest ladies of the young generation to despair. Her voice +had remained in her head during one-third of her lifetime; but she could +not prevent a descent into the membranes of the nose, which lent to it a +peculiar expressiveness. She still retained a hundred and fifty thousand +livres of her great fortune, for Napoleon had generously returned her +woods to her; so that personally and in the matter of possessions she +was a woman of no little consequence. + +This curious antique, seated in a low chair by the fireside, was +chatting with the Vidame de Pamiers, a contemporary ruin. The Vidame was +a big, tall, and spare man, a seigneur of the old school, and had been +a Commander of the Order of Malta. His neck had always been so tightly +compressed by a strangulation stock, that his cheeks pouched over it a +little, and he held his head high; to many people this would have given +an air of self-sufficiency, but in the Vidame it was justified by a +Voltairean wit. His wide prominent eyes seemed to see everything, and as +a matter of fact there was not much that they had not seen. Altogether, +his person was a perfect model of aristocratic outline, slim and +slender, supple and agreeable. He seemed as if he could be pliant or +rigid at will, and twist and bend, or rear his head like a snake. + +The Duc de Navarreins was pacing up and down the room with the Duc de +Grandlieu. Both were men of fifty-six or thereabouts, and still hale; +both were short, corpulent, flourishing, somewhat florid-complexioned +men with jaded eyes, and lower lips that had begun to hang already. But +for an exquisite refinement of accent, an urbane courtesy, and an ease +of manner that could change in a moment to insolence, a superficial +observer might have taken them for a couple of bankers. Any such mistake +would have been impossible, however, if the listener could have heard +them converse, and seen them on their guard with men whom they feared, +vapid and commonplace with their equals, slippery with the inferiors +whom courtiers and statesmen know how to tame by a tactful word, or to +humiliate with an unexpected phrase. + +Such were the representatives of the great noblesse that determined to +perish rather than submit to any change. It was a noblesse that deserved +praise and blame in equal measure; a noblesse that will never be judged +impartially until some poet shall arise to tell how joyfully the nobles +obeyed the King though their heads fell under a Richelieu's axe, and how +deeply they scorned the guillotine of '89 as a foul revenge. + +Another noticeable trait in all the four was a thin voice that agreed +peculiarly well with their ideas and bearing. Among themselves, at any +rate, they were on terms of perfect equality. None of them betrayed +any sign of annoyance over the Duchess's escapade, but all of them had +learned at Court to hide their feelings. + +And here, lest critics should condemn the puerility of the opening of +the forthcoming scene, it is perhaps as well to remind the reader that +Locke, once happening to be in the company of several great lords, +renowned no less for their wit than for their breeding and political +consistency, wickedly amused himself by taking down their conversation +by some shorthand process of his own; and afterwards, when he read +it over to them to see what they could make of it, they all burst out +laughing. And, in truth, the tinsel jargon which circulates among the +upper ranks in every country yields mighty little gold to the crucible +when washed in the ashes of literature or philosophy. In every rank of +society (some few Parisian salons excepted) the curious observer finds +folly a constant quantity beneath a more or less transparent varnish. +Conversation with any substance in it is a rare exception, and +boeotianism is current coin in every zone. In the higher regions they +must perforce talk more, but to make up for it they think the less. +Thinking is a tiring exercise, and the rich like their lives to flow by +easily and without effort. It is by comparing the fundamental matter of +jests, as you rise in the social scale from the street-boy to the peer +of France, that the observer arrives at a true comprehension of M. de +Talleyrand's maxim, "The manner is everything"; an elegant rendering of +the legal axiom, "The form is of more consequence than the matter." In +the eyes of the poet the advantage rests with the lower classes, for +they seldom fail to give a certain character of rude poetry to their +thoughts. Perhaps also this same observation may explain the sterility +of the salons, their emptiness, their shallowness, and the repugnance +felt by men of ability for bartering their ideas for such pitiful small +change. + +The Duke suddenly stopped as if some bright idea occurred to him, and +remarked to his neighbour: + +"So you have sold Tornthon?" + +"No, he is ill. I am very much afraid I shall lose him, and I should be +uncommonly sorry. He is a very good hunter. Do you know how the Duchesse +de Marigny is?" + +"No. I did not go this morning. I was just going out to call when +you came in to speak about Antoinette. But yesterday she was very ill +indeed; they had given her up, she took the sacrament." + +"Her death will make a change in your cousin's position." + +"Not at all. She gave away her property in her lifetime, only keeping +an annuity. She made over the Guebriant estate to her niece, Mme de +Soulanges, subject to a yearly charge." + +"It will be a great loss for society. She was a kind woman. Her family +will miss her; her experience and advice carried weight. Her son Marigny +is an amiable man; he has a sharp wit, he can talk. He is pleasant, very +pleasant. Pleasant? oh, that no one can deny, but--ill regulated to +the last degree. Well, and yet it is an extraordinary thing, he is +very acute. He was dining at the club the other day with that moneyed +Chaussee-d'Antin set. Your uncle (he always goes there for his game +of cards) found him there to his astonishment, and asked if he was a +member. 'Yes,' said he, 'I don't go into society now; I am living among +the bankers.'--You know why?" added the Marquis, with a meaning smile. + +"No," said the Duke. + +"He is smitten with that little Mme Keller, Gondreville's daughter; she +is only lately married, and has a great vogue, they say, in that set." + +"Well, Antoinette does not find time heavy on her hands, it seems," +remarked the Vidame. + +"My affection for that little woman has driven me to find a singular +pastime," replied the Princess, as she returned her snuff-box to her +pocket. + +"Dear aunt, I am extremely vexed," said the Duke, stopping short in his +walk. "Nobody but one of Bonaparte's men could ask such an indecorous +thing of a woman of fashion. Between ourselves, Antoinette might have +made a better choice." + +"The Montriveaus are a very old family and very well connected, my +dear," replied the Princess; "they are related to all the noblest houses +of Burgundy. If the Dulmen branch of the Arschoot Rivaudoults should +come to an end in Galicia, the Montriveaus would succeed to the Arschoot +title and estates. They inherit through their great-grandfather. + +"Are you sure?" + +"I know it better than this Montriveau's father did. I told him about +it, I used to see a good deal of him; and, Chevalier of several orders +though he was, he only laughed; he was an encyclopaedist. But his +brother turned the relationship to good account during the emigration. +I have heard it said that his northern kinsfolk were most kind in every +way----" + +"Yes, to be sure. The Comte de Montriveau died at St. Petersburg," +said the Vidame. "I met him there. He was a big man with an incredible +passion for oysters." + +"However many did he eat?" asked the Duc de Grandlieu. + +"Ten dozen every day." + +"And did they not disagree with him?" + +"Not the least bit in the world." + +"Why, that is extraordinary! Had he neither the stone nor gout, nor any +other complaint, in consequence?" + +"No; his health was perfectly good, and he died through an accident." + +"By accident! Nature prompted him to eat oysters, so probably he +required them; for up to a certain point our predominant tastes are +conditions of our existence." + +"I am of your opinion," said the Princess, with a smile. + +"Madame, you always put a malicious construction on things," returned +the Marquis. + +"I only want you to understand that these remarks might leave a wrong +impression on a young woman's mind," said she, and interrupted herself +to exclaim, "But this niece, this niece of mine!" + +"Dear aunt, I still refuse to believe that she can have gone to M. de +Montriveau," said the Duc de Navarreins. + +"Bah!" returned the Princess. + +"What do you think, Vidame?" asked the Marquis. + +"If the Duchess were an artless simpleton, I should think that----" + +"But when a woman is in love she becomes an artless simpleton," retorted +the Princess. "Really, my poor Vidame, you must be getting older." + +"After all, what is to be done?" asked the Duke. + +"If my dear niece is wise," said the Princess, "she will go to Court +this evening--fortunately, today is Monday, and reception day--and you +must see that we all rally round her and give the lie to this absurd +rumour. There are hundreds of ways of explaining things; and if the +Marquis de Montriveau is a gentleman, he will come to our assistance. We +will bring these children to listen to reason----" + +"But, dear aunt, it is not easy to tell M. de Montriveau the truth to +his face. He is one of Bonaparte's pupils, and he has a position. Why, +he is one of the great men of the day; he is high up in the Guards, and +very useful there. He has not a spark of ambition. He is just the man to +say, 'Here is my commission, leave me in peace,' if the King should say +a word that he did not like." + +"Then, pray, what are his opinions?" + +"Very unsound." + +"Really," sighed the Princess, "the King is, as he always has been, a +Jacobin under the Lilies of France." + +"Oh! not quite so bad," said the Vidame. + +"Yes; I have known him for a long while. The man that pointed out the +Court to his wife on the occasion of her first state dinner in public +with, 'These are our people,' could only be a black-hearted scoundrel. +I can see Monsieur exactly the same as ever in the King. The bad brother +who voted so wrongly in his department of the Constituent Assembly was +sure to compound with the Liberals and allow them to argue and talk. +This philosophical cant will be just as dangerous now for the younger +brother as it used to be for the elder; this fat man with the little +mind is amusing himself by creating difficulties, and how his successor +is to get out of them I do not know; he holds his younger brother in +abhorrence; he would be glad to think as he lay dying, 'He will not +reign very long----'" + +"Aunt, he is the King, and I have the honour to be in his service----" + +"But does your post take away your right of free speech, my dear? You +come of quite as good a house as the Bourbons. If the Guises had shown a +little more resolution, His Majesty would be a nobody at this day. It is +time I went out of this world, the noblesse is dead. Yes, it is all +over with you, my children," she continued, looking as she spoke at the +Vidame. "What has my niece done that the whole town should be talking +about her? She is in the wrong; I disapprove of her conduct, a useless +scandal is a blunder; that is why I still have my doubts about this want +of regard for appearances; I brought her up, and I know that----" + +Just at that moment the Duchess came out of her boudoir. She had +recognised her aunt's voice and heard the name of Montriveau. She +was still in her loose morning-gown; and even as she came in, M. +de Grandlieu, looking carelessly out of the window, saw his niece's +carriage driving back along the street. The Duke took his daughter's +face in both hands and kissed her on the forehead. + +"So, dear girl," he said, "you do not know what is going on?" + +"Has anything extraordinary happened, father dear?" + +"Why, all Paris believes that you are with M. de Montriveau." + +"My dear Antoinette, you were at home all the time, were you not?" +said the Princess, holding out a hand, which the Duchess kissed with +affectionate respect. + +"Yes, dear mother; I was at home all the time. And," she added, as she +turned to greet the Vidame and the Marquis, "I wished that all Paris +should think that I was with M. de Montriveau." + +The Duke flung up his hands, struck them together in despair, and folded +his arms. + +"Then, cannot you see what will come of this mad freak?" he asked at +last. + +But the aged Princess had suddenly risen, and stood looking steadily +at the Duchess, the younger woman flushed, and her eyes fell. Mme de +Chauvry gently drew her closer, and said, "My little angel, let me kiss +you!" + +She kissed her niece very affectionately on the forehead, and continued +smiling, while she held her hand in a tight clasp. + +"We are not under the Valois now, dear child. You have compromised your +husband and your position. Still, we will arrange to make everything +right." + +"But, dear aunt, I do not wish to make it right at all. It is my wish +that all Paris should say that I was with M. de Montriveau this morning. +If you destroy that belief, however ill grounded it may be, you will do +me a singular disservice." + +"Do you really wish to ruin yourself, child, and to grieve your family?" + +"My family, father, unintentionally condemned me to irreparable +misfortune when they sacrificed me to family considerations. You may, +perhaps, blame me for seeking alleviations, but you will certainly feel +for me." + +"After all the endless pains you take to settle your daughters +suitably!" muttered M. de Navarreins, addressing the Vidame. + +The Princess shook a stray grain of snuff from her skirts. "My dear +little girl," she said, "be happy, if you can. We are not talking of +troubling your felicity, but of reconciling it with social usages. We +all of us here assembled know that marriage is a defective institution +tempered by love. But when you take a lover, is there any need to make +your bed in the Place du Carrousel? See now, just be a bit reasonable, +and hear what we have to say." + +"I am listening." + +"Mme la Duchesse," began the Duc de Grandlieu, "if it were any part of +an uncle's duty to look after his nieces, he ought to have a position; +society would owe him honours and rewards and a salary, exactly as if +he were in the King's service. So I am not here to talk about my nephew, +but of your own interests. Let us look ahead a little. If you persist in +making a scandal--I have seen the animal before, and I own that I have +no great liking for him--Langeais is stingy enough, and he does not care +a rap for anyone but himself; he will have a separation; he will stick +to your money, and leave you poor, and consequently you will be a +nobody. The income of a hundred thousand livres that you have just +inherited from your maternal great-aunt will go to pay for his +mistresses' amusements. You will be bound and gagged by the law; +you will have to say _Amen_ to all these arrangements. Suppose M. de +Montriveau leaves you----dear me! do not let us put ourselves in a +passion, my dear niece; a man does not leave a woman while she is young +and pretty; still, we have seen so many pretty women left disconsolate, +even among princesses, that you will permit the supposition, an all but +impossible supposition I quite wish to believe.----Well, suppose that +he goes, what will become of you without a husband? Keep well with your +husband as you take care of your beauty; for beauty, after all, is a +woman's parachute, and a husband also stands between you and worse. I +am supposing that you are happy and loved to the end, and I am leaving +unpleasant or unfortunate events altogether out of the reckoning. This +being so, fortunately or unfortunately, you may have children. What are +they to be? Montriveaus? Very well; they certainly will not succeed to +their father's whole fortune. You will want to give them all that you +have; he will wish to do the same. Nothing more natural, dear me! +And you will find the law against you. How many times have we +seen heirs-at-law bringing a law-suit to recover the property from +illegitimate children? Every court of law rings with such actions all +over the world. You will create a _fidei commissum_ perhaps; and if the +trustee betrays your confidence, your children have no remedy against +him; and they are ruined. So choose carefully. You see the perplexities +of the position. In every possible way your children will be sacrificed +of necessity to the fancies of your heart; they will have no recognised +status. While they are little they will be charming; but, Lord! some day +they will reproach you for thinking of no one but your two selves. We +old gentlemen know all about it. Little boys grow up into men, and men +are ungrateful beings. When I was in Germany, did I not hear young de +Horn say, after supper, 'If my mother had been an honest woman, I should +be prince-regnant!' _If_?' We have spent our lives in hearing plebeians +say _if_. _If_ brought about the Revolution. When a man cannot lay the +blame on his father or mother, he holds God responsible for his hard +lot. In short, dear child, we are here to open your eyes. I will say all +I have to say in a few words, on which you had better meditate: A woman +ought never to put her husband in the right." + +"Uncle, so long as I cared for nobody, I could calculate; I looked at +interests then, as you do; now, I can only feel." + +"But, my dear little girl," remonstrated the Vidame, "life is simply a +complication of interests and feelings; to be happy, more particularly +in your position, one must try to reconcile one's feelings with +one's interests. A grisette may love according to her fancy, that is +intelligible enough, but you have a pretty fortune, a family, a name and +a place at Court, and you ought not to fling them out of the window. +And what have we been asking you to do to keep them all?--To manoeuvre +carefully instead of falling foul of social conventions. Lord! I shall +very soon be eighty years old, and I cannot recollect, under any regime, +a love worth the price that you are willing to pay for the love of this +lucky young man." + +The Duchess silenced the Vidame with a look; if Montriveau could have +seen that glance, he would have forgiven all. + +"It would be very effective on the stage," remarked the Duc de +Grandlieu, "but it all amounts to nothing when your jointure and +position and independence is concerned. You are not grateful, my dear +niece. You will not find many families where the relatives have courage +enough to teach the wisdom gained by experience, and to make rash young +heads listen to reason. Renounce your salvation in two minutes, if it +pleases you to damn yourself; well and good; but reflect well beforehand +when it comes to renouncing your income. I know of no confessor who +remits the pains of poverty. I have a right, I think, to speak in this +way to you; for if you are ruined, I am the one person who can offer you +a refuge. I am almost an uncle to Langeais, and I alone have a right to +put him in the wrong." + +The Duc de Navarreins roused himself from painful reflections. + +"Since you speak of feeling, my child," he said, "let me remind you that +a woman who bears your name ought to be moved by sentiments which do +not touch ordinary people. Can you wish to give an advantage to the +Liberals, to those Jesuits of Robespierre's that are doing all they +can to vilify the noblesse? Some things a Navarreins cannot do +without failing in duty to his house. You would not be alone in your +dishonor----" + +"Come, come!" said the Princess. "Dishonor? Do not make such a fuss +about the journey of an empty carriage, children, and leave me alone +with Antoinette. All three of you come and dine with me. I will +undertake to arrange matters suitably. You men understand nothing; +you are beginning to talk sourly already, and I have no wish to see a +quarrel between you and my dear child. Do me the pleasure to go." + +The three gentlemen probably guessed the Princess's intentions; they +took their leave. M. de Navarreins kissed his daughter on the forehead +with, "Come, be good, dear child. It is not too late yet if you choose." + +"Couldn't we find some good fellow in the family to pick a quarrel with +this Montriveau?" said the Vidame, as they went downstairs. + +When the two women were alone, the Princess beckoned her niece to a +little low chair by her side. + +"My pearl," said she, "in this world below, I know nothing worse +calumniated than God and the eighteenth century; for as I look back over +my own young days, I do not recollect that a single duchess trampled the +proprieties underfoot as you have just done. Novelists and scribblers +brought the reign of Louis XV into disrepute. Do not believe them. The +du Barry, my dear, was quite as good as the Widow Scarron, and the more +agreeable woman of the two. In my time a woman could keep her dignity +among her gallantries. Indiscretion was the ruin of us, and the +beginning of all the mischief. The philosophists--the nobodies whom we +admitted into our salons--had no more gratitude or sense of decency than +to make an inventory of our hearts, to traduce us one and all, and to +rail against the age by way of a return for our kindness. The people are +not in a position to judge of anything whatsoever; they looked at the +facts, not at the form. But the men and women of those times, my heart, +were quite as remarkable as at any other period of the Monarchy. Not one +of your Werthers, none of your notabilities, as they are called, never +a one of your men in yellow kid gloves and trousers that disguise the +poverty of their legs, would cross Europe in the dress of a travelling +hawker to brave the daggers of a Duke of Modena, and to shut himself up +in the dressing-room of the Regent's daughter at the risk of his life. +Not one of your little consumptive patients with their tortoiseshell +eyeglasses would hide himself in a closet for six weeks, like Lauzun, +to keep up his mistress's courage while she was lying in of her child. +There was more passion in M. de Jaucourt's little finger than in +your whole race of higglers that leave a woman to better themselves +elsewhere! Just tell me where to find the page that would be cut in +pieces and buried under the floorboards for one kiss on the Konigsmark's +gloved finger! + +"Really, it would seem today that the roles are exchanged, and women +are expected to show their devotion for men. These modern gentlemen are +worth less, and think more of themselves. Believe me, my dear, all these +adventures that have been made public, and now are turned against our +good Louis XV, were kept quite secret at first. If it had not been for +a pack of poetasters, scribblers, and moralists, who hung about our +waiting-women, and took down their slanders, our epoch would have +appeared in literature as a well-conducted age. I am justifying the +century and not its fringe. Perhaps a hundred women of quality were +lost; but for every one, the rogues set down ten, like the gazettes +after a battle when they count up the losses of the beaten side. And in +any case I do not know that the Revolution and the Empire can reproach +us; they were coarse, dull, licentious times. Faugh! it is revolting. +Those are the brothels of French history. + +"This preamble, my dear child," she continued after a pause, "brings +me to the thing that I have to say. If you care for Montriveau, you are +quite at liberty to love him at your ease, and as much as you can. I +know by experience that, unless you are locked up (but locking people +up is out of fashion now), you will do as you please; I should have done +the same at your age. Only, sweetheart, I should not have given up my +right to be the mother of future Ducs de Langeais. So mind appearances. +The Vidame is right. No man is worth a single one of the sacrifices +which we are foolish enough to make for their love. Put yourself in +such a position that you may still be M. de Langeais' wife, in case you +should have the misfortune to repent. When you are an old woman, you +will be very glad to hear mass said at Court, and not in some provincial +convent. Therein lies the whole question. A single imprudence means an +allowance and a wandering life; it means that you are at the mercy of +your lover; it means that you must put up with insolence from women +that are not so honest, precisely because they have been very vulgarly +sharp-witted. It would be a hundred times better to go to Montriveau's +at night in a cab, and disguised, instead of sending your carriage in +broad daylight. You are a little fool, my dear child! Your carriage +flattered his vanity; your person would have ensnared his heart. All +this that I have said is just and true; but, for my own part, I do not +blame you. You are two centuries behind the times with your false ideas +of greatness. There, leave us to arrange your affairs, and say that +Montriveau made your servants drunk to gratify his vanity and to +compromise you----" + +The Duchess rose to her feet with a spring. "In Heaven's name, aunt, do +not slander him!" + +The old Princess's eyes flashed. + +"Dear child," she said, "I should have liked to spare such of your +illusions as were not fatal. But there must be an end of all illusions +now. You would soften me if I were not so old. Come, now, do not vex +him, or us, or anyone else. I will undertake to satisfy everybody; but +promise me not to permit yourself a single step henceforth until you +have consulted me. Tell me all, and perhaps I may bring it all right +again." + +"Aunt, I promise----" + +"To tell me everything?" + +"Yes, everything. Everything that can be told." + +"But, my sweetheart, it is precisely what cannot be told that I want +to know. Let us understand each other thoroughly. Come, let me put my +withered old lips on your beautiful forehead. No; let me do as I wish. I +forbid you to kiss my bones. Old people have a courtesy of their own.... +There, take me down to my carriage," she added, when she had kissed her +niece. + +"Then may I go to him in disguise, dear aunt?" + +"Why--yes. The story can always be denied," said the old Princess. + +This was the one idea which the Duchess had clearly grasped in the +sermon. When Mme de Chauvry was seated in the corner of her carriage, +Mme de Langeais bade her a graceful adieu and went up to her room. She +was quite happy again. + +"My person would have snared his heart; my aunt is right; a man cannot +surely refuse a pretty woman when she understands how to offer herself." + +That evening, at the Elysee-Bourbon, the Duc de Navarreins, M. de +Pamiers, M. de Marsay, M. de Grandlieu, and the Duc de Maufrigneuse +triumphantly refuted the scandals that were circulating with regard to +the Duchesse de Langeais. So many officers and other persons had seen +Montriveau walking in the Tuileries that morning, that the silly story +was set down to chance, which takes all that is offered. And so, +in spite of the fact that the Duchess's carriage had waited before +Montriveau's door, her character became as clear and as spotless as +Membrino's sword after Sancho had polished it up. + +But, at two o'clock, M. de Ronquerolles passed Montriveau in a deserted +alley, and said with a smile, "She is coming on, is your Duchess. Go on, +keep it up!" he added, and gave a significant cut of the riding whip to +his mare, who sped off like a bullet down the avenue. + +Two days after the fruitless scandal, Mme de Langeais wrote to M. de +Montriveau. That letter, like the preceding ones, remained unanswered. +This time she took her own measures, and bribed M. de Montriveau's man, +Auguste. And so at eight o'clock that evening she was introduced into +Armand's apartment. It was not the room in which that secret scene had +passed; it was entirely different. The Duchess was told that the General +would not be at home that night. Had he two houses? The man would give +no answer. Mme de Langeais had bought the key of the room, but not the +man's whole loyalty. + +When she was left alone she saw her fourteen letters lying on an +old-fashioned stand, all of them uncreased and unopened. He had not +read them. She sank into an easy-chair, and for a while she lost +consciousness. When she came to herself, Auguste was holding vinegar for +her to inhale. + +"A carriage; quick!" she ordered. + +The carriage came. She hastened downstairs with convulsive speed, and +left orders that no one was to be admitted. For twenty-four hours she +lay in bed, and would have no one near her but her woman, who brought +her a cup of orange-flower water from time to time. Suzette heard +her mistress moan once or twice, and caught a glimpse of tears in the +brilliant eyes, now circled with dark shadows. + +The next day, amid despairing tears, Mme de Langeais took her +resolution. Her man of business came for an interview, and no doubt +received instructions of some kind. Afterwards she sent for the +Vidame de Pamiers; and while she waited, she wrote a letter to M. +de Montriveau. The Vidame punctually came towards two o'clock that +afternoon, to find his young cousin looking white and worn, but +resigned; never had her divine loveliness been more poetic than now in +the languor of her agony. + +"You owe this assignation to your eighty-four years, dear cousin," she +said. "Ah! do not smile, I beg of you, when an unhappy woman has reached +the lowest depths of wretchedness. You are a gentleman, and after the +adventures of your youth you must feel some indulgence for women." + +"None whatever," said he. + +"Indeed!" + +"Everything is in their favour." + +"Ah! Well, you are one of the inner family circle; possibly you will be +the last relative, the last friend whose hand I shall press, so I can +ask your good offices. Will you, dear Vidame, do me a service which I +could not ask of my own father, nor of my uncle Grandlieu, nor of any +woman? You cannot fail to understand. I beg of you to do my bidding, and +then to forget what you have done, whatever may come of it. It is this: +Will you take this letter and go to M. de Montriveau? will you see him +yourself, give it into his hands, and ask him, as you men can ask things +between yourselves--for you have a code of honour between man and man +which you do not use with us, and a different way of regarding things +between yourselves--ask him if he will read this letter? Not in +your presence. Certain feelings men hide from each other. I give you +authority to say, if you think it necessary to bring him, that it is a +question of life or death for me. If he deigns----" + +"_Deigns_!" repeated the Vidame. + +"If he deigns to read it," the Duchess continued with dignity, "say one +thing more. You will go to see him about five o'clock, for I know that +he will dine at home today at that time. Very good. By way of answer he +must come to see me. If, three hours afterwards, by eight o'clock, he +does not leave his house, all will be over. The Duchesse de Langeais +will have vanished from the world. I shall not be dead, dear friend, no, +but no human power will ever find me again on this earth. Come and dine +with me; I shall at least have one friend with me in the last agony. +Yes, dear cousin, tonight will decide my fate; and whatever happens to +me, I pass through an ordeal by fire. There! not a word. I will hear +nothing of the nature of comment or advice----Let us chat and laugh +together," she added, holding out a hand, which he kissed. "We will be +like two grey-headed philosophers who have learned how to enjoy life to +the last moment. I will look my best; I will be very enchanting for +you. You perhaps will be the last man to set eyes on the Duchesse de +Langeais." + +The Vicomte bowed, took the letter, and went without a word. At five +o'clock he returned. His cousin had studied to please him, and she +looked lovely indeed. The room was gay with flowers as if for a +festivity; the dinner was exquisite. For the grey-headed Vidame the +Duchess displayed all the brilliancy of her wit; she was more charming +than she had ever been before. At first the Vidame tried to look on +all these preparations as a young woman's jest; but now and again the +attempted illusion faded, the spell of his fair cousin's charm was +broken. He detected a shudder caused by some kind of sudden dread, and +once she seemed to listen during a pause. + +"What is the matter?" he asked. + +"Hush!" she said. + +At seven o'clock the Duchess left him for a few minutes. When she came +back again she was dressed as her maid might have dressed for a journey. +She asked her guest to be her escort, took his arm, sprang into a +hackney coach, and by a quarter to eight they stood outside M. de +Montriveau's door. + +Armand meantime had been reading the following letter:-- + + +"MY FRIEND,--I went to your rooms for a few minutes without your +knowledge; I found my letters there, and took them away. This cannot +be indifference, Armand, between us; and hatred would show itself quite +differently. If you love me, make an end of this cruel play, or you will +kill me, and afterwards, learning how much you were loved, you might be +in despair. If I have not rightly understood you, if you have no feeling +towards me but aversion, which implies both contempt and disgust, then +I give up all hope. A man never recovers from those feelings. You will +have no regrets. Dreadful though that thought may be, it will comfort me +in my long sorrow. Regrets? Oh, my Armand, may I never know of them; if +I thought that I had caused you a single regret----But, no, I will not +tell you what desolation I should feel. I should be living still, and I +could not be your wife; it would be too late! + +"Now that I have given myself wholly to you in thought, to whom else +should I give myself?--to God. The eyes that you loved for a little +while shall never look on another man's face; and may the glory of God +blind them to all besides. I shall never hear human voices more since I +heard yours--so gentle at the first, so terrible yesterday; for it seems +to me that I am still only on the morrow of your vengeance. And now +may the will of God consume me. Between His wrath and yours, my friend, +there will be nothing left for me but a little space for tears and +prayers. + +"Perhaps you wonder why I write to you? Ah! do not think ill of me if I +keep a gleam of hope, and give one last sigh to happy life before I take +leave of it forever. I am in a hideous position. I feel all the inward +serenity that comes when a great resolution has been taken, even while I +hear the last growlings of the storm. When you went out on that terrible +adventure which so drew me to you, Armand, you went from the desert to +the oasis with a good guide to show you the way. Well, I am going out of +the oasis into the desert, and you are a pitiless guide to me. And yet +you only, my friend, can understand how melancholy it is to look back +for the last time on happiness--to you, and you only, I can make moan +without a blush. If you grant my entreaty, I shall be happy; if you are +inexorable, I shall expiate the wrong that I have done. After all, it is +natural, is it not, that a woman should wish to live, invested with all +noble feelings, in her friend's memory? Oh! my one and only love, let +her to whom you gave life go down into the tomb in the belief that she +is great in your eyes. Your harshness led me to reflect; and now that I +love you so, it seems to me that I am less guilty than you think. Listen +to my justification, I owe it to you; and you that are all the world to +me, owe me at least a moment's justice. + +"I have learned by my own anguish all that I made you suffer by my +coquetry; but in those days I was utterly ignorant of love. _You_ know +what the torture is, and you mete it out to me! During those first eight +months that you gave me you never roused any feeling of love in me. Do +you ask why this was so, my friend? I can no more explain it than I can +tell you why I love you now. Oh! certainly it flattered my vanity that I +should be the subject of your passionate talk, and receive those burning +glances of yours; but you left me cold. No, I was not a woman; I had +no conception of womanly devotion and happiness. Who was to blame? You +would have despised me, would you not, if I had given myself without +the impulse of passion? Perhaps it is the highest height to which we +can rise--to give all and receive no joy; perhaps there is no merit in +yielding oneself to bliss that is foreseen and ardently desired. Alas, +my friend, I can say this now; these thoughts came to me when I played +with you; and you seemed to me so great even then that I would not have +you owe the gift to pity----What is this that I have written? + +"I have taken back all my letters; I am flinging them one by one on the +fire; they are burning. You will never know what they confessed--all the +love and the passion and the madness---- + +"I will say no more, Armand; I will stop. I will not say another word of +my feelings. If my prayers have not echoed from my soul through yours, +I also, woman that I am, decline to owe your love to your pity. It is my +wish to be loved, because you cannot choose but love me, or else to +be left without mercy. If you refuse to read this letter, it shall be +burnt. If, after you have read it, you do not come to me within three +hours, to be henceforth forever my husband, the one man in the world for +me; then I shall never blush to know that this letter is in your hands, +the pride of my despair will protect my memory from all insult, and my +end shall be worthy of my love. When you see me no more on earth, albeit +I shall still be alive, you yourself will not think without a shudder +of the woman who, in three hours' time, will live only to overwhelm +you with her tenderness; a woman consumed by a hopeless love, and +faithful--not to memories of past joys--but to a love that was slighted. + +"The Duchesse de la Valliere wept for lost happiness and vanished power; +but the Duchesse de Langeais will be happy that she may weep and be a +power for you still. Yes, you will regret me. I see clearly that I was +not of this world, and I thank you for making it clear to me. + +"Farewell; you will never touch _my_ axe. Yours was the executioner's +axe, mine is God's; yours kills, mine saves. Your love was but mortal, +it could not endure disdain or ridicule; mine can endure all things +without growing weaker, it will last eternally. Ah! I feel a sombre joy +in crushing you that believe yourself so great; in humbling you with the +calm, indulgent smile of one of the least among the angels that lie at +the feet of God, for to them is given the right and the power to protect +and watch over men in His name. You have but felt fleeting desires, +while the poor nun will shed the light of her ceaseless and ardent +prayer about you, she will shelter you all your life long beneath the +wings of a love that has nothing of earth in it. + +"I have a presentiment of your answer; our trysting place shall be--in +heaven. Strength and weakness can both enter there, dear Armand; the +strong and the weak are bound to suffer. This thought soothes the +anguish of my final ordeal. So calm am I that I should fear that I had +ceased to love you if I were not about to leave the world for your sake. + + "ANTOINETTE." + + +"Dear Vidame," said the Duchess as they reached Montriveau's house, "do +me the kindness to ask at the door whether he is at home." The Vidame, +obedient after the manner of the eighteenth century to a woman's wish, +got out, and came back to bring his cousin an affirmative answer that +sent a shudder through her. She grasped his hand tightly in hers, +suffered him to kiss her on either cheek, and begged him to go at once. +He must not watch her movements nor try to protect her. "But the people +passing in the street," he objected. + +"No one can fail in respect to me," she said. It was the last word +spoken by the Duchess and the woman of fashion. + +The Vidame went. Mme de Langeais wrapped herself about in her cloak, +and stood on the doorstep until the clocks struck eight. The last stroke +died away. The unhappy woman waited ten, fifteen minutes; to the last +she tried to see a fresh humiliation in the delay, then her faith ebbed. +She turned to leave the fatal threshold. + +"Oh, God!" the cry broke from her in spite of herself; it was the first +word spoken by the Carmelite. + + + +Montriveau and some of his friends were talking together. He tried to +hasten them to a conclusion, but his clock was slow, and by the time he +started out for the Hotel de Langeais the Duchess was hurrying on foot +through the streets of Paris, goaded by the dull rage in her heart. She +reached the Boulevard d'Enfer, and looked out for the last time through +falling tears on the noisy, smoky city that lay below in a red mist, +lighted up by its own lamps. Then she hailed a cab, and drove away, +never to return. When the Marquis de Montriveau reached the Hotel de +Langeais, and found no trace of his mistress, he thought that he had +been duped. He hurried away at once to the Vidame, and found that worthy +gentleman in the act of slipping on his flowered dressing-gown, thinking +the while of his fair cousin's happiness. + +Montriveau gave him one of the terrific glances that produced the effect +of an electric shock on men and women alike. + +"Is it possible that you have lent yourself to some cruel hoax, +monsieur?" Montriveau exclaimed. "I have just come from Mme de Langeais' +house; the servants say that she is out." + +"Then a great misfortune has happened, no doubt," returned the Vidame, +"and through your fault. I left the Duchess at your door----" + +"When?" + +"At a quarter to eight." + +"Good evening," returned Montriveau, and he hurried home to ask the +porter whether he had seen a lady standing on the doorstep that evening. + +"Yes, my Lord Marquis, a handsome woman, who seemed very much put out. +She was crying like a Magdalen, but she never made a sound, and stood +as upright as a post. Then at last she went, and my wife and I that were +watching her while she could not see us, heard her say, 'Oh, God!' so +that it went to our hearts, asking your pardon, to hear her say it." + +Montriveau, in spite of all his firmness, turned pale at those few +words. He wrote a few lines to Ronquerolles, sent off the message at +once, and went up to his rooms. Ronquerolles came just about midnight. + +Armand gave him the Duchess's letter to read. + +"Well?" asked Ronquerolles. + +"She was here at my door at eight o'clock; at a quarter-past eight she +had gone. I have lost her, and I love her. Oh! if my life were my own, I +could blow my brains out." + +"Pooh, pooh! Keep cool," said Ronquerolles. "Duchesses do not fly off +like wagtails. She cannot travel faster than three leagues an hour, and +tomorrow we will ride six.--Confound it! Mme de Langeais is no ordinary +woman," he continued. "Tomorrow we will all of us mount and ride. +The police will put us on her track during the day. She must have a +carriage; angels of that sort have no wings. We shall find her whether +she is on the road or hidden in Paris. There is the semaphore. We can +stop her. You shall be happy. But, my dear fellow, you have made a +blunder, of which men of your energy are very often guilty. They judge +others by themselves, and do not know the point when human nature gives +way if you strain the cords too tightly. Why did you not say a word +to me sooner? I would have told you to be punctual. Good-bye till +tomorrow," he added, as Montriveau said nothing. "Sleep if you can," he +added, with a grasp of the hand. + +But the greatest resources which society has ever placed at the disposal +of statesmen, kings, ministers, bankers, or any human power, in fact, +were all exhausted in vain. Neither Montriveau nor his friends could +find any trace of the Duchess. It was clear that she had entered a +convent. Montriveau determined to search, or to institute a search, for +her through every convent in the world. He must have her, even at the +cost of all the lives in a town. And in justice to this extraordinary +man, it must be said that his frenzied passion awoke to the same +ardour daily and lasted through five years. Only in 1829 did the Duc de +Navarreins hear by chance that his daughter had travelled to Spain as +Lady Julia Hopwood's maid, that she had left her service at Cadiz, and +that Lady Julia never discovered that Mlle Caroline was the illustrious +duchess whose sudden disappearance filled the minds of the highest +society of Paris. + + + +The feelings of the two lovers when they met again on either side of the +grating in the Carmelite convent should now be comprehended to the full, +and the violence of the passion awakened in either soul will doubtless +explain the catastrophe of the story. + +In 1823 the Duc de Langeais was dead, and his wife was free. Antoinette +de Navarreins was living, consumed by love, on a ledge of rock in +the Mediterranean; but it was in the Pope's power to dissolve Sister +Theresa's vows. The happiness bought by so much love might yet bloom +for the two lovers. These thoughts sent Montriveau flying from Cadiz to +Marseilles, and from Marseilles to Paris. + +A few months after his return to France, a merchant brig, fitted out and +munitioned for active service, set sail from the port of Marseilles for +Spain. The vessel had been chartered by several distinguished men, most +of them Frenchmen, who, smitten with a romantic passion for the East, +wished to make a journey to those lands. Montriveau's familiar knowledge +of Eastern customs made him an invaluable travelling companion, and at +the entreaty of the rest he had joined the expedition; the Minister +of War appointed him lieutenant-general, and put him on the Artillery +Commission to facilitate his departure. + +Twenty-fours hours later the brig lay to off the north-west shore of an +island within sight of the Spanish coast. She had been specially chosen +for her shallow keel and light mastage, so that she might lie at anchor +in safety half a league away from the reefs that secure the island from +approach in this direction. If fishing vessels or the people on the +island caught sight of the brig, they were scarcely likely to feel +suspicious of her at once; and besides, it was easy to give a reason for +her presence without delay. Montriveau hoisted the flag of the United +States before they came in sight of the island, and the crew of the +vessel were all American sailors, who spoke nothing but English. One +of M. de Montriveau's companions took the men ashore in the ship's +longboat, and made them so drunk at an inn in the little town that +they could not talk. Then he gave out that the brig was manned by +treasure-seekers, a gang of men whose hobby was well known in the United +States; indeed, some Spanish writer had written a history of them. The +presence of the brig among the reefs was now sufficiently explained. +The owners of the vessel, according to the self-styled boatswain's mate, +were looking for the wreck of a galleon which foundered thereabouts in +1778 with a cargo of treasure from Mexico. The people at the inn and the +authorities asked no more questions. + +Armand, and the devoted friends who were helping him in his difficult +enterprise, were all from the first of the opinion that there was no +hope of rescuing or carrying off Sister Theresa by force or stratagem +from the side of the little town. Wherefore these bold spirits, with one +accord, determined to take the bull by the horns. They would make a way +to the convent at the most seemingly inaccessible point; like General +Lamarque, at the storming of Capri, they would conquer Nature. The cliff +at the end of the island, a sheer block of granite, afforded even less +hold than the rock of Capri. So it seemed at least to Montriveau, who +had taken part in that incredible exploit, while the nuns in his eyes +were much more redoubtable than Sir Hudson Lowe. To raise a hubbub over +carrying off the Duchess would cover them with confusion. They might as +well set siege to the town and convent, like pirates, and leave not a +single soul to tell of their victory. So for them their expedition wore +but two aspects. There should be a conflagration and a feat of arms +that should dismay all Europe, while the motives of the crime remained +unknown; or, on the other hand, a mysterious, aerial descent which +should persuade the nuns that the Devil himself had paid them a visit. +They had decided upon the latter course in the secret council held +before they left Paris, and subsequently everything had been done to +insure the success of an expedition which promised some real excitement +to jaded spirits weary of Paris and its pleasures. + +An extremely light pirogue, made at Marseilles on a Malayan model, +enabled them to cross the reef, until the rocks rose from out of the +water. Then two cables of iron wire were fastened several feet apart +between one rock and another. These wire ropes slanted upwards and +downwards in opposite directions, so that baskets of iron wire could +travel to and fro along them; and in this manner the rocks were covered +with a system of baskets and wire-cables, not unlike the filaments +which a certain species of spider weaves about a tree. The Chinese, an +essentially imitative people, were the first to take a lesson from the +work of instinct. Fragile as these bridges were, they were always ready +for use; high waves and the caprices of the sea could not throw them +out of working order; the ropes hung just sufficiently slack, so as to +present to the breakers that particular curve discovered by Cachin, the +immortal creator of the harbour at Cherbourg. Against this cunningly +devised line the angry surge is powerless; the law of that curve was +a secret wrested from Nature by that faculty of observation in which +nearly all human genius consists. + +M. de Montriveau's companions were alone on board the vessel, and out of +sight of every human eye. No one from the deck of a passing vessel could +have discovered either the brig hidden among the reefs, or the men at +work among the rocks; they lay below the ordinary range of the most +powerful telescope. Eleven days were spent in preparation, before the +Thirteen, with all their infernal power, could reach the foot of the +cliffs. The body of the rock rose up straight from the sea to a height +of thirty fathoms. Any attempt to climb the sheer wall of granite seemed +impossible; a mouse might as well try to creep up the slippery sides of +a plain china vase. Still there was a cleft, a straight line of fissure +so fortunately placed that large blocks of wood could be wedged firmly +into it at a distance of about a foot apart. Into these blocks the +daring workers drove iron cramps, specially made for the purpose, with +a broad iron bracket at the outer end, through which a hole had been +drilled. Each bracket carried a light deal board which corresponded with +a notch made in a pole that reached to the top of the cliffs, and was +firmly planted in the beach at their feet. With ingenuity worthy of +these men who found nothing impossible, one of their number, a skilled +mathematician, had calculated the angle from which the steps must start; +so that from the middle they rose gradually, like the sticks of a fan, +to the top of the cliff, and descended in the same fashion to its +base. That miraculously light, yet perfectly firm, staircase cost them +twenty-two days of toil. A little tinder and the surf of the sea would +destroy all trace of it forever in a single night. A betrayal of the +secret was impossible; and all search for the violators of the convent +was doomed to failure. + +At the top of the rock there was a platform with sheer precipice on all +sides. The Thirteen, reconnoitring the ground with their glasses from +the masthead, made certain that though the ascent was steep and rough, +there would be no difficulty in gaining the convent garden, where the +trees were thick enough for a hiding-place. After such great efforts +they would not risk the success of their enterprise, and were compelled +to wait till the moon passed out of her last quarter. + +For two nights Montriveau, wrapped in his cloak, lay out on the rock +platform. The singing at vespers and matins filled him with unutterable +joy. He stood under the wall to hear the music of the organ, listening +intently for one voice among the rest. But in spite of the silence, the +confused effect of music was all that reached his ears. In those sweet +harmonies defects of execution are lost; the pure spirit of art comes +into direct communication with the spirit of the hearer, making +no demand on the attention, no strain on the power of listening. +Intolerable memories awoke. All the love within him seemed to break into +blossom again at the breath of that music; he tried to find auguries of +happiness in the air. During the last night he sat with his eyes fixed +upon an ungrated window, for bars were not needed on the side of the +precipice. A light shone there all through the hours; and that instinct +of the heart, which is sometimes true, and as often false, cried within +him, "She is there!" + +"She is certainly there! Tomorrow she will be mine," he said to himself, +and joy blended with the slow tinkling of a bell that began to ring. + +Strange unaccountable workings of the heart! The nun, wasted by yearning +love, worn out with tears and fasting, prayer and vigils; the woman of +nine-and-twenty, who had passed through heavy trials, was loved more +passionately than the lighthearted girl, the woman of four-and-twenty, +the sylphide, had ever been. But is there not, for men of vigorous +character, something attractive in the sublime expression engraven on +women's faces by the impetuous stirrings of thought and misfortunes of +no ignoble kind? Is there not a beauty of suffering which is the most +interesting of all beauty to those men who feel that within them there +is an inexhaustible wealth of tenderness and consoling pity for a +creature so gracious in weakness, so strong with love? It is the +ordinary nature that is attracted by young, smooth, pink-and-white +beauty, or, in one word, by prettiness. In some faces love awakens +amid the wrinkles carved by sorrow and the ruin made by melancholy; +Montriveau could not but feel drawn to these. For cannot a lover, +with the voice of a great longing, call forth a wholly new creature? a +creature athrob with the life but just begun breaks forth for him alone, +from the outward form that is fair for him, and faded for all the world +besides. Does he not love two women?--One of them, as others see her, +is pale and wan and sad; but the other, the unseen love that his heart +knows, is an angel who understands life through feeling, and is adorned +in all her glory only for love's high festivals. + +The General left his post before sunrise, but not before he had heard +voices singing together, sweet voices full of tenderness sounding +faintly from the cell. When he came down to the foot of the cliffs where +his friends were waiting, he told them that never in his life had +he felt such enthralling bliss, and in the few words there was that +unmistakable thrill of repressed strong feeling, that magnificent +utterance which all men respect. + + + +That night eleven of his devoted comrades made the ascent in the +darkness. Each man carried a poniard, a provision of chocolate, and +a set of house-breaking tools. They climbed the outer walls with +scaling-ladders, and crossed the cemetery of the convent. Montriveau +recognised the long, vaulted gallery through which he went to the +parlour, and remembered the windows of the room. His plans were made and +adopted in a moment. They would effect an entrance through one of the +windows in the Carmelite's half of the parlour, find their way along +the corridors, ascertain whether the sister's names were written on the +doors, find Sister Theresa's cell, surprise her as she slept, and carry +her off, bound and gagged. The programme presented no difficulties to +men who combined boldness and a convict's dexterity with the knowledge +peculiar to men of the world, especially as they would not scruple to +give a stab to ensure silence. + +In two hours the bars were sawn through. Three men stood on guard +outside, and two inside the parlour. The rest, barefooted, took up their +posts along the corridor. Young Henri de Marsay, the most dexterous +man among them, disguised by way of precaution in a Carmelite's robe, +exactly like the costume of the convent, led the way, and Montriveau +came immediately behind him. The clock struck three just as the two men +reached the dormitory cells. They soon saw the position. Everything was +perfectly quiet. With the help of a dark lantern they read the names +luckily written on every door, together with the picture of a saint or +saints and the mystical words which every nun takes as a kind of +motto for the beginning of her new life and the revelation of her +last thought. Montriveau reached Sister Theresa's door and read the +inscription, _Sub invocatione sanctae matris Theresae_, and her motto, +_Adoremus in aeternum_. Suddenly his companion laid a hand on his +shoulder. A bright light was streaming through the chinks of the door. +M. de Ronquerolles came up at that moment. + +"All the nuns are in the church," he said; "they are beginning the +Office for the Dead." + +"I will stay here," said Montriveau. "Go back into the parlour, and shut +the door at the end of the passage." + +He threw open the door and rushed in, preceded by his disguised +companion, who let down the veil over his face. + +There before them lay the dead Duchess; her plank bed had been laid on +the floor of the outer room of her cell, between two lighted candles. +Neither Montriveau nor de Marsay spoke a word or uttered a cry; but they +looked into each other's faces. The General's dumb gesture tried to say, +"Let us carry her away!" + +"Quickly" shouted Ronquerolles, "the procession of nuns is leaving the +church. You will be caught!" + +With magical swiftness of movement, prompted by an intense desire, the +dead woman was carried into the convent parlour, passed through the +window, and lowered from the walls before the Abbess, followed by the +nuns, returned to take up Sister Theresa's body. The sister left in +charge had imprudently left her post; there were secrets that she longed +to know; and so busy was she ransacking the inner room, that she heard +nothing, and was horrified when she came back to find that the body was +gone. Before the women, in their blank amazement, could think of making +a search, the Duchess had been lowered by a cord to the foot of the +crags, and Montriveau's companions had destroyed all traces of their +work. By nine o'clock that morning there was not a sign to show that +either staircase or wire-cables had ever existed, and Sister Theresa's +body had been taken on board. The brig came into the port to ship her +crew, and sailed that day. + +Montriveau, down in the cabin, was left alone with Antoinette +de Navarreins. For some hours it seemed as if her dead face was +transfigured for him by that unearthly beauty which the calm of death +gives to the body before it perishes. + +"Look here," said Ronquerolles when Montriveau reappeared on deck, +"_that_ was a woman once, now it is nothing. Let us tie a cannon ball +to both feet and throw the body overboard; and if ever you think of her +again, think of her as of some book that you read as a boy." + +"Yes," assented Montriveau, "it is nothing now but a dream." + +"That is sensible of you. Now, after this, have passions; but as for +love, a man ought to know how to place it wisely; it is only a woman's +last love that can satisfy a man's first love." + + + + +ADDENDUM + +Note: The Duchesse de Langeais is the second part of a trilogy. Part one +is entitled Ferragus and part three is The Girl with the Golden Eyes. In +other addendum references all three stories are usually combined under +the title The Thirteen. + + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Blamont-Chauvry, Princesse de + Madame Firmiani + The Lily of the Valley + + Grandlieu, Duc Ferdinand de + The Gondreville Mystery + A Bachelor's Establishment + Modeste Mignon + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + + Granville, Comtesse Angelique de + A Second Home + A Daughter of Eve + + Keller, Madame Francois + Domestic Peace + The Member for Arcis + + Langeais, Duc de + An Episode under the Terror + + Langeais, Duchesse Antoinette de + Father Goriot + Ferragus + + Marsay, Henri de + Ferragus + The Girl with the Golden Eyes + The Unconscious Humorists + Another Study of Woman + The Lily of the Valley + Father Goriot + Jealousies of a Country Town + Ursule Mirouet + A Marriage Settlement + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Letters of Two Brides + The Ball at Sceaux + Modeste Mignon + The Secrets of a Princess + The Gondreville Mystery + A Daughter of Eve + + Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de + Father Goriot + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Another Study of Woman + Pierrette + The Member for Arcis + + Navarreins, Duc de + A Bachelor's Establishment + Colonel Chabert + The Muse of the Department + Jealousies of a Country Town + The Peasantry + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + The Country Parson + The Magic Skin + The Gondreville Mystery + The Secrets of a Princess + Cousin Betty + + Pamiers, Vidame de + Ferragus + Jealousies of a Country Town + + Ronquerolles, Marquis de + The Imaginary Mistress + The Peasantry + Ursule Mirouet + A Woman of Thirty + Another Study of Woman + Ferragus + The Girl with the Golden Eyes + The Member for Arcis + + Serizy, Comtesse de + A Start in Life + Ferragus + Ursule Mirouet + A Woman of Thirty + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + Another Study of Woman + The Imaginary Mistress + + Soulanges, Comtesse Hortense de + Domestic Peace + The Peasantry + + Talleyrand-Perigord, Charles-Maurice de + The Chouans + The Gondreville Mystery + Letters of Two Brides + Gaudissart II + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Duchesse de Langeais, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS *** + +***** This file should be named 469.txt or 469.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/469/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Binary files differdiff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1870e74 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #469 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/469) diff --git a/old/20040919-469.txt b/old/20040919-469.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4cd3144 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20040919-469.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6458 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Duchesse de Langeais, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: The Duchesse de Langeais + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Release Date: September 19, 2004 [EBook #469] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS *** + + + + + + THE DUCHESSE OF LANGEAIS + + BY + + HONORE DE BALZAC + + + + Translated by + Ellen Marriage + + + + +PREPARER'S NOTE: + + The Duchesse of Langeais is the second part of a trilogy. Part + one is entitled Ferragus and part three is The Girl with the + Golden Eyes. The three stories are frequently combined under the + title The Thirteen. + + + + + To Franz Liszt + + + +In a Spanish city on an island in the Mediterranean, there stands +a convent of the Order of Barefoot Carmelites, where the rule +instituted by St. Theresa is still preserved with all the first +rigor of the reformation brought about by that illustrious +woman. Extraordinary as this may seem, it is none the less true. +Almost every religious house in the Peninsula, or in Europe for +that matter, was either destroyed or disorganized by the outbreak +of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars; but as this +island was protected through those times by the English fleet, +its wealthy convent and peaceable inhabitants were secure from +the general trouble and spoliation. The storms of many kinds +which shook the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century +spent their force before they reached those cliffs at so short a +distance from the coast of Andalusia. + +If the rumour of the Emperor's name so much as reached the shore +of the island, it is doubtful whether the holy women kneeling in +the cloisters grasped the reality of his dream-like progress of +glory, or the majesty that blazed in flame across kingdom after +kingdom during his meteor life. + +In the minds of the Roman Catholic world, the convent stood out +pre-eminent for a stern discipline which nothing had changed; the +purity of its rule had attracted unhappy women from the furthest +parts of Europe, women deprived of all human ties, sighing after +the long suicide accomplished in the breast of God. No convent, +indeed, was so well fitted for that complete detachment of the +soul from all earthly things, which is demanded by the religious +life, albeit on the continent of Europe there are many convents +magnificently adapted to the purpose of their existence. Buried +away in the loneliest valleys, hanging in mid-air on the steepest +mountainsides, set down on the brink of precipices, in every +place man has sought for the poetry of the Infinite, the solemn +awe of Silence; in every place man has striven to draw closer to +God, seeking Him on mountain peaks, in the depths below the +crags, at the cliff's edge; and everywhere man has found God. +But nowhere, save on this half-European, half-African ledge of +rock could you find so many different harmonies, combining so to +raise the soul, that the sharpest pain comes to be like other +memories; the strongest impressions are dulled, till the sorrows +of life are laid to rest in the depths. + +The convent stands on the highest point of the crags at the +uttermost end of the island. On the side towards the sea the +rock was once rent sheer away in some globe-cataclysm; it rises +up a straight wall from the base where the waves gnaw at the +stone below high-water mark. Any assault is made impossible by +the dangerous reefs that stretch far out to sea, with the +sparkling waves of the Mediterranean playing over them. So, only +from the sea can you discern the square mass of the convent built +conformably to the minute rules laid down as to the shape, +height, doors, and windows of monastic buildings. From the side +of the town, the church completely hides the solid structure of +the cloisters and their roofs, covered with broad slabs of stone +impervious to sun or storm or gales of wind. + +The church itself, built by the munificence of a Spanish family, +is the crowning edifice of the town. Its fine, bold front gives +an imposing and picturesque look to the little city in the sea. +The sight of such a city, with its close-huddled roofs, arranged +for the most part amphitheatre-wise above a picturesque harbour, +and crowned by a glorious cathedral front with triple-arched +Gothic doorways, belfry towers, and filigree spires, is a +spectacle surely in every way the sublimest on earth. Religion +towering above daily life, to put men continually in mind of the +End and the way, is in truth a thoroughly Spanish conception. +But now surround this picture by the Mediterranean, and a burning +sky, imagine a few palms here and there, a few stunted evergreen +trees mingling their waving leaves with the motionless flowers +and foliage of carved stone; look out over the reef with its +white fringes of foam in contrast to the sapphire sea; and then +turn to the city, with its galleries and terraces whither the +townsfolk come to take the air among their flowers of an evening, +above the houses and the tops of the trees in their little +gardens; add a few sails down in the harbour; and lastly, in the +stillness of falling night, listen to the organ music, the +chanting of the services, the wonderful sound of bells pealing +out over the open sea. There is sound and silence everywhere; +oftener still there is silence over all. + +The church is divided within into a sombre mysterious nave and +narrow aisles. For some reason, probably because the winds are +so high, the architect was unable to build the flying buttresses +and intervening chapels which adorn almost all cathedrals, nor +are there openings of any kind in the walls which support the +weight of the roof. Outside there is simply the heavy wall +structure, a solid mass of grey stone further strengthened by +huge piers placed at intervals. Inside, the nave and its little +side galleries are lighted entirely by the great stained-glass +rose-window suspended by a miracle of art above the centre +doorway; for upon that side the exposure permits of the display +of lacework in stone and of other beauties peculiar to the style +improperly called Gothic. + +The larger part of the nave and aisles was left for the +townsfolk, who came and went and heard mass there. The choir was +shut off from the rest of the church by a grating and thick folds +of brown curtain, left slightly apart in the middle in such a way +that nothing of the choir could be seen from the church except +the high altar and the officiating priest. The grating itself +was divided up by the pillars which supported the organ loft; and +this part of the structure, with its carved wooden columns, +completed the line of the arcading in the gallery carried by the +shafts in the nave. If any inquisitive person, therefore, had +been bold enough to climb upon the narrow balustrade in the +gallery to look down into the choir, he could have seen nothing +but the tall eight-sided windows of stained glass beyond the high +altar. + +At the time of the French expedition into Spain to establish +Ferdinand VII once more on the throne, a French general came to +the island after the taking of Cadiz, ostensibly to require the +recognition of the King's Government, really to see the convent +and to find some means of entering it. The undertaking was +certainly a delicate one; but a man of passionate temper, whose +life had been, as it were, but one series of poems in action, a +man who all his life long had lived romances instead of writing +them, a man pre-eminently a Doer, was sure to be tempted by a +deed which seemed to be impossible. + +To open the doors of a convent of nuns by lawful means! The +metropolitan or the Pope would scarcely have permitted it! And +as for force or stratagem--might not any indiscretion cost him +his position, his whole career as a soldier, and the end in view +to boot? The Duc d'Angouleme was still in Spain; and of all the +crimes which a man in favour with the Commander-in-Chief might +commit, this one alone was certain to find him inexorable. The +General had asked for the mission to gratify private motives of +curiosity, though never was curiosity more hopeless. This final +attempt was a matter of conscience. The Carmelite convent on the +island was the only nunnery in Spain which had baffled his +search. + +As he crossed from the mainland, scarcely an hour's distance, he +felt a presentiment that his hopes were to be fulfilled; and +afterwards, when as yet he had seen nothing of the convent but +its walls, and of the nuns not so much as their robes; while he +had merely heard the chanting of the service, there were dim +auguries under the walls and in the sound of the voices to +justify his frail hope. And, indeed, however faint those so +unaccountable presentiments might be, never was human passion +more vehemently excited than the General's curiosity at that +moment. There are no small events for the heart; the heart +exaggerates everything; the heart weighs the fall of a +fourteen-year-old Empire and the dropping of a woman's glove in +the same scales, and the glove is nearly always the heavier of +the two. So here are the facts in all their prosaic simplicity. +The facts first, the emotions will follow. + +An hour after the General landed on the island, the royal +authority was re-established there. Some few Constitutional +Spaniards who had found their way thither after the fall of Cadiz +were allowed to charter a vessel and sail for London. So there +was neither resistance nor reaction. But the change of +government could not be effected in the little town without a +mass, at which the two divisions under the General's command were +obliged to be present. Now, it was upon this mass that the +General had built his hopes of gaining some information as to the +sisters in the convent; he was quite unaware how absolutely the +Carmelites were cut off from the world; but he knew that there +might be among them one whom he held dearer than life, dearer +than honour. + +His hopes were cruelly dashed at once. Mass, it is true, was +celebrated in state. In honour of such a solemnity, the curtains +which always hid the choir were drawn back to display its riches, +its valuable paintings and shrines so bright with gems that they +eclipsed the glories of the ex-votos of gold and silver hung up +by sailors of the port on the columns in the nave. But all the +nuns had taken refuge in the organ-loft. And yet, in spite of +this first check, during this very mass of thanksgiving, the most +intimately thrilling drama that ever set a man's heart beating +opened out widely before him. + +The sister who played the organ aroused such intense enthusiasm, +that not a single man regretted that he had come to the service. +Even the men in the ranks were delighted, and the officers were +in ecstasy. As for the General, he was seemingly calm and +indifferent. The sensations stirred in him as the sister played +one piece after another belong to the small number of things +which it is not lawful to utter; words are powerless to express +them; like death, God, eternity, they can only be realised +through their one point of contact with humanity. Strangely +enough, the organ music seemed to belong to the school of +Rossini, the musician who brings most human passion into his art. + +Some day his works, by their number and extent, will receive the +reverence due to the Homer of music. From among all the scores +that we owe to his great genius, the nun seemed to have chosen +_Moses in Egypt_ for special study, doubtless because the spirit of +sacred music finds therein its supreme expression. Perhaps the +soul of the great musician, so gloriously known to Europe, and +the soul of this unknown executant had met in the intuitive +apprehension of the same poetry. So at least thought two +dilettanti officers who must have missed the Theatre Favart in +Spain. + +At last in the _Te Deum_ no one could fail to discern a French soul +in the sudden change that came over the music. Joy for the +victory of the Most Christian King evidently stirred this nun's +heart to the depths. She was a Frenchwoman beyond mistake. Soon +the love of country shone out, breaking forth like shafts of +light from the fugue, as the sister introduced variations with +all a Parisienne's fastidious taste, and blended vague +suggestions of our grandest national airs with her music. A +Spaniard's fingers would not have brought this warmth into a +graceful tribute paid to the victorious arms of France. The +musician's nationality was revealed. + +"We find France everywhere, it seems," said one of the men. + +The General had left the church during the _Te Deum_; he could +not listen any longer. The nun's music had been a revelation of +a woman loved to frenzy; a woman so carefully hidden from the +world's eyes, so deeply buried in the bosom of the Church, that +hitherto the most ingenious and persistent efforts made by men +who brought great influence and unusual powers to bear upon the +search had failed to find her. The suspicion aroused in the +General's heart became all but a certainty with the vague +reminiscence of a sad, delicious melody, the air of _Fleuve du +Tage_. The woman he loved had played the prelude to the ballad in +a boudoir in Paris, how often! and now this nun had chosen the +song to express an exile's longing, amid the joy of those that +triumphed. Terrible sensation! To hope for the resurrection of +a lost love, to find her only to know that she was lost, to catch +a mysterious glimpse of her after five years--five years, in +which the pent-up passion, chafing in an empty life, had grown +the mightier for every fruitless effort to satisfy it! + +Who has not known, at least once in his life, what it is to lose +some precious thing; and after hunting through his papers, +ransacking his memory, and turning his house upside down; after +one or two days spent in vain search, and hope, and despair; +after a prodigious expenditure of the liveliest irritation of +soul, who has not known the ineffable pleasure of finding that +all-important nothing which had come to be a king of monomania? +Very good. Now, spread that fury of search over five years; put +a woman, put a heart, put love in the place of the trifle; +transpose the monomania into the key of high passion; and, +furthermore, let the seeker be a man of ardent temper, with a +lion's heart and a leonine head and mane, a man to inspire awe +and fear in those who come in contact with him--realise this, and +you may, perhaps, understand why the General walked abruptly out +of the church when the first notes of a ballad, which he used to +hear with a rapture of delight in a gilt-paneled boudoir, began +to vibrate along the aisles of the church in the sea. + +The General walked away down the steep street which led to the +port, and only stopped when he could not hear the deep notes of +the organ. Unable to think of anything but the love which broke +out in volcanic eruption, filling his heart with fire, he only +knew that the _Te Deum_ was over when the Spanish congregation +came pouring out of the church. Feeling that his behaviour and +attitude might seem ridiculous, he went back to head the +procession, telling the alcalde and the governor that, feeling +suddenly faint, he had gone out into the air. Casting about for +a plea for prolonging his stay, it at once occurred to him to +make the most of this excuse, framed on the spur of the moment. +He declined, on a plea of increasing indisposition, to preside at +the banquet given by the town to the French officers, betook +himself to his bed, and sent a message to the Major-General, to +the effect that temporary illness obliged him to leave the +Colonel in command of the troops for the time being. This +commonplace but very plausible stratagem relieved him of all +responsibility for the time necessary to carry out his plans. +The General, nothing if not "catholic and monarchical," took +occasion to inform himself of the hours of the services, and +manifested the greatest zeal for the performance of his religious +duties, piety which caused no remark in Spain. + +The very next day, while the division was marching out of the +town, the General went to the convent to be present at vespers. +He found an empty church. The townsfolk, devout though they +were, had all gone down to the quay to watch the embarkation of +the troops. He felt glad to be the only man there. He tramped +noisily up the nave, clanking his spurs till the vaulted roof +rang with the sound; he coughed, he talked aloud to himself to +let the nuns know, and more particularly to let the organist know +that if the troops were gone, one Frenchman was left behind. Was +this singular warning heard and understood? He thought so. It +seemed to him that in the _Magnificat_ the organ made response +which was borne to him on the vibrating air. The nun's spirit +found wings in music and fled towards him, throbbing with the +rhythmical pulse of the sounds. Then, in all its might, the +music burst forth and filled the church with warmth. The Song of +Joy set apart in the sublime liturgy of Latin Christianity to +express the exaltation of the soul in the presence of the glory +of the ever-living God, became the utterance of a heart almost +terrified by its gladness in the presence of the glory of a +mortal love; a love that yet lived, a love that had risen to +trouble her even beyond the grave in which the nun is laid, that +she may rise again as the bride of Christ. + +The organ is in truth the grandest, the most daring, the most +magnificent of all instruments invented by human genius. It is a +whole orchestra in itself. It can express anything in response +to a skilled touch. Surely it is in some sort a pedestal on +which the soul poises for a flight forth into space, essaying on +her course to draw picture after picture in an endless series, to +paint human life, to cross the Infinite that separates heaven +from earth? And the longer a dreamer listens to those giant +harmonies, the better he realizes that nothing save this +hundred-voiced choir on earth can fill all the space between +kneeling men, and a God hidden by the blinding light of the +Sanctuary. The music is the one interpreter strong enough to +bear up the prayers of humanity to heaven, prayer in its +omnipotent moods, prayer tinged by the melancholy of many +different natures, coloured by meditative ecstasy, upspringing +with the impulse of repentance--blended with the myriad fancies +of every creed. Yes. In those long vaulted aisles the melodies +inspired by the sense of things divine are blended with a grandeur +unknown before, are decked with new glory and might. Out of the +dim daylight, and the deep silence broken by the chanting of the +choir in response to the thunder of the organ, a veil is woven +for God, and the brightness of His attributes shines through it. + +And this wealth of holy things seemed to be flung down like a +grain of incense upon the fragile altar raised to Love beneath +the eternal throne of a jealous and avenging God. Indeed, in the +joy of the nun there was little of that awe and gravity which +should harmonize with the solemnities of the _Magnificat_. She +had enriched the music with graceful variations, earthly +gladness throbbing through the rhythm of each. In such brilliant +quivering notes some great singer might strive to find a voice +for her love, her melodies fluttered as a bird flutters about her +mate. There were moments when she seemed to leap back into the +past, to dally there now with laughter, now with tears. Her +changing moods, as it were, ran riot. She was like a woman +excited and happy over her lover's return. + +But at length, after the swaying fugues of delirium, after the +marvellous rendering of a vision of the past, a revulsion swept +over the soul that thus found utterance for itself. With a swift +transition from the major to the minor, the organist told her +hearer of her present lot. She gave the story of long melancholy +broodings, of the slow course of her moral malady. How day by +day she deadened the senses, how every night cut off one more +thought, how her heart was slowly reduced to ashes. The sadness +deepened shade after shade through languid modulations, and in a +little while the echoes were pouring out a torrent of grief. +Then on a sudden, high notes rang out like the voices of angels +singing together, as if to tell the lost but not forgotten lover +that their spirits now could only meet in heaven. Pathetic hope! +Then followed the _Amen_. No more joy, no more tears in the air, +no sadness, no regrets. The _Amen_ was the return to God. The +final chord was deep, solemn, even terrible; for the last +rumblings of the bass sent a shiver through the audience that +raised the hair on their heads; the nun shook out her veiling of +crepe, and seemed to sink again into the grave from which she had +risen for a moment. Slowly the reverberations died away; it +seemed as if the church, but now so full of light, had returned +to thick darkness. + +The General had been caught up and borne swiftly away by this +strong-winged spirit; he had followed the course of its flight +from beginning to end. He understood to the fullest extent the +imagery of that burning symphony; for him the chords reached deep +and far. For him, as for the sister, the poem meant future, +present, and past. Is not music, and even opera music, a sort of +text, which a susceptible or poetic temper, or a sore and +stricken heart, may expand as memories shall determine? If a +musician must needs have the heart of a poet, must not the +listener too be in a manner a poet and a lover to hear all that +lies in great music? Religion, love, and music--what are they +but a threefold expression of the same fact, of that craving for +expansion which stirs in every noble soul. And these three forms +of poetry ascend to God, in whom all passion on earth finds its +end. Wherefore the holy human trinity finds a place amid the +infinite glories of God; of God, whom we always represent +surrounded with the fires of love and seistrons of gold--music +and light and harmony. Is not He the Cause and the End of all +our strivings? + +The French General guessed rightly that here in the desert, on +this bare rock in the sea, the nun had seized upon music as an +outpouring of the passion that still consumed her. Was this her +manner of offering up her love as a sacrifice to God? Or was it +Love exultant in triumph over God? The questions were hard to +answer. But one thing at least the General could not mistake--in +this heart, dead to the world, the fire of passion burned as +fiercely as in his own. + +Vespers over, he went back to the alcalde with whom he was +staying. In the all-absorbing joy which comes in such full +measure when a satisfaction sought long and painfully is attained +at last, he could see nothing beyond this--he was still loved! +In her heart love had grown in loneliness, even as his love had +grown stronger as he surmounted one barrier after another which +this woman had set between them! The glow of soul came to its +natural end. There followed a longing to see her again, to +contend with God for her, to snatch her away--a rash scheme, +which appealed to a daring nature. He went to bed, when the meal +was over, to avoid questions; to be alone and think at his ease; +and he lay absorbed by deep thought till day broke. + +He rose only to go to mass. He went to the church and knelt +close to the screen, with his forehead touching the curtain; he +would have torn a hole in it if he had been alone, but his host +had come with him out of politeness, and the least imprudence +might compromise the whole future of his love, and ruin the new +hopes. + +The organ sounded, but it was another player, and not the nun of +the last two days whose hands touched the keys. It was all +colorless and cold for the General. Was the woman he loved +prostrated by emotion which well-nigh overcame a strong man's +heart? Had she so fully realised and shared an unchanged, +longed-for love, that now she lay dying on her bed in her cell? +While innumerable thoughts of this kind perplexed his mind, the +voice of the woman he worshipped rang out close beside him; he +knew its clear resonant soprano. It was her voice, with that +faint tremor in it which gave it all the charm that shyness and +diffidence gives to a young girl; her voice, distinct from the +mass of singing as a _prima donna's_ in the chorus of a finale. +It was like a golden or silver thread in dark frieze. + +It was she! There could be no mistake. Parisienne now as ever, +she had not laid coquetry aside when she threw off worldly +adornments for the veil and the Carmelite's coarse serge. She +who had affirmed her love last evening in the praise sent up to +God, seemed now to say to her lover, "Yes, it is I. I am here. +My love is unchanged, but I am beyond the reach of love. You +will hear my voice, my soul shall enfold you, and I shall abide +here under the brown shroud in the choir from which no power on +earth can tear me. You shall never see me more!" + +"It is she indeed!" the General said to himself, raising his +head. He had leant his face on his hands, unable at first to +bear the intolerable emotion that surged like a whirlpool in his +heart, when that well-known voice vibrated under the arcading, +with the sound of the sea for accompaniment. + +Storm was without, and calm within the sanctuary. Still that +rich voice poured out all its caressing notes; it fell like balm +on the lover's burning heart; it blossomed upon the air--the air +that a man would fain breathe more deeply to receive the +effluence of a soul breathed forth with love in the words of the +prayer. The alcalde coming to join his guest found him in tears +during the elevation, while the nun was singing, and brought him +back to his house. Surprised to find so much piety in a French +military man, the worthy magistrate invited the confessor of the +convent to meet his guest. Never had news given the General more +pleasure; he paid the ecclesiastic a good deal of attention at +supper, and confirmed his Spanish hosts in the high opinion they +had formed of his piety by a not wholly disinterested respect. + +He inquired with gravity how many sisters there were in the +convent, and asked for particulars of its endowment and revenues, +as if from courtesy he wished to hear the good priest discourse +on the subject most interesting to him. He informed himself as +to the manner of life led by the holy women. Were they allowed +to go out of the convent, or to see visitors? + +"Senor," replied the venerable churchman, "the rule is strict. +A woman cannot enter a monastery of the order of St. Bruno +without a special permission from His Holiness, and the rule here +is equally stringent. No man may enter a convent of Barefoot +Carmelites unless he is a priest specially attached to the +services of the house by the Archbishop. None of the nuns may +leave the convent; though the great Saint, St. Theresa, often +left her cell. The Visitor or the Mothers Superior can alone +give permission, subject to an authorization from the Archbishop, +for a nun to see a visitor, and then especially in a case of +illness. Now we are one of the principal houses, and +consequently we have a Mother Superior here. Among other foreign +sisters there is one Frenchwoman, Sister Theresa; she it is who +directs the music in the chapel." + +"Oh!" said the General, with feigned surprise. "She must have +rejoiced over the victory of the House of Bourbon." + +"I told them the reason of the mass; they are always a little +bit inquisitive." + +"But Sister Theresa may have interests in France. Perhaps she +would like to send some message or to hear news." + +"I do not think so. She would have come to ask me." + +"As a fellow-countryman, I should be quite curious to see her," +said the General. "If it is possible, if the Lady Superior +consents, if----" + +"Even at the grating and in the Reverend Mother's presence, an +interview would be quite impossible for anybody whatsoever; but, +strict as the Mother is, for a deliverer of our holy religion and +the throne of his Catholic Majesty, the rule might be relaxed for +a moment," said the confessor, blinking. "I will speak about +it." + +"How old is Sister Theresa?" inquired the lover. He dared not +ask any questions of the priest as to the nun's beauty. + +"She does not reckon years now," the good man answered, with a +simplicity that made the General shudder. + +Next day before siesta, the confessor came to inform the French +General that Sister Theresa and the Mother consented to receive +him at the grating in the parlour before vespers. The General +spent the siesta in pacing to and fro along the quay in the +noonday heat. Thither the priest came to find him, and brought +him to the convent by way of the gallery round the cemetery. +Fountains, green trees, and rows of arcading maintained a cool +freshness in keeping with the place. + +At the further end of the long gallery the priest led the way +into a large room divided in two by a grating covered with a +brown curtain. In the first, and in some sort of public half of +the apartment, where the confessor left the newcomer, a wooden +bench ran round the wall, and two or three chairs, also of wood, +were placed near the grating. The ceiling consisted of bare +unornamented joists and cross-beams of ilex wood. As the two +windows were both on the inner side of the grating, and the dark +surface of the wood was a bad reflector, the light in the place +was so dim that you could scarcely see the great black crucifix, +the portrait of Saint Theresa, and a picture of the Madonna which +adorned the grey parlour walls. Tumultuous as the General's +feelings were, they took something of the melancholy of the +place. He grew calm in that homely quiet. A sense of something +vast as the tomb took possession of him beneath the chill +unceiled roof. Here, as in the grave, was there not eternal +silence, deep peace--the sense of the Infinite? And besides this +there was the quiet and the fixed thought of the cloister--a +thought which you felt like a subtle presence in the air, and in +the dim dusk of the room; an all-pervasive thought nowhere +definitely expressed, and looming the larger in the imagination; +for in the cloister the great saying, "Peace in the Lord," +enters the least religious soul as a living force. + +The monk's life is scarcely comprehensible. A man seems +confessed a weakling in a monastery; he was born to act, to live +out a life of work; he is evading a man's destiny in his cell. +But what man's strength, blended with pathetic weakness, is +implied by a woman's choice of the convent life! A man may have +any number of motives for burying himself in a monastery; for him +it is the leap over the precipice. A woman has but one motive +--she is a woman still; she betrothes herself to a Heavenly +Bridegroom. Of the monk you may ask, "Why did you not fight +your battle?" But if a woman immures herself in the cloister, +is there not always a sublime battle fought first? + +At length it seemed to the General that that still room, and the +lonely convent in the sea, were full of thoughts of him. Love +seldom attains to solemnity; yet surely a love still faithful in +the breast of God was something solemn, something more than a man +had a right to look for as things are in this nineteenth century? +The infinite grandeur of the situation might well produce an +effect upon the General's mind; he had precisely enough elevation +of soul to forget politics, honours, Spain, and society in Paris, +and to rise to the height of this lofty climax. And what in +truth could be more tragic? How much must pass in the souls of +these two lovers, brought together in a place of strangers, on a +ledge of granite in the sea; yet held apart by an intangible, +unsurmountable barrier! Try to imagine the man saying within +himself, "Shall I triumph over God in her heart?" when a faint +rustling sound made him quiver, and the curtain was drawn aside. + +Between him and the light stood a woman. Her face was hidden by +the veil that drooped from the folds upon her head; she was +dressed according to the rule of the order in a gown of the +colour become proverbial. Her bare feet were hidden; if the +General could have seen them, he would have known how appallingly +thin she had grown; and yet in spite of the thick folds of her +coarse gown, a mere covering and no ornament, he could guess how +tears, and prayer, and passion, and loneliness had wasted the +woman before him. + +An ice-cold hand, belonging, no doubt, to the Mother Superior, +held back the curtain. The General gave the enforced witness of +their interview a searching glance, and met the dark, inscrutable +gaze of an aged recluse. The Mother might have been a century +old, but the bright, youthful eyes belied the wrinkles that +furrowed her pale face. + +"Mme la Duchesse," he began, his voice shaken with emotion, +"does your companion understand French?" The veiled figure +bowed her head at the sound of his voice. + +"There is no duchess here," she replied. "It is Sister Theresa +whom you see before you. She whom you call my companion is my +mother in God, my superior here on earth." + +The words were so meekly spoken by the voice that sounded in +other years amid harmonious surroundings of refined luxury, the +voice of a queen of fashion in Paris. Such words from the lips +that once spoke so lightly and flippantly struck the General dumb +with amazement. + +"The Holy Mother only speaks Latin and Spanish," she added. + +"I understand neither. Dear Antoinette, make my excuses to +her." + +The light fell full upon the nun's figure; a thrill of deep +emotion betrayed itself in a faint quiver of her veil as she +heard her name softly spoken by the man who had been so hard in +the past. + +"My brother," she said, drawing her sleeve under her veil, +perhaps to brush tears away, "I am Sister Theresa." + +Then, turning to the Superior, she spoke in Spanish; the General +knew enough of the language to understand what she said perfectly +well; possibly he could have spoken it had he chosen to do so. + +"Dear Mother, the gentleman presents his respects to you, and +begs you to pardon him if he cannot pay them himself, but he +knows neither of the languages which you speak----" + +The aged nun bent her head slowly, with an expression of angelic +sweetness, enhanced at the same time by the consciousness of her +power and dignity. + +"Do you know this gentleman?" she asked, with a keen glance. + +"Yes, Mother." + +"Go back to your cell, my daughter!" said the Mother imperiously. + +The General slipped aside behind the curtain lest the dreadful +tumult within him should appear in his face; even in the shadow +it seemed to him that he could still see the Superior's piercing +eyes. He was afraid of her; she held his little, frail, hardly-won +happiness in her hands; and he, who had never quailed under a +triple row of guns, now trembled before this nun. The Duchess went +towards the door, but she turned back. + +"Mother," she said, with dreadful calmness, "the Frenchman is +one of my brothers." + +"Then stay, my daughter," said the Superior, after a pause. + +The piece of admirable Jesuitry told of such love and regret, +that a man less strongly constituted might have broken down under +the keen delight in the midst of a great and, for him, an +entirely novel peril. Oh! how precious words, looks, and +gestures became when love must baffle lynx eyes and tiger's +claws! Sister Theresa came back. + +"You see, my brother, what I have dared to do only to speak to +you for a moment of your salvation and of the prayers that my +soul puts up for your soul daily. I am committing mortal sin. I +have told a lie. How many days of penance must expiate that lie! +But I shall endure it for your sake. My brother, you do not know +what happiness it is to love in heaven; to feel that you can +confess love purified by religion, love transported into the +highest heights of all, so that we are permitted to lose sight of +all but the soul. If the doctrine and the spirit of the Saint to +whom we owe this refuge had not raised me above earth's anguish, +and caught me up and set me, far indeed beneath the Sphere +wherein she dwells, yet truly above this world, I should not have +seen you again. But now I can see you, and hear your voice, and +remain calm----" + +The General broke in, "But, Antoinette, let me see you, you whom +I love passionately, desperately, as you could have wished me to +love you." + +"Do not call me Antoinette, I implore you. Memories of the past +hurt me. You must see no one here but Sister Theresa, a creature +who trusts in the Divine mercy." She paused for a little, and +then added, "You must control yourself, my brother. Our Mother +would separate us without pity if there is any worldly passion in +your face, or if you allow the tears to fall from your eyes." + +The General bowed his head to regain self-control; when he looked +up again he saw her face beyond the grating--the thin, white, but +still impassioned face of the nun. All the magic charm of youth +that once bloomed there, all the fair contrast of velvet +whiteness and the colour of the Bengal rose, had given place to a +burning glow, as of a porcelain jar with a faint light shining +through it. The wonderful hair in which she took such pride had +been shaven; there was a bandage round her forehead and about her +face. An ascetic life had left dark traces about the eyes, which +still sometimes shot out fevered glances; their ordinary calm +expression was but a veil. In a few words, she was but the ghost +of her former self. + +"Ah! you that have come to be my life, you must come out of this +tomb! You were mine; you had no right to give yourself, even to +God. Did you not promise me to give up all at the least command +from me? You may perhaps think me worthy of that promise now +when you hear what I have done for you. I have sought you all +through the world. You have been in my thoughts at every moment +for five years; my life has been given to you. My friends, very +powerful friends, as you know, have helped with all their might +to search every convent in France, Italy, Spain, Sicily, and +America. Love burned more brightly for every vain search. Again +and again I made long journeys with a false hope; I have wasted +my life and the heaviest throbbings of my heart in vain under +many a dark convent wall. I am not speaking of a faithfulness +that knows no bounds, for what is it?--nothing compared with the +infinite longings of my love. If your remorse long ago was +sincere, you ought not to hesitate to follow me today." + +"You forget that I am not free." + +"The Duke is dead," he answered quickly. + +Sister Theresa flushed red. + +"May heaven be open to him!" she cried with a quick rush of +feeling. "He was generous to me.--But I did not mean such ties; +it was one of my sins that I was ready to break them all without +scruple--for you." + +"Are you speaking of your vows?" the General asked, frowning. "I +did not think that anything weighed heavier with your heart than +love. But do not think twice of it, Antoinette; the Holy Father +himself shall absolve you of your oath. I will surely go to Rome, +I will entreat all the powers of earth; if God could come down +from heaven, I would----" + +"Do not blaspheme." + +"So do not fear the anger of God. Ah! I would far rather hear +that you would leave your prison for me; that this very night you +would let yourself down into a boat at the foot of the cliffs. +And we would go away to be happy somewhere at the world's end, I +know not where. And with me at your side, you should come back +to life and health under the wings of love." + +"You must not talk like this," said Sister Theresa; "you do +not know what you are to me now. I love you far better than I +ever loved you before. Every day I pray for you; I see you with +other eyes. Armand, if you but knew the happiness of giving +yourself up, without shame, to a pure friendship which God +watches over! You do not know what joy it is to me to pray for +heaven's blessing on you. I never pray for myself: God will do +with me according to His will; but, at the price of my soul, I +wish I could be sure that you are happy here on earth, and that +you will be happy hereafter throughout all ages. My eternal life +is all that trouble has left me to offer up to you. I am old now +with weeping; I am neither young nor fair; and in any case, you +could not respect the nun who became a wife; no love, not even +motherhood, could give me absolution. . . . What can you say to +outweigh the uncounted thoughts that have gathered in my heart +during the past five years, thoughts that have changed, and worn, +and blighted it? I ought to have given a heart less sorrowful to +God." + +"What can I say? Dear Antoinette, I will say this, that I love +you; that affection, love, a great love, the joy of living in +another heart that is ours, utterly and wholly ours, is so rare a +thing and so hard to find, that I doubted you, and put you to +sharp proof; but now, today, I love you, Antoinette, with all my +soul's strength. . . . If you will follow me into solitude, I +will hear no voice but yours, I will see no other face." + +"Hush, Armand! You are shortening the little time that we may +be together here on earth." + +"Antoinette, will you come with me?" + +"I am never away from you. My life is in your heart, not +through the selfish ties of earthly happiness, or vanity, or +enjoyment; pale and withered as I am, I live here for you, in +the breast of God. As God is just, you shall be happy----" + +"Words, words all of it! Pale and withered? How if I want you? +How if I cannot be happy without you? Do you still think of +nothing but duty with your lover before you? Is he never to come +first and above all things else in your heart? In time past you +put social success, yourself, heaven knows what, before him; now +it is God, it is the welfare of my soul! In Sister Theresa I +find the Duchess over again, ignorant of the happiness of love, +insensible as ever, beneath the semblance of sensibility. You do +not love me; you have never loved me----" + +"Oh, my brother----!" + +"You do not wish to leave this tomb. You love my soul, do you +say? Very well, through you it will be lost forever. I shall +make away with myself----" + +"Mother!" Sister Theresa called aloud in Spanish, "I have lied +to you; this man is my lover!" + +The curtain fell at once. The General, in his stupor, scarcely +heard the doors within as they clanged. + +"Ah! she loves me still!" he cried, understanding all the +sublimity of that cry of hers. "She loves me still. She must +be carried off. . . ." + + + +The General left the island, returned to headquarters, pleaded +ill-health, asked for leave of absence, and forthwith took his +departure for France. + +And now for the incidents which brought the two personages in +this Scene into their present relation to each other. + + + +The thing known in France as the Faubourg Saint-Germain is +neither a Quarter, nor a sect, nor an institution, nor anything +else that admits of a precise definition. There are great houses +in the Place Royale, the Faubourg Saint-Honore, and the Chaussee +d'Antin, in any one of which you may breathe the same atmosphere +of Faubourg Saint-Germain. So, to begin with, the whole Faubourg +is not within the Faubourg. There are men and women born far +enough away from its influences who respond to them and take +their place in the circle; and again there are others, born +within its limits, who may yet be driven forth forever. For the +last forty years the manners, and customs, and speech, in a word, +the tradition of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, has been to Paris +what the Court used to be in other times; it is what the Hotel +Saint-Paul was to the fourteenth century; the Louvre to the +fifteenth; the Palais, the Hotel Rambouillet, and the Place +Royale to the sixteenth; and lastly, as Versailles was to the +seventeenth and the eighteenth. + +Just as the ordinary workaday Paris will always centre about some +point; so, through all periods of history, the Paris of the +nobles and the upper classes converges towards some particular +spot. It is a periodically recurrent phenomenon which presents +ample matter for reflection to those who are fain to observe or +describe the various social zones; and possibly an enquiry into +the causes that bring about this centralization may do more than +merely justify the probability of this episode; it may be of +service to serious interests which some day will be more deeply +rooted in the commonwealth, unless, indeed, experience is as +meaningless for political parties as it is for youth. + +In every age the great nobles, and the rich who always ape the +great nobles, build their houses as far as possible from crowded +streets. When the Duc d'Uzes built his splendid hotel in the Rue +Montmartre in the reign of Louis XIV, and set the fountain at his +gates--for which beneficent action, to say nothing of his other +virtues, he was held in such veneration that the whole quarter +turned out in a body to follow his funeral--when the Duke, I say, +chose this site for his house, he did so because that part of +Paris was almost deserted in those days. But when the +fortifications were pulled down, and the market gardens beyond +the line of the boulevards began to fill with houses, then the +d'Uzes family left their fine mansion, and in our time it was +occupied by a banker. Later still, the noblesse began to find +themselves out of their element among shopkeepers, left the Place +Royale and the centre of Paris for good, and crossed the river to +breathe freely in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where palaces were +reared already about the great hotel built by Louis XIV for the +Duc de Maine--the Benjamin among his legitimated offspring. And +indeed, for people accustomed to a stately life, can there be +more unseemly surroundings than the bustle, the mud, the street +cries, the bad smells, and narrow thoroughfares of a populous +quarter? The very habits of life in a mercantile or +manufacturing district are completely at variance with the lives +of nobles. The shopkeeper and artisan are just going to bed when +the great world is thinking of dinner; and the noisy stir of life +begins among the former when the latter have gone to rest. Their +day's calculations never coincide; the one class represents the +expenditure, the other the receipts. Consequently their manners +and customs are diametrically opposed. + +Nothing contemptuous is intended by this statement. An +aristocracy is in a manner the intellect of the social system, as +the middle classes and the proletariat may be said to be its +organizing and working power. It naturally follows that these +forces are differently situated; and of their antagonism there is +bred a seeming antipathy produced by the performance of different +functions, all of them, however, existing for one common end. + +Such social dissonances are so inevitably the outcome of any +charter of the constitution, that however much a Liberal may be +disposed to complain of them, as of treason against those sublime +ideas with which the ambitious plebeian is apt to cover his +designs, he would none the less think it a preposterous notion +that M. le Prince de Montmorency, for instance, should continue +to live in the Rue Saint-Martin at the corner of the street which +bears that nobleman's name; or that M. le Duc de Fitz-James, +descendant of the royal house of Scotland, should have his hotel +at the angle of the Rue Marie Stuart and the Rue Montorgueil. +_Sint ut sunt, aut non sint_, the grand words of the Jesuit, might +be taken as a motto by the great in all countries. These social +differences are patent in all ages; the fact is always accepted +by the people; its "reasons of state" are self-evident; it is +at once cause and effect, a principle and a law. The common +sense of the masses never deserts them until demagogues stir them +up to gain ends of their own; that common sense is based on the +verities of social order; and the social order is the same +everywhere, in Moscow as in London, in Geneva as in Calcutta. +Given a certain number of families of unequal fortune in any +given space, you will see an aristocracy forming under your eyes; +there will be the patricians, the upper classes, and yet other +ranks below them. Equality may be a _right_, but no power on earth +can convert it into _fact_. It would be a good thing for France if +this idea could be popularized. The benefits of political +harmony are obvious to the least intelligent classes. Harmony +is, as it were, the poetry of order, and order is a matter of +vital importance to the working population. And what is order, +reduced to its simplest expression, but the agreement of things +among themselves--unity, in short? Architecture, music, and +poetry, everything in France, and in France more than in any +other country, is based upon this principle; it is written upon +the very foundations of her clear accurate language, and a +language must always be the most infallible index of national +character. In the same way you may note that the French popular +airs are those most calculated to strike the imagination, the +best-modulated melodies are taken over by the people; clearness +of thought, the intellectual simplicity of an idea attracts them; +they like the incisive sayings that hold the greatest number of +ideas. France is the one country in the world where a little phrase +may bring about a great revolution. Whenever the masses have risen, +it has been to bring men, affairs, and principles into agreement. +No nation has a clearer conception of that idea of unity which +should permeate the life of an aristocracy; possibly no other +nation has so intelligent a comprehension of a political +necessity; history will never find her behind the time. France +has been led astray many a time, but she is deluded, woman-like, +by generous ideas, by a glow of enthusiasm which at first +outstrips sober reason. + +So, to begin with, the most striking characteristic of the +Faubourg is the splendour of its great mansions, its great +gardens, and a surrounding quiet in keeping with princely +revenues drawn from great estates. And what is this distance set +between a class and a whole metropolis but visible and outward +expression of the widely different attitude of mind which must +inevitably keep them apart? The position of the head is well +defined in every organism. If by any chance a nation allows its +head to fall at its feet, it is pretty sure sooner or later to +discover that this is a suicidal measure; and since nations have +no desire to perish, they set to work at once to grow a new head. +If they lack the strength for this, they perish as Rome perished, +and Venice, and so many other states. + +This distinction between the upper and lower spheres of social +activity, emphasized by differences in their manner of living, +necessarily implies that in the highest aristocracy there is real +worth and some distinguishing merit. In any state, no matter +what form of "government" is affected, so soon as the patrician +class fails to maintain that complete superiority which is the +condition of its existence, it ceases to be a force, and is +pulled down at once by the populace. The people always wish to +see money, power, and initiative in their leaders, hands, hearts, +and heads; they must be the spokesmen, they must represent the +intelligence and the glory of the nation. Nations, like women, +love strength in those who rule them; they cannot give love +without respect; they refuse utterly to obey those of whom they +do not stand in awe. An aristocracy fallen into contempt is a +_roi faineant_, a husband in petticoats; first it ceases to be +itself, and then it ceases to be. + +And in this way the isolation of the great, the sharply marked +distinction in their manner of life, or in a word, the general +custom of the patrician caste is at once the sign of a real +power, and their destruction so soon as that power is lost. The +Faubourg Saint-Germain failed to recognise the conditions of its +being, while it would still have been easy to perpetuate its +existence, and therefore was brought low for a time. The +Faubourg should have looked the facts fairly in the face, as the +English aristocracy did before them; they should have seen that +every institution has its climacteric periods, when words lose +their old meanings, and ideas reappear in a new guise, and the +whole conditions of politics wear a changed aspect, while the +underlying realities undergo no essential alteration. + +These ideas demand further development which form an essential +part of this episode; they are given here both as a succinct +statement of the causes, and an explanation of the things which +happen in the course of the story. + +The stateliness of the castles and palaces where nobles dwell; +the luxury of the details; the constantly maintained +sumptuousness of the furniture; the "atmosphere" in which the +fortunate owner of landed estates (a rich man before he was born) +lives and moves easily and without friction; the habit of mind +which never descends to calculate the petty workaday gains of +existence; the leisure; the higher education attainable at a much +earlier age; and lastly, the aristocratic tradition that makes of +him a social force, for which his opponents, by dint of study and +a strong will and tenacity of vocation, are scarcely a match-all +these things should contribute to form a lofty spirit in a man, +possessed of such privileges from his youth up; they should stamp +his character with that high self-respect, of which the least +consequence is a nobleness of heart in harmony with the noble +name that he bears. And in some few families all this is +realised. There are noble characters here and there in the +Faubourg, but they are marked exceptions to a general rule of +egoism which has been the ruin of this world within a world. The +privileges above enumerated are the birthright of the French +noblesse, as of every patrician efflorescence ever formed on the +surface of a nation; and will continue to be theirs so long as +their existence is based upon real estate, or money; _domaine-sol_ +and _domaine-argent_ alike, the only solid bases of an organized +society; but such privileges are held upon the understanding that +the patricians must continue to justify their existence. There +is a sort of moral _fief_ held on a tenure of service rendered to +the sovereign, and here in France the people are undoubtedly the +sovereigns nowadays. The times are changed, and so are the +weapons. The knight-banneret of old wore a coat of chain armor +and a hauberk; he could handle a lance well and display his +pennon, and no more was required of him; today he is bound to +give proof of his intelligence. A stout heart was enough in the +days of old; in our days he is required to have a capacious +brain-pan. Skill and knowledge and capital--these three points +mark out a social triangle on which the scutcheon of power is +blazoned; our modern aristocracy must take its stand on these. + +A fine theorem is as good as a great name. The Rothschilds, the +Fuggers of the nineteenth century, are princes _de facto_. A great +artist is in reality an oligarch; he represents a whole century, +and almost always he is a law to others. And the art of words, +the high pressure machinery of the writer, the poet's genius, the +merchant's steady endurance, the strong will of the statesman who +concentrates a thousand dazzling qualities in himself, the +general's sword--all these victories, in short, which a single +individual will win, that he may tower above the rest of the +world, the patrician class is now bound to win and keep +exclusively. They must head the new forces as they once headed +the material forces; how should they keep the position unless +they are worthy of it? How, unless they are the soul and brain +of a nation, shall they set its hands moving? How lead a people +without the power of command? And what is the marshal's baton +without the innate power of the captain in the man who wields it? +The Faubourg Saint-Germain took to playing with batons, and +fancied that all the power was in its hands. It inverted the +terms of the proposition which called it into existence. And +instead of flinging away the insignia which offended the people, +and quietly grasping the power, it allowed the bourgeoisie to +seize the authority, clung with fatal obstinacy to its shadow, +and over and over again forgot the laws which a minority must +observe if it would live. When an aristocracy is scarce a +thousandth part of the body social, it is bound today, as of old, +to multiply its points of action, so as to counterbalance the +weight of the masses in a great crisis. And in our days those +means of action must be living forces, and not historical +memories. + +In France, unluckily, the noblesse were still so puffed up with +the notion of their vanished power, that it was difficult to +contend against a kind of innate presumption in themselves. +Perhaps this is a national defect. The Frenchman is less given +than anyone else to undervalue himself; it comes natural to him +to go from his degree to the one above it; and while it is a rare +thing for him to pity the unfortunates over whose heads he rises, +he always groans in spirit to see so many fortunate people above +him. He is very far from heartless, but too often he prefers to +listen to his intellect. The national instinct which brings the +Frenchman to the front, the vanity that wastes his substance, is +as much a dominant passion as thrift in the Dutch. For three +centuries it swayed the noblesse, who, in this respect, were +certainly pre-eminently French. The scion of the Faubourg +Saint-Germain, beholding his material superiority, was fully +persuaded of his intellectual superiority. And everything +contributed to confirm him in his belief; for ever since the +Faubourg Saint-Germain existed at all--which is to say, ever +since Versailles ceased to be the royal residence--the Faubourg, +with some few gaps in continuity, was always backed up by the +central power, which in France seldom fails to support that side. +Thence its downfall in 1830. + +At that time the party of the Faubourg Saint-Germain was rather +like an army without a base of operation. It had utterly failed +to take advantage of the peace to plant itself in the heart of +the nation. It sinned for want of learning its lesson, and +through an utter incapability of regarding its interests as a +whole. A future certainty was sacrificed to a doubtful present +gain. This blunder in policy may perhaps be attributed to the +following cause. + +The class-isolation so strenuously kept up by the noblesse +brought about fatal results during the last forty years; even +caste-patriotism was extinguished by it, and rivalry fostered +among themselves. When the French noblesse of other times were +rich and powerful, the nobles (_gentilhommes_) could choose their +chiefs and obey them in the hour of danger. As their power +diminished, they grew less amenable to discipline; and as in the +last days of the Byzantine Empire, everyone wished to be emperor. +They mistook their uniform weakness for uniform strength. + +Each family ruined by the Revolution and the abolition of the law +of primogeniture thought only of itself, and not at all of the +great family of the noblesse. It seemed to them that as each +individual grew rich, the party as a whole would gain in +strength. And herein lay their mistake. Money, likewise, is +only the outward and visible sign of power. All these families +were made up of persons who preserved a high tradition of +courtesy, of true graciousness of life, of refined speech, with a +family pride, and a squeamish sense of _noblesse oblige_ which +suited well with the kind of life they led; a life wholly filled +with occupations which become contemptible so soon as they cease +to be accessories and take the chief place in existence. There +was a certain intrinsic merit in all these people, but the merit +was on the surface, and none of them were worth their face-value. + +Not a single one among those families had courage to ask itself +the question, "Are we strong enough for the responsibility of +power?" They were cast on the top, like the lawyers of 1830; +and instead of taking the patron's place, like a great man, the +Faubourg Saint-Germain showed itself greedy as an upstart. The +most intelligent nation in the world perceived clearly that the +restored nobles were organizing everything for their own +particular benefit. From that day the noblesse was doomed. The +Faubourg Saint-Germain tried to be an aristocracy when it could +only be an oligarchy--two very different systems, as any man may +see for himself if he gives an intelligent perusal to the list of +the patronymics of the House of Peers. + +The King's Government certainly meant well; but the maxim that +the people must be made to _will_ everything, even their own +welfare, was pretty constantly forgotten, nor did they bear in +mind that La France is a woman and capricious, and must be happy +or chastised at her own good pleasure. If there had been many +dukes like the Duc de Laval, whose modesty made him worthy of the +name he bore, the elder branch would have been as securely seated +on the throne as the House of Hanover at this day. + +In 1814 the noblesse of France were called upon to assert their +superiority over the most aristocratic bourgeoisie in the most +feminine of all countries, to take the lead in the most highly +educated epoch the world had yet seen. And this was even more +notably the case in 1820. The Faubourg Saint-Germain might very +easily have led and amused the middle classes in days when +people's heads were turned with distinctions, and art and science +were all the rage. But the narrow-minded leaders of a time of +great intellectual progress all of them detested art and science. +They had not even the wit to present religion in attractive +colours, though they needed its support. While Lamartine, +Lamennais, Montalembert, and other writers were putting new life +and elevation into men's ideas of religion, and gilding it with +poetry, these bunglers in the Government chose to make the +harshness of their creed felt all over the country. Never was +nation in a more tractable humour; La France, like a tired woman, +was ready to agree to anything; never was mismanagement so +clumsy; and La France, like a woman, would have forgiven wrongs +more easily than bungling. + +If the noblesse meant to reinstate themselves, the better to +found a strong oligarchy, they should have honestly and +diligently searched their Houses for men of the stamp that +Napoleon used; they should have turned themselves inside out to +see if peradventure there was a Constitutionalist Richelieu +lurking in the entrails of the Faubourg; and if that genius was +not forthcoming from among them, they should have set out to find +him, even in the fireless garret where he might happen to be +perishing of cold; they should have assimilated him, as the +English House of Lords continually assimilates aristocrats made +by chance; and finally ordered him to be ruthless, to lop away +the old wood, and cut the tree down to the living shoots. But, +in the first place, the great system of English Toryism was far +too large for narrow minds; the importation required time, and in +France a tardy success is no better than a fiasco. So far, +moreover, from adopting a policy of redemption, and looking for +new forces where God puts them, these petty great folk took a +dislike to any capacity that did not issue from their midst; and, +lastly, instead of growing young again, the Faubourg +Saint-Germain grew positively older. + +Etiquette, not an institution of primary necessity, might have +been maintained if it had appeared only on state occasions, but +as it was, there was a daily wrangle over precedence; it ceased +to be a matter of art or court ceremonial, it became a question +of power. And if from the outset the Crown lacked an adviser +equal to so great a crisis, the aristocracy was still more +lacking in a sense of its wider interests, an instinct which +might have supplied the deficiency. They stood nice about M. de +Talleyrand's marriage, when M. de Talleyrand was the one man +among them with the steel-encompassed brains that can forge a new +political system and begin a new career of glory for a nation. +The Faubourg scoffed at a minister if he was not gently born, and +produced no one of gentle birth that was fit to be a minister. +There were plenty of nobles fitted to serve their country by +raising the dignity of justices of the peace, by improving the +land, by opening out roads and canals, and taking an active and +leading part as country gentlemen; but these had sold their +estates to gamble on the Stock Exchange. Again the Faubourg +might have absorbed the energetic men among the bourgeoisie, and +opened their ranks to the ambition which was undermining +authority; they preferred instead to fight, and to fight unarmed, +for of all that they once possessed there was nothing left but +tradition. For their misfortune there was just precisely enough +of their former wealth left them as a class to keep up their +bitter pride. They were content with their past. Not one of +them seriously thought of bidding the son of the house take up +arms from the pile of weapons which the nineteenth century flings +down in the market-place. Young men, shut out from office, were +dancing at Madame's balls, while they should have been doing the +work done under the Republic and the Empire by young, +conscientious, harmlessly employed energies. It was their place +to carry out at Paris the programme which their seniors should +have been following in the country. The heads of houses might +have won back recognition of their titles by unremitting +attention to local interests, by falling in with the spirit of +the age, by recasting their order to suit the taste of the times. + +But, pent up together in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where the +spirit of the ancient court and traditions of bygone feuds +between the nobles and the Crown still lingered on, the +aristocracy was not whole-hearted in its allegiance to the +Tuileries, and so much the more easily defeated because it was +concentrated in the Chamber of Peers, and badly organized even +there. If the noblesse had woven themselves into a network over +the country, they could have held their own; but cooped up in +their Faubourg, with their backs against the Chateau, or spread +at full length over the Budget, a single blow cut the thread of a +fast-expiring life, and a petty, smug-faced lawyer came forward +with the axe. In spite of M. Royer-Collard's admirable +discourse, the hereditary peerage and law of entail fell before +the lampoons of a man who made it a boast that he had adroitly +argued some few heads out of the executioner's clutches, and now +forsooth must clumsily proceed to the slaying of old institutions. + +There are examples and lessons for the future in all this. For +if there were not still a future before the French aristocracy, +there would be no need to do more than find a suitable +sarcophagus; it were something pitilessly cruel to burn the dead +body of it with fire of Tophet. But though the surgeon's scalpel +is ruthless, it sometimes gives back life to a dying man; and the +Faubourg Saint-Germain may wax more powerful under persecution +than in its day of triumph, if it but chooses to organize itself +under a leader. + +And now it is easy to give a summary of this semi-political +survey. The wish to re-establish a large fortune was uppermost +in everyone's mind; a lack of broad views, and a mass of small +defects, a real need of religion as a political factor, combined +with a thirst for pleasure which damaged the cause of religion +and necessitated a good deal of hypocrisy; a certain attitude of +protest on the part of loftier and clearer-sighted men who set +their faces against Court jealousies; and the disaffection of the +provincial families, who often came of purer descent than the +nobles of the Court which alienated them from itself--all these +things combined to bring about a most discordant state of things +in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. It was neither compact in its +organisation, nor consequent in its action; neither completely +moral, nor frankly dissolute; it did not corrupt, nor was it +corrupted; it would neither wholly abandon the disputed points +which damaged its cause, nor yet adopt the policy that might have +saved it. In short, however effete individuals might be, the +party as a whole was none the less armed with all the great +principles which lie at the roots of national existence. What +was there in the Faubourg that it should perish in its strength? + +It was very hard to please in the choice of candidates; the +Faubourg had good taste, it was scornfully fastidious, yet there +was nothing very glorious nor chivalrous truly about its fall. + +In the Emigration of 1789 there were some traces of a loftier +feeling; but in the Emigration of 1830 from Paris into the +country there was nothing discernible but self-interest. A few +famous men of letters, a few oratorical triumphs in the Chambers, +M. de Talleyrand's attitude in the Congress, the taking of +Algiers, and not a few names that found their way from the +battlefield into the pages of history--all these things were so +many examples set before the French noblesse to show that it was +still open to them to take their part in the national existence, +and to win recognition of their claims, if, indeed, they could +condescend thus far. In every living organism the work of +bringing the whole into harmony within itself is always going on. +If a man is indolent, the indolence shows itself in everything +that he does; and, in the same manner, the general spirit of a +class is pretty plainly manifested in the face it turns on the +world, and the soul informs the body. + +The women of the Restoration displayed neither the proud +disregard of public opinion shown by the court ladies of olden +time in their wantonness, nor yet the simple grandeur of the +tardy virtues by which they expiated their sins and shed so +bright a glory about their names. There was nothing either very +frivolous or very serious about the woman of the Restoration. +She was hypocritical as a rule in her passion, and compounded, so +to speak, with its pleasures. Some few families led the domestic +life of the Duchesse d'Orleans, whose connubial couch was +exhibited so absurdly to visitors at the Palais Royal. Two or +three kept up the traditions of the Regency, filling cleverer +women with something like disgust. The great lady of the new +school exercised no influence at all over the manners of the +time; and yet she might have done much. She might, at worst, +have presented as dignified a spectacle as English-women of the +same rank. But she hesitated feebly among old precedents, became +a bigot by force of circumstances, and allowed nothing of herself +to appear, not even her better qualities. + +Not one among the Frenchwomen of that day had the ability to +create a salon whither leaders of fashion might come to take +lessons in taste and elegance. Their voices, which once laid +down the law to literature, that living expression of a time, now +counted absolutely for nought. Now when a literature lacks a +general system, it fails to shape a body for itself, and dies out +with its period. + +When in a nation at any time there is a people apart thus +constituted, the historian is pretty certain to find some +representative figure, some central personage who embodies the +qualities and the defects of the whole party to which he belongs; +there is Coligny, for instance, among the Huguenots, the +Coadjuteur in the time of the Fronde, the Marechal de Richelieu +under Louis XV, Danton during the Terror. It is in the nature of +things that the man should be identified with the company in +which history finds him. How is it possible to lead a party +without conforming to its ideas? or to shine in any epoch unless +a man represents the ideas of his time? The wise and prudent +head of a party is continually obliged to bow to the prejudices +and follies of its rear; and this is the cause of actions for +which he is afterwards criticised by this or that historian +sitting at a safer distance from terrific popular explosions, +coolly judging the passion and ferment without which the great +struggles of the world could not be carried on at all. And if +this is true of the Historical Comedy of the Centuries, it is +equally true in a more restricted sphere in the detached scenes +of the national drama known as the _Manners of the Age_. + + + +At the beginning of that ephemeral life led by the Faubourg +Saint-Germain under the Restoration, to which, if there is any +truth in the above reflections, they failed to give stability, +the most perfect type of the aristocratic caste in its weakness +and strength, its greatness and littleness, might have been found +for a brief space in a young married woman who belonged to it. +This was a woman artificially educated, but in reality ignorant; +a woman whose instincts and feelings were lofty while the thought +which should have controlled them was wanting. She squandered +the wealth of her nature in obedience to social conventions; she +was ready to brave society, yet she hesitated till her scruples +degenerated into artifice. With more wilfulness than real force +of character, impressionable rather than enthusiastic, gifted +with more brain than heart; she was supremely a woman, supremely +a coquette, and above all things a Parisienne, loving a brilliant +life and gaiety, reflecting never, or too late; imprudent to the +verge of poetry, and humble in the depths of her heart, in spite +of her charming insolence. Like some straight-growing reed, she +made a show of independence; yet, like the reed, she was ready to +bend to a strong hand. She talked much of religion, and had it +not at heart, though she was prepared to find in it a solution of +her life. How explain a creature so complex? Capable of heroism, +yet sinking unconsciously from heroic heights to utter a spiteful +word; young and sweet-natured, not so much old at heart as aged +by the maxims of those about her; versed in a selfish philosophy +in which she was all unpractised, she had all the vices of a +courtier, all the nobleness of developing womanhood. She trusted +nothing and no one, yet there were times when she quitted her +sceptical attitude for a submissive credulity. + +How should any portrait be anything but incomplete of her, in +whom the play of swiftly-changing colour made discord only to +produce a poetic confusion? For in her there shone a divine +brightness, a radiance of youth that blended all her bewildering +characteristics in a certain completeness and unity informed by +her charm. Nothing was feigned. The passion or semi-passion, +the ineffectual high aspirations, the actual pettiness, the +coolness of sentiment and warmth of impulse, were all spontaneous +and unaffected, and as much the outcome of her own position as of +the position of the aristocracy to which she belonged. She was +wholly self-contained; she put herself proudly above the world +and beneath the shelter of her name. There was something of the +egoism of Medea in her life, as in the life of the aristocracy +that lay a-dying, and would not so much as raise itself or +stretch out a hand to any political physician; so well aware of +its feebleness, or so conscious that it was already dust, that it +refused to touch or be touched. + +The Duchesse de Langeais (for that was her name) had been married +for about four years when the Restoration was finally +consummated, which is to say, in 1816. By that time the +revolution of the Hundred Days had let in the light on the mind +of Louis XVIII. In spite of his surroundings, he comprehended +the situation and the age in which he was living; and it was only +later, when this Louis XI, without the axe, lay stricken down by +disease, that those about him got the upper hand. The Duchesse +de Langeais, a Navarreins by birth, came of a ducal house which +had made a point of never marrying below its rank since the reign +of Louis XIV. Every daughter of the house must sooner or later +take a _tabouret_ at Court. So, Antoinette de Navarreins, at the +age of eighteen, came out of the profound solitude in which her +girlhood had been spent to marry the Duc de Langeais' eldest +son. The two families at that time were living quite out of the +world; but after the invasion of France, the return of the +Bourbons seemed to every Royalist mind the only possible way of +putting an end to the miseries of the war. + +The Ducs de Navarreins and de Langeais had been faithful +throughout to the exiled Princes, nobly resisting all the +temptations of glory under the Empire. Under the circumstances +they naturally followed out the old family policy; and Mlle +Antoinette, a beautiful and portionless girl, was married to M. +le Marquis de Langeais only a few months before the death of the +Duke his father. + +After the return of the Bourbons, the families resumed their +rank, offices, and dignity at Court; once more they entered +public life, from which hitherto they held aloof, and took their +place high on the sunlit summits of the new political world. In +that time of general baseness and sham political conversions, the +public conscience was glad to recognise the unstained loyalty of +the two houses, and a consistency in political and private life +for which all parties involuntarily respected them. But, +unfortunately, as so often happens in a time of transition, the +most disinterested persons, the men whose loftiness of view and +wise principles would have gained the confidence of the French +nation and led them to believe in the generosity of a novel and +spirited policy--these men, to repeat, were taken out of affairs, +and public business was allowed to fall into the hands of others, +who found it to their interest to push principles to their +extreme consequences by way of proving their devotion. + +The families of Langeais and Navarreins remained about the Court, +condemned to perform the duties required by Court ceremonial amid +the reproaches and sneers of the Liberal party. They were +accused of gorging themselves with riches and honours, and all +the while their family estates were no larger than before, and +liberal allowances from the civil list were wholly expended in +keeping up the state necessary for any European government, even +if it be a Republic. + +In 1818, M. le Duc de Langeais commanded a division of the army, +and the Duchess held a post about one of the Princesses, in +virtue of which she was free to live in Paris and apart from her +husband without scandal. The Duke, moreover, besides his +military duties, had a place at Court, to which he came during +his term of waiting, leaving his major-general in command. The +Duke and Duchess were leading lives entirely apart, the world +none the wiser. Their marriage of convention shared the fate of +nearly all family arrangements of the kind. Two more +antipathetic dispositions could not well have been found; they +were brought together; they jarred upon each other; there was +soreness on either side; then they were divided once for all. +Then they went their separate ways, with a due regard for +appearances. The Duc de Langeais, by nature as methodical as the +Chevalier de Folard himself, gave himself up methodically to his +own tastes and amusements, and left his wife at liberty to do as +she pleased so soon as he felt sure of her character. He +recognised in her a spirit pre-eminently proud, a cold heart, a +profound submissiveness to the usages of the world, and a +youthful loyalty. Under the eyes of great relations, with the +light of a prudish and bigoted Court turned full upon the +Duchess, his honour was safe. + +So the Duke calmly did as the _grands seigneurs_ of the eighteenth +century did before him, and left a young wife of two-and-twenty +to her own devices. He had deeply offended that wife, and in her +nature there was one appalling characteristic--she would never +forgive an offence when woman's vanity and self-love, with all +that was best in her nature perhaps, had been slighted, wounded +in secret. Insult and injury in the face of the world a woman +loves to forget; there is a way open to her of showing herself +great; she is a woman in her forgiveness; but a secret offence +women never pardon; for secret baseness, as for hidden virtues +and hidden love, they have no kindness. + +This was Mme la Duchesse de Langeais' real position, unknown to +the world. She herself did not reflect upon it. It was the time +of the rejoicings over the Duc de Berri's marriage. The Court +and the Faubourg roused itself from its listlessness and reserve. +This was the real beginning of that unheard-of splendour which +the Government of the Restoration carried too far. At that time +the Duchess, whether for reasons of her own, or from vanity, +never appeared in public without a following of women equally +distinguished by name and fortune. As queen of fashion she had +her _dames d'atours_, her ladies, who modeled their manner and +their wit on hers. They had been cleverly chosen. None of her +satellites belonged to the inmost Court circle, nor to the +highest level of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; but they had set +their minds upon admission to those inner sanctuaries. Being as +yet simple denominations, they wished to rise to the neighbourhood +of the throne, and mingle with the seraphic powers in the high +sphere known as _le petit chateau_. Thus surrounded, the Duchess's +position was stronger and more commanding and secure. Her +"ladies" defended her character and helped her to play her +detestable part of a woman of fashion. She could laugh at men at +her ease, play with fire, receive the homage on which the +feminine nature is nourished, and remain mistress of herself. + +At Paris, in the highest society of all, a woman is a woman +still; she lives on incense, adulation, and honours. No beauty, +however undoubted, no face, however fair, is anything without +admiration. Flattery and a lover are proofs of power. And what +is power without recognition? Nothing. If the prettiest of +women were left alone in a corner of a drawing-room, she would +droop. Put her in the very centre and summit of social grandeur, +she will at once aspire to reign over all hearts--often because +it is out of her power to be the happy queen of one. Dress and +manner and coquetry are all meant to please one of the poorest +creatures extant--the brainless coxcomb, whose handsome face is +his sole merit; it was for such as these that women threw +themselves away. The gilded wooden idols of the Restoration, for +they were neither more nor less, had neither the antecedents of +the _petits maitres_ of the time of the Fronde, nor the rough +sterling worth of Napoleon's heroes, not the wit and fine manners +of their grandsires; but something of all three they meant to be +without any trouble to themselves. Brave they were, like all +young Frenchmen; ability they possessed, no doubt, if they had +had a chance of proving it, but their places were filled up by +the old worn-out men, who kept them in leading strings. It was a +day of small things, a cold prosaic era. Perhaps it takes a long +time for a Restoration to become a Monarchy. + +For the past eighteen months the Duchesse de Langeais had been +leading this empty life, filled with balls and subsequent visits, +objectless triumphs, and the transient loves that spring up and +die in an evening's space. All eyes were turned on her when she +entered a room; she reaped her harvest of flatteries and some few +words of warmer admiration, which she encouraged by a gesture or +a glance, but never suffered to penetrate deeper than the skin. +Her tone and bearing and everything else about her imposed her +will upon others. Her life was a sort of fever of vanity and +perpetual enjoyment, which turned her head. She was daring +enough in conversation; she would listen to anything, corrupting +the surface, as it were, of her heart. Yet when she returned +home, she often blushed at the story that had made her laugh; at +the scandalous tale that supplied the details, on the strength of +which she analyzed the love that she had never known, and marked +the subtle distinctions of modern passion, not with comment on +the part of complacent hypocrites. For women know how to say +everything among themselves, and more of them are ruined by each +other than corrupted by men. + +There came a moment when she discerned that not until a woman is +loved will the world fully recognise her beauty and her wit. +What does a husband prove? Simply that a girl or woman was +endowed with wealth, or well brought up; that her mother managed +cleverly that in some way she satisfied a man's ambitions. A +lover constantly bears witness to her personal perfections. Then +followed the discovery still in Mme de Langeais' early womanhood, +that it was possible to be loved without committing herself, +without permission, without vouchsafing any satisfaction beyond +the most meagre dues. There was more than one demure feminine +hypocrite to instruct her in the art of playing such dangerous +comedies. + +So the Duchess had her court, and the number of her adorers and +courtiers guaranteed her virtue. She was amiable and +fascinating; she flirted till the ball or the evening's gaiety +was at an end. Then the curtain dropped. She was cold, +indifferent, self-contained again till the next day brought its +renewed sensations, superficial as before. Two or three men were +completely deceived, and fell in love in earnest. She laughed at +them, she was utterly insensible. "I am loved!" she told +herself. "He loves me!" The certainty sufficed her. It is +enough for the miser to know that his every whim might be +fulfilled if he chose; so it was with the Duchess, and perhaps +she did not even go so far as to form a wish. + +One evening she chanced to be at the house of an intimate friend +Mme la Vicomtesse de Fontaine, one of the humble rivals who +cordially detested her, and went with her everywhere. In a +"friendship" of this sort both sides are on their guard, and +never lay their armor aside; confidences are ingeniously +indiscreet, and not unfrequently treacherous. Mme de Langeais +had distributed her little patronizing, friendly, or freezing +bows, with the air natural to a woman who knows the worth of her +smiles, when her eyes fell upon a total stranger. Something in +the man's large gravity of aspect startled her, and, with a +feeling almost like dread, she turned to Mme de Maufrigneuse +with, "Who is the newcomer, dear?" + +"Someone that you have heard of, no doubt. The Marquis de +Montriveau." + +"Oh! is it he?" + +She took up her eyeglass and submitted him to a very insolent +scrutiny, as if he had been a picture meant to receive glances, +not to return them. + +"Do introduce him; he ought to be interesting." + +"Nobody more tiresome and dull, dear. But he is the fashion." + +M. Armand de Montriveau, at that moment all unwittingly the +object of general curiosity, better deserved attention than any +of the idols that Paris needs must set up to worship for a brief +space, for the city is vexed by periodical fits of craving, a +passion for _engouement_ and sham enthusiasm, which must be +satisfied. The Marquis was the only son of General de Montriveau, +one of the _ci-devants_ who served the Republic nobly, and fell +by Joubert's side at Novi. Bonaparte had placed his son at the +school at Chalons, with the orphans of other generals who fell +on the battlefield, leaving their children under the protection +of the Republic. Armand de Montriveau left school with his way +to make, entered the artillery, and had only reached a major's +rank at the time of the Fontainebleau disaster. In his section +of the service the chances of advancement were not many. There +are fewer officers, in the first place, among the gunners than +in any other corps; and in the second place, the feeling in the +artillery was decidedly Liberal, not to say Republican; and the +Emperor, feeling little confidence in a body of highly educated +men who were apt to think for themselves, gave promotion +grudgingly in the service. In the artillery, accordingly, the +general rule of the army did not apply; the commanding officers +were not invariably the most remarkable men in their department, +because there was less to be feared from mediocrities. The +artillery was a separate corps in those days, and only came under +Napoleon in action. + +Besides these general causes, other reasons, inherent in Armand +de Montriveau's character, were sufficient in themselves to +account for his tardy promotion. He was alone in the world. He +had been thrown at the age of twenty into the whirlwind of men +directed by Napoleon; his interests were bounded by himself, any +day he might lose his life; it became a habit of mind with him to +live by his own self-respect and the consciousness that he had +done his duty. Like all shy men, he was habitually silent; but +his shyness sprang by no means from timidity; it was a kind of +modesty in him; he found any demonstration of vanity intolerable. +There was no sort of swagger about his fearlessness in action; +nothing escaped his eyes; he could give sensible advice to his +chums with unshaken coolness; he could go under fire, and duck +upon occasion to avoid bullets. He was kindly; but his +expression was haughty and stern, and his face gained him this +character. In everything he was rigorous as arithmetic; he never +permitted the slightest deviation from duty on any plausible +pretext, nor blinked the consequences of a fact. He would lend +himself to nothing of which he was ashamed; he never asked +anything for himself; in short, Armand de Montriveau was one of +many great men unknown to fame, and philosophical enough to +despise it; living without attaching themselves to life, because +they have not found their opportunity of developing to the full +their power to do and feel. + +People were afraid of Montriveau; they respected him, but he was +not very popular. Men may indeed allow you to rise above them, +but to decline to descend as low as they can do is the one +unpardonable sin. In their feeling towards loftier natures, +there is a trace of hate and fear. Too much honour with them +implies censure of themselves, a thing forgiven neither to the +living nor to the dead. + +After the Emperor's farewells at Fontainebleau, Montriveau, noble +though he was, was put on half-pay. Perhaps the heads of the War +Office took fright at uncompromising uprightness worthy of +antiquity, or perhaps it was known that he felt bound by his oath +to the Imperial Eagle. During the Hundred Days he was made a +Colonel of the Guard, and left on the field of Waterloo. His +wounds kept him in Belgium he was not present at the disbanding +of the Army of the Loire, but the King's government declined to +recognise promotion made during the Hundred Days, and Armand de +Montriveau left France. + +An adventurous spirit, a loftiness of thought hitherto satisfied +by the hazards of war, drove him on an exploring expedition +through Upper Egypt; his sanity or impulse directed his +enthusiasm to a project of great importance, he turned his +attention to that unexplored Central Africa which occupies the +learned of today. The scientific expedition was long and +unfortunate. He had made a valuable collection of notes bearing +on various geographical and commercial problems, of which +solutions are still eagerly sought; and succeeded, after +surmounting many obstacles, in reaching the heart of the +continent, when he was betrayed into the hands of a hostile +native tribe. Then, stripped of all that he had, for two years +he led a wandering life in the desert, the slave of savages, +threatened with death at every moment, and more cruelly treated +than a dumb animal in the power of pitiless children. Physical +strength, and a mind braced to endurance, enabled him to survive +the horrors of that captivity; but his miraculous escape +well-nigh exhausted his energies. When he reached the French +colony at Senegal, a half-dead fugitive covered with rags, his +memories of his former life were dim and shapeless. The great +sacrifices made in his travels were all forgotten like his +studies of African dialects, his discoveries, and observations. +One story will give an idea of all that he passed through. Once +for several days the children of the sheikh of the tribe amused +themselves by putting him up for a mark and flinging horses' +knuckle-bones at his head. + +Montriveau came back to Paris in 1818 a ruined man. He had no +interest, and wished for none. He would have died twenty times +over sooner than ask a favour of anyone; he would not even press +the recognition of his claims. Adversity and hardship had +developed his energy even in trifles, while the habit of +preserving his self-respect before that spiritual self which we +call conscience led him to attach consequence to the most +apparently trivial actions. His merits and adventures became +known, however, through his acquaintances, among the principal +men of science in Paris, and some few well-read military men. +The incidents of his slavery and subsequent escape bore witness +to a courage, intelligence, and coolness which won him celebrity +without his knowledge, and that transient fame of which Paris +salons are lavish, though the artist that fain would keep it must +make untold efforts. + +Montriveau's position suddenly changed towards the end of that +year. He had been a poor man, he was now rich; or, externally at +any rate, he had all the advantages of wealth. The King's +government, trying to attach capable men to itself and to +strengthen the army, made concessions about that time to +Napoleon's old officers if their known loyalty and character +offered guarantees of fidelity. M. de Montriveau's name once +more appeared in the army list with the rank of colonel; he +received his arrears of pay and passed into the Guards. All +these favours, one after another, came to seek the Marquis de +Montriveau; he had asked for nothing however small. Friends had +taken the steps for him which he would have refused to take for +himself. + +After this, his habits were modified all at once; contrary to his +custom, he went into society. He was well received, everywhere +he met with great deference and respect. He seemed to have found +some end in life; but everything passed within the man, there +were no external signs; in society he was silent and cold, and +wore a grave, reserved face. His social success was great, +precisely because he stood out in such strong contrast to the +conventional faces which line the walls of Paris salons. He was, +indeed, something quite new there. Terse of speech, like a +hermit or a savage, his shyness was thought to be haughtiness, +and people were greatly taken with it. He was something strange +and great. Women generally were so much the more smitten with +this original person because he was not to be caught by their +flatteries, however adroit, nor by the wiles with which they +circumvent the strongest men and corrode the steel temper. Their +Parisian's grimaces were lost upon M. de Montriveau; his nature +only responded to the sonorous vibration of lofty thought and +feeling. And he would very promptly have been dropped but for +the romance that hung about his adventures and his life; but for +the men who cried him up behind his back; but for a woman who +looked for a triumph for her vanity, the woman who was to fill +his thoughts. + +For these reasons the Duchesse de Langeais' curiosity was no +less lively than natural. Chance had so ordered it that her +interest in the man before her had been aroused only the day +before, when she heard the story of one of M. de Montriveau's +adventures, a story calculated to make the strongest impression +upon a woman's ever-changing fancy. + +During M. de Montriveau's voyage of discovery to the sources of +the Nile, he had had an argument with one of his guides, surely +the most extraordinary debate in the annals of travel. The +district that he wished to explore could only be reached on foot +across a tract of desert. Only one of his guides knew the way; +no traveller had penetrated before into that part of the country, +where the undaunted officer hoped to find a solution of several +scientific problems. In spite of the representations made to him +by the guide and the older men of the place, he started upon the +formidable journey. Summoning up courage, already highly strung +by the prospect of dreadful difficulties, he set out in the +morning. + +The loose sand shifted under his feet at every step; and when, +at the end of a long day's march, he lay down to sleep on the +ground, he had never been so tired in his life. He knew, +however, that he must be up and on his way before dawn next day, +and his guide assured him that they should reach the end of their +journey towards noon. That promise kept up his courage and gave +him new strength. In spite of his sufferings, he continued his +march, with some blasphemings against science; he was ashamed to +complain to his guide, and kept his pain to himself. After +marching for a third of the day, he felt his strength failing, +his feet were bleeding, he asked if they should reach the place +soon. "In an hour's time," said the guide. Armand braced himself +for another hour's march, and they went on. + +The hour slipped by; he could not so much as see against the sky +the palm-trees and crests of hill that should tell of the end of +the journey near at hand; the horizon line of sand was vast as +the circle of the open sea. + +He came to a stand, refused to go farther, and threatened the +guide--he had deceived him, murdered him; tears of rage and +weariness flowed over his fevered cheeks; he was bowed down with +fatigue upon fatigue, his throat seemed to be glued by the desert +thirst. The guide meanwhile stood motionless, listening to these +complaints with an ironical expression, studying the while, with +the apparent indifference of an Oriental, the scarcely +perceptible indications in the lie of the sands, which looked +almost black, like burnished gold. + +"I have made a mistake," he remarked coolly. "I could not +make out the track, it is so long since I came this way; we are +surely on it now, but we must push on for two hours." + +"The man is right," thought M. de Montriveau. + +So he went on again, struggling to follow the pitiless native. +It seemed as if he were bound to his guide by some thread like +the invisible tie between the condemned man and the headsman. +But the two hours went by, Montriveau had spent his last drops of +energy, and the skyline was a blank, there were no palm-trees, no +hills. He could neither cry out nor groan, he lay down on the +sand to die, but his eyes would have frightened the boldest; +something in his face seemed to say that he would not die alone. +His guide, like a very fiend, gave him back a cool glance like a +man that knows his power, left him to lie there, and kept at a +safe distance out of reach of his desperate victim. At last M. +Montriveau recovered strength enough for a last curse. The guide +came nearer, silenced him with a steady look, and said, "Was it not +your own will to go where I am taking you, in spite of us all? You +say that I have lied to you. If I had not, you would not be even +here. Do you want the truth? Here it is. _We have still another five +hours' march before us, and we cannot go back_. Sound yourself; if +you have not courage enough, here is my dagger." + +Startled by this dreadful knowledge of pain and human strength, +M. de Montriveau would not be behind a savage; he drew a fresh +stock of courage from his pride as a European, rose to his feet, +and followed his guide. The five hours were at an end, and still +M. de Montriveau saw nothing, he turned his failing eyes upon his +guide; but the Nubian hoisted him on his shoulders, and showed +him a wide pool of water with greenness all about it, and a noble +forest lighted up by the sunset. It lay only a hundred paces +away; a vast ledge of granite hid the glorious landscape. It +seemed to Armand that he had taken a new lease of life. His +guide, that giant in courage and intelligence, finished his work +of devotion by carrying him across the hot, slippery, scarcely +discernible track on the granite. Behind him lay the hell of +burning sand, before him the earthly paradise of the most +beautiful oasis in the desert. + +The Duchess, struck from the first by the appearance of this +romantic figure, was even more impressed when she learned that +this was that Marquis de Montriveau of whom she had dreamed +during the night. She had been with him among the hot desert +sands, he had been the companion of her nightmare wanderings; for +such a woman was not this a delightful presage of a new interest +in her life? And never was a man's exterior a better exponent of +his character; never were curious glances so well justified. The +principal characteristic of his great, square-hewn head was the +thick, luxuriant black hair which framed his face, and gave him a +strikingly close resemblance to General Kleber; and the likeness +still held good in the vigorous forehead, in the outlines of his +face, the quiet fearlessness of his eyes, and a kind of fiery +vehemence expressed by strongly marked features. He was short, +deep-chested, and muscular as a lion. There was something of the +despot about him, and an indescribable suggestion of the security +of strength in his gait, bearing, and slightest movements. He +seemed to know that his will was irresistible, perhaps because he +wished for nothing unjust. And yet, like all really strong men, +he was mild of speech, simple in his manners, and kindly natured; +although it seemed as if, in the stress of a great crisis, all +these finer qualities must disappear, and the man would show +himself implacable, unshaken in his resolve, terrific in action. +There was a certain drawing in of the inner line of the lips +which, to a close observer, indicated an ironical bent. + +The Duchesse de Langeais, realising that a fleeting glory was to +be won by such a conquest, made up her mind to gain a lover in +Armand de Montriveau during the brief interval before the +Duchesse de Maufrigneuse brought him to be introduced. She would +prefer him above the others; she would attach him to herself, +display all her powers of coquetry for him. It was a fancy, such +a merest Duchess's whim as furnished a Lope or a Calderon with +the plot of the _Dog in the Manger_. She would not suffer another +woman to engross him; but she had not the remotest intention of +being his. + +Nature had given the Duchess every qualification for the part of +coquette, and education had perfected her. Women envied her, and +men fell in love with her, not without reason. Nothing that can +inspire love, justify it, and give it lasting empire was wanting +in her. Her style of beauty, her manner, her voice, her bearing, +all combined to give her that instinctive coquetry which seems to +be the consciousness of power. Her shape was graceful; perhaps +there was a trace of self-consciousness in her changes of +movement, the one affectation that could be laid to her charge; +but everything about her was a part of her personality, from her +least little gesture to the peculiar turn of her phrases, the +demure glance of her eyes. Her great lady's grace, her most +striking characteristic, had not destroyed the very French quick +mobility of her person. There was an extraordinary fascination +in her swift, incessant changes of attitude. She seemed as if +she surely would be a most delicious mistress when her corset and +the encumbering costume of her part were laid aside. All the +rapture of love surely was latent in the freedom of her +expressive glances, in her caressing tones, in the charm of her +words. She gave glimpses of the high-born courtesan within her, +vainly protesting against the creeds of the duchess. + +You might sit near her through an evening, she would be gay and +melancholy in turn, and her gaiety, like her sadness, seemed +spontaneous. She could be gracious, disdainful, insolent, or +confiding at will. Her apparent good nature was real; she had no +temptation to descend to malignity. But at each moment her mood +changed; she was full of confidence or craft; her moving +tenderness would give place to a heart-breaking hardness and +insensibility. Yet how paint her as she was, without bringing +together all the extremes of feminine nature? In a word, the +Duchess was anything that she wished to be or to seem. Her face +was slightly too long. There was a grace in it, and a certain +thinness and fineness that recalled the portraits of the Middle +Ages. Her skin was white, with a faint rose tint. Everything +about her erred, as it were, by an excess of delicacy. + +M. de Montriveau willingly consented to be introduced to the +Duchesse de Langeais; and she, after the manner of persons whose +sensitive taste leads them to avoid banalities, refrained from +overwhelming him with questions and compliments. She received +him with a gracious deference which could not fail to flatter a +man of more than ordinary powers, for the fact that a man rises +above the ordinary level implies that he possesses something of +that tact which makes women quick to read feeling. If the +Duchess showed any curiosity, it was by her glances; her +compliments were conveyed in her manner; there was a winning +grace displayed in her words, a subtle suggestion of a desire to +please which she of all women knew the art of manifesting. Yet +her whole conversation was but, in a manner, the body of the +letter; the postscript with the principal thought in it was still +to come. After half an hour spent in ordinary talk, in which the +words gained all their value from her tone and smiles, M. de +Montriveau was about to retire discreetly, when the Duchess +stopped him with an expressive gesture. + +"I do not know, monsieur, whether these few minutes during which +I have had the pleasure of talking to you proved so sufficiently +attractive, that I may venture to ask you to call upon me; I am +afraid that it may be very selfish of me to wish to have you all +to myself. If I should be so fortunate as to find that my house +is agreeable to you, you will always find me at home in the +evening until ten o'clock." + +The invitation was given with such irresistible grace, that M. de +Montriveau could not refuse to accept it. When he fell back +again among the groups of men gathered at a distance from the +women, his friends congratulated him, half laughingly, half in +earnest, on the extraordinary reception vouchsafed him by the +Duchesse de Langeais. The difficult and brilliant conquest had +been made beyond a doubt, and the glory of it was reserved for +the Artillery of the Guard. It is easy to imagine the jests, +good and bad, when this topic had once been started; the world of +Paris salons is so eager for amusement, and a joke lasts for such +a short time, that everyone is eager to make the most of it while +it is fresh. + +All unconsciously, the General felt flattered by this nonsense. +From his place where he had taken his stand, his eyes were drawn +again and again to the Duchess by countless wavering reflections. +He could not help admitting to himself that of all the women +whose beauty had captivated his eyes, not one had seemed to be a +more exquisite embodiment of faults and fair qualities blended in +a completeness that might realise the dreams of earliest manhood. +Is there a man in any rank of life that has not felt indefinable +rapture in his secret soul over the woman singled out (if only in +his dreams) to be his own; when she, in body, soul, and social +aspects, satisfies his every requirement, a thrice perfect woman? +And if this threefold perfection that flatters his pride is no +argument for loving her, it is beyond cavil one of the great +inducements to the sentiment. Love would soon be convalescent, +as the eighteenth century moralist remarked, were it not for +vanity. And it is certainly true that for everyone, man or +woman, there is a wealth of pleasure in the superiority of the +beloved. Is she set so high by birth that a contemptuous glance +can never wound her? is she wealthy enough to surround herself +with state which falls nothing short of royalty, of kings, of +finance during their short reign of splendour? is she so +ready-witted that a keen-edged jest never brings her into +confusion? beautiful enough to rival any woman?--Is it such a +small thing to know that your self-love will never suffer through +her? A man makes these reflections in the twinkling of an eye. +And how if, in the future opened out by early ripened passion, he +catches glimpses of the changeful delight of her charm, the frank +innocence of a maiden soul, the perils of love's voyage, the +thousand folds of the veil of coquetry? Is not this enough to +move the coldest man's heart? + +This, therefore, was M. de Montriveau's position with regard to +woman; his past life in some measure explaining the extraordinary +fact. He had been thrown, when little more than a boy, into the +hurricane of Napoleon's wars; his life had been spent on fields +of battle. Of women he knew just so much as a traveller knows of +a country when he travels across it in haste from one inn to +another. The verdict which Voltaire passed upon his eighty years +of life might, perhaps, have been applied by Montriveau to his +own thirty-seven years of existence; had he not thirty-seven +follies with which to reproach himself? At his age he was as +much a novice in love as the lad that has just been furtively +reading _Faublas_. Of women he had nothing to learn; of love he +knew nothing; and thus, desires, quite unknown before, sprang +from this virginity of feeling. + +There are men here and there as much engrossed in the work +demanded of them by poverty or ambition, art or science, as M. de +Montriveau by war and a life of adventure--these know what it is +to be in this unusual position if they very seldom confess to it. +Every man in Paris is supposed to have been in love. No woman in +Paris cares to take what other women have passed over. The dread +of being taken for a fool is the source of the coxcomb's bragging +so common in France; for in France to have the reputation of a +fool is to be a foreigner in one's own country. Vehement desire +seized on M. de Montriveau, desire that had gathered strength +from the heat of the desert and the first stirrings of a heart +unknown as yet in its suppressed turbulence. + +A strong man, and violent as he was strong, he could keep mastery +over himself; but as he talked of indifferent things, he retired +within himself, and swore to possess this woman, for through that +thought lay the only way to love for him. Desire became a solemn +compact made with himself, an oath after the manner of the Arabs +among whom he had lived; for among them a vow is a kind of +contract made with Destiny a man's whole future is solemnly +pledged to fulfil it, and everything even his own death, is +regarded simply as a means to the one end. + +A younger man would have said to himself, "I should very much +like to have the Duchess for my mistress!" or, "If the Duchesse +de Langeais cared for a man, he would be a very lucky rascal!" +But the General said, "I will have Mme de Langeais for my +mistress." And if a man takes such an idea into his head when +his heart has never been touched before, and love begins to be a +kind of religion with him, he little knows in what a hell he has +set his foot. + +Armand de Montriveau suddenly took flight and went home in the +first hot fever-fit of the first love that he had known. When a +man has kept all his boyish beliefs, illusions, frankness, and +impetuosity into middle age, his first impulse is, as it were, to +stretch out a hand to take the thing that he desires; a little +later he realizes that there is a gulf set between them, and that +it is all but impossible to cross it. A sort of childish +impatience seizes him, he wants the thing the more, and trembles +or cries. Wherefore, the next day, after the stormiest +reflections that had yet perturbed his mind, Armand de Montriveau +discovered that he was under the yoke of the senses, and his +bondage made the heavier by his love. + +The woman so cavalierly treated in his thoughts of yesterday had +become a most sacred and dreadful power. She was to be his +world, his life, from this time forth. The greatest joy, the +keenest anguish, that he had yet known grew colorless before the +bare recollection of the least sensation stirred in him by her. +The swiftest revolutions in a man's outward life only touch his +interests, while passion brings a complete revulsion of feeling. +And so in those who live by feeling, rather than by self-interest, +the doers rather than the reasoners, the sanguine rather than the +lymphatic temperaments, love works a complete revolution. In a +flash, with one single reflection, Armand de Montriveau wiped out +his whole past life. + +A score of times he asked himself, like a boy, "Shall I go, or +shall I not?" and then at last he dressed, came to the Hotel de +Langeais towards eight o'clock that evening, and was admitted. +He was to see the woman--ah! not the woman--the idol that he had +seen yesterday, among lights, a fresh innocent girl in gauze and +silken lace and veiling. He burst in upon her to declare his +love, as if it were a question of firing the first shot on a +field of battle. + +Poor novice! He found his ethereal sylphide shrouded in a brown +cashmere dressing-gown ingeniously befrilled, lying languidly +stretched out upon a sofa in a dimly lighted boudoir. Mme de +Langeais did not so much as rise, nothing was visible of her but +her face, her hair was loose but confined by a scarf. A hand +indicated a seat, a hand that seemed white as marble to +Montriveau by the flickering light of a single candle at the +further side of the room, and a voice as soft as the light said: + +"If it had been anyone else, M. le Marquis, a friend with whom I +could dispense with ceremony, or a mere acquaintance in whom I +felt but slight interest, I should have closed my door. I am +exceedingly unwell." + +"I will go," Armand said to himself. + +"But I do not know how it is," she continued (and the simple +warrior attributed the shining of her eyes to fever), "perhaps +it was a presentiment of your kind visit (and no one can be more +sensible of the prompt attention than I), but the vapors have +left my head." + +"Then may I stay?" + +"Oh, I should be very sorry to allow you to go. I told myself +this morning that it was impossible that I should have made the +slightest impression on your mind, and that in all probability +you took my request for one of the commonplaces of which +Parisians are lavish on every occasion. And I forgave your +ingratitude in advance. An explorer from the deserts is not +supposed to know how exclusive we are in our friendships in the +Faubourg." + +The gracious, half-murmured words dropped one by one, as if they +had been weighted with the gladness that apparently brought them +to her lips. The Duchess meant to have the full benefit of her +headache, and her speculation was fully successful. The General, +poor man, was really distressed by the lady's simulated distress. +Like Crillon listening to the story of the Crucifixion, he was +ready to draw his sword against the vapors. How could a man +dare to speak just then to this suffering woman of the love that +she inspired? Armand had already felt that it would be absurd to +fire off a declaration of love point-blank at one so far above +other women. With a single thought came understanding of the +delicacies of feeling, of the soul's requirements. To love: what +was that but to know how to plead, to beg for alms, to wait? And +as for the love that he felt, must he not prove it? His tongue +was mute, it was frozen by the conventions of the noble Faubourg, +the majesty of a sick headache, the bashfulness of love. But no +power on earth could veil his glances; the heat and the Infinite +of the desert blazed in eyes calm as a panther's, beneath the +lids that fell so seldom. The Duchess enjoyed the steady gaze +that enveloped her in light and warmth. + +"Mme la Duchesse," he answered, "I am afraid I express my +gratitude for your goodness very badly. At this moment I have +but one desire--I wish it were in my power to cure the pain." + +"Permit me to throw this off, I feel too warm now," she said, +gracefully tossing aside a cushion that covered her feet. + +"Madame, in Asia your feet would be worth some ten thousand +sequins. + +"A traveler's compliment!" smiled she. + +It pleased the sprightly lady to involve a rough soldier in a +labyrinth of nonsense, commonplaces, and meaningless talk, in +which he manoeuvred, in military language, as Prince Charles +might have done at close quarters with Napoleon. She took a +mischievous amusement in reconnoitring the extent of his +infatuation by the number of foolish speeches extracted from a +novice whom she led step by step into a hopeless maze, meaning to +leave him there in confusion. She began by laughing at him, but +nevertheless it pleased her to make him forget how time went. + +The length of a first visit is frequently a compliment, but +Armand was innocent of any such intent. The famous explorer +spent an hour in chat on all sorts of subjects, said nothing that +he meant to say, and was feeling that he was only an instrument +on whom this woman played, when she rose, sat upright, drew the +scarf from her hair, and wrapped it about her throat, leant her +elbow on the cushions, did him the honour of a complete cure, and +rang for lights. The most graceful movement succeeded to +complete repose. She turned to M. de Montriveau, from whom she +had just extracted a confidence which seemed to interest her +deeply, and said: + +"You wish to make game of me by trying to make me believe that +you have never loved. It is a man's great pretension with us. +And we always believe it! Out of pure politeness. Do we not +know what to expect from it for ourselves? Where is the man that +has found but a single opportunity of losing his heart? But you +love to deceive us, and we submit to be deceived, poor foolish +creatures that we are; for your hypocrisy is, after all, a homage +paid to the superiority of our sentiments, which are all +purity." + +The last words were spoken with a disdainful pride that made the +novice in love feel like a worthless bale flung into the deep, +while the Duchess was an angel soaring back to her particular +heaven. + +"Confound it!" thought Armand de Montriveau, "how am I to tell +this wild thing that I love her?" + +He had told her already a score of times; or rather, the Duchess +had a score of times read his secret in his eyes; and the passion +in this unmistakably great man promised her amusement, and an +interest in her empty life. So she prepared with no little +dexterity to raise a certain number of redoubts for him to carry +by storm before he should gain an entrance into her heart. +Montriveau should overleap one difficulty after another; he +should be a plaything for her caprice, just as an insect teased +by children is made to jump from one finger to another, and in +spite of all its pains is kept in the same place by its +mischievous tormentor. And yet it gave the Duchess inexpressible +happiness to see that this strong man had told her the truth. +Armand had never loved, as he had said. He was about to go, in a +bad humour with himself, and still more out of humour with her; +but it delighted her to see a sullenness that she could conjure +away with a word, a glance, or a gesture. + +"Will you come tomorrow evening?" she asked. "I am going to a +ball, but I shall stay at home for you until ten o'clock." + +Montriveau spent most of the next day in smoking an indeterminate +quantity of cigars in his study window, and so got through the +hours till he could dress and go to the Hotel de Langeais. To +anyone who had known the magnificent worth of the man, it would +have been grievous to see him grown so small, so distrustful of +himself; the mind that might have shed light over undiscovered +worlds shrunk to the proportions of a she-coxcomb's boudoir. +Even he himself felt that he had fallen so low already in his +happiness that to save his life he could not have told his love +to one of his closest friends. Is there not always a trace of +shame in the lover's bashfulness, and perhaps in woman a certain +exultation over diminished masculine stature? Indeed, but for a +host of motives of this kind, how explain why women are nearly +always the first to betray the secret?--a secret of which, +perhaps, they soon weary. + +"Mme la Duchesse cannot see visitors, monsieur," said the man; +"she is dressing, she begs you to wait for her here." + +Armand walked up and down the drawing-room, studying her taste in +the least details. He admired Mme de Langeais herself in the +objects of her choosing; they revealed her life before he could +grasp her personality and ideas. About an hour later the Duchess +came noiselessly out of her chamber. Montriveau turned, saw her +flit like a shadow across the room, and trembled. She came up to +him, not with a bourgeoise's enquiry, "How do I look?" She was +sure of herself; her steady eyes said plainly, "I am adorned to +please you." + +No one surely, save the old fairy godmother of some princess in +disguise, could have wound a cloud of gauze about the dainty +throat, so that the dazzling satin skin beneath should gleam +through the gleaming folds. The Duchess was dazzling. The pale +blue colour of her gown, repeated in the flowers in her hair, +appeared by the richness of its hue to lend substance to a +fragile form grown too wholly ethereal; for as she glided towards +Armand, the loose ends of her scarf floated about her, putting +that valiant warrior in mind of the bright damosel flies that +hover now over water, now over the flowers with which they seem +to mingle and blend. + +"I have kept you waiting," she said, with the tone that a woman +can always bring into her voice for the man whom she wishes to +please. + +"I would wait patiently through an eternity," said he, "if I +were sure of finding a divinity so fair; but it is no compliment +to speak of your beauty to you; nothing save worship could touch +you. Suffer me only to kiss your scarf." + +"Oh, fie!" she said, with a commanding gesture, "I esteem you +enough to give you my hand." + +She held it out for his kiss. A woman's hand, still moist from +the scented bath, has a soft freshness, a velvet smoothness that +sends a tingling thrill from the lips to the soul. And if a man +is attracted to a woman, and his senses are as quick to feel +pleasure as his heart is full of love, such a kiss, though chaste +in appearance, may conjure up a terrific storm. + +"Will you always give it me like this?" the General asked +humbly when he had pressed that dangerous hand respectfully to +his lips. + +"Yes, but there we must stop," she said, smiling. She sat +down, and seemed very slow over putting on her gloves, trying to +slip the unstretched kid over all her fingers at once, while she +watched M. de Montriveau; and he was lost in admiration of the +Duchess and those repeated graceful movements of hers. + +"Ah! you were punctual," she said; "that is right. I like +punctuality. It is the courtesy of kings, His Majesty says; but +to my thinking, from you men it is the most respectful flattery +of all. Now, is it not? Just tell me." + +Again she gave him a side glance to express her insidious +friendship, for he was dumb with happiness sheer happiness +through such nothings as these! Oh, the Duchess understood _son +metier de femme_--the art and mystery of being a woman--most +marvelously well; she knew, to admiration, how to raise a man in +his own esteem as he humbled himself to her; how to reward every +step of the descent to sentimental folly with hollow flatteries. + +"You will never forget to come at nine o'clock." + +"No; but are you going to a ball every night?" + +"Do I know?" she answered, with a little childlike shrug of the +shoulders; the gesture was meant to say that she was nothing if +not capricious, and that a lover must take her as she +was.--"Besides," she added, "what is that to you? You shall +be my escort." + +"That would be difficult tonight," he objected; "I am not +properly dressed." + +"It seems to me," she returned loftily, "that if anyone has a +right to complain of your costume, it is I. Know, therefore, +_monsieur le voyageur_, that if I accept a man's arm, he is +forthwith above the laws of fashion, nobody would venture to +criticise him. You do not know the world, I see; I like you the +better for it." + +And even as she spoke she swept him into the pettiness of that +world by the attempt to initiate him into the vanities of a woman +of fashion. + +"If she chooses to do a foolish thing for me, I should be a +simpleton to prevent her," said Armand to himself. "She has a +liking for me beyond a doubt; and as for the world, she cannot +despise it more than I do. So, now for the ball if she likes." + +The Duchess probably thought that if the General came with her +and appeared in a ballroom in boots and a black tie, nobody would +hesitate to believe that he was violently in love with her. And +the General was well pleased that the queen of fashion should +think of compromising herself for him; hope gave him wit. He had +gained confidence, he brought out his thoughts and views; he felt +nothing of the restraint that weighed on his spirits yesterday. +His talk was interesting and animated, and full of those first +confidences so sweet to make and to receive. + +Was Mme de Langeais really carried away by his talk, or had she +devised this charming piece of coquetry? At any rate, she looked +up mischievously as the clock struck twelve. + +"Ah! you have made me too late for the ball!" she exclaimed, +surprised and vexed that she had forgotten how time was going. + +The next moment she approved the exchange of pleasures with a +smile that made Armand's heart give a sudden leap. + +"I certainly promised Mme de Beauseant," she added. "They are +all expecting me." + +"Very well--go." + +"No--go on. I will stay. Your Eastern adventures fascinate me. +Tell me the whole story of your life. I love to share in a brave +man's hardships, and I feel them all, indeed I do!" + +She was playing with her scarf, twisting it and pulling it to +pieces, with jerky, impatient movements that seemed to tell of +inward dissatisfaction and deep reflection. + +"_We_ are fit for nothing," she went on. "Ah! we are +contemptible, selfish, frivolous creatures. We can bore +ourselves with amusements, and that is all we can do. Not one of +us that understands that she has a part to play in life. In old +days in France, women were beneficent lights; they lived to +comfort those that mourned, to encourage high virtues, to reward +artists and stir new life with noble thoughts. If the world has +grown so petty, ours is the fault. You make me loathe the ball +and this world in which I live. No, I am not giving up much for +you." + +She had plucked her scarf to pieces, as a child plays with a +flower, pulling away all the petals one by one; and now she +crushed it into a ball, and flung it away. She could show her +swan's neck. + +She rang the bell. "I shall not go out tonight," she told the +footman. Her long, blue eyes turned timidly to Armand; and by +the look of misgiving in them, he knew that he was meant to take +the order for a confession, for a first and great favour. There +was a pause, filled with many thoughts, before she spoke with +that tenderness which is often in women's voices, and not so +often in their hearts. "You have had a hard life," she said. + +"No," returned Armand. "Until today I did not know what +happiness was." + +"Then you know it now?" she asked, looking at him with a +demure, keen glance. + +"What is happiness for me henceforth but this--to see you, to +hear you? . . . Until now I have only known privation; now I +know that I can be unhappy----" + +"That will do, that will do," she said. "You must go; it is +past midnight. Let us regard appearances. People must not talk +about us. I do not know quite what I shall say; but the headache +is a good-natured friend, and tells no tales." + +"Is there to be a ball tomorrow night?" + +"You would grow accustomed to the life, I think. Very well. +Yes, we will go again tomorrow night." + +There was not a happier man in the world than Armand when he went +out from her. Every evening he came to Mme de Langeais' at the +hour kept for him by a tacit understanding. + +It would be tedious, and, for the many young men who carry a +redundance of such sweet memories in their hearts, it were +superfluous to follow the story step by step--the progress of a +romance growing in those hours spent together, a romance +controlled entirely by a woman's will. If sentiment went too +fast, she would raise a quarrel over a word, or when words +flagged behind her thoughts, she appealed to the feelings. +Perhaps the only way of following such Penelope's progress is by +marking its outward and visible signs. + +As, for instance, within a few days of their first meeting, the +assiduous General had won and kept the right to kiss his lady's +insatiable hands. Wherever Mme de Langeais went, M. de +Montriveau was certain to be seen, till people jokingly called +him "Her Grace's orderly." And already he had made enemies; +others were jealous, and envied him his position. Mme de +Langeais had attained her end. The Marquis de Montriveau was +among her numerous train of adorers, and a means of humiliating +those who boasted of their progress in her good graces, for she +publicly gave him preference over them all. + +"Decidedly, M. de Montriveau is the man for whom the Duchess +shows a preference," pronounced Mme de Serizy. + +And who in Paris does not know what it means when a woman "shows +a preference?" All went on therefore according to prescribed +rule. The anecdotes which people were pleased to circulate +concerning the General put that warrior in so formidable a light, +that the more adroit quietly dropped their pretensions to the +Duchess, and remained in her train merely to turn the position to +account, and to use her name and personality to make better terms +for themselves with certain stars of the second magnitude. And +those lesser powers were delighted to take a lover away from Mme +de Langeais. The Duchess was keen-sighted enough to see these +desertions and treaties with the enemy; and her pride would not +suffer her to be the dupe of them. As M. de Talleyrand, one of +her great admirers, said, she knew how to take a second edition +of revenge, laying the two-edged blade of a sarcasm between the +pairs in these "morganatic" unions. Her mocking disdain +contributed not a little to increase her reputation as an +extremely clever woman and a person to be feared. Her character +for virtue was consolidated while she amused herself with other +people's secrets, and kept her own to herself. Yet, after two +months of assiduities, she saw with a vague dread in the depths +of her soul that M. de Montriveau understood nothing of the +subtleties of flirtation after the manner of the Faubourg +Saint-Germain; he was taking a Parisienne's coquetry in earnest. + +"You will not tame _him_, dear Duchess," the old Vidame de +Pamiers had said. "'Tis a first cousin to the eagle; he will +carry you off to his eyrie if you do not take care." + +Then Mme de Langeais felt afraid. The shrewd old noble's words +sounded like a prophecy. The next day she tried to turn love to +hate. She was harsh, exacting, irritable, unbearable; Montriveau +disarmed her with angelic sweetness. She so little knew the +great generosity of a large nature, that the kindly jests with +which her first complaints were met went to her heart. She +sought a quarrel, and found proofs of affection. She persisted. + +"When a man idolizes you, how can he have vexed you?" asked +Armand. + +"You do not vex me," she answered, suddenly grown gentle and +submissive. "But why do you wish to compromise me? For me you +ought to be nothing but a _friend_. Do you not know it? I wish I +could see that you had the instincts, the delicacy of real +friendship, so that I might lose neither your respect nor the +pleasure that your presence gives me." + +"Nothing but your _friend_!" he cried out. The terrible word +sent an electric shock through his brain. "On the faith of +these happy hours that you grant me, I sleep and wake in your +heart. And now today, for no reason, you are pleased to destroy +all the secret hopes by which I live. You have required promises +of such constancy in me, you have said so much of your horror of +women made up of nothing but caprice; and now do you wish me to +understand that, like other women here in Paris, you have +passions, and know nothing of love? If so, why did you ask my +life of me? why did you accept it?" + +"I was wrong, my friend. Oh, it is wrong of a woman to yield to +such intoxication when she must not and cannot make any return." + +"I understand. You have merely been coquetting with me, +and----" + +"Coquetting?" she repeated. "I detest coquetry. A coquette +Armand, makes promises to many, and gives herself to none; and a +woman who keeps such promises is a libertine. This much I +believed I had grasped of our code. But to be melancholy with +humorists, gay with the frivolous, and politic with ambitious +souls; to listen to a babbler with every appearance of +admiration, to talk of war with a soldier, wax enthusiastic with +philanthropists over the good of the nation, and to give to each +one his little dole of flattery--it seems to me that this is as +much a matter of necessity as dress, diamonds, and gloves, or +flowers in one's hair. Such talk is the moral counterpart of the +toilette. You take it up and lay it aside with the plumed +head-dress. Do you call this coquetry? Why, I have never +treated you as I treat everyone else. With you, my friend, I am +sincere. Have I not always shared your views, and when you +convinced me after a discussion, was I not always perfectly glad? +In short, I love you, but only as a devout and pure woman may +love. I have thought it over. I am a married woman, Armand. My +way of life with M. de Langeais gives me liberty to bestow my +heart; but law and custom leave me no right to dispose of my +person. If a woman loses her honour, she is an outcast in any +rank of life; and I have yet to meet with a single example of a +man that realizes all that our sacrifices demand of him in such a +case. Quite otherwise. Anyone can foresee the rupture between +Mme de Beauseant and M. d'Ajuda (for he is going to marry Mlle de +Rochefide, it seems), that affair made it clear to my mind that +these very sacrifices on the woman's part are almost always the +cause of the man's desertion. If you had loved me sincerely, you +would have kept away for a time.--Now, I will lay aside all +vanity for you; is not that something? What will not people say +of a woman to whom no man attaches himself? Oh, she is +heartless, brainless, soulless; and what is more, devoid of +charm! Coquettes will not spare me. They will rob me of the +very qualities that mortify them. So long as my reputation is +safe, what do I care if my rivals deny my merits? They certainly +will not inherit them. Come, my friend; give up something for +her who sacrifices so much for you. Do not come quite so often; +I shall love you none the less." + +"Ah!" said Armand, with the profound irony of a wounded heart +in his words and tone. "Love, so the scribblers say, only feeds +on illusions. Nothing could be truer, I see; I am expected to +imagine that I am loved. But, there!--there are some thoughts +like wounds, from which there is no recovery. My belief in you +was one of the last left to me, and now I see that there is +nothing left to believe in this earth." + +She began to smile. + +"Yes," Montriveau went on in an unsteady voice, "this Catholic +faith to which you wish to convert me is a lie that men make for +themselves; hope is a lie at the expense of the future; pride, a +lie between us and our fellows; and pity, and prudence, and +terror are cunning lies. And now my happiness is to be one more +lying delusion; I am expected to delude myself, to be willing to +give gold coin for silver to the end. If you can so easily +dispense with my visits; if you can confess me neither as your +friend nor your lover, you do not care for me! And I, poor fool +that I am, tell myself this, and know it, and love you!" + +"But, dear me, poor Armand, you are flying into a passion!" + +"I flying into a passion?" + +"Yes. You think that the whole question is opened because I ask +you to be careful." + +In her heart of hearts she was delighted with the anger that +leapt out in her lover's eyes. Even as she tortured him, she was +criticising him, watching every slightest change that passed over +his face. If the General had been so unluckily inspired as to +show himself generous without discussion (as happens occasionally +with some artless souls), he would have been a banished man +forever, accused and convicted of not knowing how to love. Most +women are not displeased to have their code of right and wrong +broken through. Do they not flatter themselves that they never +yield except to force? But Armand was not learned enough in this +kind of lore to see the snare ingeniously spread for him by the +Duchess. So much of the child was there in the strong man in +love. + +"If all you want is to preserve appearances," he began in his +simplicity, "I am willing to----" + +"Simply to preserve appearances!" the lady broke in; "why, +what idea can you have of me? Have I given you the slightest +reason to suppose that I can be yours?" + +"Why, what else are we talking about?" demanded Montriveau. + +"Monsieur, you frighten me! . . . No, pardon me. Thank you," +she added, coldly; "thank you, Armand. You have given me timely +warning of imprudence; committed quite unconsciously, believe it, +my friend. You know how to endure, you say. I also know how to +endure. We will not see each other for a time; and then, when +both of us have contrived to recover calmness to some extent, we +will think about arrangements for a happiness sanctioned by the +world. I am young, Armand; a man with no delicacy might tempt a +woman of four-and-twenty to do many foolish, wild things for his +sake. But _you_! You will be my friend, promise me that you +will?" + +"The woman of four-and-twenty," returned he, "knows what she +is about." + +He sat down on the sofa in the boudoir, and leant his head on his +hands. + +"Do you love me, madame?" he asked at length, raising his head, +and turning a face full of resolution upon her. "Say it +straight out; Yes or No!" + +His direct question dismayed the Duchess more than a threat of +suicide could have done; indeed, the woman of the nineteenth +century is not to be frightened by that stale stratagem, the +sword has ceased to be part of the masculine costume. But in the +effect of eyelids and lashes, in the contraction of the gaze, in +the twitching of the lips, is there not some influence that +communicates the terror which they express with such vivid +magnetic power? + +"Ah, if I were free, if----" + +"Oh! is it only your husband that stands in the way?" the +General exclaimed joyfully, as he strode to and fro in the +boudoir. "Dear Antoinette, I wield a more absolute power than +the Autocrat of all the Russias. I have a compact with Fate; I +can advance or retard destiny, so far as men are concerned, at my +fancy, as you alter the hands of a watch. If you can direct the +course of fate in our political machinery, it simply means (does +it not?) that you understand the ins and outs of it. You shall +be free before very long, and then you must remember your +promise." + +"Armand!" she cried. "What do you mean? Great heavens! Can +you imagine that I am to be the prize of a crime? Do you want to +kill me? Why! you cannot have any religion in you! For my own +part, I fear God. M. de Langeais may have given me reason to +hate him, but I wish him no manner of harm." + +M. de Montriveau beat a tattoo on the marble chimney-piece, and +only looked composedly at the lady. + +"Dear," continued she, "respect him. He does not love me, he +is not kind to me, but I have duties to fulfil with regard to +him. What would I not do to avert the calamities with which you +threaten him?--Listen," she continued after a pause, "I will +not say another word about separation; you shall come here as in +the past, and I will still give you my forehead to kiss. If I +refused once or twice, it was pure coquetry, indeed it was. But +let us understand each other," she added as he came closer. +"You will permit me to add to the number of my satellites; to +receive even more visitors in the morning than heretofore; I mean +to be twice as frivolous; I mean to use you to all appearance +very badly; to feign a rupture; you must come not quite so often, +and then, afterwards----" + +While she spoke, she had allowed him to put an arm about her +waist, Montriveau was holding her tightly to him, and she seemed +to feel the exceeding pleasure that women usually feel in that +close contact, an earnest of the bliss of a closer union. And +then, doubtless she meant to elicit some confidence, for she +raised herself on tiptoe, and laid her forehead against Armand's +burning lips. + +"And then," Montriveau finished her sentence for her, "you +shall not speak to me of your husband. You ought not to think of +him again." + +Mme de Langeais was silent awhile. + +"At least," she said, after a significant pause, "at least you +will do all that I wish without grumbling, you will not be +naughty; tell me so, my friend? You wanted to frighten me, did +you not? Come, now, confess it? . . . You are too good ever to +think of crimes. But is it possible that you can have secrets +that I do not know? How can you control Fate?" + +"Now, when you confirm the gift of the heart that you have +already given me, I am far too happy to know exactly how to +answer you. I can trust you, Antoinette; I shall have no +suspicion, no unfounded jealousy of you. But if accident should +set you free, we shall be one----" + +"Accident, Armand?" (With that little dainty turn of the head +that seems to say so many things, a gesture that such women as +the Duchess can use on light occasions, as a great singer can act +with her voice.) "Pure accident," she repeated. "Mind that. +If anything should happen to M. de Langeais by your fault, I +should never be yours." + +And so they parted, mutually content. The Duchess had made a +pact that left her free to prove to the world by words and deeds +that M. de Montriveau was no lover of hers. And as for him, the +wily Duchess vowed to tire him out. He should have nothing of +her beyond the little concessions snatched in the course of +contests that she could stop at her pleasure. She had so pretty +an art of revoking the grant of yesterday, she was so much in +earnest in her purpose to remain technically virtuous, that she +felt that there was not the slightest danger for her in +preliminaries fraught with peril for a woman less sure of her +self-command. After all, the Duchess was practically separated +from her husband; a marriage long since annulled was no great +sacrifice to make to her love. + +Montriveau on his side was quite happy to win the vaguest +promise, glad once for all to sweep aside, with all scruples of +conjugal fidelity, her stock of excuses for refusing herself to +his love. He had gained ground a little, and congratulated +himself. And so for a time he took unfair advantage of the +rights so hardly won. More a boy than he had ever been in his +life, he gave himself up to all the childishness that makes first +love the flower of life. He was a child again as he poured out +all his soul, all the thwarted forces that passion had given him, +upon her hands, upon the dazzling forehead that looked so pure to +his eyes; upon her fair hair; on the tufted curls where his lips +were pressed. And the Duchess, on whom his love was poured like +a flood, was vanquished by the magnetic influence of her lover's +warmth; she hesitated to begin the quarrel that must part them +forever. She was more a woman than she thought, this slight +creature, in her effort to reconcile the demands of religion with +the ever-new sensations of vanity, the semblance of pleasure +which turns a Parisienne's head. Every Sunday she went to Mass; +she never missed a service; then, when evening came, she was +steeped in the intoxicating bliss of repressed desire. Armand +and Mme de Langeais, like Hindoo fakirs, found the reward of +their continence in the temptations to which it gave rise. +Possibly, the Duchess had ended by resolving love into fraternal +caresses, harmless enough, as it might have seemed to the rest of +the world, while they borrowed extremes of degradation from the +license of her thoughts. How else explain the incomprehensible +mystery of her continual fluctuations? Every morning she +proposed to herself to shut her door on the Marquis de +Montriveau; every evening, at the appointed hour, she fell under +the charm of his presence. There was a languid defence; then she +grew less unkind. Her words were sweet and soothing. They were +lovers--lovers only could have been thus. For him the Duchess +would display her most sparkling wit, her most captivating wiles; +and when at last she had wrought upon his senses and his soul, +she might submit herself passively to his fierce caresses, but +she had her _nec plus ultra_ of passion; and when once it was +reached, she grew angry if he lost the mastery of himself and +made as though he would pass beyond. No woman on earth can brave +the consequences of refusal without some motive; nothing is more +natural than to yield to love; wherefore Mme de Langeais promptly +raised a second line of fortification, a stronghold less easy to +carry than the first. She evoked the terrors of religion. Never +did Father of the Church, however eloquent, plead the cause of +God better than the Duchess. Never was the wrath of the Most +High better justified than by her voice. She used no preacher's +commonplaces, no rhetorical amplifications. No. She had a +"pulpit-tremor" of her own. To Armand's most passionate +entreaty, she replied with a tearful gaze, and a gesture in which +a terrible plenitude of emotion found expression. She stopped +his mouth with an appeal for mercy. She would not hear another +word; if she did, she must succumb; and better death than +criminal happiness. + +"Is it nothing to disobey God?" she asked him, recovering a +voice grown faint in the crises of inward struggles, through +which the fair actress appeared to find it hard to preserve her +self-control. "I would sacrifice society, I would give up the +whole world for you, gladly; but it is very selfish of you to ask +my whole after-life of me for a moment of pleasure. Come, now! +are you not happy?" she added, holding out her hand; and +certainly in her careless toilette the sight of her afforded +consolations to her lover, who made the most of them. + +Sometimes from policy, to keep her hold on a man whose ardent +passion gave her emotions unknown before, sometimes in weakness, +she suffered him to snatch a swift kiss; and immediately, in +feigned terror, she flushed red and exiled Armand from the sofa +so soon as the sofa became dangerous ground. + +"Your joys are sins for me to expiate, Armand; they are paid for +by penitence and remorse," she cried. + +And Montriveau, now at two chairs' distance from that +aristocratic petticoat, betook himself to blasphemy and railed +against Providence. The Duchess grew angry at such times. + +"My friend," she said drily, "I do not understand why you +decline to believe in God, for it is impossible to believe in +man. Hush, do not talk like that. You have too great a nature +to take up their Liberal nonsense with its pretension to abolish +God." + +Theological and political disputes acted like a cold douche on +Montriveau; he calmed down; he could not return to love when the +Duchess stirred up his wrath by suddenly setting him down a +thousand miles away from the boudoir, discussing theories of +absolute monarchy, which she defended to admiration. Few women +venture to be democrats; the attitude of democratic champion is +scarcely compatible with tyrannous feminine sway. But often, on +the other hand, the General shook out his mane, dropped politics +with a leonine growling and lashing of the flanks, and sprang +upon his prey; he was no longer capable of carrying a heart and +brain at such variance for very far; he came back, terrible with +love, to his mistress. And she, if she felt the prick of fancy +stimulated to a dangerous point, knew that it was time to leave +her boudoir; she came out of the atmosphere surcharged with +desires that she drew in with her breath, sat down to the piano, +and sang the most exquisite songs of modern music, and so baffled +the physical attraction which at times showed her no mercy, +though she was strong enough to fight it down. + +At such times she was something sublime in Armand's eyes; she was +not acting, she was genuine; the unhappy lover was convinced that +she loved him. Her egoistic resistance deluded him into a belief +that she was a pure and sainted woman; he resigned himself; he +talked of Platonic love, did this artillery officer! + +When Mme de Langeais had played with religion sufficiently to +suit her own purposes, she played with it again for Armand's +benefit. She wanted to bring him back to a Christian frame of +mind; she brought out her edition of _Le Genie du Christianisme_, +adapted for the use of military men. Montriveau chafed; his yoke +was heavy. Oh! at that, possessed by the spirit of contradiction, +she dinned religion into his ears, to see whether God might not +rid her of this suitor, for the man's persistence was beginning +to frighten her. And in any case she was glad to prolong any +quarrel, if it bade fair to keep the dispute on moral grounds +for an indefinite period; the material struggle which followed +it was more dangerous. + +But if the time of her opposition on the ground of the marriage +law might be said to be the _epoque civile_ of this sentimental +warfare, the ensuing phase which might be taken to constitute the +_epoque religieuse_ had also its crisis and consequent decline of +severity. + +Armand happening to come in very early one evening, found M. +l'Abbe Gondrand, the Duchess's spiritual director, established in +an armchair by the fireside, looking as a spiritual director +might be expected to look while digesting his dinner and the +charming sins of his penitent. In the ecclesiastic's bearing +there was a stateliness befitting a dignitary of the Church; and +the episcopal violet hue already appeared in his dress. At sight +of his fresh, well-preserved complexion, smooth forehead, and +ascetic's mouth, Montriveau's countenance grew uncommonly dark; +he said not a word under the malicious scrutiny of the other's +gaze, and greeted neither the lady nor the priest. The lover +apart, Montriveau was not wanting in tact; so a few glances +exchanged with the bishop-designate told him that here was the +real forger of the Duchess's armory of scruples. + +That an ambitious abbe should control the happiness of a man of +Montriveau's temper, and by underhand ways! The thought burst in +a furious tide over his face, clenched his fists, and set him +chafing and pacing to and fro; but when he came back to his place +intending to make a scene, a single look from the Duchess was +enough. He was quiet. + +Any other woman would have been put out by her lover's gloomy +silence; it was quite otherwise with Mme de Langeais. She +continued her conversation with M. de Gondrand on the necessity +of re-establishing the Church in its ancient splendour. And she +talked brilliantly. + +The Church, she maintained, ought to be a temporal as well as a +spiritual power, stating her case better than the Abbe had done, +and regretting that the Chamber of Peers, unlike the English +House of Lords, had no bench of bishops. Nevertheless, the Abbe +rose, yielded his place to the General, and took his leave, +knowing that in Lent he could play a return game. As for the +Duchess, Montriveau's behaviour had excited her curiosity to such +a pitch that she scarcely rose to return her director's low bow. + +"What is the matter with you, my friend?" + +"Why, I cannot stomach that Abbe of yours." + +"Why did you not take a book?" she asked, careless whether the +Abbe, then closing the door, heard her or no. + +The General paused, for the gesture which accompanied the +Duchess's speech further increased the exceeding insolence of her +words. + +"My dear Antoinette, thank you for giving love precedence of the +Church; but, for pity's sake, allow me to ask one question." + +"Oh! you are questioning me! I am quite willing. You are my +friend, are you not? I certainly can open the bottom of my heart +to you; you will see only one image there." + +"Do you talk about our love to that man?" + +"He is my confessor." + +"Does he know that I love you?" + +"M. de Montriveau, you cannot claim, I think, to penetrate the +secrets of the confessional?" + +"Does that man know all about our quarrels and my love for +you?" + +"That man, monsieur; say God!" + +"God again! _I_ ought to be alone in your heart. But leave God +alone where He is, for the love of God and me. Madame, you _shall +not_ go to confession again, or----" + +"Or?" she repeated sweetly. + +"Or I will never come back here." + +"Then go, Armand. Good-bye, good-bye forever." + +She rose and went to her boudoir without so much as a glance at +Armand, as he stood with his hand on the back of a chair. How +long he stood there motionless he himself never knew. The soul +within has the mysterious power of expanding as of contracting +space. + +He opened the door of the boudoir. It was dark within. A faint +voice was raised to say sharply: + +"I did not ring. What made you come in without orders? Go +away, Suzette." + +"Then you are ill," exclaimed Montriveau. + +"Stand up, monsieur, and go out of the room for a minute at any +rate," she said, ringing the bell. + +"Mme la Duchesse rang for lights?" said the footman, coming in +with the candles. When the lovers were alone together, Mme de +Langeais still lay on her couch; she was just as silent and +motionless as if Montriveau had not been there. + +"Dear, I was wrong," he began, a note of pain and a sublime +kindness in his voice. "Indeed, I would not have you without +religion----" + +"It is fortunate that you can recognise the necessity of a +conscience," she said in a hard voice, without looking at him. +"I thank you in God's name." + +The General was broken down by her harshness; this woman seemed +as if she could be at will a sister or a stranger to him. He +made one despairing stride towards the door. He would leave her +forever without another word. He was wretched; and the Duchess +was laughing within herself over mental anguish far more cruel +than the old judicial torture. But as for going away, it was not +in his power to do it. In any sort of crisis, a woman is, as it +were, bursting with a certain quantity of things to say; so long +as she has not delivered herself of them, she experiences the +sensation which we are apt to feel at the sight of something +incomplete. Mme de Langeais had not said all that was in her +mind. She took up her parable and said: + +"We have not the same convictions, General, I am pained to +think. It would be dreadful if a woman could not believe in a +religion which permits us to love beyond the grave. I set +Christian sentiments aside; you cannot understand them. Let me +simply speak to you of expediency. Would you forbid a woman at +court the table of the Lord when it is customary to take the +sacrament at Easter? People must certainly do something for +their party. The Liberals, whatever they may wish to do, will +never destroy the religious instinct. Religion will always be a +political necessity. Would you undertake to govern a nation of +logic-choppers? Napoleon was afraid to try; he persecuted +ideologists. If you want to keep people from reasoning, you must +give them something to feel. So let us accept the Roman Catholic +Church with all its consequences. And if we would have France go +to mass, ought we not to begin by going ourselves? Religion, you +see, Armand, is a bond uniting all the conservative principles +which enable the rich to live in tranquillity. Religion and the +rights of property are intimately connected. It is certainly a +finer thing to lead a nation by ideas of morality than by fear of +the scaffold, as in the time of the Terror--the one method by +which your odious Revolution could enforce obedience. The priest +and the king--that means you, and me, and the Princess my +neighbour; and, in a word, the interests of all honest people +personified. There, my friend, just be so good as to belong to +your party, you that might be its Scylla if you had the slightest +ambition that way. I know nothing about politics myself; I argue +from my own feelings; but still I know enough to guess that +society would be overturned if people were always calling its +foundations in question----" + +"If that is how your Court and your Government think, I am sorry +for you," broke in Montriveau. "The Restoration, madam, ought +to say, like Catherine de Medici, when she heard that the battle +of Dreux was lost, 'Very well; now we will go to the +meeting-house.' Now 1815 was your battle of Dreux. Like the +royal power of those days, you won in fact, while you lost in +right. Political Protestantism has gained an ascendancy over +people's minds. If you have no mind to issue your Edict of +Nantes; or if, when it is issued, you publish a Revocation; if +you should one day be accused and convicted of repudiating the +Charter, which is simply a pledge given to maintain the interests +established under the Republic, then the Revolution will rise +again, terrible in her strength, and strike but a single blow. +It will not be the Revolution that will go into exile; she is the +very soil of France. Men die, but people's interests do not die. +. . . Eh, great Heavens! what are France and the crown and +rightful sovereigns, and the whole world besides, to us? Idle +words compared with my happiness. Let them reign or be hurled +from the throne, little do I care. Where am I now?" + +"In the Duchesse de Langeais' boudoir, my friend." + +"No, no. No more of the Duchess, no more of Langeais; I am with +my dear Antoinette." + +"Will you do me the pleasure to stay where you are," she said, +laughing and pushing him back, gently however. + +"So you have never loved me," he retorted, and anger flashed in +lightning from his eyes. + +"No, dear"; but the "No" was equivalent to "Yes." + +"I am a great ass," he said, kissing her hands. The terrible +queen was a woman once more.--"Antoinette," he went on, laying +his head on her feet, "you are too chastely tender to speak of +our happiness to anyone in this world." + +"Oh!" she cried, rising to her feet with a swift, graceful +spring, "you are a great simpleton." And without another word +she fled into the drawing-room. + +"What is it now?" wondered the General, little knowing that the +touch of his burning forehead had sent a swift electric thrill +through her from foot to head. + +In hot wrath he followed her to the drawing-room, only to hear +divinely sweet chords. The Duchess was at the piano. If the man +of science or the poet can at once enjoy and comprehend, bringing +his intelligence to bear upon his enjoyment without loss of +delight, he is conscious that the alphabet and phraseology of +music are but cunning instruments for the composer, like the wood +and copper wire under the hands of the executant. For the poet +and the man of science there is a music existing apart, +underlying the double expression of this language of the spirit +and senses. _Andiamo mio ben_ can draw tears of joy or pitying +laughter at the will of the singer; and not unfrequently one here +and there in the world, some girl unable to live and bear the +heavy burden of an unguessed pain, some man whose soul vibrates +with the throb of passion, may take up a musical theme, and lo! +heaven is opened for them, or they find a language for themselves +in some sublime melody, some song lost to the world. + +The General was listening now to such a song; a mysterious music +unknown to all other ears, as the solitary plaint of some +mateless bird dying alone in a virgin forest. + +"Great Heavens! what are you playing there?" he asked in an +unsteady voice. + +"The prelude of a ballad, called, I believe, _Fleuve du Tage_." + +"I did not know that there was such music in a piano," he +returned. + +"Ah!" she said, and for the first time she looked at him as a +woman looks at the man she loves, "nor do you know, my friend, +that I love you, and that you cause me horrible suffering; and +that I feel that I must utter my cry of pain without putting it +too plainly into words. If I did not, I should yield----But you +see nothing." + +"And you will not make me happy!" + +"Armand, I should die of sorrow the next day." + +The General turned abruptly from her and went. But out in the +street he brushed away the tears that he would not let fall. + +The religious phase lasted for three months. At the end of that +time the Duchess grew weary of vain repetitions; the Deity, bound +hand and foot, was delivered up to her lover. Possibly she may +have feared that by sheer dint of talking of eternity she might +perpetuate his love in this world and the next. For her own +sake, it must be believed that no man had touched her heart, or +her conduct would be inexcusable. She was young; the time when +men and women feel that they cannot afford to lose time or to +quibble over their joys was still far off. She, no doubt, was on +the verge not of first love, but of her first experience of the +bliss of love. And from inexperience, for want of the painful +lessons which would have taught her to value the treasure poured +out at her feet, she was playing with it. Knowing nothing of the +glory and rapture of the light, she was fain to stay in the +shadow. + +Armand was just beginning to understand this strange situation; +he put his hope in the first word spoken by nature. Every +evening, as he came away from Mme de Langeais', he told himself +that no woman would accept the tenderest, most delicate proofs of +a man's love during seven months, nor yield passively to the +slighter demands of passion, only to cheat love at the last. He +was waiting patiently for the sun to gain power, not doubting but +that he should receive the earliest fruits. The married woman's +hesitations and the religious scruples he could quite well +understand. He even rejoiced over those battles. He mistook the +Duchess's heartless coquetry for modesty; and he would not have +had her otherwise. So he had loved to see her devising +obstacles; was he not gradually triumphing over them? Did not +every victory won swell the meagre sum of lovers' intimacies long +denied, and at last conceded with every sign of love? Still, he +had had such leisure to taste the full sweetness of every small +successive conquest on which a lover feeds his love, that these +had come to be matters of use and wont. So far as obstacles +went, there were none now save his own awe of her; nothing else +left between him and his desire save the whims of her who allowed +him to call her Antoinette. So he made up his mind to demand +more, to demand all. Embarrassed like a young lover who cannot +dare to believe that his idol can stoop so low, he hesitated for +a long time. He passed through the experience of terrible +reactions within himself. A set purpose was annihilated by a +word, and definite resolves died within him on the threshold. He +despised himself for his weakness, and still his desire remained +unuttered. Nevertheless, one evening, after sitting in gloomy +melancholy, he brought out a fierce demand for his illegally +legitimate rights. The Duchess had not to wait for her bond-slave's +request to guess his desire. When was a man's desire a secret? And +have not women an intuitive knowledge of the meaning of certain +changes of countenance? + +"What! you wish to be my friend no longer?" she broke in at the +first words, and a divine red surging like new blood under the +transparent skin, lent brightness to her eyes. "As a reward for +my generosity, you would dishonor me? Just reflect a little. I +myself have thought much over this; and I think always for us +_both_. There is such a thing as a woman's loyalty, and we can no +more fail in it than you can fail in honour. _I_ cannot blind +myself. If I am yours, how, in any sense, can I be M. de +Langeais' wife? Can you require the sacrifice of my position, +my rank, my whole life in return for a doubtful love that could +not wait patiently for seven months? What! already you would rob +me of my right to dispose of myself? No, no; you must not talk +like this again. No, not another word. I will not, I cannot +listen to you." + +Mme de Langeais raised both hands to her head to push back the +tufted curls from her hot forehead; she seemed very much excited. + +"You come to a weak woman with your purpose definitely planned +out. You say--'For a certain length of time she will talk to me +of her husband, then of God, and then of the inevitable +consequences. But I will use and abuse the ascendancy I shall +gain over her; I will make myself indispensable; all the bonds of +habit, all the misconstructions of outsiders, will make for me; +and at length, when our _liaison_ is taken for granted by all the +world, I shall be this woman's master.'--Now, be frank; these are +your thoughts! Oh! you calculate, and you say that you love. +Shame on you! You are enamoured? Ah! that I well believe! You +wish to possess me, to have me for your mistress, that is all! +Very well then, No! The _Duchesse de Langeais_ will not descend so +far. Simple _bourgeoises_ may be the victims of your treachery--I, +never! Nothing gives me assurance of your love. You speak of my +beauty; I may lose every trace of it in six months, like the dear +Princess, my neighbour. You are captivated by my wit, my grace. +Great Heavens! you would soon grow used to them and to the +pleasures of possession. Have not the little concessions that I +was weak enough to make come to be a matter of course in the last +few months? Some day, when ruin comes, you will give me no +reason for the change in you beyond a curt, 'I have ceased to +care for you.'--Then, rank and fortune and honour and all that +was the Duchesse de Langeais will be swallowed up in one +disappointed hope. I shall have children to bear witness to my +shame, and----" With an involuntary gesture she interrupted +herself, and continued: "But I am too good-natured to explain +all this to you when you know it better than I. Come! let us +stay as we are. I am only too fortunate in that I can still +break these bonds which you think so strong. Is there anything +so very heroic in coming to the Hotel de Langeais to spend an +evening with a woman whose prattle amuses you?--a woman whom you +take for a plaything? Why, half a dozen young coxcombs come here +just as regularly every afternoon between three and five. They, +too, are very generous, I am to suppose? I make fun of them; +they stand my petulance and insolence pretty quietly, and make me +laugh; but as for you, I give all the treasures of my soul to +you, and you wish to ruin me, you try my patience in endless +ways. Hush, that will do, that will do," she continued, seeing +that he was about to speak, "you have no heart, no soul, no +delicacy. I know what you want to tell me. Very well, +then--yes. I would rather you should take me for a cold, +insensible woman, with no devotion in her composition, no heart +even, than be taken by everybody else for a vulgar person, and be +condemned to your so-called pleasures, of which you would most +certainly tire, and to everlasting punishment for it afterwards. +Your selfish love is not worth so many sacrifices. . . ." + +The words give but a very inadequate idea of the discourse which +the Duchess trilled out with the quick volubility of a +bird-organ. Nor, truly, was there anything to prevent her from +talking on for some time to come, for poor Armand's only reply to +the torrent of flute notes was a silence filled with cruelly +painful thoughts. He was just beginning to see that this woman +was playing with him; he divined instinctively that a devoted +love, a responsive love, does not reason and count the +consequences in this way. Then, as he heard her reproach him +with detestable motives, he felt something like shame as he +remembered that unconsciously he had made those very +calculations. With angelic honesty of purpose, he looked within, +and self-examination found nothing but selfishness in all his +thoughts and motives, in the answers which he framed and could +not utter. He was self-convicted. In his despair he longed to +fling himself from the window. The egoism of it was intolerable. + +What indeed can a man say when a woman will not believe in love? +--Let me prove how much I love you.--The _I_ is always there. + +The heroes of the boudoir, in such circumstances, can follow the +example of the primitive logician who preceded the Pyrrhonists +and denied movement. Montriveau was not equal to this feat. +With all his audacity, he lacked this precise kind which never +deserts an adept in the formulas of feminine algebra. If so many +women, and even the best of women, fall a prey to a kind of +expert to whom the vulgar give a grosser name, it is perhaps +because the said experts are great _provers_, and love, in spite +of its delicious poetry of sentiment, requires a little more +geometry than people are wont to think. + +Now the Duchess and Montriveau were alike in this--they were both +equally unversed in love lore. The lady's knowledge of theory +was but scanty; in practice she knew nothing whatever; she felt +nothing, and reflected over everything. Montriveau had had but +little experience, was absolutely ignorant of theory, and felt +too much to reflect at all. Both therefore were enduring the +consequences of the singular situation. At that supreme moment +the myriad thoughts in his mind might have been reduced to the +formula--"Submit to be mine----" words which seem horribly +selfish to a woman for whom they awaken no memories, recall no +ideas. Something nevertheless he must say. And what was more, +though her barbed shafts had set his blood tingling, though the +short phrases that she discharged at him one by one were very +keen and sharp and cold, he must control himself lest he should +lose all by an outbreak of anger. + +"Mme la Duchesse, I am in despair that God should have invented +no way for a woman to confirm the gift of her heart save by +adding the gift of her person. The high value which you yourself +put upon the gift teaches me that I cannot attach less importance +to it. If you have given me your inmost self and your whole +heart, as you tell me, what can the rest matter? And besides, if +my happiness means so painful a sacrifice, let us say no more +about it. But you must pardon a man of spirit if he feels +humiliated at being taken for a spaniel." + +The tone in which the last remark was uttered might perhaps have +frightened another woman; but when the wearer of a petticoat has +allowed herself to be addressed as a Divinity, and thereby set +herself above all other mortals, no power on earth can be so +haughty. + +"M. le Marquis, I am in despair that God should not have +invented some nobler way for a man to confirm the gift of his +heart than by the manifestation of prodigiously vulgar desires. +We become bond-slaves when we give ourselves body and soul, but a +man is bound to nothing by accepting the gift. Who will assure +me that love will last? The very love that I might show for you +at every moment, the better to keep your love, might serve you as +a reason for deserting me. I have no wish to be a second edition +of Mme de Beauseant. Who can ever know what it is that keeps you +beside us? Our persistent coldness of heart is the cause of an +unfailing passion in some of you; other men ask for an untiring +devotion, to be idolized at every moment; some for gentleness, +others for tyranny. No woman in this world as yet has really +read the riddle of man's heart." + +There was a pause. When she spoke again it was in a different +tone. + +"After all, my friend, you cannot prevent a woman from trembling +at the question, 'Will this love last always?' Hard though my +words may be, the dread of losing you puts them into my mouth. +Oh, me! it is not I who speaks, dear, it is reason; and how +should anyone so mad as I be reasonable? In truth, I am nothing +of the sort." + +The poignant irony of her answer had changed before the end into +the most musical accents in which a woman could find utterance +for ingenuous love. To listen to her words was to pass in a +moment from martyrdom to heaven. Montriveau grew pale; and for +the first time in his life, he fell on his knees before a woman. +He kissed the Duchess's skirt hem, her knees, her feet; but for +the credit of the Faubourg Saint-Germain it is necessary to +respect the mysteries of its boudoirs, where many are fain to +take the utmost that Love can give without giving proof of love +in return. + +The Duchess thought herself generous when she suffered herself to +be adored. But Montriveau was in a wild frenzy of joy over her +complete surrender of the position. + +"Dear Antoinette," he cried. "Yes, you are right; I will not +have you doubt any longer. I too am trembling at this +moment--lest the angel of my life should leave me; I wish I could +invent some tie that might bind us to each other irrevocably." + +"Ah!" she said, under her breath, "so I was right, you see." + +"Let me say all that I have to say; I will scatter all your +fears with a word. Listen! if I deserted you, I should deserve +to die a thousand deaths. Be wholly mine, and I will give you +the right to kill me if I am false. I myself will write a letter +explaining certain reasons for taking my own life; I will make my +final arrangements, in short. You shall have the letter in your +keeping; in the eye of the law it will be a sufficient +explanation of my death. You can avenge yourself, and fear +nothing from God or men." + +"What good would the letter be to me? What would life be if I +had lost your love? If I wished to kill you, should I not be +ready to follow? No; thank you for the thought, but I do not +want the letter. Should I not begin to dread that you were +faithful to me through fear? And if a man knows that he must +risk his life for a stolen pleasure, might it not seem more +tempting? Armand, the thing I ask of you is the one hard thing +to do." + +"Then what is it that you wish?" + +"Your obedience and my liberty." + +"Ah, God!" cried he, "I am a child." + +"A wayward, much spoilt child," she said, stroking the thick +hair, for his head still lay on her knee. "Ah! and loved far +more than he believes, and yet he is very disobedient. Why not +stay as we are? Why not sacrifice to me the desires that hurt +me? Why not take what I can give, when it is all that I can +honestly grant? Are you not happy?" + +"Oh yes, I am happy when I have not a doubt left. Antoinette, +doubt in love is a kind of death, is it not?" + +In a moment he showed himself as he was, as all men are under the +influence of that hot fever; he grew eloquent, insinuating. And +the Duchess tasted the pleasures which she reconciled with her +conscience by some private, Jesuitical ukase of her own; Armand's +love gave her a thrill of cerebral excitement which custom made +as necessary to her as society, or the Opera. To feel that she +was adored by this man, who rose above other men, whose character +frightened her; to treat him like a child; to play with him as +Poppaea played with Nero--many women, like the wives of King +Henry VIII, have paid for such a perilous delight with all the +blood in their veins. Grim presentiment! Even as she surrendered +the delicate, pale, gold curls to his touch, and felt the close +pressure of his hand, the little hand of a man whose greatness +she could not mistake; even as she herself played with his dark, +thick locks, in that boudoir where she reigned a queen, the +Duchess would say to herself: + +"This man is capable of killing me if he once finds out that I +am playing with him." + +Armand de Montriveau stayed with her till two o'clock in the +morning. From that moment this woman, whom he loved, was neither +a duchess nor a Navarreins; Antoinette, in her disguises, had +gone so far as to appear to be a woman. On that most blissful +evening, the sweetest prelude ever played by a Parisienne to what +the world calls "a slip"; in spite of all her affectations of a +coyness which she did not feel, the General saw all maidenly +beauty in her. He had some excuse for believing that so many +storms of caprice had been but clouds covering a heavenly soul; +that these must be lifted one by one like the veils that hid her +divine loveliness. The Duchess became, for him, the most simple +and girlish mistress; she was the one woman in the world for him; +and he went away quite happy in that at last he had brought her +to give him such pledges of love, that it seemed to him +impossible but that he should be but her husband henceforth in +secret, her choice sanctioned by Heaven. + +Armand went slowly home, turning this thought in his mind with +the impartiality of a man who is conscious of all the +responsibilities that love lays on him while he tastes the +sweetness of its joys. He went along the Quais to see the widest +possible space of sky; his heart had grown in him; he would fain +have had the bounds of the firmament and of earth enlarged. It +seemed to him that his lungs drew an ampler breath. In the course +of his self-examination, as he walked, he vowed to love this woman +so devoutly, that every day of her life she should find absolution +for her sins against society in unfailing happiness. Sweet +stirrings of life when life is at the full! The man that is strong +enough to steep his soul in the colour of one emotion, feels +infinite joy as glimpses open out for him of an ardent lifetime +that knows no diminution of passion to the end; even so it is +permitted to certain mystics, in ecstasy, to behold the Light of +God. Love would be naught without the belief that it would last +forever; love grows great through constancy. It was thus that, +wholly absorbed by his happiness, Montriveau understood passion. + +"We belong to each other forever!" + +The thought was like a talisman fulfilling the wishes of his +life. He did not ask whether the Duchess might not change, +whether her love might not last. No, for he had faith. Without +that virtue there is no future for Christianity, and perhaps it +is even more necessary to society. A conception of life as +feeling occurred to him for the first time; hitherto he had lived +by action, the most strenuous exertion of human energies, the +physical devotion, as it may be called, of the soldier. + +Next day M. de Montriveau went early in the direction of the +Faubourg Saint-Germain. He had made an appointment at a house +not far from the Hotel de Langeais; and the business over, he +went thither as if to his own home. The General's companion +chanced to be a man for whom he felt a kind of repulsion whenever +he met him in other houses. This was the Marquis de +Ronquerolles, whose reputation had grown so great in Paris +boudoirs. He was witty, clever, and what was more--courageous; +he set the fashion to all the young men in Paris. As a man of +gallantry, his success and experience were equally matters of +envy; and neither fortune nor birth was wanting in his case, +qualifications which add such lustre in Paris to a reputation as +a leader of fashion. + +"Where are you going?" asked M. de Ronquerolles. + +"To Mme de Langeais'." + +"Ah, true. I forgot that you had allowed her to lime you. You +are wasting your affections on her when they might be much better +employed elsewhere. I could have told you of half a score of +women in the financial world, any one of them a thousand times +better worth your while than that titled courtesan, who does with +her brains what less artificial women do with----" + +"What is this, my dear fellow?" Armand broke in. "The Duchess +is an angel of innocence." + +Ronquerolles began to laugh. + +"Things being thus, dear boy," said he, "it is my duty to +enlighten you. Just a word; there is no harm in it between +ourselves. Has the Duchess surrendered? If so, I have nothing +more to say. Come, give me your confidence. There is no +occasion to waste your time in grafting your great nature on that +unthankful stock, when all your hopes and cultivation will come +to nothing." + +Armand ingenuously made a kind of general report of his position, +enumerating with much minuteness the slender rights so hardly +won. Ronquerolles burst into a peal of laughter so heartless, +that it would have cost any other man his life. But from their +manner of speaking and looking at each other during that colloquy +beneath the wall, in a corner almost as remote from intrusion as +the desert itself, it was easy to imagine the friendship between +the two men knew no bounds, and that no power on earth could +estrange them. + +"My dear Armand, why did you not tell me that the Duchess was a +puzzle to you? I would have given you a little advice which +might have brought your flirtation properly through. You must +know, to begin with, that the women of our Faubourg, like any +other women, love to steep themselves in love; but they have a +mind to possess and not to be possessed. They have made a sort +of compromise with human nature. The code of their parish gives +them a pretty wide latitude short of the last transgression. The +sweets enjoyed by this fair Duchess of yours are so many venial +sins to be washed away in the waters of penitence. But if you +had the impertinence to ask in earnest for the moral sin to which +naturally you are sure to attach the highest importance, you +would see the deep disdain with which the door of the boudoir and +the house would be incontinently shut upon you. The tender +Antoinette would dismiss everything from her memory; you would be +less than a cipher for her. She would wipe away your kisses, my +dear friend, as indifferently as she would perform her ablutions. +She would sponge love from her cheeks as she washes off rouge. +We know women of that sort--the thorough-bred Parisienne. Have +you ever noticed a grisette tripping along the street? Her face +is as good as a picture. A pretty cap, fresh cheeks, trim hair, +a guileful smile, and the rest of her almost neglected. Is not +this true to the life? Well, that is the Parisienne. She knows +that her face is all that will be seen, so she devotes all her +care, finery, and vanity to her head. The Duchess is the same; +the head is everything with her. She can only feel through her +intellect, her heart lies in her brain, she is a sort of +intellectual epicure, she has a head-voice. We call that kind of +poor creature a Lais of the intellect. You have been taken in +like a boy. If you doubt it, you can have proof of it tonight, +this morning, this instant. Go up to her, try the demand as an +experiment, insist peremptorily if it is refused. You might set +about it like the late Marechal de Richelieu, and get nothing for +your pains." + +Armand was dumb with amazement. + +"Has your desire reached the point of infatuation?" + +"I want her at any cost!" Montriveau cried out despairingly. + +"Very well. Now, look here. Be as inexorable as she is +herself. Try to humiliate her, to sting her vanity. Do _not_ try +to move her heart, nor her soul, but the woman's nerves and +temperament, for she is both nervous and lymphatic. If you can +once awaken desire in her, you are safe. But you must drop these +romantic boyish notions of yours. If when once you have her in +your eagle's talons you yield a point or draw back, if you so +much as stir an eyelid, if she thinks that she can regain her +ascendancy over you, she will slip out of your clutches like a +fish, and you will never catch her again. Be as inflexible as +law. Show no more charity than the headsman. Hit hard, and then +hit again. Strike and keep on striking as if you were giving her +the knout. Duchesses are made of hard stuff, my dear Armand; +there is a sort of feminine nature that is only softened by +repeated blows; and as suffering develops a heart in women of +that sort, so it is a work of charity not to spare the rod. Do +you persevere. Ah! when pain has thoroughly relaxed those nerves +and softened the fibres that you take to be so pliant and +yielding; when a shriveled heart has learned to expand and +contract and to beat under this discipline; when the brain has +capitulated--then, perhaps, passion may enter among the steel +springs of this machinery that turns out tears and affectations +and languors and melting phrases; then you shall see a most +magnificent conflagration (always supposing that the chimney +takes fire). The steel feminine system will glow red-hot like +iron in the forge; that kind of heat lasts longer than any other, +and the glow of it may possibly turn to love. + +"Still," he continued, "I have my doubts. And, after all, is +it worth while to take so much trouble with the Duchess? Between +ourselves a man of my stamp ought first to take her in hand and +break her in; I would make a charming woman of her; she is a +thoroughbred; whereas, you two left to yourselves will never get +beyond the A B C. But you are in love with her, and just now you +might not perhaps share my views on this subject----. A pleasant +time to you, my children," added Ronquerolles, after a pause. +Then with a laugh: "I have decided myself for facile beauties; +they are tender, at any rate, the natural woman appears in their +love without any of your social seasonings. A woman that haggles +over herself, my poor boy, and only means to inspire love! Well, +have her like an extra horse--for show. The match between the +sofa and confessional, black and white, queen and knight, +conscientious scruples and pleasure, is an uncommonly amusing +game of chess. And if a man knows the game, let him be never so +little of a rake, he wins in three moves. Now, if I undertook a +woman of that sort, I should start with the deliberate purpose +of----" His voice sank to a whisper over the last words in +Armand's ear, and he went before there was time to reply. + +As for Montriveau, he sprang at a bound across the courtyard of +the Hotel de Langeais, went unannounced up the stairs straight to +the Duchess's bedroom. + +"This is an unheard-of thing," she said, hastily wrapping her +dressing-gown about her. "Armand! this is abominable of you! +Come, leave the room, I beg. Just go out of the room, and go at +once. Wait for me in the drawing-room.--Come now!" + +"Dear angel, has a plighted lover no privilege whatsoever?" + +"But, monsieur, it is in the worst possible taste of a plighted +lover or a wedded husband to break in like this upon his wife." + +He came up to the Duchess, took her in his arms, and held her +tightly to him. + +"Forgive, dear Antoinette; but a host of horrid doubts are +fermenting in my heart." + +"_Doubts_? Fie!--Oh, fie on you!" + +"Doubts all but justified. If you loved me, would you make this +quarrel? Would you not be glad to see me? Would you not have +felt a something stir in your heart? For I, that am not a woman, +feel a thrill in my inmost self at the mere sound of your voice. +Often in a ballroom a longing has come upon me to spring to your +side and put my arms about your neck." + +"Oh! if you have doubts of me so long as I am not ready to +spring to your arms before all the world, I shall be doubted all +my life long, I suppose. Why, Othello was a mere child compared +with you!" + +"Ah!" he cried despairingly, "you have no love for me----" + +"Admit, at any rate, that at this moment you are not lovable." + +"Then I have still to find favour in your sight?" + +"Oh, I should think so. Come," added she, "with a little +imperious air, go out of the room, leave me. I am not like you; +I wish always to find favour in your eyes." + +Never woman better understood the art of putting charm into +insolence, and does not the charm double the effect? is it not +enough to infuriate the coolest of men? There was a sort of +untrammeled freedom about Mme de Langeais; a something in her +eyes, her voice, her attitude, which is never seen in a woman who +loves when she stands face to face with him at the mere sight of +whom her heart must needs begin to beat. The Marquis de +Ronquerolles' counsels had cured Armand of sheepishness; and +further, there came to his aid that rapid power of intuition +which passion will develop at moments in the least wise among +mortals, while a great man at such a time possesses it to the +full. He guessed the terrible truth revealed by the Duchess's +nonchalance, and his heart swelled with the storm like a lake +rising in flood. + +"If you told me the truth yesterday, be mine, dear Antoinette," +he cried; "you shall----" + +"In the first place," said she composedly, thrusting him back +as he came nearer--"in the first place, you are not to +compromise me. My woman might overhear you. Respect me, I beg +of you. Your familiarity is all very well in my boudoir in an +evening; here it is quite different. Besides, what may your 'you +shall' mean? 'You shall.' No one as yet has ever used that word +to me. It is quite ridiculous, it seems to me, absolutely +ridiculous. + +"Will you surrender nothing to me on this point?" + +"Oh! do you call a woman's right to dispose of herself a +'point?' A capital point indeed; you will permit me to be +entirely my own mistress on that 'point.'" + +"And how if, believing in your promises to me, I should +absolutely require it?" + +"Oh! then you would prove that I made the greatest possible +mistake when I made you a promise of any kind; and I should beg +you to leave me in peace." + +The General's face grew white; he was about to spring to her +side, when Mme de Langeais rang the bell, the maid appeared, and, +smiling with a mocking grace, the Duchess added, "Be so good as +to return when I am visible." + +Then Montriveau felt the hardness of a woman as cold and keen as +a steel blade; she was crushing in her scorn. In one moment she +had snapped the bonds which held firm only for her lover. She +had read Armand's intention in his face, and held that the moment +had come for teaching the Imperial soldier his lesson. He was to +be made to feel that though duchesses may lend themselves to +love, they do not give themselves, and that the conquest of one +of them would prove a harder matter than the conquest of Europe. + +"Madame," returned Armand, "I have not time to wait. I am a +spoilt child, as you told me yourself. When I seriously resolve +to have that of which we have been speaking, I shall have it." + +"You will have it?" queried she, and there was a trace of +surprise in her loftiness. + +"I shall have it." + +"Oh! you would do me a great pleasure by 'resolving' to have it. +For curiosity's sake, I should be delighted to know how you would +set about it----" + +"I am delighted to put a new interest into your life," +interrupted Montriveau, breaking into a laugh which dismayed the +Duchess. "Will you permit me to take you to the ball tonight?" + +"A thousand thanks. M. de Marsay has been beforehand with you. I +gave him my promise." + +Montriveau bowed gravely and went. + +"So Ronquerolles was right," thought he, "and now for a game +of chess." + +Thenceforward he hid his agitation by complete composure. No man +is strong enough to bear such sudden alternations from the height +of happiness to the depths of wretchedness. So he had caught a +glimpse of happy life the better to feel the emptiness of his +previous existence? There was a terrible storm within him; but +he had learned to endure, and bore the shock of tumultuous +thoughts as a granite cliff stands out against the surge of an +angry sea. + +"I could say nothing. When I am with her my wits desert me. +She does not know how vile and contemptible she is. Nobody has +ventured to bring her face to face with herself. She has played +with many a man, no doubt; I will avenge them all." + +For the first time, it may be, in a man's heart, revenge and love +were blended so equally that Montriveau himself could not know +whether love or revenge would carry all before it. That very +evening he went to the ball at which he was sure of seeing the +Duchesse de Langeais, and almost despaired of reaching her heart. +He inclined to think that there was something diabolical about +this woman, who was gracious to him and radiant with charming +smiles; probably because she had no wish to allow the world to +think that she had compromised herself with M. de Montriveau. +Coolness on both sides is a sign of love; but so long as the +Duchess was the same as ever, while the Marquis looked sullen and +morose, was it not plain that she had conceded nothing? +Onlookers know the rejected lover by various signs and tokens; +they never mistake the genuine symptoms for a coolness such as +some women command their adorers to feign, in the hope of +concealing their love. Everyone laughed at Montriveau; and he, +having omitted to consult his cornac, was abstracted and ill at +ease. M. de Ronquerolles would very likely have bidden him +compromise the Duchess by responding to her show of friendliness +by passionate demonstrations; but as it was, Armand de Montriveau +came away from the ball, loathing human nature, and even then +scarcely ready to believe in such complete depravity. + +"If there is no executioner for such crimes," he said, as he +looked up at the lighted windows of the ballroom where the most +enchanting women in Paris were dancing, laughing, and chatting, +"I will take you by the nape of the neck, Mme la Duchesse, and +make you feel something that bites more deeply than the knife in +the Place de la Greve. Steel against steel; we shall see which +heart will leave the deeper mark." + +For a week or so Mme de Langeais hoped to see the Marquis de +Montriveau again; but he contented himself with sending his card +every morning to the Hotel de Langeais. The Duchess could not +help shuddering each time that the card was brought in, and a dim +foreboding crossed her mind, but the thought was vague as a +presentiment of disaster. When her eyes fell on the name, it +seemed to her that she felt the touch of the implacable man's +strong hand in her hair; sometimes the words seemed like a +prognostication of a vengeance which her lively intellect +invented in the most shocking forms. She had studied him too +well not to dread him. Would he murder her, she wondered? Would +that bull-necked man dash out her vitals by flinging her over his +head? Would he trample her body under his feet? When, where, +and how would he get her into his power? Would he make her +suffer very much, and what kind of pain would he inflict? She +repented of her conduct. There were hours when, if he had come, +she would have gone to his arms in complete self-surrender. + +Every night before she slept she saw Montriveau's face; every +night it wore a different aspect. Sometimes she saw his bitter +smile, sometimes the Jovelike knitting of the brows; or his +leonine look, or some disdainful movement of the shoulders made +him terrible for her. Next day the card seemed stained with +blood. The name of Montriveau stirred her now as the presence of +the fiery, stubborn, exacting lover had never done. Her +apprehensions gathered strength in the silence. She was forced, +without aid from without, to face the thought of a hideous duel +of which she could not speak. Her proud hard nature was more +responsive to thrills of hate than it had ever been to the +caresses of love. Ah! if the General could but have seen her, as +she sat with her forehead drawn into folds between her brows; +immersed in bitter thoughts in that boudoir where he had enjoyed +such happy moments, he might perhaps have conceived high hopes. +Of all human passions, is not pride alone incapable of +engendering anything base? Mme de Langeais kept her thoughts to +herself, but is it not permissible to suppose that M. de +Montriveau was no longer indifferent to her? And has not a man +gained ground immensely when a woman thinks about him? He is +bound to make progress with her either one way or the other +afterwards. + +Put any feminine creature under the feet of a furious horse or +other fearsome beast; she will certainly drop on her knees and +look for death; but if the brute shows a milder mood and does not +utterly slay her, she will love the horse, lion, bull, or what +not, and will speak of him quite at her ease. The Duchess felt +that she was under the lion's paws; she quaked, but she did not +hate him. + +The man and woman thus singularly placed with regard to each +other met three times in society during the course of that week. +Each time, in reply to coquettish questioning glances, the +Duchess received a respectful bow, and smiles tinged with such +savage irony, that all her apprehensions over the card in the +morning were revived at night. Our lives are simply such as our +feelings shape them for us; and the feelings of these two had +hollowed out a great gulf between them. + +The Comtesse de Serizy, the Marquis de Ronquerolles' sister, +gave a great ball at the beginning of the following week, and Mme +de Langeais was sure to go to it. Armand was the first person +whom the Duchess saw when she came into the room, and this time +Armand was looking out for her, or so she thought at least. The +two exchanged a look, and suddenly the woman felt a cold +perspiration break from every pore. She had thought all along +that Montriveau was capable of taking reprisals in some +unheard-of way proportioned to their condition, and now the +revenge had been discovered, it was ready, heated, and boiling. +Lightnings flashed from the foiled lover's eyes, his face was +radiant with exultant vengeance. And the Duchess? Her eyes were +haggard in spite of her resolution to be cool and insolent. She +went to take her place beside the Comtesse de Serizy, who could +not help exclaiming, "Dear Antoinette! what is the matter with +you? You are enough to frighten one." + +"I shall be all right after a quadrille," she answered, giving +a hand to a young man who came up at that moment. + +Mme de Langeais waltzed that evening with a sort of excitement +and transport which redoubled Montriveau's lowering looks. He +stood in front of the line of spectators, who were amusing +themselves by looking on. Every time that _she_ came past him, his +eyes darted down upon her eddying face; he might have been a +tiger with the prey in his grasp. The waltz came to an end, Mme +de Langeais went back to her place beside the Countess, and +Montriveau never took his eyes off her, talking all the while +with a stranger. + +"One of the things that struck me most on the journey," he was +saying (and the Duchess listened with all her ears), "was the +remark which the man makes at Westminster when you are shown the +axe with which a man in a mask cut off Charles the First's head, +so they tell you. The King made it first of all to some +inquisitive person, and they repeat it still in memory of him." + +"What does the man say?" asked Mme de Serizy. + +"'Do not touch the axe!'" replied Montriveau, and there was +menace in the sound of his voice. + +"Really, my Lord Marquis," said Mme de Langeais, "you tell +this old story that everybody knows if they have been to London, +and look at my neck in such a melodramatic way that you seem to +me to have an axe in your hand." + +The Duchess was in a cold sweat, but nevertheless she laughed as +she spoke the last words. + +"But circumstances give the story a quite new application," +returned he. + +"How so; pray tell me, for pity's sake?" + +"In this way, madame--you have touched the axe," said +Montriveau, lowering his voice. + +"What an enchanting prophecy!" returned she, smiling with +assumed grace. "And when is my head to fall?" + +"I have no wish to see that pretty head of yours cut off. I +only fear some great misfortune for you. If your head were +clipped close, would you feel no regrets for the dainty golden +hair that you turn to such good account?" + +"There are those for whom a woman would love to make such a +sacrifice; even if, as often happens, it is for the sake of a man +who cannot make allowances for an outbreak of temper." + +"Quite so. Well, and if some wag were to spoil your beauty on a +sudden by some chemical process, and you, who are but eighteen +for us, were to be a hundred years old?" + +"Why, the smallpox is our Battle of Waterloo, monsieur," she +interrupted. "After it is over we find out those who love us +sincerely." + +"Would you not regret the lovely face that?" + +"Oh! indeed I should, but less for my own sake than for the sake +of someone else whose delight it might have been. And, after +all, if I were loved, always loved, and truly loved, what would +my beauty matter to me?--What do you say, Clara?" + +"It is a dangerous speculation," replied Mme de Serizy. + +"Is it permissible to ask His Majesty the King of Sorcerers when +I made the mistake of touching the axe, since I have not been to +London as yet?----" + +"_Not so_," he answered in English, with a burst of ironical +laughter. + +"And when will the punishment begin?" + +At this Montriveau coolly took out his watch, and ascertained the +hour with a truly appalling air of conviction. + +"A dreadful misfortune will befall you before this day is out." + +"I am not a child to be easily frightened, or rather, I am a +child ignorant of danger," said the Duchess. "I shall dance +now without fear on the edge of the precipice." + +"I am delighted to know that you have so much strength of +character," he answered, as he watched her go to take her place +in a square dance. + +But the Duchess, in spite of her apparent contempt for Armand's +dark prophecies, was really frightened. Her late lover's +presence weighed upon her morally and physically with a sense of +oppression that scarcely ceased when he left the ballroom. And +yet when she had drawn freer breath, and enjoyed the relief for a +moment, she found herself regretting the sensation of dread, so +greedy of extreme sensations is the feminine nature. The regret +was not love, but it was certainly akin to other feelings which +prepare the way for love. And then--as if the impression which +Montriveau had made upon her were suddenly revived--she +recollected his air of conviction as he took out his watch, and +in a sudden spasm of dread she went out. + +By this time it was about midnight. One of her servants, waiting +with her pelisse, went down to order her carriage. On her way +home she fell naturally enough to musing over M. de Montriveau's +prediction. Arrived in her own courtyard, as she supposed, she +entered a vestibule almost like that of her own hotel, and +suddenly saw that the staircase was different. She was in a +strange house. Turning to call her servants, she was attacked by +several men, who rapidly flung a handkerchief over her mouth, +bound her hand and foot, and carried her off. She shrieked +aloud. + +"Madame, our orders are to kill you if you scream," a voice +said in her ear. + +So great was the Duchess's terror, that she could never recollect +how nor by whom she was transported. When she came to herself, +she was lying on a couch in a bachelor's lodging, her hands and +feet tied with silken cords. In spite of herself, she shrieked +aloud as she looked round and met Armand de Montriveau's eyes. +He was sitting in his dressing-gown, quietly smoking a cigar in +his armchair. + +"Do not cry out, Mme la Duchesse," he said, coolly taking the +cigar out of his mouth; "I have a headache. Besides, I will +untie you. But listen attentively to what I have the honour to +say to you." + +Very carefully he untied the knots that bound her feet. + +"What would be the use of calling out? Nobody can hear your +cries. You are too well bred to make any unnecessary fuss. If +you do not stay quietly, if you insist upon a struggle with me, I +shall tie your hands and feet again. All things considered, I +think that you have self-respect enough to stay on this sofa as +if you were lying on your own at home; cold as ever, if you will. +You have made me shed many tears on this couch, tears that I hid +from all other eyes." + +While Montriveau was speaking, the Duchess glanced about her; it +was a woman's glance, a stolen look that saw all things and +seemed to see nothing. She was much pleased with the room. It +was rather like a monk's cell. The man's character and thoughts +seemed to pervade it. No decoration of any kind broke the grey +painted surface of the walls. A green carpet covered the floor. +A black sofa, a table littered with papers, two big easy-chairs, +a chest of drawers with an alarum clock by way of ornament, a +very low bedstead with a coverlet flung over it--a red cloth with +a black key border--all these things made part of a whole that +told of a life reduced to its simplest terms. A triple +candle-sconce of Egyptian design on the chimney-piece recalled +the vast spaces of the desert and Montriveau's long wanderings; a +huge sphinx-claw stood out beneath the folds of stuff at the +bed-foot; and just beyond, a green curtain with a black and +scarlet border was suspended by large rings from a spear handle +above a door near one corner of the room. The other door by +which the band had entered was likewise curtained, but the +drapery hung from an ordinary curtain-rod. As the Duchess +finally noted that the pattern was the same on both, she saw that +the door at the bed-foot stood open; gleams of ruddy light from +the room beyond flickered below the fringed border. Naturally, +the ominous light roused her curiosity; she fancied she could +distinguish strange shapes in the shadows; but as it did not +occur to her at the time that danger could come from that +quarter, she tried to gratify a more ardent curiosity. + +"Monsieur, if it is not indiscreet, may I ask what you mean to +do with me?" The insolence and irony of the tone stung through +the words. The Duchess quite believed that she read extravagant +love in Montriveau's speech. He had carried her off; was not +that in itself an acknowledgment of her power? + +"Nothing whatever, madame," he returned, gracefully puffing the +last whiff of cigar smoke. "You will remain here for a short +time. First of all, I should like to explain to you what you +are, and what I am. I cannot put my thoughts into words whilst +you are twisting on the sofa in your boudoir; and besides, in +your own house you take offence at the slightest hint, you ring +the bell, make an outcry, and turn your lover out at the door as +if he were the basest of wretches. Here my mind is unfettered. +Here nobody can turn me out. Here you shall be my victim for a +few seconds, and you are going to be so exceedingly kind as to +listen to me. You need fear nothing. I did not carry you off to +insult you, nor yet to take by force what you refused to grant of +your own will to my unworthiness. I could not stoop so low. You +possibly think of outrage; for myself, I have no such thoughts." + +He flung his cigar coolly into the fire. + +"The smoke is unpleasant to you, no doubt, madame?" he said, +and rising at once, he took a chafing-dish from the hearth, burnt +perfumes, and purified the air. The Duchess's astonishment was +only equaled by her humiliation. She was in this man's power; +and he would not abuse his power. The eyes in which love had +once blazed like flame were now quiet and steady as stars. She +trembled. Her dread of Armand was increased by a nightmare +sensation of restlessness and utter inability to move; she felt +as if she were turned to stone. She lay passive in the grip of +fear. She thought she saw the light behind the curtains grow to +a blaze, as if blown up by a pair of bellows; in another moment +the gleams of flame grew brighter, and she fancied that three +masked figures suddenly flashed out; but the terrible vision +disappeared so swiftly that she took it for an optical delusion. + +"Madame," Armand continued with cold contempt, "one minute, +just one minute is enough for me, and you shall feel it +afterwards at every moment throughout your lifetime, the one +eternity over which I have power. I am not God. Listen +carefully to me," he continued, pausing to add solemnity to his +words. "Love will always come at your call. You have boundless +power over men: but remember that once you called love, and love +came to you; love as pure and true-hearted as may be on earth, +and as reverent as it was passionate; fond as a devoted woman's, +as a mother's love; a love so great indeed, that it was past the +bounds of reason. You played with it, and you committed a crime. +Every woman has a right to refuse herself to love which she feels +she cannot share; and if a man loves and cannot win love in +return, he is not to be pitied, he has no right to complain. But +with a semblance of love to attract an unfortunate creature cut +off from all affection; to teach him to understand happiness to +the full, only to snatch it from him; to rob him of his future of +felicity; to slay his happiness not merely today, but as long as +his life lasts, by poisoning every hour of it and every thought +--this I call a fearful crime!" + +"Monsieur----" + +"I cannot allow you to answer me yet. So listen to me still. In +any case I have rights over you; but I only choose to exercise +one--the right of the judge over the criminal, so that I may +arouse your conscience. If you had no conscience left, I should +not reproach you at all; but you are so young! You must feel +some life still in your heart; or so I like to believe. While I +think of you as depraved enough to do a wrong which the law does +not punish, I do not think you so degraded that you cannot +comprehend the full meaning of my words. I resume." + +As he spoke the Duchess heard the smothered sound of a pair of +bellows. Those mysterious figures which she had just seen were +blowing up the fire, no doubt; the glow shone through the +curtain. But Montriveau's lurid face was turned upon her; she +could not choose but wait with a fast-beating heart and eyes +fixed in a stare. However curious she felt, the heat in Armand's +words interested her even more than the crackling of the +mysterious flames. + +"Madame," he went on after a pause, "if some poor wretch +commits a murder in Paris, it is the executioner's duty, you +know, to lay hands on him and stretch him on the plank, where +murderers pay for their crimes with their heads. Then the +newspapers inform everyone, rich and poor, so that the former are +assured that they may sleep in peace, and the latter are warned +that they must be on the watch if they would live. Well, you +that are religious, and even a little of a bigot, may have masses +said for such a man's soul. You both belong to the same family, +but yours is the elder branch; and the elder branch may occupy +high places in peace and live happily and without cares. Want or +anger may drive your brother the convict to take a man's life; +you have taken more, you have taken the joy out of a man's life, +you have killed all that was best in his life--his dearest +beliefs. The murderer simply lay in wait for his victim, and +killed him reluctantly, and in fear of the scaffold; but _you_ +. . . ! You heaped up every sin that weakness can commit against +strength that suspected no evil; you tamed a passive victim, the +better to gnaw his heart out; you lured him with caresses; you +left nothing undone that could set him dreaming, imagining, +longing for the bliss of love. You asked innumerable sacrifices +of him, only to refuse to make any in return. He should see the +light indeed before you put out his eyes! It is wonderful how +you found the heart to do it! Such villainies demand a display +of resource quite above the comprehension of those bourgeoises +whom you laugh at and despise. They can give and forgive; they +know how to love and suffer. The grandeur of their devotion +dwarfs us. Rising higher in the social scale, one finds just as +much mud as at the lower end; but with this difference, at the +upper end it is hard and gilded over. + +"Yes, to find baseness in perfection, you must look for a noble +bringing up, a great name, a fair woman, a duchess. You cannot +fall lower than the lowest unless you are set high above the rest +of the world.--I express my thoughts badly; the wounds you dealt +me are too painful as yet, but do not think that I complain. My +words are not the expression of any hope for myself; there is no +trace of bitterness in them. Know this, madame, for a +certainty--I forgive you. My forgiveness is so complete that you +need not feel in the least sorry that you came hither to find it +against your will. . . . But you might take advantage of other +hearts as child-like as my own, and it is my duty to spare them +anguish. So you have inspired the thought of justice. Expiate +your sin here on earth; God may perhaps forgive you; I wish that +He may, but He is inexorable, and will strike." + +The broken-spirited, broken-hearted woman looked up, her eyes +filled with tears. + +"Why do you cry? Be true to your nature. You could look on +indifferently at the torture of a heart as you broke it. That +will do, madame, do not cry. I cannot bear it any longer. Other +men will tell you that you have given them life; as for myself, I +tell you, with rapture, that you have given me blank extinction. +Perhaps you guess that I am not my own, that I am bound to live +for my friends, that from this time forth I must endure the cold +chill of death, as well as the burden of life? Is it possible +that there can be so much kindness in you? Are you like the +desert tigress that licks the wounds she has inflicted?" + +The Duchess burst out sobbing. + +"Pray spare your tears, madame. If I believed in them at all, +it would merely set me on my guard. Is this another of your +artifices? or is it not? You have used so many with me; how can +one think that there is any truth in you? Nothing that you do or +say has any power now to move me. That is all I have to say." + +Mme de Langeais rose to her feet, with a great dignity and +humility in her bearing. + +"You are right to treat me very hardly," she said, holding out +a hand to the man who did not take it; "you have not spoken +hardly enough; and I deserve this punishment." + +"_I_ punish you, madame! A man must love still, to punish, must +he not? From me you must expect no feeling, nothing resembling +it. If I chose, I might be accuser and judge in my cause, and +pronounce and carry out the sentence. But I am about to fulfil a +duty, not a desire of vengeance of any kind. The cruelest +revenge of all, I think, is scorn of revenge when it is in our +power to take it. Perhaps I shall be the minister of your +pleasures; who knows? Perhaps from this time forth, as you +gracefully wear the tokens of disgrace by which society marks out +the criminal, you may perforce learn something of the convict's +sense of honour. And then, you will love!" + +The Duchess sat listening; her meekness was unfeigned; it was no +coquettish device. When she spoke at last, it was after a +silence. + +"Armand," she began, "it seems to me that when I resisted +love, I was obeying all the instincts of woman's modesty; I +should not have looked for such reproaches from _you_. I was weak; +you have turned all my weaknesses against me, and made so many +crimes of them. How could you fail to understand that the +curiosity of love might have carried me further than I ought to +go; and that next morning I might be angry with myself, and +wretched because I had gone too far? Alas! I sinned in +ignorance. I was as sincere in my wrongdoing, I swear to you, as +in my remorse. There was far more love for you in my severity +than in my concessions. And besides, of what do you complain? I +gave you my heart; that was not enough; you demanded, brutally, +that I should give my person----" + +"Brutally?" repeated Montriveau. But to himself he said, "If +I once allow her to dispute over words, I am lost." + +"Yes. You came to me as if I were one of those women. You +showed none of the respect, none of the attentions of love. Had +I not reason to reflect? Very well, I reflected. The +unseemliness of your conduct is not inexcusable; love lay at the +source of it; let me think so, and justify you to myself.--Well, +Armand, this evening, even while you were prophesying evil, I +felt convinced that there was happiness in store for us both. +Yes, I put my faith in the noble, proud nature so often tested +and proved." She bent lower. "And I was yours wholly," she +murmured in his ear. "I felt a longing that I cannot express to +give happiness to a man so violently tried by adversity. If I +must have a master, my master should be a great man. As I felt +conscious of my height, the less I cared to descend. I felt I +could trust you, I saw a whole lifetime of love, while you were +pointing to death. . . . Strength and kindness always go +together. My friend, you are so strong, you will not be unkind +to a helpless woman who loves you. If I was wrong, is there no +way of obtaining forgiveness? No way of making reparation? +Repentance is the charm of love; I should like to be very +charming for you. How could I, alone among women, fail to know a +woman's doubts and fears, the timidity that it is so natural to +feel when you bind yourself for life, and know how easily a man +snaps such ties? The bourgeoises, with whom you compared me just +now, give themselves, but they struggle first. Very well--I +struggled; but here I am!--Ah! God, he does not hear me!" she +broke off, and wringing her hands, she cried out "But I love +you! I am yours!" and fell at Armand's feet. + +"Yours! yours! my one and only master!" + +Armand tried to raise her. + +"Madame, it is too late! Antoinette cannot save the Duchesse de +Langeais. I cannot believe in either. Today you may give +yourself; tomorrow, you may refuse. No power in earth or heaven +can insure me the sweet constancy of love. All love's pledges +lay in the past; and now nothing of that past exists." + +The light behind the curtain blazed up so brightly, that the +Duchess could not help turning her head; this time she distinctly +saw the three masked figures. + +"Armand," she said, "I would not wish to think ill of you. Why +are those men there? What are you going to do to me?" + +"Those men will be as silent as I myself with regard to the +thing which is about to be done. Think of them simply as my +hands and my heart. One of them is a surgeon----" + +"A surgeon! Armand, my friend, of all things, suspense is the +hardest to bear. Just speak; tell me if you wish for my life; I +will give it to you, you shall not take it----" + +"Then you did not understand me? Did I not speak just now of +justice? To put an end to your misapprehensions," continued he, +taking up a small steel object from the table, "I will now +explain what I have decided with regard to you." + +He held out a Lorraine cross, fastened to the tip of a steel rod. + +"Two of my friends at this very moment are heating another +cross, made on this pattern, red-hot. We are going to stamp it +upon your forehead, here between the eyes, so that there will be +no possibility of hiding the mark with diamonds, and so avoiding +people's questions. In short, you shall bear on your forehead +the brand of infamy which your brothers the convicts wear on +their shoulders. The pain is a mere trifle, but I feared a +nervous crisis of some kind, of resistance----" + +"Resistance?" she cried, clapping her hands for joy. "Oh no, +no! I would have the whole world here to see. Ah, my Armand, +brand her quickly, this creature of yours; brand her with your +mark as a poor little trifle belonging to you. You asked for +pledges of my love; here they are all in one. Ah! for me there +is nothing but mercy and forgiveness and eternal happiness in +this revenge of yours. When you have marked this woman with your +mark, when you set your crimson brand on her, your slave in soul, +you can never afterwards abandon her, you will be mine for +evermore? When you cut me off from my kind, you make yourself +responsible for my happiness, or you prove yourself base; and I +know that you are noble and great! Why, when a woman loves, the +brand of love is burnt into her soul by her own will.--Come in, +gentlemen! come in and brand her, this Duchesse de Langeais. She +is M. de Montriveau's forever! Ah! come quickly, all of you, my +forehead burns hotter than your fire!" + +Armand turned his head sharply away lest he should see the +Duchess kneeling, quivering with the throbbings of her heart. He +said some word, and his three friends vanished. + +The women of Paris salons know how one mirror reflects another. +The Duchess, with every motive for reading the depths of Armand's +heart, was all eyes; and Armand, all unsuspicious of the mirror, +brushed away two tears as they fell. Her whole future lay in +those two tears. When he turned round again to help her to rise, +she was standing before him, sure of love. Her pulses must have +throbbed fast when he spoke with the firmness she had known so +well how to use of old while she played with him. + +"I spare you, madame. All that has taken place shall be as if +it had never been, you may believe me. But now, let us bid each +other goodbye. I like to think that you were sincere in your +coquetries on your sofa, sincere again in this outpouring of your +heart. Good-bye. I feel that there is no faith in you left in +me. You would torment me again; you would always be the Duchess, +and----But there, good-bye, we shall never understand each +other. + +"Now, what do you wish?" he continued, taking the tone of a +master of the ceremonies--"to return home, or to go back to Mme +de Serizy's ball? I have done all in my power to prevent any +scandal. Neither your servants nor anyone else can possibly know +what has passed between us in the last quarter of an hour. Your +servants have no idea that you have left the ballroom; your +carriage never left Mme de Serizy's courtyard; your brougham may +likewise be found in the court of your own hotel. Where do you +wish to be?" + +"What do you counsel, Armand?" + +"There is no Armand now, Mme la Duchesse. We are strangers to +each other." + +"Then take me to the ball," she said, still curious to put +Armand's power to the test. "Thrust a soul that suffered in the +world, and must always suffer there, if there is no happiness for +her now, down into hell again. And yet, oh my friend, I love you +as your bourgeoises love; I love you so that I could come to you +and fling my arms about your neck before all the world if you +asked it off me. The hateful world has not corrupted me. I am +young at least, and I have grown younger still. I am a child, +yes, your child, your new creature. Ah! do not drive me forth +out of my Eden!" + +Armand shook his head. + +"Ah! let me take something with me, if I go, some little thing +to wear tonight on my heart," she said, taking possession of +Armand's glove, which she twisted into her handkerchief. + +"No, I am _not_ like all those depraved women. You do not know +the world, and so you cannot know my worth. You shall know it +now! There are women who sell themselves for money; there are +others to be gained by gifts, it is a vile world! Oh, I wish I +were a simple bourgeoise, a working girl, if you would rather +have a woman beneath you than a woman whose devotion is +accompanied by high rank, as men count it. Oh, my Armand, there +are noble, high, and chaste and pure natures among us; and then +they are lovely indeed. I would have all nobleness that I might +offer it all up to you. Misfortune willed that I should be a +duchess; I would I were a royal princess, that my offering might +be complete. I would be a grisette for you, and a queen for +everyone besides." + +He listened, damping his cigars with his lips. + +"You will let me know when you wish to go," he said. + +"But I should like to stay----" + +"That is another matter!" + +"Stay, that was badly rolled," she cried, seizing on a cigar +and devouring all that Armand's lips had touched. + +"Do you smoke?" + +"Oh, what would I not do to please you?" + +"Very well. Go, madame." + +"I will obey you," she answered, with tears in her eyes. + +"You must be blindfolded; you must not see a glimpse of the +way." + +"I am ready, Armand," she said, bandaging her eyes. + +"Can you see?" + +"No." + +Noiselessly he knelt before her. + +"Ah! I can hear you!" she cried, with a little fond gesture, +thinking that the pretence of harshness was over. + +He made as if he would kiss her lips; she held up her face. + +"You can see, madame." + +"I am just a little bit curious." + +"So you always deceive me?" + +"Ah! take off this handkerchief, sir," she cried out, with the +passion of a great generosity repelled with scorn, "lead me; I +will not open my eyes." + +Armand felt sure of her after that cry. He led the way; the +Duchess nobly true to her word, was blind. But while Montriveau +held her hand as a father might, and led her up and down flights +of stairs, he was studying the throbbing pulses of this woman's +heart so suddenly invaded by Love. Mme de Langeais, rejoicing in +this power of speech, was glad to let him know all; but he was +inflexible; his hand was passive in reply to the questionings of +her hand. + +At length, after some journey made together, Armand bade her go +forward; the opening was doubtless narrow, for as she went she +felt that his hand protected her dress. His care touched her; it +was a revelation surely that there was a little love still left; +yet it was in some sort a farewell, for Montriveau left her +without a word. The air was warm; the Duchess, feeling the heat, +opened her eyes, and found herself standing by the fire in the +Comtesse de Serizy's boudoir. + +She was alone. Her first thought was for her disordered +toilette; in a moment she had adjusted her dress and restored +her picturesque coiffure. + +"Well, dear Antoinette, we have been looking for you +everywhere." It was the Comtesse de Serizy who spoke as she +opened the door. + +"I came here to breathe," said the Duchess; "it is unbearably +hot in the rooms." + +"People thought that you had gone; but my brother Ronquerolles +told me that your servants were waiting for you." + +"I am tired out, dear, let me stay and rest here for a minute," +and the Duchess sat down on the sofa. + +"Why, what is the matter with you? You are shaking from head to +foot!" + +The Marquis de Ronquerolles came in. + +"Mme la Duchesse, I was afraid that something might have +happened. I have just come across your coachman, the man is as +tipsy as all the Swiss in Switzerland." + +The Duchess made no answer; she was looking round the room, at +the chimney-piece and the tall mirrors, seeking the trace of an +opening. Then with an extraordinary sensation she recollected +that she was again in the midst of the gaiety of the ballroom +after that terrific scene which had changed the whole course of +her life. She began to shiver violently. + +"M. de Montriveau's prophecy has shaken my nerves," she said. +"It was a joke, but still I will see whether his axe from London +will haunt me even in my sleep. So good-bye, dear.--Good-bye, M. +le Marquis." + +As she went through the rooms she was beset with inquiries and +regrets. Her world seemed to have dwindled now that she, its +queen, had fallen so low, was so diminished. And what, moreover, +were these men compared with him whom she loved with all her +heart; with the man grown great by all that she had lost in +stature? The giant had regained the height that he had lost for +a while, and she exaggerated it perhaps beyond measure. She +looked, in spite of herself, at the servant who had attended her +to the ball. He was fast asleep. + +"Have you been here all the time?" she asked. + +"Yes, madame." + +As she took her seat in her carriage she saw, in fact, that her +coachman was drunk--so drunk, that at any other time she would +have been afraid; but after a great crisis in life, fear loses +its appetite for common food. She reached home, at any rate, +without accident; but even there she felt a change in herself, a +new feeling that she could not shake off. For her, there was now +but one man in the world; which is to say that henceforth she +cared to shine for his sake alone. + +While the physiologist can define love promptly by following out +natural laws, the moralist finds a far more perplexing problem +before him if he attempts to consider love in all its +developments due to social conditions. Still, in spite of the +heresies of the endless sects that divide the church of Love, +there is one broad and trenchant line of difference in doctrine, +a line that all the discussion in the world can never deflect. A +rigid application of this line explains the nature of the crisis +through which the Duchess, like most women, was to pass. Passion +she knew, but she did not love as yet. + +Love and passion are two different conditions which poets and men +of the world, philosophers and fools, alike continually confound. +Love implies a give and take, a certainty of bliss that nothing +can change; it means so close a clinging of the heart, and an +exchange of happiness so constant, that there is no room left for +jealousy. Then possession is a means and not an end; +unfaithfulness may give pain, but the bond is not less close; the +soul is neither more nor less ardent or troubled, but happy at +every moment; in short, the divine breath of desire spreading +from end to end of the immensity of Time steeps it all for us in +the selfsame hue; life takes the tint of the unclouded heaven. +But Passion is the foreshadowing of Love, and of that Infinite to +which all suffering souls aspire. Passion is a hope that may be +cheated. Passion means both suffering and transition. Passion +dies out when hope is dead. Men and women may pass through this +experience many times without dishonor, for it is so natural to +spring towards happiness; but there is only one love in a +lifetime. All discussions of sentiment ever conducted on paper +or by word of mouth may therefore be resumed by two questions +--"Is it passion? Is it love?" So, since love comes into +existence only through the intimate experience of the bliss +which gives it lasting life, the Duchess was beneath the yoke of +passion as yet; and as she knew the fierce tumult, the +unconscious calculations, the fevered cravings, and all that is +meant by that word _passion_--she suffered. Through all the +trouble of her soul there rose eddying gusts of tempest, raised +by vanity or self-love, or pride or a high spirit; for all these +forms of egoism make common cause together. + +She had said to this man, "I love you; I am yours!" Was it +possible that the Duchesse de Langeais should have uttered those +words--in vain? She must either be loved now or play her part of +queen no longer. And then she felt the loneliness of the +luxurious couch where pleasure had never yet set his glowing +feet; and over and over again, while she tossed and writhed +there, she said, "I want to be loved." + +But the belief that she still had in herself gave her hope of +success. The Duchess might be piqued, the vain Parisienne might +be humiliated; but the woman saw glimpses of wedded happiness, +and imagination, avenging the time lost for nature, took a +delight in kindling the inextinguishable fire in her veins. She +all but attained to the sensations of love; for amid her poignant +doubt whether she was loved in return, she felt glad at heart to +say to herself, "I love him!" As for her scruples, religion, +and the world she could trample them under foot! Montriveau was +her religion now. She spent the next day in a state of moral +torpor, troubled by a physical unrest, which no words could +express. She wrote letters and tore them all up, and invented a +thousand impossible fancies. + +When M. de Montriveau's usual hour arrived, she tried to think +that he would come, and enjoyed the feeling of expectation. Her +whole life was concentrated in the single sense of hearing. +Sometimes she shut her eyes, straining her ears to listen through +space, wishing that she could annihilate everything that lay +between her and her lover, and so establish that perfect silence +which sounds may traverse from afar. In her tense +self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful to her; +she stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of +midnight sounded from the drawing-room. + +"Ah, God!" she cried, "to see him here would be happiness. And +yet, it is not so very long since he came here, brought by +desire, and the tones of his voice filled this boudoir. And now +there is nothing." + +She remembered the times that she had played the coquette with +him, and how that her coquetry had cost her her lover, and the +despairing tears flowed for long. + +Her woman came at length with, "Mme la Duchesse does not know, +perhaps, that it is two o'clock in the morning; I thought that +madame was not feeling well." + +"Yes, I am going to bed," said the Duchess, drying her eyes. +"But remember, Suzanne, never to come in again without orders; I +tell you this for the last time." + +For a week, Mme de Langeais went to every house where there was a +hope of meeting M. de Montriveau. Contrary to her usual habits, +she came early and went late; gave up dancing, and went to the +card-tables. Her experiments were fruitless. She did not +succeed in getting a glimpse of Armand. She did not dare to +utter his name now. One evening, however, in a fit of despair, +she spoke to Mme de Serizy, and asked as carelessly as she could, +"You must have quarreled with M. de Montriveau? He is not to +be seen at your house now." + +The Countess laughed. "So he does not come here either?" she +returned. "He is not to be seen anywhere, for that matter. He +is interested in some woman, no doubt." + +"I used to think that the Marquis de Ronquerolles was one of his +friends----" the Duchess began sweetly. + +"I have never heard my brother say that he was acquainted with +him." + +Mme de Langeais did not reply. Mme de Serizy concluded from the +Duchess's silence that she might apply the scourge with impunity +to a discreet friendship which she had seen, with bitterness of +soul, for a long time past. + +"So you miss that melancholy personage, do you? I have heard +most extraordinary things of him. Wound his feelings, he never +comes back, he forgives nothing; and, if you love him, he keeps +you in chains. To everything that I said of him, one of those +that praise him sky-high would always answer, 'He knows how to +love!' People are always telling me that Montriveau would give +up all for his friend; that his is a great nature. Pooh! society +does not want such tremendous natures. Men of that stamp are all +very well at home; let them stay there and leave us to our +pleasant littlenesses. What do you say, Antoinette?" + +Woman of the world though she was, the Duchess seemed agitated, +yet she replied in a natural voice that deceived her fair +friend: + +"I am sorry to miss him. I took a great interest in him, and +promised to myself to be his sincere friend. I like great +natures, dear friend, ridiculous though you may think it. To +give oneself to a fool is a clear confession, is it not, that one +is governed wholly by one's senses?" + +Mme de Serizy's "preferences" had always been for commonplace +men; her lover at the moment, the Marquis d'Aiglemont, was a +fine, tall man. + +After this, the Countess soon took her departure, you may be sure +Mme de Langeais saw hope in Armand's withdrawal from the world; +she wrote to him at once; it was a humble, gentle letter, surely +it would bring him if he loved her still. She sent her footman +with it next day. On the servant's return, she asked whether he +had given the letter to M. de Montriveau himself, and could not +restrain the movement of joy at the affirmative answer. Armand +was in Paris! He stayed alone in his house; he did not go out +into society! So she was loved! All day long she waited for an +answer that never came. Again and again, when impatience grew +unbearable, Antoinette found reasons for his delay. Armand felt +embarrassed; the reply would come by post; but night came, and +she could not deceive herself any longer. It was a dreadful day, +a day of pain grown sweet, of intolerable heart-throbs, a day +when the heart squanders the very forces of life in riot. + +Next day she sent for an answer. + +"M. le Marquis sent word that he would call on Mme la +Duchesse," reported Julien. + +She fled lest her happiness should be seen in her face, and flung +herself on her couch to devour her first sensations. + +"He is coming!" + +The thought rent her soul. And, in truth, woe unto those for +whom suspense is not the most horrible time of tempest, while it +increases and multiplies the sweetest joys; for they have nothing +in them of that flame which quickens the images of things, giving +to them a second existence, so that we cling as closely to the +pure essence as to its outward and visible manifestation. What +is suspense in love but a constant drawing upon an unfailing +hope?--a submission to the terrible scourging of passion, while +passion is yet happy, and the disenchantment of reality has not +set in. The constant putting forth of strength and longing, +called suspense, is surely, to the human soul, as fragrance to +the flower that breathes it forth. We soon leave the brilliant, +unsatisfying colours of tulips and coreopsis, but we turn again +and again to drink in the sweetness of orange-blossoms or +volkameria-flowers compared separately, each in its own land, to +a betrothed bride, full of love, made fair by the past and +future. + +The Duchess learned the joys of this new life of hers through the +rapture with which she received the scourgings of love. As this +change wrought in her, she saw other destinies before her, and a +better meaning in the things of life. As she hurried to her +dressing-room, she understood what studied adornment and the most +minute attention to her toilet mean when these are undertaken for +love's sake and not for vanity. Even now this making ready +helped her to bear the long time of waiting. A relapse of +intense agitation set in when she was dressed; she passed through +nervous paroxysms brought on by the dreadful power which sets the +whole mind in ferment. Perhaps that power is only a disease, +though the pain of it is sweet. The Duchess was dressed and +waiting at two o clock in the afternoon. At half-past eleven +that night M. de Montriveau had not arrived. To try to give an +idea of the anguish endured by a woman who might be said to be +the spoilt child of civilization, would be to attempt to say how +many imaginings the heart can condense into one thought. As well +endeavour to measure the forces expended by the soul in a sigh +whenever the bell rang; to estimate the drain of life when a +carriage rolled past without stopping, and left her prostrate. + +"Can he be playing with me?" she said, as the clocks struck +midnight. + +She grew white; her teeth chattered; she struck her hands +together and leapt up and crossed the boudoir, recollecting as +she did so how often he had come thither without a summons. But +she resigned herself. Had she not seen him grow pale, and start +up under the stinging barbs of irony? Then Mme de Langeais felt +the horror of the woman's appointed lot; a man's is the active +part, a woman must wait passively when she loves. If a woman +goes beyond her beloved, she makes a mistake which few men can +forgive; almost every man would feel that a woman lowers herself +by this piece of angelic flattery. But Armand's was a great +nature; he surely must be one of the very few who can repay such +exceeding love by love that lasts forever. + +"Well, I will make the advance," she told herself, as she +tossed on her bed and found no sleep there; "I will go to him. +I will not weary myself with holding out a hand to him, but I +will hold it out. A man of a thousand will see a promise of love +and constancy in every step that a woman takes towards him. Yes, +the angels must come down from heaven to reach men; and I wish to +be an angel for him." + +Next day she wrote. It was a billet of the kind in which the +intellects of the ten thousand Sevignes that Paris now can number +particularly excel. And yet only a Duchesse de Langeais, brought +up by Mme la Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, could have written +that delicious note; no other woman could complain without +lowering herself; could spread wings in such a flight without +draggling her pinions in humiliation; rise gracefully in revolt; +scold without giving offence; and pardon without compromising her +personal dignity. + +Julien went with the note. Julien, like his kind, was the victim +of love's marches and countermarches. + +"What did M. de Montriveau reply?" she asked, as indifferently +as she could, when the man came back to report himself. + +"M. le Marquis requested me to tell Mme la Duchesse that it was +all right." + +Oh the dreadful reaction of the soul upon herself! To have her +heart stretched on the rack before curious witnesses; yet not to +utter a sound, to be forced to keep silence! One of the +countless miseries of the rich! + +More than three weeks went by. Mme de Langeais wrote again and +again, and no answer came from Montriveau. At last she gave out +that she was ill, to gain a dispensation from attendance on the +Princess and from social duties. She was only at home to her +father the Duc de Navarreins, her aunt the Princesse de +Blamont-Chauvry, the old Vidame de Pamiers (her maternal +great-uncle), and to her husband's uncle, the Duc de Grandlieu. +These persons found no difficulty in believing that the Duchess +was ill, seeing that she grew thinner and paler and more dejected +every day. The vague ardour of love, the smart of wounded pride, +the continual prick of the only scorn that could touch her, the +yearnings towards joys that she craved with a vain continual +longing--all these things told upon her, mind and body; all the +forces of her nature were stimulated to no purpose. She was +paying the arrears of her life of make-believe. + +She went out at last to a review. M. de Montriveau was to be +there. For the Duchess, on the balcony of the Tuileries with the +Royal Family, it was one of those festival days that are long +remembered. She looked supremely beautiful in her languor; she +was greeted with admiration in all eyes. It was Montriveau's +presence that made her so fair. + +Once or twice they exchanged glances. The General came almost to +her feet in all the glory of that soldier's uniform, which +produces an effect upon the feminine imagination to which the +most prudish will confess. When a woman is very much in love, +and has not seen her lover for two months, such a swift moment +must be something like the phase of a dream when the eyes embrace +a world that stretches away forever. Only women or young men can +imagine the dull, frenzied hunger in the Duchess's eyes. As for +older men, if during the paroxysms of early passion in youth they +had experience of such phenomena of nervous power; at a later day +it is so completely forgotten that they deny the very existence +of the luxuriant ecstasy--the only name that can be given to +these wonderful intuitions. Religious ecstasy is the aberration +of a soul that has shaken off its bonds of flesh; whereas in +amorous ecstasy all the forces of soul and body are embraced and +blended in one. If a woman falls a victim to the tyrannous +frenzy before which Mme de Langeais was forced to bend, she will +take one decisive resolution after another so swiftly that it is +impossible to give account of them. Thought after thought rises +and flits across her brain, as clouds are whirled by the wind +across the grey veil of mist that shuts out the sun. Thenceforth +the facts reveal all. And the facts are these. + +The day after the review, Mme de Langeais sent her carriage and +liveried servants to wait at the Marquis de Montriveau's door +from eight o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon. +Armand lived in the Rue de Tournon, a few steps away from the +Chamber of Peers, and that very day the House was sitting; but +long before the peers returned to their palaces, several people +had recognised the Duchess's carriage and liveries. The first of +these was the Baron de Maulincour. That young officer had met +with disdain from Mme de Langeais and a better reception from Mme +de Serizy; he betook himself at once therefore to his mistress, +and under seal of secrecy told her of this strange freak. + +In a moment the news was spread with telegraphic speed through +all the coteries in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; it reached the +Tuileries and the Elysee-Bourbon; it was the sensation of the +day, the matter of all the talk from noon till night. Almost +everywhere the women denied the facts, but in such a manner that +the report was confirmed; the men one and all believed it, and +manifested a most indulgent interest in Mme de Langeais. Some +among them threw the blame on Armand. + +"That savage of a Montriveau is a man of bronze," said they; +"he insisted on making this scandal, no doubt." + +"Very well, then," others replied, "Mme de Langeais has been +guilty of a most generous piece of imprudence. To renounce the +world and rank, and fortune, and consideration for her lover's +sake, and that in the face of all Paris, is as fine a _coup d'etat_ +for a woman as that barber's knife-thrust, which so affected +Canning in a court of assize. Not one of the women who blame the +Duchess would make a declaration worthy of ancient times. It is +heroic of Mme de Langeais to proclaim herself so frankly. Now +there is nothing left to her but to love Montriveau. There must +be something great about a woman if she says, 'I will have but +one passion.'" + +"But what is to become of society, monsieur, if you honour vice +in this way without respect for virtue?" asked the Comtesse de +Granville, the attorney-general's wife. + +While the Chateau, the Faubourg, and the Chaussee d'Antin were +discussing the shipwreck of aristocratic virtue; while excited +young men rushed about on horseback to make sure that the +carriage was standing in the Rue de Tournon, and the Duchess in +consequence was beyond a doubt in M. de Montriveau's rooms, Mme +de Langeais, with heavy throbbing pulses, was lying hidden away +in her boudoir. And Armand?--he had been out all night, and at +that moment was walking with M. de Marsay in the Gardens of the +Tuileries. The elder members, of Mme de Langeais' family were +engaged in calling upon one another, arranging to read her a +homily and to hold a consultation as to the best way of putting a +stop to the scandal. + +At three o'clock, therefore, M. le Duc de Navarreins, the Vidame +de Pamiers, the old Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, and the Duc de +Grandlieu were assembled in Mme la Duchesse de Langeais' +drawing-room. To them, as to all curious inquirers, the servants +said that their mistress was not at home; the Duchess had made no +exceptions to her orders. But these four personages shone +conspicuous in that lofty sphere, of which the revolutions and +hereditary pretensions are solemnly recorded year by year in the +_Almanach de Gotha_, wherefore without some slight sketch of each +of them this picture of society were incomplete. + +The Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, in the feminine world, was a +most poetic wreck of the reign of Louis Quinze. In her beautiful +prime, so it was said, she had done her part to win for that +monarch his appellation of _le Bien-aime_. Of her past charms of +feature, little remained save a remarkably prominent slender +nose, curved like a Turkish scimitar, now the principal ornament +of a countenance that put you in mind of an old white glove. Add +a few powdered curls, high-heeled pantoufles, a cap with +upstanding loops of lace, black mittens, and a decided taste for +_ombre_. But to do full justice to the lady, it must be said that +she appeared in low-necked gowns of an evening (so high an +opinion of her ruins had she), wore long gloves, and raddled her +cheeks with Martin's classic rouge. An appalling amiability in +her wrinkles, a prodigious brightness in the old lady's eyes, a +profound dignity in her whole person, together with the triple +barbed wit of her tongue, and an infallible memory in her head, +made of her a real power in the land. The whole Cabinet des +Chartes was entered in duplicate on the parchment of her brain. +She knew all the genealogies of every noble house in Europe +--princes, dukes, and counts--and could put her hand on the last +descendants of Charlemagne in the direct line. No usurpation of +title could escape the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry. + +Young men who wished to stand well at Court, ambitious men, and +young married women paid her assiduous homage. Her salon set the +tone of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The words of this Talleyrand +in petticoats were taken as final decrees. People came to +consult her on questions of etiquette or usages, or to take +lessons in good taste. And, in truth, no other old woman could +put back her snuff-box in her pocket as the Princess could; while +there was a precision and a grace about the movements of her +skirts, when she sat down or crossed her feet, which drove the +finest ladies of the young generation to despair. Her voice had +remained in her head during one-third of her lifetime; but she +could not prevent a descent into the membranes of the nose, which +lent to it a peculiar expressiveness. She still retained a +hundred and fifty thousand livres of her great fortune, for +Napoleon had generously returned her woods to her; so that +personally and in the matter of possessions she was a woman of no +little consequence. + +This curious antique, seated in a low chair by the fireside, was +chatting with the Vidame de Pamiers, a contemporary ruin. The +Vidame was a big, tall, and spare man, a seigneur of the old +school, and had been a Commander of the Order of Malta. His neck +had always been so tightly compressed by a strangulation stock, +that his cheeks pouched over it a little, and he held his head +high; to many people this would have given an air of +self-sufficiency, but in the Vidame it was justified by a +Voltairean wit. His wide prominent eyes seemed to see +everything, and as a matter of fact there was not much that they +had not seen. Altogether, his person was a perfect model of +aristocratic outline, slim and slender, supple and agreeable. He +seemed as if he could be pliant or rigid at will, and twist and +bend, or rear his head like a snake. + +The Duc de Navarreins was pacing up and down the room with the +Duc de Grandlieu. Both were men of fifty-six or thereabouts, and +still hale; both were short, corpulent, flourishing, somewhat +florid-complexioned men with jaded eyes, and lower lips that had +begun to hang already. But for an exquisite refinement of +accent, an urbane courtesy, and an ease of manner that could +change in a moment to insolence, a superficial observer might +have taken them for a couple of bankers. Any such mistake would +have been impossible, however, if the listener could have heard +them converse, and seen them on their guard with men whom they +feared, vapid and commonplace with their equals, slippery with +the inferiors whom courtiers and statesmen know how to tame by a +tactful word, or to humiliate with an unexpected phrase. + +Such were the representatives of the great noblesse that +determined to perish rather than submit to any change. It was a +noblesse that deserved praise and blame in equal measure; a +noblesse that will never be judged impartially until some poet +shall arise to tell how joyfully the nobles obeyed the King +though their heads fell under a Richelieu's axe, and how deeply +they scorned the guillotine of '89 as a foul revenge. + +Another noticeable trait in all the four was a thin voice that +agreed peculiarly well with their ideas and bearing. Among +themselves, at any rate, they were on terms of perfect equality. +None of them betrayed any sign of annoyance over the Duchess's +escapade, but all of them had learned at Court to hide their +feelings. + +And here, lest critics should condemn the puerility of the +opening of the forthcoming scene, it is perhaps as well to remind +the reader that Locke, once happening to be in the company of +several great lords, renowned no less for their wit than for +their breeding and political consistency, wickedly amused himself +by taking down their conversation by some shorthand process of +his own; and afterwards, when he read it over to them to see what +they could make of it, they all burst out laughing. And, in +truth, the tinsel jargon which circulates among the upper ranks +in every country yields mighty little gold to the crucible when +washed in the ashes of literature or philosophy. In every rank +of society (some few Parisian salons excepted) the curious +observer finds folly a constant quantity beneath a more or less +transparent varnish. Conversation with any substance in it is a +rare exception, and boeotianism is current coin in every zone. +In the higher regions they must perforce talk more, but to make +up for it they think the less. Thinking is a tiring exercise, +and the rich like their lives to flow by easily and without +effort. It is by comparing the fundamental matter of jests, as +you rise in the social scale from the street-boy to the peer of +France, that the observer arrives at a true comprehension of M. +de Talleyrand's maxim, "The manner is everything"; an elegant +rendering of the legal axiom, "The form is of more consequence +than the matter." In the eyes of the poet the advantage rests +with the lower classes, for they seldom fail to give a certain +character of rude poetry to their thoughts. Perhaps also this +same observation may explain the sterility of the salons, their +emptiness, their shallowness, and the repugnance felt by men of +ability for bartering their ideas for such pitiful small change. + +The Duke suddenly stopped as if some bright idea occurred to him, +and remarked to his neighbour: + +"So you have sold Tornthon?" + +"No, he is ill. I am very much afraid I shall lose him, and I +should be uncommonly sorry. He is a very good hunter. Do you +know how the Duchesse de Marigny is?" + +"No. I did not go this morning. I was just going out to call +when you came in to speak about Antoinette. But yesterday she +was very ill indeed; they had given her up, she took the +sacrament." + +"Her death will make a change in your cousin's position." + +"Not at all. She gave away her property in her lifetime, only +keeping an annuity. She made over the Guebriant estate to her +niece, Mme de Soulanges, subject to a yearly charge." + +"It will be a great loss for society. She was a kind woman. +Her family will miss her; her experience and advice carried +weight. Her son Marigny is an amiable man; he has a sharp wit, +he can talk. He is pleasant, very pleasant. Pleasant? oh, that +no one can deny, but--ill regulated to the last degree. Well, +and yet it is an extraordinary thing, he is very acute. He was +dining at the club the other day with that moneyed +Chaussee-d'Antin set. Your uncle (he always goes there for his +game of cards) found him there to his astonishment, and asked if +he was a member. 'Yes,' said he, 'I don't go into society now; I +am living among the bankers.'--You know why?" added the Marquis, +with a meaning smile. + +"No," said the Duke. + +"He is smitten with that little Mme Keller, Gondreville's +daughter; she is only lately married, and has a great vogue, they +say, in that set." + +"Well, Antoinette does not find time heavy on her hands, it +seems," remarked the Vidame. + +"My affection for that little woman has driven me to find a +singular pastime," replied the Princess, as she returned her +snuff-box to her pocket. + +"Dear aunt, I am extremely vexed," said the Duke, stopping +short in his walk. "Nobody but one of Bonaparte's men could +ask such an indecorous thing of a woman of fashion. Between +ourselves, Antoinette might have made a better choice." + +"The Montriveaus are a very old family and very well connected, +my dear," replied the Princess; "they are related to all the +noblest houses of Burgundy. If the Dulmen branch of the Arschoot +Rivaudoults should come to an end in Galicia, the Montriveaus +would succeed to the Arschoot title and estates. They inherit +through their great-grandfather. + +"Are you sure?" + +"I know it better than this Montriveau's father did. I told him +about it, I used to see a good deal of him; and, Chevalier of +several orders though he was, he only laughed; he was an +encyclopaedist. But his brother turned the relationship to good +account during the emigration. I have heard it said that his +northern kinsfolk were most kind in every way----" + +"Yes, to be sure. The Comte de Montriveau died at St. +Petersburg," said the Vidame. "I met him there. He was a big +man with an incredible passion for oysters." + +"However many did he eat?" asked the Duc de Grandlieu. + +"Ten dozen every day." + +"And did they not disagree with him?" + +"Not the least bit in the world." + +"Why, that is extraordinary! Had he neither the stone nor gout, +nor any other complaint, in consequence?" + +"No; his health was perfectly good, and he died through an +accident." + +"By accident! Nature prompted him to eat oysters, so probably +he required them; for up to a certain point our predominant +tastes are conditions of our existence." + +"I am of your opinion," said the Princess, with a smile. + +"Madame, you always put a malicious construction on things," +returned the Marquis. + +"I only want you to understand that these remarks might leave a +wrong impression on a young woman's mind," said she, and +interrupted herself to exclaim, "But this niece, this niece of +mine!" + +"Dear aunt, I still refuse to believe that she can have gone to +M. de Montriveau," said the Duc de Navarreins. + +"Bah!" returned the Princess. + +"What do you think, Vidame?" asked the Marquis. + +"If the Duchess were an artless simpleton, I should think +that----" + +"But when a woman is in love she becomes an artless simpleton," +retorted the Princess. "Really, my poor Vidame, you must be +getting older." + +"After all, what is to be done?" asked the Duke. + +"If my dear niece is wise," said the Princess, "she will go to +Court this evening--fortunately, today is Monday, and reception +day--and you must see that we all rally round her and give the +lie to this absurd rumour. There are hundreds of ways of +explaining things; and if the Marquis de Montriveau is a +gentleman, he will come to our assistance. We will bring these +children to listen to reason----" + +"But, dear aunt, it is not easy to tell M. de Montriveau the +truth to his face. He is one of Bonaparte's pupils, and he has +a position. Why, he is one of the great men of the day; he is +high up in the Guards, and very useful there. He has not a spark +of ambition. He is just the man to say, 'Here is my commission, +leave me in peace,' if the King should say a word that he did not +like." + +"Then, pray, what are his opinions?" + +"Very unsound." + +"Really," sighed the Princess, "the King is, as he always has +been, a Jacobin under the Lilies of France." + +"Oh! not quite so bad," said the Vidame. + +"Yes; I have known him for a long while. The man that pointed +out the Court to his wife on the occasion of her first state +dinner in public with, 'These are our people,' could only be a +black-hearted scoundrel. I can see Monsieur exactly the same as +ever in the King. The bad brother who voted so wrongly in his +department of the Constituent Assembly was sure to compound with +the Liberals and allow them to argue and talk. This +philosophical cant will be just as dangerous now for the younger +brother as it used to be for the elder; this fat man with the +little mind is amusing himself by creating difficulties, and how +his successor is to get out of them I do not know; he holds his +younger brother in abhorrence; he would be glad to think as he +lay dying, 'He will not reign very long----'" + +"Aunt, he is the King, and I have the honour to be in his +service----" + +"But does your post take away your right of free speech, my +dear? You come of quite as good a house as the Bourbons. If the +Guises had shown a little more resolution, His Majesty would be a +nobody at this day. It is time I went out of this world, the +noblesse is dead. Yes, it is all over with you, my children," +she continued, looking as she spoke at the Vidame. "What has my +niece done that the whole town should be talking about her? She +is in the wrong; I disapprove of her conduct, a useless scandal +is a blunder; that is why I still have my doubts about this want +of regard for appearances; I brought her up, and I know +that----" + +Just at that moment the Duchess came out of her boudoir. She had +recognised her aunt's voice and heard the name of Montriveau. +She was still in her loose morning-gown; and even as she came in, +M. de Grandlieu, looking carelessly out of the window, saw his +niece's carriage driving back along the street. The Duke took +his daughter's face in both hands and kissed her on the forehead. + +"So, dear girl," he said, "you do not know what is going on?" + +"Has anything extraordinary happened, father dear?" + +"Why, all Paris believes that you are with M. de Montriveau." + +"My dear Antoinette, you were at home all the time, were you +not?" said the Princess, holding out a hand, which the Duchess +kissed with affectionate respect. + +"Yes, dear mother; I was at home all the time. And," she +added, as she turned to greet the Vidame and the Marquis, "I +wished that all Paris should think that I was with M. de +Montriveau." + +The Duke flung up his hands, struck them together in despair, and +folded his arms. + +"Then, cannot you see what will come of this mad freak?" he +asked at last. + +But the aged Princess had suddenly risen, and stood looking +steadily at the Duchess, the younger woman flushed, and her eyes +fell. Mme de Chauvry gently drew her closer, and said, "My +little angel, let me kiss you!" + +She kissed her niece very affectionately on the forehead, and +continued smiling, while she held her hand in a tight clasp. + +"We are not under the Valois now, dear child. You have +compromised your husband and your position. Still, we will +arrange to make everything right." + +"But, dear aunt, I do not wish to make it right at all. It is +my wish that all Paris should say that I was with M. de +Montriveau this morning. If you destroy that belief, however ill +grounded it may be, you will do me a singular disservice." + +"Do you really wish to ruin yourself, child, and to grieve your +family?" + +"My family, father, unintentionally condemned me to irreparable +misfortune when they sacrificed me to family considerations. You +may, perhaps, blame me for seeking alleviations, but you will +certainly feel for me." + +"After all the endless pains you take to settle your daughters +suitably!" muttered M. de Navarreins, addressing the Vidame. + +The Princess shook a stray grain of snuff from her skirts. "My +dear little girl," she said, "be happy, if you can. We are not +talking of troubling your felicity, but of reconciling it with +social usages. We all of us here assembled know that marriage is +a defective institution tempered by love. But when you take a +lover, is there any need to make your bed in the Place du +Carrousel? See now, just be a bit reasonable, and hear what we +have to say." + +"I am listening." + +"Mme la Duchesse," began the Duc de Grandlieu, "if it were any +part of an uncle's duty to look after his nieces, he ought to +have a position; society would owe him honours and rewards and a +salary, exactly as if he were in the King's service. So I am not +here to talk about my nephew, but of your own interests. Let us +look ahead a little. If you persist in making a scandal--I have +seen the animal before, and I own that I have no great liking for +him--Langeais is stingy enough, and he does not care a rap for +anyone but himself; he will have a separation; he will stick to +your money, and leave you poor, and consequently you will be a +nobody. The income of a hundred thousand livres that you have +just inherited from your maternal great-aunt will go to pay for +his mistresses' amusements. You will be bound and gagged by the +law; you will have to say _Amen_ to all these arrangements. +Suppose M. de Montriveau leaves you----dear me! do not let us put +ourselves in a passion, my dear niece; a man does not leave a +woman while she is young and pretty; still, we have seen so many +pretty women left disconsolate, even among princesses, that you +will permit the supposition, an all but impossible supposition I +quite wish to believe.----Well, suppose that he goes, what will +become of you without a husband? Keep well with your husband as +you take care of your beauty; for beauty, after all, is a woman's +parachute, and a husband also stands between you and worse. I am +supposing that you are happy and loved to the end, and I am +leaving unpleasant or unfortunate events altogether out of the +reckoning. This being so, fortunately or unfortunately, you may +have children. What are they to be? Montriveaus? Very well; +they certainly will not succeed to their father's whole fortune. +You will want to give them all that you have; he will wish to do +the same. Nothing more natural, dear me! And you will find the +law against you. How many times have we seen heirs-at-law +bringing a law-suit to recover the property from illegitimate +children? Every court of law rings with such actions all over +the world. You will create a _fidei commissum_ perhaps; and if the +trustee betrays your confidence, your children have no remedy +against him; and they are ruined. So choose carefully. You see +the perplexities of the position. In every possible way your +children will be sacrificed of necessity to the fancies of your +heart; they will have no recognised status. While they are +little they will be charming; but, Lord! some day they will +reproach you for thinking of no one but your two selves. We old +gentlemen know all about it. Little boys grow up into men, and +men are ungrateful beings. When I was in Germany, did I not hear +young de Horn say, after supper, 'If my mother had been an honest +woman, I should be prince-regnant!' _If_?' We have spent our +lives in hearing plebeians say _if_. _If_ brought about the +Revolution. When a man cannot lay the blame on his father or +mother, he holds God responsible for his hard lot. In short, +dear child, we are here to open your eyes. I will say all I have +to say in a few words, on which you had better meditate: A woman +ought never to put her husband in the right." + +"Uncle, so long as I cared for nobody, I could calculate; I +looked at interests then, as you do; now, I can only feel." + +"But, my dear little girl," remonstrated the Vidame, "life is +simply a complication of interests and feelings; to be happy, +more particularly in your position, one must try to reconcile +one's feelings with one's interests. A grisette may love +according to her fancy, that is intelligible enough, but you have +a pretty fortune, a family, a name and a place at Court, and you +ought not to fling them out of the window. And what have we been +asking you to do to keep them all?--To manoeuvre carefully +instead of falling foul of social conventions. Lord! I shall +very soon be eighty years old, and I cannot recollect, under any +regime, a love worth the price that you are willing to pay for +the love of this lucky young man." + +The Duchess silenced the Vidame with a look; if Montriveau could +have seen that glance, he would have forgiven all. + +"It would be very effective on the stage," remarked the Duc de +Grandlieu, "but it all amounts to nothing when your jointure and +position and independence is concerned. You are not grateful, my +dear niece. You will not find many families where the relatives +have courage enough to teach the wisdom gained by experience, and +to make rash young heads listen to reason. Renounce your +salvation in two minutes, if it pleases you to damn yourself; +well and good; but reflect well beforehand when it comes to +renouncing your income. I know of no confessor who remits the +pains of poverty. I have a right, I think, to speak in this way +to you; for if you are ruined, I am the one person who can offer +you a refuge. I am almost an uncle to Langeais, and I alone have +a right to put him in the wrong." + +The Duc de Navarreins roused himself from painful reflections. + +"Since you speak of feeling, my child," he said, "let me +remind you that a woman who bears your name ought to be moved by +sentiments which do not touch ordinary people. Can you wish to +give an advantage to the Liberals, to those Jesuits of +Robespierre's that are doing all they can to vilify the noblesse? +Some things a Navarreins cannot do without failing in duty to his +house. You would not be alone in your dishonor----" + +"Come, come!" said the Princess. "Dishonor? Do not make +such a fuss about the journey of an empty carriage, children, and +leave me alone with Antoinette. All three of you come and dine +with me. I will undertake to arrange matters suitably. You men +understand nothing; you are beginning to talk sourly already, and +I have no wish to see a quarrel between you and my dear child. +Do me the pleasure to go." + +The three gentlemen probably guessed the Princess's intentions; +they took their leave. M. de Navarreins kissed his daughter on +the forehead with, "Come, be good, dear child. It is not too +late yet if you choose." + +"Couldn't we find some good fellow in the family to pick a +quarrel with this Montriveau?" said the Vidame, as they went +downstairs. + +When the two women were alone, the Princess beckoned her niece to +a little low chair by her side. + +"My pearl," said she, "in this world below, I know nothing +worse calumniated than God and the eighteenth century; for as I +look back over my own young days, I do not recollect that a +single duchess trampled the proprieties underfoot as you have +just done. Novelists and scribblers brought the reign of Louis +XV into disrepute. Do not believe them. The du Barry, my dear, +was quite as good as the Widow Scarron, and the more agreeable +woman of the two. In my time a woman could keep her dignity +among her gallantries. Indiscretion was the ruin of us, and the +beginning of all the mischief. The philosophists--the nobodies +whom we admitted into our salons--had no more gratitude or sense +of decency than to make an inventory of our hearts, to traduce us +one and all, and to rail against the age by way of a return for +our kindness. The people are not in a position to judge of +anything whatsoever; they looked at the facts, not at the form. +But the men and women of those times, my heart, were quite as +remarkable as at any other period of the Monarchy. Not one of +your Werthers, none of your notabilities, as they are called, +never a one of your men in yellow kid gloves and trousers that +disguise the poverty of their legs, would cross Europe in the +dress of a travelling hawker to brave the daggers of a Duke of +Modena, and to shut himself up in the dressing-room of the +Regent's daughter at the risk of his life. Not one of your +little consumptive patients with their tortoiseshell eyeglasses +would hide himself in a closet for six weeks, like Lauzun, to +keep up his mistress's courage while she was lying in of her +child. There was more passion in M. de Jaucourt's little finger +than in your whole race of higglers that leave a woman to better +themselves elsewhere! Just tell me where to find the page that +would be cut in pieces and buried under the floorboards for one +kiss on the Konigsmark's gloved finger! + +"Really, it would seem today that the roles are exchanged, and +women are expected to show their devotion for men. These modern +gentlemen are worth less, and think more of themselves. Believe +me, my dear, all these adventures that have been made public, and +now are turned against our good Louis XV, were kept quite secret +at first. If it had not been for a pack of poetasters, +scribblers, and moralists, who hung about our waiting-women, and +took down their slanders, our epoch would have appeared in +literature as a well-conducted age. I am justifying the century +and not its fringe. Perhaps a hundred women of quality were +lost; but for every one, the rogues set down ten, like the +gazettes after a battle when they count up the losses of the +beaten side. And in any case I do not know that the Revolution +and the Empire can reproach us; they were coarse, dull, +licentious times. Faugh! it is revolting. Those are the +brothels of French history. + +"This preamble, my dear child," she continued after a pause, +"brings me to the thing that I have to say. If you care for +Montriveau, you are quite at liberty to love him at your ease, +and as much as you can. I know by experience that, unless you +are locked up (but locking people up is out of fashion now), you +will do as you please; I should have done the same at your age. +Only, sweetheart, I should not have given up my right to be the +mother of future Ducs de Langeais. So mind appearances. The +Vidame is right. No man is worth a single one of the sacrifices +which we are foolish enough to make for their love. Put yourself +in such a position that you may still be M. de Langeais' wife, +in case you should have the misfortune to repent. When you are +an old woman, you will be very glad to hear mass said at Court, +and not in some provincial convent. Therein lies the whole +question. A single imprudence means an allowance and a wandering +life; it means that you are at the mercy of your lover; it means +that you must put up with insolence from women that are not so +honest, precisely because they have been very vulgarly +sharp-witted. It would be a hundred times better to go to +Montriveau's at night in a cab, and disguised, instead of sending +your carriage in broad daylight. You are a little fool, my dear +child! Your carriage flattered his vanity; your person would +have ensnared his heart. All this that I have said is just and +true; but, for my own part, I do not blame you. You are two +centuries behind the times with your false ideas of greatness. +There, leave us to arrange your affairs, and say that Montriveau +made your servants drunk to gratify his vanity and to compromise +you----" + +The Duchess rose to her feet with a spring. "In Heaven's name, +aunt, do not slander him!" + +The old Princess's eyes flashed. + +"Dear child," she said, "I should have liked to spare such of +your illusions as were not fatal. But there must be an end of +all illusions now. You would soften me if I were not so old. +Come, now, do not vex him, or us, or anyone else. I will +undertake to satisfy everybody; but promise me not to permit +yourself a single step henceforth until you have consulted me. +Tell me all, and perhaps I may bring it all right again." + +"Aunt, I promise----" + +"To tell me everything?" + +"Yes, everything. Everything that can be told." + +"But, my sweetheart, it is precisely what cannot be told that I +want to know. Let us understand each other thoroughly. Come, +let me put my withered old lips on your beautiful forehead. No; +let me do as I wish. I forbid you to kiss my bones. Old people +have a courtesy of their own. . . . There, take me down to my +carriage," she added, when she had kissed her niece. + +"Then may I go to him in disguise, dear aunt?" + +"Why--yes. The story can always be denied," said the old +Princess. + +This was the one idea which the Duchess had clearly grasped in +the sermon. When Mme de Chauvry was seated in the corner of her +carriage, Mme de Langeais bade her a graceful adieu and went up +to her room. She was quite happy again. + +"My person would have snared his heart; my aunt is right; a man +cannot surely refuse a pretty woman when she understands how to +offer herself." + +That evening, at the Elysee-Bourbon, the Duc de Navarreins, M. de +Pamiers, M. de Marsay, M. de Grandlieu, and the Duc de +Maufrigneuse triumphantly refuted the scandals that were +circulating with regard to the Duchesse de Langeais. So many +officers and other persons had seen Montriveau walking in the +Tuileries that morning, that the silly story was set down to +chance, which takes all that is offered. And so, in spite of the +fact that the Duchess's carriage had waited before Montriveau's +door, her character became as clear and as spotless as Membrino's +sword after Sancho had polished it up. + +But, at two o'clock, M. de Ronquerolles passed Montriveau in a +deserted alley, and said with a smile, "She is coming on, is +your Duchess. Go on, keep it up!" he added, and gave a +significant cut of the riding whip to his mare, who sped off like +a bullet down the avenue. + +Two days after the fruitless scandal, Mme de Langeais wrote to M. +de Montriveau. That letter, like the preceding ones, remained +unanswered. This time she took her own measures, and bribed M. +de Montriveau's man, Auguste. And so at eight o'clock that +evening she was introduced into Armand's apartment. It was not +the room in which that secret scene had passed; it was entirely +different. The Duchess was told that the General would not be at +home that night. Had he two houses? The man would give no +answer. Mme de Langeais had bought the key of the room, but not +the man's whole loyalty. + +When she was left alone she saw her fourteen letters lying on an +old-fashioned stand, all of them uncreased and unopened. He had +not read them. She sank into an easy-chair, and for a while she +lost consciousness. When she came to herself, Auguste was +holding vinegar for her to inhale. + +"A carriage; quick!" she ordered. + +The carriage came. She hastened downstairs with convulsive +speed, and left orders that no one was to be admitted. For +twenty-four hours she lay in bed, and would have no one near her +but her woman, who brought her a cup of orange-flower water from +time to time. Suzette heard her mistress moan once or twice, and +caught a glimpse of tears in the brilliant eyes, now circled with +dark shadows. + +The next day, amid despairing tears, Mme de Langeais took her +resolution. Her man of business came for an interview, and no +doubt received instructions of some kind. Afterwards she sent +for the Vidame de Pamiers; and while she waited, she wrote a +letter to M. de Montriveau. The Vidame punctually came towards +two o'clock that afternoon, to find his young cousin looking +white and worn, but resigned; never had her divine loveliness +been more poetic than now in the languor of her agony. + +"You owe this assignation to your eighty-four years, dear +cousin," she said. "Ah! do not smile, I beg of you, when an +unhappy woman has reached the lowest depths of wretchedness. You +are a gentleman, and after the adventures of your youth you must +feel some indulgence for women." + +"None whatever," said he. + +"Indeed!" + +"Everything is in their favour." + +"Ah! Well, you are one of the inner family circle; possibly you +will be the last relative, the last friend whose hand I shall +press, so I can ask your good offices. Will you, dear Vidame, do +me a service which I could not ask of my own father, nor of my +uncle Grandlieu, nor of any woman? You cannot fail to +understand. I beg of you to do my bidding, and then to forget +what you have done, whatever may come of it. It is this: Will +you take this letter and go to M. de Montriveau? will you see him +yourself, give it into his hands, and ask him, as you men can ask +things between yourselves--for you have a code of honour between +man and man which you do not use with us, and a different way of +regarding things between yourselves--ask him if he will read this +letter? Not in your presence. Certain feelings men hide from +each other. I give you authority to say, if you think it +necessary to bring him, that it is a question of life or death +for me. If he deigns----" + +"_Deigns_!" repeated the Vidame. + +"If he deigns to read it," the Duchess continued with dignity, +"say one thing more. You will go to see him about five o'clock, +for I know that he will dine at home today at that time. Very +good. By way of answer he must come to see me. If, three hours +afterwards, by eight o'clock, he does not leave his house, all +will be over. The Duchesse de Langeais will have vanished from +the world. I shall not be dead, dear friend, no, but no human +power will ever find me again on this earth. Come and dine with +me; I shall at least have one friend with me in the last agony. +Yes, dear cousin, tonight will decide my fate; and whatever +happens to me, I pass through an ordeal by fire. There! not a +word. I will hear nothing of the nature of comment or +advice----Let us chat and laugh together," she added, holding +out a hand, which he kissed. "We will be like two grey-headed +philosophers who have learned how to enjoy life to the last +moment. I will look my best; I will be very enchanting for you. +You perhaps will be the last man to set eyes on the Duchesse de +Langeais." + +The Vicomte bowed, took the letter, and went without a word. At +five o'clock he returned. His cousin had studied to please him, +and she looked lovely indeed. The room was gay with flowers as +if for a festivity; the dinner was exquisite. For the +grey-headed Vidame the Duchess displayed all the brilliancy of +her wit; she was more charming than she had ever been before. At +first the Vidame tried to look on all these preparations as a +young woman's jest; but now and again the attempted illusion +faded, the spell of his fair cousin's charm was broken. He +detected a shudder caused by some kind of sudden dread, and once +she seemed to listen during a pause. + +"What is the matter?" he asked. + +"Hush!" she said. + +At seven o'clock the Duchess left him for a few minutes. When +she came back again she was dressed as her maid might have +dressed for a journey. She asked her guest to be her escort, +took his arm, sprang into a hackney coach, and by a quarter to +eight they stood outside M. de Montriveau's door. + +Armand meantime had been reading the following letter:-- + + +"MY FRIEND,--I went to your rooms for a few minutes without your +knowledge; I found my letters there, and took them away. This +cannot be indifference, Armand, between us; and hatred would show +itself quite differently. If you love me, make an end of this +cruel play, or you will kill me, and afterwards, learning how +much you were loved, you might be in despair. If I have not +rightly understood you, if you have no feeling towards me but +aversion, which implies both contempt and disgust, then I give up +all hope. A man never recovers from those feelings. You will +have no regrets. Dreadful though that thought may be, it will +comfort me in my long sorrow. Regrets? Oh, my Armand, may I +never know of them; if I thought that I had caused you a single +regret----But, no, I will not tell you what desolation I should +feel. I should be living still, and I could not be your wife; it +would be too late! + +"Now that I have given myself wholly to you in thought, to whom +else should I give myself?--to God. The eyes that you loved for +a little while shall never look on another man's face; and may +the glory of God blind them to all besides. I shall never hear +human voices more since I heard yours--so gentle at the first, so +terrible yesterday; for it seems to me that I am still only on +the morrow of your vengeance. And now may the will of God +consume me. Between His wrath and yours, my friend, there will +be nothing left for me but a little space for tears and prayers. + +"Perhaps you wonder why I write to you? Ah! do not think ill of +me if I keep a gleam of hope, and give one last sigh to happy +life before I take leave of it forever. I am in a hideous +position. I feel all the inward serenity that comes when a great +resolution has been taken, even while I hear the last growlings +of the storm. When you went out on that terrible adventure which +so drew me to you, Armand, you went from the desert to the oasis +with a good guide to show you the way. Well, I am going out of +the oasis into the desert, and you are a pitiless guide to me. +And yet you only, my friend, can understand how melancholy it is +to look back for the last time on happiness--to you, and you +only, I can make moan without a blush. If you grant my entreaty, +I shall be happy; if you are inexorable, I shall expiate the +wrong that I have done. After all, it is natural, is it not, +that a woman should wish to live, invested with all noble +feelings, in her friend's memory? Oh! my one and only love, let +her to whom you gave life go down into the tomb in the belief +that she is great in your eyes. Your harshness led me to +reflect; and now that I love you so, it seems to me that I am +less guilty than you think. Listen to my justification, I owe it +to you; and you that are all the world to me, owe me at least a +moment's justice. + +"I have learned by my own anguish all that I made you suffer by +my coquetry; but in those days I was utterly ignorant of love. +_You_ know what the torture is, and you mete it out to me! During +those first eight months that you gave me you never roused any +feeling of love in me. Do you ask why this was so, my friend? I +can no more explain it than I can tell you why I love you now. +Oh! certainly it flattered my vanity that I should be the subject +of your passionate talk, and receive those burning glances of +yours; but you left me cold. No, I was not a woman; I had no +conception of womanly devotion and happiness. Who was to blame? +You would have despised me, would you not, if I had given myself +without the impulse of passion? Perhaps it is the highest height +to which we can rise--to give all and receive no joy; perhaps +there is no merit in yielding oneself to bliss that is foreseen +and ardently desired. Alas, my friend, I can say this now; these +thoughts came to me when I played with you; and you seemed to me +so great even then that I would not have you owe the gift to +pity----What is this that I have written? + +"I have taken back all my letters; I am flinging them one by one +on the fire; they are burning. You will never know what they +confessed--all the love and the passion and the madness---- + +"I will say no more, Armand; I will stop. I will not say +another word of my feelings. If my prayers have not echoed from +my soul through yours, I also, woman that I am, decline to owe +your love to your pity. It is my wish to be loved, because you +cannot choose but love me, or else to be left without mercy. If +you refuse to read this letter, it shall be burnt. If, after you +have read it, you do not come to me within three hours, to be +henceforth forever my husband, the one man in the world for me; +then I shall never blush to know that this letter is in your +hands, the pride of my despair will protect my memory from all +insult, and my end shall be worthy of my love. When you see me +no more on earth, albeit I shall still be alive, you yourself +will not think without a shudder of the woman who, in three +hours' time, will live only to overwhelm you with her tenderness; +a woman consumed by a hopeless love, and faithful--not to +memories of past joys--but to a love that was slighted. + +"The Duchesse de la Valliere wept for lost happiness and +vanished power; but the Duchesse de Langeais will be happy that +she may weep and be a power for you still. Yes, you will regret +me. I see clearly that I was not of this world, and I thank you +for making it clear to me. + +"Farewell; you will never touch _my_ axe. Yours was the +executioner's axe, mine is God's; yours kills, mine saves. Your +love was but mortal, it could not endure disdain or ridicule; +mine can endure all things without growing weaker, it will last +eternally. Ah! I feel a sombre joy in crushing you that believe +yourself so great; in humbling you with the calm, indulgent smile +of one of the least among the angels that lie at the feet of God, +for to them is given the right and the power to protect and watch +over men in His name. You have but felt fleeting desires, while +the poor nun will shed the light of her ceaseless and ardent +prayer about you, she will shelter you all your life long beneath +the wings of a love that has nothing of earth in it. + +"I have a presentiment of your answer; our trysting place shall +be--in heaven. Strength and weakness can both enter there, dear +Armand; the strong and the weak are bound to suffer. This +thought soothes the anguish of my final ordeal. So calm am I +that I should fear that I had ceased to love you if I were not +about to leave the world for your sake. + + "ANTOINETTE." + + +"Dear Vidame," said the Duchess as they reached Montriveau's +house, "do me the kindness to ask at the door whether he is at +home." The Vidame, obedient after the manner of the eighteenth +century to a woman's wish, got out, and came back to bring his +cousin an affirmative answer that sent a shudder through her. +She grasped his hand tightly in hers, suffered him to kiss her on +either cheek, and begged him to go at once. He must not watch +her movements nor try to protect her. "But the people passing +in the street," he objected. + +"No one can fail in respect to me," she said. It was the last +word spoken by the Duchess and the woman of fashion. + +The Vidame went. Mme de Langeais wrapped herself about in her +cloak, and stood on the doorstep until the clocks struck eight. +The last stroke died away. The unhappy woman waited ten, fifteen +minutes; to the last she tried to see a fresh humiliation in the +delay, then her faith ebbed. She turned to leave the fatal +threshold. + +"Oh, God!" the cry broke from her in spite of herself; it was +the first word spoken by the Carmelite. + + + +Montriveau and some of his friends were talking together. He +tried to hasten them to a conclusion, but his clock was slow, and +by the time he started out for the Hotel de Langeais the Duchess +was hurrying on foot through the streets of Paris, goaded by the +dull rage in her heart. She reached the Boulevard d'Enfer, and +looked out for the last time through falling tears on the noisy, +smoky city that lay below in a red mist, lighted up by its own +lamps. Then she hailed a cab, and drove away, never to return. +When the Marquis de Montriveau reached the Hotel de Langeais, and +found no trace of his mistress, he thought that he had been +duped. He hurried away at once to the Vidame, and found that +worthy gentleman in the act of slipping on his flowered +dressing-gown, thinking the while of his fair cousin's happiness. + +Montriveau gave him one of the terrific glances that produced the +effect of an electric shock on men and women alike. + +"Is it possible that you have lent yourself to some cruel hoax, +monsieur?" Montriveau exclaimed. "I have just come from Mme de +Langeais' house; the servants say that she is out." + +"Then a great misfortune has happened, no doubt," returned the +Vidame, "and through your fault. I left the Duchess at your +door----" + +"When?" + +"At a quarter to eight." + +"Good evening," returned Montriveau, and he hurried home to ask +the porter whether he had seen a lady standing on the doorstep +that evening. + +"Yes, my Lord Marquis, a handsome woman, who seemed very much +put out. She was crying like a Magdalen, but she never made a +sound, and stood as upright as a post. Then at last she went, +and my wife and I that were watching her while she could not see +us, heard her say, 'Oh, God!' so that it went to our hearts, +asking your pardon, to hear her say it." + +Montriveau, in spite of all his firmness, turned pale at those +few words. He wrote a few lines to Ronquerolles, sent off the +message at once, and went up to his rooms. Ronquerolles came +just about midnight. + +Armand gave him the Duchess's letter to read. + +"Well?" asked Ronquerolles. + +"She was here at my door at eight o'clock; at a quarter-past +eight she had gone. I have lost her, and I love her. Oh! if my +life were my own, I could blow my brains out." + +"Pooh, pooh! Keep cool," said Ronquerolles. "Duchesses do +not fly off like wagtails. She cannot travel faster than three +leagues an hour, and tomorrow we will ride six.--Confound it! +Mme de Langeais is no ordinary woman," he continued. "Tomorrow +we will all of us mount and ride. The police will put us on her +track during the day. She must have a carriage; angels of that +sort have no wings. We shall find her whether she is on the road +or hidden in Paris. There is the semaphore. We can stop her. +You shall be happy. But, my dear fellow, you have made a +blunder, of which men of your energy are very often guilty. They +judge others by themselves, and do not know the point when human +nature gives way if you strain the cords too tightly. Why did +you not say a word to me sooner? I would have told you to be +punctual. Good-bye till tomorrow," he added, as Montriveau said +nothing. "Sleep if you can," he added, with a grasp of the +hand. + +But the greatest resources which society has ever placed at the +disposal of statesmen, kings, ministers, bankers, or any human +power, in fact, were all exhausted in vain. Neither Montriveau +nor his friends could find any trace of the Duchess. It was +clear that she had entered a convent. Montriveau determined to +search, or to institute a search, for her through every convent +in the world. He must have her, even at the cost of all the +lives in a town. And in justice to this extraordinary man, it +must be said that his frenzied passion awoke to the same ardour +daily and lasted through five years. Only in 1829 did the Duc de +Navarreins hear by chance that his daughter had travelled to +Spain as Lady Julia Hopwood's maid, that she had left her service +at Cadiz, and that Lady Julia never discovered that Mlle Caroline +was the illustrious duchess whose sudden disappearance filled the +minds of the highest society of Paris. + + + +The feelings of the two lovers when they met again on either side +of the grating in the Carmelite convent should now be +comprehended to the full, and the violence of the passion +awakened in either soul will doubtless explain the catastrophe of +the story. + +In 1823 the Duc de Langeais was dead, and his wife was free. +Antoinette de Navarreins was living, consumed by love, on a ledge +of rock in the Mediterranean; but it was in the Pope's power to +dissolve Sister Theresa's vows. The happiness bought by so much +love might yet bloom for the two lovers. These thoughts sent +Montriveau flying from Cadiz to Marseilles, and from Marseilles +to Paris. + +A few months after his return to France, a merchant brig, fitted +out and munitioned for active service, set sail from the port of +Marseilles for Spain. The vessel had been chartered by several +distinguished men, most of them Frenchmen, who, smitten with a +romantic passion for the East, wished to make a journey to those +lands. Montriveau's familiar knowledge of Eastern customs made +him an invaluable travelling companion, and at the entreaty of +the rest he had joined the expedition; the Minister of War +appointed him lieutenant-general, and put him on the Artillery +Commission to facilitate his departure. + +Twenty-fours hours later the brig lay to off the north-west shore +of an island within sight of the Spanish coast. She had been +specially chosen for her shallow keel and light mastage, so that +she might lie at anchor in safety half a league away from the +reefs that secure the island from approach in this direction. If +fishing vessels or the people on the island caught sight of the +brig, they were scarcely likely to feel suspicious of her at +once; and besides, it was easy to give a reason for her presence +without delay. Montriveau hoisted the flag of the United States +before they came in sight of the island, and the crew of the +vessel were all American sailors, who spoke nothing but English. +One of M. de Montriveau's companions took the men ashore in the +ship's longboat, and made them so drunk at an inn in the little +town that they could not talk. Then he gave out that the brig +was manned by treasure-seekers, a gang of men whose hobby was +well known in the United States; indeed, some Spanish writer had +written a history of them. The presence of the brig among the +reefs was now sufficiently explained. The owners of the vessel, +according to the self-styled boatswain's mate, were looking for +the wreck of a galleon which foundered thereabouts in 1778 with a +cargo of treasure from Mexico. The people at the inn and the +authorities asked no more questions. + +Armand, and the devoted friends who were helping him in his +difficult enterprise, were all from the first of the opinion that +there was no hope of rescuing or carrying off Sister Theresa by +force or stratagem from the side of the little town. Wherefore +these bold spirits, with one accord, determined to take the bull +by the horns. They would make a way to the convent at the most +seemingly inaccessible point; like General Lamarque, at the +storming of Capri, they would conquer Nature. The cliff at the +end of the island, a sheer block of granite, afforded even less +hold than the rock of Capri. So it seemed at least to +Montriveau, who had taken part in that incredible exploit, while +the nuns in his eyes were much more redoubtable than Sir Hudson +Lowe. To raise a hubbub over carrying off the Duchess would +cover them with confusion. They might as well set siege to the +town and convent, like pirates, and leave not a single soul to +tell of their victory. So for them their expedition wore but two +aspects. There should be a conflagration and a feat of arms that +should dismay all Europe, while the motives of the crime remained +unknown; or, on the other hand, a mysterious, aerial descent +which should persuade the nuns that the Devil himself had paid +them a visit. They had decided upon the latter course in the +secret council held before they left Paris, and subsequently +everything had been done to insure the success of an expedition +which promised some real excitement to jaded spirits weary of +Paris and its pleasures. + +An extremely light pirogue, made at Marseilles on a Malayan +model, enabled them to cross the reef, until the rocks rose from +out of the water. Then two cables of iron wire were fastened +several feet apart between one rock and another. These wire +ropes slanted upwards and downwards in opposite directions, so +that baskets of iron wire could travel to and fro along them; and +in this manner the rocks were covered with a system of baskets +and wire-cables, not unlike the filaments which a certain species +of spider weaves about a tree. The Chinese, an essentially +imitative people, were the first to take a lesson from the work +of instinct. Fragile as these bridges were, they were always +ready for use; high waves and the caprices of the sea could not +throw them out of working order; the ropes hung just sufficiently +slack, so as to present to the breakers that particular curve +discovered by Cachin, the immortal creator of the harbour at +Cherbourg. Against this cunningly devised line the angry surge +is powerless; the law of that curve was a secret wrested from +Nature by that faculty of observation in which nearly all human +genius consists. + +M. de Montriveau's companions were alone on board the vessel, and +out of sight of every human eye. No one from the deck of a +passing vessel could have discovered either the brig hidden among +the reefs, or the men at work among the rocks; they lay below the +ordinary range of the most powerful telescope. Eleven days were +spent in preparation, before the Thirteen, with all their +infernal power, could reach the foot of the cliffs. The body of +the rock rose up straight from the sea to a height of thirty +fathoms. Any attempt to climb the sheer wall of granite seemed +impossible; a mouse might as well try to creep up the slippery +sides of a plain china vase. Still there was a cleft, a straight +line of fissure so fortunately placed that large blocks of wood +could be wedged firmly into it at a distance of about a foot +apart. Into these blocks the daring workers drove iron cramps, +specially made for the purpose, with a broad iron bracket at the +outer end, through which a hole had been drilled. Each bracket +carried a light deal board which corresponded with a notch made +in a pole that reached to the top of the cliffs, and was firmly +planted in the beach at their feet. With ingenuity worthy of +these men who found nothing impossible, one of their number, a +skilled mathematician, had calculated the angle from which the +steps must start; so that from the middle they rose gradually, +like the sticks of a fan, to the top of the cliff, and descended +in the same fashion to its base. That miraculously light, yet +perfectly firm, staircase cost them twenty-two days of toil. A +little tinder and the surf of the sea would destroy all trace of +it forever in a single night. A betrayal of the secret was +impossible; and all search for the violators of the convent was +doomed to failure. + +At the top of the rock there was a platform with sheer precipice +on all sides. The Thirteen, reconnoitring the ground with their +glasses from the masthead, made certain that though the ascent +was steep and rough, there would be no difficulty in gaining the +convent garden, where the trees were thick enough for a +hiding-place. After such great efforts they would not risk the +success of their enterprise, and were compelled to wait till the +moon passed out of her last quarter. + +For two nights Montriveau, wrapped in his cloak, lay out on the +rock platform. The singing at vespers and matins filled him with +unutterable joy. He stood under the wall to hear the music of +the organ, listening intently for one voice among the rest. But +in spite of the silence, the confused effect of music was all +that reached his ears. In those sweet harmonies defects of +execution are lost; the pure spirit of art comes into direct +communication with the spirit of the hearer, making no demand on +the attention, no strain on the power of listening. Intolerable +memories awoke. All the love within him seemed to break into +blossom again at the breath of that music; he tried to find +auguries of happiness in the air. During the last night he sat +with his eyes fixed upon an ungrated window, for bars were not +needed on the side of the precipice. A light shone there all +through the hours; and that instinct of the heart, which is +sometimes true, and as often false, cried within him, "She is +there!" + +"She is certainly there! Tomorrow she will be mine," he said +to himself, and joy blended with the slow tinkling of a bell that +began to ring. + +Strange unaccountable workings of the heart! The nun, wasted by +yearning love, worn out with tears and fasting, prayer and +vigils; the woman of nine-and-twenty, who had passed through +heavy trials, was loved more passionately than the lighthearted +girl, the woman of four-and-twenty, the sylphide, had ever been. +But is there not, for men of vigorous character, something +attractive in the sublime expression engraven on women's faces by +the impetuous stirrings of thought and misfortunes of no ignoble +kind? Is there not a beauty of suffering which is the most +interesting of all beauty to those men who feel that within them +there is an inexhaustible wealth of tenderness and consoling pity +for a creature so gracious in weakness, so strong with love? It +is the ordinary nature that is attracted by young, smooth, +pink-and-white beauty, or, in one word, by prettiness. In some +faces love awakens amid the wrinkles carved by sorrow and the +ruin made by melancholy; Montriveau could not but feel drawn to +these. For cannot a lover, with the voice of a great longing, +call forth a wholly new creature? a creature athrob with the life +but just begun breaks forth for him alone, from the outward form +that is fair for him, and faded for all the world besides. Does +he not love two women?--One of them, as others see her, is pale +and wan and sad; but the other, the unseen love that his heart +knows, is an angel who understands life through feeling, and is +adorned in all her glory only for love's high festivals. + +The General left his post before sunrise, but not before he had +heard voices singing together, sweet voices full of tenderness +sounding faintly from the cell. When he came down to the foot of +the cliffs where his friends were waiting, he told them that +never in his life had he felt such enthralling bliss, and in the +few words there was that unmistakable thrill of repressed strong +feeling, that magnificent utterance which all men respect. + + + +That night eleven of his devoted comrades made the ascent in the +darkness. Each man carried a poniard, a provision of chocolate, +and a set of house-breaking tools. They climbed the outer walls +with scaling-ladders, and crossed the cemetery of the convent. +Montriveau recognised the long, vaulted gallery through which he +went to the parlour, and remembered the windows of the room. His +plans were made and adopted in a moment. They would effect an +entrance through one of the windows in the Carmelite's half of +the parlour, find their way along the corridors, ascertain +whether the sister's names were written on the doors, find Sister +Theresa's cell, surprise her as she slept, and carry her off, +bound and gagged. The programme presented no difficulties to men +who combined boldness and a convict's dexterity with the +knowledge peculiar to men of the world, especially as they would +not scruple to give a stab to ensure silence. + +In two hours the bars were sawn through. Three men stood on +guard outside, and two inside the parlour. The rest, barefooted, +took up their posts along the corridor. Young Henri de Marsay, +the most dexterous man among them, disguised by way of precaution +in a Carmelite's robe, exactly like the costume of the convent, +led the way, and Montriveau came immediately behind him. The +clock struck three just as the two men reached the dormitory +cells. They soon saw the position. Everything was perfectly +quiet. With the help of a dark lantern they read the names +luckily written on every door, together with the picture of a +saint or saints and the mystical words which every nun takes as a +kind of motto for the beginning of her new life and the +revelation of her last thought. Montriveau reached Sister +Theresa's door and read the inscription, _Sub invocatione sanctae +matris Theresae_, and her motto, _Adoremus in aeternum_. Suddenly +his companion laid a hand on his shoulder. A bright light was +streaming through the chinks of the door. M. de Ronquerolles +came up at that moment. + +"All the nuns are in the church," he said; "they are beginning +the Office for the Dead." + +"I will stay here," said Montriveau. "Go back into the parlour, +and shut the door at the end of the passage." + +He threw open the door and rushed in, preceded by his disguised +companion, who let down the veil over his face. + +There before them lay the dead Duchess; her plank bed had been +laid on the floor of the outer room of her cell, between two +lighted candles. Neither Montriveau nor de Marsay spoke a word +or uttered a cry; but they looked into each other's faces. The +General's dumb gesture tried to say, "Let us carry her away!" + +"Quickly" shouted Ronquerolles, "the procession of nuns is +leaving the church. You will be caught!" + +With magical swiftness of movement, prompted by an intense +desire, the dead woman was carried into the convent parlour, +passed through the window, and lowered from the walls before the +Abbess, followed by the nuns, returned to take up Sister +Theresa's body. The sister left in charge had imprudently left +her post; there were secrets that she longed to know; and so busy +was she ransacking the inner room, that she heard nothing, and +was horrified when she came back to find that the body was gone. +Before the women, in their blank amazement, could think of making +a search, the Duchess had been lowered by a cord to the foot of +the crags, and Montriveau's companions had destroyed all traces +of their work. By nine o'clock that morning there was not a sign +to show that either staircase or wire-cables had ever existed, +and Sister Theresa's body had been taken on board. The brig came +into the port to ship her crew, and sailed that day. + +Montriveau, down in the cabin, was left alone with Antoinette de +Navarreins. For some hours it seemed as if her dead face was +transfigured for him by that unearthly beauty which the calm of +death gives to the body before it perishes. + +"Look here," said Ronquerolles when Montriveau reappeared on +deck, "_that_ was a woman once, now it is nothing. Let us tie a +cannon ball to both feet and throw the body overboard; and if +ever you think of her again, think of her as of some book that +you read as a boy." + +"Yes," assented Montriveau, "it is nothing now but a dream." + +"That is sensible of you. Now, after this, have passions; but +as for love, a man ought to know how to place it wisely; it is +only a woman's last love that can satisfy a man's first love." + + + + +ADDENDUM + + Note: The Duchesse de Langeais is the second part of a trilogy. + Part one is entitled Ferragus and part three is The Girl with + the Golden Eyes. In other addendum references all three stories + are usually combined under the title The Thirteen. + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + +Blamont-Chauvry, Princesse de + Madame Firmiani + The Lily of the Valley + +Grandlieu, Duc Ferdinand de + The Gondreville Mystery + A Bachelor's Establishment + Modeste Mignon + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + +Granville, Comtesse Angelique de + A Second Home + A Daughter of Eve + +Keller, Madame Francois + Domestic Peace + The Member for Arcis + +Langeais, Duc de + An Episode under the Terror + +Langeais, Duchesse Antoinette de + Father Goriot + Ferragus + +Marsay, Henri de + Ferragus + The Girl with the Golden Eyes + The Unconscious Humorists + Another Study of Woman + The Lily of the Valley + Father Goriot + Jealousies of a Country Town + Ursule Mirouet + A Marriage Settlement + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Letters of Two Brides + The Ball at Sceaux + Modeste Mignon + The Secrets of a Princess + The Gondreville Mystery + A Daughter of Eve + +Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de + Father Goriot + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Another Study of Woman + Pierrette + The Member for Arcis + +Navarreins, Duc de + A Bachelor's Establishment + Colonel Chabert + The Muse of the Department + Jealousies of a Country Town + The Peasantry + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + The Country Parson + The Magic Skin + The Gondreville Mystery + The Secrets of a Princess + Cousin Betty + +Pamiers, Vidame de + Ferragus + Jealousies of a Country Town + +Ronquerolles, Marquis de + The Imaginary Mistress + The Peasantry + Ursule Mirouet + A Woman of Thirty + Another Study of Woman + Ferragus + The Girl with the Golden Eyes + The Member for Arcis + +Serizy, Comtesse de + A Start in Life + Ferragus + Ursule Mirouet + A Woman of Thirty + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + Another Study of Woman + The Imaginary Mistress + +Soulanges, Comtesse Hortense de + Domestic Peace + The Peasantry + +Talleyrand-Perigord, Charles-Maurice de + The Chouans + The Gondreville Mystery + Letters of Two Brides + Gaudissart II + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Duchesse de Langeais, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS *** + +***** This file should be named 469.txt or 469.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/4/6/469/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac + + + + + +THE DUCHESS OF LANGEAIS + + +I + +In a Spanish city on an island in the Mediterranean, there stands +a convent of the Order of Barefoot Carmelites, where the rule +instituted by St. Theresa is still preserved with all the first +rigour of the reformation brought about by that illustrious +woman. Extraordinary as this may seem, it is none the less true. + +Almost every religious house in the Peninsula, or in Europe for +that matter, was either destroyed or disorganised by the outbreak +of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars; but as this +island was protected through those times by the English fleet, +its wealthy convent and peaceable inhabitants were secure from +the general trouble and spoliation. The storms of many kinds +which shook the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century +spent their force before they reached those cliffs at so short a +distance from the coast of Andalusia. + +If the rumour of the Emperor's name so much as reached the shore +of the island, it is doubtful whether the holy women kneeling in +the cloisters grasped the reality of his dream-like progress of +glory, or the majesty that blazed in flame across kingdom after +kingdom during his meteor life. + +In the minds of the Roman Catholic world, the convent stood out +pre-eminent for a stern discipline which nothing had changed; the +purity of its rule had attracted unhappy women from the furthest +parts of Europe, women deprived of all human ties, sighing after +the long suicide accomplished in the breast of God. No convent, +indeed, was so well fitted for that complete detachment of the +soul from all earthly things, which is demanded by the religious +life, albeit on the continent of Europe there are many convents +magnificently adapted to the purpose of their existence. Buried +away in the loneliest valleys, hanging in mid-air on the steepest +mountainsides, set down on the brink of precipices, in every +place man has sought for the poetry of the Infinite, the solemn +awe of Silence; in every place man has striven to draw closer to +God, seeking Him on mountain peaks, in the depths below the +crags, at the cliff's edge; and everywhere man has found God. +But nowhere, save on this half-European, half-African ledge of +rock could you find so many different harmonies, combining so to +raise the soul, that the sharpest pain comes to be like other +memories; the strongest impressions are dulled, till the sorrows +of life are laid to rest in the depths. + +The convent stands on the highest point of the crags at the +uttermost end of the island. On the side towards the sea the +rock was once rent sheer away in some globe-cataclysm; it rises +up a straight wall from the base where the waves gnaw at the +stone below high-water mark. Any assault is made impossible by +the dangerous reefs that stretch far out to sea, with the +sparkling waves of the Mediterranean playing over them. So, only +from the sea can you discern the square mass of the convent built +conformably to the minute rules laid down as to the shape, +height, doors, and windows of monastic buildings. From the side +of the town, the church completely hides the solid structure of +the cloisters and their roofs, covered with broad slabs of stone +impervious to sun or storm or gales of wind. + +The church itself, built by the munificence of a Spanish family, +is the crowning edifice of the town. Its fine, bold front gives +an imposing and picturesque look to the little city in the sea. +The sight of such a city, with its close-huddled roofs, arranged +for the most part amphitheatre-wise above a picturesque harbour, +and crowned by a glorious cathedral front with triple-arched +Gothic doorways, belfry towers, and filigree spires, is a +spectacle surely in every way the sublimest on earth. Religion +towering above daily life, to put men continually in mind of the +End and the way, is in truth a thoroughly Spanish conception. +But now surround this picture by the Mediterranean, and a burning +sky, imagine a few palms here and there, a few stunted evergreen +trees mingling their waving leaves with the motionless flowers +and foliage of carved stone; look out over the reef with its +white fringes of foam in contrast to the sapphire sea; and then +turn to the city, with its galleries and terraces whither the +townsfolk come to take the air among their flowers of an evening, +above the houses and the tops of the trees in their little +gardens; add a few sails down in the harbour; and lastly, in the +stillness of falling night, listen to the organ music, the +chanting of the services, the wonderful sound of bells pealing +out over the open sea. There is sound and silence everywhere; +oftener still there is silence over all. + +The church is divided within into a sombre mysterious nave and +narrow aisles. For some reason, probably because the winds are +so high, the architect was unable to build the flying buttresses +and intervening chapels which adorn almost all cathedrals, nor +are there openings of any kind in the walls which support the +weight of the roof. Outside there is simply the heavy wall +structure, a solid mass of grey stone further strengthened by +huge piers placed at intervals. Inside, the nave and its little +side galleries are lighted entirely by the great stained-glass +rose-window suspended by a miracle of art above the centre +doorway; for upon that side the exposure permits of the display +of lacework in stone and of other beauties peculiar to the style +improperly called Gothic. + +The larger part of the nave and aisles was left for the +townsfolk, who came and went and heard mass there. The choir was +shut off from the rest of the church by a grating and thick folds +of brown curtain, left slightly apart in the middle in such a way +that nothing of the choir could be seen from the church except +the high altar and the officiating priest. The grating itself +was divided up by the pillars which supported the organ loft; and +this part of the structure, with its carved wooden columns, +completed the line of the arcading in the gallery carried by the +shafts in the nave. If any inquisitive person, therefore, had +been bold enough to climb upon the narrow balustrade in the +gallery to look down into the choir, he could have seen nothing +but the tall eight-sided windows of stained glass beyond the high +altar. + +At the time of the French expedition into Spain to establish +Ferdinand VII once more on the throne, a French general came to +the island after the taking of Cadiz, ostensibly to require the +recognition of the King's Government, really to see the convent +and to find some means of entering it. The undertaking was +certainly a delicate one; but a man of passionate temper, whose +life had been, as it were, but one series of poems in action, a +man who all his life long had lived romances instead of writing +them, a man pre-eminently a Doer, was sure to be tempted by a +deed which seemed to be impossible. + +To open the doors of a convent of nuns by lawful means! The +metropolitan or the Pope would scarcely have permitted it! And +as for force or strategem--might not any indiscretion cost him +his position, his whole career as a soldier, and the end in view +to boot? The Duc d'Angouleme was still in Spain; and of all the +crimes which a man in favour with the Commander-in-Chief might +commit, this one alone was certain to find him inexorable. The +General had asked for the mission to gratify private motives of +curiosity, though never was curiosity more hopeless. This final +attempt was a matter of conscience. The Carmelite convent on the +island was the only nunnery in Spain which had baffled his +search. + +As he crossed from the mainland, scarcely an hour's distance, he +felt a presentiment that his hopes were to be fulfilled; and +afterwards, when as yet he had seen nothing of the convent but +its walls, and of the nuns not so much as their robes; while he +had merely heard the chanting of the service, there were dim +auguries under the walls and in the sound of the voices to +justify his frail hope. And, indeed, however faint those so +unaccountable presentiments might be, never was human passion +more vehemently excited than the General's curiosity at that +moment. There are no small events for the heart; the heart +exaggerates everything; the heart weighs the fall of a +fourteen-year-old Empire and the dropping of a woman's glove in +the same scales, and the glove is nearly always the heavier of +the two. So here are the facts in all their prosaic simplicity. +The facts first, the emotions will follow. + +An hour after the General landed on the island, the royal +authority was re-established there. Some few Constitutional +Spaniards who had found their way thither after the fall of Cadiz +were allowed to charter a vessel and sail for London. So there +was neither resistance nor reaction. But the change of +government could not be effected in the little town without a +mass, at which the two divisions under the General's command were +obliged to be present. Now, it was upon this mass that the +General had built his hopes of gaining some information as to the +sisters in the convent; he was quite unaware how absolutely the +Carmelites were cut off from the world; but he knew that there +might be among them one whom he held dearer than life, dearer +than honour. + +His hopes were cruelly dashed at once. Mass, it is true, was +celebrated in state. In honour of such a solemnity, the curtains +which always hid the choir were drawn back to display its riches, +its valuable paintings and shrines so bright with gems that they +eclipsed the glories of the ex-votos of gold and silver hung up +by sailors of the port on the columns in the nave. But all the +nuns had taken refuge in the organ-loft. And yet, in spite of +this first check, during this very mass of thanksgiving, the most +intimately thrilling drama that ever set a man's heart beating +opened out widely before him. + +The sister who played the organ aroused such intense enthusiasm, +that not a single man regretted that he had come to the service. +Even the men in the ranks were delighted, and the officers were +in ecstasy. As for the General, he was seemingly calm and +indifferent. The sensations stirred in him as the sister played +one piece after another belong to the small number of things +which it is not lawful to utter; words are powerless to express +them; like death, God, eternity, they can only be realised +through their one point of contact with humanity. Strangely +enough, the organ music seemed to belong to the school of +Rossini, the musician who brings most human passion into his art. + +Some day his works, by their number and extent, will receive the +reverence due to the Homer of music. From among all the scores +that we owe to his great genius, the nun seemed to have chosen +Moses in Egypt for special study, doubtless because the spirit of +sacred music finds therein its supreme expression. Perhaps the +soul of the great musician, so gloriously known to Europe, and +the soul of this unknown executant had met in the intuitive +apprehension of the same poetry. So at least thought two +dilettanti officers who must have missed the Theatre Favart in +Spain. + +At last in the Te Deum no one could fail to discern a French soul +in the sudden change that came over the music. Joy for the +victory of the Most Christian King evidently stirred this nun's +heart to the depths. She was a Frenchwoman beyond mistake. Soon +the love of country shone out, breaking forth like shafts of +light from the fugue, as the sister introduced variations with +all a Parisienne's fastidious taste, and blended vague +suggestions of our grandest national airs with her music. A +Spaniard's fingers would not have brought this warmth into a +graceful tribute paid to the victorious arms of France. The +musician's nationality was revealed. + +"We find France everywhere, it seems," said one of the men. + +The General had left the church during the Te Deum; he could not +listen any longer. The nun's music had been a revelation of a +woman loved to frenzy; a woman so carefully hidden from the +world's eyes, so deeply buried in the bosom of the Church, that +hitherto the most ingenious and persistent efforts made by men +who brought great influence and unusual powers to bear upon the +search had failed to find her. The suspicion aroused in the +General's heart became all but a certainty with the vague +reminiscence of a sad, delicious melody, the air of Fleuve du +Tage. The woman he loved had played the prelude to the ballad in +a boudoir in Paris, how often! and now this nun had chosen the +song to express an exile's longing, amid the joy of those that +triumphed. Terrible sensation! To hope for the resurrection of +a lost love, to find her only to know that she was lost, to catch +a mysterious glimpse of her after five years--five years, in +which the pent-up passion, chafing in an empty life, had grown +the mightier for every fruitless effort to satisfy it! + +Who has not known, at least once in his life, what it is to lose +some precious thing; and after hunting through his papers, +ransacking his memory, and turning his house upside down; after +one or two days spent in vain search, and hope, and despair; +after a prodigious expenditure of the liveliest irritation of +soul, who has not known the ineffable pleasure of finding that +all-important nothing which had come to be a king of monomania? +Very good. Now, spread that fury of search over five years; put +a woman, put a heart, put love in the place of the trifle; +transpose the monomania into the key of high passion; and, +furthermore, let the seeker be a man of ardent temper, with a +lion's heart and a leonine head and mane, a man to inspire awe +and fear in those who come in contact with him--realise this, and +you may, perhaps, understand why the General walked abruptly out +of the church when the first notes of a ballad, which he used to +hear with a rapture of delight in a gilt-panelled boudoir, began +to vibrate along the aisles of the church in the sea. + +The General walked away down the steep street which led to the +port, and only stopped when he could not hear the deep notes of +the organ. Unable to think of anything but the love which broke +out in volcanic eruption, filling his heart with fire, he only +knew that the Te Deum was over when the Spanish congregation came +pouring out of the church. Feeling that his behaviour and +attitude might seem ridiculous, he went back to head the +procession, telling the alcalde and the governor that, feeling +suddenly faint, he had gone out into the air. Casting about for +a plea for prolonging his stay, it at once occurred to him to +make the most of this excuse, framed on the spur of the moment. +He declined, on a plea of increasing indisposition, to preside at +the banquet given by the town to the French officers, betook +himself to his bed, and sent a message to the Major-General, to +the effect that temporary illness obliged him to leave the +Colonel in command of the troops for the time being. This +commonplace but very plausible stratagem relieved him of all +responsibility for the time necessary to carry out his plans. +The General, nothing if not "catholic and monarchical," took +occasion to inform himself of the hours of the services, and +manifested the greatest zeal for the performance of his religious +duties, piety which caused no remark in Spain. + +The very next day, while the division was marching out of the +town, the General went to the convent to be present at vespers. +He found an empty church. The townsfolk, devout though they +were, had all gone down to the quay to watch the embarkation of +the troops. He felt glad to be the only man there. He tramped +noisily up the nave, clanking his spurs till the vaulted roof +rang with the sound; he coughed, he talked aloud to himself to +let the nuns know, and more particularly to let the organist know +that if the troops were gone, one Frenchman was left behind. Was +this singular warning heard and understood? He thought so. It +seemed to him that in the Magnificat the organ made response +which was borne to him on the vibrating air. The nun's spirit +found wings in music and fled towards him, throbbing with the +rhythmical pulse of the sounds. Then, in all its might, the +music burst forth and filled the church with warmth. The Song of +Joy set apart in the sublime liturgy of Latin Christianity to +express the exaltation of the soul in the presence of the glory +of the ever-living God, became the utterance of a heart almost +terrified by its gladness in the presence of the glory of a +mortal love; a love that yet lived, a love that had risen to +trouble her even beyond the grave in which the nun is laid, that +she may rise again as the bride of Christ. + +The organ is in truth the grandest, the most daring, the most +magnificent of all instruments invented by human genius. It is a +whole orchestra in itself. It can express anything in response +to a skilled touch. Surely it is in some sort a pedestal on +which the soul poises for a flight forth into space, essaying on +her course to draw picture after picture in an endless series, to +paint human life, to cross the Infinite that separates heaven +from earth? And the longer a dreamer listens to those giant +harmonies, the better he realises that nothing save this +hundred-voiced choir on earth can fill all the space between +kneeling men, and a God hidden by the blinding light of the +Sanctuary. The music is the one interpreter strong enough to +bear up the prayers of humanity to heaven, prayer in its +omnipotent moods, prayer tinged by the melancholy of many +different natures, coloured by meditative ecstasy, upspringing +with the impulse of repentance--blended with the myriad fancies +of every creed. Yes. In those long vaulted aisles the melodies +inspired by the sense of things divine are blent with a grandeur +unknown before, are decked with new glory and might. Out of the +dim daylight, and the deep silence broken by the chanting of the +choir in response to the thunder of the organ, a veil is woven +for God, and the brightness of His attributes shines through it. + +And this wealth of holy things seemed to be flung down like a +grain of incense upon the fragile altar raised to Love beneath +the eternal throne of a jealous and avenging God. Indeed, in the +joy of the nun there was little of that awe and gravity which +should harmonise with the solemnities of the Magnificat. She had +enriched the music with graceful variations, earthly gladness +throbbing through the rhythm of each. In such brilliant +quivering notes some great singer might strive to find a voice +for her love, her melodies fluttered as a bird flutters about her +mate. There were moments when she seemed to leap back into the +past, to dally there now with laughter, now with tears. Her +changing moods, as it were, ran riot. She was like a woman +excited and happy over her lover's return. + +But at length, after the swaying fugues of delirium, after the +marvellous rendering of a vision of the past, a revulsion swept +over the soul that thus found utterance for itself. With a swift +transition from the major to the minor, the organist told her +hearer of her present lot. She gave the story of long melancholy +broodings, of the slow course of her moral malady. How day by +day she deadened the senses, how every night cut off one more +thought, how her heart was slowly reduced to ashes. The sadness +deepened shade after shade through languid modulations, and in a +little while the echoes were pouring out a torrent of grief. +Then on a sudden, high notes rang out like the voices of angels +singing together, as if to tell the lost but not forgotten lover +that their spirits now could only meet in heaven. Pathetic hope! + +Then followed the Amen. No more Joy, no more tears in the air, +no sadness, no regrets. The Amen was the return to God. The +final chord was deep, solemn, even terrible; for the last +rumblings of the bass sent a shiver through the audience that +raised the hair on their heads; the nun shook out her veiling of +crepe, and seemed to sink again into the grave from which she had +risen for a moment. Slowly the reverberations died away; it +seemed as if the church, but now so full of light, had returned +to thick darkness. + +The General had been caught up and borne swiftly away by this +strong-winged spirit; he had followed the course of its flight +from beginning to end. He understood to the fullest extent the +imagery of that burning symphony; for him the chords reached deep +and far. For him, as for the sister, the poem meant future, +present, and past. Is not music, and even opera music, a sort of +text, which a susceptible or poetic temper, or a sore and +stricken heart, may expand as memories shall determine? If a +musician must needs have the heart of a poet, must not the +listener too be in a manner a poet and a lover to hear all that +lies in great music? Religion, love, and music--what are they +but a threefold expression of the same fact, of that craving for +expansion which stirs in every noble soul. And these three forms +of poetry ascend to God, in whom all passion on earth finds its +end. Wherefore the holy human trinity finds a place amid the +infinite glories of God; of God, whom we always represent +surrounded with the fires of love and seistrons of gold--music +and light and harmony. Is not He the Cause and the End of all +our strivings? + +The French General guessed rightly that here in the desert, on +this bare rock in the sea, the nun had seized upon music as an +outpouring of the passion that still consumed her. Was this her +manner of offering up her love as a sacrifice to God? Or was it +Love exultant in triumph over God? The questions were hard to +answer. But one thing at least the General could not mistake--in +this heart, dead to the world, the fire of passion burned as +fiercely as in his own. + +Vespers over, he went back to the alcalde with whom he was +staying. In the all-absorbing joy which comes in such full +measure when a satisfaction sought long and painfully is attained +at last, he could see nothing beyond this--he was still loved! +In her heart love had grown in loneliness, even as his love had +grown stronger as he surmounted one barrier after another which +this woman had set between them! The glow of soul came to its +natural end. There followed a longing to see her again, to +contend with God for her, to snatch her away--a rash scheme, +which appealed to a daring nature. He went to bed, when the meal +was over, to avoid questions; to be alone and think at his ease; +and he lay absorbed by deep thought till day broke. + +He rose only to go to mass. He went to the church and knelt +close to the screen, with his forehead touching the curtain; he +would have torn a hole in it if he had been alone, but his host +had come with him out of politeness, and the least imprudence +might compromise the whole future of his love, and ruin the new +hopes. + +The organ sounded, but it was another player, and not the nun of +the last two days whose hands touched the keys. It was all +colourless and cold for the General. Was the woman he loved +prostrated by emotion which wellnigh overcame a strong man's +heart? Had she so fully realised and shared an unchanged, +longed-for love, that now she lay dying on her bed in her cell? +While innumerable thoughts of this kind perplexed his mind, the +voice of the woman he worshipped rang out close beside him; he +knew its clear resonant soprano. It was her voice, with that +faint tremor in it which gave it all the charm that shyness and +diffidence gives to a young girl; her voice, distinct from the +mass of singing as a prima donna's in the chorus of a finale. It +was like a golden or silver thread in dark frieze. + +It was she! There could be no mistake. Parisienne now as ever, +she had not laid coquetry aside when she threw off worldly +adornments for the veil and the Carmelite's coarse serge. She +who had affirmed her love last evening in the praise sent up to +God, seemed now to say to her lover, "Yes, it is I. I am here. +My love is unchanged, but I am beyond the reach of love. You +will hear my voice, my soul shall enfold you, and I shall abide +here under the brown shroud in the choir from which no power on +earth can tear me. You shall never see me more!" + +"It is she indeed!" the General said to himself, raising his +head. He had leant his face on his hands, unable at first to +bear the intolerable emotion that surged like a whirlpool in his +heart, when that well-known voice vibrated under the arcading, +with the sound of the sea for accompaniment. + +Storm was without, and calm within the sanctuary. Still that +rich voice poured out all its caressing notes; it fell like balm +on the lover's burning heart; it blossomed upon the air--the air +that a man would fain breathe more deeply to receive the +effluence of a soul breathed forth with love in the words of the +prayer. The alcalde coming to join his guest found him in tears +during the elevation, while the nun was singing, and brought him +back to his house. Surprised to find so much piety in a French +military man, the worthy magistrate invited the confessor of the +convent to meet his guest. Never had news given the General more +pleasure; he paid the ecclesiastic a good deal of attention at +supper, and confirmed his Spanish hosts in the high opinion they +had formed of his piety by a not wholly disinterested respect. +He enquired with gravity how many sisters there were in the +convent, and asked for particulars of its endowment and revenues, +as if from courtesy he wished to hear the good priest discourse +on the subject most interesting to him. He informed himself as +to the manner of life led by the holy women. Were they allowed +to go out of the convent, or to see visitors? + +"Senor," replied the venerable churchman, "the rule is strict. +A woman cannot enter a monastery of the order of St. Bruno +without a special permission from His Holiness, and the rule here +is equally stringent. No man may enter a convent of Barefoot +Carmelites unless he is a priest specially attached to the +services of the house by the Archbishop. None of the nuns may +leave the convent; though the great Saint, St. Theresa, often +left her cell. The Visitor or the Mothers Superior can alone +give permission, subject to an authorisation from the Archbishop, +for a nun to see a visitor, and then especially in a case of +illness. Now we are one of the principal houses, and +consequently we have a Mother Superior here. Among other foreign +sisters there is one Frenchwoman, Sister Theresa; she it is who +directs the music in the chapel." + +"Oh!" said the General, with feigned surprise. "She must have +rejoiced over the victory of the House of Bourbon." + +"I told them the reason of the mass; they are always a little +bit inquisitive." + +"But Sister Theresa may have interests in France. Perhaps she +would like to send some message or to hear news." + +"I do not think so. She would have come to ask me." + +"As a fellow-countryman, I should be quite curious to see her," +said the General. "If it is possible, if the Lady Superior +consents, if----" + +"Even at the grating and in the Reverend Mother's presence, an +interview would be quite impossible for anybody whatsoever; but, +strict as the Mother is, for a deliverer of our holy religion and +the throne of his Catholic Majesty, the rule might be relaxed for +a moment," said the confessor, blinking. "I will speak about +it." + +"How old is Sister Theresa?" enquired the lover. He dared not +ask any questions of the priest as to the nun's beauty. + +"She does not reckon years now," the good man answered, with a +simplicity that made the General shudder. + +Next day before siesta, the confessor came to inform the French +General that Sister Theresa and the Mother consented to receive +him at the grating in the parlour before vespers. The General +spent the siesta in pacing to and fro along the quay in the +noonday heat. Thither the priest came to find him, and brought +him to the convent by way of the gallery round the cemetery. +Fountains, green trees, and rows of arcading maintained a cool +freshness in keeping with the place. + +At the further end of the long gallery the priest led the way +into a large room divided in two by a grating covered with a +brown curtain. In the first, and in some sort of public half of +the apartment, where the confessor left the newcomer, a wooden +bench ran round the wall, and two or three chairs, also of wood, +were placed near the grating. The ceiling consisted of bare +unornamented joists and cross-beams of ilex wood. As the two +windows were both on the inner side of the grating, and the dark +surface of the wood was a bad reflector, the light in the place +was so dim that you could scarcely see the great black crucifix, +the portrait of Saint Theresa, and a picture of the Madonna which +adorned the grey parlour walls. Tumultuous as the General's +feelings were, they took something of the melancholy of the +place. He grew calm in that homely quiet. A sense of something +vast as the tomb took possession of him beneath the chill +unceiled roof. Here, as in the grave, was there not eternal +silence, deep peace--the sense of the Infinite? And besides this +there was the quiet and the fixed thought of the cloister--a +thought which you felt like a subtle presence in the air, and in +the dim dusk of the room; an all-pervasive thought nowhere +definitely expressed, and looming the larger in the imagination; +for in the cloister the great saying, "Peace in the Lord," +enters the least religious soul as a living force. + +The monk's life is scarcely comprehensible. A man seems +confessed a weakling in a monastery; he was born to act, to live +out a life of work; he is evading a man's destiny in his cell. +But what man's strength, blended with pathetic weakness, is +implied by a woman's choice of the convent life! A man may have +any number of motives for burying himself in a monastery; for him +it is the leap over the precipice. A woman has but one +motive--she is a woman still; she betrothes herself to a Heavenly +Bridegroom. Of the monk you may ask, "Why did you not fight +your battle?" But if a woman immures herself in the cloister, +is there not always a sublime battle fought first? + +At length it seemed to the General that that still room, and the +lonely convent in the sea, were full of thoughts of him. Love +seldom attains to solemnity; yet surely a love still faithful in +the breast of God was something solemn, something more than a man +had a right to look for as things are in this nineteenth century? + +The infinite grandeur of the situation might well produce an +effect upon the General's mind; he had precisely enough elevation +of soul to forget politics, honours, Spain, and society in Paris, +and to rise to the height of this lofty climax. And what in +truth could be more tragic? How much must pass in the souls of +these two lovers, brought together in a place of strangers, on a +ledge of granite in the sea; yet held apart by an intangible, +unsurmountable barrier! Try to imagine the man saying within +himself, "Shall I triumph over God in her heart?" when a faint +rustling sound made him quiver, and the curtain was drawn aside. + +Between him and the light stood a woman. Her face was hidden by +the veil that drooped from the folds upon her head; she was +dressed according to the rule of the order in a gown of the +colour become proverbial. Her bare feet were hidden; if the +General could have seen them, he would have known how appallingly +thin she had grown; and yet in spite of the thick folds of her +coarse gown, a mere covering and no ornament, he could guess how +tears, and prayer, and passion, and loneliness had wasted the +woman before him. + +An ice-cold hand, belonging, no doubt, to the Mother Superior, +held back the curtain. The General gave the enforced witness of +their interview a searching glance, and met the dark, inscrutable +gaze of an aged recluse. The Mother might have been a century +old, but the bright, youthful eyes belied the wrinkles that +furrowed her pale face. + +"Mme la Duchesse," he began, his voice shaken with emotion, +"does your companion understand French?" The veiled figure +bowed her head at the sound of his voice. + +"There is no duchess here," she replied. "It is Sister +Theresa whom you see before you. She whom you call my companion +is my mother in God, my superior here on earth." + +The words were so meekly spoken by the voice that sounded in +other years amid harmonious surroundings of refined luxury, the +voice of a queen of fashion in Paris. Such words from the lips +that once spoke so lightly and flippantly struck the General dumb +with amazement. + +"The Holy Mother only speaks Latin and Spanish," she added. + +"I understand neither. Dear Antoinette, make my excuses to +her." + +The light fell full upon the nun's figure; a thrill of deep +emotion betrayed itself in a faint quiver of her veil as she +heard her name softly spoken by the man who had been so hard in +the past. + +"My brother," she said, drawing her sleeve under her veil, +perhaps to brush tears away, "I am Sister Theresa." + +Then, turning to the Superior, she spoke in Spanish; the General +knew enough of the language to understand what she said perfectly +well; possibly he could have spoken it had he chosen to do so. + +"Dear Mother, the gentleman presents his respects to you, and +begs you to pardon him if he cannot pay them himself, but he +knows neither of the languages which you speak----" + +The aged nun bent her head slowly, with an expression of angelic +sweetness, enhanced at the same time by the consciousness of her +power and dignity. + +"Do you know this gentleman?" she asked, with a keen glance. + +"Yes, Mother." + +"Go back to your cell, my daughter!" said the Mother +imperiously. The General slipped aside behind the curtain lest +the dreadful tumult within him should appear in his face; even in +the shadow it seemed to him that he could still see the +Superior's piercing eyes. He was afraid of her; she held his +little, frail, hardly-won happiness in her hands; and he, who had +never quailed under a triple row of guns, now trembled before +this nun. The Duchess went towards the door, but she turned +back. + +"Mother," she said, with dreadful calmness, "the Frenchman is +one of my brothers." + +"Then stay, my daughter," said the Superior, after a pause. + +The piece of admirable Jesuitry told of such love and regret, +that a man less strongly constituted might have broken down under +the keen delight in the midst of a great and, for him, an +entirely novel peril. Oh! how precious words, looks, and +gestures became when love must baffle lynx eyes and tiger's +claws! Sister Theresa came back. + +"You see, my brother, what I have dared to do only to speak to +you for a moment of your salvation and of the prayers that my +soul puts up for your soul daily. I am committing mortal sin. I +have told a lie. How many days of penance must expiate that lie! + +But I shall endure it for your sake. My brother, you do not know +what happiness it is to love in heaven; to feel that you can +confess love purified by religion, love transported into the +highest heights of all, so that we are permitted to lose sight of +all but the soul. If the doctrine and the spirit of the Saint to +whom we owe this refuge had not raised me above earth's anguish, +and caught me up and set me, far indeed beneath the Sphere +wherein she dwells, yet truly above this world, I should not have +seen you again. But now I can see you, and hear your voice, and +remain calm----" + +The General broke in, "But, Antoinette, let me see you, you whom +I love passionately, desperately, as you could have wished me to +love you." + +"Do not call me Antoinette, I implore you. Memories of the past +hurt me. You must see no one here but Sister Theresa, a creature +who trusts in the Divine mercy." She paused for a little, and +then added, "You must control yourself, my brother. Our Mother +would separate us without pity if there is any worldly passion in +your face, or if you allow the tears to fall from your eyes." + +The General bowed his head to regain self-control; when he looked +up again he saw her face beyond the grating--the thin, white, but +still impassioned face of the nun. All the magic charm of youth +that once bloomed there, all the fair contrast of velvet +whiteness and the colour of the Bengal rose, had given place to a +burning glow, as of a porcelain jar with a faint light shining +through it. The wonderful hair in which she took such pride had +been shaven; there was a bandage round her forehead and about her +face. An ascetic life had left dark traces about the eyes, which +still sometimes shot out fevered glances; their ordinary calm +expression was but a veil. In a few words, she was but the ghost +of her former self. + +"Ah! you that have come to be my life, you must come out of this +tomb! You were mine; you had no right to give yourself, even to +God. Did you not promise me to give up all at the least command +from me? You may perhaps think me worthy of that promise now +when you hear what I have done for you. I have sought you all +through the world. You have been in my thoughts at every moment +for five years; my life has been given to you. My friends, very +powerful friends, as you know, have helped with all their might +to search every convent in France, Italy, Spain, Sicily, and +America. Love burned more brightly for every vain search. Again +and again I made long journeys with a false hope; I have wasted +my life and the heaviest throbbings of my heart in vain under +many a dark convent wall. I am not speaking of a faithfulness +that knows no bounds, for what is it?--nothing compared with the +infinite longings of my love. If your remorse long ago was +sincere, you ought not to hesitate to follow me today." + +"You forget that I am not free." + +"The Duke is dead," he answered quickly. + +Sister Theresa flushed red. + +"May heaven be open to him!" she cried with a quick rush of +feeling. "He was generous to me.--But I did not mean such ties; +it was one of my sins that I was ready to break them all without +scruple--for you." + +"Are you speaking of your vows?" the General asked, frowning. +"I did not think that anything weighed heavier with your heart +than love. But do not think twice of it, Antoinette; the Holy +Father himself shall absolve you of your oath. I will surely go +to Rome, I will entreat all the powers of earth; if God could +come down from heaven, I would----" + +"Do not blaspheme." + +"So do not fear the anger of God. Ah! I would far rather hear +that you would leave your prison for me; that this very night you +would let yourself down into a boat at the foot of the cliffs. +And we would go away to be happy somewhere at the world's end, I +know not where. And with me at your side, you should come back +to life and health under the wings of love." + +"You must not talk like this," said Sister Theresa; "you do +not know what you are to me now. I love you far better than I +ever loved you before. Every day I pray for you; I see you with +other eyes. Armand, if you but knew the happiness of giving +yourself up, without shame, to a pure friendship which God +watches over! You do not know what joy it is to me to pray for +heaven's blessing on you. I never pray for myself: God will do +with me according to His will; but, at the price of my soul, I +wish I could be sure that you are happy here on earth, and that +you will be happy hereafter throughout all ages. My eternal life +is all that trouble has left me to offer up to you. I am old now +with weeping; I am neither young nor fair; and in any case, you +could not respect the nun who became a wife; no love, not even +motherhood, could give me absolution. . . . What can you say to +outweigh the uncounted thoughts that have gathered in my heart +during the past five years, thoughts that have changed, and worn, +and blighted it? I ought to have given a heart less sorrowful to +God." + +"What can I say? Dear Antoinette, I will say this, that I love +you; that affection, love, a great love, the joy of living in +another heart that is ours, utterly and wholly ours, is so rare a +thing and so hard to find, that I doubted you, and put you to +sharp proof; but now, today, I love you, Antoinette, with all my +soul's strength. . . . If you will follow me into solitude, I +will hear no voice but yours, I will see no other face." + +"Hush, Armand! You are shortening the little time that we may +be together here on earth." + +"Antoinette, will you come with me?" + +"I am never away from you. My life is in your heart, not +through the selfish ties of earthly happiness, or vanity, or +enjoyment; pale and withered as I am, I live here for you, in the +breast of God. As God is just, you shall be happy----" + +"Words, words all of it! Pale and withered? How if I want you? + +How if I cannot be happy without you? Do you still think of +nothing but duty with your lover before you? Is he never to come +first and above all things else in your heart? In time past you +put social success, yourself, heaven knows what, before him; now +it is God, it is the welfare of my soul! In Sister Theresa I +find the Duchess over again, ignorant of the happiness of love, +insensible as ever, beneath the semblance of sensibility. You do +not love me; you have never loved me----" + +"Oh, my brother----!" + +"You do not wish to leave this tomb. You love my soul, do you +say? Very well, through you it will be lost forever. I shall +make away with myself----" + +"Mother!" Sister Theresa called aloud in Spanish, "I have lied +to you; this man is my lover!" + +The curtain fell at once. The General, in his stupor, scarcely +heard the doors within as they clanged. + +"Ah! she loves me still!" he cried, understanding all the +sublimity of that cry of hers. "She loves me still. She must +be carried off. . . ." + + +The General left the island, returned to headquarters, pleaded +ill-health, asked for leave of absence, and forthwith took his +departure for France. + +And now for the incidents which brought the two personages in +this Scene into their present relation to each other. + + +The thing known in France as the Faubourg Saint-Germain is +neither a Quarter, nor a sect, nor an institution, nor anything +else that admits of a precise definition. There are great houses +in the Place Royale, the Faubourg Saint-Honore, and the Chaussee +d'Antin, in any one of which you may breathe the same atmosphere +of Faubourg Saint-Germain. So, to begin with, the whole Faubourg +is not within the Faubourg. There are men and women born far +enough away from its influences who respond to them and take +their place in the circle; and again there are others, born +within its limits, who may yet be driven forth forever. For the +last forty years the manners, and customs, and speech, in a word, +the tradition of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, has been to Paris +what the Court used to be in other times; it is what the Hotel +Saint-Paul was to the fourteenth century; the Louvre to the +fifteenth; the Palais, the Hotel Rambouillet, and the Place +Royale to the sixteenth; and lastly, as Versailles was to the +seventeenth and the eighteenth. + +Just as the ordinary workaday Paris will always centre about some +point; so, through all periods of history, the Paris of the +nobles and the upper classes converges towards some particular +spot. It is a periodically recurrent phenomenon which presents +ample matter for reflection to those who are fain to observe or +describe the various social zones; and possibly an enquiry into +the causes that bring about this centralisation may do more than +merely justify the probability of this episode; it may be of +service to serious interests which some day will be more deeply +rooted in the commonwealth, unless, indeed, experience is as +meaningless for political parties as it is for youth. + +In every age the great nobles, and the rich who always ape the +great nobles, build their houses as far as possible from crowded +streets. When the Duc d'Uzes built his splendid hotel in the Rue +Montmartre in the reign of Louis XIV, and set the fountain at his +gates--for which beneficent action, to say nothing of his other +virtues, he was held in such veneration that the whole quarter +turned out in a body to follow his funeral--when the Duke, I say, +chose this site for his house, he did so because that part of +Paris was almost deserted in those days. But when the +fortifications were pulled down, and the market gardens beyond +the line of the boulevards began to fill with houses, then the +d'Uzes family left their fine mansion, and in our time it was +occupied by a banker. Later still, the noblesse began to find +themselves out of their element among shopkeepers, left the Place +Royale and the centre of Paris for good, and crossed the river to +breathe freely in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where palaces were +reared already about the great hotel built by Louis XIV for the +Duc de Maine--the Benjamin among his legitimated offspring. And +indeed, for people accustomed to a stately life, can there be +more unseemly surroundings than the bustle, the mud, the street +cries, the bad smells, and narrow thoroughfares of a populous +quarter? The very habits of life in a mercantile or +manufacturing district are completely at variance with the lives +of nobles. The shopkeeper and artisan are just going to bed when +the great world is thinking of dinner; and the noisy stir of life +begins among the former when the latter have gone to rest. Their +day's calculations never coincide; the one class represents the +expenditure, the other the receipts. Consequently their manners +and customs are diametrically opposed. + +Nothing contemptuous is intended by this statement. An +aristocracy is in a manner the intellect of the social system, as +the middle classes and the proletariat may be said to be its +organising and working power. It naturally follows that these +forces are differently situated; and of their antagonism there is +bred a seeming antipathy produced by the performance of different +functions, all of them, however, existing for one common end. + +Such social dissonances are so inevitably the outcome of any +charter of the constitution, that however much a Liberal may be +disposed to complain of them, as of treason against those sublime +ideas with which the ambitious plebeian is apt to cover his +designs, he would none the less think it a preposterous notion +that M. le Prince de Montmorency, for instance, should continue +to live in the Rue Saint-Martin at the corner of the street which +bears that nobleman's name; or that M. le Duc de Fitz-James, +descendant of the royal house of Scotland, should have his hotel +at the angle of the Rue Marie Stuart and the Rue Montorgueil. +Sint ut sunt, aut non sint, the grand words of the Jesuit, might +be taken as a motto by the great in all countries. These social +differences are patent in all ages; the fact is always accepted +by the people; its "reasons of state" are self-evident; it is +at once cause and effect, a principle and a law. The common +sense of the masses never deserts them until demagogues stir them +up to gain ends of their own; that common sense is based on the +verities of social order; and the social order is the same +everywhere, in Moscow as in London, in Geneva as in Calcutta. +Given a certain number of families of unequal fortune in any +given space, you will see an aristocracy forming under your eyes; +there will be the patricians, the upper classes, and yet other +ranks below them. Equality may be a RIGHT, but no power on earth +can convert it into FACT. It would be a good thing for France if +this idea could be popularised. The benefits of political +harmony are obvious to the least intelligent classes. Harmony +is, as it were, the poetry of order, and order is a matter of +vital importance to the working population. And what is order, +reduced to its simplest expression, but the agreement of things +among themselves--unity, in short? Architecture, music, and +poetry, everything in France, and in France more than in any +other country, is based upon this principle; it is written upon +the very foundations of her clear accurate language, and a +language must always be the most infallible index of national +character. In the same way you may note that the French popular +airs are those most calculated to strike the imagination, the +best-modulated melodies are taken over by the people; clearness +of thought, the intellectual simplicity of an idea attracts them; +they like the incisive sayings that hold the greatest number of +ideas. + +France is the one country in the world where a little phrase may +bring about a great revolution. Whenever the masses have risen, +it has been to bring men, affairs, and principles into agreement. + +No nation has a clearer conception of that idea of unity which +should permeate the life of an aristocracy; possibly no other +nation has so intelligent a comprehension of a political +necessity; history will never find her behind the time. France +has been led astray many a time, but she is deluded, woman-like, +by generous ideas, by a glow of enthusiasm which at first +outstrips sober reason. + +So, to begin with, the most striking characteristic of the +Faubourg is the splendour of its great mansions, its great +gardens, and a surrounding quiet in keeping with princely +revenues drawn from great estates. + +And what is this distance set between a class and a whole +metropolis but visible and outward expression of the widely +different attitude of mind which must inevitably keep them apart? + +The position of the head is well defined in every organism. If +by any chance a nation allows its head to fall at its feet, it is +pretty sure sooner or later to discover that this is a suicidal +measure; and since nations have no desire to perish, they set to +work at once to grow a new head. If they lack the strength for +this, they perish as Rome perished, and Venice, and so many other +states. + +This distinction between the upper and lower spheres of social +activity, emphasised by differences in their manner of living, +necessarily implies that in the highest aristocracy there is real +worth and some distinguishing merit. In any state, no matter +what form of "government" is affected, so soon as the patrician +class fails to maintain that complete superiority which is the +condition of its existence, it ceases to be a force, and is +pulled down at once by the populace. The people always wish to +see money, power, and initiative in their leaders, hands, hearts, +and heads; they must be the spokesmen, they must represent the +intelligence and the glory of the nation. Nations, like women, +love strength in those who rule them; they cannot give love +without respect; they refuse utterly to obey those of whom they +do not stand in awe. An aristocracy fallen into contempt is a +roi faineant, a husband in petticoats; first it ceases to be +itself, and then it ceases to be. + +And in this way the isolation of the great, the sharply marked +distinction in their manner of life, or in a word, the general +custom of the patrician caste is at once the sign of a real +power, and their destruction so soon as that power is lost. The +Faubourg Saint-Germain failed to recognise the conditions of its +being, while it would still have been easy to perpetuate its +existence, and therefore was brought low for a time. The +Faubourg should have looked the facts fairly in the face, as the +English aristocracy did before them; they should have seen that +every institution has its climacteric periods, when words lose +their old meanings, and ideas reappear in a new guise, and the +whole conditions of politics wear a changed aspect, while the +underlying realities undergo no essential alteration. + +These ideas demand further development which form an essential +part of this episode; they are given here both as a succinct +statement of the causes, and an explanation of the things which +happen in the course of the story. + +The stateliness of the castles and palaces where nobles dwell; +the luxury of the details; the constantly maintained +sumptuousness of the furniture; the "atmosphere" in which the +fortunate owner of landed estates (a rich man before he was born) +lives and moves easily and without friction; the habit of mind +which never descends to calculate the petty workaday gains of +existence; the leisure; the higher education attainable at a much +earlier age; and lastly, the aristocratic tradition that makes of +him a social force, for which his opponents, by dint of study and +a strong will and tenacity of vocation, are scarcely a match-all +these things should contribute to form a lofty spirit in a man, +possessed of such privileges from his youth up; they should stamp +his character with that high self-respect, of which the least +consequence is a nobleness of heart in harmony with the noble +name that he bears. And in some few families all this is +realised. There are noble characters here and there in the +Faubourg, but they are marked exceptions to a general rule of +egoism which has been the ruin of this world within a world. The +privileges above enumerated are the birthright of the French +noblesse, as of every patrician efflorescence ever formed on the +surface of a nation; and will continue to be theirs so long as +their existence is based upon real estate, or money; domaine-sol +and domaine-argent alike, the only solid bases of an organised +society; but such privileges are held upon the understanding that +the patricians must continue to justify their existence. There +is a sort of moral fief held on a tenure of service rendered to +the sovereign, and here in France the people are undoubtedly the +sovereigns nowadays. The times are changed, and so are the +weapons. The knight-banneret of old wore a coat of chain armour +and a hauberk,; he could handle a lance well and display his +pennon, and no more was required of him; today he is bound to +give proof of his intelligence. A stout heart was enough in the +days of old; in our days he is required to have a capacious +brain-pan. Skill and knowledge and capital--these three points +mark out a social triangle on which the scutcheon of power is +blazoned; our modern aristocracy must take its stand on these. + +A fine theorem is as good as a great name. The Rothschilds, the +Fuggers of the nineteenth century, are princes de facto. A great +artist is in reality an oligarch; he represents a whole century, +and almost always he is a law to others. And the art of words, +the high pressure machinery of the writer, the poet's genius, the +merchant's steady endurance, the strong will of the statesman who +concentrates a thousand dazzling qualities in himself, the +general's sword--all these victories, in short, which a single +individual will win, that he may tower above the rest of the +world, the patrician class is now bound to win and keep +exclusively. They must head the new forces as they once headed +the material forces; how should they keep the position unless +they are worthy of it? How, unless they are the soul and brain +of a nation, shall they set its hands moving? How lead a people +without the power of command? And what is the marshal's baton +without the innate power of the captain in the man who wields it? + +The Faubourg Saint-Germain took to playing with batons, and +fancied that all the power was in its hands. It inverted the +terms of the proposition which called it into existence. And +instead of flinging away the insignia which offended the people, +and quietly grasping the power, it allowed the bourgeoisie to +seize the authority, clung with fatal obstinacy to its shadow, +and over and over again forgot the laws which a minority must +observe if it would live. When an aristocracy is scarce a +thousandth part of the body social, it is bound today, as of old, +to multiply its points of action, so as to counterbalance the +weight of the masses in a great crisis. And in our days those +means of action must be living forces, and not historical +memories. + +In France, unluckily, the noblesse were still so puffed up with +the notion of their vanished power, that it was difficult to +contend against a kind of innate presumption in themselves. +Perhaps this is a national defect. The Frenchman is less given +than anyone else to undervalue himself; it comes natural to him +to go from his degree to the one above it; and while it is a rare +thing for him to pity the unfortunates over whose heads he rises, +he always groans in spirit to see so many fortunate people above +him. He is very far from heartless, but too often he prefers to +listen to his intellect. The national instinct which brings the +Frenchman to the front, the vanity that wastes his substance, is +as much a dominant passion as thrift in the Dutch. For three +centuries it swayed the noblesse, who, in this respect, were +certainly pre-eminently French. The scion of the Faubourg +Saint-Germain, beholding his material superiority, was fully +persuaded of his intellectual superiority. And everything +contributed to confirm him in his belief; for ever since the +Faubourg Saint-Germain existed at all--which is to say, ever +since Versailles ceased to be the royal residence--the Faubourg, +with some few gaps in continuity, was always backed up by the +central power, which in France seldom fails to support that side. + +Thence its downfall in 1830. + +At that time the party of the Faubourg Saint-Germain was rather +like an army without a base of operation. It had utterly failed +to take advantage of the peace to plant itself in the heart of +the nation. It sinned for want of learning its lesson, and +through an utter incapability of regarding its interests as a +whole. A future certainty was sacrificed to a doubtful present +gain. This blunder in policy may perhaps be attributed to the +following cause. + +The class-isolation so strenuously kept up by the noblesse +brought about fatal results during the last forty years; even +caste-patriotism was extinguished by it, and rivalry fostered +among themselves. When the French noblesse of other times were +rich and powerful, the nobles (gentilhommes) could choose their +chiefs and obey them in the hour of danger. As their power +diminished, they grew less amenable to discipline; and as in the +last days of the Byzantine Empire, everyone wished to be emperor. + +They mistook their uniform weakness for uniform strength. + +Each family ruined by the Revolution and the abolition of the law +of primogeniture thought only of itself, and not at all of the +great family of the noblesse. It seemed to them that as each +individual grew rich, the party as a whole would gain in +strength. And herein lay their mistake. Money, likewise, is +only the outward and visible sign of power. All these families +were made up of persons who preserved a high tradition of +courtesy, of true graciousness of life, of refined speech, with a +family pride, and a squeamish sense of noblesse oblige which +suited well with the kind of life they led; a life wholly filled +with occupations which become contemptible so soon as they cease +to be accessories and take the chief place in existence. There +was a certain intrinsic merit in all these people, but the merit +was on the surface, and none of them were worth their face-value. + +Not a single one among those families had courage to ask itself +the question, "Are we strong enough for the responsibility of +power?" They were cast on the top, like the lawyers of 1830; +and instead of taking the patron's place, like a great man, the +Faubourg Saint-Germain showed itself greedy as an upstart. The +most intelligent nation in the world perceived clearly that the +restored nobles were organising everything for their own +particular benefit. From that day the noblesse was doomed. The +Faubourg Saint-Germain tried to be an aristocracy when it could +only be an oligarchy--two very different systems, as any man may +see for himself if he gives an intelligent perusal to the list of +the patronymics of the House of Peers. + +The King's Government certainly meant well; but the maxim that +the people must be made to WILL everything, even their own +welfare, was pretty constantly forgotten, nor did they bear in +mind that La France is a woman and capricious, and must be happy +or chastised at her own good pleasure. If there had been many +dukes like the Duc de Laval, whose modesty made him worthy of the +name he bore, the elder branch would have been as securely seated +on the throne as the House of Hanover at this day. + +In 1814 the noblesse of France were called upon to assert their +superiority over the most aristocratic bourgeoisie in the most +feminine of all countries, to take the lead in the most highly +educated epoch the world had yet seen. And this was even more +notably the case in 1820. The Faubourg Saint-Germain might very +easily have led and amused the middle classes in days when +people's heads were turned with distinctions, and art and science +were all the rage. But the narrow-minded leaders of a time of +great intellectual progress all of them detested art and science. + +They had not even the wit to present religion in attractive +colours, though they needed its support. While Lamartine, +Lamennais, Montalembert, and other writers were putting new life +and elevation into men's ideas of religion, and gilding it with +poetry, these bunglers in the Government chose to make the +harshness of their creed felt all over the country. Never was +nation in a more tractable humour; La France, like a tired woman, +was ready to agree to anything; never was mismanagement so +clumsy; and La France, like a woman, would have forgiven wrongs +more easily than bungling. + +If the noblesse meant to reinstate themselves, the better to +found a strong oligarchy, they should have honestly and +diligently searched their Houses for men of the stamp that +Napoleon used; they should have turned themselves inside out to +see if peradventure there was a Constitutionalist Richelieu +lurking in the entrails of the Faubourg; and if that genius was +not forthcoming from among them, they should have set out to find +him, even in the fireless garret where he might happen to be +perishing of cold; they should have assimilated him, as the +English House of Lords continually assimilates aristocrats made +by chance; and finally ordered him to be ruthless, to lop away +the old wood, and cut the tree down to the living shoots. But, +in the first place, the great system of English Toryism was far +too large for narrow minds; the importation required time, and in +France a tardy success is no better than a fiasco. So far, +moreover, from adopting a policy of redemption, and looking for +new forces where God puts them, these petty great folk took a +dislike to any capacity that did not issue from their midst; and, +lastly, instead of growing young again, the Faubourg +Saint-Germain grew positively older. + +Etiquette, not an institution of primary necessity, might have +been maintained if it had appeared only on state occasions, but +as it was, there was a daily wrangle over precedence; it ceased +to be a matter of art or court ceremonial, it became a question +of power. And if from the outset the Crown lacked an adviser +equal to so great a crisis, the aristocracy was still more +lacking in a sense of its wider interests, an instinct which +might have supplied the deficiency. They stood nice about M. de +Talleyrand's marriage, when M. de Talleyrand was the one man +among them with the steel-encompassed brains that can forge a new +political system and begin a new career of glory for a nation. +The Faubourg scoffed at a minister if he was not gently born, and +produced no one of gentle birth that was fit to be a minister. +There were plenty of nobles fitted to serve their country by +raising the dignity of justices of the peace, by improving the +land, by opening out roads and canals, and taking an active and +leading part as country gentlemen; but these had sold their +estates to gamble on the Stock Exchange. Again the Faubourg +might have absorbed the energetic men among the bourgeoisie, and +opened their ranks to the ambition which was undermining +authority; they preferred instead to fight, and to fight unarmed, +for of all that they once possessed there was nothing left but +tradition. For their misfortune there was just precisely enough +of their former wealth left them as a class to keep up their +bitter pride. They were content with their past. Not one of +them seriously thought of bidding the son of the house take up +arms from the pile of weapons which the nineteenth century flings +down in the market-place. Young men, shut out from office, were +dancing at Madame's balls, while they should have been doing the +work done under the Republic and the Empire by young, +conscientious, harmlessly employed energies. It was their place +to carry out at Paris the programme which their seniors should +have been following in the country. The heads of houses might +have won back recognition of their titles by unremitting +attention to local interests, by falling in with the spirit of +the age, by recasting their order to suit the taste of the times. + +But, pent up together in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where the +spirit of the ancient court and traditions of bygone feuds +between the nobles and the Crown still lingered on, the +aristocracy was not whole-hearted in its allegiance to the +Tuileries, and so much the more easily defeated because it was +concentrated in the Chamber of Peers, and badly organised even +there. If the noblesse had woven themselves into a network over +the country, they could have held their own; but cooped up in +their Faubourg, with their backs against the Chateau, or spread +at full length over the Budget, a single blow cut the thread of a +fast-expiring life, and a petty, smug-faced lawyer came forward +with the axe. In spite of M. Royer-Collard's admirable +discourse, the hereditary peerage and law of entail fell before +the lampoons of a man who made it a boast that he had adroitly +argued some few heads out of the executioner's clutches, and now +forsooth must clumsily proceed to the slaying of old +institutions. + +There are examples and lessons for the future in all this. For +if there were not still a future before the French aristocracy, +there would be no need to do more than find a suitable +sarcophagus; it were something pitilessly cruel to burn the dead +body of it with fire of Tophet. + +But though the surgeon's scalpel is ruthless, it sometimes gives +back life to a dying man; and the Faubourg Saint-Germain may wax +more powerful under persecution than in its day of triumph, if it +but chooses to organise itself under a leader. + +And now it is easy to give a summary of this semi-political +survey. The wish to re-establish a large fortune was uppermost +in everyone's mind; a lack of broad views, and a mass of small +defects, a real need of religion as a political factor, combined +with a thirst for pleasure which damaged the cause of religion +and necessitated a good deal of hypocrisy; a certain attitude of +protest on the part of loftier and clearer-sighted men who set +their faces against Court jealousies; and the disaffection of the +provincial families, who often came of purer descent than the +nobles of the Court which alienated them from itself--all these +things combined to bring about a most discordant state of things +in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. It was neither compact in its +organisation, nor consequent in its action; neither completely +moral, nor frankly dissolute; it did not corrupt, nor was it +corrupted; it would neither wholly abandon the disputed points +which damaged its cause, nor yet adopt the policy that might have +saved it. In short, however effete individuals might be, the +party as a whole was none the less armed with all the great +principles which lie at the roots of national existence. What +was there in the Faubourg that it should perish in its strength? + +It was very hard to please in the choice of candidates; the +Faubourg had good taste, it was scornfully fastidious, yet there +was nothing very glorious nor chivalrous truly about its fall. + +In the Emigration of 1789 there were some traces of a loftier +feeling; but in the Emigration of 1830 from Paris into the +country there was nothing discernible but self-interest. A few +famous men of letters, a few oratorical triumphs in the Chambers, +M. de Talleyrand's attitude in the Congress, the taking of +Algiers, and not a few names that found their way from the +battlefield into the pages of history--all these things were so +many examples set before the French noblesse to show that it was +still open to them to take their part in the national existence, +and to win recognition of their claims, if, indeed, they could +condescend thus far. In every living organism the work of +bringing the whole into harmony within itself is always going on. + +If a man is indolent, the indolence shows itself in everything +that he does; and, in the same manner, the general spirit of a +class is pretty plainly manifested in the face it turns on the +world, and the soul informs the body. + +The women of the Restoration displayed neither the proud +disregard of public opinion shown by the court ladies of olden +time in their wantonness, nor yet the simple grandeur of the +tardy virtues by which they expiated their sins and shed so +bright a glory about their names. There was nothing either very +frivolous or very serious about the woman of the Restoration. +She was hypocritical as a rule in her passion, and compounded, so +to speak, with its pleasures. Some few families led the domestic +life of the Duchesse d'Orleans, whose connubial couch was +exhibited so absurdly to visitors at the Palais Royal. Two or +three kept up the traditions of the Regency, filling cleverer +women with something like disgust. The great lady of the new +school exercised no influence at all over the manners of the +time; and yet she might have done much. She might, at worst, +have presented as dignified a spectacle as English-women of the +same rank. But she hesitated feebly among old precedents, became +a bigot by force of circumstances, and allowed nothing of herself +to appear, not even her better qualities. + +Not one among the Frenchwomen of that day had the ability to +create a salon whither leaders of fashion might come to take +lessons in taste and elegance. Their voices, which once laid +down the law to literature, that living expression of a time, now +counted absolutely for nought. Now when a literature lacks a +general system, it fails to shape a body for itself, and dies out +with its period. + +When in a nation at any time there is a people apart thus +constituted, the historian is pretty certain to find some +representative figure, some central personage who embodies the +qualities and the defects of the whole party to which he belongs; +there is Coligny, for instance, among the Huguenots, the +Coadjuteur in the time of the Fronde, the Marechal de Richelieu +under Louis XV, Danton during the Terror. It is in the nature of +things that the man should be identified with the company in +which history finds him. How is it possible to lead a party +without conforming to its ideas? or to shine in any epoch unless +a man represents the ideas of his time? The wise and prudent +head of a party is continually obliged to bow to the prejudices +and follies of its rear; and this is the cause of actions for +which he is afterwards criticised by this or that historian +sitting at a safer distance from terrific popular explosions, +coolly judging the passion and ferment without which the great +struggles of the world could not be carried on at all. And if +this is true of the Historical Comedy of the Centuries, it is +equally true in a more restricted sphere in the detached scenes +of the national drama known as the Manners of the Age. + + +At the beginning of that ephemeral life led by the Faubourg +Saint-Germain under the Restoration, to which, if there is any +truth in the above reflections, they failed to give stability, +the most perfect type of the aristocratic caste in its weakness +and strength, its greatness and littleness, might have been found +for a brief space in a young married woman who belonged to it. +This was a woman artificially educated, but in reality ignorant; +a woman whose instincts and feelings were lofty while the thought +which should have controlled them was wanting. She squandered +the wealth of her nature in obedience to social conventions; she +was ready to brave society, yet she hesitated till her scruples +degenerated into artifice. With more wilfulness than real force +of character, impressionable rather than enthusiastic, gifted +with more brain than heart; she was supremely a woman, supremely +a coquette, and above all things a Parisienne, loving a brilliant +life and gaiety, reflecting never, or too late; imprudent to the +verge of poetry, and humble in the depths of her heart, in spite +of her charming insolence. Like some straight-growing reed, she +made a show of independence; yet, like the reed, she was ready to +bend to a strong hand. She talked much of religion, and had it +not at heart, though she was prepared to find in it a solution of +her life. How explain a creature so complex? Capable of +heroism, yet sinking unconsciously from heroic heights to utter a +spiteful word; young and sweet-natured, not so much old at heart +as aged by the maxims of those about her; versed in a selfish +philosophy in which she was all unpractised, she had all the +vices of a courtier, all the nobleness of developing womanhood. +She trusted nothing and no one, yet there were times when she +quitted her sceptical attitude for a submissive credulity. + +How should any portrait be anything but incomplete of her, in +whom the play of swiftly-changing colour made discord only to +produce a poetic confusion? For in her there shone a divine +brightness, a radiance of youth that blended all her bewildering +characteristics in a certain completeness and unity informed by +her charm. Nothing was feigned. The passion or semi-passion, +the ineffectual high aspirations, the actual pettiness, the +coolness of sentiment and warmth of impulse, were all spontaneous +and unaffected, and as much the outcome of her own position as of +the position of the aristocracy to which she belonged. She was +wholly self-contained; she put herself proudly above the world +and beneath the shelter of her name. There was something of the +egoism of Medea in her life, as in the life of the aristocracy +that lay a-dying, and would not so much as raise itself or +stretch out a hand to any political physician; so well aware of +its feebleness, or so conscious that it was already dust, that it +refused to touch or be touched. + +The Duchesse de Langeais (for that was her name) had been married +for about four years when the Restoration was finally +consummated, which is to say, in 1816. By that time the +revolution of the Hundred Days had let in the light on the mind +of Louis XVIII. In spite of his surroundings, he comprehended +the situation and the age in which he was living; and it was only +later, when this Louis XI, without the axe, lay stricken down by +disease, that those about him got the upper hand. The Duchesse +de Langeais, a Navarreins by birth, came of a ducal house which +had made a point of never marrying below its rank since the reign +of Louis XIV. Every daughter of the house must sooner or later +take a tabouret at Court. So, Antoinette de Navarreins, at the +age of eighteen, came out of the profound solitude in which her +girlhood had been spent to marry the Duc de Langeais's eldest +son. The two families at that time were living quite out of the +world; but after the invasion of France, the return of the +Bourbons seemed to every Royalist mind the only possible way of +putting an end to the miseries of the war. + +The Ducs de Navarreins and de Langeais had been faithful +throughout to the exiled Princes, nobly resisting all the +temptations of glory under the Empire. Under the circumstances +they naturally followed out the old family policy; and Mlle +Antoinette, a beautiful and portionless girl, was married to M. +le Marquis de Langeais only a few months before the death of the +Duke his father. + +After the return of the Bourbons, the families resumed their +rank, offices, and dignity at Court; once more they entered +public life, from which hitherto they held aloof, and took their +place high on the sunlit summits of the new political world. In +that time of general baseness and sham political conversions, the +public conscience was glad to recognise the unstained loyalty of +the two houses, and a consistency in political and private life +for which all parties involuntarily respected them. But, +unfortunately, as so often happens in a time of transition, the +most disinterested persons, the men whose loftiness of view and +wise principles would have gained the confidence of the French +nation and led them to believe in the generosity of a novel and +spirited policy--these men, to repeat, were taken out of affairs, +and public business was allowed to fall into the hands of others, +who found it to their interest to push principles to their +extreme consequences by way of proving their devotion. + +The families of Langeais and Navarreins remained about the Court, +condemned to perform the duties required by Court ceremonial amid +the reproaches and sneers of the Liberal party. They were +accused of gorging themselves with riches and honours, and all +the while their family estates were no larger than before, and +liberal allowances from the civil list were wholly expended in +keeping up the state necessary for any European government, even +if it be a Republic. + +In 1818, M. le Duc de Langeais commanded a division of the army, +and the Duchess held a post about one of the Princesses, in +virtue of which she was free to live in Paris and apart from her +husband without scandal. The Duke, moreover, besides his +military duties, had a place at Court, to which he came during +his term of waiting, leaving his major-general in command. The +Duke and Duchess were leading lives entirely apart, the world +none the wiser. Their marriage of convention shared the fate of +nearly all family arrangements of the kind. Two more +antipathetic dispositions could not well have been found; they +were brought together; they jarred upon each other; there was +soreness on either side; then they were divided once for all. +Then they went their separate ways, with a due regard for +appearances. The Duc de Langeais, by nature as methodical as the +Chevalier de Folard himself, gave himself up methodically to his +own tastes and amusements, and left his wife at liberty to do as +she pleased so soon as he felt sure of her character. He +recognised in her a spirit pre-eminently proud, a cold heart, a +profound submissiveness to the usages of the world, and a +youthful loyalty. Under the eyes of great relations, with the +light of a prudish and bigoted Court turned full upon the +Duchess, his honour was safe. + +So the Duke calmly did as the grands seigneurs of the eighteenth +century did before him, and left a young wife of two-and-twenty +to her own devices. He had deeply offended that wife, and in her +nature there was one appalling characteristic--she would never +forgive an offence when woman's vanity and self-love, with all +that was best in her nature perhaps, had been slighted, wounded +in secret. Insult and injury in the face of the world a woman +loves to forget; there is a way open to her of showing herself +great; she is a woman in her forgiveness; but a secret offence +women never pardon; for secret baseness, as for hidden virtues +and hidden love, they have no kindness + +This was Mme la Duchesse de Langeais's real position, unknown to +the world. She herself did not reflect upon it. It was the time +of the rejoicings over the Duc de Berri's marriage. The Court +and the Faubourg roused itself from its listlessness and reserve. + +This was the real beginning of that unheard-of splendour which +the Government of the Restoration carried too far. At that time +the Duchess, whether for reasons of her own, or from vanity, +never appeared in public without a following of women equally +distinguished by name and fortune. As queen of fashion she had +her dames d'atours, her ladies, who modelled their manner and +their wit on hers. They had been cleverly chosen. None of her +satellites belonged to the inmost Court circle, nor to the +highest level of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; but they had set +their minds upon admission to those inner sanctuaries. Being as +yet simple dominations, they wished to rise to the neighbourhood +of the throne, and mingle with the seraphic powers in the high +sphere known as le petit chateau. Thus surrounded, the Duchess's +position was stronger and more commanding and secure. Her +"ladies" defended her character and helped her to play her +detestable part of a woman of fashion. She could laugh at men at +her ease, play with fire, receive the homage on which the +feminine nature is nourished, and remain mistress of herself. + +At Paris, in the highest society of all, a woman is a woman +still; she lives on incense, adulation, and honours. No beauty, +however undoubted, no face, however fair, is anything without +admiration. Flattery and a lover are proofs of power. And what +is power without recognition? Nothing. If the prettiest of +women were left alone in a corner of a drawing-room, she would +droop. Put her in the very centre and summit of social grandeur, +she will at once aspire to reign over all hearts--often because +it is out of her power to be the happy queen of one. Dress and +manner and coquetry are all meant to please one of the poorest +creatures extant--the brainless coxcomb, whose handsome face is +his sole merit; it was for such as these that women threw +themselves away. The gilded wooden idols of the Restoration, for +they were neither more nor less, had neither the antecedents of +the petits maitres of the time of the Fronde, nor the rough +sterling worth of Napoleon's heroes, not the wit and fine manners +of their grandsires; but something of all three they meant to be +without any trouble to themselves. Brave they were, like all +young Frenchmen; ability they possessed, no doubt, if they had +had a chance of proving it, but their places were filled up by +the old worn-out men, who kept them in leading strings. It was a +day of small things, a cold prosaic era. Perhaps it takes a long +time for a Restoration to become a Monarchy. + +For the past eighteen months the Duchesse de Langeais had been +leading this empty life, filled with balls and subsequent visits, +objectless triumphs, and the transient loves that spring up and +die in an evening's space. All eyes were turned on her when she +entered a room; she reaped her harvest of flatteries and some few +words of warmer admiration, which she encouraged by a gesture or +a glance, but never suffered to penetrate deeper than the skin. +Her tone and bearing and everything else about her imposed her +will upon others. Her life was a sort of fever of vanity and +perpetual enjoyment, which turned her head. She was daring +enough in conversation; she would listen to anything, corrupting +the surface, as it were, of her heart. Yet when she returned +home, she often blushed at the story that had made her laugh; at +the scandalous tale that supplied the details, on the strength of +which she analysed the love that she had never known, and marked +the subtle distinctions of modern passion, not with comment on +the part of complacent hypocrites. For women know how to say +everything among themselves, and more of them are ruined by each +other than corrupted by men. + +There came a moment when she discerned that not until a woman is +loved will the world fully recognise her beauty and her wit. +What does a husband prove? Simply that a girl or woman was +endowed with wealth, or well brought up; that her mother managed +cleverly that in some way she satisfied a man's ambitions. A +lover constantly bears witness to her personal perfections. Then +followed the discovery still in Mme de Langeais's early +womanhood, that it was possible to be loved without committing +herself, without permission, without vouchsafing any satisfaction +beyond the most meagre dues. There was more than one demure +feminine hypocrite to instruct her in the art of playing such +dangerous comedies. + +So the Duchess had her court, and the number of her adorers and +courtiers guaranteed her virtue. She was amiable and +fascinating; she flirted till the ball or the evening's gaiety +was at an end. Then the curtain dropped. She was cold, +indifferent, self-contained again till the next day brought its +renewed sensations, superficial as before. Two or three men were +completely deceived, and fell in love in earnest. She laughed at +them, she was utterly insensible. "I am loved!" she told +herself. "He loves me!" The certainty sufficed her. It is +enough for the miser to know that his every whim might be +fulfilled if he chose; so it was with the Duchess, and perhaps +she did not even go so far as to form a wish. + +One evening she chanced to be at the house of an intimate friend +Mme la Vicomtesse de Fontaine, one of the humble rivals who +cordially detested her, and went with her everywhere. In a +"friendship" of this sort both sides are on their guard, and +never lay their armour aside; confidences are ingeniously +indiscreet, and not unfrequently treacherous. Mme de Langeais +had distributed her little patronising, friendly, or freezing +bows, with the air natural to a woman who knows the worth of her +smiles, when her eyes fell upon a total stranger. Something in +the man's large gravity of aspect startled her, and, with a +feeling almost like dread, she turned to Mme de Maufrigneuse +with, "Who is the newcomer, dear?" + +"Someone that you have heard of, no doubt. The Marquis de +Montriveau." + +"Oh! is it he?" + +She took up her eyeglass and submitted him to a very insolent +scrutiny, as if he had been a picture meant to receive glances, +not to return them. + +"Do introduce him; he ought to be interesting." + +"Nobody more tiresome and dull, dear. But he is the fashion." + +M. Armand de Montriveau, at that moment all unwittingly the +object of general curiosity, better deserved attention than any +of the idols that Paris needs must set up to worship for a brief +space, for the city is vexed by periodical fits of craving, a +passion for engouement and sham enthusiasm, which must be +satisfied. The Marquis was the only son of General de +Montriveau, one of the ci-devants who served the Republic nobly, +and fell by Joubert's side at Novi. Bonaparte had placed his son +at the school at Chalons, with the orphans of other generals who +fell on the battlefield, leaving their children under the +protection of the Republic. Armand de Montriveau left school +with his way to make, entered the artillery, and had only reached +a major's rank at the time of the Fontainebleau disaster. In his +section of the service the chances of advancement were not many. +There are fewer officers, in the first place, among the gunners +than in any other corps; and in the second place, the feeling in +the artillery was decidedly Liberal, not to say Republican; and +the Emperor, feeling little confidence in a body of highly +educated men who were apt to think for themselves, gave promotion +grudgingly in the service. In the artillery, accordingly, the +general rule of the army did not apply; the commanding officers +were not invariably the most remarkable men in their department, +because there was less to be feared from mediocrities. The +artillery was a separate corps in those days, and only came under +Napoleon in action. + +Besides these general causes, other reasons, inherent in Armand +de Montriveau's character, were sufficient in themselves to +account for his tardy promotion. He was alone in the world. He +had been thrown at the age of twenty into the whirlwind of men +directed by Napoleon; his interests were bounded by himself, any +day he might lose his life; it became a habit of mind with him to +live by his own self-respect and the consciousness that he had +done his duty. Like all shy men, he was habitually silent; but +his shyness sprang by no means from timidity; it was a kind of +modesty in him; he found any demonstration of vanity intolerable. + +There was no sort of swagger about his fearlessness in action; +nothing escaped his eyes; he could give sensible advice to his +chums with unshaken coolness; he could go under fire, and duck +upon occasion to avoid bullets. He was kindly; but his +expression was haughty and stern, and his face gained him this +character. In everything he was rigorous as arithmetic; he never +permitted the slightest deviation from duty on any plausible +pretext, nor blinked the consequences of a fact. He would lend +himself to nothing of which he was ashamed; he never asked +anything for himself; in short, Armand de Montriveau was one of +many great men unknown to fame, and philosophical enough to +despise it; living without attaching themselves to life, because +they have not found their opportunity of developing to the full +their power to do and feel. + +People were afraid of Montriveau; they respected him, but he was +not very popular. Men may indeed allow you to rise above them, +but to decline to descend as low as they can do is the one +unpardonable sin. In their feeling towards loftier natures, +there is a trace of hate and fear. Too much honour with them +implies censure of themselves, a thing forgiven neither to the +living nor to the dead. + +After the Emperor's farewells at Fontainebleau, Montriveau, noble +though he was, was put on half-pay. Perhaps the heads of the War +Office took fright at uncompromising uprightness worthy of +antiquity, or perhaps it was known that he felt bound by his oath +to the Imperial Eagle. During the Hundred Days he was made a +Colonel of the Guard, and left on the field of Waterloo. His +wounds kept him in Belgium he was not present at the disbanding +of the Army of the Loire, but the King's government declined to +recognise promotion made during the Hundred Days, and Armand de +Montriveau left France. + +An adventurous spirit, a loftiness of thought hitherto satisfied +by the hazards of war, drove him on an exploring expedition +through Upper Egypt; his sanity or impulse directed his +enthusiasm to a project of great importance, he turned his +attention to that unexplored Central Africa which occupies the +learned of today. The scientific expedition was long and +unfortunate. He had made a valuable collection of notes bearing +on various geographical and commercial problems, of which +solutions are still eagerly sought; and succeeded, after +surmounting many obstacles, in reaching the heart of the +continent, when he was betrayed into the hands of a hostile +native tribe. Then, stripped of all that he had, for two years +he led a wandering life in the desert, the slave of savages, +threatened with death at every moment, and more cruelly treated +than a dumb animal in the power of pitiless children. Physical +strength, and a mind braced to endurance, enabled him to survive +the horrors of that captivity; but his miraculous escape +well-nigh exhausted his energies. When he reached the French +colony at Senegal, a half-dead fugitive covered with rags, his +memories of his former life were dim and shapeless. The great +sacrifices made in his travels were all forgotten like his +studies of African dialects, his discoveries, and observations. +One story will give an idea of all that he passed through. Once +for several days the children of the sheikh of the tribe amused +themselves by putting him up for a mark and flinging horses' +knuckle-bones at his head. + +Montriveau came back to Paris in 1818 a ruined man. He had no +interest, and wished for none. He would have died twenty times +over sooner than ask a favour of anyone; he would not even press +the recognition of his claims. Adversity and hardship had +developed his energy even in trifles, while the habit of +preserving his self-respect before that spiritual self which we +call conscience led him to attach consequence to the most +apparently trivial actions. His merits and adventures became +known, however, through his acquaintances, among the principal +men of science in Paris, and some few well-read military men. +The incidents of his slavery and subsequent escape bore witness +to a courage, intelligence, and coolness which won him celebrity +without his knowledge, and that transient fame of which Paris +salons are lavish, though the artist that fain would keep it must +make untold efforts. + +Montriveau's position suddenly changed towards the end of that +year. He had been a poor man, he was now rich; or, externally at +any rate, he had all the advantages of wealth. The King's +government, trying to attach capable men to itself and to +strengthen the army, made concessions about that time to +Napoleon's old officers if their known loyalty and character +offered guarantees of fidelity. M. de Montriveau's name once +more appeared in the army list with the rank of colonel; he +received his arrears of pay and passed into the Guards. All +these favours, one after another, came to seek the Marquis de +Montriveau; he had asked for nothing however small. Friends had +taken the steps for him which he would have refused to take for +himself. + +After this, his habits were modified all at once; contrary to his +custom, he went into society. He was well received, everywhere +he met with great deference and respect. He seemed to have found +some end in life; but everything passed within the man, there +were no external signs; in society he was silent and cold, and +wore a grave, reserved face. His social success was great, +precisely because he stood out in such strong contrast to the +conventional faces which line the walls of Paris salons. He was, +indeed, something quite new there. Terse of speech, like a +hermit or a savage, his shyness was thought to be haughtiness, +and people were greatly taken with it. He was something strange +and great. Women generally were so much the more smitten with +this original person because he was not to be caught by their +flatteries, however adroit, nor by the wiles with which they +circumvent the strongest men and corrode the steel temper. Their +Parisian's grimaces were lost upon M. de Montriveau; his nature +only responded to the sonorous vibration of lofty thought and +feeling. And he would very promptly have been dropped but for +the romance that hung about his adventures and his life; but for +the men who cried him up behind his back; but for a woman who +looked for a triumph for her vanity, the woman who was to fill +his thoughts. + +For these reasons the Duchesse de Langeais's curiosity was no +less lively than natural. Chance had so ordered it that her +interest in the man before her had been aroused only the day +before, when she heard the story of one of M. de Montriveau's +adventures, a story calculated to make the strongest impression +upon a woman's ever-changing fancy. + +During M. de Montriveau's voyage of discovery to the sources of +the Nile, he had had an argument with one of his guides, surely +the most extraordinary debate in the annals of travel. The +district that he wished to explore could only be reached on foot +across a tract of desert. Only one of his guides knew the way; +no traveller had penetrated before into that part of the country, +where the undaunted officer hoped to find a solution of several +scientific problems. In spite of the representations made to him +by the guide and the older men of the place, he started upon the +formidable journey. Summoning up courage, already highly strung +by the prospect of dreadful difficulties, he set out in the +morning. + +The loose sand shifted under his feet at every step; and when, at +the end of a long day's march, he lay down to sleep on the +ground, he had never been so tired in his life. He knew, +however, that he must be up and on his way before dawn next day, +and his guide assured him that they should reach the end of their +journey towards noon. That promise kept up his courage and gave +him new strength. In spite of his sufferings, he continued his +march, with some blasphemings against science; he was ashamed to +complain to his guide, and kept his pain to himself. After +marching for a third of the day, he felt his strength failing, +his feet were bleeding, he asked if they should reach the place +soon. + +"In an hour's time," said the guide. Armand braced himself for +another hour's march, and they went on. + +The hour slipped by; he could not so much as see against the sky +the palm-trees and crests of hill that should tell of the end of +the journey near at hand; the horizon line of sand was vast as +the circle of the open sea. + +He came to a stand, refused to go farther, and threatened the +guide--he had deceived him, murdered him; tears of rage and +weariness flowed over his fevered cheeks; he was bowed down with +fatigue upon fatigue, his throat seemed to be glued by the desert +thirst. The guide meanwhile stood motionless, listening to these +complaints with an ironical expression, studying the while, with +the apparent indifference of an Oriental, the scarcely +perceptible indications in the lie of the sands, which looked +almost black, like burnished gold. + +"I have made a mistake," he remarked coolly. "I could not +make out the track, it is so long since I came this way; we are +surely on it now, but we must push on for two hours." + +"The man is right," thought M. de Montriveau. + +So he went on again, struggling to follow the pitiless native. +It seemed as if he were bound to his guide by some thread like +the invisible tie between the condemned man and the headsman. +But the two hours went by, Montriveau had spent his last drops of +energy, and the skyline was a blank, there were no palm-trees, no +hills. He could neither cry out nor groan, he lay down on the +sand to die, but his eyes would have frightened the boldest; +something in his face seemed to say that he would not die alone. +His guide, like a very fiend, gave him back a cool glance like a +man that knows his power, left him to lie there, and kept at a +safe distance out of reach of his desperate victim. At last M. +Montriveau recovered strength enough for a last curse. + +The guide came nearer, silenced him with a steady look, and said, +"Was it not your own will to go where I am taking you, in spite +of us all? You say that I have lied to you. If I had not, you +would not be even here. Do you want the truth? Here it is. WE +HAVE STILL ANOTHER FIVE HOURS' MARCH BEFORE US, AND WE CANNOT GO +BACK. Sound yourself; if you have not courage enough, here is my +dagger." + +Startled by this dreadful knowledge of pain and human strength, +M. de Montriveau would not be behind a savage; he drew a fresh +stock of courage from his pride as a European, rose to his feet, +and followed his guide. The five hours were at an end, and still +M. de Montriveau saw nothing, he turned his failing eyes upon his +guide; but the Nubian hoisted him on his shoulders, and showed +him a wide pool of water with greenness all about it, and a noble +forest lighted up by the sunset. It lay only a hundred paces +away; a vast ledge of granite hid the glorious landscape. It +seemed to Armand that he had taken a new lease of life. His +guide, that giant in courage and intelligence, finished his work +of devotion by carrying him across the hot, slippery, scarcely +discernible track on the granite. Behind him lay the hell of +burning sand, before him the earthly paradise of the most +beautiful oasis in the desert. + +The Duchess, struck from the first by the appearance of this +romantic figure, was even more impressed when she learned that +this was that Marquis de Montriveau of whom she had dreamed +during the night. She had been with him among the hot desert +sands, he had been the companion of her nightmare wanderings; for +such a woman was not this a delightful presage of a new interest +in her life? And never was a man's exterior a better exponent of +his character; never were curious glances so well justified. The +principal characteristic of his great, square-hewn head was the +thick, luxuriant black hair which framed his face, and gave him a +strikingly close resemblance to General Kleber; and the likeness +still held good in the vigorous forehead, in the outlines of his +face, the quiet fearlessness of his eyes, and a kind of fiery +vehemence expressed by strongly marked features. He was short, +deep-chested, and muscular as a lion. There was something of the +despot about him, and an indescribable suggestion of the security +of strength in his gait, bearing, and slightest movements. He +seemed to know that his will was irresistible, perhaps because he +wished for nothing unjust. And yet, like all really strong men, +he was mild of speech, simple in his manners, and kindly natured; +although it seemed as if, in the stress of a great crisis, all +these finer qualities must disappear, and the man would show +himself implacable, unshaken in his resolve, terrific in action. +There was a certain drawing in of the inner line of the lips +which, to a close observer, indicated an ironical bent. + +The Duchesse de Langeais, realising that a fleeting glory was to +be won by such a conquest, made up her mind to gain a lover in +Armand de Montriveau during the brief interval before the +Duchesse de Maufrigneuse brought him to be introduced. She would +prefer him above the others; she would attach him to herself, +display all her powers of coquetry for him. It was a fancy, such +a merest Duchess's whim as furnished a Lope or a Calderon with +the plot of the Dog in the Manger. She would not suffer another +woman to engross him; but she had not the remotest intention of +being his. + +Nature had given the Duchess every qualification for the part of +coquette, and education had perfected her. Women envied her, and +men fell in love with her, not without reason. Nothing that can +inspire love, justify it, and give it lasting empire was wanting +in her. Her style of beauty, her manner, her voice, her bearing, +all combined to give her that instinctive coquetry which seems to +be the consciousness of power. Her shape was graceful; perhaps +there was a trace of self-consciousness in her changes of +movement, the one affectation that could be laid to her charge; +but everything about her was a part of her personality, from her +least little gesture to the peculiar turn of her phrases, the +demure glance of her eyes. Her great lady's grace, her most +striking characteristic, had not destroyed the very French quick +mobility of her person. There was an extraordinary fascination +in her swift, incessant changes of attitude. She seemed as if +she surely would be a most delicious mistress when her corset and +the encumbering costume of her part were laid aside. All the +rapture of love surely was latent in the freedom of her +expressive glances, in her caressing tones, in the charm of her +words. She gave glimpses of the high-born courtesan within her, +vainly protesting against the creeds of the duchess. + +You might sit near her through an evening, she would be gay and +melancholy in turn, and her gaiety, like her sadness, seemed +spontaneous. She could be gracious, disdainful, insolent, or +confiding at will. Her apparent good nature was real; she had no +temptation to descend to malignity. But at each moment her mood +changed; she was full of confidence or craft; her moving +tenderness would give place to a heart-breaking hardness and +insensibility. Yet how paint her as she was, without bringing +together all the extremes of feminine nature? In a word, the +Duchess was anything that she wished to be or to seem. Her face +was slightly too long. There was a grace in it, and a certain +thinness and fineness that recalled the portraits of the Middle +Ages. Her skin was white, with a faint rose tint. Everything +about her erred, as it were, by an excess of delicacy. + +M. de Montriveau willingly consented to be introduced to the +Duchesse de Langeais; and she, after the manner of persons whose +sensitive taste leads them to avoid banalities, refrained from +overwhelming him with questions and compliments. She received +him with a gracious deference which could not fail to flatter a +man of more than ordinary powers, for the fact that a man rises +above the ordinary level implies that he possesses something of +that tact which makes women quick to read feeling. If the +Duchess showed any curiosity, it was by her glances; her +compliments were conveyed in her manner; there was a winning +grace displayed in her words, a subtle suggestion of a desire to +please which she of all women knew the art of manifesting. Yet +her whole conversation was but, in a manner, the body of the +letter; the postscript with the principal thought in it was still +to come. After half an hour spent in ordinary talk, in which the +words gained all their value from her tone and smiles, M. de +Montriveau was about to retire discreetly, when the Duchess +stopped him with an expressive gesture. + +"I do not know, monsieur, whether these few minutes during which +I have had the pleasure of talking to you proved so sufficiently +attractive, that I may venture to ask you to call upon me; I am +afraid that it may be very selfish of me to wish to have you all +to myself. If I should be so fortunate as to find that my house +is agreeable to you, you will always find me at home in the +evening until ten o'clock." + +The invitation was given with such irresistible grace, that M. de +Montriveau could not refuse to accept it. When he fell back +again among the groups of men gathered at a distance from the +women, his friends congratulated him, half laughingly, half in +earnest, on the extraordinary reception vouchsafed him by the +Duchesse de Langeais. The difficult and brilliant conquest had +been made beyond a doubt, and the glory of it was reserved for +the Artillery of the Guard. It is easy to imagine the jests, +good and bad, when this topic had once been started; the world of +Paris salons is so eager for amusement, and a joke lasts for such +a short time, that everyone is eager to make the most of it while +it is fresh. + +All unconsciously, the General felt flattered by this nonsense. +From his place where he had taken his stand, his eyes were drawn +again and again to the Duchess by countless wavering reflections. + +He could not help admitting to himself that of all the women +whose beauty had captivated his eyes, not one had seemed to be a +more exquisite embodiment of faults and fair qualities blended in +a completeness that might realise the dreams of earliest manhood. + +Is there a man in any rank of life that has not felt indefinable +rapture in his secret soul over the woman singled out (if only in +his dreams) to be his own; when she, in body, soul, and social +aspects, satisfies his every requirement, a thrice perfect woman? + +And if this threefold perfection that flatters his pride is no +argument for loving her, it is beyond cavil one of the great +inducements to the sentiment. Love would soon be convalescent, +as the eighteenth century moralist remarked, were it not for +vanity. And it is certainly true that for everyone, man or +woman, there is a wealth of pleasure in the superiority of the +beloved. Is she set so high by birth that a contemptuous glance +can never wound her? is she wealthy enough to surround herself +with state which falls nothing short of royalty, of kings, of +finance during their short reign of splendour? is she so +ready-witted that a keen-edged jest never brings her into +confusion? beautiful enough to rival any woman?--Is it such a +small thing to know that your self-love will never suffer through +her? A man makes these reflections in the twinkling of an eye. +And how if, in the future opened out by early ripened passion, he +catches glimpses of the changeful delight of her charm, the frank +innocence of a maiden soul, the perils of love's voyage, the +thousand folds of the veil of coquetry? Is not this enough to +move the coldest man's heart? + +This, therefore, was M. de Montriveau's position with regard to +woman; his past life in some measure explaining the extraordinary +fact. He had been thrown, when little more than a boy, into the +hurricane of Napoleon's wars; his life had been spent on fields +of battle. Of women he knew just so much as a traveller knows of +a country when he travels across it in haste from one inn to +another. The verdict which Voltaire passed upon his eighty years +of life might, perhaps, have been applied by Montriveau to his +own thirty-seven years of existence; had he not thirty-seven +follies with which to reproach himself? At his age he was as +much a novice in love as the lad that has just been furtively +reading Faublas. Of women he had nothing to learn; of love he +knew nothing; and thus, desires, quite unknown before, sprang +from this virginity of feeling. + +There are men here and there as much engrossed in the work +demanded of them by poverty or ambition, art or science, as M. de +Montriveau by war and a life of adventure--these know what it is +to be in this unusual position if they very seldom confess to it. + +Every man in Paris is supposed to have been in love. No woman in +Paris cares to take what other women have passed over. The dread +of being taken for a fool is the source of the coxcomb's bragging +so common in France; for in France to have the reputation of a +fool is to be a foreigner in one's own country. Vehement desire +seized on M. de Montriveau, desire that had gathered strength +from the heat of the desert and the first stirrings of a heart +unknown as yet in its suppressed turbulence. + +A strong man, and violent as he was strong, he could keep mastery +over himself; but as he talked of indifferent things, he retired +within himself, and swore to possess this woman, for through that +thought lay the only way to love for him. Desire became a solemn +compact made with himself, an oath after the manner of the Arabs +among whom he had lived; for among them a vow is a kind of +contract made with Destiny a man's whole future is solemnly +pledged to fulfil it, and everything even his own death, is +regarded simply as a means to the one end. + +A younger man would have said to himself, "I should very much +like to have the Duchess for my mistress!" or, "If the Duchesse +de Langeais cared for a man, he would be a very lucky rascal!" +But the General said, "I will have Mme de Langeais for my +mistress." And if a man takes such an idea into his head when +his heart has never been touched before, and love begins to be a +kind of religion with him, he little knows in what a hell he has +set his foot. + +Armand de Montriveau suddenly took flight and went home in the +first hot fever-fit of the first love that he had known. When a +man has kept all his boyish beliefs, illusions, frankness, and +impetuosity into middle age, his first impulse is, as it were, to +stretch out a hand to take the thing that he desires; a little +later he realises that there is a gulf set between them, and that +it is all but impossible to cross it. A sort of childish +impatience seizes him, he wants the thing the more, and trembles +or cries. Wherefore, the next day, after the stormiest +reflections that had yet perturbed his mind, Armand de Montriveau +discovered that he was under the yoke of the senses, and his +bondage made the heavier by his love. + +The woman so cavalierly treated in his thoughts of yesterday had +become a most sacred and dreadful power. She was to be his +world, his life, from this time forth. The greatest joy, the +keenest anguish, that he had yet known grew colourless before the +bare recollection of the least sensation stirred in him by her. +The swiftest revolutions in a man's outward life only touch his +interests, while passion brings a complete revulsion of feeling. +And so in those who live by feeling, rather than by +self-interest, the doers rather than the reasoners, the sanguine +rather than the lymphatic temperaments, love works a complete +revolution. In a flash, with one single reflection, Armand de +Montriveau wiped out his whole past life. + +A score of times he asked himself, like a boy, "Shall I go, or +shall I not?" and then at last he dressed, came to the Hotel de +Langeais towards eight o'clock that evening, and was admitted. +He was to see the woman--ah! not the woman--the idol that he had +seen yesterday, among lights, a fresh innocent girl in gauze and +silken lace and veiling. He burst in upon her to declare his +love, as if it were a question of firing the first shot on a +field of battle. + +Poor novice! He found his ethereal sylphide shrouded in a brown +cashmere dressing-gown ingeniously befrilled, lying languidly +stretched out upon a sofa in a dimly lighted boudoir. Mme de +Langeais did not so much as rise, nothing was visible of her but +her face, her hair was loose but confined by a scarf. A hand +indicated a seat, a hand that seemed white as marble to +Montriveau by the flickering light of a single candle at the +further side of the room, and a voice as soft as the light said-- + +"If it had been anyone else, M. le Marquis, a friend with whom I +could dispense with ceremony, or a mere acquaintance in whom I +felt but slight interest, I should have closed my door. I am +exceedingly unwell." + +"I will go," Armand said to himself. + +"But I do not know how it is," she continued (and the simple +warrior attributed the shining of her eyes to fever), "perhaps +it was a presentiment of your kind visit (and no one can be more +sensible of the prompt attention than I), but the vapours have +left my head." + +"Then may I stay?" + +"Oh, I should be very sorry to allow you to go. I told myself +this morning that it was impossible that I should have made the +slightest impression on your mind, and that in all probability +you took my request for one of the commonplaces of which +Parisians are lavish on every occasion. And I forgave your +ingratitude in advance. An explorer from the deserts is not +supposed to know how exclusive we are in our friendships in the +Faubourg." + +The gracious, half-murmured words dropped one by one, as if they +had been weighted with the gladness that apparently brought them +to her lips. The Duchess meant to have the full benefit of her +headache, and her speculation was fully successful. The General, +poor man, was really distressed by the lady's simulated distress. + +Like Crillon listening to the story of the Crucifixion, he was +ready to draw his sword against the vapours. How could a man +dare to speak just then to this suffering woman of the love that +she inspired? Armand had already felt that it would be absurd to +fire off a declaration of love point-blank at one so far above +other women. With a single thought came understanding of the +delicacies of feeling, of the soul's requirements. To love: what +was that but to know how to plead, to beg for alms, to wait? And +as for the love that he felt, must he not prove it? His tongue +was mute, it was frozen by the conventions of the noble Faubourg, +the majesty of a sick headache, the bashfulness of love. But no +power on earth could veil his glances; the heat and the Infinite +of the desert blazed in eyes calm as a panther's, beneath the +lids that fell so seldom. The Duchess enjoyed the steady gaze +that enveloped her in light and warmth. + +"Mme la Duchesse," he answered, "I am afraid I express my +gratitude for your goodness very badly. At this moment I have +but one desire--I wish it were in my power to cure the pain." + +"Permit me to throw this off, I feel too warm now," she said, +gracefully tossing aside a cushion that covered her feet. + +"Madame, in Asia your feet would be worth some ten thousand +sequins. + +"A traveller's compliment!" smiled she. + +It pleased the sprightly lady to involve a rough soldier in a +labyrinth of nonsense, commonplaces, and meaningless talk, in +which he manoeuvred, in military language, as Prince Charles +might have done at close quarters with Napoleon. She took a +mischievous amusement in reconnoitring the extent of his +infatuation by the number of foolish speeches extracted from a +novice whom she led step by step into a hopeless maze, meaning to +leave him there in confusion. She began by laughing at him, but +nevertheless it pleased her to make him forget how time went. + +The length of a first visit is frequently a compliment, but +Armand was innocent of any such intent. The famous explorer +spent an hour in chat on all sorts of subjects, said nothing that +he meant to say, and was feeling that he was only an instrument +on whom this woman played, when she rose, sat upright, drew the +scarf from her hair, and wrapped it about her throat, leant her +elbow on the cushions, did him the honour of a complete cure, and +rang for lights. The most graceful movement succeeded to +complete repose. She turned to M. de Montriveau, from whom she +had just extracted a confidence which seemed to interest her +deeply, and said-- + +"You wish to make game of me by trying to make me believe that +you have never loved. It is a man's great pretension with us. +And we always believe it! Out of pure politeness. Do we not +know what to expect from it for ourselves? Where is the man that +has found but a single opportunity of losing his heart? But you +love to deceive us, and we submit to be deceived, poor foolish +creatures that we are; for your hypocrisy is, after all, a homage +paid to the superiority of our sentiments, which are all +purity." + +The last words were spoken with a disdainful pride that made the +novice in love feel like a worthless bale flung into the deep, +while the Duchess was an angel soaring back to her particular +heaven. + +"Confound it!" thought Armand de Montriveau, "how am I to tell +this wild thing that I love her?" + +He had told her already a score of times; or rather, the Duchess +had a score of times read his secret in his eyes; and the passion +in this unmistakably great man promised her amusement, and an +interest in her empty life. So she prepared with no little +dexterity to raise a certain number of redoubts for him to carry +by storm before he should gain an entrance into her heart. +Montriveau should overleap one difficulty after another; he +should be a plaything for her caprice, just as an insect teased +by children is made to jump from one finger to another, and in +spite of all its pains is kept in the same place by its +mischievous tormentor. And yet it gave the Duchess inexpressible +happiness to see that this strong man had told her the truth. +Armand had never loved, as he had said. He was about to go, in a +bad humour with himself, and still more out of humour with her; +but it delighted her to see a sullenness that she could conjure +away with a word, a glance, or a gesture. + +"Will you come tomorrow evening?" she asked. "I am going to a +ball, but I shall stay at home for you until ten o'clock." + +Montriveau spent most of the next day in smoking an indeterminate +quantity of cigars in his study window, and so got through the +hours till he could dress and go to the Hotel de Langeais. To +anyone who had known the magnificent worth of the man, it would +have been grievous to see him grown so small, so distrustful of +himself; the mind that might have shed light over undiscovered +worlds shrunk to the proportions of a she-coxcomb's boudoir. +Even he himself felt that he had fallen so low already in his +happiness that to save his life he could not have told his love +to one of his closest friends. Is there not always a trace of +shame in the lover's bashfulness, and perhaps in woman a certain +exultation over diminished masculine stature? Indeed, but for a +host of motives of this kind, how explain why women are nearly +always the first to betray the secret?--a secret of which, +perhaps, they soon weary. + +"Mme la Duchesse cannot see visitors, monsieur," said the man; +"she is dressing, she begs you to wait for her here." + +Armand walked up and down the drawing-room, studying her taste in +the least details. He admired Mme de Langeais herself in the +objects of her choosing; they revealed her life before he could +grasp her personality and ideas. About an hour later the Duchess +came noiselessly out of her chamber. Montriveau turned, saw her +flit like a shadow across the room, and trembled. She came up to +him, not with a bourgeoise's enquiry, "How do I look?" She was +sure of herself; her steady eyes said plainly, "I am adorned to +please you." + +No one surely, save the old fairy godmother of some princess in +disguise, could have wound a cloud of gauze about the dainty +throat, so that the dazzling satin skin beneath should gleam +through the gleaming folds. The Duchess was dazzling. The pale +blue colour of her gown, repeated in the flowers in her hair, +appeared by the richness of its hue to lend substance to a +fragile form grown too wholly ethereal; for as she glided towards +Armand, the loose ends of her scarf floated about her, putting +that valiant warrior in mind of the bright damosel flies that +hover now over water, now over the flowers with which they seem +to mingle and blend. + +"I have kept you waiting," she said, with the tone that a woman +can always bring into her voice for the man whom she wishes to +please. + +"I would wait patiently through an eternity," said he, "if I +were sure of finding a divinity so fair; but it is no compliment +to speak of your beauty to you; nothing save worship could touch +you. Suffer me only to kiss your scarf." + +"Oh, fie!" she said, with a commanding gesture, "I esteem you +enough to give you my hand." + +She held it out for his kiss. A woman's hand, still moist from +the scented bath, has a soft freshness, a velvet smoothness that +sends a tingling thrill from the lips to the soul. And if a man +is attracted to a woman, and his senses are as quick to feel +pleasure as his heart is full of love, such a kiss, though chaste +in appearance, may conjure up a terrific storm. + +"Will you always give it me like this?" the General asked +humbly when he had pressed that dangerous hand respectfully to +his lips. + +"Yes, but there we must stop," she said, smiling. She sat +down, and seemed very slow over putting on her gloves, trying to +slip the unstretched kid over all her fingers at once, while she +watched M. de Montriveau; and he was lost in admiration of the +Duchess and those repeated graceful movements of hers. + +"Ah! you were punctual," she said; "that is right. I like +punctuality. It is the courtesy of kings, His Majesty says; but +to my thinking, from you men it is the most respectful flattery +of all. Now, is it not? Just tell me." + +Again she gave him a side glance to express her insidious +friendship, for he was dumb with happiness sheer happiness +through such nothings as these! Oh, the Duchess understood son +metier de femme--the art and mystery of being a woman--most +marvellously well; she knew, to admiration, how to raise a man in +his own esteem as he humbled himself to her; how to reward every +step of the descent to sentimental folly with hollow flatteries. + +"You will never forget to come at nine o'clock." + +"No; but are you going to a ball every night?" + +"Do I know?" she answered, with a little childlike shrug of the +shoulders; the gesture was meant to say that she was nothing if +not capricious, and that a lover must take her as she +was.--"Besides," she added, "what is that to you? You shall +be my escort." + +"That would be difficult tonight," he objected; "I am not +properly dressed." + +"It seems to me," she returned loftily, "that if anyone has a +right to complain of your costume, it is I. Know, therefore, +monsieur le voyageur, that if I accept a man's arm, he is +forthwith above the laws of fashion, nobody would venture to +criticise him. You do not know the world, I see; I like you the +better for it." + +And even as she spoke she swept him into the pettiness of that +world by the attempt to initiate him into the vanities of a woman +of fashion. + +"If she chooses to do a foolish thing for me, I should be a +simpleton to prevent her," said Armand to himself. "She has a +liking for me beyond a doubt; and as for the world, she cannot +despise it more than I do. So, now for the ball if she likes." + +The Duchess probably thought that if the General came with her +and appeared in a ballroom in boots and a black tie, nobody would +hesitate to believe that he was violently in love with her. And +the General was well pleased that the queen of fashion should +think of compromising herself for him; hope gave him wit. He had +gained confidence, he brought out his thoughts and views; he felt +nothing of the restraint that weighed on his spirits yesterday. +His talk was interesting and animated, and full of those first +confidences so sweet to make and to receive. + +Was Mme de Langeais really carried away by his talk, or had she +devised this charming piece of coquetry? At any rate, she looked +up mischievously as the clock struck twelve. + +"Ah! you have made me too late for the ball!" she exclaimed, +surprised and vexed that she had forgotten how time was going. + +The next moment she approved the exchange of pleasures with a +smile that made Armand's heart give a sudden leap. + +"I certainly promised Mme de Beauseant," she added. "They are +all expecting me." + +"Very well--go." + +"No--go on. I will stay. Your Eastern adventures fascinate me. + +Tell me the whole story of your life. I love to share in a brave +man's hardships, and I feel them all, indeed I do!" + +She was playing with her scarf, twisting it and pulling it to +pieces, with jerky, impatient movements that seemed to tell of +inward dissatisfaction and deep reflection. + +"WE are fit for nothing," she went on. "Ah! we are +contemptible, selfish, frivolous creatures. We can bore +ourselves with amusements, and that is all we can do. Not one of +us that understands that she has a part to play in life. In old +days in France, women were beneficent lights; they lived to +comfort those that mourned, to encourage high virtues, to reward +artists and stir new life with noble thoughts. If the world has +grown so petty, ours is the fault. You make me loathe the ball +and this world in which I live. No, I am not giving up much for +you." + +She had plucked her scarf to pieces, as a child plays with a +flower, pulling away all the petals one by one; and now she +crushed it into a ball, and flung it away. She could show her +swan's neck. + +She rang the bell. "I shall not go out tonight," she told the +footman. Her long, blue eyes turned timidly to Armand; and by +the look of misgiving in them, he knew that he was meant to take +the order for a confession, for a first and great favour. There +was a pause, filled with many thoughts, before she spoke with +that tenderness which is often in women's voices, and not so +often in their hearts. "You have had a hard life," she said. + +"No," returned Armand. "Until today I did not know what +happiness was." + +"Then you know it now?" she asked, looking at him with a +demure, keen glance. + +"What is happiness for me henceforth but this--to see you, to +hear you? . . . Until now I have only known privation; now I +know that I can be unhappy----" + +"That will do, that will do," she said. "You must go; it is +past midnight. Let us regard appearances. People must not talk +about us. I do not know quite what I shall say; but the headache +is a good-natured friend, and tells no tales." + +"Is there to be a ball tomorrow night?" + +"You would grow accustomed to the life, I think. Very well. +Yes, we will go again tomorrow night." + +There was not a happier man in the world than Armand when he went +out from her. Every evening he came to Mme de Langeais's at the +hour kept for him by a tacit understanding. + +It would be tedious, and, for the many young men who carry a +redundance of such sweet memories in their hearts, it were +superfluous to follow the story step by step--the progress of a +romance growing in those hours spent together, a romance +controlled entirely by a woman's will. If sentiment went too +fast, she would raise a quarrel over a word, or when words +flagged behind her thoughts, she appealed to the feelings. +Perhaps the only way of following such Penelope's progress is by +marking its outward and visible signs. + +As, for instance, within a few days of their first meeting, the +assiduous General had won and kept the right to kiss his lady's +insatiable hands. Wherever Mme de Langeais went, M. de +Montriveau was certain to be seen, till people jokingly called +him "Her Grace's orderly." And already he had made enemies; +others were jealous, and envied him his position. Mme de +Langeais had attained her end. The Marquis de Montriveau was +among her numerous train of adorers, and a means of humiliating +those who boasted of their progress in her good graces, for she +publicly gave him preference over them all. + +"Decidedly, M. de Montriveau is the man for whom the Duchess +shows a preference," pronounced Mme de Serizy. + +And who in Paris does not know what it means when a woman "shows +a preference?" All went on therefore according to prescribed +rule. The anecdotes which people were pleased to circulate +concerning the General put that warrior in so formidable a light, +that the more adroit quietly dropped their pretensions to the +Duchess, and remained in her train merely to turn the position to +account, and to use her name and personality to make better terms +for themselves with certain stars of the second magnitude. And +those lesser powers were delighted to take a lover away from Mme +de Langeais. The Duchess was keen-sighted enough to see these +desertions and treaties with the enemy; and her pride would not +suffer her to be the dupe of them. As M. de Talleyrand, one of +her great admirers, said, she knew how to take a second edition +of revenge, laying the two-edged blade of a sarcasm between the +pairs in these "morganatic" unions. Her mocking disdain +contributed not a little to increase her reputation as an +extremely clever woman and a person to be feared. Her character +for virtue was consolidated while she amused herself with other +people's secrets, and kept her own to herself. Yet, after two +months of assiduities, she saw with a vague dread in the depths +of her soul that M. de Montriveau understood nothing of the +subtleties of flirtation after the manner of the Faubourg +Saint-Germain; he was taking a Parisienne's coquetry in earnest. + +"You will not tame HIM, dear Duchess," the old Vidame de +Pamiers had said. " 'Tis a first cousin to the eagle; he will +carry you off to his eyrie if you do not take care." + +Then Mme de Langeais felt afraid. The shrewd old noble's words +sounded like a prophecy. The next day she tried to turn love to +hate. She was harsh, exacting, irritable, unbearable; Montriveau +disarmed her with angelic sweetness. She so little knew the +great generosity of a large nature, that the kindly jests with +which her first complaints were met went to her heart. She +sought a quarrel, and found proofs of affection. She persisted. + +"When a man idolises you, how can he have vexed you?" asked +Armand. + +"You do not vex me," she answered, suddenly grown gentle and +submissive. "But why do you wish to compromise me? For me you +ought to be nothing but a FRIEND. Do you not know it? I wish I +could see that you had the instincts, the delicacy of real +friendship, so that I might lose neither your respect nor the +pleasure that your presence gives me." + +"Nothing but your FRIEND!" he cried out. The terrible word +sent an electric shock through his brain. "On the faith of +these happy hours that you grant me, I sleep and wake in your +heart. And now today, for no reason, you are pleased to destroy +all the secret hopes by which I live. You have required promises +of such constancy in me, you have said so much of your horror of +women made up of nothing but caprice; and now do you wish me to +understand that, like other women here in Paris, you have +passions, and know nothing of love? If so, why did you ask my +life of me? why did you accept it?" + +"I was wrong, my friend. Oh, it is wrong of a woman to yield to +such intoxication when she must not and cannot make any return." + +"I understand. You have merely been coquetting with me, +and----" + +"Coquetting?" she repeated. "I detest coquetry. A coquette +Armand, makes promises to many, and gives herself to none; and a +woman who keeps such promises is a libertine. This much I +believed I had grasped of our code. But to be melancholy with +humorists, gay with the frivolous, and politic with ambitious +souls; to listen to a babbler with every appearance of +admiration, to talk of war with a soldier, wax enthusiastic with +philanthropists over the good of the nation, and to give to each +one his little dole of flattery--it seems to me that this is as +much a matter of necessity as dress, diamonds, and gloves, or +flowers in one's hair. Such talk is the moral counterpart of the +toilette. You take it up and lay it aside with the plumed +head-dress. Do you call this coquetry? Why, I have never +treated you as I treat everyone else. With you, my friend, I am +sincere. Have I not always shared your views, and when you +convinced me after a discussion, was I not always perfectly glad? + +In short, I love you, but only as a devout and pure woman may +love. I have thought it over. I am a married woman, Armand. My +way of life with M. de Langeais gives me liberty to bestow my +heart; but law and custom leave me no right to dispose of my +person. If a woman loses her honour, she is an outcast in any +rank of life; and I have yet to meet with a single example of a +man that realises all that our sacrifices demand of him in such a +case. Quite otherwise. Anyone can foresee the rupture between +Mme de Beauseant and M. d'Ajuda (for he is going to marry Mlle de +Rochefide, it seems), that affair made it clear to my mind that +these very sacrifices on the woman's part are almost always the +cause of the man's desertion. If you had loved me sincerely, you +would have kept away for a time.--Now, I will lay aside all +vanity for you; is not that something? What will not people say +of a woman to whom no man attaches himself? Oh, she is +heartless, brainless, soulless; and what is more, devoid of +charm! Coquettes will not spare me. They will rob me of the +very qualities that mortify them. So long as my reputation is +safe, what do I care if my rivals deny my merits? They certainly +will not inherit them. Come, my friend; give up something for +her who sacrifices so much for you. Do not come quite so often; +I shall love you none the less." + +"Ah!" said Armand, with the profound irony of a wounded heart +in his words and tone. "Love, so the scribblers say, only feeds +on illusions. Nothing could be truer, I see; I am expected to +imagine that I am loved. But, there!--there are some thoughts +like wounds, from which there is no recovery. My belief in you +was one of the last left to me, and now I see that there is +nothing left to believe in this earth." + +She began to smile. + +"Yes," Montriveau went on in an unsteady voice, "this Catholic +faith to which you wish to convert me is a lie that men make for +themselves; hope is a lie at the expense of the future; pride, a +lie between us and our fellows; and pity, and prudence, and +terror are cunning lies. And now my happiness is to be one more +lying delusion; I am expected to delude myself, to be willing to +give gold coin for silver to the end. If you can so easily +dispense with my visits; if you can confess me neither as your +friend nor your lover, you do not care for me! And I, poor fool +that I am, tell myself this, and know it, and love you!" + +"But, dear me, poor Armand, you are flying into a passion!" + +"I flying into a passion?" + +"Yes. You think that the whole question is opened because I ask +you to be careful." + +In her heart of hearts she was delighted with the anger that +leapt out in her lover's eyes. Even as she tortured him, she was +criticising him, watching every slightest change that passed over +his face. If the General had been so unluckily inspired as to +show himself generous without discussion (as happens occasionally +with some artless souls), he would have been a banished man +forever, accused and convicted of not knowing how to love. Most +women are not displeased to have their code of right and wrong +broken through. Do they not flatter themselves that they never +yield except to force? But Armand was not learned enough in this +kind of lore to see the snare ingeniously spread for him by the +Duchess. So much of the child was there in the strong man in +love. + +"If all you want is to preserve appearances," he began in his +simplicity, "I am willing to----" + +"Simply to preserve appearances!" the lady broke in; "why, +what idea can you have of me? Have I given you the slightest +reason to suppose that I can be yours?" + +"Why, what else are we talking about?" demanded Montriveau. + +"Monsieur, you frighten me ! . . . No, pardon me. Thank you," +she added, coldly; "thank you, Armand. You have given me timely +warning of imprudence; committed quite unconsciously, believe it, +my friend. You know how to endure, you say. I also know how to +endure. We will not see each other for a time; and then, when +both of us have contrived to recover calmness to some extent, we +will think about arrangements for a happiness sanctioned by the +world. I am young, Armand; a man with no delicacy might tempt a +woman of four-and-twenty to do many foolish, wild things for his +sake. But YOU! You will be my friend, promise me that you +will?" + +"The woman of four-and-twenty," returned he, "knows what she +is about." + +He sat down on the sofa in the boudoir, and leant his head on his +hands. + +"Do you love me, madame?" he asked at length, raising his head, +and turning a face full of resolution upon her. "Say it +straight out; Yes or No!" + +His direct question dismayed the Duchess more than a threat of +suicide could have done; indeed, the woman of the nineteenth +century is not to be frightened by that stale stratagem, the +sword has ceased to be part of the masculine costume. But in the +effect of eyelids and lashes, in the contraction of the gaze, in +the twitching of the lips, is there not some influence that +communicates the terror which they express with such vivid +magnetic power? + +"Ah, if I were free, if----" + +"Oh! is it only your husband that stands in the way?" the +General exclaimed joyfully, as he strode to and fro in the +boudoir. "Dear Antoinette, I wield a more absolute power than +the Autocrat of all the Russias. I have a compact with Fate; I +can advance or retard destiny, so far as men are concerned, at my +fancy, as you alter the hands of a watch. If you can direct the +course of fate in our political machinery, it simply means (does +it not?) that you understand the ins and outs of it. You shall +be free before very long, and then you must remember your +promise." + +"Armand!" she cried. "What do you mean? Great heavens! Can +you imagine that I am to be the prize of a crime? Do you want to +kill me? Why! you cannot have any religion in you! For my own +part, I fear God. M. de Langeais may have given me reason to +hate him, but I wish him no manner of harm." + +M. de Montriveau beat a tattoo on the marble chimneypiece, and +only looked composedly at the lady. + +"Dear," continued she, "respect him. He does not love me, he +is not kind to me, but I have duties to fulfil with regard to +him. What would I not do to avert the calamities with which you +threaten him?--Listen," she continued after a pause, "I will +not say another word about separation; you shall come here as in +the past, and I will still give you my forehead to kiss. If I +refused once or twice, it was pure coquetry, indeed it was. But +let us understand each other," she added as he came closer. +"You will permit me to add to the number of my satellites; to +receive even more visitors in the morning than heretofore; I mean +to be twice as frivolous; I mean to use you to all appearance +very badly; to feign a rupture; you must come not quite so often, +and then, afterwards----" + +While she spoke, she had allowed him to put an arm about her +waist, Montriveau was holding her tightly to him, and she seemed +to feel the exceeding pleasure that women usually feel in that +close contact, an earnest of the bliss of a closer union. And +then, doubtless she meant to elicit some confidence, for she +raised herself on tiptoe, and laid her forehead against Armand's +burning lips. + +"And then," Montriveau finished her sentence for her, "you +shall not speak to me of your husband. You ought not to think of +him again." + +Mme de Langeais was silent awhile. + +"At least," she said, after a significant pause, "at least you +will do all that I wish without grumbling, you will not be +naughty; tell me so, my friend? You wanted to frighten me, did +you not? Come, now, confess it ? . . . You are too good ever to +think of crimes. But is it possible that you can have secrets +that I do not know? How can you control Fate?" + +"Now, when you confirm the gift of the heart that you have +already given me, I am far too happy to know exactly how to +answer you. I can trust you, Antoinette; I shall have no +suspicion, no unfounded jealousy of you. But if accident should +set you free, we shall be one----" + +"Accident, Armand?" (With that little dainty turn of the head +that seems to say so many things, a gesture that such women as +the Duchess can use on light occasions, as a great singer can act +with her voice.) "Pure accident," she repeated. "Mind that. +If anything should happen to M. de Langeais by your fault, I +should never be yours." + +And so they parted, mutually content. The Duchess had made a +pact that left her free to prove to the world by words and deeds +that M. de Montriveau was no lover of hers. And as for him, the +wily Duchess vowed to tire him out. He should have nothing of +her beyond the little concessions snatched in the course of +contests that she could stop at her pleasure. She had so pretty +an art of revoking the grant of yesterday, she was so much in +earnest in her purpose to remain technically virtuous, that she +felt that there was not the slightest danger for her in +preliminaries fraught with peril for a woman less sure of her +self-command. After all, the Duchess was practically separated +from her husband; a marriage long since annulled was no great +sacrifice to make to her love. + +Montriveau on his side was quite happy to win the vaguest +promise, glad once for all to sweep aside, with all scruples of +conjugal fidelity, her stock of excuses for refusing herself to +his love. He had gained ground a little, and congratulated +himself. And so for a time he took unfair advantage of the +rights so hardly won. More a boy than he had ever been in his +life, he gave himself up to all the childishness that makes first +love the flower of life. He was a child again as he poured out +all his soul, all the thwarted forces that passion had given him, +upon her hands, upon the dazzling forehead that looked so pure to +his eyes; upon her fair hair; on the tufted curls where his lips +were pressed. And the Duchess, on whom his love was poured like +a flood, was vanquished by the magnetic influence of her lover's +warmth; she hesitated to begin the quarrel that must part them +forever. She was more a woman than she thought, this slight +creature, in her effort to reconcile the demands of religion with +the ever-new sensations of vanity, the semblance of pleasure +which turns a Parisienne's head. Every Sunday she went to Mass; +she never missed a service; then, when evening came, she was +steeped in the intoxicating bliss of repressed desire. Armand +and Mme de Langeais, like Hindoo fakirs, found the reward of +their continence in the temptations to which it gave rise. +Possibly, the Duchess had ended by resolving love into fraternal +caresses, harmless enough, as it might have seemed to the rest of +the world, while they borrowed extremes of degradation from the +licence of her thoughts. How else explain the incomprehensible +mystery of her continual fluctuations? Every morning she +proposed to herself to shut her door on the Marquis de +Montriveau; every evening, at the appointed hour, she fell under +the charm of his presence. There was a languid defence; then she +grew less unkind. Her words were sweet and soothing. They were +lovers--lovers only could have been thus. For him the Duchess +would display her most sparkling wit, her most captivating wiles; +and when at last she had wrought upon his senses and his soul, +she might submit herself passively to his fierce caresses, but +she had her nec plus ultra of passion; and when once it was +reached, she grew angry if he lost the mastery of himself and +made as though he would pass beyond. No woman on earth can brave +the consequences of refusal without some motive; nothing is more +natural than to yield to love; wherefore Mme de Langeais promptly +raised a second line of fortification, a stronghold less easy to +carry than the first. She evoked the terrors of religion. Never +did Father of the Church, however eloquent, plead the cause of +God better than the Duchess. Never was the wrath of the Most +High better justified than by her voice. She used no preacher's +commonplaces, no rhetorical amplifications. No. She had a +"pulpit-tremor" of her own. To Armand's most passionate +entreaty, she replied with a tearful gaze, and a gesture in which +a terrible plenitude of emotion found expression. She stopped +his mouth with an appeal for mercy. She would not hear another +word; if she did, she must succumb; and better death than +criminal happiness. + +"Is it nothing to disobey God?" she asked him, recovering a +voice grown faint in the crises of inward struggles, through +which the fair actress appeared to find it hard to preserve her +self-control. "I would sacrifice society, I would give up the +whole world for you, gladly; but it is very selfish of you to ask +my whole after-life of me for a moment of pleasure. Come, now! +are you not happy?" she added, holding out her hand; and +certainly in her careless toilette the sight of her afforded +consolations to her lover, who made the most of them. + +Sometimes from policy, to keep her hold on a man whose ardent +passion gave her emotions unknown before, sometimes in weakness, +she suffered him to snatch a swift kiss; and immediately, in +feigned terror, she flushed red and exiled Armand from the sofa +so soon as the sofa became dangerous ground. + +"Your joys are sins for me to expiate, Armand; they are paid for +by penitence and remorse," she cried. + +And Montriveau, now at two chairs' distance from that +aristocratic petticoat, betook himself to blasphemy and railed +against Providence. The Duchess grew angry at such times. + +"My friend," she said drily, "I do not understand why you +decline to believe in God, for it is impossible to believe in +man. Hush, do not talk like that. You have too great a nature +to take up their Liberal nonsense with its pretension to abolish +God." + +Theological and political disputes acted like a cold douche on +Montriveau; he calmed down; he could not return to love when the +Duchess stirred up his wrath by suddenly setting him down a +thousand miles away from the boudoir, discussing theories of +absolute monarchy, which she defended to admiration. Few women +venture to be democrats; the attitude of democratic champion is +scarcely compatible with tyrannous feminine sway. But often, on +the other hand, the General shook out his mane, dropped politics +with a leonine growling and lashing of the flanks, and sprang +upon his prey; he was no longer capable of carrying a heart and +brain at such variance for very far; he came back, terrible with +love, to his mistress. And she, if she felt the prick of fancy +stimulated to a dangerous point, knew that it was time to leave +her boudoir; she came out of the atmosphere surcharged with +desires that she drew in with her breath, sat down to the piano, +and sang the most exquisite songs of modern music, and so baffled +the physical attraction which at times showed her no mercy, +though she was strong enough to fight it down. + +At such times she was something sublime in Armand's eyes; she was +not acting, she was genuine; the unhappy lover was convinced that +she loved him. Her egoistic resistance deluded him into a belief +that she was a pure and sainted woman; he resigned himself; he +talked of Platonic love, did this artillery officer! + +When Mme de Langeais had played with religion sufficiently to +suit her own purposes, she played with it again for Armand's +benefit. She wanted to bring him back to a Christian frame of +mind; she brought out her edition of Le Genie du Christianisme, +adapted for the use of military men. Montriveau chafed; his yoke +was heavy. Oh! at that, possessed by the spirit of +contradiction, she dinned religion into his ears, to see whether +God might not rid her of this suitor, for the man's persistence +was beginning to frighten her. And in any case she was glad to +prolong any quarrel, if it bade fair to keep the dispute on moral +grounds for an indefinite period; the material struggle which +followed it was more dangerous. + +But if the time of her opposition on the ground of the marriage +law might be said to be the epoque civile of this sentimental +warfare, the ensuing phase which might be taken to constitute the +epoque religieuse had also its crisis and consequent decline of +severity. + +Armand happening to come in very early one evening, found M. +l'Abbe Gondrand, the Duchess's spiritual director, established in +an armchair by the fireside, looking as a spiritual director +might be expected to look while digesting his dinner and the +charming sins of his penitent. In the ecclesiastic's bearing +there was a stateliness befitting a dignitary of the Church; and +the episcopal violet hue already appeared in his dress. At sight +of his fresh, well-preserved complexion, smooth forehead, and +ascetic's mouth, Montriveau's countenance grew uncommonly dark; +he said not a word under the malicious scrutiny of the other's +gaze, and greeted neither the lady nor the priest. The lover +apart, Montriveau was not wanting in tact; so a few glances +exchanged with the bishop-designate told him that here was the +real forger of the Duchess's armoury of scruples. + +That an ambitious abbe should control the happiness of a man of +Montriveau's temper, and by underhand ways! The thought burst in +a furious tide over his face, clenched his fists, and set him +chafing and pacing to and fro; but when he came back to his place +intending to make a scene, a single look from the Duchess was +enough. He was quiet. + +Any other woman would have been put out by her lover's gloomy +silence; it was quite otherwise with Mme de Langeais. She +continued her conversation with M. de Gondrand on the necessity +of re-establishing the Church in its ancient splendour. And she +talked brilliantly. + +The Church, she maintained, ought to be a temporal as well as a +spiritual power, stating her case better than the Abbe had done, +and regretting that the Chamber of Peers, unlike the English +House of Lords, had no bench of bishops. Nevertheless, the Abbe +rose, yielded his place to the General, and took his leave, +knowing that in Lent he could play a return game. As for the +Duchess, Montriveau's behaviour had excited her curiosity to such +a pitch that she scarcely rose to return her director's low bow. + +"What is the matter with you, my friend?" + +"Why, I cannot stomach that Abbe of yours." + +"Why did you not take a book?" she asked, careless whether the +Abbe, then closing the door, heard her or no. + +The General paused, for the gesture which accompanied the +Duchess's speech further increased the exceeding insolence of her +words. + +"My dear Antoinette, thank you for giving love precedence of the +Church; but, for pity's sake, allow me to ask one question." + +"Oh! you are questioning me! I am quite willing. You are my +friend, are you not? I certainly can open the bottom of my heart +to you; you will see only one image there." + +"Do you talk about our love to that man?" + +"He is my confessor." + +"Does he know that I love you?" + +"M. de Montriveau, you cannot claim, I think, to penetrate the +secrets of the confessional?" + +"Does that man know all about our quarrels and my love for +you?" + +"That man, monsieur; say God!" + +"God again! _I_ ought to be alone in your heart. But leave God +alone where He is, for the love of God and me. Madame, you SHALL +NOT go to confession again, or----" + +"Or?" she repeated sweetly. + +"Or I will never come back here." + +"Then go, Armand. Good-bye, good-bye forever." + +She rose and went to her boudoir without so much as a glance at +Armand, as he stood with his hand on the back of a chair. How +long he stood there motionless he himself never knew. The soul +within has the mysterious power of expanding as of contracting +space. + +He opened the door of the boudoir. It was dark within. A faint +voice was raised to say sharply-- + +"I did not ring. What made you come in without orders? Go +away, Suzette." + +"Then you are ill," exclaimed Montriveau. + +"Stand up, monsieur, and go out of the room for a minute at any +rate," she said, ringing the bell. + +"Mme la Duchesse rang for lights?" said the footman, coming in +with the candles. When the lovers were alone together, Mme de +Langeais still lay on her couch; she was just as silent and +motionless as if Montriveau had not been there. + +"Dear, I was wrong," he began, a note of pain and a sublime +kindness in his voice. "Indeed, I would not have you without +religion----" + +"It is fortunate that you can recognise the necessity of a +conscience," she said in a hard voice, without looking at him. +"I thank you in God's name." + +The General was broken down by her harshness; this woman seemed +as if she could be at will a sister or a stranger to him. He +made one despairing stride towards the door. He would leave her +forever without another word. He was wretched; and the Duchess +was laughing within herself over mental anguish far more cruel +than the old judicial torture. But as for going away, it was not +in his power to do it. In any sort of crisis, a woman is, as it +were, bursting with a certain quantity of things to say; so long +as she has not delivered herself of them, she experiences the +sensation which we are apt to feel at the sight of something +incomplete. Mme de Langeais had not said all that was in her +mind. She took up her parable and said-- + +"We have not the same convictions, General, I am pained to +think. It would be dreadful if a woman could not believe in a +religion which permits us to love beyond the grave. I set +Christian sentiments aside; you cannot understand them. Let me +simply speak to you of expediency. Would you forbid a woman at +court the table of the Lord when it is customary to take the +sacrament at Easter? People must certainly do something for +their party. The Liberals, whatever they may wish to do, will +never destroy the religious instinct. Religion will always be a +political necessity. Would you undertake to govern a nation of +logic-choppers? Napoleon was afraid to try; he persecuted +ideologists. If you want to keep people from reasoning, you must +give them something to feel. So let us accept the Roman Catholic +Church with all its consequences. And if we would have France go +to mass, ought we not to begin by going ourselves? Religion, you +see, Armand, is a bond uniting all the conservative principles +which enable the rich to live in tranquillity. Religion and the +rights of property are intimately connected. It is certainly a +finer thing to lead a nation by ideas of morality than by fear of +the scaffold, as in the time of the Terror--the one method by +which your odious Revolution could enforce obedience. The priest +and the king--that means you, and me, and the Princess my +neighbour; and, in a word, the interests of all honest people +personified. There, my friend, just be so good as to belong to +your party, you that might be its Sylla if you had the slightest +ambition that way. I know nothing about politics myself; I argue +from my own feelings; but still I know enough to guess that +society would be overturned if people were always calling its +foundations in question----" + +"If that is how your Court and your Government think, I am sorry +for you," broke in Montriveau. "The Restoration, madam, ought +to say, like Catherine de Medici, when she heard that the battle +of Dreux was lost, `Very well; now we will go to the +meeting-house.' Now 1815 was your battle of Dreux. Like the +royal power of those days, you won in fact, while you lost in +right. Political Protestantism has gained an ascendancy over +people's minds. If you have no mind to issue your Edict of +Nantes; or if, when it is issued, you publish a Revocation; if +you should one day be accused and convicted of repudiating the +Charter, which is simply a pledge given to maintain the interests +established under the Republic, then the Revolution will rise +again, terrible in her strength, and strike but a single blow. +It will not be the Revolution that will go into exile; she is the +very soil of France. Men die, but people's interests do not die. +. . . Eh, great Heavens! what are France and the crown and +rightful sovereigns, and the whole world besides, to us? Idle +words compared with my happiness. Let them reign or be hurled +from the throne, little do I care. Where am I now?" + +"In the Duchesse de Langeais's boudoir, my friend." + +"No, no. No more of the Duchess, no more of Langeais; I am with +my dear Antoinette." + +"Will you do me the pleasure to stay where you are," she said, +laughing and pushing him back, gently however. + +"So you have never loved me," he retorted, and anger flashed in +lightning from his eyes. + +"No, dear"; but the "No" was equivalent to "Yes." + +"I am a great ass," he said, kissing her hands. The terrible +queen was a woman once more.--"Antoinette," he went on, laying +his head on her feet, "you are too chastely tender to speak of +our happiness to anyone in this world." + +"Oh!" she cried, rising to her feet with a swift, graceful +spring, "you are a great simpleton." And without another word +she fled into the drawing-room. + +"What is it now?" wondered the General, little knowing that the +touch of his burning forehead had sent a swift electric thrill +through her from foot to head. + +In hot wrath he followed her to the drawing-room, only to hear +divinely sweet chords. The Duchess was at the piano. If the man +of science or the poet can at once enjoy and comprehend, bringing +his intelligence to bear upon his enjoyment without loss of +delight, he is conscious that the alphabet and phraseology of +music are but cunning instruments for the composer, like the wood +and copper wire under the hands of the executant. For the poet +and the man of science there is a music existing apart, +underlying the double expression of this language of the spirit +and senses. Andiamo mio ben can draw tears of joy or pitying +laughter at the will of the singer; and not unfrequently one here +and there in the world, some girl unable to live and bear the +heavy burden of an unguessed pain, some man whose soul vibrates +with the throb of passion, may take up a musical theme, and lo! +heaven is opened for them, or they find a language for themselves +in some sublime melody, some song lost to the world. + +The General was listening now to such a song; a mysterious music +unknown to all other ears, as the solitary plaint of some +mateless bird dying alone in a virgin forest. + +"Great Heavens! what are you playing there?" he asked in an +unsteady voice. + +"The prelude of a ballad, called, I believe, Fleuve du Tage." + +"I did not know that there was such music in a piano," he +returned. + +"Ah!" she said, and for the first time she looked at him as a +woman looks at the man she loves, "nor do you know, my friend, +that I love you, and that you cause me horrible suffering; and +that I feel that I must utter my cry of pain without putting it +too plainly into words. If I did not, I should yield----But you +see nothing." + +"And you will not make me happy!" + +"Armand, I should die of sorrow the next day." + +The General turned abruptly from her and went. But out in the +street he brushed away the tears that he would not let fall. + +The religious phase lasted for three months. At the end of that +time the Duchess grew weary of vain repetitions; the Deity, bound +hand and foot, was delivered up to her lover. Possibly she may +have feared that by sheer dint of talking of eternity she might +perpetuate his love in this world and the next. For her own +sake, it must be believed that no man had touched her heart, or +her conduct would be inexcusable. She was young; the time when +men and women feel that they cannot afford to lose time or to +quibble over their joys was still far off. She, no doubt, was on +the verge not of first love, but of her first experience of the +bliss of love. And from inexperience, for want of the painful +lessons which would have taught her to value the treasure poured +out at her feet, she was playing with it. Knowing nothing of the +glory and rapture of the light, she was fain to stay in the +shadow. + +Armand was just beginning to understand this strange situation; +he put his hope in the first word spoken by nature. Every +evening, as he came away from Mme de Langeais's, he told himself +that no woman would accept the tenderest, most delicate proofs of +a man's love during seven months, nor yield passively to the +slighter demands of passion, only to cheat love at the last. He +was waiting patiently for the sun to gain power, not doubting but +that he should receive the earliest fruits. The married woman's +hesitations and the religious scruples he could quite well +understand. He even rejoiced over those battles. He mistook the +Duchess's heartless coquetry for modesty; and he would not have +had her otherwise. So he had loved to see her devising +obstacles; was he not gradually triumphing over them? Did not +every victory won swell the meagre sum of lovers' intimacies long +denied, and at last conceded with every sign of love? Still, he +had had such leisure to taste the full sweetness of every small +successive conquest on which a lover feeds his love, that these +had come to be matters of use and wont. So far as obstacles +went, there were none now save his own awe of her; nothing else +left between him and his desire save the whims of her who allowed +him to call her Antoinette. So he made up his mind to demand +more, to demand all. Embarrassed like a young lover who cannot +dare to believe that his idol can stoop so low, he hesitated for +a long time. He passed through the experience of terrible +reactions within himself. A set purpose was annihilated by a +word, and definite resolves died within him on the threshold. He +despised himself for his weakness, and still his desire remained +unuttered. + +Nevertheless, one evening, after sitting in gloomy melancholy, he +brought out a fierce demand for his illegally legitimate rights. +The Duchess had not to wait for her bond-slave's request to guess +his desire. When was a man's desire a secret? And have not +women an intuitive knowledge of the meaning of certain changes of +countenance? + +"What! you wish to be my friend no longer?" she broke in at the +first words, and a divine red surging like new blood under the +transparent skin, lent brightness to her eyes. "As a reward for +my generosity, you would dishonour me? Just reflect a little. I +myself have thought much over this; and I think always for us +BOTH. There is such a thing as a woman's loyalty, and we can no +more fail in it than you can fail in honour. _I_ cannot blind +myself. If I am yours, how, in any sense, can I be M. de +Langeais's wife? Can you require the sacrifice of my position, +my rank, my whole life in return for a doubtful love that could +not wait patiently for seven months? What! already you would rob +me of my right to dispose of myself? No, no; you must not talk +like this again. No, not another word. I will not, I cannot +listen to you." + +Mme de Langeais raised both hands to her head to push back the +tufted curls from her hot forehead; she seemed very much excited. + +"You come to a weak woman with your purpose definitely planned +out. You say--`For a certain length of time she will talk to me +of her husband, then of God, and then of the inevitable +consequences. But I will use and abuse the ascendancy I shall +gain over her; I will make myself indispensable; all the bonds of +habit, all the misconstructions of outsiders, will make for me; +and at length, when our liaison is taken for granted by all the +world, I shall be this woman's master.'--Now, be frank; these are +your thoughts! Oh! you calculate, and you say that you love. +Shame on you! You are enamoured? Ah! that I well believe! You +wish to possess me, to have me for your mistress, that is all! +Very well then, No! The DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS will not descend so +far. Simple bourgeoises may be the victims of your treachery--I, +never! Nothing gives me assurance of your love. You speak of my +beauty; I may lose every trace of it in six months, like the dear +Princess, my neighbour. You are captivated by my wit, my grace. +Great Heavens! you would soon grow used to them and to the +pleasures of possession. Have not the little concessions that I +was weak enough to make come to be a matter of course in the last +few months? Some day, when ruin comes, you will give me no +reason for the change in you beyond a curt, `I have ceased to +care for you.'--Then, rank and fortune and honour and all that +was the Duchesse de Langeais will be swallowed up in one +disappointed hope. I shall have children to bear witness to my +shame, and----" With an involuntary gesture she interrupted +herself, and continued: "But I am too good-natured to explain +all this to you when you know it better than I. Come! let us +stay as we are. I am only too fortunate in that I can still +break these bonds which you think so strong. Is there anything +so very heroic in coming to the Hotel de Langeais to spend an +evening with a woman whose prattle amuses you?--a woman whom you +take for a plaything? Why, half a dozen young coxcombs come here +just as regularly every afternoon between three and five. They, +too, are very generous, I am to suppose? I make fun of them; +they stand my petulance and insolence pretty quietly, and make me +laugh; but as for you, I give all the treasures of my soul to +you, and you wish to ruin me, you try my patience in endless +ways. Hush, that will do, that will do," she continued, seeing +that he was about to speak, "you have no heart, no soul, no +delicacy. I know what you want to tell me. Very well, +then--yes. I would rather you should take me for a cold, +insensible woman, with no devotion in her composition, no heart +even, than be taken by everybody else for a vulgar person, and be +condemned to your so-called pleasures, of which you would most +certainly tire, and to everlasting punishment for it afterwards. +Your selfish love is not worth so many sacrifices. . . ." + +The words give but a very inadequate idea of the discourse which +the Duchess trilled out with the quick volubility of a +bird-organ. Nor, truly, was there anything to prevent her from +talking on for some time to come, for poor Armand's only reply to +the torrent of flute notes was a silence filled with cruelly +painful thoughts. He was just beginning to see that this woman +was playing with him; he divined instinctively that a devoted +love, a responsive love, does not reason and count the +consequences in this way. Then, as he heard her reproach him +with detestable motives, he felt something like shame as he +remembered that unconsciously he had made those very +calculations. With angelic honesty of purpose, he looked within, +and self-examination found nothing but selfishness in all his +thoughts and motives, in the answers which he framed and could +not utter. He was self-convicted. In his despair he longed to +fling himself from the window. The egoism of it was intolerable. + +What indeed can a man say when a woman will not believe in love? +Let me prove how much I love you.--The _I_ is always there. + +The heroes of the boudoir, in such circumstances, can follow the +example of the primitive logician who preceded the Pyrrhonists +and denied movement. Montriveau was not equal to this feat. +With all his audacity, he lacked this precise kind which never +deserts an adept in the formulas of feminine algebra. If so many +women, and even the best of women, fall a prey to a kind of +expert to whom the vulgar give a grosser name, it is perhaps +because the said experts are great PROVERS, and love, in spite of +its delicious poetry of sentiment, requires a little more +geometry than people are wont to think. + +Now the Duchess and Montriveau were alike in this--they were both +equally unversed in love lore. The lady's knowledge of theory +was but scanty; in practice she knew nothing whatever; she felt +nothing, and reflected over everything. Montriveau had had but +little experience, was absolutely ignorant of theory, and felt +too much to reflect at all. Both therefore were enduring the +consequences of the singular situation. At that supreme moment +the myriad thoughts in his mind might have been reduced to the +formula--"Submit to be mine ----' words which seem horribly +selfish to a woman for whom they awaken no memories, recall no +ideas. Something nevertheless he must say. And what was more, +though her barbed shafts had set his blood tingling, though the +short phrases that she discharged at him one by one were very +keen and sharp and cold, he must control himself lest he should +lose all by an outbreak of anger. + +"Mme la Duchesse, I am in despair that God should have invented +no way for a woman to confirm the gift of her heart save by +adding the gift of her person. The high value which you yourself +put upon the gift teaches me that I cannot attach less importance +to it. If you have given me your inmost self and your whole +heart, as you tell me, what can the rest matter? And besides, if +my happiness means so painful a sacrifice, let us say no more +about it. But you must pardon a man of spirit if he feels +humiliated at being taken for a spaniel." + +The tone in which the last remark was uttered might perhaps have +frightened another woman; but when the wearer of a petticoat has +allowed herself to be addressed as a Divinity, and thereby set +herself above all other mortals, no power on earth can be so +haughty. + +"M. le Marquis, I am in despair that God should not have +invented some nobler way for a man to confirm the gift of his +heart than by the manifestation of prodigiously vulgar desires. +We become bond-slaves when we give ourselves body and soul, but a +man is bound to nothing by accepting the gift. Who will assure +me that love will last? The very love that I might show for you +at every moment, the better to keep your love, might serve you as +a reason for deserting me. I have no wish to be a second edition +of Mme de Beauseant. Who can ever know what it is that keeps you +beside us? Our persistent coldness of heart is the cause of an +unfailing passion in some of you; other men ask for an untiring +devotion, to be idolised at every moment; some for gentleness, +others for tyranny. No woman in this world as yet has really +read the riddle of man's heart." + +There was a pause. When she spoke again it was in a different +tone. + +"After all, my friend, you cannot prevent a woman from trembling +at the question, `Will this love last always?' Hard though my +words may be, the dread of losing you puts them into my mouth. +Oh, me! it is not I who speaks, dear, it is reason; and how +should anyone so mad as I be reasonable? In truth, I am nothing +of the sort." + +The poignant irony of her answer had changed before the end into +the most musical accents in which a woman could find utterance +for ingenuous love. To listen to her words was to pass in a +moment from martyrdom to heaven. Montriveau grew pale; and for +the first time in his life, he fell on his knees before a woman. +He kissed the Duchess's skirt hem, her knees, her feet; but for +the credit of the Faubourg Saint-Germain it is necessary to +respect the mysteries of its boudoirs, where many are fain to +take the utmost that Love can give without giving proof of love +in return. + +The Duchess thought herself generous when she suffered herself to +be adored. But Montriveau was in a wild frenzy of joy over her +complete surrender of the position. + +"Dear Antoinette," he cried. "Yes, you are right; I will not +have you doubt any longer. I too am trembling at this +moment--lest the angel of my life should leave me; I wish I could +invent some tie that might bind us to each other irrevocably." + +"Ah!" she said, under her breath, "so I was right, you see." + +"Let me say all that I have to say; I will scatter all your +fears with a word. Listen! if I deserted you, I should deserve +to die a thousand deaths. Be wholly mine, and I will give you +the right to kill me if I am false. I myself will write a letter +explaining certain reasons for taking my own life; I will make my +final arrangements, in short. You shall have the letter in your +keeping; in the eye of the law it will be a sufficient +explanation of my death. You can avenge yourself, and fear +nothing from God or men." + +"What good would the letter be to me? What would life be if I +had lost your love? If I wished to kill you, should I not be +ready to follow? No; thank you for the thought, but I do not +want the letter. Should I not begin to dread that you were +faithful to me through fear? And if a man knows that he must +risk his life for a stolen pleasure, might it not seem more +tempting? Armand, the thing I ask of you is the one hard thing +to do." + +"Then what is it that you wish?" + +"Your obedience and my liberty." + +"Ah, God!" cried he, "I am a child." + +"A wayward, much spoilt child," she said, stroking the thick +hair, for his head still lay on her knee. "Ah! and loved far +more than he believes, and yet he is very disobedient. Why not +stay as we are? Why not sacrifice to me the desires that hurt +me? Why not take what I can give, when it is all that I can +honestly grant? Are you not happy?" + +"Oh yes, I am happy when I have not a doubt left. Antoinette, +doubt in love is a kind of death, is it not?" + +In a moment he showed himself as he was, as all men are under the +influence of that hot fever; he grew eloquent, insinuating. And +the Duchess tasted the pleasures which she reconciled with her +conscience by some private, Jesuitical ukase of her own; Armand's +love gave her a thrill of cerebral excitement which custom made +as necessary to her as society, or the Opera. To feel that she +was adored by this man, who rose above other men, whose character +frightened her; to treat him like a child; to play with him as +Poppaea played with Nero--many women, like the wives of King +Henry VIII, have paid for such a perilous delight with all the +blood in their veins. Grim presentiment! Even as she +surrendered the delicate, pale, gold curls to his touch, and felt +the close pressure of his hand, the little hand of a man whose +greatness she could not mistake; even as she herself played with +his dark, thick locks, in that boudoir where she reigned a queen, +the Duchess would say to herself-- + +"This man is capable of killing me if he once finds out that I +am playing with him." + +Armand de Montriveau stayed with her till two o'clock in the +morning. From that moment this woman, whom he loved, was neither +a duchess nor a Navarreins; Antoinette, in her disguises, had +gone so far as to appear to be a woman. On that most blissful +evening, the sweetest prelude ever played by a Parisienne to what +the world calls "a slip"; in spite of all her affectations of a +coyness which she did not feel, the General saw all maidenly +beauty in her. He had some excuse for believing that so many +storms of caprice had been but clouds covering a heavenly soul; +that these must be lifted one by one like the veils that hid her +divine loveliness. The Duchess became, for him, the most simple +and girlish mistress; she was the one woman in the world for him; +and he went away quite happy in that at last he had brought her +to give him such pledges of love, that it seemed to him +impossible but that he should be but her husband henceforth in +secret, her choice sanctioned by Heaven. + +Armand went slowly home, turning this thought in his mind with +the impartiality of a man who is conscious of all the +responsibilities that love lays on him while he tastes the +sweetness of its joys. He went along the Quais to see the widest +possible space of sky; his heart had grown in him; he would fain +have had the bounds of the firmament and of earth enlarged. It +seemed to him that his lungs drew an ampler breath. + +In the course of his self-examination, as he walked, he vowed to +love this woman so devoutly, that every day of her life she +should find absolution for her sins against society in unfailing +happiness. Sweet stirrings of life when life is at the full! +The man that is strong enough to steep his soul in the colour of +one emotion, feels infinite joy as glimpses open out for him of +an ardent lifetime that knows no diminution of passion to the +end; even so it is permitted to certain mystics, in ecstasy, to +behold the Light of God. Love would be naught without the belief +that it would last forever; love grows great through constancy. +It was thus that, wholly absorbed by his happiness, Montriveau +understood passion. + +"We belong to each other forever!" + +The thought was like a talisman fulfilling the wishes of his +life. He did not ask whether the Duchess might not change, +whether her love might not last. No, for he had faith. Without +that virtue there is no future for Christianity, and perhaps it +is even more necessary to society. A conception of life as +feeling occurred to him for the first time; hitherto he had lived +by action, the most strenuous exertion of human energies, the +physical devotion, as it may be called, of the soldier. + +Next day M. de Montriveau went early in the direction of the +Faubourg Saint-Germain. He had made an appointment at a house +not far from the Hotel de Langeais; and the business over, he +went thither as if to his own home. The General's companion +chanced to be a man for whom he felt a kind of repulsion whenever +he met him in other houses. This was the Marquis de +Ronquerolles, whose reputation had grown so great in Paris +boudoirs. He was witty, clever, and what was more--courageous; +he set the fashion to all the young men in Paris. As a man of +gallantry, his success and experience were equally matters of +envy; and neither fortune nor birth was wanting in his case, +qualifications which add such lustre in Paris to a reputation as +a leader of fashion. + +"Where are you going?" asked M. de Ronquerolles. + +"To Mme de Langeais's." + +"Ah, true. I forgot that you had allowed her to lime you. You +are wasting your affections on her when they might be much better +employed elsewhere. I could have told you of half a score of +women in the financial world, any one of them a thousand times +better worth your while than that titled courtesan, who does with +her brains what less artificial women do with----" + +"What is this, my dear fellow?" Armand broke in. "The Duchess +is an angel of innocence." + +Ronquerolles began to laugh. + +"Things being thus, dear boy," said he, "it is my duty to +enlighten you. Just a word; there is no harm in it between +ourselves. Has the Duchess surrendered? If so, I have nothing +more to say. Come, give me your confidence. There is no +occasion to waste your time in grafting your great nature on that +unthankful stock, when all your hopes and cultivation will come +to nothing." + +Armand ingenuously made a kind of general report of his position, +enumerating with much minuteness the slender rights so hardly +won. Ronquerolles burst into a peal of laughter so heartless, +that it would have cost any other man his life. But from their +manner of speaking and looking at each other during that colloquy +beneath the wall, in a corner almost as remote from intrusion as +the desert itself, it was easy to imagine the friendship between +the two men knew no bounds, and that no power on earth could +estrange them. + +"My dear Armand, why did you not tell me that the Duchess was a +puzzle to you? I would have given you a little advice which +might have brought your flirtation properly through. You must +know, to begin with, that the women of our Faubourg, like any +other women, love to steep themselves in love; but they have a +mind to possess and not to be possessed. They have made a sort +of compromise with human nature. The code of their parish gives +them a pretty wide latitude short of the last transgression. The +sweets enjoyed by this fair Duchess of yours are so many venial +sins to be washed away in the waters of penitence. But if you +had the impertinence to ask in earnest for the moral sin to which +naturally you are sure to attach the highest importance, you +would see the deep disdain with which the door of the boudoir and +the house would be incontinently shut upon you. The tender +Antoinette would dismiss everything from her memory; you would be +less than a cipher for her. She would wipe away your kisses, my +dear friend, as indifferently as she would perform her ablutions. + +She would sponge love from her cheeks as she washes off rouge. +We know women of that sort--the thorough-bred Parisienne. Have +you ever noticed a grisette tripping along the street? Her face +is as good as a picture. A pretty cap, fresh cheeks, trim hair, +a guileful smile, and the rest of her almost neglected. Is not +this true to the life? Well, that is the Parisienne. She knows +that her face is all that will be seen, so she devotes all her +care, finery, and vanity to her head. The Duchess is the same; +the head is everything with her. She can only feel through her +intellect, her heart lies in her brain, she is a sort of +intellectual epicure, she has a head-voice. We call that kind of +poor creature a Lais of the intellect. You have been taken in +like a boy. If you doubt it, you can have proof of it tonight, +this morning, this instant. Go up to her, try the demand as an +experiment, insist peremptorily if it is refused. You might set +about it like the late Marechal de Richelieu, and get nothing for +your pains." + +Armand was dumb with amazement. + +"Has your desire reached the point of infatuation?" + +"I want her at any cost!" Montriveau cried out despairingly. + +"Very well. Now, look here. Be as inexorable as she is +herself. Try to humiliate her, to sting her vanity. Do NOT try +to move her heart, nor her soul, but the woman's nerves and +temperament, for she is both nervous and lymphatic. If you can +once awaken desire in her, you are safe. But you must drop these +romantic boyish notions of yours. If when once you have her in +your eagle's talons you yield a point or draw back, if you so +much as stir an eyelid, if she thinks that she can regain her +ascendancy over you, she will slip out of your clutches like a +fish, and you will never catch her again. Be as inflexible as +law. Show no more charity than the headsman. Hit hard, and then +hit again. Strike and keep on striking as if you were giving her +the knout. Duchesses are made of hard stuff, my dear Armand; +there is a sort of feminine nature that is only softened by +repeated blows; and as suffering develops a heart in women of +that sort, so it is a work of charity not to spare the rod. Do +you persevere. Ah! when pain has thoroughly relaxed those nerves +and softened the fibres that you take to be so pliant and +yielding; when a shrivelled heart has learned to expand and +contract and to beat under this discipline; when the brain has +capitulated--then, perhaps, passion may enter among the steel +springs of this machinery that turns out tears and affectations +and languors and melting phrases; then you shall see a most +magnificent conflagration (always supposing that the chimney +takes fire). The steel feminine system will glow red-hot like +iron in the forge; that kind of heat lasts longer than any other, +and the glow of it may possibly turn to love. + +"Still," he continued, "I have my doubts. And, after all, is +it worth while to take so much trouble with the Duchess? Between +ourselves a man of my stamp ought first to take her in hand and +break her in; I would make a charming woman of her; she is a +thoroughbred; whereas, you two left to yourselves will never get +beyond the A B C. But you are in love with her, and just now you +might not perhaps share my views on this subject----. A pleasant +time to you, my children," added Ronquerolles, after a pause. +Then with a laugh: "I have decided myself for facile beauties; +they are tender, at any rate, the natural woman appears in their +love without any of your social seasonings. A woman that haggles +over herself, my poor boy, and only means to inspire love! Well, +have her like an extra horse--for show. The match between the +sofa and confessional, black and white, queen and knight, +conscientious scruples and pleasure, is an uncommonly amusing +game of chess. And if a man knows the game, let him be never so +little of a rake, he wins in three moves. Now, if I undertook a +woman of that sort, I should start with the deliberate purpose +of----" His voice sank to a whisper over the last words in +Armand's ear, and he went before there was time to reply. + +As for Montriveau, he sprang at a bound across the courtyard of +the Hotel de Langeais, went unannounced up the stairs straight to +the Duchess's bedroom. + +"This is an unheard-of thing," she said, hastily wrapping her +dressing-gown about her. "Armand! this is abominable of you! +Come, leave the room, I beg. Just go out of the room, and go at +once. Wait for me in the drawing-room.--Come now!" + +"Dear angel, has a plighted lover no privilege whatsoever?" + +"But, monsieur, it is in the worst possible taste of a plighted +lover or a wedded husband to break in like this upon his wife." + +He came up to the Duchess, took her in his arms, and held her +tightly to him. + +"Forgive, dear Antoinette; but a host of horrid doubts are +fermenting in my heart." + +"DOUBTS? Fie!--Oh, fie on you!" + +"Doubts all but justified. If you loved me, would you make this +quarrel? Would you not be glad to see me? Would you not have +felt a something stir in your heart? For I, that am not a woman, +feel a thrill in my inmost self at the mere sound of your voice. +Often in a ballroom a longing has come upon me to spring to your +side and put my arms about your neck." + +"Oh! if you have doubts of me so long as I am not ready to +spring to your arms before all the world, I shall be doubted all +my life long, I suppose. Why, Othello was a mere child compared +with you!" + +"Ah!" he cried despairingly, "you have no love for me----" + +"Admit, at any rate, that at this moment you are not lovable." +Then I have still to find favour in your sight?" + +"Oh, I should think so. Come," added she, "with a little +imperious air, go out of the room, leave me. I am not like you; +I wish always to find favour in your eyes." + +Never woman better understood the art of putting charm into +insolence, and does not the charm double the effect? is it not +enough to infuriate the coolest of men? There was a sort of +untrammelled freedom about Mme de Langeais; a something in her +eyes, her voice, her attitude, which is never seen in a woman who +loves when she stands face to face with him at the mere sight of +whom her heart must needs begin to beat. The Marquis de +Ronquerolles's counsels had cured Armand of sheepishness; and +further, there came to his aid that rapid power of intuition +which passion will develop at moments in the least wise among +mortals, while a great man at such a time possesses it to the +full. He guessed the terrible truth revealed by the Duchess's +nonchalance, and his heart swelled with the storm like a lake +rising in flood. + +"If you told me the truth yesterday, be mine, dear Antoinette," +he cried; "you shall----" + +"In the first place," said she composedly, thrusting him back +as he came nearer--"in the first place, you are not to +compromise me. My woman might overhear you. Respect me, I beg +of you. Your familiarity is all very well in my boudoir in an +evening; here it is quite different. Besides, what may your `you +shall' mean? `You shall.' No one as yet has ever used that word +to me. It is quite ridiculous, it seems to me, absolutely +ridiculous. + +"Will you surrender nothing to me on this point?" + +"Oh! do you call a woman's right to dispose of herself a +`point?' A capital point indeed; you will permit me to be +entirely my own mistress on that `point.' " + +"And how if, believing in your promises to me, I should +absolutely require it?" + +"Oh! then you would prove that I made the greatest possible +mistake when I made you a promise of any kind; and I should beg +you to leave me in peace." + +The General's face grew white; he was about to spring to her +side, when Mme de Langeais rang the bell, the maid appeared, and, +smiling with a mocking grace, the Duchess added, "Be so good as +to return when I am visible." + +Then Montriveau felt the hardness of a woman as cold and keen as +a steel blade; she was crushing in her scorn. In one moment she +had snapped the bonds which held firm only for her lover. She +had read Armand's intention in his face, and held that the moment +had come for teaching the Imperial soldier his lesson. He was to +be made to feel that though duchesses may lend themselves to +love, they do not give themselves, and that the conquest of one +of them would prove a harder matter than the conquest of Europe. + +"Madame," returned Armand, "I have not time to wait. I am a +spoilt child, as you told me yourself. When I seriously resolve +to have that of which we have been speaking, I shall have it." + +"You will have it?" queried she, and there was a trace of +surprise in her loftiness. + +"I shall have it." + +"Oh! you would do me a great pleasure by `resolving' to have it. + +For curiosity's sake, I should be delighted to know how you would +set about it----" + +"I am delighted to put a new interest into your life," +interrupted Montriveau, breaking into a laugh which dismayed the +Duchess. "Will you permit me to take you to the ball tonight?" + +"A thousand thanks. M. de Marsay has been beforehand with you. +I gave him my promise." + +Montriveau bowed gravely and went. + +"So Ronquerolles was right," thought he, "and now for a game +of chess." + +Thenceforward he hid his agitation by complete composure. No man +is strong enough to bear such sudden alternations from the height +of happiness to the depths of wretchedness. So he had caught a +glimpse of happy life the better to feel the emptiness of his +previous existence? There was a terrible storm within him; but +he had learned to endure, and bore the shock of tumultuous +thoughts as a granite cliff stands out against the surge of an +angry sea. + +"I could say nothing. When I am with her my wits desert me. +She does not know how vile and contemptible she is. Nobody has +ventured to bring her face to face with herself. She has played +with many a man, no doubt; I will avenge them all." + +For the first time, it may be, in a man's heart, revenge and love +were blended so equally that Montriveau himself could not know +whether love or revenge would carry all before it. That very +evening he went to the ball at which he was sure of seeing the +Duchesse de Langeais, and almost despaired of reaching her heart. + +He inclined to think that there was something diabolical about +this woman, who was gracious to him and radiant with charming +smiles; probably because she had no wish to allow the world to +think that she had compromised herself with M. de Montriveau. +Coolness on both sides is a sign of love; but so long as the +Duchess was the same as ever, while the Marquis looked sullen and +morose, was it not plain that she had conceded nothing? +Onlookers know the rejected lover by various signs and tokens; +they never mistake the genuine symptoms for a coolness such as +some women command their adorers to feign, in the hope of +concealing their love. Everyone laughed at Montriveau; and he, +having omitted to consult his cornac, was abstracted and ill at +ease. M. de Ronquerolles would very likely have bidden him +compromise the Duchess by responding to her show of friendliness +by passionate demonstrations; but as it was, Armand de Montriveau +came away from the ball, loathing human nature, and even then +scarcely ready to believe in such complete depravity. + +"If there is no executioner for such crimes," he said, as he +looked up at the lighted windows of the ballroom where the most +enchanting women in Paris were dancing, laughing, and chatting, +"I will take you by the nape of the neck, Mme la Duchesse, and +make you feel something that bites more deeply than the knife in +the Place de la Greve. Steel against steel; we shall see which +heart will leave the deeper mark." + +For a week or so Mme de Langeais hoped to see the Marquis de +Montriveau again; but he contented himself with sending his card +every morning to the Hotel de Langeais. The Duchess could not +help shuddering each time that the card was brought in, and a dim +foreboding crossed her mind, but the thought was vague as a +presentiment of disaster. When her eyes fell on the name, it +seemed to her that she felt the touch of the implacable man's +strong hand in her hair; sometimes the words seemed like a +prognostication of a vengeance which her lively intellect +invented in the most shocking forms. She had studied him too +well not to dread him. Would he murder her, she wondered? Would +that bull-necked man dash out her vitals by flinging her over his +head? Would he trample her body under his feet? When, where, +and how would he get her into his power? Would he make her +suffer very much, and what kind of pain would he inflict? She +repented of her conduct. There were hours when, if he had come, +she would have gone to his arms in complete self-surrender. + +Every night before she slept she saw Montriveau's face; every +night it wore a different aspect. Sometimes she saw his bitter +smile, sometimes the Jovelike knitting of the brows; or his +leonine look, or some disdainful movement of the shoulders made +him terrible for her. Next day the card seemed stained with +blood. The name of Montriveau stirred her now as the presence of +the fiery, stubborn, exacting lover had never done. Her +apprehensions gathered strength in the silence. She was forced, +without aid from without, to face the thought of a hideous duel +of which she could not speak. Her proud hard nature was more +responsive to thrills of hate than it had ever been to the +caresses of love. Ah! if the General could but have seen her, as +she sat with her forehead drawn into folds between her brows; +immersed in bitter thoughts in that boudoir where he had enjoyed +such happy moments, he might perhaps have conceived high hopes. +Of all human passions, is not pride alone incapable of +engendering anything base? Mme de Langeais kept her thoughts to +herself, but is it not permissible to suppose that M. de +Montriveau was no longer indifferent to her? And has not a man +gained ground immensely when a woman thinks about him? He is +bound to make progress with her either one way or the other +afterwards. + +Put any feminine creature under the feet of a furious horse or +other fearsome beast; she will certainly drop on her knees and +look for death; but if the brute shows a milder mood and does not +utterly slay her, she will love the horse, lion, bull, or what +not, and will speak of him quite at her ease. The Duchess felt +that she was under the lion's paws; she quaked, but she did not +hate him. + +The man and woman thus singularly placed with regard to each +other met three times in society during the course of that week. +Each time, in reply to coquettish questioning glances, the +Duchess received a respectful bow, and smiles tinged with such +savage irony, that all her apprehensions over the card in the +morning were revived at night. Our lives are simply such as our +feelings shape them for us; and the feelings of these two had +hollowed out a great gulf between them + +The Comtesse de Serizy, the Marquis de Ronquerolles's sister, +gave a great ball at the beginning of the following week, and Mme +de Langeais was sure to go to it. Armand was the first person +whom the Duchess saw when she came into the room, and this time +Armand was looking out for her, or so she thought at least. The +two exchanged a look, and suddenly the woman felt a cold +perspiration break from every pore. She had thought all along +that Montriveau was capable of taking reprisals in some +unheard-of way proportioned to their condition, and now the +revenge had been discovered, it was ready, heated, and boiling. +Lightnings flashed from the foiled lover's eyes, his face was +radiant with exultant vengeance. And the Duchess? Her eyes were +haggard in spite of her resolution to be cool and insolent. She +went to take her place beside the Comtesse de Serizy, who could +not help exclaiming, "Dear Antoinette! what is the matter with +you? You are enough to frighten one." + +"I shall be all right after a quadrille," she answered, giving +a hand to a young man who came up at that moment. + +Mme de Langeais waltzed that evening with a sort of excitement +and transport which redoubled Montriveau's lowering looks. He +stood in front of the line of spectators, who were amusing +themselves by looking on. Every time that SHE came past him, his +eyes darted down upon her eddying face; he might have been a +tiger with the prey in his grasp. The waltz came to an end, Mme +de Langeais went back to her place beside the Countess, and +Montriveau never took his eyes off her, talking all the while +with a stranger. + +"One of the things that struck me most on the journey," he was +saying (and the Duchess listened with all her ears), "was the +remark which the man makes at Westminster when you are shown the +axe with which a man in a mask cut off Charles the First's head, +so they tell you. The King made it first of all to some +inquisitive person, and they repeat it still in memory of him." + +"What does the man say?" asked Mme de Serizy. + +" `Do not touch the axe!' " replied Montriveau, and there was +menace in the sound of his voice. + +"Really, my Lord Marquis," said Mme de Langeais, "you tell +this old story that everybody knows if they have been to London, +and look at my neck in such a melodramatic way that you seem to +me to have an axe in your hand." + +The Duchess was in a cold sweat, but nevertheless she laughed as +she spoke the last words. + +"But circumstances give the story a quite new application," +returned he. + +"How so; pray tell me, for pity's sake?" + +"In this way, madame--you have touched the axe," said +Montriveau, lowering his voice. + +"What an enchanting prophecy!" returned she, smiling with +assumed grace. "And when is my head to fall?" + +"I have no wish to see that pretty head of yours cut off. I +only fear some great misfortune for you. If your head were +clipped close, would you feel no regrets for the dainty golden +hair that you turn to such good account?" + +"There are those for whom a woman would love to make such a +sacrifice; even if, as often happens, it is for the sake of a man +who cannot make allowances for an outbreak of temper." + +"Quite so. Well, and if some wag were to spoil your beauty on a +sudden by some chemical process, and you, who are but eighteen +for us, were to be a hundred years old?" + +"Why, the smallpox is our Battle of Waterloo, monsieur," she +interrupted. "After it is over we find out those who love us +sincerely." + +"Would you not regret the lovely face that?" + +"Oh! indeed I should, but less for my own sake than for the sake +of someone else whose delight it might have been. And, after +all, if I were loved, always loved, and truly loved, what would +my beauty matter to me?--What do you say, Clara?" + +"It is a dangerous speculation," replied Mme de Serizy. + +"Is it permissible to ask His Majesty the King of Sorcerers when +I made the mistake of touching the axe, since I have not been to +London as yet?----" + +"NOT SO," he answered in English, with a burst of ironical +laughter. + +"And when will the punishment begin?" + +At this Montriveau coolly took out his watch, and ascertained the +hour with a truly appalling air of conviction. + +"A dreadful misfortune will befall you before this day is out." + +"I am not a child to be easily frightened, or rather, I am a +child ignorant of danger," said the Duchess. "I shall dance +now without fear on the edge of the precipice." + +"I am delighted to know that you have so much strength of +character," he answered, as he watched her go to take her place +in a square dance. + +But the Duchess, in spite of her apparent contempt for Armand's +dark prophecies, was really frightened. Her late lover's +presence weighed upon her morally and physically with a sense of +oppression that scarcely ceased when he left the ballroom. And +yet when she had drawn freer breath, and enjoyed the relief for a +moment, she found herself regretting the sensation of dread, so +greedy of extreme sensations is the feminine nature. The regret +was not love, but it was certainly akin to other feelings which +prepare the way for love. And then--as if the impression which +Montriveau had made upon her were suddenly revived--she +recollected his air of conviction as he took out his watch, and +in a sudden spasm of dread she went out. + +By this time it was about midnight. One of her servants, waiting +with her pelisse, went down to order her carriage. On her way +home she fell naturally enough to musing over M. de Montriveau's +prediction. Arrived in her own courtyard, as she supposed, she +entered a vestibule almost like that of her own hotel, and +suddenly saw that the staircase was different. She was in a +strange house. Turning to call her servants, she was attacked by +several men, who rapidly flung a handkerchief over her mouth, +bound her hand and foot, and carried her off. She shrieked +aloud. + +"Madame, our orders are to kill you if you scream," a voice +said in her ear. + +So great was the Duchess's terror, that she could never recollect +how nor by whom she was transported. When she came to herself, +she was lying on a couch in a bachelor's lodging, her hands and +feet tied with silken cords. In spite of herself, she shrieked +aloud as she looked round and met Armand de Montriveau's eyes. +He was sitting in his dressing-gown, quietly smoking a cigar in +his armchair. + +"Do not cry out, Mme la Duchesse," he said, coolly taking the +cigar out of his mouth; "I have a headache. Besides, I will +untie you. But listen attentively to what I have the honour to +say to you." + +Very carefully he untied the knots that bound her feet. + +"What would be the use of calling out? Nobody can hear your +cries. You are too well bred to make any unnecessary fuss. If +you do not stay quietly, if you insist upon a struggle with me, I +shall tie your hands and feet again. All things considered, I +think that you have self-respect enough to stay on this sofa as +if you were lying on your own at home; cold as ever, if you will. + +You have made me shed many tears on this couch, tears that I hid +from all other eyes." + +While Montriveau was speaking, the Duchess glanced about her; it +was a woman's glance, a stolen look that saw all things and +seemed to see nothing. She was much pleased with the room. It +was rather like a monk's cell. The man's character and thoughts +seemed to pervade it. No decoration of any kind broke the grey +painted surface of the walls. A green carpet covered the floor. +A black sofa, a table littered with papers, two big easy-chairs, +a chest of drawers with an alarum clock by way of ornament, a +very low bedstead with a coverlet flung over it--a red cloth with +a black key border--all these things made part of a whole that +told of a life reduced to its simplest terms. A triple +candle-sconce of Egyptian design on the chimney-piece recalled +the vast spaces of the desert and Montriveau's long wanderings; a +huge sphinx-claw stood out beneath the folds of stuff at the +bed-foot; and just beyond, a green curtain with a black and +scarlet border was suspended by large rings from a spear handle +above a door near one corner of the room. The other door by +which the band had entered was likewise curtained, but the +drapery hung from an ordinary curtain-rod. As the Duchess +finally noted that the pattern was the same on both, she saw that +the door at the bed-foot stood open; gleams of ruddy light from +the room beyond flickered below the fringed border. Naturally, +the ominous light roused her curiosity; she fancied she could +distinguish strange shapes in the shadows; but as it did not +occur to her at the time that danger could come from that +quarter, she tried to gratify a more ardent curiosity. + +"Monsieur, if it is not indiscreet, may I ask what you mean to +do with me?" The insolence and irony of the tone stung through +the words. The Duchess quite believed that she read extravagant +love in Montriveau's speech. He had carried her off; was not +that in itself an acknowledgment of her power? + +"Nothing whatever, madame," he returned, gracefully puffing the +last whiff of cigar smoke. "You will remain here for a short +time. First of all, I should like to explain to you what you +are, and what I am. I cannot put my thoughts into words whilst +you are twisting on the sofa in your boudoir; and besides, in +your own house you take offence at the slightest hint, you ring +the bell, make an outcry, and turn your lover out at the door as +if he were the basest of wretches. Here my mind is unfettered. +Here nobody can turn me out. Here you shall be my victim for a +few seconds, and you are going to be so exceedingly kind as to +listen to me. You need fear nothing. I did not carry you off to +insult you, nor yet to take by force what you refused to grant of +your own will to my unworthiness. I could not stoop so low. You +possibly think of outrage; for myself, I have no such thoughts." + +He flung his cigar coolly into the fire. + +"The smoke is unpleasant to you, no doubt, madame?" he said, +and rising at once, he took a chafing-dish from the hearth, burnt +perfumes, and purified the air. The Duchess's astonishment was +only equalled by her humiliation. She was in this man's power; +and he would not abuse his power. The eyes in which love had +once blazed like flame were now quiet and steady as stars. She +trembled. Her dread of Armand was increased by a nightmare +sensation of restlessness and utter inability to move; she felt +as if she were turned to stone. She lay passive in the grip of +fear. She thought she saw the light behind the curtains grow to +a blaze, as if blown up by a pair of bellows; in another moment +the gleams of flame grew brighter, and she fancied that three +masked figures suddenly flashed out; but the terrible vision +disappeared so swiftly that she took it for an optical delusion. + +"Madame," Armand continued with cold contempt, "one minute, +just one minute is enough for me, and you shall feel it +afterwards at every moment throughout your lifetime, the one +eternity over which I have power. I am not God. Listen +carefully to me," he continued, pausing to add solemnity to his +words. "Love will always come at your call. You have boundless +power over men: but remember that once you called love, and love +came to you; love as pure and true-hearted as may be on earth, +and as reverent as it was passionate; fond as a devoted woman's, +as a mother's love; a love so great indeed, that it was past the +bounds of reason. You played with it, and you committed a crime. + +Every woman has a right to refuse herself to love which she feels +she cannot share; and if a man loves and cannot win love in +return, he is not to be pitied, he has no right to complain. But +with a semblance of love to attract an unfortunate creature cut +off from all affection; to teach him to understand happiness to +the full, only to snatch it from him; to rob him of his future of +felicity; to slay his happiness not merely today, but as long as +his life lasts, by poisoning every hour of it and every +thought--this I call a fearful crime!" + +"Monsieur----" + +"I cannot allow you to answer me yet. So listen to me still. +In any case I have rights over you; but I only choose to exercise +one--the right of the judge over the criminal, so that I may +arouse your conscience. If you had no conscience left, I should +not reproach you at all; but you are so young! You must feel +some life still in your heart; or so I like to believe. While I +think of you as depraved enough to do a wrong which the law does +not punish, I do not think you so degraded that you cannot +comprehend the full meaning of my words. I resume." + +As he spoke the Duchess heard the smothered sound of a pair of +bellows. Those mysterious figures which she had just seen were +blowing up the fire, no doubt; the glow shone through the +curtain. But Montriveau's lurid face was turned upon her; she +could not choose but wait with a fast-beating heart and eyes +fixed in a stare. However curious she felt, the heat in Armand's +words interested her even more than the crackling of the +mysterious flames. + +"Madame," he went on after a pause, "if some poor wretch +commits a murder in Paris, it is the executioner's duty, you +know, to lay hands on him and stretch him on the plank, where +murderers pay for their crimes with their heads. Then the +newspapers inform everyone, rich and poor, so that the former are +assured that they may sleep in peace, and the latter are warned +that they must be on the watch if they would live. Well, you +that are religious, and even a little of a bigot, may have masses +said for such a man's soul. You both belong to the same family, +but yours is the elder branch; and the elder branch may occupy +high places in peace and live happily and without cares. Want or +anger may drive your brother the convict to take a man's life; +you have taken more, you have taken the joy out of a man's life, +you have killed all that was best in his life--his dearest +beliefs. The murderer simply lay in wait for his victim, and +killed him reluctantly, and in fear of the scaffold; but YOU . . +. ! You heaped up every sin that weakness can commit against +strength that suspected no evil; you tamed a passive victim, the +better to gnaw his heart out; you lured him with caresses; you +left nothing undone that could set him dreaming, imagining, +longing for the bliss of love. You asked innumerable sacrifices +of him, only to refuse to make any in return. He should see the +light indeed before you put out his eyes! It is wonderful how +you found the heart to do it! Such villainies demand a display +of resource quite above the comprehension of those bourgeoises +whom you laugh at and despise. They can give and forgive; they +know how to love and suffer. The grandeur of their devotion +dwarfs us. Rising higher in the social scale, one finds just as +much mud as at the lower end; but with this difference, at the +upper end it is hard and gilded over. + +"Yes, to find baseness in perfection, you must look for a noble +bringing up, a great name, a fair woman, a duchess. You cannot +fall lower than the lowest unless you are set high above the rest +of the world.--I express my thoughts badly; the wounds you dealt +me are too painful as yet, but do not think that I complain. My +words are not the expression of any hope for myself; there is no +trace of bitterness in them. Know this, madame, for a +certainty--I forgive you. My forgiveness is so complete that you +need not feel in the least sorry that you came hither to find it +against your will. . . . But you might take advantage of other +hearts as child-like as my own, and it is my duty to spare them +anguish. So you have inspired the thought of justice. Expiate +your sin here on earth; God may perhaps forgive you; I wish that +He may, but He is inexorable, and will strike." + +The broken-spirited, broken-hearted woman looked up, her eyes +filled with tears. + +"Why do you cry? Be true to your nature. You could look on +indifferently at the torture of a heart as you broke it. That +will do, madame, do not cry. I cannot bear it any longer. Other +men will tell you that you have given them life; as for myself, I +tell you, with rapture, that you have given me blank extinction. +Perhaps you guess that I am not my own, that I am bound to live +for my friends, that from this time forth I must endure the cold +chill of death, as well as the burden of life? Is it possible +that there can be so much kindness in you? Are you like the +desert tigress that licks the wounds she has inflicted?" + +The Duchess burst out sobbing. + +"Pray spare your tears, madame. If I believed in them at all, +it would merely set me on my guard. Is this another of your +artifices? or is it not? You have used so many with me; how can +one think that there is any truth in you? Nothing that you do or +say has any power now to move me. That is all I have to say." + +Mme de Langeais rose to her feet, with a great dignity and +humility in her bearing. + +"You are right to treat me very hardly," she said, holding out +a hand to the man who did not take it; "you have not spoken +hardly enough; and I deserve this punishment." + +"_I_ punish you, madame! A man must love still, to punish, must +he not? From me you must expect no feeling, nothing resembling +it. If I chose, I might be accuser and judge in my cause, and +pronounce and carry out the sentence. But I am about to fulfil a +duty, not a desire of vengeance of any kind. The cruellest +revenge of all, I think, is scorn of revenge when it is in our +power to take it. Perhaps I shall be the minister of your +pleasures; who knows? Perhaps from this time forth, as you +gracefully wear the tokens of disgrace by which society marks out +the criminal, you may perforce learn something of the convict's +sense of honour. And then, you will love!" + +The Duchess sat listening; her meekness was unfeigned; it was no +coquettish device. When she spoke at last, it was after a +silence. + +"Armand," she began, "it seems to me that when I resisted +love, I was obeying all the instincts of woman's modesty; I +should not have looked for such reproaches from YOU. I was weak; +you have turned all my weaknesses against me, and made so many +crimes of them. How could you fail to understand that the +curiosity of love might have carried me further than I ought to +go; and that next morning I might be angry with myself, and +wretched because I had gone too far? Alas! I sinned in +ignorance. I was as sincere in my wrongdoing, I swear to you, as +in my remorse. There was far more love for you in my severity +than in my concessions. And besides, of what do you complain? I +gave you my heart; that was not enough; you demanded, brutally, +that I should give my person----" + +"Brutally?" repeated Montriveau. But to himself he said, "If +I once allow her to dispute over words, I am lost." + +"Yes. You came to me as if I were one of those women. You +showed none of the respect, none of the attentions of love. Had +I not reason to reflect? Very well, I reflected. The +unseemliness of your conduct is not inexcusable; love lay at the +source of it; let me think so, and justify you to myself.--Well, +Armand, this evening, even while you were prophesying evil, I +felt convinced that there was happiness in store for us both. +Yes, I put my faith in the noble, proud nature so often tested +and proved." She bent lower. "And I was yours wholly," she +murmured in his ear. "I felt a longing that I cannot express to +give happiness to a man so violently tried by adversity. If I +must have a master, my master should be a great man. As I felt +conscious of my height, the less I cared to descend. I felt I +could trust you, I saw a whole lifetime of love, while you were +pointing to death. . . . Strength and kindness always go +together. My friend, you are so strong, you will not be unkind +to a helpless woman who loves you. If I was wrong, is there no +way of obtaining forgiveness? No way of making reparation? +Repentance is the charm of love; I should like to be very +charming for you. How could I, alone among women, fail to know a +woman's doubts and fears, the timidity that it is so natural to +feel when you bind yourself for life, and know how easily a man +snaps such ties? The bourgeoises, with whom you compared me just +now, give themselves, but they struggle first. Very well--I +struggled; but here I am!--Ah! God, he does not hear me!" she +broke off, and wringing her hands, she cried out "But I love +you! I am yours!" and fell at Armand's feet. + +"Yours! yours! my one and only master!" + +Armand tried to raise her. + +"Madame, it is too late! Antoinette cannot save the Duchesse de +Langeais. I cannot believe in either. Today you may give +yourself; tomorrow, you may refuse. No power in earth or heaven +can insure me the sweet constancy of love. All love's pledges +lay in the past; and now nothing of that past exists." + +The light behind the curtain blazed up so brightly, that the +Duchess could not help turning her head; this time she distinctly +saw the three masked figures. + +"Armand," she said, "I would not wish to think ill of you. +Why are those men there? What are you going to do to me?" + +"Those men will be as silent as I myself with regard to the +thing which is about to be done. Think of them simply as my +hands and my heart. One of them is a surgeon----" + +"A surgeon! Armand, my friend, of all things, suspense is the +hardest to bear. Just speak; tell me if you wish for my life; I +will give it to you, you shall not take it----" + +"Then you did not understand me? Did I not speak just now of +justice? To put an end to your misapprehensions," continued he, +taking up a small steel object from the table, "I will now +explain what I have decided with regard to you." + +He held out a Lorraine cross, fastened to the tip of a steel rod. + +"Two of my friends at this very moment are heating another +cross, made on this pattern, red-hot. We are going to stamp it +upon your forehead, here between the eyes, so that there will be +no possibility of hiding the mark with diamonds, and so avoiding +people's questions. In short, you shall bear on your forehead +the brand of infamy which your brothers the convicts wear on +their shoulders. The pain is a mere trifle, but I feared a +nervous crisis of some kind, of resistance----" + +"Resistance?" she cried, clapping her hands for joy. "Oh no, +no! I would have the whole world here to see. Ah, my Armand, +brand her quickly, this creature of yours; brand her with your +mark as a poor little trifle belonging to you. You asked for +pledges of my love; here they are all in one. Ah! for me there +is nothing but mercy and forgiveness and eternal happiness in +this revenge of yours. When you have marked this woman with your +mark, when you set your crimson brand on her, your slave in soul, +you can never afterwards abandon her, you will be mine for +evermore? When you cut me off from my kind, you make yourself +responsible for my happiness, or you prove yourself base; and I +know that you are noble and great! Why, when a woman loves, the +brand of love is burnt into her soul by her own will.--Come in, +gentlemen! come in and brand her, this Duchesse de Langeais. She +is M. de Montriveau's forever! Ah! come quickly, all of you, my +forehead burns hotter than your fire!" + +Armand turned his head sharply away lest he should see the +Duchess kneeling, quivering with the throbbings of her heart. He +said some word, and his three friends vanished. + +The women of Paris salons know how one mirror reflects another. +The Duchess, with every motive for reading the depths of Armand's +heart, was all eyes; and Armand, all unsuspicious of the mirror, +brushed away two tears as they fell. Her whole future lay in +those two tears. When he turned round again to help her to rise, +she was standing before him, sure of love. Her pulses must have +throbbed fast when he spoke with the firmness she had known so +well how to use of old while she played with him. + +"I spare you, madame. All that has taken place shall be as if +it had never been, you may believe me. But now, let us bid each +other goodbye. I like to think that you were sincere in your +coquetries on your sofa, sincere again in this outpouring of your +heart. Good-bye. I feel that there is no faith in you left in +me. You would torment me again; you would always be the Duchess, +and---- But there, good-bye, we shall never understand each +other. + +"Now, what do you wish?" he continued, taking the tone of a +master of the ceremonies--"to return home, or to go back to Mme +de Serizy's ball? I have done all in my power to prevent any +scandal. Neither your servants nor anyone else can possibly know +what has passed between us in the last quarter of an hour. Your +servants have no idea that you have left the ballroom; your +carriage never left Mme de Serizy's courtyard; your brougham may +likewise be found in the court of your own hotel. Where do you +wish to be?" + +"What do you counsel, Armand?" + +"There is no Armand now, Mme la Duchesse. We are strangers to +each other." + +"Then take me to the ball," she said, still curious to put +Armand's power to the test. "Thrust a soul that suffered in the +world, and must always suffer there, if there is no happiness for +her now, down into hell again. And yet, oh my friend, I love you +as your bourgeoises love; I love you so that I could come to you +and fling my arms about your neck before all the world if you +asked it off me. The hateful world has not corrupted me. I am +young at least, and I have grown younger still. I am a child, +yes, your child, your new creature. Ah! do not drive me forth +out of my Eden!" + +Armand shook his head. + +"Ah! let me take something with me, if I go, some little thing +to wear tonight on my heart," she said, taking possession of +Armand's glove, which she twisted into her handkerchief. + +"No, I am NOT like all those depraved women. You do not know +the world, and so you cannot know my worth. You shall know it +now! There are women who sell themselves for money; there are +others to be gained by gifts, it is a vile world! Oh, I wish I +were a simple bourgeoise, a working girl, if you would rather +have a woman beneath you than a woman whose devotion is +accompanied by high rank, as men count it. Oh, my Armand, there +are noble, high, and chaste and pure natures among us; and then +they are lovely indeed. I would have all nobleness that I might +offer it all up to you. Misfortune willed that I should be a +duchess; I would I were a royal princess, that my offering might +be complete. I would be a grisette for you, and a queen for +everyone besides." + +He listened, damping his cigars with his lips. + +"You will let me know when you wish to go," he said. + +"But I should like to stay----" + +"That is another matter!" + +"Stay, that was badly rolled," she cried, seizing on a cigar +and devouring all that Armand's lips had touched. + +"Do you smoke?" + +"Oh, what would I not do to please you?" + +"Very well. Go, madame." + +"I will obey you," she answered, with tears in her eyes. + +"You must be blindfolded; you must not see a glimpse of the +way." + +"I am ready, Armand," she said, bandaging her eyes. + +"Can you see?" + +"No." + +Noiselessly he knelt before her. + +"Ah! I can hear you!" she cried, with a little fond gesture, +thinking that the pretence of harshness was over. + +He made as if he would kiss her lips; she held up her face. + +"You can see, madame." + +"I am just a little bit curious." + +"So you always deceive me?" + +"Ah! take off this handkerchief, sir," she cried out, with the +passion of a great generosity repelled with scorn, "lead me; I +will not open my eyes." + +Armand felt sure of her after that cry. He led the way; the +Duchess nobly true to her word, was blind. But while Montriveau +held her hand as a father might, and led her up and down flights +of stairs, he was studying the throbbing pulses of this woman's +heart so suddenly invaded by Love. Mme de Langeais, rejoicing in +this power of speech, was glad to let him know all; but he was +inflexible; his hand was passive in reply to the questionings of +her hand. + +At length, after some journey made together, Armand bade her go +forward; the opening was doubtless narrow, for as she went she +felt that his hand protected her dress. His care touched her; it +was a revelation surely that there was a little love still left; +yet it was in some sort a farewell, for Montriveau left her +without a word. The air was warm; the Duchess, feeling the heat, +opened her eyes, and found herself standing by the fire in the +Comtesse de Serizy's boudoir. + +She was alone. Her first thought was for her disordered +toilette; in a moment she had adjusted her dress and restored her +picturesque coiffure. + +"Well, dear Antoinette, we have been looking for you +everywhere." It was the Comtesse de Serizy who spoke as she +opened the door. + +"I came here to breathe," said the Duchess; "it is unbearably +hot in the rooms." + +"People thought that you had gone; but my brother Ronquerolles +told me that your servants were waiting for you." + +"I am tired out, dear, let me stay and rest here for a minute," +and the Duchess sat down on the sofa. + +"Why, what is the matter with you? You are shaking from head to +foot!" + +The Marquis de Ronquerolles came in. + +"Mme la Duchesse, I was afraid that something might have +happened. I have just come across your coachman, the man is as +tipsy as all the Swiss in Switzerland." + +The Duchess made no answer; she was looking round the room, at +the chimney-piece and the tall mirrors, seeking the trace of an +opening. Then with an extraordinary sensation she recollected +that she was again in the midst of the gaiety of the ballroom +after that terrific scene which had changed the whole course of +her life. She began to shiver violently. + +"M. de Montriveau's prophecy has shaken my nerves," she said. +"It was a joke, but still I will see whether his axe from London +will haunt me even in my sleep. So good-bye, dear.--Good-bye, M. +le Marquis." + +As she went through the rooms she was beset with enquiries and +regrets. Her world seemed to have dwindled now that she, its +queen, had fallen so low, was so diminished. And what, moreover, +were these men compared with him whom she loved with all her +heart; with the man grown great by all that she had lost in +stature? The giant had regained the height that he had lost for +a while, and she exaggerated it perhaps beyond measure. She +looked, in spite of herself, at the servant who had attended her +to the ball. He was fast asleep. + +"Have you been here all the time?" she asked. + +"Yes, madame." + +As she took her seat in her carriage she saw, in fact, that her +coachman was drunk--so drunk, that at any other time she would +have been afraid; but after a great crisis in life, fear loses +its appetite for common food. She reached home, at any rate, +without accident; but even there she felt a change in herself, a +new feeling that she could not shake off. For her, there was now +but one man in the world; which is to say that henceforth she +cared to shine for his sake alone. + +While the physiologist can define love promptly by following out +natural laws, the moralist finds a far more perplexing problem +before him if he attempts to consider love in all its +developments due to social conditions. Still, in spite of the +heresies of the endless sects that divide the church of Love, +there is one broad and trenchant line of difference in doctrine, +a line that all the discussion in the world can never deflect. A +rigid application of this line explains the nature of the crisis +through which the Duchess, like most women, was to pass. Passion +she knew, but she did not love as yet. + +Love and passion are two different conditions which poets and men +of the world, philosophers and fools, alike continually confound. + +Love implies a give and take, a certainty of bliss that nothing +can change; it means so close a clinging of the heart, and an +exchange of happiness so constant, that there is no room left for +jealousy. Then possession is a means and not an end; +unfaithfulness may give pain, but the bond is not less close; the +soul is neither more nor less ardent or troubled, but happy at +every moment; in short, the divine breath of desire spreading +from end to end of the immensity of Time steeps it all for us in +the selfsame hue; life takes the tint of the unclouded heaven. +But Passion is the foreshadowing of Love, and of that Infinite to +which all suffering souls aspire. Passion is a hope that may be +cheated. Passion means both suffering and transition. Passion +dies out when hope is dead. Men and women may pass through this +experience many times without dishonour, for it is so natural to +spring towards happiness; but there is only one love in a +lifetime. All discussions of sentiment ever conducted on paper +or by word of mouth may therefore be resumed by two +questions--"Is it passion? Is it love?" So, since love comes +into existence only through the intimate experience of the bliss +which gives it lasting life, the Duchess was beneath the yoke of +passion as yet; and as she knew the fierce tumult, the +unconscious calculations, the fevered cravings, and all that is +meant by that word PASSION--she suffered. Through all the +trouble of her soul there rose eddying gusts of tempest, raised +by vanity or self-love, or pride or a high spirit; for all these +forms of egoism make common cause together. + +She had said to this man, "I love you; I am yours!" Was it +possible that the Duchesse de Langeais should have uttered those +words--in vain? She must either be loved now or play her part of +queen no longer. And then she felt the loneliness of the +luxurious couch where pleasure had never yet set his glowing +feet; and over and over again, while she tossed and writhed +there, she said, "I want to be loved." + +But the belief that she still had in herself gave her hope of +success. The Duchess might be piqued, the vain Parisienne might +be humiliated; but the woman saw glimpses of wedded happiness, +and imagination, avenging the time lost for nature, took a +delight in kindling the inextinguishable fire in her veins. She +all but attained to the sensations of love; for amid her poignant +doubt whether she was loved in return, she felt glad at heart to +say to herself, "I love him!" As for her scruples, religion, +and the world she could trample them under foot! Montriveau was +her religion now. She spent the next day in a state of moral +torpor, troubled by a physical unrest, which no words could +express. She wrote letters and tore them all up, and invented a +thousand impossible fancies. + +When M. de Montriveau's usual hour arrived, she tried to think +that he would come, and enjoyed the feeling of expectation. Her +whole life was concentrated in the single sense of hearing. +Sometimes she shut her eyes, straining her ears to listen through +space, wishing that she could annihilate everything that lay +between her and her lover, and so establish that perfect silence +which sounds may traverse from afar. In her tense +self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful to her; +she stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of +midnight sounded from the drawing-room. + +"Ah, God!" she cried, "to see him here would be happiness. +And yet, it is not so very long since he came here, brought by +desire, and the tones of his voice filled this boudoir. And now +there is nothing." + +She remembered the times that she had played the coquette with +him, and how that her coquetry had cost her her lover, and the +despairing tears flowed for long. + +Her woman came at length with, "Mme la Duchesse does not know, +perhaps, that it is two o'clock in the morning; I thought that +madame was not feeling well." + +"Yes, I am going to bed," said the Duchess, drying her eyes. +"But remember, Suzanne, never to come in again without orders; I +tell you this for the last time." + +For a week, Mme de Langeais went to every house where there was a +hope of meeting M. de Montriveau. Contrary to her usual habits, +she came early and went late; gave up dancing, and went to the +card-tables. Her experiments were fruitless. She did not +succeed in getting a glimpse of Armand. She did not dare to +utter his name now. One evening, however, in a fit of despair, +she spoke to Mme de Serizy, and asked as carelessly as she could, +"You must have quarrelled with M. de Montriveau? He is not to +be seen at your house now." + +The Countess laughed. "So he does not come here either?" she +returned. "He is not to be seen anywhere, for that matter. He +is interested in some woman, no doubt." + +"I used to think that the Marquis de Ronquerolles was one of his +friends----" the Duchess began sweetly. + +"I have never heard my brother say that he was acquainted with +him." + +Mme de Langeais did not reply. Mme de Serizy concluded from the +Duchess's silence that she might apply the scourge with impunity +to a discreet friendship which she had seen, with bitterness of +soul, for a long time past. + +"So you miss that melancholy personage, do you? I have heard +most extraordinary things of him. Wound his feelings, he never +comes back, he forgives nothing; and, if you love him, he keeps +you in chains. To everything that I said of him, one of those +that praise him sky-high would always answer, `He knows how to +love!' People are always telling me that Montriveau would give +up all for his friend; that his is a great nature. Pooh! society +does not want such tremendous natures. Men of that stamp are all +very well at home; let them stay there and leave us to our +pleasant littlenesses. What do you say, Antoinette?" + +Woman of the world though she was, the Duchess seemed agitated, +yet she replied in a natural voice that deceived her fair +friend-- + +"I am sorry to miss him. I took a great interest in him, and +promised to myself to be his sincere friend. I like great +natures, dear friend, ridiculous though you may think it. To +give oneself to a fool is a clear confession, is it not, that one +is governed wholly by one's senses? + +Mme de Serizy's "preferences" had always been for commonplace +men; her lover at the moment, the Marquis d'Aiglemont, was a +fine, tall man. + +After this, the Countess soon took her departure, you may be sure +Mme de Langeais saw hope in Armand's withdrawal from the world; +she wrote to him at once; it was a humble, gentle letter, surely +it would bring him if he loved her still. She sent her footman +with it next day. On the servant's return, she asked whether he +had given the letter to M. de Montriveau himself, and could not +restrain the movement of joy at the affirmative answer. Armand +was in Paris! He stayed alone in his house; he did not go out +into society! So she was loved! All day long she waited for an +answer that never came. Again and again, when impatience grew +unbearable, Antoinette found reasons for his delay. Armand felt +embarrassed; the reply would come by post; but night came, and +she could not deceive herself any longer. It was a dreadful day, +a day of pain grown sweet, of intolerable heart-throbs, a day +when the heart squanders the very forces of life in riot. + +Next day she sent for an answer. + +"M. le Marquis sent word that he would call on Mme la +Duchesse," reported Julien. + +She fled lest her happiness should be seen in her face, and flung +herself on her couch to devour her first sensations. + +"He is coming!" + +The thought rent her soul. And, in truth, woe unto those for +whom suspense is not the most horrible time of tempest, while it +increases and multiplies the sweetest joys; for they have nothing +in them of that flame which quickens the images of things, giving +to them a second existence, so that we cling as closely to the +pure essence as to its outward and visible manifestation. What +is suspense in love but a constant drawing upon an unfailing +hope?--a submission to the terrible scourging of passion, while +passion is yet happy, and the disenchantment of reality has not +set in. The constant putting forth of strength and longing, +called suspense, is surely, to the human soul, as fragrance to +the flower that breathes it forth. We soon leave the brilliant, +unsatisfying colours of tulips and coreopsis, but we turn again +and again to drink in the sweetness of orange-blossoms or +volkameria-flowers compared separately, each in its own land, to +a betrothed bride, full of love, made fair by the past and +future. + +The Duchess learned the joys of this new life of hers through the +rapture with which she received the scourgings of love. As this +change wrought in her, she saw other destinies before her, and a +better meaning in the things of life. As she hurried to her +dressing-room, she understood what studied adornment and the most +minute attention to her toilet mean when these are undertaken for +love's sake and not for vanity. Even now this making ready +helped her to bear the long time of waiting. A relapse of +intense agitation set in when she was dressed; she passed through +nervous paroxysms brought on by the dreadful power which sets the +whole mind in ferment. Perhaps that power is only a disease, +though the pain of it is sweet. The Duchess was dressed and +waiting at two o clock in the afternoon. At half-past eleven +that night M. de Montriveau had not arrived. To try to give an +idea of the anguish endured by a woman who might be said to be +the spoilt child of civilisation, would be to attempt to say how +many imaginings the heart can condense into one thought. As well +endeavour to measure the forces expended by the soul in a sigh +whenever the bell rang; to estimate the drain of life when a +carriage rolled past without stopping, and left her prostrate. + +"Can he be playing with me?" she said, as the clocks struck +midnight. + +She grew white; her teeth chattered; she struck her hands +together and leapt up and crossed the boudoir, recollecting as +she did so how often he had come thither without a summons. But +she resigned herself. Had she not seen him grow pale, and start +up under the stinging barbs of irony? Then Mme de Langeais felt +the horror of the woman's appointed lot; a man's is the active +part, a woman must wait passively when she loves. If a woman +goes beyond her beloved, she makes a mistake which few men can +forgive; almost every man would feel that a woman lowers herself +by this piece of angelic flattery. But Armand's was a great +nature; he surely must be one of the very few who can repay such +exceeding love by love that lasts forever. + +"Well, I will make the advance," she told herself, as she +tossed on her bed and found no sleep there; "I will go to him. +I will not weary myself with holding out a hand to him, but I +will hold it out. A man of a thousand will see a promise of love +and constancy in every step that a woman takes towards him. Yes, +the angels must come down from heaven to reach men; and I wish to +be an angel for him." + +Next day she wrote. It was a billet of the kind in which the +intellects of the ten thousand Sevignes that Paris now can number +particularly excel. And yet only a Duchesse de Langeais, brought +up by Mme la Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, could have written +that delicious note; no other woman could complain without +lowering herself; could spread wings in such a flight without +draggling her pinions in humiliation; rise gracefully in revolt; +scold without giving offence; and pardon without compromising her +personal dignity. + +Julien went with the note. Julien, like his kind, was the victim +of love's marches and countermarches. + +"What did M. de Montriveau reply?" she asked, as indifferently +as she could, when the man came back to report himself. + +"M. le Marquis requested me to tell Mme la Duchesse that it was +all right. + +Oh the dreadful reaction of the soul upon herself! To have her +heart stretched on the rack before curious witnesses; yet not to +utter a sound, to be forced to keep silence! One of the +countless miseries of the rich! + +More than three weeks went by. Mme de Langeais wrote again and +again, and no answer came from Montriveau. At last she gave out +that she was ill, to gain a dispensation from attendance on the +Princess and from social duties. She was only at home to her +father the Duc de Navarreins, her aunt the Princesse de +Blamont-Chauvry, the old Vidame de Pamiers (her maternal +great-uncle), and to her husband's uncle, the Duc de Grandlieu. +These persons found no difficulty in believing that the Duchess +was ill, seeing that she grew thinner and paler and more dejected +every day. The vague ardour of love, the smart of wounded pride, +the continual prick of the only scorn that could touch her, the +yearnings towards joys that she craved with a vain continual +longing--all these things told upon her, mind and body; all the +forces of her nature were stimulated to no purpose. She was +paying the arrears of her life of make-believe. + +She went out at last to a review. M. de Montriveau was to be +there. For the Duchess, on the balcony of the Tuileries with the +Royal Family, it was one of those festival days that are long +remembered. She looked supremely beautiful in her languor; she +was greeted with admiration in all eyes. It was Montriveau's +presence that made her so fair. + +Once or twice they exchanged glances. The General came almost to +her feet in all the glory of that soldier's uniform, which +produces an effect upon the feminine imagination to which the +most prudish will confess. When a woman is very much in love, +and has not seen her lover for two months, such a swift moment +must be something like the phase of a dream when the eyes embrace +a world that stretches away forever. Only women or young men can +imagine the dull, frenzied hunger in the Duchess's eyes. As for +older men, if during the paroxysms of early passion in youth they +had experience of such phenomena of nervous power; at a later day +it is so completely forgotten that they deny the very existence +of the luxuriant ecstasy--the only name that can be given to +these wonderful intuitions. Religious ecstasy is the aberration +of a soul that has shaken off its bonds of flesh; whereas in +amorous ecstasy all the forces of soul and body are embraced and +blended in one. If a woman falls a victim to the tyrannous +frenzy before which Mme de Langeais was forced to bend, she will +take one decisive resolution after another so swiftly that it is +impossible to give account of them. Thought after thought rises +and flits across her brain, as clouds are whirled by the wind +across the grey veil of mist that shuts out the sun. Thenceforth +the facts reveal all. And the facts are these. + +The day after the review, Mme de Langeais sent her carriage and +liveried servants to wait at the Marquis de Montriveau's door +from eight o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon. +Armand lived in the Rue de Tournon, a few steps away from the +Chamber of Peers, and that very day the House was sitting; but +long before the peers returned to their palaces, several people +had recognised the Duchess's carriage and liveries. The first of +these was the Baron de Maulincour. That young officer had met +with disdain from Mme de Langeais and a better reception from Mme +de Serizy; he betook himself at once therefore to his mistress, +and under seal of secrecy told her of this strange freak. + +In a moment the news was spread with telegraphic speed through +all the coteries in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; it reached the +Tuileries and the Elysee-Bourbon; it was the sensation of the +day, the matter of all the talk from noon till night. Almost +everywhere the women denied the facts, but in such a manner that +the report was confirmed; the men one and all believed it, and +manifested a most indulgent interest in Mme de Langeais. Some +among them threw the blame on Armand. + +"That savage of a Montriveau is a man of bronze," said they; +"he insisted on making this scandal, no doubt." + +"Very well, then," others replied, "Mme de Langeais has been +guilty of a most generous piece of imprudence. To renounce the +world and rank, and fortune, and consideration for her lover's +sake, and that in the face of all Paris, is as fine a coup d'etat +for a woman as that barber's knife-thrust, which so affected +Canning in a court of assize. Not one of the women who blame the +Duchess would make a declaration worthy of ancient times. It is +heroic of Mme de Langeais to proclaim herself so frankly. Now +there is nothing left to her but to love Montriveau. There must +be something great about a woman if she says, `I will have but +one passion.' " + +"But what is to become of society, monsieur, if you honour vice +in this way without respect for virtue?" asked the Comtesse de +Granville, the attorney-general's wife. + +While the Chateau, the Faubourg, and the Chaussee d'Antin were +discussing the shipwreck of aristocratic virtue; while excited +young men rushed about on horseback to make sure that the +carriage was standing in the Rue de Tournon, and the Duchess in +consequence was beyond a doubt in M. de Montriveau's rooms, Mme +de Langeais, with heavy throbbing pulses, was lying hidden away +in her boudoir. And Armand?--he had been out all night, and at +that moment was walking with M. de Marsay in the Gardens of the +Tuileries. The elder members, of Mme de Langeais's family were +engaged in calling upon one another, arranging to read her a +homily and to hold a consultation as to the best way of putting a +stop to the scandal. + +At three o'clock, therefore, M. le Duc de Navarreins, the Vidame +de Pamiers, the old Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, and the Duc de +Grandlieu were assembled in Mme la Duchesse de Langeais's +drawing-room. To them, as to all curious enquirers, the servants +said that their mistress was not at home; the Duchess had made no +exceptions to her orders. But these four personages shone +conspicuous in that lofty sphere, of which the revolutions and +hereditary pretensions are solemnly recorded year by year in the +Almanach de Gotha, wherefore without some slight sketch of each +of them this picture of society were incomplete. + +The Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, in the feminine world, was a +most poetic wreck of the reign of Louis Quinze. In her beautiful +prime, so it was said, she had done her part to win for that +monarch his appellation of le Bien-aime. Of her past charms of +feature, little remained save a remarkably prominent slender +nose, curved like a Turkish scimitar, now the principal ornament +of a countenance that put you in mind of an old white glove. Add +a few powdered curls, high-heeled pantoufles, a cap with +upstanding loops of lace, black mittens, and a decided taste for +ombre. But to do full justice to the lady, it must be said that +she appeared in low-necked gowns of an evening (so high an +opinion of her ruins had she), wore long gloves, and raddled her +cheeks with Martin's classic rouge. An appalling amiability in +her wrinkles, a prodigious brightness in the old lady's eyes, a +profound dignity in her whole person, together with the triple +barbed wit of her tongue, and an infallible memory in her head, +made of her a real power in the land. The whole Cabinet des +Chartes was entered in duplicate on the parchment of her brain. +She knew all the genealogies of every noble house in +Europe--princes, dukes, and counts--and could put her hand on the +last descendants of Charlemagne in the direct line. No +usurpation of title could escape the Princesse de +Blamont-Chauvry. + +Young men who wished to stand well at Court, ambitious men, and +young married women paid her assiduous homage. Her salon set the +tone of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The words of this Talleyrand +in petticoats were taken as final decrees. People came to +consult her on questions of etiquette or usages, or to take +lessons in good taste. And, in truth, no other old woman could +put back her snuff-box in her pocket as the Princess could; while +there was a precision and a grace about the movements of her +skirts, when she sat down or crossed her feet, which drove the +finest ladies of the young generation to despair. Her voice had +remained in her head during one-third of her lifetime; but she +could not prevent a descent into the membranes of the nose, which +lent to it a peculiar expressiveness. She still retained a +hundred and fifty thousand livres of her great fortune, for +Napoleon had generously returned her woods to her; so that +personally and in the matter of possessions she was a woman of no +little consequence. + +This curious antique, seated in a low chair by the fireside, was +chatting with the Vidame de Pamiers, a contemporary ruin. The +Vidame was a big, tall, and spare man, a seigneur of the old +school, and had been a Commander of the Order of Malta. His neck +had always been so tightly compressed by a strangulation stock, +that his cheeks pouched over it a little, and he held his head +high; to many people this would have given an air of +self-sufficiency, but in the Vidame it was justified by a +Voltairean wit. His wide prominent eyes seemed to see +everything, and as a matter of fact there was not much that they +had not seen. Altogether, his person was a perfect model of +aristocratic outline, slim and slender, supple and agreeable. He +seemed as if he could be pliant or rigid at will, and twist and +bend, or rear his head like a snake. + +The Duc de Navarreins was pacing up and down the room with the +Duc de Grandlieu. Both were men of fifty-six or thereabouts, and +still hale; both were short, corpulent, flourishing, somewhat +florid-complexioned men with jaded eyes, and lower lips that had +begun to hang already. But for an exquisite refinement of +accent, an urbane courtesy, and an ease of manner that could +change in a moment to insolence, a superficial observer might +have taken them for a couple of bankers. Any such mistake would +have been impossible, however, if the listener could have heard +them converse, and seen them on their guard with men whom they +feared, vapid and commonplace with their equals, slippery with +the inferiors whom courtiers and statesmen know how to tame by a +tactful word, or to humiliate with an unexpected phrase. + +Such were the representatives of the great noblesse that +determined to perish rather than submit to any change. It was a +noblesse that deserved praise and blame in equal measure; a +noblesse that will never be judged impartially until some poet +shall arise to tell how joyfully the nobles obeyed the King +though their heads fell under a Richelieu's axe, and how deeply +they scorned the guillotine of '89 as a foul revenge. + +Another noticeable trait in all the four was a thin voice that +agreed peculiarly well with their ideas and bearing. Among +themselves, at any rate, they were on terms of perfect equality. +None of them betrayed any sign of annoyance over the Duchess's +escapade, but all of them had learned at Court to hide their +feelings. + +And here, lest critics should condemn the puerility of the +opening of the forthcoming scene, it is perhaps as well to remind +the reader that Locke, once happening to be in the company of +several great lords, renowned no less for their wit than for +their breeding and political consistency, wickedly amused himself +by taking down their conversation by some shorthand process of +his own; and afterwards, when he read it over to them to see what +they could make of it, they all burst out laughing. And, in +truth, the tinsel jargon which circulates among the upper ranks +in every country yields mighty little gold to the crucible when +washed in the ashes of literature or philosophy. In every rank +of society (some few Parisian salons excepted) the curious +observer finds folly a constant quantity beneath a more or less +transparent varnish. Conversation with any substance in it is a +rare exception, and boeotianism is current coin in every zone. +In the higher regions they must perforce talk more, but to make +up for it they think the less. Thinking is a tiring exercise, +and the rich like their lives to flow by easily and without +effort. It is by comparing the fundamental matter of jests, as +you rise in the social scale from the street-boy to the peer of +France, that the observer arrives at a true comprehension of M. +de Talleyrand's maxim, "The manner is everything"; an elegant +rendering of the legal axiom, "The form is of more consequence +than the matter." In the eyes of the poet the advantage rests +with the lower classes, for they seldom fail to give a certain +character of rude poetry to their thoughts. Perhaps also this +same observation may explain the sterility of the salons, their +emptiness, their shallowness, and the repugnance felt by men of +ability for bartering their ideas for such pitiful small change. + +The Duke suddenly stopped as if some bright idea occurred to him, +and remarked to his neighbour-- + +"So you have sold Tornthon?" + +"No, he is ill. I am very much afraid I shall lose him, and I +should be uncommonly sorry. He is a very good hunter. Do you +know how the Duchesse de Marigny is?" + +"No. I did not go this morning. I was just going out to call +when you came in to speak about Antoinette. But yesterday she +was very ill indeed; they had given her up, she took the +sacrament." + +"Her death will make a change in your cousin's position." + +"Not at all. She gave away her property in her lifetime, only +keeping an annuity. She made over the Guebriant estate to her +niece, Mme de Soulanges, subject to a yearly charge." + +"It will be a great loss for society. She was a kind woman. +Her family will miss her; her experience and advice carried +weight. Her son Marigny is an amiable man; he has a sharp wit, +he can talk. He is pleasant, very pleasant. Pleasant? oh, that +no one can deny, but--ill regulated to the last degree. Well, +and yet it is an extraordinary thing, he is very acute. He was +dining at the club the other day with that moneyed +Chaussee-d'Antin set. Your uncle (he always goes there for his +game of cards) found him there to his astonishment, and asked if +he was a member. `Yes,' said he, `I don't go into society now; I +am living among the bankers.'--You know why?" added the Marquis, +with a meaning smile. + +"No," said the Duke. + +"He is smitten with that little Mme Keller, Gondreville's +daughter; she is only lately married, and has a great vogue, they +say, in that set." + +"Well, Antoinette does not find time heavy on her hands, it +seems," remarked the Vidame. + +"My affection for that little woman has driven me to find a +singular pastime," replied the Princess, as she returned her +snuff-box to her pocket. + +"Dear aunt, I am extremely vexed," said the Duke, stopping +short in his walk. "Nobody but one of Buonaparte's men could +ask such an indecorous thing of a woman of fashion. Between +ourselves, Antoinette might have made a better choice." + +"The Montriveaus are a very old family and very well connected, +my dear," replied the Princess; "they are related to all the +noblest houses of Burgundy. If the Dulmen branch of the Arschoot +Rivaudoults should come to an end in Galicia, the Montriveaus +would succeed to the Arschoot title and estates. They inherit +through their great-grandfather. + +"Are you sure?" + +"I know it better than this Montriveau's father did. I told him +about it, I used to see a good deal of him; and, Chevalier of +several orders though he was, he only laughed; he was an +encyclopaedist. But his brother turned the relationship to good +account during the emigration. I have heard it said that his +northern kinsfolk were most kind in every way----" + +"Yes, to be sure. The Comte de Montriveau died at St. +Petersburg," said the Vidame. "I met him there. He was a big +man with an incredible passion for oysters." + +"However many did he eat?" asked the Duc de Grandlieu. + +"Ten dozen every day." + +"And did they not disagree with him?" + +"Not the least bit in the world." + +"Why, that is extraordinary! Had he neither the stone nor gout, +nor any other complaint, in consequence?" + +"No; his health was perfectly good, and he died through an +accident." + +"By accident! Nature prompted him to eat oysters, so probably +he required them; for up to a certain point our predominant +tastes are conditions of our existence." + +"I am of your opinion," said the Princess, with a smile. + +"Madame, you always put a malicious construction on things," +returned the Marquis. + +"I only want you to understand that these remarks might leave a +wrong impression on a young woman's mind," said she, and +interrupted herself to exclaim, "But this niece, this niece of +mine!" + +"Dear aunt, I still refuse to believe that she can have gone to +M. de Montriveau," said the Duc de Navarreins. + +"Bah!" returned the Princess. + +"What do you think, Vidame?" asked the Marquis. + +"If the Duchess were an artless simpleton, I should think +that----" + +"But when a woman is in love she becomes an artless simpleton," +retorted the Princess. "Really, my poor Vidame, you must be +getting older." + +"After all, what is to be done?" asked the Duke. + +"If my dear niece is wise," said the Princess, "she will go to +Court this evening--fortunately, today is Monday, and reception +day--and you must see that we all rally round her and give the +lie to this absurd rumour. There are hundreds of ways of +explaining things; and if the Marquis de Montriveau is a +gentleman, he will come to our assistance. We will bring these +children to listen to reason----" + +"But, dear aunt, it is not easy to tell M. de Montriveau the +truth to his face. He is one of Buonaparte's pupils, and he has +a position. Why, he is one of the great men of the day; he is +high up in the Guards, and very useful there. He has not a spark +of ambition. He is just the man to say, `Here is my commission, +leave me in peace,' if the King should say a word that he did not +like." + +"Then, pray, what are his opinions?" + +"Very unsound." + +"Really," sighed the Princess, "the King is, as he always has +been, a Jacobin under the Lilies of France." + +"Oh! not quite so bad," said the Vidame. + +"Yes; I have known him for a long while. The man that pointed +out the Court to his wife on the occasion of her first state +dinner in public with, `These are our people,' could only be a +black-hearted scoundrel. I can see Monsieur exactly the same as +ever in the King. The bad brother who voted so wrongly in his +department of the Constituent Assembly was sure to compound with +the Liberals and allow them to argue and talk. This +philosophical cant will be just as dangerous now for the younger +brother as it used to be for the elder; this fat man with the +little mind is amusing himself by creating difficulties, and how +his successor is to get out of them I do not know; he holds his +younger brother in abhorrence; he would be glad to think as he +lay dying, `He will not reign very long----' " + +"Aunt, he is the King, and I have the honour to be in his +service----" + +"But does your post take away your right of free speech, my +dear? You come of quite as good a house as the Bourbons. If the +Guises had shown a little more resolution, His Majesty would be a +nobody at this day. It is time I went out of this world, the +noblesse is dead. Yes, it is all over with you, my children," +she continued, looking as she spoke at the Vidame. "What has my +niece done that the whole town should be talking about her? She +is in the wrong; I disapprove of her conduct, a useless scandal +is a blunder; that is why I still have my doubts about this want +of regard for appearances; I brought her up, and I know +that----" + +Just at that moment the Duchess came out of her boudoir. She had +recognised her aunt's voice and heard the name of Montriveau. +She was still in her loose morning-gown; and even as she came in, +M. de Grandlieu, looking carelessly out of the window, saw his +niece's carriage driving back along the street. The Duke took +his daughter's face in both hands and kissed her on the forehead. + +"So, dear girl," he said, "you do not know what is going on?" + +"Has anything extraordinary happened, father dear?" + +"Why, all Paris believes that you are with M. de Montriveau." + +"My dear Antoinette, you were at home all the time, were you +not?" said the Princess, holding out a hand, which the Duchess +kissed with affectionate respect. + +"Yes, dear mother; I was at home all the time. And," she +added, as she turned to greet the Vidame and the Marquis, "I +wished that all Paris should think that I was with M. de +Montriveau." + +The Duke flung up his hands, struck them together in despair, and +folded his arms. + +"Then, cannot you see what will come of this mad freak?" he +asked at last. + +But the aged Princess had suddenly risen, and stood looking +steadily at the Duchess, the younger woman flushed, and her eyes +fell. Mme de Chauvry gently drew her closer, and said, "My +little angel, let me kiss you!" + +She kissed her niece very affectionately on the forehead, and +continued smiling, while she held her hand in a tight clasp. + +"We are not under the Valois now, dear child. You have +compromised your husband and your position. Still, we will +arrange to make everything right." + +"But, dear aunt, I do not wish to make it right at all. It is +my wish that all Paris should say that I was with M. de +Montriveau this morning. If you destroy that belief, however ill +grounded it may be, you will do me a singular disservice." + +"Do you really wish to ruin yourself, child, and to grieve your +family?" + +"My family, father, unintentionally condemned me to irreparable +misfortune when they sacrificed me to family considerations. You +may, perhaps, blame me for seeking alleviations, but you will +certainly feel for me." + +"After all the endless pains you take to settle your daughters +suitably!" muttered M. de Navarreins, addressing the Vidame. + +The Princess shook a stray grain of snuff from her skirts. "My +dear little girl," she said, "be happy, if you can. We are not +talking of troubling your felicity, but of reconciling it with +social usages. We all of us here assembled know that marriage is +a defective institution tempered by love. But when you take a +lover, is there any need to make your bed in the Place du +Carrousel? See now, just be a bit reasonable, and hear what we +have to say." + +"I am listening." + +"Mme la Duchesse," began the Duc de Grandlieu, "if it were any +part of an uncle's duty to look after his nieces, he ought to +have a position; society would owe him honours and rewards and a +salary, exactly as if he were in the King's service. So I am not +here to talk about my nephew, but of your own interests. Let us +look ahead a little. If you persist in making a scandal--I have +seen the animal before, and I own that I have no great liking for +him--Langeais is stingy enough, and he does not care a rap for +anyone but himself; he will have a separation; he will stick to +your money, and leave you poor, and consequently you will be a +nobody. The income of a hundred thousand livres that you have +just inherited from your maternal great-aunt will go to pay for +his mistresses' amusements. You will be bound and gagged by the +law; you will have to say Amen to all these arrangements. +Suppose M. de Montriveau leaves you----dear me! do not let us put +ourselves in a passion, my dear niece; a man does not leave a +woman while she is young and pretty; still, we have seen so many +pretty women left disconsolate, even among princesses, that you +will permit the supposition, an all but impossible supposition I +quite wish to believe.----Well, suppose that he goes, what will +become of you without a husband? Keep well with your husband as +you take care of your beauty; for beauty, after all, is a woman's +parachute, and a husband also stands between you and worse. I am +supposing that you are happy and loved to the end, and I am +leaving unpleasant or unfortunate events altogether out of the +reckoning. This being so, fortunately or unfortunately, you may +have children. What are they to be? Montriveaus? Very well; +they certainly will not succeed to their father's whole fortune. +You will want to give them all that you have; he will wish to do +the same. Nothing more natural, dear me! And you will find the +law against you. How many times have we seen heirs-at-law +bringing a law-suit to recover the property from illegitimate +children? Every court of law rings with such actions all over +the world. You will create a fidei commissum perhaps; and if the +trustee betrays your confidence, your children have no remedy +against him; and they are ruined. So choose carefully. You see +the perplexities of the position. In every possible way your +children will be sacrificed of necessity to the fancies of your +heart; they will have no recognised status. While they are +little they will be charming; but, Lord! some day they will +reproach you for thinking of no one but your two selves. We old +gentlemen know all about it. Little boys grow up into men, and +men are ungrateful beings. When I was in Germany, did I not hear +young de Horn say, after supper, `If my mother had been an honest +woman, I should be prince-regnant!' `IF?' We have spent our +lives in hearing plebeians say IF. IF brought about the +Revolution. When a man cannot lay the blame on his father or +mother, he holds God responsible for his hard lot. In short, +dear child, we are here to open your eyes. I will say all I have +to say in a few words, on which you had better meditate: A woman +ought never to put her husband in the right." + +"Uncle, so long as I cared for nobody, I could calculate; I +looked at interests then, as you do; now, I can only feel." + +"But, my dear little girl," remonstrated the Vidame, "life is +simply a complication of interests and feelings; to be happy, +more particularly in your position, one must try to reconcile +one's feelings with one's interests. A grisette may love +according to her fancy, that is intelligible enough, but you have +a pretty fortune, a family, a name and a place at Court, and you +ought not to fling them out of the window. And what have we been +asking you to do to keep them all?--To manoeuvre carefully +instead of falling foul of social conventions. Lord! I shall +very soon be eighty years old, and I cannot recollect, under any +regime, a love worth the price that you are willing to pay for +the love of this lucky young man." + +The Duchess silenced the Vidame with a look; if Montriveau could +have seen that glance, he would have forgiven all. + +"It would be very effective on the stage," remarked the Duc de +Grandlieu, "but it all amounts to nothing when your jointure and +position and independence is concerned. You are not grateful, my +dear niece. You will not find many families where the relatives +have courage enough to teach the wisdom gained by experience, and +to make rash young heads listen to reason. Renounce your +salvation in two minutes, if it pleases you to damn yourself; +well and good; but reflect well beforehand when it comes to +renouncing your income. I know of no confessor who remits the +pains of poverty. I have a right, I think, to speak in this way +to you; for if you are ruined, I am the one person who can offer +you a refuge. I am almost an uncle to Langeais, and I alone have +a right to put him in the wrong." + +The Duc de Navarreins roused himself from painful reflections. + +"Since you speak of feeling, my child," he said, "let me +remind you that a woman who bears your name ought to be moved by +sentiments which do not touch ordinary people. Can you wish to +give an advantage to the Liberals, to those Jesuits of +Robespierre's that are doing all they can to vilify the noblesse? + +Some things a Navarreins cannot do without failing in duty to his +house. You would not be alone in your dishonour----" + +"Come, come!" said the Princess. "Dishonour? Do not make +such a fuss about the journey of an empty carriage, children, and +leave me alone with Antoinette. Ail three of you come and dine +with me. I will undertake to arrange matters suitably. You men +understand nothing; you are beginning to talk sourly already, and +I have no wish to see a quarrel between you and my dear child. +Do me the pleasure to go." + +The three gentlemen probably guessed the Princess's intentions; +they took their leave. M. de Navarreins kissed his daughter on +the forehead with, "Come, be good, dear child. It is not too +late yet if you choose." + +"Couldn't we find some good fellow in the family to pick a +quarrel with this Montriveau?" said the Vidame, as they went +downstairs. + +When the two women were alone, the Princess beckoned her niece to +a little low chair by her side. + +"My pearl," said she, "in this world below, I know nothing +worse calumniated than God and the eighteenth century; for as I +look back over my own young days, I do not recollect that a +single duchess trampled the proprieties underfoot as you have +just done. Novelists and scribblers brought the reign of Louis +XV into disrepute. Do not believe them. The du Barry, my dear, +was quite as good as the Widow Scarron, and the more agreeable +woman of the two. In my time a woman could keep her dignity +among her gallantries. Indiscretion was the ruin of us, and the +beginning of all the mischief. The philosophists--the nobodies +whom we admitted into our salons--had no more gratitude or sense +of decency than to make an inventory of our hearts, to traduce us +one and all, and to rail against the age by way of a return for +our kindness. The people are not in a position to judge of +anything whatsoever; they looked at the facts, not at the form. +But the men and women of those times, my heart, were quite as +remarkable as at any other period of the Monarchy. Not one of +your Werthers, none of your notabilities, as they are called, +never a one of your men in yellow kid gloves and trousers that +disguise the poverty of their legs, would cross Europe in the +dress of a travelling hawker to brave the daggers of a Duke of +Modena, and to shut himself up in the dressing-room of the +Regent's daughter at the risk of his life. Not one of your +little consumptive patients with their tortoiseshell eyeglasses +would hide himself in a closet for six weeks, like Lauzun, to +keep up his mistress's courage while she was lying in of her +child. There was more passion in M. de Jaucourt's little finger +than in your whole race of higglers that leave a woman to better +themselves elsewhere! Just tell me where to find the page that +would be cut in pieces and buried under the floorboards for one +kiss on the Konigsmark's gloved finger! + +"Really, it would seem today that the roles are exchanged, and +women are expected to show their devotion for men. These modern +gentlemen are worth less, and think more of themselves. Believe +me, my dear, all these adventures that have been made public, and +now are turned against our good Louis XV, were kept quite secret +at first. If it had not been for a pack of poetasters, +scribblers, and moralists, who hung about our waiting-women, and +took down their slanders, our epoch would have appeared in +literature as a well-conducted age. I am justifying the century +and not its fringe. Perhaps a hundred women of quality were +lost; but for every one, the rogues set down ten, like the +gazettes after a battle when they count up the losses of the +beaten side. And in any case I do not know that the Revolution +and the Empire can reproach us; they were coarse, dull, +licentious times. Faugh! it is revolting. Those are the +brothels of French history. + +"This preamble, my dear child," she continued after a pause, +"brings me to the thing that I have to say. If you care for +Montriveau, you are quite at liberty to love him at your ease, +and as much as you can. I know by experience that, unless you +are locked up (but locking people up is out of fashion now), you +will do as you please; I should have done the same at your age. +Only, sweetheart, I should not have given up my right to be the +mother of future Ducs de Langeais. So mind appearances. The +Vidame is right. No man is worth a single one of the sacrifices +which we are foolish enough to make for their love. Put yourself +in such a position that you may still be M. de Langeais's wife, +in case you should have the misfortune to repent. When you are +an old woman, you will be very glad to hear mass said at Court, +and not in some provincial convent. Therein lies the whole +question. A single imprudence means an allowance and a wandering +life; it means that you are at the mercy of your lover; it means +that you must put up with insolence from women that are not so +honest, precisely because they have been very vulgarly +sharp-witted. It would be a hundred times better to go to +Montriveau's at night in a cab, and disguised, instead of sending +your carriage in broad daylight. You are a little fool, my dear +child! Your carriage flattered his vanity; your person would +have ensnared his heart. All this that I have said is just and +true; but, for my own part, I do not blame you. You are two +centuries behind the times with your false ideas of greatness. +There, leave us to arrange your affairs, and say that Montriveau +made your servants drunk to gratify his vanity and to compromise +you----" + +The Duchess rose to her feet with a spring. "In Heaven's name, +aunt, do not slander him!" + +The old Princess's eyes flashed. + +"Dear child," she said, "I should have liked to spare such of +your illusions as were not fatal. But there must be an end of +all illusions now. You would soften me if I were not so old. +Come, now, do not vex him, or us, or anyone else. I will +undertake to satisfy everybody; but promise me not to permit +yourself a single step henceforth until you have consulted me. +Tell me all, and perhaps I may bring it all right again." + +"Aunt, I promise----" + +"To tell me everything?" + +"Yes, everything. Everything that can be told." + +"But, my sweetheart, it is precisely what cannot be told that I +want to know. Let us understand each other thoroughly. Come, +let me put my withered old lips on your beautiful forehead. No; +let me do as I wish. I forbid you to kiss my bones. Old people +have a courtesy of their own. . . . There, take me down to my +carriage," she added, when she had kissed her niece. + +"Then may I go to him in disguise, dear aunt?" + +"Why--yes. The story can always be denied," said the old +Princess. + +This was the one idea which the Duchess had clearly grasped in +the sermon. When Mme de Chauvry was seated in the corner of her +carriage, Mme de Langeais bade her a graceful adieu and went up +to her room. She was quite happy again. + +"My person would have snared his heart; my aunt is right; a man +cannot surely refuse a pretty woman when she understands how to +offer herself." + +That evening, at the Elysee-Bourbon, the Duc de Navarreins, M. de +Pamiers, M. de Marsay, M. de Grandlieu, and the Duc de +Maufrigneuse triumphantly refuted the scandals that were +circulating with regard to the Duchesse de Langeais. So many +officers and other persons had seen Montriveau walking in the +Tuileries that morning, that the silly story was set down to +chance, which takes all that is offered. And so, in spite of the +fact that the Duchess's carriage had waited before Montriveau's +door, her character became as clear and as spotless as Mambrino's +sword after Sancho had polished it up. + +But, at two o'clock, M. de Ronquerolles passed Montriveau in a +deserted alley, and said with a smile, "She is coming on, is +your Duchess. Go on, keep it up!" he added, and gave a +significant cut of the riding whip to his mare, who sped off like +a bullet down the avenue. + +Two days after the fruitless scandal, Mme de Langeais wrote to M. +de Montriveau. That letter, like the preceding ones, remained +unanswered. This time she took her own measures, and bribed M. +de Montriveau's man, Auguste. And so at eight o'clock that +evening she was introduced into Armand's apartment. It was not +the room in which that secret scene had passed; it was entirely +different. The Duchess was told that the General would not be at +home that night. Had he two houses? The man would give no +answer. Mme de Langeais had bought the key of the room, but not +the man's whole loyalty. + +When she was left alone she saw her fourteen letters lying on an +old-fashioned stand, all of them uncreased and unopened. He had +not read them. She sank into an easy-chair, and for a while she +lost consciousness. When she came to herself, Auguste was +holding vinegar for her to inhale. + +"A carriage; quick!" she ordered. + +The carriage came. She hastened downstairs with convulsive +speed, and left orders that no one was to be admitted. For +twenty-four hours she lay in bed, and would have no one near her +but her woman, who brought her a cup of orange-flower water from +time to time. Suzette heard her mistress moan once or twice, and +caught a glimpse of tears in the brilliant eyes, now circled with +dark shadows. + +The next day, amid despairing tears, Mme de Langeais took her +resolution. Her man of business came for an interview, and no +doubt received instructions of some kind. Afterwards she sent +for the Vidame de Pamiers; and while she waited, she wrote a +letter to M. de Montriveau. The Vidame punctually came towards +two o'clock that afternoon, to find his young cousin looking +white and worn, but resigned; never had her divine loveliness +been more poetic than now in the languor of her agony. + +"You owe this assignation to your eighty-four years, dear +cousin," she said. "Ah! do not smile, I beg of you, when an +unhappy woman has reached the lowest depths of wretchedness. You +are a gentleman, and after the adventures of your youth you must +feel some indulgence for women." + +"None whatever," said he. + +"Indeed!" + +"Everything is in their favour." + +"Ah! Well, you are one of the inner family circle; possibly you +will be the last relative, the last friend whose hand I shall +press, so I can ask your good offices. Will you, dear Vidame, do +me a service which I could not ask of my own father, nor of my +uncle Grandlieu, nor of any woman? You cannot fail to +understand. I beg of you to do my bidding, and then to forget +what you have done, whatever may come of it. It is this: Will +you take this letter and go to M. de Montriveau? will you see him +yourself, give it into his hands, and ask him, as you men can ask +things between yourselves--for you have a code of honour between +man and man which you do not use with us, and a different way of +regarding things between yourselves--ask him if he will read this +letter? Not in your presence. Certain feelings men hide from +each other. I give you authority to say, if you think it +necessary to bring him, that it is a question of life or death +for me. If he deigns----" + +"DEIGNS!" repeated the Vidame. + +"If he deigns to read it," the Duchess continued with dignity, +"say one thing more. You will go to see him about five o'clock, +for I know that he will dine at home today at that time. Very +good. By way of answer he must come to see me. If, three hours +afterwards, by eight o'clock, he does not leave his house, all +will be over. The Duchesse de Langeais will have vanished from +the world. I shall not be dead, dear friend, no, but no human +power will ever find me again on this earth. Come and dine with +me; I shall at least have one friend with me in the last agony. +Yes, dear cousin, tonight will decide my fate; and whatever +happens to me, I pass through an ordeal by fire. There! not a +word. I will hear nothing of the nature of comment or +advice----Let us chat and laugh together," she added, holding +out a hand, which he kissed. "We will be like two grey-headed +philosophers who have learned how to enjoy life to the last +moment. I will look my best; I will be very enchanting for you. +You perhaps will be the last man to set eyes on the Duchesse de +Langeais." + +The Vicomte bowed, took the letter, and went without a word. At +five o'clock he returned. His cousin had studied to please him, +and she looked lovely indeed. The room was gay with flowers as +if for a festivity; the dinner was exquisite. For the +grey-headed Vidame the Duchess displayed all the brilliancy of +her wit; she was more charming than she had ever been before. At +first the Vidame tried to look on all these preparations as a +young woman's jest; but now and again the attempted illusion +faded, the spell of his fair cousin's charm was broken. He +detected a shudder caused by some kind of sudden dread, and once +she seemed to listen during a pause. + +"What is the matter?" he asked. + +"Hush!" she said. + +At seven o'clock the Duchess left him for a few minutes. When +she came back again she was dressed as her maid might have +dressed for a journey. She asked her guest to be her escort, +took his arm, sprang into a hackney coach, and by a quarter to +eight they stood outside M. de Montriveau's door. + +Armand meantime had been reading the following letter:-- + + +"MY FRIEND,--I went to your rooms for a few minutes without your +knowledge; I found my letters there, and took them away. This +cannot be indifference, Armand, between us; and hatred would show +itself quite differently. If you love me, make an end of this +cruel play, or you will kill me, and afterwards, learning how +much you were loved, you might be in despair. If I have not +rightly understood you, if you have no feeling towards me but +aversion, which implies both contempt and disgust, then I give up +all hope. A man never recovers from those feelings. You will +have no regrets. Dreadful though that thought may be, it will +comfort me in my long sorrow. Regrets? Oh, my Armand, may I +never know of them; if I thought that I had caused you a single +regret----But, no, I will not tell you what desolation I should +feel. I should be living still, and I could not be your wife; it +would be too late! + +"Now that I have given myself wholly to you in thought, to whom +else should I give myself?--to God. The eyes that you loved for +a little while shall never look on another man's face; and may +the glory of God blind them to all besides. I shall never hear +human voices more since I heard yours--so gentle at the first, so +terrible yesterday; for it seems to me that I am still only on +the morrow of your vengeance. And now may the will of God +consume me. Between His wrath and yours, my friend, there will +be nothing left for me but a little space for tears and prayers. + +"Perhaps you wonder why I write to you? Ah! do not think ill of +me if I keep a gleam of hope, and give one last sigh to happy +life before I take leave of it forever. I am in a hideous +position. I feel all the inward serenity that comes when a great +resolution has been taken, even while I hear the last growlings +of the storm. When you went out on that terrible adventure which +so drew me to you, Armand, you went from the desert to the oasis +with a good guide to show you the way. Well, I am going out of +the oasis into the desert, and you are a pitiless guide to me. +And yet you only, my friend, can understand how melancholy it is +to look back for the last time on happiness--to you, and you +only, I can make moan without a blush. If you grant my entreaty, +I shall be happy; if you are inexorable, I shall expiate the +wrong that I have done. After all, it is natural, is it not, +that a woman should wish to live, invested with all noble +feelings, in her friend's memory? Oh! my one and only love, let +her to whom you gave life go down into the tomb in the belief +that she is great in your eyes. Your harshness led me to +reflect; and now that I love you so, it seems to me that I am +less guilty than you think. Listen to my justification, I owe it +to you; and you that are all the world to me, owe me at least a +moment's justice. + +"I have learned by my own anguish all that I made you suffer by +my coquetry; but in those days I was utterly ignorant of love. +YOU know what the torture is, and you mete it out to me! During +those first eight months that you gave me you never roused any +feeling of love in me. Do you ask why this was so, my friend? I +can no more explain it than I can tell you why I love you now. +Oh! certainly it flattered my vanity that I should be the subject +of your passionate talk, and receive those burning glances of +yours; but you left me cold. No, I was not a woman; I had no +conception of womanly devotion and happiness. Who was to blame? +You would have despised me, would you not, if I had given myself +without the impulse of passion? Perhaps it is the highest height +to which we can rise--to give all and receive no joy; perhaps +there is no merit in yielding oneself to bliss that is foreseen +and ardently desired. Alas, my friend, I can say this now; these +thoughts came to me when I played with you; and you seemed to me +so great even then that I would not have you owe the gift to +pity----What is this that I have written? + +"I have taken back all my letters; I am flinging them one by one +on the fire; they are burning. You will never know what they +confessed--all the love and the passion and the madness---- + +"I will say no more, Armand; I will stop. I will not say +another word of my feelings. If my prayers have not echoed from +my soul through yours, I also, woman that I am, decline to owe +your love to your pity. It is my wish to be loved, because you +cannot choose but love me, or else to be left without mercy. If +you refuse to read this letter, it shall be burnt. If, after you +have read it, you do not come to me within three hours, to be +henceforth forever my husband, the one man in the world for me; +then I shall never blush to know that this letter is in your +hands, the pride of my despair will protect my memory from all +insult, and my end shall be worthy of my love. When you see me +no more on earth, albeit I shall still be alive, you yourself +will not think without a shudder of the woman who, in three +hours' time, will live only to overwhelm you with her tenderness; +a woman consumed by a hopeless love, and faithful--not to +memories of past joys--but to a love that was slighted. + +"The Duchesse de la Valliere wept for lost happiness and +vanished power; but the Duchesse de Langeais will be happy that +she may weep and be a power for you still. Yes, you will regret +me. I see clearly that I was not of this world, and I thank you +for making it clear to me. + +"Farewell; you will never touch MY axe. Yours was the +executioner's axe, mine is God's; yours kills, mine saves. Your +love was but mortal, it could not endure disdain or ridicule; +mine can endure all things without growing weaker, it will last +eternally. Ah! I feel a sombre joy in crushing you that believe +yourself so great; in humbling you with the calm, indulgent smile +of one of the least among the angels that lie at the feet of God, +for to them is given the right and the power to protect and watch +over men in His name. You have but felt fleeting desires, while +the poor nun will shed the light of her ceaseless and ardent +prayer about you, she will shelter you all your life long beneath +the wings of a love that has nothing of earth in it. + +"I have a presentiment of your answer; our trysting place shall +be--in heaven. Strength and weakness can both enter there, dear +Armand; the strong and the weak are bound to suffer. This +thought soothes the anguish of my final ordeal. So calm am I +that I should fear that I had ceased to love you if I were not +about to leave the world for your sake. + +"ANTOINETTE." + + +"Dear Vidame," said the Duchess as they reached Montriveau's +house, "do me the kindness to ask at the door whether he is at +home." The Vidame, obedient after the manner of the eighteenth +century to a woman's wish, got out, and came back to bring his +cousin an affirmative answer that sent a shudder through her. +She grasped his hand tightly in hers, suffered him to kiss her on +either cheek, and begged him to go at once. He must not watch +her movements nor try to protect her. "But the people passing +in the street," he objected. + +"No one can fail in respect to me," she said. It was the last +word spoken by the Duchess and the woman of fashion. + +The Vidame went. Mme de Langeais wrapped herself about in her +cloak, and stood on the doorstep until the clocks struck eight. +The last stroke died away. The unhappy woman waited ten, fifteen +minutes; to the last she tried to see a fresh humiliation in the +delay, then her faith ebbed. She turned to leave the fatal +threshold. + +"Oh, God!" the cry broke from her in spite of herself; it was +the first word spoken by the Carmelite. + + +Montriveau and some of his friends were talking together. He +tried to hasten them to a conclusion, but his clock was slow, and +by the time he started out for the Hotel de Langeais the Duchess +was hurrying on foot through the streets of Paris, goaded by the +dull rage in her heart. She reached the Boulevard d'Enfer, and +looked out for the last time through falling tears on the noisy, +smoky city that lay below in a red mist, lighted up by its own +lamps. Then she hailed a cab, and drove away, never to return. +When the Marquis de Montriveau reached the Hotel de Langeais, and +found no trace of his mistress, he thought that he had been +duped. He hurried away at once to the Vidame, and found that +worthy gentleman in the act of slipping on his flowered +dressing-gown, thinking the while of his fair cousin's happiness. + +Montriveau gave him one of the terrific glances that produced the +effect of an electric shock on men and women alike. + +"Is it possible that you have lent yourself to some cruel hoax, +monsieur?" Montriveau exclaimed. "I have just come from Mme de +Langeais's house; the servants say that she is out." + +"Then a great misfortune has happened, no doubt," returned the +Vidame, "and through your fault. I left the Duchess at your +door----" + +"When?" + +"At a quarter to eight." + +"Good evening," returned Montriveau, and he hurried home to ask +the porter whether he had seen a lady standing on the doorstep +that evening. + +"Yes, my Lord Marquis, a handsome woman, who seemed very much +put out. She was crying like a Magdalen, but she never made a +sound, and stood as upright as a post. Then at last she went, +and my wife and I that were watching her while she could not see +us, heard her say, `Oh, God!' so that it went to our hearts, +asking your pardon, to hear her say it." + +Montriveau, in spite of all his firmness, turned pale at those +few words. He wrote a few lines to Ronquerolles, sent off the +message at once, and went up to his rooms. Ronquerolles came +just about midnight. + +Armand gave him the Duchess's letter to read. + +"Well?" asked Ronquerolles. + +"She was here at my door at eight o'clock; at a quarter-past +eight she had gone. I have lost her, and I love her. Oh! if my +life were my own, I could blow my brains out." + +"Pooh, pooh! Keep cool," said Ronquerolles. "Duchesses do +not fly off like wagtails. She cannot travel faster than three +leagues an hour, and tomorrow we will ride six.--Confound it! +Mme de Langeais is no ordinary woman," he continued. "Tomorrow +we will all of us mount and ride. The police will put us on her +track during the day. She must have a carriage; angels of that +sort have no wings. We shall find her whether she is on the road +or hidden in Paris. There is the semaphore. We can stop her. +You shall be happy. But, my dear fellow, you have made a +blunder, of which men of your energy are very often guilty. They +judge others by themselves, and do not know the point when human +nature gives way if you strain the cords too tightly. Why did +you not say a word to me sooner? I would have told you to be +punctual. Good-bye till tomorrow," he added, as Montriveau said +nothing. "Sleep if you can," he added, with a grasp of the +hand. + +But the greatest resources which society has ever placed at the +disposal of statesmen, kings, ministers, bankers, or any human +power, in fact, were all exhausted in vain. Neither Montriveau +nor his friends could find any trace of the Duchess. It was +clear that she had entered a convent. Montriveau determined to +search, or to institute a search, for her through every convent +in the world. He must have her, even at the cost of all the +lives in a town. And in justice to this extraordinary man, it +must be said that his frenzied passion awoke to the same ardour +daily and lasted through five years. Only in 1829 did the Duc de +Navarreins hear by chance that his daughter had travelled to +Spain as Lady Julia Hopwood's maid, that she had left her service +at Cadiz, and that Lady Julia never discovered that Mlle Caroline +was the illustrious duchess whose sudden disappearance filled the +minds of the highest society of Paris. + + +The feelings of the two lovers when they met again on either side +of the grating in the Carmelite convent should now be +comprehended to the full, and the violence of the passion +awakened in either soul will doubtless explain the catastrophe of +the story. + +In 1823 the Duc de Langeais was dead, and his wife was free. +Antoinette de Navarreins was living, consumed by love, on a ledge +of rock in the Mediterranean; but it was in the Pope's power to +dissolve Sister Theresa's vows. The happiness bought by so much +love might yet bloom for the two lovers. These thoughts sent +Montriveau flying from Cadiz to Marseilles, and from Marseilles +to Paris. + +A few months after his return to France, a merchant brig, fitted +out and munitioned for active service, set sail from the port of +Marseilles for Spain. The vessel had been chartered by several +distinguished men, most of them Frenchmen, who, smitten with a +romantic passion for the East, wished to make a journey to those +lands. Montriveau's familiar knowledge of Eastern customs made +him an invaluable travelling companion, and at the entreaty of +the rest he had joined the expedition; the Minister of War +appointed him lieutenant-general, and put him on the Artillery +Commission to facilitate his departure. + +Twenty-fours hours later the brig lay to off the north-west shore +of an island within sight of the Spanish coast. She had been +specially chosen for her shallow keel and light mastage, so that +she might lie at anchor in safety half a league away from the +reefs that secure the island from approach in this direction. If +fishing vessels or the people on the island caught sight of the +brig, they were scarcely likely to feel suspicious of her at +once; and besides, it was easy to give a reason for her presence +without delay. Montriveau hoisted the flag of the United States +before they came in sight of the island, and the crew of the +vessel were all American sailors, who spoke nothing but English. +One of M. de Montriveau's companions took the men ashore in the +ship's longboat, and made them so drunk at an inn in the little +town that they could not talk. Then he gave out that the brig +was manned by treasure-seekers, a gang of men whose hobby was +well known in the United States; indeed, some Spanish writer had +written a history of them. The presence of the brig among the +reefs was now sufficiently explained. The owners of the vessel, +according to the self-styled boatswain's mate, were looking for +the wreck of a galleon which foundered thereabouts in 1778 with a +cargo of treasure from Mexico. The people at the inn and the +authorities asked no more questions. + +Armand, and the devoted friends who were helping him in his +difficult enterprise, were all from the first of the opinion that +there was no hope of rescuing or carrying off Sister Theresa by +force or stratagem from the side of the little town. Wherefore +these bold spirits, with one accord, determined to take the bull +by the horns. They would make a way to the convent at the most +seemingly inaccessible point; like General Lamarque, at the +storming of Capri, they would conquer Nature. The cliff at the +end of the island, a sheer block of granite, afforded even less +hold than the rock of Capri. So it seemed at least to +Montriveau, who had taken part in that incredible exploit, while +the nuns in his eyes were much more redoubtable than Sir Hudson +Lowe. To raise a hubbub over carrying off the Duchess would +cover them with confusion. They might as well set siege to the +town and convent, like pirates, and leave not a single soul to +tell of their victory. So for them their expedition wore but two +aspects. There should be a conflagration and a feat of arms that +should dismay all Europe, while the motives of the crime remained +unknown; or, on the other hand, a mysterious, aerial descent +which should persuade the nuns that the Devil himself had paid +them a visit. They had decided upon the latter course in the +secret council held before they left Paris, and subsequently +everything had been done to insure the success of an expedition +which promised some real excitement to jaded spirits weary of +Paris and its pleasures. + +An extremely light pirogue, made at Marseilles on a Malayan +model, enabled them to cross the reef, until the rocks rose from +out of the water. Then two cables of iron wire were fastened +several feet apart between one rock and another. These wire +ropes slanted upwards and downwards in opposite directions, so +that baskets of iron wire could travel to and fro along them; and +in this manner the rocks were covered with a system of baskets +and wire-cables, not unlike the filaments which a certain species +of spider weaves about a tree. The Chinese, an essentially +imitative people, were the first to take a lesson from the work +of instinct. Fragile as these bridges were, they were always +ready for use; high waves and the caprices of the sea could not +throw them out of working order; the ropes hung just sufficiently +slack, so as to present to the breakers that particular curve +discovered by Cachin, the immortal creator of the harbour at +Cherbourg. Against this cunningly devised line the angry surge +is powerless; the law of that curve was a secret wrested from +Nature by that faculty of observation in which nearly all human +genius consists. + +M. de Montriveau's companions were alone on board the vessel, and +out of sight of every human eye. No one from the deck of a +passing vessel could have discovered either the brig hidden among +the reefs, or the men at work among the rocks; they lay below the +ordinary range of the most powerful telescope. Eleven days were +spent in preparation, before the Thirteen, with all their +infernal power, could reach the foot of the cliffs. The body of +the rock rose up straight from the sea to a height of thirty +fathoms. Any attempt to climb the sheer wall of granite seemed +impossible; a mouse might as well try to creep up the slippery +sides of a plain china vase. Still there was a cleft, a straight +line of fissure so fortunately placed that large blocks of wood +could be wedged firmly into it at a distance of about a foot +apart. Into these blocks the daring workers drove iron cramps, +specially made for the purpose, with a broad iron bracket at the +outer end, through which a hole had been drilled. Each bracket +carried a light deal board which corresponded with a notch made +in a pole that reached to the top of the cliffs, and was firmly +planted in the beach at their feet. With ingenuity worthy of +these men who found nothing impossible, one of their number, a +skilled mathematician, had calculated the angle from which the +steps must start; so that from the middle they rose gradually, +like the sticks of a fan, to the top of the cliff, and descended +in the same fashion to its base. That miraculously light, yet +perfectly firm, staircase cost them twenty-two days of toil. A +little tinder and the surf of the sea would destroy all trace of +it forever in a single night. A betrayal of the secret was +impossible; and all search for the violators of the convent was +doomed to failure. + +At the top of the rock there was a platform with sheer precipice +on all sides. The Thirteen, reconnoitring the ground with their +glasses from the masthead, made certain that though the ascent +was steep and rough, there would be no difficulty in gaining the +convent garden, where the trees were thick enough for a +hiding-place. After such great efforts they would not risk the +success of their enterprise, and were compelled to wait till the +moon passed out of her last quarter. + +For two nights Montriveau, wrapped in his cloak, lay out on the +rock platform. The singing at vespers and matins filled him with +unutterable joy. He stood under the wall to hear the music of +the organ, listening intently for one voice among the rest. But +in spite of the silence, the confused effect of music was all +that reached his ears. In those sweet harmonies defects of +execution are lost; the pure spirit of art comes into direct +communication with the spirit of the hearer, making no demand on +the attention, no strain on the power of listening. Intolerable +memories awoke. All the love within him seemed to break into +blossom again at the breath of that music; he tried to find +auguries of happiness in the air. During the last night he sat +with his eyes fixed upon an ungrated window, for bars were not +needed on the side of the precipice. A light shone there all +through the hours; and that instinct of the heart, which is +sometimes true, and as often false, cried within him, "She is +there!" + +"She is certainly there! Tomorrow she will be mine," he said +to himself, and joy blended with the slow tinkling of a bell that +began to ring. + +Strange unaccountable workings of the heart! The nun, wasted by +yearning love, worn out with tears and fasting, prayer and +vigils; the woman of nine-and-twenty, who had passed through +heavy trials, was loved more passionately than the lighthearted +girl, the woman of four-and-twenty, the sylphide, had ever been. +But is there not, for men of vigorous character, something +attractive in the sublime expression engraven on women's faces by +the impetuous stirrings of thought and misfortunes of no ignoble +kind? Is there not a beauty of suffering which is the most +interesting of all beauty to those men who feel that within them +there is an inexhaustible wealth of tenderness and consoling pity +for a creature so gracious in weakness, so strong with love? It +is the ordinary nature that is attracted by young, smooth, +pink-and-white beauty, or, in one word, by prettiness. In some +faces love awakens amid the wrinkles carved by sorrow and the +ruin made by melancholy; Montriveau could not but feel drawn to +these. For cannot a lover, with the voice of a great longing, +call forth a wholly new creature? a creature athrob with the life +but just begun breaks forth for him alone, from the outward form +that is fair for him, and faded for all the world besides. Does +he not love two women?--One of them, as others see her, is pale +and wan and sad; but the other, the unseen love that his heart +knows, is an angel who understands life through feeling, and is +adorned in all her glory only for love's high festivals. + +The General left his post before sunrise, but not before he had +heard voices singing together, sweet voices full of tenderness +sounding faintly from the cell. When he came down to the foot of +the cliffs where his friends were waiting, he told them that +never in his life had he felt such enthralling bliss, and in the +few words there was that unmistakable thrill of repressed strong +feeling, that magnificent utterance which all men respect. + +That night eleven of his devoted comrades made the ascent in the +darkness. Each man carried a poniard, a provision of chocolate, +and a set of house-breaking tools. They climbed the outer walls +with scaling-ladders, and crossed the cemetery of the convent. +Montriveau recognised the long, vaulted gallery through which he +went to the parlour, and remembered the windows of the room. His +plans were made and adopted in a moment. They would effect an +entrance through one of the windows in the Carmelite's half of +the parlour, find their way along the corridors, ascertain +whether the sister's names were written on the doors, find Sister +Theresa's cell, surprise her as she slept, and carry her off, +bound and gagged. The programme presented no difficulties to men +who combined boldness and a convict's dexterity with the +knowledge peculiar to men of the world, especially as they would +not scruple to give a stab to ensure silence. + +In two hours the bars were sawn through. Three men stood on +guard outside, and two inside the parlour. The rest, barefooted, +took up their posts along the corridor. Young Henri de Marsay, +the most dexterous man among them, disguised by way of precaution +in a Carmelite's robe, exactly like the costume of the convent, +led the way, and Montriveau came immediately behind him. The +clock struck three just as the two men reached the dormitory +cells. They soon saw the position. Everything was perfectly +quiet. With the help of a dark lantern they read the names +luckily written on every door, together with the picture of a +saint or saints and the mystical words which every nun takes as a +kind of motto for the beginning of her new life and the +revelation of her last thought. Montriveau reached Sister +Theresa's door and read the inscription, Sub invocatione sanctae +matris Theresae, and her motto, Adoremus in aeternum. Suddenly +his companion laid a hand on his shoulder. A bright light was +streaming through the chinks of the door. M. de Ronquerolles +came up at that moment. + +"All the nuns are in the church," he said; "they are beginning +the Office for the Dead." + +"I will stay here," said Montriveau. "Go back into the +parlour, and shut the door at the end of the passage." + +He threw open the door and rushed in, preceded by his disguised +companion, who let down the veil over his face. + +There before them lay the dead Duchess; her plank bed had been +laid on the floor of the outer room of her cell, between two +lighted candles. Neither Montriveau nor de Marsay spoke a word +or uttered a cry; but they looked into each other's faces. The +General's dumb gesture tried to say, "Let us carry her away!" + +"Quickly" shouted Ronquerolles, "the procession of nuns is +leaving the church. You will be caught!" + +With magical swiftness of movement, prompted by an intense +desire, the dead woman was carried into the convent parlour, +passed through the window, and lowered from the walls before the +Abbess, followed by the nuns, returned to take up Sister +Theresa's body. The sister left in charge had imprudently left +her post; there were secrets that she longed to know; and so busy +was she ransacking the inner room, that she heard nothing, and +was horrified when she came back to find that the body was gone. +Before the women, in their blank amazement, could think of making +a search, the Duchess had been lowered by a cord to the foot of +the crags, and Montriveau's companions had destroyed all traces +of their work. By nine o'clock that morning there was not a sign +to show that either staircase or wire-cables had ever existed, +and Sister Theresa's body had been taken on board. The brig came +into the port to ship her crew, and sailed that day. + +Montriveau, down in the cabin, was left alone with Antoinette de +Navarreins. For some hours it seemed as if her dead face was +transfigured for him by that unearthly beauty which the calm of +death gives to the body before it perishes. + +"Look here," said Ronquerolles when Montriveau reappeared on +deck, "THAT was a woman once, now it is nothing. Let us tie a +cannon ball to both feet and throw the body overboard; and if +ever you think of her again, think of her as of some book that +you read as a boy." + +"Yes," assented Montriveau, "it is nothing now but a dream." + +"That is sensible of you. Now, after this, have passions; but +as for love, a man ought to know how to place it wisely; it is +only a woman's last love that can satisfy a man's first love." + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Duchesse de Langeais + diff --git a/old/dlang10.zip b/old/dlang10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a6980ef --- /dev/null +++ b/old/dlang10.zip |